4A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, January 24, 2002 " OP/ED le Ilirigttrn iaiI 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 ~He's very famous in Europe. - Lorenzo Minoli on former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Yesterday, Minoli's company, Five Mile River Films bought the movie rights to Andrew Kirtzman's book, 'Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City," E, - t'iK e oe - Aid O s w o~n1. 3ev% 0 Not another column about Sept.i DAVID HORN HORNOGRAPHY friend today said, "Is Sept. 11 still going on?" The lev- els on which that question is amusing are many. I told her no, Sept. 11 ended four months ago. But I considered her point. There was a time from Sept. 12 until mid- Nov. when I followed the news thoroughly and passionately, as all of a sudden there was some- thing remarkable going on (not that the Gary Condit circus wasn't interesting, it just ... yeah ... nevermind). Admittedly, the hype about my generation not "knowing tragedy" and being sheltered from the horror of the rest of the world was sort of true and I was impassioned and engaged by the world's sudden new reality as described to me. That immediate fascination dissipated, though, for most people. Whereas for a few months following Sept. 11 there could not be a conversation in any forum that didn't end with some consideration of Osama, now I've found that my family, friends, classmates, professors, colleagues, popular news media and elected officials are ready to "return to normalcy." Isn't this premature? Are we calling it a day and hitting the showers (or the re-election trail)? In the immediate aftermath, the news cycles moved quickly as plans to "eliminate evil" - at least you didn't set your sights too high, Georgie boy - were set in motion. Things were very new and it seemed that with everyone (politicians, media, public) interested, we could arrive at some short-term finality. But after those caves in Tora Bora were cleaned out a few weeks ago and the boys in Washington said they had no better idea of the whereabouts of bin Laden than they did of my M-card (Do you have it?), the news seem to slow down and get really repetitive. Israelis march into another West Bank town. Enron caught jaywalking. Helicopter crash. Ashcroft arrests all left-handers, detains righties. Heli- copter crash. I guess I can't get over how quickly Ameri- ca "got over" that silly issue of finding Osama bin Laden. People don't seem to be outraged that bin Laden is kickin' it in Kashmir. The media has allowed Bush to allow bin Laden to still be free. Now the issues surrounding the "war" are the quality of conditions for the POWs at the oddly named Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and what to do about John Walker Lindh. (Side note: NBC described the manner in which Walker was taken off the USS Bataan as having been "whisked away." Get it? It took me a minute. John Walker ... Johnny Walker ... whiskey ... "whisked away." They're too damn clever at NBC). As far as that situation goes, I don't know what ought to be done. As far as what will be done, Americans don't seem to be particularly sympathetic to this over-privi- leged Benedict Arnold story and we have an attorney general who described Walker's actions as having "turned his back on our coun- try and our values." That heavy language doesn't bode well for our unshaven anti-hero. See you in hell, Johnny. It sounds naive but we've been distracted by a corrupt energy giant, a war in the Holy Land and a half-dozen issues (Walker, POWs, etc.) that are peripheral to the central ones. Fur- ther, I think the White House is pleased as punch. It troubles me that when they couldn't figure out who was sending anthrax, people stopped worrying. They can't figure out how to find Osama and people seem to have stopped worrying or at least stopped talking. When they admit that they can't figure out how to balance the checkbook, people will just stop worrying. It's passively fatalistic and the popular media is not doing a good enough job following stories and maintaining the public's engagement. It's been a few months and it's too early for any real perspective. And while my 20 year-old sensibility is new to the life cycle of a world-altering event, I feel like it's too soon for Americans to close the book; the caper's not done. Nerdy intellectuals shouldn't be the only worried about pinning the whole thing on Prof. bin Laden, in the conservatory, with a couple of Boeings. As I had been doing some months back, I want to turn on the news and be inundated with information about the war we're still fighting. Tiresome as it became, I want every conversation to come back to Sept. 11. It was an unfortunately rare phenomenon when John Q. Everybody was concerned with these issues of importance. That phenomenon is fading. Is Sept. 11 still going on? Please don't forget that it is. 0 01 David Horn can be reached via e-mail at hornd@umich.edu Y LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Rainr's col nin reveals I hope the Daily will consider preventing doing that as well? Why aren't we "barbar- SRaiji from publishing futher columns. ians" or "monsters"? Is it because we are 'biased view point' HANNAH MURRAY white, Christian or American? Engineering senior It is funny how you could almost use Mr. Taub's arguments against the U.S. just as he To THE DAILY: uses them against Afghanistan. "These Ameri- Over the past four years I have read the .blood cans kill without reason, having an impassioned Daily on a daily basis. While I do not always U.S. buILt Of ,love of money, power and control. Their goal in agree with the viewpoints of the editorial staff, I life is to make money, regardless of how many respect the right to freedom of speech. Thus, I exploitation lives they destroy. They are without remorse continue to read the viewpoints and articles and would rather die with as much money and published by the paper. TO THE DAILY: power as possible". I could continue, but since However, today I believe that Manish Raiji FranklI'm criticizing the U.S. rather than kicking ("I don't care if God tells you it's wrong," y,I am outraged y the Daily's print- Afghanistan and its defenders, the Daily won't 1/23/02), while exercising his right to the First ing of David Taub's letter ('Guantanamo print this story anyway, so why bother? In Amendment, crossed the line of respect that we detainees should 'rot in hell'," 01/23/02). The short, Mr. Taub must realize that this country all must exhibit at this university in order to level of intelligence exhibited by Taub nd the was built on the blood and exploitation of coexist with others from a multitude of back- editors of this newspaper in writing and printing countless innocent human beings and nations grounds. He has an excellent point. It is better this farce makes me wonder how many people and we have no right to damn others for doing to argue with persons of opposing viewpoints are actually being educated at this university. as we have done in the past. from a vantage point that both parties share, The Daily states that it will not print base- Taub may believe that the Taliban soldiers which in many cases is not a religious one. less attacks, but perhaps this statement only can "rot in hell", but I'd prefer that the space be Yet, in the process of making his point Raiji holds true for causes that the editors favor. reserved for men of Mr. Taub's ilk who would offends with sweeping statements and brash Taub responded to a well-written and logically prefer to not offer prisoners of war basic human accusations. He may not be speaking from a argued article with a letter full of little more rights and protections. After all, "hell" is built religious viewpoint, but he is certainly speaking than racist and xenophobic trash. He calls the just as much for evil Americans as it is evil from a biased one. Ironically, his argument Taliban fighters "monsters" and "barbarians" Afghans. seems to contradict another elementary rule of without realizing that most of these men were debate: Do not use anger and insults to prove simply "patriots protecting their homeland SEAN CARON your point. from foreign attack." Wait a minute, aren't we Engineering freshman Yr VIEWPOINT Stat a New Era' with student action 01 Y IN PASSING CAMPUS NEEDS INFUSION OF CONTROVERSY: HOROWITZ CAN PROVIDE Randall Robinson, author of "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks" spoke at the University on Monday to commemorate Martin Luther King Day. Robinson, an out- spoken advocate of reparations for slavery, has many critics. Chief among them is con- servative stalwart David Horowitz. Horowitz fomented controversy throughout America's campuses last year with an advertisement campaign opposed to slav- ery reparations. While Horowitz makes sev- eral decent arguments, he frames arguments in strictly economic terms and brushes aside the unspeakable evils of slavery. For example, Horowitz stated that American blacks are better off because of slavery. While these arguments are sometimes cal- lous, nonetheless they should be heard. The University should invite David Horowitz to speak and thus raise the level of both awareness and debate on campus. An evening with Horowitz would also be interesting for pure spectacle. University stu- dents will surely have plenty to say to Horowitz and the resulting controversy will liven up this often apathetic campus. While the event would most likely incite extremists on both sides of the issue the majority of stu- dents would benefit from critically thinking about the thorny topic of reparations. - Zac Peskowitz Jess Piskor In Passing views are those of individual members of the Daily's editorial board, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of The Michigan Daily. BY SHEILA MCCLEAR Outside Buffalo, N.Y, a metal barrel sits alongside a busy road. In it, a small fire, fueled by logs found on the roadside and old newspa- pers, burns and warms about a dozen women gathered around, stomping their feet and rub- bing their hands together. One thing is clear: It's cold out. The mercury reads around 20 degrees, but the frigid wind makes it nearly unbearable. As close to the road as they can get without blocking traffic, more workers are marching up and down wearing signs saying, "CWA on strike" around their necks. This is a picket line. The workers are employees of New Era Cap Company and members of Communication Workers of Ameri- ca Local 14177. They have one major tie to Ann Arbor: They make hats bearing the University logo. They have been on strike for the last six months. Car horns blare as they speed down the road. The strikers raise their hands or wave in recog- ignored by management and misdiagnosed or brushed off by plant doctors. The workers are, needless to say, both disappointed and angry about the decline of their work environment. Mary Catalino, who has worked at New Era for the last seven years, tells me that the proposed contract from New Era would have cut her hourly wage by $7. Her statement is typical of the effect management's proposed contract would have on the New Era plant's workers. Unable to accept such a contract, the union voted to go on strike last July. In addition to the wage cuts, New Era moved some of its production to two new plants in Alabama (a relatively poor and union-unfriendly state) after workers affiliated with the CWA in 1997. Now, there is a plant in Bangladesh, too. The "made in Bangladesh" tags on these hats are sewn to the hat in a place where they are not so obvious - after all, New Era has a long history of their caps being "made in the U.S.A." and wants to hide the fact that it now subcontracts its work out to countries where it can pay its work- supporting families and can't afford to be out on strike. At this point, the power to induce change lies with New Era's customers, like the universities who hold contracts with the hat-making plant. Because of said labor practices, New Era is cur- rently in violation of the contract it holds with the University. Suspending a contract with New Era would send a strong message to their manage- ment, namely: We won't tolerate our apparel to be made in factories with grossly inadequate compensation, insufficient care for work-related injuries, sub-standard pay and a work environ- ment rife with intimidation and threats. It is the responsibility of the University to ensure that apparel and other goods bearing the University logo are made under decent and fair working conditions providing a living wage to its workers. What can students do to stand in solidarity with the workers in New York? First of all, don't buy New Era baseball caps. They are made with scab labor (in the case of the Derby 0l . . .yX:i a.p..st;";:i:.:::w s: s : :r:+:: ;Fgv:::ri .: v } > " I .