4A - The Michigan Daily - Friday, September 27, 2001 OP/ED 4 G ie £tib47wn t FliIg 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 How can God bless America when we fight prayer in schools? How can some say that we are not being punished and that God does not work this way? Why did God cause the flood, and why did God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? Why did he save Joseph and Moses? You be the judge." - Louise Van Aller of Zeeland, MI, in a letter to the editor in yesterday's Grand Rapids Press. t" 14, y ) lliL F b 4 i 4 -,9 qr Moving on, this column is good STEVEN KYRITZ YES, THAT Is SARCASM 4 s this week's col- umn approached, I made myself a promise. I promised that I would not talk about IT. You know what I'm talk- ing about. IT happened, and ever since then, IT has dominated the media, and IT has dominated conversation and now it is time for me to move on. At the same time, though, IT has brought the general mood of the country and the campus down somewhat. That being the case, I figured I'd focus on the happy things, the positives. So without further ado, I present to you the good things in life. First and foremost, the Yankees are good. In fact, they're really good. Say what you will about "the Mariners this," or "Barry Bonds that;" I'll still take the Bronx Bombers. As some people (usually winners, like the Yankees) have been known to say, it don't mean a thing if you ain't got that ring. And last time I checked, Joe Torre, Derek Jeter and company had wracked up three in a row, and four out of five. It's like I've been saying ever since IT happened: Everything will be back to normal once the Yankees win the World Series. Which they will. Grilled cheese night at the dorm cafete- rias is good. Drinking for charity is good. Two Satur- days ago, a group of three students decided to turn their pre-party into a fund raising event. You may have seen them; they were the guys on State Street offering to pound a beer or do a keg stand in exchange for a one dollar contribution to charity. By the time they stopped, their number had swelled to almost 20 volunteers, including your humble narrator. In sum, over $500 was raised for an organization that (out of respect for its desire not to be linked to binge drinking) I'll call the Crimson Plus sign. So thank you to Marc, Chris and Eric for creating something good, and to Dave, for donating 10 pizzas for the volunteers. Transition sentences to link paragraphs are good. Usually. Heat is good. Trust me; my apartment has none. And similarly, autumn is good. The state of Michigan should look into it, instead of going directly from summer to winter. Live bands at the Blind Pig are good. I just saw my first show there, and I gotta tell you, it was a lot of fun. Not only that, but I got to see Oblivion, a local band that defi- nitely has big things in its future. Shameless plugs are good. HBO's miniseries Band of Brothers is good. Really good. I'd even go so far as to say it's Yankees good. Have you watched it? It's like an hour-long episode of Saving Private Ryan every week. I strongly, strongly recom- mend you watch it. Don't have HBO? I'll tell you what; you can come watch it at my place. The fact that you don't know where I live is good. Jesse Helms retiring from the Senate is good. OK, so maybe if you're a Republican you don't think so. But seriously, it sure as hell isn't bad. Free speech is good. See, you thought all that us communication majors did was watch television and write about it, but we study lots of fascinating concepts relating to com- munications. And as a "journalist," I have truly grown to appreciate free speech. How great is it? As long as you don't wrongfully incite, impugn or defame, you are Constitu- tionally allowed to say whatever you want, no matter how big of an assbag you may be. Taking slang from television and movies and incorporating it into your vocabulary is good. This year's modified fraternity rush is good. In the past, rush consisted of every fra- ternity opening their doors for four hours a night (six on Sunday), from Sunday to Thurs- day, and chatting with potential members. Period. That was it. Now, fraternities have been given the option of arranging different events on different nights, ranging from a trip to a Tigers game to poker night and Monday Night Football. Big screen televisions are good. Going to a quality institution of higher education like Michigan State is good. Going to Michigan is better. Mercifully ending a gimmicky column before it gets really dumb is good. Steven Kyritz can be reached via e-mail at skyritz@umich.edu. Y LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Lackadaisical attitudes toward killing civilians should anger all TO THE DAILY: I feel that I must respond to Jeremy Segall's letter to the Daily ("Death of for- eign civilians acceptable," 9/26/01). In it he makes the statement "If we kill their civil- ians, who cares? They certainly don't care about ours..." I found this statement deeply disturbing and I am sure I am not the only one. I hope that there are many who find that statement disturbing. Many of us in the U.S. have been caught up in the fever of unquestion- ing patriotism. We are all horrified at the terrorists acts in New York and Washing- ton, D.C. but we must not subscribe to what Segall suggests. I for one do care if we kill "their" civil- ians. As action against terrorism is inevitable we should all care about the innocents who will die as a result. If we do not, I wonder about what our society has become. Is only American life sacred? Whether we support military retaliation or not, we should be united in caring about innocents who might die as the results of our nation's actions. In Iraq, millions of innocent people have died in the last decade as a result of U.S.-led sanctions. Putting aside your beliefs whether this was even necessary, I hope you can all agree that we should all care about the deaths of hundreds of thou- sands of innocent children. There has been and will be a lot of igno- rance in much of what is said in what we as American's should do in the name of patri- otism and unity. There are some who will call others traitors for simply voicing their disagreement of our government's actions. Be patient, do your part to make Football Saturday safe for all To THE DAILY: The tragic events of earlier this month changed our world, even in Ann Arbor. For instance, many people noticed an increased security presence at the Michigan football game last Saturday. We received many com- pliments from our fans about the manner in which the people conducting security opera- tions performed their job. We want to thank all of our fans for their support and patience for these enhanced secu- rity provisions. You are truly the best! The increased security will continue, and we will continue to improve both the security and the manner in which it is implemented. Many security precautions we are encour- aging on campus, also apply at the games. Be aware of your surroundings and of others around you. Immediately report any suspi- cious packages, persons or vehicles in and around the stadium. If you normally consume alcohol before the game, moderate your con- sumption to increase the likelihood you will notice suspicious behavior. Arrive early to Michigan Stadium. To minimize the time it takes to enter the stadi- um, do not bring unnecessary items, bags or purses. Have those items you do bring opened and ready for inspection. Have your ticket ready, and keep the ticket stub available throughout the game. Finally, enjoy the game. Respect the other team, their fans and players, and all others in the Stadium - as you did so enthusiastically last Saturday. Help make the Big House a place of great pride for all of us. Go Blue! BILL MARTIN BILL BESS Martin is director of the Michigan Athletic Department. Bess is director of the Department of Public Safety. Hey BAMN, you're 'a big radical joke.' BAM! TO THE DAILY: To the people of BAMN, I enjoy your acronym. BAMN! It is quite similar to the term used by Emeril Lagassi during his cooking shows. BAM! I always get a good laugh out of that whenever I hear AP PHOTO An Afghan woman washes her hands at a refugee camp in Peshwar, Pakistan. Like many refugees, she fled her country fearing U.S. military attacks. I hope all of us remember to have an open mind and see different sides of the argu- ment. Whatever happens, please, please do not stop caring about the taking of any innocent lives. Justice will not be done if we stop caring and we certainly will not be honor- ing the innocents who died on Sept. 11. VINAY D'SOUZA Engineering senior Don't paint those who support peace as anti-American TO THE DAILY: Before accusing every poor peace loving beatnik of anti-patriotism, perhaps Daniel Mitzner ("Anti-war sentiment is completely .*.,-. " tr 1 /A/11 ni r li at besides those patriots who called in death threats to Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), the sole dissenting vote against war in the House. I could not fathom such a thing happening in the United States. How should freedom of speech work differently when we don't agree with the opinion being voiced? Do we claim it is anti-patriotic or treasonous because it's outside the consensus? There is no doubt that America suffered a horrendous tragedy at the hands of crazed A