4A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, November 29, 2001 OP/ED albe £trbigun iDuiig 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 "'At least half the car could hear him." -A witness quoted by The Washington Post's Lloyd Grove about rmer drug czar Barry McCaffeyarking into his cell phone on Amtrak s Metroliner, apparently upset that he was not the eatured speaker at a conference he was traveling to. Nomclahd . A-C - , l - l .C s r oc d > f - 4X4 0 0 I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that DAVID HORN HORNOGRAPHY o they have any idea how many kids go to this school?" This was the question I overheard at the comput- er next to me in Angell Hall on Tuesday as I sat down to prepare to CRISP. When I heard it, I had no doubt as to the content of the con- versation on which I was eavesdropping. "It's like it's being run by Greg," said one of my housemates on the CRISP sys- tem, in reference to another housemate who is responsible for a DSL fiasco that has left us without Internet access for weeks. "They should just have CRISPing take place over, like, a month ..." The idea to expand the CRISPing peri- od by a number of weeks, suggested by a friend of mine, makes sense. I am curious to hear the rationalization for the con- densed and hectic CRISP week. It seems to me that, if the problem has to do with a system that can't handle the mass numbers of students trying to CRISP on a given day, ease the system's load by decreasing the frequency of visits. The situation is pretty pathetic. And each year the University makes a new innovation to remedy the problems involved with registration. The student whose conversation I overheard mentioned how much he missed the CRISP lady. I suppose I do too, on a strictly sentimental level. Practically, she was sort of (forgive me ladies), a bi ... no. Not going to say it. Another friend of mine on Tuesday, frus- trated by her inability to CRISP, said that she was always a bit turned on by the CRISP lady. As she sort of stammered and exhaled her words: "You ... are ... reh-gi-sterd ... for ... Eh ... gih ... neer ... ing ... three ... thirty ... five ..." Whatever floats your boat, I suppose. But when the University upgraded from the CRISP lady (sexy as she was), they needed to upgrade to something along the lines of HAL (that's Heuristically pro- grammed ALgorithmic computer) 9000. What we ended up with isn't even as good as K.I.T.T. (that's the Knight Industries Two Thousand) of Knight Rider fame. The current CRISP program is as stupid as Keanu, as inefficient as the BCS (that's Bowl Championship Series) and not nearly as good-looking as Hasselhoff. I could complain about the money it costs for me to attend this school, and how they (whoever the omnipresent "they" is at this University) should be on top of these sorts of problems; how "they" should be testing this program all year, and how it should be flawless by the time it debuts towards the end of the fall term. And that complaint is legitimate. Students should not have to spend entire days (yes, plural) waiting in lines and staring dumbly at computer screens. A student who has pre- pared his or her ideal class schedule should be able to register for classes in a matter of minutes. Of course, to prepare a schedule one must have access to the tentative Winter 2002 schedules ahead of time; such has not been the case this week. I understand that back in the day kids waiting in lines and records and schedules were kept on paper and people dealt with that. But this is not back in the day. The University pretends to be on the forefront in technology in comparison with other Universities of similar size and pres- tige. If the gauge of that self-credit is based on academic research, grants and awards, then kudos, 'U.' But spend a little time, thought and money to make sure your undergraduate students have access to superior technology, too. David Horn can be reached (assuming he has uninterrupted access to the University server) via e-mail at hornd@umich.edu. 6 I V LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Sacrilegious cartooning V VIEWPOINT It's too bad Syed was attacked, but if he hates U.S., then leave Butler's cartoon offensive, taken from Monty Python TO THE DAILY: I must express my disappointment in the Daily's publication of a cartoon by Samuel Butler (11/27/01) which was in very poor taste because it was a low blow at a man who has, through out his life, been a superior advocate of peace, liberty and euchumenism. The cartoon was very unoriginal because it stole directly from a Monty Python film (and not one of their good ones), and which was also insulting to the beliefs and theology of the Catholic church, that is to say all those who consider themselves Catholic. The cartoon was a gross misrepresentation of the church's position, as it has never taken a position approaching that which is suggested by the cartoon. The Daily, a not-all-together terrible publication ought to take more care in what it publishes on its editorial page. JOE MUELLER RCjunior Mockery of Pope divides united nation TO THE DAILY: I am shocked that, as we have united as Amer- Pope John Paul I1 BY BARRY FULLER In response to Waj Syed's column in yester- day's Daily ("Ignorance on the Union steps" 11/28/01), I would like to apologize on behalf of the wino that attacked him, simply because I'm sure he won't come forth and apologize, and I would like to make it clear that he is not repre- sentative of America. In yesterday's column, Syed said: "America is ignorant. So are most Americans. And that too in a very important way: culturally." To support this statement Syed includes the tellings of what happened to him Monday night. First, Syed is interviewed by a reporter who is trying her best to relate reality to the rest of the metro Detroit area. She is interviewing foreign students to get their reactions to racial profiling in an effort to let others know that it is real and cannot be ignored. Unfortunately, this reporter came unprepared and mistook Pakistan for a Middle Eastern nation. What a tragedy. Next, he encounters a police officer who is trying to help by calming you down, then is chastised for using poor grammar by saying "Pakistanian." I'll pretend I can't see the poor grammar Syed uses throughout his column like sentences with "till" and "and." Finally, Syed met a bystander who saw the incident with the wino and decided to stick around and give his story to the police. He could have just left since he was under no legal responsibility to stay, but he decided to help a stranger. According to Syed, this "ignorant" American makes three mistakes. He infers that Pakistanis and Iranians look alike, somehow conveys the point that Ira- nians deserve to be targeted, and thinks that Pak- istan is nowhere near Iran. I actually agree with the bystander's first point because I wouldn't be able to tell the dif- ference between a Pakistani and an Iranian just as much as I wouldn't be able to tell the differ- ence between a Japanese and a Chinese person or as much as you can probably tell the differ- ence between an American and a Canadian. I don't understand how you took his state- ments to mean that Iranians should be targeted, since all he said was that you look similar to an Iranian and asked where you are from. Finally, as shocking as it may be, not many people have a working knowledge of the geo- graphical locations of Asian nations. I just found out myself that Iran and Pakistan share a border. Should I be labeled as ignorant for not knowing that? My point is this. If I had chosen to go to school in Pakistan, I would at least try not to hate the people. I wouldn't expect them to know where Michigan is, and I wouldn't get pissed if they didn't. I wouldn't lash out in the school newspaper how most Pakistanis are ignorant and how much I hate the country. I wouldn't announce that Pak- istan is in a "geo-strategic fallacy," but that's probably because I'm ignorant and I don't know what that means. Bottom line: If you truly hate America, then leave. No one is forcing you to be here. I just thought it was funny that you contin- ually bash America, but you do so by enforcing your right to free speech as well as the freedom of the press, two of the most important reasons why this is the best country on the planet. Barry Fuller is an Engineering junior. icans following Sept. 11, the Daily would print Samuel Butler's cartoon (11/27/01) which mocks the Catholic faith. If Butler presented an accurate description of Catholic teaching, this would not be bigotry. However, Butler's cartoon presents Catholic teaching in an inaccurate way (...the Pope declared today...). This can only be interpreted as religious bigotry. As a country and as a University community, we should not support religious big- otry. We should not be anti-Catholic, anti-Islam, anti- Judaism, anti-atheist, etc. Do we need anoth- er terrorist tragedy to remind us of this? ANDREW NAGRANT School of Public Health student Wolverine Access fails its job, 'U' students .. TO THE DAILY: I miss the CRISP lady. Registration was easy and quick a few years ago. We dialed a local number and a nice computer-woman guided us through registration. But students had to com- plain about how we could not register via the Web. Well, now you have it. Web regis- tration. Hope you enjoy it, because I most certainly do not. I have been try- ing to get some kind of response out of wolverine access for four hours. Regis- tration was faster when I used a phone, a printed class schedule and the old Wolverine Access all at once. The registrar's office tells me that they plan on starting a person-to-per- son registration process soon to allevi- ate the mess made by web registration. I was told students would be asked to wait in line for an hour or two at the LSA Building. Good. Then we can jump back in time ten years, back to when you had to wait in line. But you could see the end of the line and you knew about how long you had to wait. Has this technology made our lives easier? Do you have more free time because of web registration? I think not. Before the University starts using a new registration method we need to make sure it works. Web registration has not run smoothly at the University since it was introduced. I liked it better when I could say to a friend, "Hey, did you CRISP yet? I just CRISPed this morning." SCOTT BRUNNER LSA senior ... but stop whining TO THE DAILY: In reading the Nov. 27th, edition of the Daily, I would like to ask the stu- dents that commented these questions: Do you remember not owning a com- puter? Do you remember when the Internet was an exciting new form of communication? Well, I do! I remember waiting in line, outside of a building hoping to get a class that might remotely help me ful- fill my course catalog requirements. For hours. These days, college students don't have to get dressed or put on a pair of shoes to register. They grab a , Devoted Creed fans fire back 4 Band will save, bring nation back to its Judeo-Christian roots To THE DAILY: I wasn't aware that the Arts section of the Daily has become yet another forum for Christ- ian bashing. Nick Woomer's Nov. 27 review ("Singlehandedly defining new 'Suckcore' genre") lacked any recognizable form of musi- cal criticism but seemed to be written for the sole purpose of furthering what seem to be his as well as the Daily's political agenda. The writer even admitted this early in the article: "Some might say that the religious under- tones in Creed's music are what make them so awful and I'm somewhat partial to this expla- cal political agenda with us, I recommend he do it outside of an Arts review. MAYUKH RAYCHAUDHURI LSA junior How can Creed get an F? TO THE DAILY: I am very upset with Nick Woomer's review about the band Creed and their new CD. In case Woomer didn't know, you need to listen to a CD first to give it a review. Then after that that you should listen to it again and again. I personally love their new CD. Now Woomer is telling me he gave it a grade of an F. That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. If he didn't notice, both former tracks "Higher" and "With Arms Wide Open" were and are still great songs. I suggest someone else on the Daily's staff review ...I