4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, November 9, 1993 cg £ idligau &dlg . i * 6. 420 Maynard Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan JOsH DUBow Editor in Chief A NDRIEw LEVY Editorial Page Editor . , 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. ' C ' .. .u c ,,f p ^b LI f (( ...,r... _ !ft{' . + .- . ' + ' I't f" ,ri " cfi y? 1 } __ rAC~A " ~ L f jL, . i~ , / - I UC1 : ... Home is where all of your stuff is "I'm going home," says one stu- dent to another. Quick: what does she mean? "Home address," reads the form you're supposed: to fill out. Quick: what do you: write? If you failed this quiz, con-: gratulations: you: are a college stu- dent, (Thank goodness the SAT wasn't this hard.) Unless you com- mute, you are .a, T- .. among the ranks of the confused collegian, who doesn't know how to answer that all-impor- tant question: where is home? The answer to that question is an easy way to tell how old someone is. To a first-year student, home is home -where their parents are, where they grew up, where their comic books and prom corsages still sit on the shelf. Nope, say the older students, that's not home - that's your parents' house. When you begin to use the phrase "my parents' house," you have become an official sophisticated col- lege student. Add a cigarette and an apartment, and you've got the com- plete set (some assembly required.) Then there's the issue of vacation. To a first-year, vacation is the best time of the year. They're out every night with their high school friends, having the best of times. When you're older and your high school friends are old news, you go home and realize you have nothing better to do than count how many Cheetos are in a full- size bag (by weight, not by volume, remember). Going to the mall and counting the girls with big hair only kills a few hours, and then it's back to the Cheetos. If you really want to count things, Digs against Penn St. were uncalled for To the Daily: As a graduate of Penn State's Leisure Studies Department and a longtime resident of State College, Pa., I was personally offended by your recent editorial titled "Un- happy valley" (10/15/93). I was outraged at the inaccuracies of your editorial, and I hope that in the future you will do better research on your topic, and take into account people's feelings. How would you feel if someone totally put down your major, alma mater, and hometown? Think about it. I thought Ann Arbor was supposed to encourage "diversity" and sensitivity to others. I don't know about anyone else, but I certainly don't feel welcomed here. SHERRY FRICK Ann Arbor though, you should count the number of things that have changed in your hometown. After a few times back, you begin to sound like the old farts who liked to hang out on the street corner and talk about the old days. "Way back in 1991, that shopping center was a vacant lot," you croak. "And when I was here, the high school didn't have that newfangled science wing. 'Course, we didn't have those durned gang shootings in the halls, neither ..." Even the new McDonalds on that old familiar corner can't compare to changes in your parents' house, how- ever. I flew home for Thanksgiving my third year of college only to have my mother tell me, with a wry smile, that I was welcome to sleep in the newly redecorated guest room. Little did I know she meant my room. Gone were my ragged posters, the com- forter I'd had since I was nine, the bright wallpaper I'd stared at many sleepless nights. The new bed had matching sheets and pillowcases, and was centered under the window (com- plete with - you guessed it - ex- actly matching curtains.) On the nightstand was a double frame, con- taining mine and my brother's senior pictures. "Who moved the department store display into my room?" I asked, and my mother laughed. "I didn't think you'd mind," she said. "Neither did I," I replied. But I did. Chicago had more or less become my home - my friends were there, my life was there. Yet in many ways I felt like I didn't have a home. I'd been in the same dorm for four years, and my room was filled with all of my books and furniture (and a good num- ber of memories)- it was as much of a home as my parents' house (hee). But any place you have to move out of every nine months isn't really a home. And then I committed the horrible sin of graduating, and they kicked me out for good. This summer my home sat in a storage shed in Ann Arbor, wait- ing fob me to reassemble it in yet another place. I've done my best to make Ann Arbor my home, what with having an apartment and a microwave and a cat. When I say, "All of my books are home," I now mean my apartment as opposed to my office, and not back in Texas. But I no longer know how to an- swer the question "Where are you from?" When I was traveling with a tour group in Europe this summer, I often answered this query with "Uh, good question," and then proceeded to tell them half my life story (the ha that was required to answer the ques tion.) Yet for all the drifting, I wouldn't have done things any differently. I give a special salute to my fellow out- of-staters: it takes courage to start a new life in a new place, but in the end you'll find you're a better person for it. There's a word for people who stick around the same place all their lives: provincial. I can't begin to cour4 the number of people in my Texas hometown who believe that the rest of the world is just like their little corner (which in this case is white, Southern Baptist, and Republican.) Your home may end up in a moving van for a few weeks, but you'll end up a more independent and well-rounded person. And if I ever forget where home i all I have to do is look at my car - has Texas plates, a University of Chi- cago sticker on one side, and a Uni- versity of Michigan sticker on the other. My passport in the glove com- partment (handy for those trans-At- lantic roadtrips) will inform you that I was born in Minnesota. Maybe some- day I'll get back there, but for now I'll go wherever the winds of academia will take me. Fund bill is a bill from which everyone would benefit. Conscientious objectors would find relief from the dilemma they face each tax time of whether to pay military taxes and violate their consciences, or whether to withhold military taxes and violate human law. It is worthy of your support. TIMOTHY PEARCE Ann Arbor an inflated rape-crisis mentality. ABRAHAM BATES Dialogue Facilitator, Program on Intergroup Relations and Conflict Plants have feelings too, you know 8y OLIVER GIANCOLA The Daily's recent article on Uni- versity animal research presented the views of Maria Comninou, founder and director of Washtenaw Citizens for Animal Rights. Commenting on the use of mice in leukemia research, Comninou said, "Just because they are mice doesn't mean we can use them as if they were beans or some- thing." I was incensed by Comninou's flippant, insensitive reference to beans. Comninou, like many other vegetarians, displays an utter con- tempt for this planet's most down- plants' nervous systems, 'Bose found that "the conduction of excitation in plants is fundamentally the same as that in animals." Plants injected with alcohol "swayed like drunkards." Plants feel love as well. Geneticist Luther Burbank was able to convince a certain variety of cactus to grow without needles merely by telling them, "You don't need your defen- sive thorns. I will protect you." The efforts of Backster, Bose and Burbank represent the first step to- ward full-scale communion with our earthbound companions. The evi- on "farms" (plant concentration camps) across the globe. If that wasn't enough, many animal activists indulge in plant-eating. Since plants are sen- tient, such vegetarianism is the moral equivalent of cannibalism. Nor are vegetarians, in their self- righteous high-mindedness, the only ones who deserve blame. Indeed, people who use marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol abuse plants in the basest way possible. Although I condemn recreational drug use, synthetic drugs like LSD provide a hefty kick without the nasty moral side-effects. Don't exaggerate rape statistics To the Daily: Sexual assault is undoubtedly an issue deserving careful consideration on college campuses across the United States. But the use of misinformation and exaggerated statistics in order to scare people into action is detrimental to the prevention of rape and assault. In a recent Daily article ("SAPAC week to foster awareness of sexual assault," 10/15/ 93), the first paragraph states, "The FBI estimates that one in three women will be raped in her lifetime." But there is simply no such FBI report. Support the Peace Tax Fund bill To the Dally: t ......-4 . - I - ..... . - - --.b «. e