4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, February 12, 2002 OP/ED ~bz rb1§au i~ad~t 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 letters@michigandaily.com EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 JON SCHWARTZ Editor in Chief JOHANNA HANINK Editorial Page Editor 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 Bush is Dracula." - An Iranian banner read in English in Tehran, in reaction to George W. Bush 'sproclamation of Iran as part of the "axis of evil" trifectas, as reported by the Associated Press. Young LSA female seeks young engineering, pre- law, or pre-med male who plans on graduating with honors. He must enjoy long protests in the diag, occasional romps in the stacks and taking road trips in his spacious and comfortable luxury car. Art students, philosophy majors or general studies majors need not apply. Please send stock portfolio synopsis and GPA transcripts. SAM BUTLER THE SOAPBoX Young seeks Send photo .3 QI a _A *1o college male young college female: Food for thought AUBREY HENRETTY NEUROTICA It's hard to say where it starts. Does it start with a toddler scrunching up her round little face, unhappy with the way this pointy pair of shoes pinches at her toes? Does it start when her defini- tion of "beauty" - hitherto snowflakes or smiles or any- thing else that sparkled - shatters in the face of hot makeup tips from her first Seventeen maga- zine? When the same black-hearted reptile who gave Weight Watchers and Baskin Robins adjoin- ing spaces in the plaza opens a Lane Bryant right next to Petite Sophisticate at the mall, adding humiliation to insult and injury? When the kid down the block calls her "Hunka Chunk" and even her friends think it's funny? It's hard to say., But where it started quickly becomes unimpor- tant. There's something intoxicating about the for- merly snug jeans fighting a losing battle with gravity, the wide-eyed amazement of former tor- mentors (and friends), the evaporation of the sec- ond chin, the lightheaded feeling you get whenever you stand up. Something that makes you forget. Something that makes (twice) daily dates with the bathroom scale seem reasonable and cel- ery sticks seem like food. You say exactly what you think at all times, no longer concerned they'll slap you with a garish fat girl stereotype or flip their hair at you dismissively. You're not afraid of the camera, the mirror or the basketball court any- more. You're not afraid of anything. Except one thing. OK, two. One: You have a paralyzing fear of gaining it all back. God, what if you slipped a little and one day you woke up and your cute little jeans were too tight? What then? Before you knew it, you'd be the size of a hippopotamus again and all your effort would be for naught. People would refer to your thinness in the past tense and describe you as "big" again and shake their heads piteously when- ever they saw you eating a cookie. Again. A fate worse than death. Two: No one must find out. You know you've been weird about food lately, but everything's under control. They don't need to know. They'd be disappointed in you. They'd think you were stu- pid or crazy. Or weak. But they have nothing to be concerned about. You don't look like a zombie, like the "before" pictures of those girls on daytime talk shows with titles like "I Was a Teenage Werewaif' who were 98 pounds at 5-foot-9 and who doctors had to feed intravenously for two years. You're not half as unfortunate as Calista Flockhart's bones jut- ting out of her backless dress at the Emmys, screaming "I have a problem" to an adoring pub- lic forced to take her word for it when she said it was natural. You eat. You're fine. Except you're not fine and you know it. Calista knows it too, but she's in an even big- ger pickle than you are. If she unzips her psyche for all the world (and herself) to see, she risks falling into the abyss of Celebrities with Pet Caus- es, home to every famous person who's ever had a terrible illness or addiction; they'd expect her to speak publicly about things she had trouble deal- ing with in the dark. Should she recover, gaining a merciful 20 or 30 pounds and (eventually) the self- confidence to share her story with others, she might lose the next starring role to someone who keeps her big mouth appropriately shut at the podi- um as well as at the dinner table. Hollywood does not want to hear that its ideal is unattainable; it wants to hear Jennifer Aniston's "success" story and sell it to insecure women everywhere for $12.99 with a recipe book and a bottle of low-carb salad dressing included at no extra charge. If it's hard to say where it starts, it's harder to say where it ends. Sometimes you get lucky and your friend or your mom won't let you sink that low; cold bedpans and prickly IV nee- dles never enter into your daily life. After a while, your size and your sense of self-worth stop being inversely proportional. You start to like yourself a little. You hurl the bathroom scale out a second floor window. Smile as it shatters. Note the irony. Laugh at yourself. Cry because some people aren't so lucky. Teach little girls how to make paper snowflakes out of fashion magazines.. Add glitter. Write about it in the second person. The end may be a long way off, but you've got to start somewhere. Aubrey Henretty can be reached at ahenrett@umich.edu. 0 S Michael Moore,librarians and a free speech win GEOFFREY GAGNON G-OLOGY he last few years, it seems, have been uncharacteristically quiet for provocateur film- maker-turned-author Michael Moore - the Flint native who gained fame for - his 1989 documentary "Roger and Me." Sure, sev- eral years of economic secu- rity may have dulled the passions of Moore's anti-corporate army or dampened the interests of readers who catapulted Moore's last book, "Downsize This!" to bestseller status. But if our current economic slowdown is nothing else, at least it's a chance for Moore to get back to work - after all, what's a recession without Michael Moore blasting government and attacking corpo- rate America? This time around he'll do so with a new book called "Stupid White Men," due in stores a week from today, where Moore takes aim at the White House ("a ne'er-do-well rich boy and his elderly henchmen"), and laments the bygone good-old days of the 1990s ("When the government was running at a surplus, pollution was disappearing, peace was breaking out in the Middle East and Northern Ireland, and the Bridge to the Twenty- First Century was strung with high-speed Internet cable and paved with 401K gold"). Except this time Moore's humor and wit nearly failed to see the light of day after sensitive publish- ing executives at HaperCollins threatened to axe Moore's new book in the wake of the September tragedies. The same flag-waving disregard for expression and dissent that prompted White House spinster Ari Fleischer to warn Americans to "watch what they say and do" cast a shadow over the book when the brass at HarperCollins decided to take Ari's advice. After 50,000 copies had been printed, Moore's book, scheduled to hit stores on Oct. 2, was yanked from the presses and put on hold because of concern over the timing of its political humor. This decision was not without justification given the uncertainty of the moments after the attack - a point even Moore will concede. However, few can defend what HaperCollins is alleged to have done next. Frightened over the anti-Bush tones the book contained, (Moore reportedly suggests that the Texas baseball buff turned president is, among other things, a function- al illiterate) HaperCollins told Moore to change nearly 50 percent of the text or risk seeing the book shelved for good. What's more, the publish- ing house also demanded that Moore change the title, the book's cover art and kick in $100,000 from his royalty check to cover the costs of reprinting. Moore told fans on his website that his publishers cited changes in the "political climate" and suggested that the book would be "intellectu- ally dishonest" if it didn't admit that George Jr. had done a decent job since September when they threatened to kill the book. Moore's breakthrough came in December when his battle with the publishing powers-that-be was taken up by an unlikely army. Armed with her own sense of social justice and access-to several email groups, Ann Sparanese, a librarian at Engle- wood Library in New Jersey, took Moore's cause to the people. After hearing Moore speak at an event where the author mentioned that his embattled book was collecting cobwebs in a HaperCollins warehouse, Sparanese fired off messages to several groups of active librarians including the Progressive Librari- ans Guild. Formed to fight library status quo, the idea of a progressive group of librarians doesn't exactly conjure up images of freedom-fighting activists. But, in the hearts and minds of publishers who rely on librarians and the libraries they stock for some $2 billion of annual revenue, socially minded librarians are a force to be reckoned with. So as Sparenese's message started to bounce across librarian e-mail groups it wasn't long before industry observers like Publisher's Weekly and Library Journal jumped on the story. A posting on Drudge Report and a pair of stories in the New York Post and on Salon.com quickly followed and suddenly HaperCollins execs were willing to tone down their demands. Moore told Salon.com that in the days after the story was first posted on librari- an-related websites, an official with HaperCollins admitted that the publishing house had been bar- raged with angry messages from irate librarians. With the word of next week's release of a completely unchanged and unaltered book, Moore's battle appears to have been won in a way the muckraking author and filmmaker couldn't have scripted better himself. In a season of un- American, flag-flying censorship, where free speech and thoughtful debate became the sacrifice dejour, it's nice to see the triumph of freedom of expression - a patriotic notion that merits a bit of flag-waving. If the timid publishers at Harper- Collins were wary of a public outcry, that's exactly what they got - in the form of a true patriotic defense of American ideals from a group of angry librarians. Geofrey Gagnon will be at the Michigan Theater on March 12 when Michael Moore rolls into town and can be reached at ggagnon@umich.edu. * VIEWPOINT Daily editorial 'way off base' in 501(c)3 evaluation By PETER BALDWIN AND JOHN BALDWIN The Michigan Daily is quite right, though for all the wrong reasons, in its condemnation of the Houses of Worship Political Speech Protection Act (Onward Secular Soldier, 2/7/02). Churches and 501(c)3 non-profits are exempt from taxation because they don't engage in politics. That's the bargain they've made. Political advocacy or activism is explicit- ly prohibited for any organization trying to secure tax-exempt status as a 501(c)3 corpora- tion. We know. We worked for two of them, one an umbrella organization serving other rs01 (,'\ vnhntPr rgynitinnc the ether a When those organizations attempt to lobby the government, support specific candidates, etc., they are going outside the scope of the social purpose for which they were granted exemption. Organiza- tions created for the purpose of directly influencing legislative activity or fostering social change are classified as 501(c)4 corporations by the IRS. 501(c)4 corporations are still non-profits, but they are advocacy non-profits and they are required to pay taxes. This is why the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), for example, has both: The NARAL Foundation is a 501(c)3 and their lobbying arm, NARAL, is a 501(c)4. Their political speech is not restricted at all - they simply can't use tax-exempt dollars to finance it. Neither can we. Donations to 501(c)3s America? We can't stop him from building his cross or arguing against abortion rights, but at least we have the comfort of knowing he isn't doing it tax-free. Representative Walter Jones (R-N.C.), has pro- posed this legislation in order to grant houses of worship the right to endorse candidates for politi- cal office. It seems that Jones wants to give churches an increased role in the exercise of gover- nance, while denying other non-profits that right. Removing the ban on activism by tax-exempt organizations privileges them at our expense. Frankly, we'd rather keep church and state sepa- rate. If they want to have a say in our governance, let them pay taxes, like any 501(c)4 organization. As an aside, the Daily is way off base in its i