4A - The Michigan Daily - Weanesday, March 21, 2001 hbe 31rb1§ugn tu~g 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 daily. letters@umich.edu The anatomy of a four letter word JOSH WICKERHAM T utu )Oa 0 EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 GEOFFREY GAGNON Editor in Chief MICHAELG RASS NICHOLAS WOOMER Editorial Page Editors 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. he bums will always lose! Do you hear me, Lebowski? The bums ,.will always -" There's no other film that sums up our post- concerned world like the Dude in "The Big Lebowski." It's not just the Dude's shirking of responsibility that makes him such a lovable anti-hero, nor is it his free-spirited nature that makes his lifestyle the pinnacle of our evolutionary path. It's not just the Dude's pleasant calm that makes him a nameless bodhisattva, nor his laziness that makes him the archetype of the modern man. If you please, fair readers, it's the Dude's use of the phrase "fuck it." When people first started using fuck on college campuses in the '50s and '60s, it really meant something. Unlike the nebulous adjective/verb/noun status the word holds today, when somebody said "fuck", they had an attitude. They had something to say and they were radical. "Fuck it" wasn't just lazi- ness. "Fuck it" was the battle cry of the acid anarchists and radical feminists alike. "Fuck it" was the precursor to multiculturalism. Now, with your patronage gentle readers, This Postmodern World would like to reap- propriate a word that used to have some oomph to it. Presenting, in no particular order, and with no particular concern for the fuckables not contained herein, TPMW gives you the tired student's guide to revolutionary fucking. On race: Literally. Who cares about racial diversity? Black? White? How about no races? On racial boundaries: Just stop paying attention, because if you ain't breedin,' we ain't moving forward. So let's get it on. On gender: Or as they used to say, gen- der fuck. We need more men in dresses, more women with armpit hair, more men as housewives. Gender is a spectrum folks. On Hideki: A lot of people have gotten upset about the negative press Hideki has been receiving. That's because they've only met the street-talking, name-recalling Hideki with the big sign. (Note: bigger sign). Most have never been to an MSA meeting. If you are one of these people, you have no idea how Hideki operates. The man can't run a meeting. He also doesn't have a vice-presidential candidate who can do two jobs. Don't vote for him. Vote for me instead. On the Bush dynasty: We have to come to terms with four more years of Bush. And since the Democrats are rolling over on every issue presented to them, these four years are going to be hell. Despite the proba- ble setbacks on gay rights, foreign policy, domestic policy and - well, you know the litany, Junior is doing one thing right. I'm glad someone is propelling us toward environmental catastrophe. Seriously, I think that's the only way people are going to wake up to the threat of environmental destruction. It's not until New York is submerged and small island nations disappear from the map that we're going to do anything. And besides, a Bush presidency really is mobilizing the forces of progressive politics against him. Ralph Nader was right. Can't you see them mobilizing? On 'fuck that': Who needs pronouns anyway? I'm sick of referring to a person, place, thing, idea or act that was menti l previously or that can be inferred from.;,Me context of the sentence. I'm also leery of words that can't be defined without using them in their definition. On 'fuck sucks': I'm tired of hearing people say "that sucks." What's wrong with sucking? When we use suck in the pejorative sense, it iein- forces lines of power. How is that the sucker is subordinate to the sucked? Think about the origin of this word the next time, it comes up. On work: Nothing in this world Ifas caused more pain and strife for the humian race than having to sacrifice the majority of our adult lives to work. In the future, I hope we can see beyond such scams. Why-talk about better working conditions when:*e can have no working conditions at all? Playing is a lot more fun than working, so fuck it. Workers of the world, quit your jobs! Abolish work. Sleep in. Take a breather. Do it for e Dude. The bums will win in the end. Fuck you. Fuck you very much. Josh Wickerham's column runs every other Wednesday. Give him feedbackat www.michigandaily.com/forum or via e-mail atjwickerh@umich.ed. Y EDITORIAL ANALYSIS; . UNMASKING THE C ';-.'"" THIRD IN A SERIES If DPS isn't pressing charges, why should 'U'? Prosecutorial process wrapped in mystery, administration takes justice into own hands hile hundreds of people turned out to show their support for the LGBT community during Queer Visibility Week's Kiss In on Feb. 16, a less welcome group of people also came - members of hate- ful pastor Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church. Although Phelps was not present him- self, his followers carried signs on the Diag with messages like "Fags doom nations," or "AIDS cures fags" and "Matt Shephard - Two years in hell." The group tried, but failed, to crush the spirit of the rally. However, the protesters did not go complete- ly ignored. According to Department of Public Safety reports, the signs of some of the protest- ers were vandalized when someone ran by and spray-painted them with purple paint. What followed the incident was another manifestation of the inherent unfairness of the Code of Student Conduct, recently renamed the Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities last month by University President Lee Bollinger. LSA senior Ryan Hughes, who is running for Michigan Student Assembly presi- dent with the Friends Rebelling Against Tyran- ny party under the pseudonym Galaxor Nebulon, was led away by DPS officers and has been charged under the Code for assault and vandalism. Although the police have not charged Hugh- es with any crime, administrators in the Fleming Administration Building have decided to take justice into their own hands. Hughes' hearing will take place this Friday at 2 p.m. behind closed doors in the Office of Student Conflict Resolution on the sixth floor of the Fleming Administration Building. Under the Federal Education Rights to Priva- u ipfpp ie 1. r 0v j ! 1r Chit CuLe~ aAG - 32tor k.Pcar 6+0414- c. cy Act, the University cannot release informa- tion or comment on Hughes' or any specific Code case. It is this silence that contributes to the veil of mystery that shrouds the Code process. Thanks to Hughes' openness with his own case, students will have a unique opportuni- ty to see how the administration charges, prose- cutes and punishes students. The Daily's editorial page will follow him though the process every step of the way. Examining OSCR's conduct so far in Hugh- es' case, one word comes to mind - question- able. The way in which the University has decided to bring charges, in accordance with the Code of Student Conduct, has been unfair and deceitful. Hughes and his lawyer, Jodi Masley of the Detroit-based firm Scheff and Washington said it was difficult to discover the nature and basis of the University's charges. While Hughes and Masley have still been unable to obtain a 7 police report detailing the charges, OSCR demanded to meet with Hughes. Although Hughes faced difficulty in seeing his own police report, what he didn't find out until later was that OSCR already had possession of it. Hughes received a letter dur- ing spring break from OSCR informing him that he would be charged under the Code for van- dalism and assault; according to reports, spray-paint had hit the face of one of the protesters. The letter informed him that he would need to have a meeting with OSCR immediately following spring break. However, the meeting that OSCR called allowed Hughes no time to prepare a case. The letter also downplayed the importance of the meeting in such a way that, as Hughes believes, discouraged him from contacting an attorney. Under the Code, students charged are allowed to have an press charges and is required to release all records of alleged crimes committed by students to the University. By calling the charge the result of a "complaint" filed by DPS, the Uni- versity promotes the false notion that DPS is pushing for Hughes to be charged. Under the Code, after charges are filed and the student is convicted, a process of mediation ensues. However, if neither members o e Westboro Baptist Church, the alleged victims, nor DPS has decided to press charges, the ques- tion is who will Hughes be mediating with? The Code also dictates that either five stu- dents or an administrator will deteimine the out- come of the case. Under this process, there is no "jury pool" method of establishing an unbiased panel. This case shows the University's'com- plete discretion throughout the process as OSCR serves as both the judge and the jury in w is patronizingly - and falsely - called an educa- tional process, rather than what it really is: A vehicle for punitive measures in what Masley aptly described as "a kangaroo court where you don't have any rights." Jessica Curtin, a Michigan Student Assem- bly representative, noted that the harshest codes seem to appear at the universities where there is the strongest history of student activism'and expressed worries that as activism continues to grow at the University, charges brought under the code will increasingly turn to ones brct against student activists. Masley called into question the University's motives for charging Hughes, who said the Westboro Baptist Church protesters were wag- ing a "violent attack" on a "positive space for queer students to feel comfortable." Once again it has become clear that the implementation of the Student Code of Con- duct is not designed to be an educational process. In the case of Hughes, the Co is also being used to charge a student Who should not be charged at all - if neithef the "victims" nor DPS wish to press charges, the University has no place stepping in. The Code represents a completely rifair process to prosecute a student using a system in which the basic rights of the accused are comoletelv denied. .. i ~~" - ,0 L