4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, November 15, 2000



420 Maynard Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109 MIKE SPAHN
daily.letters@umich.edu y Editor in Chief
Edited and managed by
students at theEMILY ACHENBAUM
student at theEd itorial Page E ditor
University of Michigan
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.


Win a date with Daily columnist Branden Sanz




Is MsA doing its job?
Hlold reps accountable for fund distribution

It smells like November. Ohio State Week is
finally here, the weather sucks and elections
are over ... or are they? With all the events tran-
spiring around us, you'd think there would be
an air of excitement or anticipation hovering
over campus. But it just doesn't seem that way.
Students still trudge to
class in sodden apathy
and the only excitement
ing to go home for the
holidays.
To counter these
November doldrums, I ;
have decided to bring
back an old tradition. In
the spirit of the great
James Miller's "Win a
Date With James Miller
Scavenger Hunt," I Branden
proudly present (with Sanz
the former's consent, of Drop g the
course) the first-and T n
final - annual Win a Hammer
Date With Branden
Sanz Scavenger Hunt. (Void where prohibited.
Men, Women's Studies majors and girls with
hairy backs need not apply.)
The rules are as follows: Find as many items
on the list in this column as possible, load them
into the back of a Jeep Grand Cherokee that
does not have New York plates and drive them
down to the Student Publications Building and
into the loving arms of Editorial Page Editor
Emily Achenbaum.
In the likely event of a tie, I have taken the
liberty of inserting a small quiz as well, to
separate the contenders from the pretenders.
The lovely Miss Achenbaum will sort and
tally the quizzes four times by various
mechanical and electronic means. (If you hail
from Florida you may petition for a hand
count as well).

The lucky winner will be treated to the mon-
ster truck rally, demolition derby, rodeo, or
WWF event of her choice. This will be fol-
lowed an exquisite Cajun dinner so spicy you
cry (because if you're not sweatin', you're not
eatin'). Finally, the evening will commence
with dancing and quarter beers at the Diamond-
back Saloon in Belleville.
The following items are worth five points
each:
1.The (real) President-elect of The United
States of America.
2. A copy of the Bible autographed by Scott.
3. An autographed copy of the album
"Tiffany," by Tiffany.
4. Someone who actually understands the
BCS rankings.
5. A parking space on campus.
6. An actual picture of someone with a mul-
let. (Don't even try getting this off the Web. I
know all about www.mulletsgalore.com)
7. Someone in Florida who actually wanted
to vote for Pat Buchanan.
8. Someone who believes the people who
mistakenly voted for Buchanan should not have
their voting privileges stripped on the basis of
sheer stupidity.
9. A quote from Lloyd Carr with two consec-
utive sentences that dues not contain the word
"tremendous."
10. A Middle-East peace treaty.
11. "Fenestration." (If you can have de-fenes-
tration, why not fenestration?)
12. A cool a capella concert. (Something with
scantily-clad dancing honeys or people juggling
machetes would be acceptable).
13. Honesty.
14. A low-fat pork rind. (Five extra points if
you can figure out how to mass-produce those
succulent little devils).
The Tie Breaker: Award yourself zero points
for all "A" answers, one point for all "B"
answers and three points for all "C" answers.

1. You like steak:
A) Never! Eating meat is sick and wrong!
B) Once in a while, cooked medium.
C) Blood-rare.
2. If you had five dollars to spend on your
favorite narcotic you would most likely pur-
chase:
A) A pack of Parliament Lights:
B) A Bombay Sapphire and tonic with a
splash of lime juice.
C) Three gallons of gas for a ride on your
Harley.
3. Your CD collection would most likely
contain:
A) Ani DiFranco and Wyclef.
B) Matchbox 20 and Metallica.
C) The Dixie Chicks and Monster Ballads.
(Two extra points for the mail-order version.)
4. Your personal affectations usually include:
A) Brown lipstick and clothes from Y.C.I.
B) Tight sweaters and a baseball cap.
C) Tattoos. Lots of them.
5. A good movie marathon for you would
include ...
A) Beaches, Steel Magnolias and Fried
Green Tomatoes.
B) Tombstone, A Few Good Men and For-
rest Gump.
C) Mallrats, Army of Darkness and Real
Genius.
6. You read this column:
A) To get your weekly fix of being shocked
and appalled.
B) Because you find it irreverent and enter-I
taining
C) Religiously. You even have a past column
cut out and taped to your wall. (Five extra
points if you're a hot blonde from North Dakota
named Kelly).
Happy hunting and may the best woman
win.
- Branden Sanz can be reached via e-mail
at hamrhead@umich.edu.

t . he Michigan Student Assembly
is responsible for appropriating
Snds it receives from each student's
iaandatory $5.69 Michigan Student
Assembly fee to various student orga-
4'zations and activities on a view-
joint neutral basis. Viewpoint
,eutrality was the stipulation that the
supreme Court provided when it
upheld the constitutionality of a
Tandatory student activity fee in its
-arch ruling in University of Wiscon-
arn Board of Regents v. Southworth.
n light of this ruling, it is necessary
tat both MSA itself and students at
Ahe University - who support the
tudget of the student government
through the MSA fee - seriously
4reexamine whether MSA is success-
fully apportioning its budget money
in a manner that is truly viewpoint
neutral.
It is especially necessary to exam-
ine whether MSA fulfilled its legal
responsibility to be viewpoint neutral
in the planning or execution of
"Affirmative Action 102," the recent
week of events designed to educate
students and encourage dialogue on
affirmative action. Despite any good
intentions, one thing is for sure: The
week was notably one-sided in con-
tent.
But it is not the responsibility of
an organizing organization to assure
viewpoint neutrality - that is MSA's
domain.
MSA should not have allotted such
a high percentage of an extremely
limited budget to a week of events
that, although originally was superfi-
cially unbiased, turned out to be
almost completely pro-affirmative
action.
Moreover, University students
should hold all representatives on
MSA who voted for Affirmative
Action 102 and did not question the
itemization of the event's budget
accountable for any perceived misap-
propriation of funds, rather than those
whose sole responsibility was to
organize the event.
The MSA resolution calling for
the affirmative action awareness and
education week did not stipulate that
both sides of the affirmative action
debate would be represented. The
budget created for the event called for
-$,1,785.75 in funding to come from
jhe Committee Discretionary fund,
iwhich stood at $14,659. $3,000 of
ahis was to go to finance an anti-affir-

mative action speaker, Ward Conner-
ly. An equal amount was to finance a
visit from affirmative action advocate
the Rev. Jesse Jackson. However,
Ward Connerly was unable to attend
and no replacement keynote anti-
affirmative speaker was found.
The discretionary fund, supplied
by the MSA fee, subsidizes the pro-
jects of various MSA committees and
commissions. $6,000 was returned to
the fund when Jackson did not
require the money and Connerly was
not able to attend. However, the fund-
ing for the week, devoted to venue
set-up and advertising, at $5785.75
was too much to grant to a single pro-
ject. Moreover, as it was outlined in
the original MSA resolution, this pro-
ject did not specifically call for repre-
sentation of both asides of the
affirmative action debate.
Once MSA members knew that
Ward Connerly would not be able to
attend the event, it was their responsi-
bility to challenge the continued
extensive funding of the event and
considered that $5785.75 of students'
money was being directed into an
event overwhelmingly supportive of
affirmative action.
Even though we believe this was
an important opportunity to learn
about affirmative action, MSA should
have asked more questions about the
event if they want to more effectively
appropriate money.
Not only was the amount of money
too much to be apportioned to a one-
sided event, it was an indication of
poor judgment by MSA to devote
such a high percentage of the discre-
tionary fund meant to last the entire
year to any single committee project.
Students, especially in view of the
MSA elections beginning today, need
to ensure that the people whom they
elect to distribute their money will do
so on a viewpoint neutral basis. If
opponents of affirmative action were
to propose a similar week of events, it
seems that according to Southworth,
MSA would have to fund it.
The most important job of MSA is
to distribute money from the MSA
fee to students groups and committee
activities on a viewpoint neutral
basis. If MSA is not fulfilling its pur-
pose, students have the responsibility
to hold their student government
accountable and carefully examine
those representatives whom they

'It's not Hideki ... MSA has a lot of peripheral projects.
that don't affect students as much as they can.'
-Blue Party candidate Ben Whetsell, commenting on criticism that MSA
President Hideki Tsutsumi's lack of experience has hindered MSAs efectiveness.

Prevention is key to
fixing drug problem
To THE DAILY:
This letter is in response to the Nov. 14th
editorial on Proposition 36, California's
effort to rehabilitate non-violent drug offend-
ers ("A time to heal"). I commend the editori-
al board's stance on this issue. The war on
drugs in this country is a war we've been
loosing for years. As a nation, we spend inad-
equate amounts of money and other resources
on the prevention of drug abuse. And, we are
spending too much money on the punish-
ment, which, according to recent data,
appears to be highly ineffective.
Drug abuse is a public health issue and
one of the core philosophies of public health
is prevention. In a country where the punish-
ment must fit the crime, we seem to overlook
the root cause of the crime itself. I feel that,
while the punishment system will not go
away - and nor should it entirely - we
should focus more effort around the preven-
tion of illegal drug use.
Congressman John Conyers (D-Detroit)
summed up the situation well when he was
quoted in the report "Poor Prescription: The
Costs of Imprisoning Drug Offenders in the
United States" by saying:
"The casualties from this nation's drug
war have continued to mount, with no end in
sight. The federal government must support
alternatives to wholesale incarceration that
stress treatment for drug addicted offenders.
Only by breaking the cycle of abuse, traffick-
ing and incarceration can we find a way out
of this nightmare."
We must, as a nation, stress prevention
and rehabilitation to stop the drug abuse
incarceration cycle.
CLAIRE HENSEN
SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
Article headline
trivialized domestic
violence and abuse
To THE DAILY:
I was surprised to see an article about a
women's basketball game entitled, "Domes-
tic violence: 'M' abuses The Family, Inc." in
the Daily's SportsMonday section (11/6/00).
At first glance, I mistook the article for a seri-
ous discussion of the pervasive social prob-
lem of violence against women. Upon further
investigation, I realized that the author was
(unwittingly?) misappropriating this severe
expression. Domestic violence, abuse and
battering are truly grave circumstances for
many of the women and men in our commu-
nities and must not be taken lightly. Please
think next time, before you write.
DIANE TIDER
UNIVERSITY ALUMNUS

cising their freedom of speech to advertise
their particular view, but let's show a little
respect, shall we?
There was (and maybe still is) a Universi-
ty policy prohibiting chalking on the bricks,
granite and 'M' on the Diag. Chalking here is
damaging to these noble and expensive land-
marks. But they have been attacked by mali-
cious MSA candidates none the less. This
past weekend was the greatest atrocity of all:
Someone had the gall to chalk my home. I
have been a proud, happy resident of Cross
Street for almost three years now. Cross is a
very special street, the residents are truly a
community. The street is much like a dorm
hall, but with houses. This past weekend
when I saw my beloved street, my bastion of
all that is good and holy about college, graffi-
tied I was hurt and outraged.
Let's show some respect people! I'm ask-
ing all of you protest-crazy, MSA-wannabe,
future advertising folks to back off. Respect
the simplest and proudest of our University's
landmarks by not chalking on the Diag. And
for crying out loud stay out of my home with
this crap! Pity the fool who is seen again
defiling Cross Street by one of our residents
or comrades.

down from the Diag. Well, the next day a
new banner went up and to the people who
continue to hate, Islam Awareness Week is
in full effect (go check out the Diag). Had
this happened to other groups on campus,
we would have had an all-out crises on
campus and rightfully so.
It is sad to realize that this baseless
aggression has forced Muslims on campus
to alter their daily r6utines to the point
where people must stand guard while oth-
ers pray. Why is it you fear me? Is it that 1
have morals, that I work for righteousness,
regardless its color, or is it that I struggle
for modesty in my life? Whatever the rea-
sons may be, just know, that I am here to
stay and one day you will appreciate me.
This is just a demonstration how much fut-
ther we as a people need to go.
ZAIN BENGALI
VICE PRESIDENT,
MUSLIM STUDENTS ASSOCIATION
Daily's election

MATT BIEBER disservice' to 'U'
LSA JUNIOR

choose to vote into office.


;:JASON POLAN UM..,
rLO I A ?ALLOT u...
FLOR D A HA[ T 11-AA
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Harassment of
Muslim students is a
black eye for the 'U'
TO THE DAILY:
A word that is often used with the Uni-
versity is diversity. Well, I now have a
good taste of what diversity on this campus
means. The new definition of diversity, of
which I will inform Mr. Webster in the
coming months, is variety with a sprinkling
of hate. Don't get me wrong, one of the
reasons I came to the University was its
variety, but I never thought that in the 21st
century, hate would continue to come with
it. I know the great martyrs pioneering the
war against racism, Dr. King being the
epitome, did not die in vain, so I will have
to pray and wait in patience.
In the weeks since the escalation of vio-
lence in the Middle East, the harassment of
Muslims on campus that has occurred sick-
ens me to the stomach. Students have been
physically and verbally harassed while
praying, walking to class and just minding
their own business. Last week, a banner
about Islam Awareness Week was torn

TO THE DAILY:
I am not writing to preach about who
makes a better president. I have my views
and I'm sure the rest of you do as well. One4
thing has become abundantly clear to me
however, the Daily is a disservice to this Uni-
versity.
Every time I've managed to open the
Daily during this election season, I've seen a
disgustingly one-sided view on election cov-
erage. The role of a newspaper is to present
facts to its readers. Many students on this
campus are extremely busy, and unfortunate-
ly, the Daily is the only place they receive a
majority of their information regarding
events such as our presidential elections. To
see the Daily so skewed towards a democra-
ic platform does not inform students, it mere-
ly tries to convince them of one side.
Although many students at the Universi-
ty of Michigan are liberals, many are not.
Coverage of this election year has truly been
a disgrace at this University and I hope our
intelligent student body knows better than to
take the petty Daily as our University's only
voice. So to the students, please take theO
time to evaluate your sources. To the Daily,
I've already given up on you.
SAEED MowLAi
ENGINEERING SENIOR

CHIP CULLEN GRINDING THE NIB
/6
-SN

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