Page 4-The Michigan Daily- Thursday, October 3, 1991
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420 Maynard Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
Edited and Managed
by Students at the
University of Michigan

ANDREW K. GOTTESMAN
Editor in Chief
STEPHEN HENDERSON
Opinion Editor

_L _ .

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.

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Come on, Dylan, loan me a few bucks.
just until I find a job...
pup
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I'm starving, alright? How long have we been friends?
Whaddya say, Dyl of pal?
S*Burp*
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by Thomas Keenan
I'll pay you back as soon as I can
Gimme a break, will ya?
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Nuclear cuts
Bush's proposal is too little, too late

Pull my finger, will ya Teek?
Your syml

Y pathy is ovenvhelming, Dyl..

Many are praising President George Bush's
recent declaration to reduce the country's
nuclear arsenal. Indeed, we should be relieved that
the process of worldwide reduction of nuclear
weapons has finally begun. But if one scratches
below the surface of the president's plan, the same
old problems with the country's defense policy
come into view.
- His limited cuts of largely useless weapons
systems and failure to axe other major weapons
programs like Star Wars and the B-2 bomber indi-
cate that Bush is still committed to cold warmilitary
politics, and that his plan is largely symbolic.
Rather than applaud the president for taking bold
.initiatives, the American public should question
why Bush didn't propose this earlier, and why his
plan fails to address so many integral parts of U.S.
defense policy.
By announcing his plan, the president and his
advisers wanted to demonstrate that the United
States was in step with global changes, including
the warming of relations between the United States
and the Soviet Union. But the threat of war between
the superpowers has been unlikely for quite some
lime. The president should have proposed such
changes at the beginning of his term.

Most of the nuclear weapons cut will not be
destroyed but will instead go into storage. Also, the
cuts are mostly in tactical nuclear weapons -
strategic, long-range missiles are for the most part
untouched by the plan.
With his demands for more money and further
development of the B-2 Bomber and the Strategic
Defense Initiative, Bush demonstrates how out-of-
touch his proposal is with current realities. Both of
these systems exist for one purpose - to counter
a nuclear offensive by the
Soviet Union. But this is precisely the military
strategy Bush ruled obsolete in his speech Friday
night.
With the end of the Cold War, the time has come
for the President to propose meaningful defense
reductions slash the defense budget to a reasonable
size. Bush should pledge to cut more nuclear
weapons such as ICBM's and the MX missile, in
addition to reducing the amount U.S. troops
worldwide.
Given all of these holes in the administration's
defense policy, the current plan seems more a
misleading attempt by the president at gaining
popularity than a commitment to easing nuclear
tensions.

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Brookings study
The time for comprehensive military cuts is now

he Brookings Institution, a nationally recog-
nized think-tank, concluded that the United
States could save up to $619 billion over the next
10 years by scaling back military spending. The
suggested reductions would maintain U.S. preemi-
nence in the world, as it only cuts out military
-expenditures that are unnecessary in the post-Cold
War era.
The Reagan-Bush years have been a tragic
story of the dangers of giving Pentagon officials an
excessive allowance to spend on their military
toys. They have become so enraptured in their
newest and expensive technology --such as the B-
2 "Stealth" Bomber - that they haven't noticed
the "great Soviet Bear" is now just a pack of lost
e cubs. The age-old Pentagon scenario of a Soviet
invasion of Western Europe is now obsolete.
So why must this country buy an airplane that
costs $800 million a piece? The country is still in
a recession, and we cannot afford such wasteful
spending.
One year ago, the Cato Institute, a libertarian
research body, proposed somewhat similar cuts in
military spending. It said that by 1995, "our de-
fense expenditures could be scaled back to ap-

proximately $120 billion ... (even) considering'
America's legitimate security requirements." The
Brookings Institute study is more conservative
with its cuts, making them easierto swallow forthe
Pentagon and the Bush administration.
The U.S. economy is far too dependent on the
military-industrial complex. We cannot go on
building up arms for a full-scale world war which
may never come. We have limited resources and
too many needs. The military has taken precedence
overmany basic domestic issues such as education,
health-care, and poverty. Our foreign policy
president has thought it more important to involve
himself in the Middle East than to ensure that the
country's citizens can read, are healthy, or own a
home.
There is no great war on our doorstep. The only
reason we need a large national defense budget is
for national offense - to control the actions of
other sovereign nations. We must make the cuts the
Brookings Institute proposes, and specifically
designate the savings to increased domestic pro-
grams.
Let's throw away the toy soldiers and stop
playing around.

Dispel the myths
To the Daily:
We wish to commend the
Daily for running an extensive
feature on "gay life;" ("Out of the
closet, onto the campus," Week-
end, Sept. 27, 1991) such gay-
positive articles are an important
antidote to the anti-gay bias of
University administrators such as
Regents Deane Baker (R-Ann
Arbor) and Neal Nielsen (R-
Brighton).
We are concerned, however,
that in its zeal to show that gay
students are "just like everyone
else," the Daily neglected to
represent the diversity within the
gay community.
All of the people quoted in the
article are white; the exclusion of
the perspectives of gay and
lesbian people of color reinforces
the historical invisibility and
marginalization of people from
those groups.
The gay men and lesbians who
were quoted in the article are to
be saluted for their courage - it
can be a dangerous thing to
"come out" in the present climate
of escalating violence against gay
men and lesbians. We wish to
correct a dangerously inaccurate
statement about AIDS made by an
interviewee.
In a well-intentioned effort to
dispel the myth that AIDS is a
"gay disease," Jerry Galea stated
that "the number one transmitters
of AIDS are pregnant women." In
these days, when myths about
mother-to-child transmission of
AIDS have led women with AIDS
to face involuntary sterilization
and other forms of discrimination,
this inaccurate statement should
not go uncorrected.
In the United States, male-to-
male sexual contract has been the
primary means of transmission of
HIV (the virus associated with
AIDS). Sharing injection drug
equipment is the second most
common means of transmission

and heterosexual contact is the
third. It is important to note that
rates of seroconversion (getting
the virus) are declining among
gay men, but increasing among
heterosexuals.
Nationwide, children born to
mothers with HIV account for
only 1.4 percent of reported AIDS
cases. Current data indicate that
pregnant women with HIV
transmit the virus to their children
only 20-30 percent of the time;
this transmission rate is lower
than that of many hereditary
diseases. These facts were
verified by the Michigan Depart-
ment of Public Health and the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
It is very important to dispel
the myth that AIDS is a "gay
disease" and to fight discrimina-
tion against gay men based on this
myth.
It is equally important to be
careful with our facts so that we
do not inadvertently contribute to
discrimination against others.
Mary Bejian
Maaike Boumeester
Cindy Colen
Pattrice Maurer
Marica Ochoa
Noelle Paschalidis
Andrea E. Taylor
for the ACT UP
Women's Causus
Fraternity
apologizes
To the Daily:
The gentlemen of Theta Xi
Fraternity would like to apologize
for a rush flier posted Monday
evening which offended many
members of the University
community.
As soon as we realized that
some of the membership had put
up the fliers, we attempted to
remove all fliers. However, later
in the evening we were told that
some fliers remained posted;
therefore, we sent another group

of members to retrieve and to
dispose of the remaining fliers.
We hope that the students, the
faculty, the rest of the University
community and anyone who did
find any of the remaining fliers
will understand that Theta Xi
Fraternity is based on the ideals of
brotherhood, scholarship, and
community service, and in no way
would we try to offend anyone.
We understand the concern
that people of the University
community have voiced, and we
have taken steps to remove the
offensive material. We have also
scheduled an educational work-
shop for the fraternity in order to
make sure the men of Theta Xi
Fraternity understand not only the
issues raised by this act, but also
to make sure that the membership
is sensitive to the feelings and to
the concerns of the University
community.
For any person who was
offended by the flier, we at Theta
Xi Fraternity formally apologize
and we hope that the measures
taken will prevent this from ever
happening again.
Ranjit Singh
President, Theta Xi Fraternity
The Daily encourages re-
sponses from its readers.
Letters should be 150 words
or less, and include the
author's name, year in school
and phone number. They can
be mailed to: The Michigan
Daily, 420 Maynard, Ann
Arbor 48109. Or they can be
sent via MTS to: The Michi-
gan Daily Letters to the
Editor. The Daily does not
alter the content of letters, but
reserves the right to edit for
style and space consider-
ations. If you have questions
or comments, you should call
Stephen Henderson at
764-0552.

0

Marching menace

Band makes too much noise -
Behind the backs of community citizens, and
under the unsuspecting noses of University
students, a grand conspiracy has - over the years
-radically offended the Ann Arbor justice system
and blatantly contradicted the American way. Un-
til now, no one has noticed; no one has investigated.
Much to the dismay of the general public, the
Ann Arbor police have been known to hand out a
cruel, costly noise violation with only the slightest
provocation. Fraternity houses have no chance of
escaping the wrath of noise violation anathema.
Dogs on the Diag need not bother to whisper. Even
the elderly have received public condemnations
for' loud, creaking bones. And yet the greatest
offender has gone unpunished.
The belting trumpets and tumultuous booming
drums of the Michigan Marching Band have for
decades heinously obstructed the levels of peace-
ful silence necessary for the tranquil existence we
in Ann Arbor hold so dear - and this requires
immediate attention.
Although the band, its members and their ille-
gal instruments they carry violate section 9:362 of
article I in chapter 119 of Ann Arbor's police
regulations ordinance, Title IX, every time they
practice, they twist the law and have clauses added
to justify their transgressions. The section prohib-
its "any unreasonably loud, disturbing, unusual or

and gets away with it!
unnecessary noise which annoys, disturbs, injures,
or endangers the comfort, repose, health, peace or
safety of others within the limits of the city of Ann
Arbor."
Any person who has been dragged out of a well-
deserved sleep by the pounding racket of the
marching band will loudly attest, the marching
tunes disturb, annoy and, most assuredly, endanger
comfort.
Buried deep in article I of chapter 119, titled
noise control, is where angry observers can find the
product of underhanded manipulation. Section
9:366 (5) mentions the general exemption of "ath-
letic, musical, or cultural activities (including
practices and rehearsals.)" Clearly, money or spe-
cial favors were passed to yield the execution of
this exception. This is infuriating.
The ridiculous decibel levels spewed by the
marching band and the injustice exhibited by its
members need to be controlled and terminated
immediately in the name of civility.
As a matter of fact, the spectators at Michigan
Stadium Saturday, ridiculously screaming unnec-
essarily, ought to be tried and prosecuted as well.
Planes flying over head should all be shot down.
It's time the people ofAnn Arbor rallied for justice.
These wrongs need to be righted immediately and
permanently.

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Hot f rat flier wasn't "cool"

As I was walking out of Angell
Hall Monday night, a pink flier
caught my eye. The textread: "Theta
Xi, Virgin Night, Monday, Last
Year in the Union," and was ac-
companied
by a buxom
woman :::
clad in bi-
kini under-
wear. FEMINIST
drawing
was traced by
from the
September Amanda
c o v e r Ne m n
model of Neuman
Playboy
magazine.
The model's look was seductive
and inviting. Stitched into her
loosely-fitting bathrobe were the
Greek letters for Theta Xi My first
reaction to this flier was confusion.
My second reaction was disbelief
and disgust.
The purpose of the flier was to
announce the first night of frater-
nity rush for Theta Xi. According to

But I do not understand why
virginity and the image of a sexy,
half-nude woman - who hardly
conveys the stereotype of a virgin
anyway -is being associated with
dry rush. The correlation may have
seemed like a harmless attempt to
attract prospective male rushees.
To the contrary, it is quite harmful.
Its implications are complex and
troubling.
The first and most serious issue
concerns the presence of the woman
on the flier. Why is she there? Does
her presence mean that only virgins
arepermittedtorush Theta Xi? Does
it mean thatavirgin will bebestowed
upon each man when he arrives to
rush? I believe the answer to both
questions is, "No." Perhaps it was
just a thoughtless oversight by the
publicity committee of Theta Xi. I
doubt it.
Secondly, Theta Xi's letters on
the woman's bathrobe imply a no-
tion of ownership. It is as if this
perfect woman will don the frater-
nity letters and become, symboli-
cally, a Theta Xi possession. It
figures the fraternity chose to por-

uncomfortable with dry rush, why
doesn't it address the IFC, rather
than try to redeem itself by splash-
ing a woman's body all over the
flier, as if she can compensate for a
policy she had no part in making.
Although I find the flier dis-
tasteful, inappropriate and offen-
sive, I certainly do not advocate
banning it. Even if the flierwas only
supported by a few Theta Xi mem-
bers, they all paid for it with their
dues. An apology is the least Theta
Xi can do to rectify this situation. A
better acceptance of their wrong-
doing is for each member to read
and understand my opinion. It is
deplorable that Theta Xi did not
show more respect for women.
Climb out of your cave, guys, it's
1991.
When Theta Xi drafted the ad-
vertisement, did it think about
whether it would accurately reflect
its values as a house and the.values
of the IFC? The fraternity system
must continually defend its reputa-
tion on this campus. This flier only
gives opponents of the fraternity
system more ammunition.
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GREAT....

by Judd Winick
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