0 4A - The Michigan Daily - Friday, October 24, 2003 OP/ED Ulbe Ldn* &du 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 letters@michigandaily.com EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 LOUIE MEIZLISH Editor in Chief AUBREY HENRETTY ZAC PESKOWITZ 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 Imade it fun. I said it was going to be gross and I was going to have to make myself throw up but it was going to be OK." - Hole lead singer Courtney Love, regarding the time her 11-year-old daughter took care of her while waiting for an ambulance after her recent overdose of OxyContin, as quoted in People Magazine. I vPeer~bue. did +Wiv~ Rello coyn pe -:+or te 'n ,nl drk, +tt(Y . our Cwe. k i iCed& -shac- sOu were .5cmns+ becouse.o +hool- we did - by i~w\v "neoms? T~e one 4ho n creoseA totir \nFi~ence. in oa rnor p- u careacdiho\ o- Co('Wedk '/eAW ... co I o rte oyhe SscCo y O & _____re upadr0 t SAM BUTLER THE SoApBoX 4 4 A rush to judgement DANIEL ADAMS 1 WIN 4 mericans love blooper reels, because some- times it's just more fun to watch someone suf- fer than it is to watch them succeed. We ooh and ahh on cue to the misfortunes of athletes, and sometimes even laugh. It's sick, sure, but somewhat understandable. Take, for example, the most common of all blooper clips - a skateboarder is sliding down a staircase, and then he loses control and falls onto the handrail. From the moment he makes contact with the rail, smashing his genitals into his abdomen, it is obvious that he is in a fair amount of distress, yet I usually am entertained - amused even, laughing at this kid in saggy, torn jeans get neutered by a handrail. I tell myself, "He chose to suspend his genitalia precariously above said handrail, and then slide down at high speed. I did those sorts of things, I would expect every now and again to make love to a staircase." Sure. Maybe he deserved it. There is a blind, perhaps unfair justice in that - he deserved it, so it's ok to laugh. Haha. There are some things, however, that are in poor taste to laugh at. Death, disease, addiction, permanent disfigurement - all good examples of non-funny bodily mis- fortune. When Rush Limbaugh, the dber- conservative radio host, announced to his listeners that he had become addicted to painkillers, the right thing for me to do was to feel sorry for the guy, and offer my sup- port that he make a full recovery. And, I do. I feel sorry for him. He didn't deserve this. I hope he kicks his habit. However, deep down, underneath any ounce of compassion I may have for the man, I'm judging Rush, and loving it. Hey Rush, how do you like them apples? You built your radio empire on being firm on "family values," the ambiguous moral code from where you and your conservative friends spent most of the '90s tossing rocks at liberal America. You and your cronies blasted Bill Clinton for smoking marijuana and supported impeaching him for marital infidelity. You called Jerry Garcia, shortly after his death, "another dead drug addict." You preached staying tough on (gasp!) drug users, saying in 1995, "Too many whites are getting away with drug use. The answer is to ... find the ones who are get- ting away with it, convict them and send them up the river." But Rush, you won't end up dead like Garcia, and you won't get "sent up the. river." Instead, once you found out that you were being investigated, you used the money you made in the malicious judg- ment of ethers to check yourself into rehab - rehab that most addicts in America will never see affordable access to. No, these Americans probably will end up in jail, where their odds of becoming a repeat offender are astronomically high. Or, they end up like Garcia - just dead addicts. I'm not a betting man, but I'd wager that you won't learn a thing. You'll come out of rehab "clean," and go back to being unre- lentingly intolerant of everyone who dis- agrees with you. With this in mind, millions of Ameri- cans, including yours truly, have taken their respective turns kicking the man while he's down - and, I might add, felt justified in doing so. He earned it right? Now that the tables have turned, can any- one blame the Left for hitting back? Proba- bly not, but we should have expected better - of ourselves. There are deeper, more intrinsic lessons to take away from this than the realization that even ideologues sometimes don't follow their own rules. We knew that already. When you get right down to it, if liber- als are to maintain any standard of consis- tency, Rush's shortfalls should be understood and accepted; not cause for scorn and ridicule. Rush didn't deserve this disease, but he does deserve to have his situation treated with the understand- ing that the Left, if Rush hadn't been so adamantly conservative, would have been generous in giving. The fact that he has spent his professional career throwing punches at the Left shouldn't disqualify him from the traditional liberal causes of tolerance and compassion - which have conveniently fallen by the wayside given the chance to attack the fallen conservative icon. How sad. It would appear that the hypocrisy for which we burn Limbaugh at the stake lies not just on the conservative side of the fence. Adams can be reached at dnadams@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Residents of Ann Arbor responsible for demanding workers' living wage To THE DAILY: Wednesday's letter by Dan Smith of Bor- ders Group Inc. is characteristic of the Bor- ders campaign to misinform the public, Borders treats employees fairly, acting "in good faith," (10/22/03). As a member of the Ann Arbor community, I am outraged that Smith believes that as a community and consumers we should have no say about working condi- tions within our city. Smith claims that it would be irresponsible to pay Borders workers in Ann Arbor a living wage, but Borders' labor practices are already irresponsible. He claims that Borders workers at Store 001 are demanding "more than what our other stores received." There are two prob- lems in Smith's reasoning that point to what he is really saying. If we read between the lines, Smith is admitting that all of Borders' 140 stores pay their workers poorly. Workers at Store 001 are only demanding fair wages, a guarantee of benefits and a desire to improve customer service. Second, Smith seems to sug- gest that communities and their workers should not be able to make any demands on corporate labor practices. Retail workers in Ann Arbor know how much they need to earn to live in Ann Arbor. Having the same pay structure nationally misses the point in the simple fact that the cost of living varies from community to community, from Portland, Maine to San Diego. As a community we need to come together and demand that Borders treat its workers as assets to Ann Arbor's social and cultural lifeblood. As educated consumers we can both create a community that supports the welfare of workers and invest in our common future. MATTHEW IDES Rachkam iTunes presents more options than Daily reports To THE DAILY: I am appalled at the presentation of the arti- cle Apple releases PC-compatible website for iPods (10/20/03). Has the author even used iTunes? In the future, please make more of an effort to get your facts straight, iTunes is offer songs in WMA format, a non-standard codec, iTunes music store offers songs in AAC format, also known as MPEG-4. AAC is a newer standard format that is still being phased into new devices and the list of supporting devices will grow. As far as converting an AAC file from iTunes music to an mp3 that will play in any player, yes it can be done, yes it is easy, but that is a violation of the copy protection and I won't offer instructions. The article concludes stating that iTunes music downloaded songs only play in iPods, but Rio and MPIO mp3 players are compatible with both Mac and Windows. This is like com- paring a CD to a stereo. The iPod, the RIO and the MPIO are all mp3 players and are compati- ble with both Mac and Windows. The song files downloaded from iTunes music are sim- ply in a format that is not yet supported by the RIO and the MPIO. In fact an iPod is not required to utilize the iTunes music store. ROB MIDDLETON Engineering sophomore Hoard's prayer repulsive, shows lack of respect toward issues TO THE DAILY: Joel Hoard's Putting 'God' on Trial (10/22/03) was ludicrous, offensive and irrational. The column was an opinionated response to the issue of separation of church and state. And, as the First Amendment of the U.S. Con- stitution says, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." So as much as I may disagree with what was written, there is nothing that can legally be done to stop such opinions from being expressed. My problem is not with the issue though, but the senseless and repulsive "prayer" offered at the end of the article which read as follows: "... and see that they (Congress) will find it in their hearts to remove the heinous mentioning of You from our Pledge of Allegiance. Oh, and while You're at it, can You do something about the whole 'In God We Trust'-currency thing, as well? Thank you, and amen." There is a noticeable difference between making ta cheap shot and writing an opin- ion. This "prayer," stating that the mention of God's name is "heinous," crossed the line between the two. It is unfortunate that Women seeking abortions victims, need support To THE DAILY: Interesting. Lauren Strayer actually took a totally different slant to this column, Doc- toring a woman's right to choose (10/23/03), than I thought she would. Strayer states, "I cannot decipher how pro-lifers reconcile their need to end abortion with their refusal to condemn those who seek and obtain it." She wonders why pro-lifers are going after the doctors instead of the women. Maybe what pro-lifers realize is that women do not want to kill their children. But many women see abortion not as a choice, but as their only option. Most women who seek abortion do so because they lack the emo- tional and financial support they would need in order to have a child. They see abortion as their only solution because our society tells them again and again that this is the case. They are told that they can't continue their education if they have a baby. They are told that they will have no help from the father if they have a baby. They are left with no resources and there- fore have no choice but to have an abortion. Most women do not realize that such choic- es do exist and that there are organizations that are working to help them. For example, the activist group Feminists for Life is working extremely hard to give women in crisis pregnancy the choice to have the baby and complete their education. Why not condemn the women? Because the women getting the abortions are as much victims as the children they are aborting. RACHEL FAITEL Alum Strayer 'doctors the language of abortion' To THE DAILY: In her column Doctoring a woman's right to choose (10/23/03), Lauren Strayer does just what she condemns pro-life proponents of doing: She "doctors" the language of the abortion debate to numb the emotions of her readers. To her, partial-birth abortion is a matter of "reproductive rights," a "recognized medical procedure" and in the interest of the "mother's well being." She removes any hint 0 I 1G2. 4 LVfifb 3 34 /7i.R --- ---~ W i' - ' -- v ax x.R~~ wvva t ~~u. s ~v + !,w aa~c. v+.w e AW