4A - The Michigan Daily - Friday, October 25, 2002 OPTED (Itt W 4k, tjCbtgttu :4gat7lu 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 "CThis is such a shock." - Sheila Tezando, Allen Muhammad, sniper suspect's, sister-in-law, as quoted by CNN online yesterday in reaction to the identification ofMuhammad as the primary suspect in the shootings. SAM BUTLER THE SIOAPBOX v 00%rnm Nhe'. ShoLe. f~ 4R *' ea~ Corresponding with Dubya JOHN HONKALA Too EARLY IN THE SUN In the interest of clarity, the following open letter, to George W. Bush will be ren- dered in the vernacular that he is most familiar with. Because after all, 4xclarity, more than any- p .~thing, is clearly how we all want to portray ourselves. Dear fellow American and baseball club owner, We've got to talk about this War thing here. In fact, let's talk about reasoning because I'm still confused about why.we're going to war. Is it because of Saddam's nucular weapons of mass destruction? Or is it because he's despotical? Or because he killed his very own kin? Your logic has been as useless as tits on a boar and you've used facts as facts that are not factual, which should tell you something about you. So here are some of my reasons why not to go to war, and I hope they resignate with you. I'm concerned about pre-emptiveness. Look, I'm sure you've whipped the tar outta some guy before for looking Laura in the eye or for hogging the cocaine. Probably whipped him good, too. But, see, the guy had it coming, right? He dared attack the freedom of a spoiled, drunken Eli. But you don't go around kicking the she-bang out of random enemies, even if they are evil, evil doers. I mean, you're from Texas, where it's honorific to fight gentlemanly. So why the peacockery? Besides, you probably had your buddies there to back you up. Someone to step in with a haymaker when things got turned around or to bear witness to the fact that you were made a disparagement unjustifiably. Somehow I doubt your bar motto was: If you don't stand with Dubya, then stand out of the way. So don't forget, George, that the United Nations is our friend too, just like Tony Blair. If we should remember anything about past history, it is that a friend indeed is a friend of need. And we need our friends. Plus, think about all these foreigners who hate our freedom. A great man I used to know used to tell me: Don't cross a man who's apt to be crossed. Well here, in this picture I'm drawin' for you, the man is the Arab world, see? And the cross - or what's causing the crossness - is the war. All these freedom haters are gonna be pretty cross if we start dancing with Iraq. And we've got several thousand points of bright, freedom- loving light spread out across the globe in various embassaries and missionaries who would make perfect sitting bull ... duck ... targets for their hatred. It's kinda like killing the goose that Cooked ... wait, no ... the wolf that cried sheep ... the boy that ... it just ... goes against everything we grew up with ... you know, all the logic we stand for. And that coward Saddam is no dummy either. He knows we've got our itchy finger on a hair trigger and we're ready to shoot. We've got him on the edge of the edge of his end of his rope, so he won't be going any- where. But once we've attacked him, Sad- dam's not gonna sit around like a bump on a log. If he's got weapons of mass destruction he'll detonate 'em faster than you can say Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I'm afraid also that your war isn't minded toward ... aimed with the Iraqi people in. mind. When you demand regime change, doesn't that mean that we're replacing a despot with a democratic ruler for the benefit of the long-suffering Iraqi populace? I haven't seen or heard nor listened to you explain to the Iraqi people why you will be declaring war on them. That leads me to jump to the conclusion that your sincerity is called into questionable. You see, George, you can't take the high horse and the low road and expect to find the middle ground. Then there's this thing with that North Korean guy Kim Jong or Jung or Jin. (No one briefed me.) He's just 'informed us that his country has been developing nucular weapons of mass destruction, which poses a peculiar similarity with Iraq. If it's weapons we're after then it looks like we should be heading to Communist Asia sometime next spring. You must also realize that there will be deaths and casualties and spilt blood, just like in the sands of Iwa Jima. Young men and women, many of them from the great country called America, will perish from death. Where is your campassionism? You once said: "The American people wants a president that appeals to the angels?" Amen, sweet George. Be that angel embessary. To be conclusionatory, George, I'm not for the war. Because if I'm right - and being right is my normalcy - then there's two things in this world: Right and wrong. And this one - the War - is wrong. Please take this in your regards. God bless you and God bless freedom, Johnny John Honkala can be reached at jhonkala@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 01 MSA 'determined to become irrelevant' with boycott vote, say former pres ad vp. To THE DAILY: The Michigan Student Assembly seems determined to become irrelevant (again), with its ludicrous vote to boycott the Michigan Daily. MSA and the Daily are jointly the voice of campus - MSA representing and responding to the opinions of students, and the Daily bringing those and other opinions back to students. For MSA to boycott the one organization that can help it bring its work to campus is antithetical to everything student representation should be about. This boycott is nonsense. As 95 percent of campus will agree, the Daily is one of the most extremist liberal newspapers out there. For a group of student organizations to start a boycott because they don't like their coverage is ridicu- lous. Obviously, we're now seeing other groups join in, in hopes that the Daily will expand to 50 pages per day, and they, too, will get to be cov- ered. The demands of the boycotters are beyond coverage issues, as they lay out how the Daily must change the way it operates. News flash: The Daily is not getting bigger, and students are still going to pick it up tomorrow morning. Last year at this time MSA was fighting to get a fall break (yes, freshmen, the one you just had was the first at the U), get an extra $73,000 for student groups from Fleming, expand the CCRB hours, and put Entree Plus in the Big House ... all things we did. On Tuesday, MSA spent hours debating whether or not to boycott the paper they will all pick up in the morning to see if they were quoted in! Joe student couldn't cafe less, won't boycott the Daily, and will see MSA as less relevant because the majority of the "representatives" voted yes. MSA: Think of all the things you could be doing for that student - if you've never met Joe student, you can find him/her reading the letters to the editor, and doing the crossword puzzle. MATT. NOLAN LSA Senior JESSICA CASH LSA Senior Nolan and Cash are, respectively, the former MSA president and vice-president (2001-2002). Advertisements in Daily attempt I have ever seen by Zionists to present a skewed portrayal of reality and appeal to emo- tions in presenting their perspective. No respectable publication should agree to print such propaganda, even as a paid advertisement. Aside from its shameful attempt to oversimplify the issue with an emotional appeal and thereby com- pletely obscure the history and reality of the cur- rent situation, the advertisement contained no indication of which group or organization was responsible for it, no contact info, and no refer- ences for further information. The only such indi- cation was a web address pointing to a site called "campustruth.org" that, not surprisingly, doesn't even work. A similar advertisement on page 2, though apallingly skewed in its presentation of relevant facts, at least contained an organization's name and address. One wonders whether the Daily would ever print a paid advertisement proclaiming that the Holocaust never happened without citing any supporting facts or figures and containing no information about the organization placing it. An anonymous advertisement that attempted to por- tray the Palestinian side of the story simply by presenting photos of Palestinian women and chil- dren being harassed by Israeli Defense Forces dthugs would probably be censored by your esteemed editors (one of whom took a free trip to Israel - minus the West Bank and Gaza - on the Anti-Defamation League's bill)-. Political activists are held to the high standard of ground- ing their arguments on fact and reason and should not be given a platform for their attempts to sway people using emotional appeals whilst cowardly hiding behind anonymity. Though I have my own issues with the boy- cott, such flagrant hypocrisy is probably good cause for anyone to launch a protest against a so- called objective campus publication. By irrespon- sibly printing such advertisements, the Daily risks not only further alienating those who have boy- cotted it, but also those that do not stand on either side. SABIR IBRAHIM Engineering TO THE DAILY: I can't believe the ads I have been seeing in the Daily as of late. Talk about inciting hatred and spreading lies! Organizations like "Commit- tee for a Safe Israel" and "campustruth.org" are clearly out to blur the truth and to incite hatred and apathy for the Palestinians and their cause. I urge the Daily not to publish such hateful ads, especially like the one on page 2 of Thursday, Oct. 24's edition. In this ad, the "Committee for a Safe Israel" has the audacity to claim that true -,_ T_-_1 - - - V..+ -- - Energy conservation always important issue at the 'U TO THE DAILY: While I was very glad to read an article concerning environmental issues and sustain- able development in the Daily on Wednesday (Kolb pushes Green Policies in Election), I was also somewhat dismayed to note that it takes the opinion of an outsider to our campus to bring energy conservation into the spotlight. After all, the University is the single largtst polluter in all of Washtenaw County and con- sumes over 4.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas and over 300 million kilowatt-hours of elec- tricity every year! Such largesse calls for large-scale energy conservation, not just turn- ing off a couple of lights. (But please continue to do so!) Instead, think about this: The Cen- tral Power Plant responsible for 53 percent of the University's energy needs burns natural gas to generate power. Furthermore, we pur- chase the other 47 percent from external sources, mainly Detroit Edison, which uses 88 percent natural gas. That means almost all of our energy here on campus comes from natur- al gas, and nearly half of it is purchased from an outside company. One of the simplest conservation moves we, as a community, can make is to switch where we purchase our energy - the state of Michigan already boasts a large renewable power grid; in fact, in Traverse City, at least 30 homes are currently being powered by a single windmill. Other possible sources of renewable power include solar and geothermal energy, as well fuel cell technology. Kolb also suggested using a net metering system, which would result in homes paying lower bills if they returned energy to their electrical compa- ny. Believe it or not, this is not the first time sustainable energy concerns have been raised at University. An ongoing graduate study researching the carbon emissions for the Uni- versity over the past seven years was complet- ed last spring, and several student groups are running a campaign to get the Kyoto Protocol ratified here on campus. Kyoto is an interna- tional agreement signed by 178 other nations (but sadly not the United States!) to lower greenhouse gas emissions, the primary cause of global warming, to seven percent below 1990 levels by the year 2012. That seems tough, but implementing Kyoto is in fact both environmentally and fiscally responsible - for every dollar invested in energy efficiency, three will be returned. By signing on to this petition, the University would be making a pledge to work towards a sustainable campus A r P'n- -- " - - - -- - -- -- ............................................ m