4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, September 26, 2000 cue firtictTgatt igtftllj What to do when your ceiling falls in: Housing in A2 - ,,, 420 Maynard Street Ann Arbor, Ml 48109 daily.letters@umich.edu Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Ed Ed MIKE SPAHN Editor in Chief ILY ACHENBAUM itorial Page Editor n of the majority of artoons do not Daily. Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinio the Daily editorial board. All other articles, letters and c necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan 1 wa~ m Students should watch Gore forum : ith all the talk about voter apa- major issues - which could lead to a thy, it is good to see that at the more informed choice come election University, word of a presidential day. candidate's visit still gets the campus Gore has been in the national pub- excited. Today, Al Gore, the sitting lic eye for almost a quarter of a cen- vice-president of the United States tury prior to his current campaign for and current Democratic party nomi- President. After obtaining a law nee for the Presidency, will visit the degree and working as an Army jour- University to tape "A Town Hall nalist covering the Vietnam War, Forum with Al Gore," which will air Gore entered national politics at the at 8 p.m. on MTV. age of 28 as a representative of Ten- The forum will give select stu- nessee's fourth congressional dis- dents the opportunity to directly trict. Since then, Gore has served 16 interact with Gore in years in Congress front of a national The forum gill lye (eight years in each audience. While only g house) before being a a handful of Universi- students and elected vice-president ty students get the of the United States chance to be a art of community - a post he has held the taping, a H stu- for the last eight dents can and should members a chance years. watch the broadcast It is unfortunate on television. to directly interact that more students The forum is a could not be included unique opportunity With Gore in front in the forum itself, for students because but taping restraints the questions posed to of a national probably account for the vice-president the relatively low 'will be directly from audience number of students. -their peers and men- Despite the fact tors. Students select- that most students ed for the taping have prepared will watch the forum on television Nquestions for the meeting. rather than actually participating in The issues that will be raised dur- the event, Gore's visit to the Univer- ing the show will not only have sity should be a positive one. It sheds national appeal but will probably be a positive light on the University especially pertinent to students. community and gives students the Thus, watching the show ought to be chance to begin making a decision an easy way to become more for the presidential election in informed about Gore's stance on November. Capital sofensive Death penalty should be abolished s our MSA President, Hideki, once said: Living in Ann Arbor shouldn't cost the same as living in San Francisco or New York. But really, where do we have to turn? With shady landlords and ancient houses that haven't seen a mainte- nance man since 1987, students are not left with many options. If this was anywhere but a college town, no one would stand for such x outrageous prices one houses that smell like a musty basement and. have suffered from years of built-up party sludge. The houses that are Erin being leased are so VCQui beat up from years of nn abuse that they should P.1 yx -with' just be bulldozed and tWrd put out of their misery. Landlords, or rather slumlords, are making a killing on leasing these shacks to desperate, naive college kids. Some of us would be better off camping out in the backyard rather than living in the hell- hole of a house that we're paying for. No one ever bothers to read that "Rights of the Tenant" booklet when they sign a lease. With all of the unnecessary reading that pro- fessors already make you do, who can blame someone for not reading that seemingly use- less little book - I know I didn't. But I wish I had -- the book guarantees you things such as a clean house upon move-in and other often-overlooked stuff. But with the house vacancy rate at lower than one percent, the slumlords have developed a sort of screw- you attitude - they can always find someone else to take your place. One of the saddest Ann Arbor housing scams is the apartment appraisal at the end of the lease. Only now will the landlord be so attentive to every detail of your habita- tion. Why'? Because they already have the security deposit money and they really don't want to give it back. So now, just because you put a burnhole in an orange couch from 1972, you now have to pay for an entirely new cushion. But you know they will never actually use the money to replace the cush- ion - the money is probably pooled into buying a stripper for the owner of the apart- ment complex. But I'd still prefer to live in an apartment over a house any day. Over spring term, my friend Isabel and I subleased a house for the first time. After finally moving in 3 days after the decided date, we were greeted with a fridge full of moldy food and puke in the sink. The landlady who said we were getting a "great deal" didn't offer much support. She also accused us of letting an extra person live there and told us we had to check in our guests with her. Also, the psy- cho mother of a previous tenant showed up and said she was going to put the house under surveillance. Actually, the psycho mother showed up in our living room - the landlady failed to collect the keys from the previous tenants. The rest of the semester was an on and off headache with the landlady playing mom - literally. She let herself in and complained that the house was too messy and bitched that we hadn't taken the garbage out. She never failed to remind us though that we should be thankful for our "great deal" until the kitchen ceiling literally came falling down in chunks one morning. The landlady still insisted, however, that these kinds of things happen. Looking back, we should have withheld rent for the last month - after all, eviction takes a month (another fun fact from the book). I should've yelled at the mom instead of being the polite girl that I was. There were a lot of things that two freshman living for the first time on their own failed to do -hbut still some justice can come of this . . . University lawyers: Those wonderful, tal- ented, aspiring legal superstars whose service is paid for by part of our tuition. That's right - they're relatively free - because we all know that nothing is free, especially at the University. Not that I'm all about suing, but something has to be done to keep these out- of-control landlords in check. We should not stand for shoddy leases and broken promises. Just because you're only living there tem- porarily is no excuse to live without a ceiling. @ - Erin McQuinn can be reached via e-mailat emcquinn(q~untich.edu. 'I can't believe that within 20 feet - LSA Soph for MTV voice their wishes, does not mean they don'tI deserve as much right as a newborn baby or a I full-grown adult. Do you honestly think the r child wants to be killed? I believe the Center for Bioethical Reform. Chi Alpha Christian Fellow- i Pro-life Diag display is warranted A dvocates of capital punishment shockin claim the death penalty is a use- innocei ful deterrent and is legitimized by example retribution. Twelve states, including death h, Michigan, know better and disagree. pared to A recent New York Times study sup- been e ports the position of death penalty know j opponents, with statistics exposing been un gaping holes in the arguments of pro- absence ponents. appeals. While the main argument for the TexaE death penalty is that it deters crime, not tou homicide rates in the 38 states with Governi the death penalty have been 48-101 to carry percent higher than states without it 27 and over the last 20 years. If anything, it Nobody can ev appears the death b c penalty may aggravate know just how crime. Even if executions many people he were effective deter- rents, they still are not been fairly administered. Minorities are vastly executed beca overrepresented and the mentally handi- of the absence capped often wind up on death row rather n tests and than in mental institu- tions. . ,e'ected appea By examining who re is on death row, one can see why the system is blatantly racist. Forty-three percent tioned. of death row inmates are black in a Studi nation which is only twelve percent more ex black. Furthermore, according to Rob than iti Warden, founder of the Center for prison.. Wrongful Convictions, criminals who taxpaye murder Caucasians are seven times as doesn't likely to receive the death penalty as The those who murder blacks. inherent Men such as Warden, who spoke it clear at the University Friday, have exoner- stopped ated dozens of wrongfully convicted homicid death row inmates. Problems such as punish the lack of DNA testing in many exonera cases, compounded with incidents of the ove poor representation by state-appoint- on deai ed defense attorneys. have resulted in should 1 gly frequent convictions of nt people. In Illinois, for , thirteen people sentenced to ave been exonerated as com- just twelve that have actually xecuted. Nobody can ever ust how many people have justly executed because of the of DNA tests and rejected s is the prime example of how use the death penalty. Under or George W Bush, Texas, set out executions on September October 4, has continued to outrage capital pun- er ishment o p ponents by constantly execut- ing criminals (espe- cially impoverished Hispanics and v blacks)at abnormal rates. Over 100 men and women have use been executed since us uhfirst became of governor. Another factor in deciding whether to use the current sys- Is. tem is by far sec- ondary to previous arguments, but deserves to be men- ies have established that it is pensive to execute a criminal is to maintain one for life in And it seems a waste to spend rs' money on a system that work. problems and injustices It in capital punishment make that the practice should be immediately. Due to higher le rates in states with capital ment, numerous cases of ated death row inmates and rrepresentation of minorities th row, capital punishment be abolished. TO THE DAILY: ship and the campus Students for Life are doing I This morning when I picked up the Daily, I what they can to raise awareness about an issue was very upset with the biased position the edi- they feel strongly about and that deservest tonal page took on the pro-life (or anti-abortion respect, which the Daily dismissed in the biased i as you like to call it) exhibit. The main article articles. Choose life, choose the future. I was biased, including few positive opinions'on- the topic, which was accompanied by two more NICOLE BABCOCK writings against the exhibit. Does this paper LSA FIRST-YEAR STUDENT have no journalistic integrity? Shouldn't both sides be displayed equally so that the students may make up their own minds on the issue, Abortion genocide rather than being told what is right and wrong? IA, am pro-life and I believe that it couldn't have not the sam e been that hard to find even one person to write a t small section its support of this exhibit, as 1, andl probably tany other pro-lifers, would've TO THE DAILY: jumped at the chance to share my belief. In response to the Daily's Sept. 25th. editori- I believe that desperate times call for desper- al "An Obscene Analogy' the reference to the ate measures and trying to convey a typically conservative view in an extremely liberal cot- THOMAS KULJURGIS munity is a very desperate situation. The exhibit is non-violent and it forces people to think about the issue, because I don't believe that someone A W RS ORV \ AC 1E\1 could look at the placards and think "oh, that's SlnM~ l(,:a gross" and not even give the issue a second thought. I could go on about the reasons why I am pro-life, but that would require a whole sepa- rate newspaper section, as I proved at my high school and intend to continue here, but I will say - this: Women have a choice and it's not abortion. If a woman is not ready to be pregnant, she has the choice not to have sex. Choosing to have sex means agreeing to the many potential conse- quences, including pregnancy. Even after a woman becomes pregnant, she has other choic- es, such as adoption. The editorial "An obscene analogy" (9/25/00) makes an obscene point that a baby one day from birth is different from a baby one day after birth because it's physically connected to and dependent on the mother. This is so false that I can't believe anyone would hon- estly believe it, because babies born as soon as six months can live unattached to the mother. Also, the idea that an unborn baby "impinges on H SAGS.OF C . 2 her right to freedom" sickens me. What about A QUkRT OF tS FOOD the baby's right to live? Just because they cannot Its action, but how affirmative is it? ,1 1 M .t6 liccll. I'm going to be of Al Gore.' omore Edgar Zapata on being chosen4 f's A Town Hall Forum with Al Gore. Holocaust is only part of the crime against humanity committed by the Genocide Aware- ness Project. The word genocide in their title should be reserved for those persons world wide who have faced near eradication. The term genocide was adopted to describe the intentional and methodical annihilation of an entire popula- tion. Pro-choice advocates do not intend to elim inate children from the earth. Hearing the word genocide should send chills down our spines. This emotional response should be in the remembrance of the horrors committed against Jews, gypsies, gays, Armenians and Native Americans throughout history. If true genocide went unchecked, these forementioned popula- tions would be extinct. The reckless use of this term numbs its true meaning. The comparison of pro-choice advocates to defenders of the Final Solution is asinine and a crime again. those who have faced true genocide. ROGER STETSON LAW SCHOOL tEN'AiRE ' .PEA 9 ? ig ME'SOLYMP'IC.. l' icCRE 4 'l1 I 0 T hree years ago, the University got saddled with an ongoing lawsuit that sought to challenge its seemingly discriminatory admis- sions policies. Since its filing in October of 1997, the admissions lawsuit has become a bat- tle cry for some students, our own neo-Civil Rights Movement. Every year, I see people wasting pounds of paper on fliers and petitions lending support to the University and its poli- cies. For a while, it was manageable, and I sim- ply shook my head politely when asked to sign this, or show up for that or read these. No thank you, I don't H need another pamphlet in my pocket. No thank you, I've already read it and I'm not interested.y No thank you, I don't believe in affirmative action. Actually, I should amend that. It's not that I don't agree with the con- Manish cept of affirmative action, it's that I don't Rail agree with the Universi- N.nting ty's admissions policies. '. The University rests its case on a Supreme Court decision from 1978, when Allan Bakke sued the University of California after being denied admission into their medical school. In his case, Bakke showed that both times he applied, his credentials were superior to those of any minority applicants who were admitted. The Supreme Court had a rather interesting opinion regarding this case; they officially stated that UC could give preferential treatment to minori- ty applicants, which is the side of the case that our University cites. However, the University isn't so quick to offer up the fact that the Supreme Court also mandated that UC admit Bakke into their medical program. So what does that say? The Supreme Court acknowl- edged that UC's admissions policies are unfair by making them accept Bakke, yet they didn't do anything to change these unfair policies? The basic problem is that affirmative action was borne out of relatively noble idealisms, and any attacks on affirmative action are seen as an attack on those ideals. Affirmative action was meant to be a stepping stone to a more equal society, where opportunities are not predomi- nantly in the hands of a very selective - and very white - portion of society. These altruis- tic motives are most decidedly not what are dri- ving the current system of admissions at this University. Their policies are not about attempting to redistribute wealth in this nation, it is not about fostering a sense of socio-eco- nomic equality and it is not about giving a hand to impoverished people who would otherwise have no opportunity for advancement. No, the idealisms first uttered by Harry Truman have been prostituted in the name of a far lesser goal, that of"diversity." Not to say that diversity is not important. I agree with the University's estimation that diversity "produces significant educational ben- efits." Of course race matters; I would be a fool to suggest otherwise. However, the concern for diversity is far overshadowed by the severe dis- parity between rich and poor in this nation. Affirmative action does little to mend this divi- sion, because it gives extra consideration, to people who often have had access to a good education their entire lives, while ignoring those that have grown up with no one to care for their mental development. What this nation needs to realize is that being a minority is not a prerequisite for being downtrodden. There are plenty of minorities who struggle every day to survive in tough neighborhoods, but they are not the ones being helped by affirmative action. I believe that when Truman called our for America to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed without regard to their race, creed or national origin," he meant it in a manner that fit in with the Civil Rights Amendments. He meant that we as a country, should learn to be color blind and certainly not to be overwhelmingly color conscious. How many times have I had to fill out forms that ask me for my racial identity? How is making an entire portion of application dedicated to race. making us more of a color-blind society? Yet the University does ask for race. It does practice admissions policies that violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It does give regards to race, creed or national origin. If the Univer- sity is so adamant about practicing discrimina- tory admissions policies, than it might as well do so in order to secure some greater cause. It might as well discriminate in an attempt at reversing the long-standing segregation that has plagued this nation. It might as well ask for economic status instead of racial status, and give extra points to kids who grew up in dan- gerous neighborhoods and went to sub-par high schools, yet still have a desire to get a higher education. If the University continues to use diversity as its battle cry, it can, and will, get away with admissions policies that do little to nothing to help those Americans who desperiW ately deserve the extra help. I would hope that the University, and those passing out pamphlets and fliers, realize what a slap in the face these admissions policies are to the children in this nation who yearn for a better life, but have never had the opportunities to attain such a life. - Manish Raifl can be reached via e-mail at mra igciumich.edu. + Mit.tD.ee9-...'Rhoits jnULFscLsssMxc ' ti ' . o u rPAy-o- ~ ?CA+Ce km-ise5.e/ u1~ kF suit i Wv sOs5LVeIe ' 6M -K UP x.-CL S QF 1ik EW; _ :.' -,, wWW.++a+ s+la acx a.coN t