4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, October 26, 1993
cet niiagut iLg
420 Maynard
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Edited and managed
by students at the
University of Michigan
JOSH DuBow
Editor in Chief
SAm GOODSTEIN
FLINT J. WAINESS
Acting Editorial Page Editors
Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the majority opinion of the Daily editorial board.
All other cartoons, articles and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily.
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Insight
4
There it was as I entered the pool:
a list on the blackboard in my coach's
neat handwriting,.
titled "Benefits of .a
Athletics." It was>
my junior year of'
college, and I had
just joined the
varsity swim team
at the University
of Chicago as a
complete novice.
When I saw the
blackboard, I
knew I was in nh
trouble.
My other extracurricular pursuit
at that time was (you guessed it) a
column in the newspaper. My column
that particular day bore the headline
"Beware of a Football Takeover."
Mostly, it was a bunch of jokes about
Texas football and the trials anyone
with a brain endures growing up in
such a place that has such an obsession.
Near theend, though, I made the mistake
of bringing things a little closer to
home: "When I made a list of desirable
characteristics for a college," I wrote,
"the first item on my list was 'Must
have a football team that sucks.' U of
C fit that requirement perfectly."
Since our football team hadn't
won a game yet that year, they were
a little, well, sensitive. (I later asked
myself why, out of all groups of people
to piss off, I had to pick a group of
guys whose hobby was slamming into
people and knocking them down.
These guys did not do that
particularly well, mind you, but I
also didn't really like the idea of
them sending me out for a pass - as
the ball.) Not only were the football
players and my swim coach mad, but
the next few issues of the paper were
filled with indignant letters to the
editor, one of which extolled the
virtues of "the Chicago Bulls - a
basketball team, in case Ms. Twenge
doesn't know." Ha ha ha ha.
Twenge's column appears every
Tuesday in the Daily
I thought of this recently when a
few people got upset over my column
on vegetarians. First of all, you should
realize that due to some phantom in the
Daily computers (or some phantom
human error), about three very essential
paragraphs got cut out of last week's
column. (How the sentence "Yes, I
really do have an Uncle Bud- true to
bordering on 'military intelligence"'
made it past two copy editors is beyond
me, though I guess it makes more sense
than some modern deconstructionist
novels).
What I explained in those
paragraphs was that I'm not really a
vegetarian - I fall somewhere in the
middle, since I eat poultry and fish
but not red meat. I gave up being a
total vegetarian because, well, I don't
like most vegetables. I would thus
have been a vegetarian who doesn't
like vegetables, an oxymoron
bordering on "military intelligence."
(I bet you had no idea what that
phrase had to do with anything, much
less vegetarians).
But somehow this statement
disappeared into electronic
nothingness (maybe it will appear in
70 years or so, like Scotty coming out
of the transporter in that Next
Generation episode), so I had a lot of
people thinking that I believed that
vegetarians eat chicken. One person
went as far as to send me a 20-page
long document on vegetarianism,
which included a list of the "Most
Commonly Asked Questions" about
vegetarians. I was hoping this would
be a top 10 list type thing ("And the
number one question asked of
vegetarians: 'What's in those veggie
burgers anyway?"' This would be
followed by the top 10 questions asked
of people with nose rings, beginning
with, "Does it hurt when you blow
your nose?")
Unfortunately the questions
turned out to be things like "Are
there vegan marshmellows
available?" (I am not making this up)
and "What is rennet?" (it's the intestinal
lining of a cow, boys and girls, and
vegetarians aren't supposed to eat it).
Actually the document was pretty
helpful, explaining the definitions of
different kinds of vegetarians, like
vegans (who avoid not just meat but
also eggs and dairy products) and
fruitiarians (who only eat foods that
don't kill the plant - carrots, for
instance, kill the plant, while apples do
not).
I have many vegetarian friends
who have tired very quickly of having
people say, "This is chicken. You can
still eat this," and I understand that
this is a problem. The point is, though,
that there is a lot of ignorance about
vegetarians out there that goes
beyond the labels. News stories claim
that vegetarian women are in danger
of growing hair on their faces
(Daily]10/8/93). People in Texas told
me that if I didn't eat meat, any
children I had would be born
deformed. This is the misinformation
that needs to be eliminated.
Like the people who assumed that
I didn't know the sport the Chicago
Bulls played just because I wasn't a
football fanatic, the complaints I
heard assail the moderate position in
a debate when they should be
attacking the opposing side. Too
often those of us who see both sides
of an issue end up dealing with the
complaints of both sides - I have
the Texans harshing on me because I
eat too little meat, and the purist
vegetarians harshing on me because I
eat too much meat and dared use their
label.
The same happens to people who
see both sides of issues like political
correctness, abortion, and welfare
-they belong nowhere and are liked
by no one. Why is it that the more
level-headed and moderate position
is immediately dismissed? We have
become a campus (and a nation) of
extremists, and it's about time we
found some moderators. Let's give
them the benefit of the doubt, and
stop harping on labels.
a
01
Collge Rundu
...JI - i ., _ ~ ...
'Never forget. Never
again'
To the Daily:
When I attempt to plot my
family tree, a strange thing
happens. First, there is a single
branch from me to my parents.
Next, there is a second branch
from my parents to their's. After
that lies an empty void. You see, it
is impossible for me to trace my
ancestry very far, because I, like so
many unfortunate others, lost
many to the Holocaust, and that is
all the proof I need!
In the Viewpoint article of Oct.
6, Bradley Smith complains that
the new United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum in Washington
D.C. does not offer enough "proof'
of the genocidal tale. I wonder
exactly what it would take to
convince Smith that over 6 million
Jews alone, and far too many .
others, were murdered by the
Nazis in this dark period of
mankind. As far as his claim, that
not mean that they do not exist. The
fact that Winston Churchill and
Dwight Eisenhower lacked
references to these chambers in
their writing of WWII in no way
invalidates their existence. Rather,
it is an irresponsible and negligent
omission, perhaps reflecting their
guilt at a far too long denial and
lack of action towards what was
really happening in Germany
during the war. Perhaps Smith
should rely less on others to prove
to him, and set out to prove for
himself. For example, one way in
which I know the chambers
existed, is simply to think back to
this summer when I made the long
and painful walk from the main
encampment at Dachau, down to
the actual gas chamber which the
Jews not only died in, but were
actually forced to build.
Then there is the photograph at
the opening of the, Holocaust
Memorial, with the American GIs
standing over the burning corpses.
Smith questions the cause of death
for the dead in the nhoto bt I ask
kind is capable of such atrocities,
but fortunately we have museums
like the new memorial in 4
Washington to keep the truth alive,
and that is what is important.
For as I stood in the huge main
square of Dachau this summer,
larger than any football field, and
only a small fraction of just one of
the many death camps all over
Europe, a chill went down my
spine. The cold rain fell on my
neck, and the tears fell from my
eyes, and I could only wonder how
many of my own family came in
through the gate, but never went
out. A I stood there, two thought
went through my mind:
Never forget. Never again.
MICHAEL GURION
LSA First-year student
Unfair to workers
To the Daily:
Staff at the Undergraduate
Library and the Film and Video
Library wish to object to the
Although many campus codes of
conduct are consistent with criminal
codes, many college codes surpass
the legal definition of rape and in
doing so redefine the word. The stu-
dent handbook of St. Norbert Col-
lege in Wisconsin defines sexual as-
sault as follows: "Sexual assault con-
sists of sexual contact which is not
mutually agreeable to both parties
... this includes any such actions to-
ward a person which damages his or
her physical well-being."
Thi Af.i;tnnas t.in ofa
Madison's downtown kiosks with
signs that asked: Which one of these
hypothetical situations is rape?
Among the situations that, according
to the posters, constituted rape, was
the following:"A woman is convinced
to consent to have sex with her boy-
friend when she really didn't want
to." Unfortunately, the posters per-
vert the definition of rape. The post-
ers expand the definition by includ-
ing consensual sex achieved by law-
ful persuasion.
Feminist legal scholar Catherine
concerns the question of what con-
stitutes consent? This question does
not have one simple answer. In a
court of law the issue of whether or
not consent has been given is usually
put up to a "reasonable man" test.
Many activists contend and many
college codes stipulate that consent
to sex must be verbal. This is ridicu-
lous. Consensual sex may occur in
silence.
MacKinnon goes further to say
that even if consent is given it is
often meaningless. She asserts that
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