ustxtxb_obs_1975_04_11_50_00022-00000_000.pdf

Page 13

by

Joe deserves better Ranking our own “home-grown” Joe Hubenak with a heavily contested sixth place collection of Legislative dum-dums \(see Obs., face to all us Fort Benders that sent him up there. Sixth place is practically an egg-headed intellectual according to Fort standards. Actually Joe is probably one of the more intelligent members of the Texas Legislature. He has had his entire lifetime to study the Fort Bend County I.Q. and to come up with a pretty accurate assessment of the mean average, and that’s just the kind of average that he is representing. You see, Joe takes his title serious. Tom Sanders, P.O. Box 1083, Rosenberg, Tex. 77471. Indian giver I would like to comment on U.S. Rep. Charles Wilson’s letter on his stand on aid to India \(see Obs., I have just come back from a trip to India and have come to the conclusion that no matter how much aid we send to India whether it be $50 or 75 million, ten times this amount or none will make really little difference until the Indian government stops preaching sanctimoniously to the rest of the world and practices some honest government and real concern for its own people. The degree of corruption as reported in the Indian press goes far beyond the amounts mentioned in the disagreements of Ronnie Dugger and Representative Wilson. The only common interest that holds the Indian ruling party together is the corruption by the party bosses. The hunger of the Indian masses is not caused by overeating or hard-heartedness of the Americans, but by INDIAN speculators making a bad situation worse. No matter how much grain we give to India, we will The Texas Observer not solve the problem of hunger as long as the land is misused and the crops are allowed to fall into the hands of native not imperialistic speculators. Another problem having made the Indian situation critical is the Arab crude oil price increase. This Arab action has taken probably more food out of the mouths of the starving masses than any insufficient aid the Americans may have given. India is now unable to buy sufficient oil-based raw materials for the manufacture of much-needed fertilizer. Do you also realize that for every shipment the U.S. makes to a starving nation, the Arabs are even raking off their cut on this humanitarian action by the higher freight costs caused by their monopolistic crude oil price increase? It is about time that our well intentioned aid efforts could stand a realistic review. Eric Simon, 15 Charleston Park Dr., Suite 904, Houston, Tex. 77025. Yea, primary Aren’t we all, including the Observer, losing sight of the most needed reform in Texas primaries? This is the elimination of the long stretch between the primaries and the general election. This long stretch makes a hell of a difference in the cost of a campaign. We should not have more than ten weeks between primary and general election. If we have a presidential preference primary, it should be a separate election and should not have any binding effect on delegates to the presidential conventions. Convention delegates should be chosen at special state senatorial district conventions. Under no circumstances should we have “at large” delegates! Tay Heinrich, Box 3498, Baytown, Texas. 77520. Bentsen’s ambition Knowing how his victory was one of plutocracy over democracy, as a Texan, an American, and a citizen who supports only pro-people candidates, I oppose the Presidential ambition of Lloyd Bentsen. Read the book, The Texans, and keep on working. We are the majority and we will overcome. Father John G. O’Rourke, 7500 Mercy Road, Omaha, Nebr. 68124. Likes his privacy Two years ago I wrote to the Observer commending it for refusing to sell its mailing list to anyone. Frankly I was astonished. Now I read in “Observations” in your Feb. 28 issue that the Observer intends to seek more extensive advertising and to exchange .subscription lists with other publications and groups. Well, advertise. Certainly. And sell or trade the lists if you must. But I stick by what I said two years ago: “In a world of ever increasing depersonalization your [old] policy strikes me as a major blow for those of us who still wish to retain some small amount of privacy.” So please remove my name from any lists you trade or sell. If I had wanted to join The Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, I would have done so years ago. Nicholas Acocella, 449 E. 14 St. 9H, New York, N.Y. 10009. For further information, please see the announcement on page 17. Ed. Missed two I enjoyed Richard Bechtold’s article about the pretense value of various beers \(see Obs., his failure to mention Anchor Steam Beer. This is made in San Francisco and is available only there and in a few other California cities, and it has the highest pretense value of any beer I have ever heard of. This is partly because of its quality, which is so high that it’s hard to separate its actual value from its pretense value, and partly because it’s so hard to get, even in California. It suffers from the same drawback as European beers, in that it is so expensive that you couldn’t actually drink it all the time, but still I think it should have been mentioned. Another serious omission was JAX, which is significant because so many of us tried to urink it back when Mike Nichols and Elaine May were doing commercials for it. I think most of us were relieved when Nichols and May split up, so that we didn’t have to drink it anymore, but I was reminded of it again not long ago when a European visitor referred to it as the only decent beer brewed in America. The European view would introduce a whole new aspect to this subject, although I’m not sure it would make any sense. Finally, I would like to apologize for not writing to congratulate Molly Ivins for her excellent article on Russia, which I greatly enjoyed. I only write one 22 Does Austin Have Too Many Cosmic Cowboys? 404 B W. 15th Austin, Texas 78701