4A - The Michigan Daily - Monday, November 30, 1998
a1je ffidbtuigan Ifg
420 Maynard Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Edited and managed by
students at the
University of Michigan
LAURIE MAYK
Editor in Chief
JACK SCHILLACI
Editorial Page Editor
'It's not my inclination to say I'm going because I have
all the answers ... I see myself as more of a team person.'
- State Rep.-elect John Hansen, on how
he views his role in the coming term
CHIP CULLENGRINDING THE NIB
[MYROAG IV. ?RLJ
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
Power otfe
Philip Power worked tirelessly for the 'U'
O n Nov. 3, Michigan state citizens
voted to oust University Regent Philip
Power (D-Ann Arbor) from the seat he had
occupied in the Fleming Administration
Building for 11 years. After such a long
tenure on the University Board of Regents,
Power has had the opportunity to influence
thousands of students' lives and help shape
the direction of the University's develop-
ment. Not only is his departure detrimental
for the board's institutional knowledge, but
his history of working with students for stu-
dent concerns will be missed.
Power's father, Eugene, was elected in
1953 and served on the board for 10 years.
Philip Power first took a seat on the board
after the death of his wife, Sarah, who was
five years into her term. Then-Gov. James
Blanchard appointed Power to take the
empty seat. In 1990, Power ran for re-elec-
tion and dominated the regents' race, in
contrast to this year's election when he took
only 22 percent of the vote.
As an alumnus of the University,
Power has had a unique perspective on
administrative decisions. Among his most
notable work has been increasing the
University's use of technology transfer to
bring in additional money into the
University's coffers. Doing so helped
reduce the need for the University to
make huge tuition increases. While
Homer Neal was interim president, Power
took the initiative to rewrite part of the
Regents' Bylaws to make it easier for pro-
fessors to sell their intellectual property
- benefiting both the faculty and the
University as a whole. Regent-elect Kathy
White stressed the importance of technol-
ogy transfer during an endorsement inter-
view with The Michigan Daily; Power's
work in this area will only help future
administrative efforts.
Another of Power's greatest attributes,
especially over the latter part of his tenure,
has been his accessibility. He lives in Ann
Arbor and thus can be called on to take on
additional duties more easily. His strong
relationship with students is unique, espe-
cially since the state's regents elections
make the students' impact on the decision
as to who will control many aspects of their
lives incredibly insignificant.
Despite his strengths, Power has occa-
sionally met with controversy during his
days as regent. Relatively soon after his
appointment, Power voted in favor of depu-
tizing the Department of Public Safety,
bringing him head to head with students. In
addition, he has been party to the regents'
decisions to instate both the Code of
Student Conduct and its predecessor, the
Statement of Student Rights and
Responsibilities. These controversies mar,
to some degree, his otherwise very pro-stu-
dent record.
Given his broad experience at the
University -- as a student and a regent --
Power should remain a part of the
University community. Since the last two
elections have taken many experienced
members of the board of regents, Power's
continued contributions would be helpful.
His participation on University committees
and using his experience with the state
Legislature to lobby on behalf of the
University would make his contribution to
campus an on-going project.
Power and his family have left quite an
impression on the University's campus. His
dedication to making it a better place,
despite some bumps along the way, is
admirable and should serve as an example to
future board members and administrators.
1A1
60 OT
ANA~xi
4;A/ *
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
At the limit
Scbroer leaves the House after six years
B ecause of term limits, the state legisla-
ture will lose many veteran representa-
tives who worked diligently to serve their
constituents and improve the overall quality
of life in Michigan. Mary Schroer, who
served the 53rd District, will leave Lansing
next month after being a top advocate for
the University and boldly expressing her
views for six years.
While the political climate in the state
Legislature has gradually moved toward the
right in the past decade, Schroer has stood
by her liberal beliefs. She proposed many
bills that were struck down by her conserv-
ative colleagues, including a bill that would
mandate a parenting education curriculum
in public schools.
As a member of the House
Appropriations Committee, which allo-
cates Mfunding to all state entities along
with the state Senate and governor,
Schroer firmly supported increased fund-
ing for higher education. As a former
Washtenaw Community College and
Eastern Michigan University student,
Schroer understood the expense college
students endure and worked to keep tuition
increases at all state universities and col-
leges below the Consumer Price Index.
Schroer's quick wit and commitment to
liberal causes acted to balance the conserv-
ative politics that dominated the Legislature
during her tenure. One of her adversaries in
Lansing was state Sen. David Jaye (R-
Macomb), the relentlessly conservative leg-
islator who spearheaded one of two lawsuits
challenging the University's race-based
admissions. When Jaye, as a representative
in 1997, proposed a bill that would provide
one-way bus fare out of the state to welfare
canvassing the House floor collecting
money for a bus ticket sending Jaye out of
Michigan.
Over the past year, Schroer has been
developing a Political Action Committee
fund to support state candidates who are
against concealed weapons. Because
Schroer will be unable to fight the loom-
ing threat of concealed weapon legislation
as a representative in the upcoming terms,
she is doing her best to make sure others
can.
When Schroer was elected to the legisla-
ture in 1992, she had not yet served in an
elected office. Through hard work and per-
severance, she learned the ropes of an often
complex job.
Schroer's dedication to policy began
when she was active in the Ann Arbor
Parents and Teachers Organization. Her
commitment was noticed, and she was hired
as a legislative aide to former state Sen.
Lana Pollack.
Schroer, an Ohio native, understands
the concerns and problems of working-
and middle-class people. She was forced
to drop out of Eastern Michigan University
when she became pregnant with twin
daughters.
Now that her term is about to expire
Schroer plans to continue her education and
earn a bachelors degree at Eastern
Michigan University in January.
But Schroer is not abandoning public
service altogether. In November, she was
elected to the Washtenaw County
Community College Board of Trustees.
Although it will not be as high profile as
her previous job, it will allow her to contin-
ue her mission of improving public educa-
Name of
holiday was
misspelled
To THE DAILY:
I've been reading the
Daily since my undergradu-
ate days. It has always been a
source of amusement and
information. Unfortunately,
the current Daily staff seems
to be too preoccupied with
the politically correct
spelling of Hawai'i to check
any of the other facts in the
paper. Reading through the
article by Jaimie Winkler
entitled "Foreign students to
join in holiday," (11/25/98)I
couldn't help but notice that
Guy Fawkes Day (see
American Heritage
Dictionary 2nd Collegiate
Edition, Webster's 9th New
Collegiate Dictionary, etc.) is
misspelled as "Guy Faux
Day" throughout the article.
If the Daily can't find a
qualified fact checker to put
on the staff, perhaps it should
invest in a good dictionary or
encyclopedia. Some things
you just can't leave to the
spell-checker. Go Blue!
PETER ANDERSON
UNIVERSITY ALUMNUS
U' offers
sign language
this summer
To THE DAILY:
Last year, the Daily was
generous enough to do an
article on the rejection of a
proposal on offering
American Sign Language
here at the University. Due to
that article, tremendous stu-
dent support for this class
came crawling out of the
woodwork.
At the beginning of the
semester, I heard that the
Daily wanted to do an update
on the progress. The agree-
ment made by the Dean of
Academic Affairs (Dean
Lincoln Faller, who has since
resigned from the position)
and the American Culture
department was that the
course was going to be
offered by Fall 1999, by the
American Culture department
for Fall 1999, and would ful-
fill the four-semester foreign
language requirement.
I've been working with
the new dean of Academic
Affairs (Robert Owen and his
assistant, Douglas Shapiro)
and the American Culture
department to make sure that
this happens. Recently, I got
an update. Owen let me know
that they were not able to
find a professor to teach and
are not offering the class in
the fall, as originally
promised two years ago.
They've had two years to
complete their end and this
class won't be offered as ini-
tiall nr _;nic
learning more about this, I
will be more than happy to
refer them to members of the
Hearing Impaired Student
Organization, who have been
fighting for the privilege and
right to learn the third most
spoken language in the coun-
try. Thank you for your time,
and if you have any ques-
tions, please don't hesitate to
contact me.
RACHEL ARFA
LSA JUNIOR
Animal
research is
necessary
To THE DAILY:
Reading the letters section
of the Daily on Nov. 24, I was
in disbelief at the blatantly
inaccurate statements mrade
about animal research
("Animal research is problem-
atic"). The person who wrote
the letter, Tiiu Ruben, has
obviously never set foot in a
real research lab. And from his
statements, he clearly knows
nothing about the physiology,
immunology and biochemical
aspects of any organisms.
His first statement was
that because animals are
incompatible with humans,
research based on them is
counterproductive. This is
wrong. Without getting into
too many medical explana-
tions, realize that all those
therapeutic and preventative
drugs out there on the market
that have been tested and
derived solely on animals,
work on humans.
How can this be? Well,
even mice have enough of the
basic cellular and physiologic
systems in common with us
that drugs that work on them
work on us. This applies to
drugs ranging from Tylenol
to AIDS medications.
Ruben also mentions that
because animals are studied in
artificial environments, the
result of experiments are inac-
curate because of confound-
ing variables. This statement
proves to me that Ruben has
never set foot in a real lab.
Research animals are kept in
germ-free environments,
drinking purified water, eating
bacteria-free food and breath-
ing highly filtered air. If this
were not done, how could a
researcher be sure that the
results, especially when doing
immunological experiments,
were not impacted by some
roving virus. The whole rea-
son that the environments are
artificial is to prevent con-
founds - it most certainly
does not create them.
Ruben goes on to suggest
that cell, tissue and organ
culture systems can ade-
quately replace animal
research. For anyone who is
curious about the accuracy of
this statement, just run it by
any professor who does med-
ica rrch 2.and dn't be
you have any ideas, let the
medical community of the
world know and they will be
oh-so-grateful.
KEVIN FAJARDO
SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
Diplomacy
can settle
conflict in Iraq
To THE DAILY:
This is in reply to Joel
Haas's letter ("U.S. should
not be afraid to attack Iraq,"
11/19/98) regarding
America's current foreign
policy problem child - a
man by the name of Saddam
Hussein who just happens to
sit in power in Iraq.
Now as someone who, like
the French, would much
rather try and find a diplomat-
ic avenue in this situation
however frustrating it may
seem to get, I am actually a
little frightened by the tone of
Haas's letter. It reflects an atti-
tude that is much more dan-
gerous to both sides than try-
ing to seek a workable diplo-
matic pathway. That attitude
might be described as "trigger
happiness." We should always
seek an excuse not to use that
massive miliary machine that
we possess rather than contin-
ue a rather unintelligent but
distinctly American foreign
policy version of the temper
tantrum - in relative terms,
we are a young nation, and
sometimes we act like it.
Admittedly, Saddam's
behavior is frustrating, even
for the diplomatic corps.
Further, I don't think that
anyone didn't expect him to
"play," if you will, with the
situation in which he finds
himself. He demands, as we
know, that the sanctions
against Iraq be rescinded.
The United States' demands
are that we get to monitor
and inspect possible weapons
manufacturing areas in Iraq.
Well, Saddam won't let us
see everything, and we have
not been satisfied enough to
lift those sanctions. It's a
painfully slow diplomatic
effort, yes, with both sides
wanting the last word and
both sides trying to exercise
control of international poli-
cy in their own favor. I may
be an optimist, but I think
that even this hill can be
climbed somehow, and we
now have to work on the
"somehow."
I personally will not toler-
ate the "line in the sand"
behavior that Haas purports. I
will not give up in the face of
seeming utter frustration, and
I refuse to fire a weapon until
there is sufficient justifica-
tion, which does not include a
Middle Eastern leader who is
simply being what most
Americans might call a jerk. I
do not make the decisions to
fire, but I do know that firing
withn,,hi;,, nc,.. .,,ha
Dealing with
the new school
activist
p rotesters and activists are playing
dirty these days. They're out in the
streets and in your face, flouting the
unwritten rules of decency that had for
years accompanied public protest.
Back in the good old days, the tac*
tics of special interest groups centered
almost solely
around discourse
as protesters armed
themselves with
only facts, reason
and logic to win
public support. But >
:"::"".
tat ws o scoo
modern protester
has a new weapon:
explicit gore.
When Dr. Jack SUNTE
Kevorkian's video- HUNTER
tape of the lit' ' Ht t
euthanasia of 'u' 3
Thomas Youk aired on CBS's "60
Minutes" last week, the pro-assisted
suicide movement's vanguard activist
enrolled in the new school of activism,
using graphic and explicit images to
gain public support for his cause. D
Death's calculated spectacle achieved
part of its purpose: Americans who sat
riveted to their television sets that
night were consumed by emotion at
the sight of the terminally ill patient's
death.
But Jack is not alone in his use of
graphic media to persuade the public.
Almost immediately after the broad-
cast of the Thomas Youk euthanasia,
the Urban Family Council, a pro-fa
ly group, demanded that CBS and it
Philadelphia affiliate KYW-TV air an
83-second videotape of a doctor per-
forming a partial-birth abortion.
If these activists get their way,
Americans watching prime-time tele-
vision will soon be assaulted with
explicit images of the late-term abor-
tion procedure as the group continues
its crusade. And let's face it: Just about
any kind of medical procedure 741
abortion or not - is guaranteed to
turn America's stomach.
Even during a trip to Boston last
week, I was appalled to see protesters
on highways and in teeming shopping
areas displaying images of the oozing
corpse of a furless mink, with nothing
other than the word "fur" printed on
the sign. Other protesters held posters
with crisp pictures of purple aborted
fetuses slathered in blood and amniot-
ic f lu i d . t 'd
"Abortion," the signs simply read.
Though each of these campaigns may
ignite controversy over a different
topic, all of them have one common
thread: None of them make any effort
to appeal to America's intellect.
Instead, they bypass America's head
and go straight for its stomach with
grisly images.
Such gruesome pictures are rarel
pleasant and are invariably disturbing,
but gory images and shock tactics
don't provide a sound basis for deci-
sion-making. Activists - including
Kevorkian - must be more responsi-
ble in their campaigning by presenting
balanced, reasonable arguments and
leaving the carnage in morgues and
hospitals, where it belongs.
No one can deny the power of
graphic images in swaying public
opinion. Just look at how incense
Americans have become over video
tapes of nursing home abuse and
police brutality. Though the video-
tapes in no way change the facts
underlying the issues, they can cause
the public to simmer with emotion --
and to forget to look at issues rational-
ly. Activists know this; that's why they
use the tactic.
For example, a proposal - that was
eventually killed - floated through,
the legislature about a year ago that
would have required medical profes-
sionals to show graphic photographs
of abortions to mothers considering
the procedure. Much of the reason the
bill died is that legislators saw it as a
shameless attempt to use a fleeting
moment of emotion to influence a
decision that would affect the rest of a
woman's life. If abortion opponents
want women to refuse abortions, they
should convince the women - no*
scare them.
What's at issue here is not the
morality or ethics underlying abortion,
the fur trade or assisted suicide, but
the means many activists use to secure
our support. It appears that the various
propagandists would much rather have
our support than our thorough belief in
the causes they champion. And this is
dangerous.
If we make laws or change protocol*
based on temporary torrents of emo-
tion and later realize that our decisions
were irrational, we have little means of
rectification. Once laws have been
enacted, they are next to impossible to
repeal.
If activists must come at us with