4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, September 18, 2001 OP/ED E CIC( i Mll MiI J 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 daily.letters@umich.edu EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 GEOFFREY GAGNON Editor in Chief MICHAEL GRASS 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. NOTABLE QUOTABLE ' ( The first 'victims' of America's self-avowed global war against terrorism have fallen. Not in the rugged lawless wilderness of Talibanised Afghanistan, but in the eminently civilised ambiance of mainland America itself." -- T odav's staff editorial in the Times of india, citing the death of a Sikhbusinessman in Mesa, Ariz. L\ W CT T E 1~~ ?wp i'K iiY ( ..j~..,, c 4. -5 kM \4AU IY) l- Can't put anything past 'U' AUBREY HENRETTY NEU R)TCA Hi, my name's Aubrey. I'm an phony, narcissistic racist with an unstable personali- ty. When things get diffi- cult, I let others make the tough decisions. I know lit- tle of the world and less of politics. I'm going to Hell. I quip rather than question. I'm a flippant fascist with no fashion sense. At least, that's what people tell me. Mostly without the alliteration. So, uh, you wanna go for coffee sometime? For those of you still reading (that is, those not e-mailing me dissertations on the evils of racism, information on where to find Jesus or links to the Cosmo website), I'd like to say thank you: Thank you for not being presumptuous. (Wouldn't it be great to have a t-shirt with that phrase printed on it? Or a sign in a restaurant? Sort of like "Thank you for not smoking," only heeding it would solve more of the world's problems. But I digress). Even here in Ann Arbor, a liberal college town where everyone is supposed to be open- minded (or at least tolerant), it seems everyone has a favorite group of idiots. Anyone who sup- ports/opposes affirmative action, organized reli- gion, abortion, the Greek system, letting Ralph debate, the war on drugs, the patriarchy, the U.S. government, Starbucks or the Naked Mile is fair game: Can you believe those people? I'll bet they beat their children. For fun. I don't claim to be above this. I, too, have a favorite group of idiots. It consists of everyone who habitually tips less than 15 percent when eating out. I can (and will, if you let me) go on for days about why these people should not be allowed to reproduce. I detest people who gen- eralize, but it's different when I do it because I'm right. That's another thing. Having a wicked sense of humor is great at cocktail parties, but it's not the best way to improve one's position on the "idiot continuum". In my limited experience, I've found that most people have very selective senses of humor. They'll laugh at a fat joke, but not at a funeral joke. Jokes about celebrities' rela- tionships and/or eating habits are great, but God help you if you tell a Jesus joke. Poli- tics can be funny, but only sometimes; chuckling too often during any heated polit- ical debate is like dancing around the room holding a large sign that reads, "I have no idea what any of you are talking about." While wearing a dunce cap. And if there's one thing the University's Future Members of the Upper-Middle Class scorn, it's that infernal dunce cap. Like the children we pretend not to be, we berate one another to make ourselves feel supe- rior. We call each other names: Anyone who opposes race-based affirmative action is a racist. Anyone who supports legal abortions is a cold- blooded baby-killer. Everyone in the Greek sys- tem is a) dumb, b) shallow and c) incapable of making friends on her/his own. English majors are pretentious (wait - I think that one's true). Kinesiology students have French toast for brains. Engineers are boring. It's impossible to reason with those people. They're illogical. They get these crazy ideas in their heads, and good luck trying to convince them other- wise. They never let the facts get in the way of a good shouting match. But not you and I. We're dif- ferent. We know how it really is. (Sigh...) Don't you wish everyone could be smart like us? So ... how 'bout that coffee? As much as we love to pontificate with our friends, the fact remains: There are thousands of smart people at the University. Some of them make jokes at your expense. Some of them live next door to you and throw wild parties the night before your 8 a.m. French exam. Some of them didn't vote in the last election. Some drive SUVs. Some are in sororities. Some of them disagree with every major political, religious and otherwise personal belief that makes you who you are. Some of them tip 10 percent. Some of them study kinesiology. And lots of them think you're an idiot. You, specifically. And me. Specifically. And maybe they're right. No matter how rational we like to think we are, most of us are on at least 107 different idiot lists by the time we're 21. I'm sure this column will land me on a few more. Doesn't bother me a bit ... at least I'll be in good company. Aubrey Henretty can be reached via e-mail at ahenrett@umich.edu. Back to normalcy GEOFFREY GAGNON MAPS AND LEGENDS "The asik for optimism is mindless blur of TV reports with pictures that seen the triviality of that story made clear sheer terror. " somehow don't need commentary, and newspa- and our definitions of "stunning" dramatical- -Oscar Wilde pers with photos that don't need captions. ly altered. Our world stopped last Tuesday and in the But what hasn't been altered? The people t's been a week now days spent recovering from the grip that this we've spent a week listening to have been since the world was tragedy has kept us in, the ordinary pieces of telling us that the events of last Tuesday have changed forever, and life seem to come back slowly. forever changed this country. Only now is this with emotions raveled and Life is coming back to normal and it feels reality becoming clear. And what' we see is nerves sufficiently frayed the way your frozen fingers felt when you were that we may not know how to return fully to after seven days of history, eight-years-old and you'd come inside after an the sense of normalcy we enjoyed a week ago we're starting to let this moment of infamy take afternoon playing in the snow. You'd pull life- - before we told ourselves to be thankful for its place in history. Life is coming back slowly. less and numb fingers from mittens and watch the things we considered ordinary, before we Signs emerged yesterday that some sem- them thaw to a stinging pink. You'd have your appreciated the things we had always had. blance of normality was being restored, as two fingers back, but the piercing sting of feeling These days we're aware of what we don't great institutions of Americana were back in returning never felt good. have - some are painfully more aware than business: Trading returned to Wall Street and That's how chunks of normalcy are coming others - but collectively we know we are baseball returned to the ballpark. And in what back now, in unexpected stings and in slow without an historic model to follow. It's cer- President Bush called a defiant act against ter- melting moments. tainly redundant to mention that this tragedy, rorism, people quietly returned to their routines. They come back at times when you see a in all its far reaching horror, is unlike anything Or at least they tried. commercial on TV and remember that its we've dealt with before. For the last week For a week now we've lived with these been a few 'days since you've seen one. Or we've been reminded of certain other points moments and we've connected a week's worth when you read a story that doesn't come in our history with images from Dallas in of coping and understanding back to Tuesday from New York or Washington and doesn't 1963 and Hawaii from 1941. And we've done morning. Today it's tough to imagine a world mention "terror" or "attack" or any of the what we've always done - we've looked to that existed before last Tuesday, before the other words or terms we've lived with now history for a template to follow, for steps.to world came to a halt. for a week. And just like the way the thaw- repeat in order to recover. But in a lot of ways History shows us that strange things hap- ing, stinging fingers make you wonder if the we've come up empty. Take a look at the Red pen when the world stops and fixes itself on a cold, numb alternative was really that bad, Cross website and you'll find a link to a page single moment, when time is traced back to a life is coming back this week with all the dedicated to helping people cope with disas- series of minutes that altered history or clumsy details that nobody wants to consid- ter. There you'll see links to disaster services changed lives. er. Things like insurance claims on buildings provided after floods, tornadoes, earthquakes I remember hearing stories of how the and planes and companies and property and and a host of others - 17 in all. But there is death of famed author C.S. Lewis was largely people are being thought of - even before no website this time that tells us what to do missed because it came on the same day in the tears have finished drying. next. November 1963 that John F. Kennedy was shot. This return to normalcy is coupled with a So we're going back to work and we're get- So overshadowed by the historic death of realization that the things we considered ting back to life. We're making plans again and Kennedy and so unaware of Lewis' own pass- important a week ago now seem laughable. we're getting on with things. Life is coming ing, people for years continued to contact the Consider the front page headlines that back slowly, and with it so is our optimism - Lewis estate with public appearance requests stretched the width of the Detroit Free Press despite the stinging. only to learn that the author had died while the last Monday - headlines that called the world was stopped. Equally transfixed this past benching of Lions Quarterback Charlie GeoffGagnon can be reached week has been a country that has lived in a Batch "stunning." In one week's time we've via e-mailatggagnon@umich.edu. V LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 40 Religious extremism., not U.S. foreign policy, is to blame To THE DAILY: In reaction to the tragic events of last week, many students have called for the re- examination of American foreign policy. I fully support this long overdue examination but caution that policy cannot provide all the answers for why individuals go to extremes. Indeed hatred of America as an aggres- sive infidel will not go away if Israel ceased to exist or even if Israel pulled out of the Occupied Territories. This hatred is careful- ly crafted and designed to last. For exam- ples of this, look no further than Syrian childrens' textbooks, Iranian newspapers or the Egyptian government-sponsored daily, Al-Akhbar. All of this info is -available online and I urge students to investigate for themselves. I suggest The Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI), an independent, non-profit organization pro- viding translations of the Arab media 14 -1