UM = University of Michigan, esp. in Ann Arbor (aka A2)

Hash Bash? Ummmmmmm...

https://www.audacy.com/wwjnewsradio/news/local/legendary-michigan-activist-poet-john-sinclair-dead-at-82

_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

I didn't know much about the late leftist poet John Sinclair over the years (and just about nothing other than his name back in his 1970s heyday); that said, while Sinclair certainly INSPIRED the Ann Arbor smoke-out tradition, Sinclair himself could hardly have "started" that original rally/concert/Be-In held on Friday, December 10, 1971*.

That's because Sinclair was incarcerated during the John & Yoko-headlined event at the U of M's Crisler Arena** staged to foster public pressure to effectuate his release. (As I recall, Sinclair WAS freed pretty soon thereafter.)

And yeah, Sinclair's sentence--for two joints, far less grass than many stoner folk burn through through during a 90-minute rom-com or action flick--WAS draconian, ESPECIALLY in retrospective view of how the American political sentiment regarding marijuana legality has shifted toward sensibility over the ensuing decades.

Or, as the late Nicholas von Hoffman circa 1973 retorted to James K. Kilpatrick during one of their 60 Minutes "Point-Counterpoint" face-off edition regarding drug-law reform, "[Given the social circles you run in, Jack, you may not realize it just yet], but lots of Republicans nowadays smoke dope TOO!" Fortunately for his sake, von Hoffman--the onetime Saul Alinsky protege (and later biographer)--lived to see that declaration vindicated by shifting 21st Century American political tectonic plates, as he reached 88 before expiring in Maine on Thursday, February 1, 2018.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
=================
* As it happened, that was both the day after UN diplomat and Nobel Peace laureate Ralph Bunche died at 67 in NYC, and the day before McDonald's namesake restauranteur Maurice "Mac" McDonald died at 69 in Palm Springs.
** When first reaching Detroit to host newstalk radio over WJR/Detroit, I heard Crisler Arena mentioned a lot on sportscasts, always voiced with a long I. So whenever hearing some jockcaster refer to the Wolverine home court--and that was pretty much DAILY, as I arrived in Motown in March 1993 during the fabled UofM "Fab Five" reign of NCAA hoops--I always erroneously figured it was Chrysler Arena, named after one of what everyone in southeast Michigan calls The Big Three. (Just as so many other Motor City-region buildings naturally have automotive connections, including WJR's "Golden Tower of the Fisher Building", as in GM's famed Body by Fisher.) Shoulda READ the sports page as often as I listened to radio back then, for it was awhile before I was startled to notice it was Crisler Arena, instead honoring Fritz Crisler, Wolverine football coach and longtime UofM Athletic Director).
==============
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisler_Center