4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, March 15, 2000
(lw tiigan HIlg
Census 2000: prying and trying to make sense of us
420 Maynard Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
daily. letters@umich.edu
Edited and managed by
students at the
University of Michigan
MIKE SPAHN
Editor in Chief
EMILY ACHENBAUM
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
refict the opinion of The Michigan Daily.
Undergraduate work at LSI will benefit all
n case you haven't received notice yet,
Census 2000 kicks into high gear this
week. Answer this question to see if you're
ready for it. What is the method for taking
the census?
Option one: You fill out a survey the gov-
ernment sends you and send it back.
Option two: At
some point this weeka
all the fire alarms in
the country will go off
simultaneously. Every
citizen will then pro-
ceed outside and line
up single file while a
census worker goes
down the line, tapping
each person on the
head in rapid succes-
sion as he or she
counts, to make sure David
everyone's there. Peo- Wallace
ple talking receive
detention. Exile on
No, you don't have Maynard St
any lifelines left. The __
answer is option one.
But like you, I see the appeal of option two.
However, it's too late for that.
Most of the population receives its form
between March 13 and March 22. Knowing
how much the public likes telling the govern-
ment how much money it makes, the census
braintrust launched an aggressive advertising
campaign using.Sopranos-like subtlety. You
may have seen some of these commercials.
In one ad, a distraught couple looks on as
the local fire department struggles with what
I believe is a manual water pump mounted
on a horse-drawn carriage. Failing to draw
enough water, the firefighters give up as the
house burns to the ground. A smug
voiceover says, "Oops, forgot to fill out the
census. Don't leave it blank." The obvious
moral of the story is that your census form is
made, of paper, which constitutes a fire haz-
ard if left lying around. Also, the advertise-
ment threatens that not filling out the census
may cause your community to lose federal
funding and revert to an 1850s infrastructure.
In another, we observe the clotted halls of
Any Public School until we arrive at a broom
closet. The closet's door opens, revealing a
class of 15 students and a teacher.
The message is simple: If you're a janitor
and you don't fill out the census, you might
be out of a job. I think it's tailored to a little
too specific a population, but I'm not paid to
make these kinds of decisions.
Clearly, the Census Bureau desperately
wants everyone to take them seriously and
wait at the mailbox for the form to arrive.
One suggestion to increase participation
that it explored and rejected was to make
the census into a sweepstakes. I'm a little
worried over what that says about us as a
country.
In all seriousness, I think the census is
important and everyone should fill it out. But
if you didn't trust the government before,
I'm a bit alarmed if you'll sell out the family
to the government for a chance at a Cuisi-
nart.
At any rate, the Census Bureau, syndicate,
whatever, might as well stick with the bully-
ing ads. I suggest taking them a step further
with the slogan, "Census 2000: Fill it out
early and fill it out often.'
Which brings us to actually filling out the
census.
The questions always serve as a source of
controversy. For example, Libertarians main-
tain that you only need to answer the ques-
tion regarding the number of people in the
household, per the constitution. So Bill
Maher, Dennis Miller and your crazy eighth-
grade shop teacher likely will hand in mostly
blank surveys.
For the record, the Census Bureau asserts
that every question is required by law and if
they have to, I think they'll crack skulls.
The census is a pretty short task, at least
for most of us. The standard census form has
only seven basic questions. A lucky one in
six of us (there' s your sweepstakes) gets a
long form, asking more personal questions.
Of course, some of these questions make
people pretty nervous.
I'm only quoting rumor here, but I believe
the following are some of the questions.
People in the house?
Party people in the house?
How much money do you make?
What is your PIN number?
Are you a citizen of the United States?
Would you tell us if you weren't?
What sex are you?
Are you sure?
How many bowel movements do you have
per day? If more than four, do not answer.
Do you watch Public Television? (The
question lacks a "yes" answer).
Are you still using drugs?
Personally, I don't see the need for most of
these questions, and I'm scared to know how
they all relate. But they are government man-
dated, so if you're not a Libertarian, be a
good citizen and fill them out.
-David Wallace can be reached via
e-mail at davidmw@umich.edu.
TENTATIVELY SPEAKING
W hen the University's new Life
Sciences Institute opens a few
years from now, many students will
have the opportunity to become
involved in a new approach to the sci-
ences. A committee consisting of Uni-
versity faculty, graduate student
instructors and undergraduate students
is working out an interdisciplinary pro-
gram for first-year students interested
in the life sciences, with courses in
such fields as molecular biology, learn-
ing and behavioral sciences and com-
parative genomics. Each course will
accommodate 70 to 80 students and be
taught by three professors simultane-
ously. This could be a wonderful
opportunity to give to undergraduate
students, and LSI should carry the pro-
ject further.
The LSI should make an effort to
expand research opportunities for
undergraduates. While the LSI will and
should be focused on graduate students,
undergraduates should also have a
chance to be involved in scientific
research. The University has traditional-
ly been a strong research institution;
programs such as UROP have given
undergrads a chance,to gain experience
with the research aspect of the Universi-
ty. The inception of the LSI could create
more chances for undergrads to broaden
their experience.
It is also important that undergradu-
ate programs at the LSI are reasonably
substantial. While having a few courses
for first-year students is all well and
good, undergrad involvement should be
more expansive than that. The Universi-
ty and the LSI should look beyond insti-
tuting token courses, and give
undergraduates a chance to make use of
the University's vast resources.
Although the LSI will focus largely on
graduate education, it will be beneficial
to everyone if all students have an
opportunity to have a part in scientific
research. The opening of the LSI will be
a worthy addition to the University's
research community; all students should
have the chance to be involved.
THOMAS KULJURGIS
Life begins at birth
Late term abortions should not be restricted
G ov. John Engler and his anti-choice
allies have lost the most recent bat-
tle in their crusade to limit women's
access to safe, legal abortions. The latest
round ended when a federal judge
declared the Infant Protection Act uncon-
stitutional due to vagueness.
We wholeheartedly agree with the
court's decision and urge it to strike
down any and all laws that would put any
restriction on a woman's right to choose.
At the same time, it is obvious that
pro-lifers will continue to pursue their
agenda through contrived laws, misinfor-
mation and outright lies. It is critical that
people understand these tactics and the
issues at the heart of the abortion debate.
The Infant Protection Act was a per-
fect example of legislators trying to cir-
cumvent Roe v Wade. Doctors who
killed a fetus that had been partially
removed from a woman's body and
either breathed, moved or had a heart-
beat would have faced penalties of up to
life in prison and a $50,000 fine under
the law. The law contained an exception
for cases where a woman's life was in
danger but had no such clause for a
woman whose pregnancy endangered her
health.
The law would have effectively pro-
hibited most women from obtaining
abortions after eight weeks of pregnancy.
The Infant Protection Act had classist
and ageist elements to it as well. It would
have especially limited the options of
poor women since it often takes more
than eight weeks for them to come up
with enough money to pay for abortion
procedures. There is currently a ban on
state-financed Medicaid abortions. The
law would have also limited teens' access
to abortion disproportionately, since
teens are likely to be more indecisive
about abortion and it can often take
weeks for a teen to realize she's pregnant.
The absence of a clause that would
exempt a woman whose pregnancy is a
danger to her health would also have
forced women to carry to term pregnan-
cies that could leave them infertile, or
extremely sick.
Anti-choice arguments vary in
degrees of sophistication, but they gener-
ally begin with the premise that all peo-
ple are entitled to a set of rights, one of
which is the right to life - a right that
supercedes all other rights.
So when a woman's right to liberty
and a fetus's right to life come into con-
flict, the fetus's right to life "wins" over
the woman's right to choose what to do
with her body. Thus, abortion should be
illegal. The problem with this argument
is that a fetus has no rights because it is
not a complete person, if it is a person at
all.
State Sen. Joel Gougeon (R-Bay
City), who supported the Infant Protec-
tion Act, told the Detroit News that his
eventual goal is to force the Supreme
Court to define when life begins.
By answering people like Gougeon,
the Court could put an end to much of
the dangerous anti-choice legislation that
unnecessarily clogs the lower courts. The
Supreme Court should conclude that
"life," in the legally and morally relevant
sense, or "personhood" begins no earlier
than when a fetus is born entirely. Even
at the most advanced stages of pregnan-
cy, a fetus possesses only one of the
uniquely human characteristics that make
something a person - that it is biologi-
cally human.
But even very young persons are more
than just organisms with a certain body
structure - they are self-aware, think
rationally, have a moral compass, feel
complex emotions, communicate, etc. If
we accept this definition of a "person"
then the pro-life argument - that biolog-
ical humanness is the only relevant char-
acteristic of "personhood" - ceases to
appear as self-evident as pro-lifers would
like to believe.
A legal standard of "life" beginning at
birth would not lead society down a path
towards legal infanticide as some pro-lif-
ers would contend. Rather, since the vast
majority, if not all of the other uniquely
human characteristics besides biological
humanness start to develop simultane-
ously after birth it would be arbitrary for
the courts to pick a time when an infant's
faculties have developed to a point where
it becomes a "person."
By defining the beginning of life as a
live medical birth, the Supreme Court
could make it significantly harder for
anti-choice pundits to sneak laws restrict-
ing access to abortion into the books. Not
only do these laws erode a fundamental
right for women, they prevent legitimate
cases from being heard in the court sys-
tem. In the meantime, everyone sympa-
thetic to women's right to abortion
should continue to fight all laws aimed at
blocking abortion without guilt and on-
demand.
Minimum wage
hike hurts small
businesses
TO THE DAILY:
The editorial "Cheap Move" (3/f4/00)
badly misjudges the implications of a mini-
mum wage hike to small businesses. Also, it
disregards the positive steps taken by the
Congress to reduce the excessive and
unneeded estate tax. My parents' small busi-
ness, a 100-head dairy farm, will be greatly
affected by both provisions of the 2000 mini-
mum wage bill.
Currently employing one full time worker
and three high school students earning near
minimum wage, labor costs are crucial to our
farm's yearly income. Raising the minimum
wage obviously increases labor costs, but it
also means that the business owner must pay
that much more in social security taxes to the
government. For years, farming families have
inherited debts when loved ones die because
of the excessively high estate tax. Like our
government, most farms operate with a huge
debt. Farmers can only retire when they
believe that selling the farm can cover that
debt.
Whie it may seem that the estate tax is
irrelevant to businesses, at least one very
important industry is happy to see it reduced.
i would like to remind the Daily that the
world extends far beyond the University, and
that while some government actions may
seem trivial they may have far reaching
affects on someone in our nation. Although
less than one percent of the population owns
a farm, these (mostly) small businesses feed
the world. Eventually, the expenses facing
them will cost you at the grocery market.
KEN MASCHKE
ENGINEERING SOPHOMORE
MSA is like a 'prom
committee'
TO THE DAILY:
As we head into yet another Michigan
Student Assembly election, students have
probably noticed the names of the so-called
candidates plastered all over campus. Yet,
the common student must wonder: What is
MSA and why are the candidates crying for
votes? The answer is: MSA is an attempt at
a prom committee which stinks of represen-
tatives trying to pack their resumes for
law/business school (you know who you
are). While new parties emerge from time
to time, it is the same old story year in year
out - no significant repeal of the oppres-
sive Code of Student Conduct, no improve-
ments in campus parking, no tuition freeze
and no significant dialogue with the admin-
istration (the purpose of a student govern-
ment). Students must also wonder: Why
was there no advertisement by MSA urging
students to get involved with campus poli-
tics? Most likely, current MSA representa-
tives want to keep the number of candidates
low to reduce competition to increase the
chances of their buddies to get elected.
Sadly, many students are also unaware
this government confiscates over $10 of
their haelerndmnnev to icnianer it at
ITHESt & ASMIIRE PRV
~CARY LW~ELY. ..
OUT A PAYME'4T
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In this and every election, MSA should
create an issue-based campaign of sub-
stance with weekly debates/town hall meet-
ings -- to transform the assembly from a
resume-packing prom committee into a
diverse marketplace of ideas.
ScOTr BEHNAN
LSA SOPHOMORE
Anti-semitic play
should not have
been advertised
TO THE DAILY:
The anti-Jewish bias of the Oberammer-
gau Passion Play has been criticized by the
American Jewish Committee and by leading
Catholic and Protestant scholars. Historically,
the play, performed in Oberammergau every
ten years for the past 360 years, incited viru-
lent anti-semitism. It boggles my mind that
the University Alumni, Association would
advertise a trip to see the play without at least
mentioning in the travel literature the serious
criticism the play has received worldwide ...
(and by extension, the conscious efforts
American play-givers have striven to try to
present the event as less damning and anti-
semitic).
I realize that the University Alumni travel
opportunities are not funded by our dues, but
the close association of the University, as well
as the participation of a University Professor,
is troubling. I would hope that Residential
College Prof. Martin W. Walsh who will be
accompanying the Alumni Association of the
University Millennium Passion Play trip to
Obermmergau, Innsbruck, Bolzano and
Rome in September, intends to address the
issue of anti-semitism in his lectures. I find
the offering of such a trip to the University
Alumni community disappointing.
MARCY FISHER
UNIVERSITY ALUMNUS
Jurgies should have
criticized Zionism
TO THE DAILY:
It is most appalling to read the statements
mechanism by which the Israeli state came
into existence in 1948, and how more than
750,000 native inhabitants of Palestine
became refugees to make room for Jewish
immigrants and for a new Jewish state named
Israel. It is outrageous that a Holocaust sur-
vivor refrains from from criticizing the ideol-
ogy of Zionism, the racist and exclusionist
ideology that created the state of Israel and
whose founding fathers spoke freely of dis-
placing Palestinians and depopulating vil-
lages and cities of their original Palestinian
inhabitants.
It is even more offensive and disgraceful
that Jurgies would utter unfounded allega-
tions like "the Jewish people have given more
than 120 percent to them (meaning Palestini-
ans)" or would use religion to further a pure-
ly racist argument that "the Land is Jewish
land, not Arab. It was given to us by an
Almighty Lord." I think Jurgies' racist politi-
cal agenda discredits her as a genuine
spokesperson and a witness of the Holocaust.
I encourage the Jewish community to seek
knowledge from other Holocaust survivors
who have been empowered by their experi-
ence of surviving that outrageous human suf-
fering only to stand up for what they believe
is right and fair. I shall only give Israel Sha-
hak as an example, but I am sure there are
many like him that are still alive today.
SAWSAN ABDULRAHIM
SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH STUDENT
MSA candidates
should be barred
from residence halls
TO THE DAILY:
This being my first year at the University,
I expected my residence hall room to be a
safe place where I can study, sleep, watch TV
or just plain relax. During the past two
semesters I have learned that this is not the
case. Apparently, there are two weeks each
semester where my rights are allowed to be
violated. During Michigan Student Assembly
elections I have had to endure the gross waste
of paper from posters all over my residence
hall and people who are allowed to knock on
my door whenever they want. Why do Hous-
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