4 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, January 6, 1995 E tgttn ttt1g h~e V :] I1 1 Vj 'Higher education is not like a factory. You can't rearrange machinery and get a 10-percent increase in productivity.' -University Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Gilbert R. Whitaker Jr., on MSU's pledge not to raise tuition beyond the rate of inflation 420 Maynard Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Jessie Halladay Editor in Chief Samuel Goodstein Flint Wainess Editorial Page Editors Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of a majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters, and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. The new provost U' should open search process to public eye a4j .rN / N° / , I ti I> r ::~$~~:ti V T W ith Provost Gilbert R. WhitakerJr. plan- ning to step down this summer, the University again must wrestle with the ques- tion of conducting a search for an administra- tion official. Choosing a provost should not be taken lightly, as the University's second-rank- ing executive leaves a profound impact on the campus academic climate. For this reason, the University should re- verse its pattern of conducting job searches out pf the public eye, ensuring a voice for students, staff and other members of the University community in the process of finding a new provost. However, the University appears poised to continue its long-standing-and wrongheaded . policy of hiding personnel searches from the public. President James J. Duderstadt said the entire search process for Whitaker's suc- cessor would remain confidential -up to the rubber-stamping of a finalist by the Board of Regents. Duderstadt's statements backtrack from an encouraging trend that saw the University con- duct its search for a new housing director in public. Students and staff were invited to offer input into the search for a new housing director torough a series of public interviews - ses- sions that, although sparsely attended, gave the public its rightful voice. Duderstadt now appears determined to shut the public out of the provost search, arguing that it would undermine the integrity of the search. He claims that deans of colleges who wish to be considered for the job may hesitate to run if their names are released, and that sitting deans who bid for the provost's job may lose credibility in the eyes of their staff if their names are made public. Yet past experience with job searches has demonstrated that the need to attract a diverse pool of candidates does not warrant the University's secrecy. Candidates did not shun the housing director search knowing that they would be subjected to public scrutiny. Simi- larly, would-be provosts must realize that the job entails frequent criticism from the staff and public. The provost must make unpopular decisions. If applicants cannot withstand the public spotlight in interviews and otherphases of the job search, they have no business seek- ing the position. While closed searches are perfectly legal -except in the case of presidential job hunts - conducting such processes in private di- minishes the public's oversight role in public institutions. Ultimately this erodes public con- fidence in their governmental institutions - and justifiably so. The provost'sjob is one of great power and responsibility. The provost shapes the University's academic life to a great degree. He or she should be selected not in a closed- door search, but through a process that in- volves all members of the University commu- nity. m I% I? * ~ Don't blame the Republicans Wanted: a vision Democrats must find new appeal for voters W ith one day of the 104th e CongresscompleteTh credit must be extended where Con itis due. Ending proxy voting, Second of a s allowing for more honest budgeting, stream- lining committees and eliminating the con- gressional exemption for a number of federal laws are all long overdue reforms. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) de- serves praise for ushering these rule changes forthrightly and immediately through the new Congress. 4But lest observers be fooled, these are mostly nonpartisan issues. The Democratic majority it the House passed much of the exact same legislation in the 103rd Congress, only to see it filibustered at the hands of Senate Republi- cans. Hypocrisy, it seems, has become a win- ning political strategy. The Democrats exer- gised some hypocrisy of their own on the first (y of the new Congress, vociferously object- ihg to the closed rule the Republican leader- pip invoked on their first vote as the majority. Yet what Democrats didn't object to was the 40 years of closed rules their own leadership iiposed on the Congress - closed rules that enbittered the opposition and led to the fierce infighting that soured the nation's mood to- ward elected officials. Not that the Democratic resistance to closed tiles was at all surprising - the majority and minority will always engage this sort of jock- eying for legislative position. But in the bigger pcture, it clearly demonstrates that Democrats op Capitol Hill still don't get it: the country wants leadership, not partisan bickering. Fo- cusing on the closed rule was in many ways a imask, covering what could increasingly be ( scribed as an intellectual vacuum on the side of congressional Democrats. As Gingrich pointed out in his first address Teri 104th fought to end segregation, and 1res the New Dealers brought a ! S country teetering on the edge ies of disaster to salvation. The past, however, can only win so many elec- tions. The Democrats must advance an inclu- sive vision of the future that couples intellec- tual honesty and a swallowing of bitter politi- cal pills with a defense of working and young people. From its outset, the Clinton administration has thrown bone after bone to big business. After the 1993 budget deal, and especially after the failure of health care reform, the administration turned to a new tactic: trying to out-Republican the Republicans. The presi- dent tried to preempt the Republicans on crime by passing the crime bill; more recently, he has put forth a middle-class tax cut more friendly to working families than the Repub- lican tax cut. But at every turn, the administra- tion has failed to build trust among the Ameri- can electorate, advocating feel-good solutions that ignore tough choices on entitlements and fail to provide real savings for the middle class Clinton proposes to represent. Perhaps a winning strategy for the future would be to embrace Labor Secretary Robert Reich's strategy of attacking "corporate wel- fare." Perhaps the administration should adopt a strategy that looks to the future, joining courageous people like Sen. Bob Kerrey (D- Nebraska) in recommending ways to save the future of entitlements. While the exact course Democrats should take can be debated, what is clear is that they should not simply accept the GOP agenda and try to one-up it. Instead, they need to present real alternatives - alter- natives that will not allow orphanages, do not take away benefits from the disabled and the indigent and do not make it harderfor working Deny Hill his martyrdom To the Daily: For those of you who wish to categorize me, I am against the death penalty, against kill- ing doctors who provide abor- tion services and, except in un- usual circumstances, against abortion. Let's start with that last one. I am against the "my body, my choice" mentality. A develop- ing organism with a full human genetic code is probably hu- man. To my knowledge, all of the cells of my body, with the exception of my gametes, have the same chromosome struc- ture. There might be unusual cases in which an abortion is necessary. To tell the truth, I haven't made up my mind on that one. Though I do not have the statistics to prove it, I have the feeling that the vast major- ity of abortions are probably forms of retroactive birth con- trol for sexually irresponsible partners. I do not deny the dif- ficulties that accompany an unplanned pregnancy. It is a time when love and support, not condemnation and aban- donment, are especially called for. In spite of my views on abor- tion, the gunning down of health professionals deeply saddens me. I empathize with the goal of protecting the unborn, but a holy war is definitely not the way to go about it. Jesus taught compassion and peace, not mili- tarism. These religious fanatics are misguided and corrupt the essence of the pro-life move- ment. Anyone with strong con- victions and a firearm is dan- gerous. I am also against the death penalty. I believe it is cruel and unusual punishment, and there are also economic and deter- rent issues to consider. How- ever, in Paul Hill's case, there is an even more compelling rea- son to grant astay of execution. Killing Hill is giving him ex- actly what he wants: martyr- dom. Paul Hill killed, convinced that he was doing the right thing. Unfortunately, a frightening number of people agree with him. I am sure that if Paul Hill was released, he would kill again. But if Hill is executed, even more lives will bejeopar- dized. Hill did not kill just to halt the abortions performed in one clinic. Hill committed mur- der for the same reason that he thinks the Messiah went to Jerusalem: in orderto die. Hill's To the Daily: I am sick and tired of hear- ing and reading about how Re- publicans are responsible for every single problem that ei- ther exists in America today, has existed in the past or will exist 50 years in the future. Arwulf Arwulf of WCBN FM stated in his letter to the Daily: "And now, with Repub- licans seizing poweronce again, we can lookforward to a lot more of (hate). Hate makes America great. And what goes around comes around." ("Rac- ist e-mail from Buckley," 12/9/ 94) Could we possibly be a little more close-minded here. While we're at it, let's blame the Republicans for the extinc- tion of dinosaurs. Get real. In Economics 201, we have learned about the fallacy of ergo propter hoc. Just because two things exist, does not mean one is responsible for causing the other. Likewise, just because there are Republicans and hate present in America today, does not mean that the Republicans are responsible for all hate in America. Some people may cite the recent College Republican fly- ers to argue that statement. Fine. I'm a Republican and, frankly, I find the flyers to be ignorant and I know many other Repub- licans who would agree with me. The members of that orga- nization do not, by any means, represent an accurate cross sec- tion of Republicans in America today. Many have also claimed that Republicans are respon- sible for the health care situa- tion in America today. Not likely. Consider these facts before you criticize: 1) Demo- crats have been in control of Congress for the past 40 years and only realized that a prob- lem existed two years ago. 2) None of the health care plans that were presented, including the Clinton Health Reform Bill and Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America," are able to cover the increasing cost of Medicare and Medicaid. Imple- menting either plan would have quickly become a budget night- mare for America. I could comment for hours usingexamples similarto these. All that I ask, is that people think about statements before they make sweeping judgments of people. After all, we're sup- posed to be doing what's best for America, not squandering time trashing the opposing po- litical party. James Winshcel LSA first-year student New Year's Eve: an American tradition After-twenty years of spending New Year's Eve in the eastern United States, I rang in 1995 last week in San Diego. They celebrate the holiday pretty much the same way over there, except they do it three hours later, because of the exchange rate. Pretty much around the coun- try, in fact, New Year's Eve is celebrated in the same way. First you sit down and make your New year's resolutions ("No more vom- iting on the cat this year") and then you go out and do the traditional New Year's activities (vomiting on the cat). People walk around the streets at all hours of the night with one goal in mind: hooting. In every corner of the country, people hoot. "Whoooooooo-hoooooooo! !"they hoot. It's like a construction worker's convention. Along with all that fun hooting - let's face it, we all enjoy a good hoot once in a while - comes the wealth of useless party favors on New Year's Eve. Silly hats. Con- fetti. Walk around with these things for the first 364 days of the year, and people will ship you right to an insane asylum (which, take my word for it, is not fun). But on New Year's nothing is too dumb to bring to a party. Everything is accept- able. One big reason why everything is acceptable is that most people are too drunk to know the differ- ence. After you have had a few beers, even Rush Limbaugh looks OK. He still sounds like a complete idiot, but he looks OK. Much is made of "getting offon the right foot," and "starting off on the right track" and "getting off on the right track," in the new year. The inherent problem is that the new year is generally started off with a hangover. So as soon as you wake up to start the new year, you're in trouble. But the drinking is not the part of the holiday that is played up in the media. No, the media take a more traditional approach to the holiday. For example, the media often make mention of "Auld Lang Syne." This only appears in the print media, largely because no- body knows how to pronounce it. In fact, most people don't even know what this phrase means (loosely translated from the Scotch, it means "Ohhhh, what a head- ache"). Television takes more of a "hu- man-interest approach," also known as the "wimp approach." Forexample, one ofTV's tradi- tions surrounding New Year's Day is the celebrated "first baby of the new year." Local television sta- tions joyfully do features on babies born just after the stroke of mid- night. The baby's parents proudly talk to the reporters about their proud accomplishment of having the first proud baby of the new. year.. "We're very proud," says one proudly. "Extremely proud," says the other, extremely proudly. Proud? Of what? Is giving birth on Jan.1 any more impressive than giving birth on any other day of the year? Except for the fact that on Jan. 1 women give birth with a hangover, there's no real differ- ence. Yet the parents somehow feel they should beprouderon New Year's Day. It's like a husband turned to a wife some day in late March and 91 0 Review does not support hate To the Daily: In a recent letter ("Racist e- mail from Buckley," 12/9/94), Arwulf Arwulf accuses the Michigan Review of espous- ing racist views and links the publication to a nationwide movement of hate. These irre- sponsibleclaims are unsubstan- tiated, untrue, and have no ba- sis in reality. The Michigan Review champions the principles of lib- erty and individualism. The paper views collectivism - any form of group "rights" or group identity - as being det- rimental to a free society, for it will lead to economic ineffi- ciency as well as a general lack of respect for the individual and individual rights. Racism is simply one form of collec- tivism, and we at the Review reject it. The Serpent's Tooth sec- tion of the Review is one of the most popular in the paper. It presents a humorous, satirical, and, as its name implies, sharp criticism of the hypocrisy and stupidity that is present on both the left and the right. It does not advocate or condone racist views, and I challenge Arwulf to prove otherwise. Furthermore, the Michigan Review is an independent, stu- dent-run publication. It is not affiliated in any way with Wil- liam F. Buckley, Jr. or National Review Magazine. We at the Michigan Review are proud of our articulate and intellectual defense of classical liberal philosophy and policy. It is unfortunate, especially in this university setting, that some on both the left and the right choose instead to engage in name-calling and demagogu- ery. If Arwulf opposes the prin- ciples of individualism and lib- erty, he would be better to cri- tique these principles rather than defame their messenger. James A. Roberts LSA junior Managing Editor, The Michigan Review 0