4 OPINION Page 4 Monday, Mardh 23, 1987 Mb 3idii & ah1Q Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Academic freedom Vol. XCVII, No. 111 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Unsigned editorials represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board All other cartoons, signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily. Muenchow's term KURT MUENCHOW'S TERM AS MSA president has been characterized by acrimony and ineffectiveness. After his party won a minority of the assembly seats, Muenchow never brought MSA together behind a common agenda. While Muenchow was not a strong leader, he did have successes. He prevented the University planner from limiting the number of banners on the Diag to three. By some accounts he has worked diligently on minority issues and is sincere in his- opposition to the code. Other issues have not been dealt with in such a constructive manner, however. Most notably mishandled was funding for the Public Interest Research Group in Michigan. Muenchow's opposition put him in the minority. Rather than give way to the will of the assembly, he was 'reduced to such tactics as walk-outs (attempts to deny quorum by leaving the assembly chambers with his supporters) and late quorum call votes when opposition members were gone. Conflict between Muenchow and his adversaries was apparent from the beginning of his term. As a result of Muenchow's unwillingness to pay MSA employees who had opposed him in the campaign, MSA was forced to hire a mediator to resolve conflicts within the assembly - a tremendous waste of money. Muenchow and his opponents on the assembly progressed from this point. At first, bitterness over mudslinging tactics from the campaign almost tore the assembly apart. Eventually Muenchow appreciated the work of the Student Rights committee and other internal MSA committees while his opponents learned to work with him. This decreased the adversarial atmosphere within MSA. Although Muenchow became less partisan, he never was able to unite the assembly. Perhaps, Muenchow was faced with an impossible task; uniting a diverse group behind a single program. Muenchow, however, could have done direct consitiuent contact and used this as means to bring MSA together as Ken Weine did by going into the dorms to discuss the code. It is the responsibility of Muenchow's recently elected successor as president, Weine, as well as his running mate, Becca Felton, to insure that MSA reestablishes its ties to the students The assembly president should do more than merely act as a mediator between conflicting groups. -He or she should unite the assembly so that he can effectively speak both to and for the students. By Daniel Axelrod I wish to correct a serious mistake in your front-page article "Teach-in educates students about 'U' military research" (Daily, 3/13/87) on the MSA teach-in on military research, at which I was a speaker and attendee. The writer said that I blasted academic freedom. This is completely untrue. I did say that freedom - indeed any freedom -has limits. This idea that freedom has limits is nothing new or remarkable. It is an idea agreed upon by everyone who has commented on the University's military research guidelines controversy. Oliver Wendell Holmes once put it best: "freedom to swing your arms stops where someone else's chin begins." The only question to be resolved is where those other chins are relative to one's arms. The idea that freedom has limits is even accepted by the University administration. President Shapiro, as I pointed out in my speech, publically declared that recent racist remarks on the campus will not be tolerated. Although racist students gleefully exercised their "freedom of speech" in insulting whole races of humans, that form of freedom goes beyond the limit - a limit set because that freedom begins to infringe upon other social values, such as peace, security, and other people's freedoms. Axelrod is professor of physics. Wasserman The fundamental point of my speech - quite explicitly stated many times, although entirely missed by your reporter - was that military research has, as its ultimate potential goal, the creation of weapons designed to inflict violent damage on other humans, and that this fact should also put it outside the realm of "freedoms" allowed on this campus. The debate is not whether limits exist, but on which side of those limits University research should be placed. I argued at length (again, totally ignored by your slumbering reporter) that the Star Wars program has absolutely nothing to do with the defense of the American people, but rather can only function as a backup for a nuclear first strike. It works 'in much the same way as a bullet-proof vest donned by a bank robber before a heist, or the heavy metal armor donned by the knights of old before embarking on a campaign of pillage in some far-off lands. The relevent information is that the US government has had a long history of developing nuclear first strike plans against non-nuclear "adversaries," as discussed in detail in my recently coauthored book (with physicist Dr. Michio Kaku), "To Win a Nuclear War: the Pentagon's Secret War Plans" and emphasized in my speech at the teach-in, again somehow slipped by your reporter. The fact that research on first strike weapons - Stars Wars and others - aims toward the destruction of human life and indeed the obliteration of all that we The Michigan Daily limited know - makes it no more acceptable than racism. It is remarkable that essentially all the points of substance presented at the teach- in, both mine and several others, entirely 4 passed over your reporter. Remarkable, but nonetheless entirely typical of the Daily, since virtually every newswothty event on this campus with which I have been familar in the past few years has been routinety misunderstood, misreported, and misquoted by the news staff. The news staff appears to be unimformed and uninterested in the subjects about which they write. "Neutrality" in reporting is not 4 synonomous with ignorance and distinterest. The result is usually a mechanical, sloppy, inaccurate, rush job. It pains me to say, not because it is true, but because several months ago I resolved to totally ignore the Daily in favor of the University Record and the Ann Arbor News. This resolution was in response to another even more egregious case of amateurish misreporting last November over the tragic death of a fellow physics faculty member. (In that case, you did not even print the letter of objection I had sent in.) But your error here again needs public correction. If I ever "blast" something on this campus, it is much more likely to be the poor quality of the Daily rather than something good. I REAGAqS PICED RAVEN& MODeERT E 'W5 rhugw& ARMS COw'URoL. IDo You KNOW Wi1NT WE CATAT~op!{C ,EPALT4 AS 411 QCHIEF OF STAFF! HES ?PSHIN&G SX SDUCATO.Im / CONSEVATIVES NED?INUACQ E ,a 4 - - -- - nnpq u(tTir /!V l!n ,i '/n rla i LN (1 IC .,!{C'u lviint U.rurt RT"' LETTERS 1* t i ' i i t\ ~1 2 1.. Sexism is prevalent in advertising 4 I , - I i _ :y i; 1; 1I -A'- --- - - i"iNe , USTr FINe 0" To the Daily: Mark Kulkis argues in his article "Flesh for fantasy," (Consider, 3/6/87) that sexism in advertising is nonexistent, but then concedes that if sexism in advertising does exist, it is "unavoidable or unintentional." Intentional and avoidable sexism does exist in advert - ising. To claim that sexist advertising is unintentional is to ignore the multi-billion dollar advertising industry which employs high paid professionals, often psycho - logists, to appeal to our un - conscious insecurities, fantas - ies, and fears to convince us to buy their products. , Advertisers understand that all women live with the threat of sexual assault. Women are often shown gagged and tied up, bruised, wearing tattered clothing, or in dangerous situa - tions. Advertisers are aware that a woman is beaten every eighteen seconds and that one out of three will be rape victims in this country. Advertisers trying to reach vulnerable women may depict husbands as disapproving or upset with something trivial the wife has done. They know that one in three marriages is violent and that one in seven wives is raped by her husband. Advertisers who use abuse tactics to promote products are manipulating and terrifying women. Sexist advertising as a tool to harass and invoke fear in the public. Kulkis makes reference in his article to the "dark ages" when women were considered the property of their husbands. Today in Michigan and twenty- six other.states, marital rape is considered legal. Though the The more we devalue each other as people, the less likely we are to have honest communication and meaningful relationships. Though men and women both suffer from objectification, sexist advert - ising perpetuates the role of women in the unequal end of a dominant power relationship. Advertisers are targeting us as consumers. If we don't buy their discriminatory methods of selling products, they can't profit at the very intentional and avoidable expense of women and children in our society. -Karen Klein Jill Holbert Ruth Gonzer David Collins Members/ Ann Arbor Coalition Against Rape March 19 Non-smokers require clean air for life A To The Daily: As of Jan. 1, 1987, Michigan enacted a law that cracked down on smokers and attempted to give non-smokers more right to breathe clean air. In response, the U of M has restricted smoking in all university buildings. The law, on the state level and here at the univer'sity, has brought about heated debate. Smokers have claimed that their constitutional rights have been violated and that this is a first step toward communism. I would like to add to the debate. The issue of smoking hits very close to home with me, because it deals, ultimately, with the issue of the heart and lungs. Smokers have chosen to decide that they just don't value these organs that much. The harms of smoking are not a controversial issue; rather, they are scientific facts backed by phenomenal and horrifying statistics. Smoking leads to lung cancer, heart disease and emphysema, among other complications. There are 340,000 smoking related deaths in the United States each year- 340,000 deaths a year that could be prevented. Recently, I was informed by a heart surgeon that due to complications arising from infant open-heart surgery I will probably only have a few more years to live before my lungs worse. This letter is not a bleeding- heart plea for sympathy. I don't want you to know who I am, just to realize I could be anyone. Someday you will stand next to me, or sit next to me or walk past me with your cigarette and I will be forced to inhale your smoke for an instant. I will step aside, but I will be vexed that I have to go out of my way to breathe clean air. , ..... lungs. These healthy organs they are so willfully destroying would certainly be more appreciated by me, when in a few years my life is drawing to a close due to lack of these organs. I don't have any illusions. I know you smokers will continue your loud demand for rights, cry to the Constitution for support, live under the assumption that tomorrow never comes and think that S1VE I Y 4O /~ Mope o~ g H s1~ f t II ., I will resent seeing you smoking-related diseases are inhale your filthy smoke not in your future. Your heart because almost every breath I and lungs will deteriorate take hurts and my only slowly and you will have the solution is a highly risky and time to argue for your rights to statistically highly destroy them. How ironic. unsuccessful transplant. Your Why should you listen to my solution? As simple as putting argument? In a few more years out a cigarette. I know many of I won't even be around to the smokers out there couldn't present it. care less about me. Truthfully, -Anonymous I don't care about them either. February 16 But I care about their hearts and CDLA newsletter objective Pinochet's disregard for human To the Daily: rights in Chile. I read the first issue of The Based on this first Democratic Alternative, and newsletter, The Democratic unlike Bonnie Nevel (Daily, Alternative does not seem like 2/9/87), I didn't find CDLA's the work of what Ms. Neel arguments "absurd." the news - calls a "right-wing group." I letter's introduction focused on have never been to a CDLA recent signs of democratic meeting, and I don't know any progress in Latin America, of the group's leaders, so Ms. while acknowledging that there Nevel might have more insight was still a long way to o. into the group's beliefs than I. .3 1~ I