4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, January 14, 2003 OP/ED cube lII bitwn Dal 420MAYNARD 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 I don't think there is any point putting an arbitrary timescale on it." - British Prime Minister Tony Blair concerning an invasion of Iraq, as reported in yesterday's International Herald Tribune. 1 HIAV E Too0, YA KNOW 1li7 8r4e[ /(A ' I EEM1-ro HAVE W4 in - ~& W!A"&SO' EYg KARL KRESSBACH UNITED NATIONS I It's not all sunshine and 'Shawshank' JOSEPH LITMAN TiHE LOW END TIEOR D avid Mamet wrote, "Every- body needs money. That's why they call it money," in his 2001 film, "Heist." To borrow, then, from that memo- rable line, I should like to remind everyone that no one wants to go to prison. That's why they call it prison. While I wouldn't ever presume to be as tal- ented a wordsmith as Mr. Mamet, I do feel obliged to take liberty with his work given the conflagration started by Illinois' Republican Gov. George Ryan last Friday when he com- muted all the sentences of his state's death row inmates. The fiery debate concerning capital punish- ment has been long burning in this nation, rou- tinely stoked by findings of unjust application or significant improvements in genetic testing. Gov. Ryan's decision to spare 167 prisoners, however, is the most incendiary move in recent times, and will hopefully facilitate the promul- gation of significant systemic changes. Yet lost amidst the heated discussion concerning the incredible shift in Illinois is that those whose sentences were commuted were neither exoner- ated nor spared torture and punishment. Instead, the population that formerly dwelled on death row will now be forced to grapple with the terrible realities presented by long-term incarceration in America. The Mar- riage of Figaro will not be blaring from public address speakers. If anything, Illinois's formerly condemned should watch HBO's "Oz" to get a better sense of what the remainder of their time will be, if they don't know already: Years spent with angry men who have committed terrible, often violent crimes and are remanded in an infantilizing, rigid environment devoid of empa- thy and lacking rehabilitative power. Surely, neither "The Shawshank Redemp- tion" nor "Oz" - both fictional - can be taken as definitive and accurate portrayals of prison life. However, books like Ted Conover's New Jack - in which Conover details his year work- ing as a corrections officer at New York's Sing Sing maximum-security facility - are more reliable accounts of life inside the United States' criminal repositories. And Conover spares no detail as he recounts grizzly episodes of verbal and physical abuse, all reminding readers that the culture of incarceration rests on the bedrock of violence, immersed in a sea of abuse and fear. The war on drugs and its asinine, ineffec- tive, rigid sentencing guidelines may have bloated the prison system with non-violent drug offenders, yet the presence of this unlucky group of dime-bag-buyers should not obfuscate that prisons are still populated by those who have performed terrible acts of murder, rape, manslaughter, assault and kidnapping. Going to jail is not a vacation spent with the leisure set, playing cards and filling copious amounts of recreation time. The dissemination of similar misinformation is rampant, however, among capital punish- ment's ardent advocates. At the expense of truth, fervent death penalty proponents have ignored the bleak and horrific realities of imprisonment, instead painting time spent in jail as an unjustly benign consequence of illegality. To adva ie, their goal, this groqp las edgigpated state-sanctioned death as the only acceptable punishment for awful crimes, often invoking the Hammurabi notion of eye-for-an-eye justice. These attempts to advance their agenda are insultingly condescending and simple if not egregiously naive; a prison sentence may not be the lesser of the two evils. I don't callously propose this last conclusion as a marginalization of life. Gov. Ryan lent cre- dence to this notion when he mentioned that some prisoners on death row pleaded that he uphold their sentences instead of reassigning them to incarceration for life. There can be no greater indictment of the penal system than pris- oners consciously choosing to die rather then miserably dwell in jail. This knowledge should suffice for those indifferent or undecided about the merits of the death penalty.. However, there are even better reasons to applaud Ryan. DNA testing has already exonerated many who were wrongly convicted - 13 out of 25 reviewed cases in Illi- nois alone. The increasingly suspect testimony of eyewitnesses further indicates that many con- victions may have been unwarranted. As these flaws in our legal system emerge, objections to government-led killings grow in both number and strength. Until more cases are reviewed and the legal system is further scrutinized, the 37 other states with the death penalty should enact similar measures to those in Illinois, at least instituting moratoriums on executions. Those who object to such measures should try and remember that only going to prison will be punishment enough. Andy Dufresne will not be writing any time soon. Joseph Litman can. be reached at litmanj@umich.edu. 0 04 1 Yost fans need ThunderStix like pope needs bible JON SCHWARTZ Two SIDES TO EVERY SCHWARTZ s dreported in Sunday's edi- tion of The Ann Arbor News, the Michi- gan Athletic Depart- ment will be giving out ThunderStix for the Feb. 14 hockey show- down against Michigan State. This idea seems to me remarkably similar to some ambi- tious groundskeeper at Wrigley Field removing the famous ivy walls; in my view, we're talking about a complete destruction of a venue's character. Since coming to Michigan, I have become somewhat fanatical about Michi- gan sports. And I'll certainly admit that one of my fondest sports memories of all time is my first game at Michigan Stadium, against Notre Dame, squinting from my 92nd-row seat to see whatever I could of a phenomenal game. But despite the 107,501-seat monstrosi- ty's grandeur, nothing in my mind com- pares to Yost Ice Arena, the old barn on State Street that has housed some of the greatest moments in the long history of Michigan sports. Yost seats about 100,600 fewer fans than the Big House, but what it lacks in size is made up for with the great- est sports atmosphere I've ever been a part of. Though I have never seen a basketball game at Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium, writers far more experienced and notewor- thy than I have been known to compare the two jewels positively. Yost is a treasure. I'll never forget the Michigan State game there last year, when Michigan completely outplayed the Spar- tans for the majority of the game, but couldn't get onto the scoreboard for the game's first 53 minutes. When it was done, Michigan had eked out a 1-1 tie and I was completely out of breath. I'd never seen energy like that, never seen fans so clearly rally a team to success. Never, that is, until two months later when, in a repeat of 1998, Michigan's sup- porters pushed the Wolverines to a huge upset win in the NCAA Regional and a berth in the Frozen Four. For the pivotal matchup against Denver, I was standing in the back row of the legendary arena, as far away from the ice as the venue's meager size allowed, but close enough to be com- pletely swept away by the tidal wave of emotion that filled the barn. That's what Yost is all about - intima- cy. Sometimes painfully loud intimacy. Contrast those examples with two incredible football games in Ann Arbor this year. In the first, Michigan beat Washing- ton on a last-second field goal, ironic con- sidering that at times this season it seemed like anyone in the student section was a legitimate to become Michigan's placekick- er. In another, Michigan needed overtime to beat Penn State, an unbelievable finish that sent fans crazy. Those two games were undoubtedly great, but even standing on the field at both contests' conclusions, I was still overcome by the relative calmness in the atmosphere. It's no secret that Michigan Stadium is quiet. Whether it's the architecture or the fans themselves, there's no secret that "The House that Yost Built" never goes nearly as crazy as the one which bears his name. With all that in mind, it's so hard for me to accept the fact that I'm going to have to deal with the artificial - and completely superfluous - roar of ThunderStix at the Michigan State game. Why mess with the best thing going? ThunderStix were annoying at this year's World Series. But like it or not, Ana- heim fans need foolish things like rally monkeys and noisemakers to get involved in sports. Likewise, I wouldn't be this angry if I heard that the maddening mara- cas were being given out at Crisler Arena or Michigan Stadium. It would bother me, but hey, noise is noise, and those two places need more of it. But Yost? Giving Yost fans Thunder- Stix is like offering the pope a bible. Thanks for the offer, but we've got it under control. It's surely too late for the Athletic Department to call off the promotion (and don't worry, I'm not so arrogant as to think that if it wasn't too late, my opinion would call for an emergency recall!). But it's not too late for Michigan supporters to show what makes them the greatest hockey fans in the world. At the next home game, on Jan. 31 against Ferris State, the Yost crowd has a perfect opportunity to make noise the likes of which can never be artificially reproduced by the banging together of two plastic tubes. I can all but guarantee that the Cameron Crazies would be offended if offered Thun- derStix and would laughingly refuse to accept them. It's not too late for us to do the same. S Jon Schwartz can be reached atjlsz@umich.edu. LETTER TO THE EDITOR Honkala column trivialized the intellectual courage of Christopher Hitchens TO THE DAILY: In response to John Honkala's column, Hitch hits the road; pass the whiskey (01/10/03) two points: First, Christopher Hitchens' decision to leave The Nation came as no surprise to anyone who read his columns and compared them to the mess that was the rest of the magazine. As a liberal, I have a certain respect for the intellectual and moral honesty involved in Hitchens' decision. Liberals should be the first and most vocal in call- ing for an end to the Hussein regime in Iraq, and that only as a stepping-stone towards bringing democracy and pluralism to Iran, Suadi Arabia and elsewhere. As a former subscriber to The Nation, I was always dismayed that those who wrote for that magazine on foreign policy seemed more willing to hem and haw over the ramifications of violence rather than see the potential to expand liberty across the world. Hitchens is right to make common cause with those who understand that wherever they come from politically. Another note I'd like to make: Honkala correlates the fall of Leftism with the rise of modern middle-class life right around the time of Richard Nixon. Well, he got the timing right, but the reason wrong. The Left failed because New Leftists strangled the productive and substantive liberal poli- cy apparatus of the time, replacing it with the myopia typified by college demonstra- tors - the logical point of contrast being student dissidents in Iran. Much of Leftism nowadays requires neither inquiring into 0 0 THE BO00NDOCKS SOO6N OUR NO1O wii tA RON MWCThilJDER WE WILL REFLECT ON HIS .71 [7 UNLESS YOU SUSPECT YOUR