4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, December 3, 1997 fe £tihbigzn ?&iilg 420 Maynard Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan JOSH WHITE Editor in Chief ERIN MARSH Editorial Page Editor Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. FROM THE DAILY Rock the vote " NOTABLE QUOTABLE, 'Wanting to educate the community was one of our main goals. We had no idea where it would take us when we first started.' -LSA senior Lisa Goldman, a member ofAllianceforAIDSAwareness, referring to the group's planning process for Monday's World AIDS Day JORDAN YOUUNG N.U ,. - TiTIX ~ '4~.J MSA voter turnout can still be higher W hile 88 percent of the University stu- dent body neglected to cast ballots for the recent Michigan Student Assembly election, voter turnout reached an all-time high. The increase, while commendable, only brought voter turnout to 12 percent - a staggeringly low number of students. MSA must work to increase voter participa- tion by continuing the option of online vot- ing and working toward informing the stu- dent body about MSA. Many students have no clue what MSA is, what it does or why it exists. The hun- dreds of flyers that appear in hallways, classrooms and bulletin boards during MSA elections do little to raise awareness. Many students kick aside the torn-down signs, complain about the waste of paper and go about their business. When stopped on the Diag by candidates reminding students to "get out and vote," many politely nod and go about their business, yet some are left wondering "what is MSAT" To increase voter turnout, MSA must inform the student body about its role in campus life. The MSA Webpage, which let students vote online, certainly helped boost voter turnout. On the site, candidates were able to post personal statements and party plat- forms. But many candidates failed to take part in the effort. While the site exists to inform students, without candidate partici- pation it cannot reach its maximum poten- tial. On the downside of adding online vot- ing, MSA decreased the number of paper polling sites. If MSA's goal was to make voting easier and more accessible to stu- dents, the decrease in polling sites did just the opposite. While the Website provided alternative accessibility, eliminating certain polling sites decreased student options. The election results also shine a light on the preferential treatment that MSA gives to the colleges of LSA and Engineering. Education, Music, Public Health and Kinesiology MSA candidates each won with a point total of less than 30 apiece. The School of Natural Resources did not even run a candidate. Jeffrey Holzhausen won the Public Health seat with a point total of two. These low numbers may be a result of MSA's tendency to focus the bulk of its attention on bigger schools. To boost voter turnout, MSA must begin to concern them- selves with the needs of all students. While MSA can take measures to increase voter participation, students are not helpless. University students must inform themselves about MSA and each party's candidates and then get out and vote. Twelve percent represents a pathetically low number, especially for a student body that has been known in the past for its activism. During the spring MSA elections, students must break the apathetic Generation X stereotype, get to a polling site and cast an informed vote. MSA elections are a two-way street. Students must take an active role, yet MSA must also provide the means for students to do so. Until a majority of the student body take the time to vote, MSA has a long way to go. E4~~~Th~HA kJ;&ij~ic oATS 0-,r LETTERS TO THE EDITOR In Young's memory The late mayor was a visionary leader Many suburbanites never understood his blunt, angry words and confronta- tional demeanor, but he was what Detroit needed: a strong mayor for a politically tumultuous era. Former Mayor Coleman Young was a fighter, a man who tirelessly devoted his life to the struggle for civil rights and a father figure and hero for a generation of black Detroiters. His decisions were often brash and controversial, but he permanently etched his legacy into the history of Michigan's largest city. When Young retired, blacks outnumbered whites on the Detroit police force three to two, and city contracts gave minority firms more than $125 million per year in business. In 1974, before Mayor Young stormed into office, statistics were not so encouraging. Less than one in 10 Detroit police officers were black, and many black Detroiters feared law enforcement officials who were, at best, out of touch, and often brutally racist. Young centered his first mayoral cam- paign around ending the vigilante behavior of the "Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets Unit," a Detroit undercover police squad designed to keep order. He passion- ately rallied ministers and other neighbor- hood leaders, blaming the squad for wanton- ly killing 22 residents, most of them black. Perhaps Young's greatest accomplishments were in the law enforcement arena - he eliminated the STRESS unit, integrated the police force and re-established trust between. Detroit's emerging black majority and the city's police officials. Young's heyday was in the late 1970s, when he leapfrogged into national promi- nence by forging strong ties with President Jimmy Carter, Republican Gov. William. Milliken and many of Detroit's most promi- nent businessmen. Young's vision for down- town yielded Hart Plaza, the Renaissance ing People Mover. But through all these successes, moving vans kept crossing Eight Mile Road and racial tensions continued to brew. In 1974, there were 714 homicides in Detroit, and the city became known worldwide as the murder capital of America. Young called on crimi- nals to hit Eight Mile, and suburbanites furi- ously criticized the late mayor for urging criminals to rob the suburbs. Young was never averse to playing the race card. But who are we to blame him? He felt racism's bite when he was denied admission .to Catholic school and while at the receiving end of police officers' blows. Through raw intelligence and unabated determination, Young overcame great odds to rise to promi- nence. Before being elected as Detroit's mayor he was the floor leader of the Michigan State Senate, and courageously testified before the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee, calling the committee's own actions "un-American.' Young never acted without critics gnaw- ing at his heels. Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said that Young "was singly responsible for the demise of Detroit." Others claimed he ignored neighborhoods in favor of his grand vision for downtown. Yet with a shrinking industrial base, money for city services had to be cut and layoffs in the police force made cracking down on crime difficult. Young did what he could, but no one could have stopped the city's fall. Young was a hero to the black communi- ty and a role model to minority youth. He was a man who never backed down from a fight, and even in his illness-plagued later years he repeatedly defied medical forecasts that gave him little chance of survival. The late mayor had his quirks and faults, but he brought pride, self-respect and hope to a community that never before had a leader Celebrating a Michigan win in handcuffs TO THE DAILY: Hello, you all probably know me. Look in the Nov. 24 sports section and you'll see a helpless individual being pressed to the ground by two wonderful police offi- cers in front of thousands of fans. Yes, that's me. I was lucky enough to celebrate the Michigan win while being handcuffed! I wanted to point out the ridiculousness of the situation. I am about 5'11" and 150 pounds. Being the animal 1 am, I was great- ly appreciative of the four cops who were nice enough to slam me into the ground and yell several expletives at me. And if that wasn't enough, I was dragged a good seven or eight yards. I know this because at the time my face was pressed into the 10-yard line hash mark while being scraped against the ground. Luckily for me, the blood only got onto the bot- tom of my pants and on my shoes. God forbid if I blood- ied a police officer. I am also glad that the four cops who were unneces- sarily assaulting me didn't bother to harass any one of the other 10,000 fans on the field at the time. I was happy to have been given all of this welcomed attention. Perhaps I would have escaped their grasp and done something "very bad" Well anyway, 1 thought the police should know that this was a job well done. Oh yeah, my two friends (who wish to remain anony- mous) would like to give shout-outs to the defenseless police officers who sprayed them with pepper spray. Way to go! JUSTIN TURKAT LSA FIRST-YEAR STUDENT Concert review was error-filled' TO THE DAILY: This letter is in response to Gabriel Smith's review of Adam Sander's concert at Hill Auditorium ("Sander disappoints with sloppy show," 11/24/97). While 1, along with many other stu- dents, would have liked the show to go on longer, I did not, in any way, feel ripped off by what I received, and neither did any of the other students I talked to. I heard all my favorites, with the two notable exceptions that the article mentioned. tain movies, is a very raunchy comedian. Just look at "Billy Madison." That movie was as raunchy and perverted as it could possibly get while still remaining at the PG-13 level. His fans like this. I am willing to bet that nearly every person who can recite "The Thanksgiving Song," also knows nearly all the words to Sander's most risque song of all, "At a Medium Pace." All of Sandler's albums and all flyers for his show bear the "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" label, and if Smith was upset or offended by what he heard, then I have no sympathy for him whatso- ever. Suffice it to say that Adam Sander is not forathe easily offended. But while my opinion is different than Smith's, that is not what prompted me to write this letter. The article was so error-filled, that I began to question if the reviewer had even heard of Sandler before, or if he even paid attention to anything the whole night. Sandler played nine songs and many of these were not even mentioned in Smith's article. The article constantly referred to "The Thanksgiving Song" and "The Hanukkah Song" as just "Thanksgiving" and "Hanukkah." Smith said that everyone knows the words to "The Thanksgiving Song," and then went on to misquote it. He stated that "What the Hell Happened to Me?" was the title track from Sander's first album, when, in fact, it is from his second. He went on to speak about "Corduroy Blues," which I heartily agree was the worst song of the show, but didn't even men- tion it by name, referring to it as "a song about fat people and human body parts." In the future, I would sug- gest that your reviewers at least make an effort to sound like they know what they are talking about, because unin- formed reviews like this one only succeed in decreasing the credibility of both the the writer and The Michigan Daily. HENRY GEHRINGER ENGINEERING JUNIOR Bring unity back to the community To THE DAILY: Although it has been many years since I was a young girl growing up in rural Louisiana, I can still remember the closeness of my community of Tank Farm Road. I remember my Aunt Lulu baking sweet potato screwed up their life. Yes, we were truly a com- munity. Times have sure changed. But have they changed for the better? Everyone is consumed with society's political issues, affirmative action, welfare reform and constructing casi- nos. Don't get me wrong; I am in no way implying that these things are not important to me, because they are. Just as important though, is the lonely elderly lady, the stressed-out single mom or dad and the confused teen- ager. Nobody has time for anyone else. Our young men are dropping out of school at an enormous rate; teen-age girls are becoming mommies way too soon, breaking their mothers' hearts and shatter- ing their dreams of growing into the young educated career women their mothers hoped for. Our backwater communi- ty knew something that many of us have forgotten - we must work together for our own common good and the future of our children. Do yourself and your community a favor. Reach out to help someone, even if it is just to say a friendly hello or a kind word. Volunteer at a local school or retirement center. Bring unity back into your community by caring and sharing. The reward will be great. CLEMINTENE BENJAMIN SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK Vote totals reflect need for change To THE DAILY: How strange. The election is over. The results are in. Did no one notice that an absurd majority of votes went to a first-year student, Sarah Chopp? This fact was men- tioned less then incidentally on page 7 of the Nov. 25 Daily. Did anyone consider that the record turnout in the fall vote may be due to the exceptional qualities of the winningest candidates? The results show it. The students want change. Students no longer want to hear empty promises of antiquated party platforms. They want real leader- ship. They want innovation. They want someone who cares. Chopp was out in the cold talking to students, hear- ing their concerns and assur- ing them that the power to change is in their hands. This is what generated such unheralded voter expression. Students want change and students voted for change. Why did the Daily fail to recognize this? Have the parties recognized this? Celebrities, penance, Crai follies and a poundofflesh R ecently I've spent a lot of time thinking about Kathie Lee Gifford. When I wake up in the morn ing I'm not listening to Drew and Mike, watch Regis and Kathie Lee, because they come on at 9 when I'm making coffee and trying to think of a rea- son to leave the house. And on one of my more charita- ble mornings 1 JAMES thought to MILLER myself, "Self, MILE Kathie Lee and ON TAP poor Frank have been raked over the coals lately for all their marital troubles. Is that really fair? 4'1 mean, most people come from families that have some kind of t ble like that in their pasts. W should Craig Kilborn make vicious jokes about them? Are they so differ- ent from the rest of America's cou- ples? Maybe Craiggers should take it easy on them." Ever since the Diana Spencer inci- dent, a lot of celebrities have been getting an attitude with the lower classes of the media about their relentless pursuit of private materijl for public consumption. The ar ment, and I'm sure Kathie Lee and every othermaligned celeb would agree, is that if they weren't public figures they wouldn't be getting any of this treatment for doing things that many of us do without the scrutiny. Does being famous warrant the kind of cruel and threateningttreatment these people get? Yes. And all of them get off lightl Think about what these people for a living. Take Kathie Lee, for example. She works for an hour a day, week- ends excluded. She has a chauffeur, nanny, cook and all the other celebr- ty perks your imagination can con- ceive. She will never have to wait in line for anything ever again, nor will she have to work hard ever again. She is stupid and she is rich. Every celebrity of sufficient mag tude so as to be mobbed by fans, gs- sip and paparazzi is gruesomely well- paid for a job that, by all reasonable accounts is fun, low-effort and idyl- lic. Now think about your sad life. Do you have enough money to fill your every desire the instant you have it? Can you afford to live where you want and drive what you want? Do people hang on your every word? 0 you get to fornicate with attractive people as a matter of birthright? Focus your hate for me, my children. These people live off our attention and groveling. They subsist on our insecurities and shortcomings. Every ugly corner of your brain that ever wanted to bed the homecoming queen or ravage das ubermensch lacrosse team captain is the reason that Fiona Apple, Jewel, The Spi Girls, Hanson, Jakob Dylan, Kath Lee and Regis spend more on black suits and sunglasses than we all make in a year. And then they come before us, perched on an altar of VH 1 and fash- ion, and spit at us. "Go away, you dumpy plebians!" they shout. "Leave the ticket money in the mailbox and get the hell out of my compound, unless you want L, and Ulf to rough you up.' Models, actors, musicians and directors of a certain rank occupy a place in the social and economic hier- archy of our country that we can't even comprehend. And they have the nerve to complain that, boo fucking hoo, the attention is putting a cramp in their lives. Madonna (don't ask me why the tart is still allowed out of Pal Beach) was on the MTV Vid Music Awards, moaning that things like the Diana Spencer incident would continue to happen unless "we get rid of our obsession with gossip and rumor." Did that thing just moralize at me? 1 don't think so, Material Wench. Shouldn't you be selling pictures of your infant daughter to "Spin?" Madonna wouldn't exist if it were' for our obsession with gossip ang~ rumor! She's not even a real person! She is gossip and rumor! Medieval Christianity used to have this great idea. The cutting of a pound of flesh from the body of sinner. would act as penance for their trans- gressions against God.