Page 6-The Michigan Daily-- Monday, April 12, 1993
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420 Maynard
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Edited and managed
by students at the
University of Michigan
JOSH Duiow
Editor in Chief
ERIN LIZA EImoRN
Opinion Editor
Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily editorial board.
All other cartoons, signed articles and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily.
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EARTH WEEK
Use week to focus on environmental activism
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ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES ARE not just the
worries of birkenstocked activists and
science wonk/Vice President Al Gore.
With environmental hazards - such as the
North Campus incinerator and
the possible Envotech
supermall of hazardous waste
disposal -looming over our
homes, the Earth must now be
of concern for everyone. If the x
current level of environmental ',
degradation continues, we are
headed for disaster. Today is
the beginning ofEarth Week at
the University. This is a time
for students to focus on solving k
environmental problems, to at-
tend Earth Week activities and
to get involved in the many
groups fighting to save the en-
vironment.
Examples of environmental
hazards have hit home. Parents
and young couples living in !
Student Family Housing have
formed Citizens forSafe Waste ---
Disposal (along with the help of the student
group ENACT-UM) to combat an incinerator
near the housing unit on North Campus. The
incinerator violates the stipulations of its permit
by burning potentially hazardous waste.
Anothergroup, the Michigan Citizens Against
7-7-
Toxic Substances (MCATS), fights the hazard-
ous waste disposal company Envotech's plans
to build the second largest hazardous waste
dump in the country, an incinerator, and two
eep injection wells in Augusta
Township, just north of Ann
Arbor. Augustaresidents already
uffer reduced property values
and potential health risks as a
result ofanEnvotech subsidiary
company's illegal dumping of
20,000 barrels of toxic waste on
the proposed dump site. Citi-
zens for Safe Waste Disposal
and MCATS need support in
their fight to protect these com-
munities'.
Eclipse Jazz kicked off Earth
Week Saturday with an open-
airconcertandspeakersaddress-
ing environmental issues. Up-
coming events include a Huron
River Cleanup sponsored by
Green Corps to a panel discus-
sion about environmental issues
HARON MUSHER/DaIly with University professors spon-
sored by the Michigan Student Assembly. The
issues to be discussed range from local environ-
mental action to issues with a global focus.
Students are encouraged to educate themselves
and become involved. These issues affect ev-
eryone.
Public activism ke to ecological proress
by Maria Comninou
Engineering professor
Since Earth Day 1990, a lot of guides
instructing us on how many things we can
do for the environment have been widely
circulated. The lists advocate all forms of
recycling, encourage the use of durable
instead of disposable products, instruct us
how to save energy, advise us to eat lower
in the food chain (a euphemism for veg-
etarianism), etc.
The focus of this strategy is to use "the
power of our pocketbook" to create a sus-
tainable lifestyle and maintain healthy eco-
systems. In the midst of consumer glut, we
can now find shining examples of the idea
that the good life can be had for very little,
if we can only de-program ourselves from
the ceaseless indoctrination beamed out by
advertisers, economists and politicians.
There are already a lot of admirable people
who have made it their business to "tread
lightly on the planet."
The trouble with this model for saving
the world is that the better you become at it,
the less effective you are, unless everybody
follows yourexample. One measure of how
lightly you tread is how much money you
spend and how much money you make.
Once you become frugal enough and self-
sufficient enough to be able to live with
very little money, your impact on a market-
oriented economy becomes virtually nil.
You cannot influence an agricultural con-
glomerate to convert to integrated pest
management or organic farming, if you
decide to grow and eat your own vegetables
only. And you cannot entice the household
product manufacturers to use environmen-
tally friendly processes and substances, if
you decide to do all your cleaning with
vinegar and water. Although self-suffi-
ciency and simplicity are very worthy goals,
achieving a personal nirvana does not help
save the rest of us mortals nor the environ-
ment. Until there is a drastic change in the
way our institutions, our governments and
oureconomies operate, theprivate endeavor
toward self-perfection must be accompa-
nied by public activism.
however, is not to impose "environmental
fascism" by trampling on individual rights
and interests. The alternative is to work
within an open, democratic process towards
creating a climate and a culture where the
environment is an obvious and fundamental
factor in any decision making. The environ-
mental factor must be included at the very
beginning and not be tucked on later as an
afterthought. We must practice and advo-
cate prevention: in the environment, as in
medicine, prevention is the best cure.
One form of prevention is accomplished
through regulation. Our society, which has
'Let us make the environment our public duty: we
can then all live good, ordinary lives.'
FAULTY CODE
If it must exist, the 'U' s
AFTER VIOLENCE BROKE out on South Uni-
versity Avenue following the disappoint-
ing end to the basketball season, most
students retreated safely to the confines of their
homes. But one student was arrested by the
University's Department of Public Safety and
charged undertheStatementofStudent"Rights"
and Responsibilities for public inebriation and
filure to heed a police order to leave the street.
That student may have had the most unpleasant
arid unjust experience of his life.
Of course, some simple mechanisms were
written into the Code to ensure that the public
would have some form of check on Code activi-
ties suchasthese. Unfortunately,one ofthe most
itiportant ofthese mechanisms-records avail-
able to the public - continues to be ignored by
the University. Last week, in response to vocif-
erous criticism on this issue, the University
released statistical data pertaining to Code op-
erations.
But this doesn't even come close to solving
the problem. Instead of following its own code
and ensuring that the public had some way to
moniter the University, it continues to hide
under a facade of concern for student rights and
bury detailed Code records.
The released statistical data reveals next to
nothing. It tells us information such as one case
houldfollow it too
was mediated or eight students have been sent
letters notifying them of possible Code viola-
tions. This completely disregards the reason for
having records available to the public. Records
are available so that the University cannot do
whatever it wants without anyone being able to
question why or how.
Moreover, the University is using completely
faulty logic in defense of withholding records.
Code officials say they are trying to find a
method to balance a student's right to privacy
with the public's right to know. But does the
University truly believe that keeping the records
hidden is beneficial to students? And if the
University believes it must balance the rights of
students and the public, it is something it should
have thought about before the Code was ever
implemented.
The Code and its kangaroo court punishes
students retributively and completely circum-
vents the legal system. Since we have shown
time and time again that the Code cannot be
counted on to protect the rights of students, the
University must follow its own Code. As Rob
Van Houweling, member of the Michigan Stu-
dent Assembly Student Rights Commission, so
aptly said: "It seems to me if they aren't going to
follow the Code, which they clearly aren't, why
the hell should any student follow the Code?"
There are two types of activism avail-
able to us. One is to convince others to
follow our example and actively inform,
encourage and help them along the path.
This is aform ofproselytizinganditis often
resented by the would-be neophytes. The
second type of activism is directed toward
government policy, regulation and legisla-
tion. How many people would not vote in
favor of pesticide-free food if that were an
option? It is often easier to convince an
entire community that recycling is desir-
able than to make a single individual re-
cycle tin cans.
The idea that each of us is responsible
only for our own acts and that environmen-
tal consciousness is a private business is not
going to get us very far. The alternative,
been nurtured on the ideal of individualism,
is too quick to embrace the opinion that laws
do not stop crime and guns do not kill.
Perhaps a society of archangels would suc-
ceed in functioning without the need of
laws. The rest of us need to be reminded,
cajoled and prompted tobe our best with the,
help of laws, contracts and agreements.
Behavior which is thus encouraged and
held to public scrutiny, soon becomes cus-
tom. Although heroic actions have more
appeal and visibility, and are cer y in-
spiring, a society of heroes would be per-
fectly unbearable. Let us make the environ-
ment our public duty: we can then all live
good, ordinary lives.
Comninou will speak at an enviromental
symposium Tuesday.
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RUBUST THIS
Republican tactics impede progress
Social forces
cause anorexia
To the Daily:
In response to Wendy
Shanker's perspective, "To
anorexic girl in aerobics class:
You look terrible, honey" (4/
2/93), I am the anorexic girl in
your aerobics class. You have
no concept of what I am
about, nor about social
conditioning. You say that
you do not have that special
"supermodel gene." I have
news for you - no one does.
It is not a natural look, just
like the skin and bones of
anorexia. You yourself say: "I
strive to be the closest reality
to those models. There is
nothing wrong with that."
Why isn't there something
wrong with that? Why are
women "susceptible to poor
self-image?" The answer to
these questions lies in the
conditioning we receive from
day one.
Anorexia is more than just
a response to the media. It is a
disease - something like
alcoholism. You have not
even accounted for the many
psychological factors that go
into this extreme manifesta-
tion of women's internalized
oppression. Anorexia, in some
ways, is an extreme form of
what you do-- "diet and
exercise and wear makeup and
spend a load on clothes
because I want to look good."
Open your eyes.
If nothing else, do a little
research before making such a
forceful statement about
To the Daily:
I am writing in response to
the article "Hindu, Muslim
students discuss current
tensions" (4/5,93). In this
article, the reporter quoted
Gaurav Dave, who said that a
double standard exists in
India, because Muslim
schools are not taxed and
Hindu schools are. If that is
true, I believe it is just a ploy
by the Indian government to
say that the Muslims get
special treatment, and to give
Hindus a reason to vent their
anger against Muslims.
I do believe there is a
double standard in India, one
which favors the Hindus. A
prime example is the case
when the Hindus totally
destroyed a Muslim mosque
in Ayodhya. After they
destroyed the mosque, the
Hindus immediately built a
shrine to their lord Rama
without waiting for a legal
decision from the Indian
government on what to do
about the situation. The
government did nothing to stop
the building of the shrine and
did not concern itself with the
Hindus who prayed to it. But
when a Muslim scholar and
several other Muslims
attempted to offer prayer at the
site where the mosque was
destroyed, they were turned
back.
Basically the government
rewarded the Hindus for
tearing down the mosque by
allowing them to build their
shrine on that spot and by
punishing the Muslims by not
even allowing them to pray
where their mosque used to be.
Now tell me where the double
standard is.
There was also a quote in
the article by Deepa Prahalid
saying that Hindus are treated
as outsiders in India. I don't
know what India Deepa is
talking about, but it is not the
one I know.
I was in India right after
the Hindus destroyed the
mosque, and I witnessed how
"well" the Muslims were
treated. I saw how they hit
my fifteen-year old cousin
for no reason, when he was
coming to pick me up at the
Bombay airport.
The next time you write
an article, I hope you do a
better job covering both sides
of the story. Sure you
reported how Shenaz Khan
said the discussion was more
tame than others, but I did
not see the reactions of other
Muslims on the comments
made by the Hindus.
So now I am giving you
mine.
,
Il
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Double standard in India favors Hindu population
AfOINSERVATIVE SENATE REPUBLICANS, led
by Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-
Kan.), pulled off a dramatic filibuster of
PresidentClintdn's short-term economic stimu-
lus package last week. Declaring the $16.3
billion plan would only add to the staggering
budget deficit, 43 members of Congress
grounded the popular bill to a halt. Sadly, GOP
leadership has transfixed fiscal obsessions on
eliminating approximately half of Clinton's
domestic priorities. Doing so comes at the ex-
pense of rebuilding urban infrastructure, creat-
ing jobs in a recession-tom economy, aiding
low-income college students, and providing sum-
mer school programs. In the end, the Republican
filibuster is a pointless waste of time. The GOP
las no working majority, and no alternative
plan.
The Republicans, distraught over the defeat
of George Bush and the end of divided govem-
ment, have treated the passage of this urgent
package as a do-or-die test for their 1994 sena-
not used during the past 12 years-this unfortu-
nate maneuvering gives marginalized GOP Sena-
tors a new power that the people refused to give
them during elections.
Dole and company cannot be commended
forunduly blocking the will ofthe majority. The
GOP's last great stand should not be seen as a
famous congressional event in the battle to slash
the deficit, but as a political fraud designed to
thwart the emergence of Clintonian economics.
The Senate GOP's philosophy has been that,
new federal aid directed at heavy-populated,
largely Democratic urban centers is automati-
cally "pork barrel" waste- simply because the
party in control of Congress is the dominate
political force in most U.S. cities. The GOP
leadership asserts that since mostbig-city Demo-
cratic mayors organized to assist in Clinton's
presidential campaign,theproposedurbanspend-
ing plan must be a covert repayment-- a give-
away to "special interest" groups. This is an
unfounded, spurious correlation. To say that
rfnv.*-e rn.n nr i cii , fem ~i i m t n tr id-
Shaad Ahmed
LSA Sophomore
Subway responds to accusations of bias in hiring
J4
To the Daily:
This is in response to Flint
Wainess' perspective,
"Subway discriminatory
practices uncovered" (4/193).
First, it is not a discrimina-
tory practice to ask a prospec-
tive employee to complete a
test that requires the ability to
do fifth-grade math.
Since all of our employees
are over the age of 16, this is
handling money and goods.
Your perception that a smile
and sandwich are the only
thing important to the opera-
tion shows your inexperience
in the work place.
Third, we are being judged
by you for an application that
was never turned in. If you
would have given us the
courtesy to call before you
printed such a slanderous
personal integrity, and not
appreciated. Again, if you had
found out the facts by talking
to the University Health
Services, you would have
found out that there are
problems with the use of
rubber gloves for all employ-
ees all the time.
Rubber gloves are used if
an employee has a cut or
wound of any type on their
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