I 4A - The Michigan Daily - Monday, November 24, 2003 OE OP/ED Ue £Iidl*ttu ut g 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 letters@michigandaily.com EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 oruIE 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 It's a bloodless, velvet revolution." - Georgian opposition leader Mikhail Saakashvili, Saturday, before the ouster of President Eduard Shevardnadze, as reported by CNN.com. SAM BUTLER TEi SOAPBOX And a~kr 4icn 'ic awsoesc.o, r0 w + - Eriea hc --14 I Lessons in remembrance from Reagan and Pericles JOHANNA HANINK PARLANCE OF OUR TIMES bout a month ago I had lunch with someone who was helping to prep me for a difficult inter- view. Knowing my background as a classics major, he asked me what I thought Donald Rums- feld might learn from Thucydides. Since then, and for the first time since it was required reading my freshman year, Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War" has been on my mind. It came up about two weeks later when I was the one doing the interviewing, this time of prospective Telluride House residents. And just last Wednesday, I went to a reception at Shaman Drum Bookshop for Prof. H.D. Cameron, who has just published an enthusi- astically received commentary on Thucydides Book I. That Wednesday morning, I had turned back to the text, a historical account of the Peloponnesian War fought between Athens and Sparta. I wanted to figure out what made this, a 2,500-year-old document (Thucydides was himself a general during this war), so special as to merit its unexpected mention three times in one month. I wasn't disappointed. Rex Warner's translation from the Greek is about 600 pages long, so I turned to one of the most well-known passages, "Pericles' Funeral Oration." The Funeral Oration is perhaps most famous now for the compar- isons that have been drawn between it and President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (though whether there was any direct influence is very difficult to say and highly contested). Pericles delivered his oration in the win- ter of 431 B.C., shortly after the Pelopon- nesian war broke out. He gave it in keeping with an Athenian custom which dictated that once a year a public funeral be held for those who died in war and that the speech in praise of the dead be made by "a man cho- sen by the city for his intellectual gifts and for his reputation." When I read this speech I didn't come any closer to a smart answer for the question about Donald Rumsfeld, but I got a pretty good idea of what President Bush might take from Thucydides' portrayal of Pericles. The same day I read the oration, there was a very moving op-ed in The New York Times called "Mourning in America" by John B. Roberts II, a former Reagan-admin- istration policy planner. In this piece, Roberts argues that Bush could learn a thing or two from the way that President Ronald Reagan handled the Oct. 23, 1983, suicide-bomber attack in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. marines. A week or so afterward, President Reagan and the first lady stood under umbrellas at a dreary memorial service held at Camp Leje- une, N.C. Two television networks broad- casted the service, live. Bush, however, has yet to attend a public memorial service to honor the dead of U.S. intervention in either Afghanistan or Iraq. Roberts wrote that he wants to tell him that "The commander in chief should publicly honor the individual lives sacrificed in war. He should show his respect in front of the television cameras. A nation is a community, and the lives that are lost belong not just to their families, but to us all." Pericles, too, recognized the importance of an open and communal expression of grief. Before he gave his oration, there had been the customary public funeral for the war-dead. Believing that this action spoke loudest, he qualified his speech in its first lines by saying that "it would be enough, I think, for (the fall- en men's) glories to be proclaimed in action, as you have just seen it done at this funeral organized by the state." Thus instead of devoting his entire speech to the dead, he decided to dedicate the first half of its words (and most of its spirit) to the living. He told his citizens that "you should fix your eyes every day on the greatness of Athens as she really is, and should fall in love with her." He said of the Athenian peo- ple that "everywhere we have left behind us everlasting memorials of good done to our friends or suffering inflicted on our ene- mies." In this last line alone lies an easy point of practical similarity between the United States and Athens. But throughout the speech the theoretical ideals of Athens that Pericles praises also seem strikingly contemporary in their resem- blance to generally accepted (and too often violated, especially under this administration) principles of what America, at her best, is. Bush needs to realize that the road to healing is not through jingoistic and self- congratulatory patriotic rhetoric, but through a Periclean combination of reminders of ideals and national sharing in grief. The last time the president did such a thing was in February, when he attended a memorial ser- vice for the seven astronauts of the space shuttle Columbia. Steve Schifferes, in a BBC news analysis, wrote that "Mr Bush's prompt response to the disaster, and digni- fied words of comfort, have boosted his standing on the eve of a possible war." And while we all know that that war has come, nobody seems sure whether it has gone. Reagan, by attending that memorial ser- vice back in 1983 (take him or leave him oth- erwise), showed that, like Lincoln, he knew his Thucydides - whether he had read him or not. In the last line of his funeral oration, Pericles tells his people, "And now, when you have mourned for your dear ones, you must depart." Without some implication of similar words from the president, too many American families are left waiting for that permission to depart - and move on. Hanink can be reached atjhanink@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Daily should not have run Borders advertisement TO THE DAILY: The Daily's running of a Borders book- store advertisement today, not long after the editorial by its own staff supporting the Borders strikers, is not only hypocritical, it also helps support an Ann Arbor employer who allegedly violated up to seven differ- ent federal labor laws. What nose thumbing toward the law is next for the Daily? Run- ning ads for new child companions for Michael Jackson or addresses where one can score some nice Peruvian-flake coke, real cheap? The newspaper's recent running of an open letter from Borders management to students had at least the fig leaf of being "informational," but the coupon/ad in the Friday Daily, complete with cookie-cutter "'funny and appealing"' photo of a big- eared dog with books on its head, is mere grubby commerce, nothing more. The Daily's usual bad taste in running "Deja Vu" or "Playboy model contest" ads is exceeded here; for those, the Daily could at least argue, "It's just our wild libertarian streak." Here, there's no excuse but con- tempt for the underpaid employees - including University students! - who work(ed) at Borders, perhaps while having their legal rights violated constantly by corporate management. Maybe this is all the Daily's special "Happy Thanksgiving" to American orga- nized labor: "Be glad you're in a country where you're free to strike - and starve. We're not on your side." So much for ide- alism and concern for one's fellow stu- dents; happy Thanksgiving to you too, Michigan Daily. DAVID BOYLE Alum Editor's note: Decisions concerning advertisements appearing in the Daily are made by the paper's business staff which is wholly Workers!" It's humorous and borderline sicken- ing to hear this from graduate students who, much more often than not, attended very expen- sive universities in order to get here. The dispro- portionately expensive system of higher education in which these educators partake of their own free will is an integral part of a capital- ist system that keeps the real workers working. GEO is merely another depressing example of the mostly meaningless intellectual trend in labor relations that exists in the United States today. The real power of real labor is watered down by this organization's theft of its imagery and ethos. Putting a pencil inside the raised fist of proletarian solidarity is nothing less than theft, and GEO's flimsy rip off of "we make blue go" (the University works because we do!") is an insult to the creativity of both our staff and student body. That graduate students participate so heartily in this trend only demon- strates that they are (and always will be) intel- lectuals and not workers. It is surprising that GEO would be so auda- cious about promoting their cause when it is precisely that - their own. A possible tuition hike is the risk of current GEO demands that their ambiguously worded contract be "hon- ored," and an undergraduate cannot benefit from increased quality of instruction if he or she cannot afford to be in the classroom. Most importantly, the other workers at this university who have been and will be here longer than the short stint of a graduate education will be the ones who take the long-run thump resulting from this so-called labor organization's short- sighted, selfish demands. Let's stop paying lip service to labor and get real. JOHN EDING LSA senior North Campus needs more latenight hangout spots TO THE DAILY: In response to the article, Choosing Fast Food on North Campus sparks MSA debate (11/20/03). WaA 1i A n T*e m"i n ca untapped. What they need is an all-night diner in immediate walking distance. The nearest place for a latenight order of decent fries and the accompanying social scene involves waiting for a bus, driving a car or bik- ing up a steep hill, all major endeavors - espe- cially in wintertime. The closest daytime alternatives to McDonald's, Espresso Royale Cafe and Cafe Commons, Too involve a significant walk, and crossing a pedestrian-unfriendly Plymouth Road. Before the University plants another Taco Bell, Subway or other lousy fast food joint on North Campus, it should consider making the space available to established local businesses in our community, such as the Jerusalem Market. There are some great restaurants in the near- by courtyard strip mall such as Ayse's, Cafe Marie and Exotic Bakeries' middle eastern food. Many students and faculty already make the hike to the other side of Plymouth Road, but it would be better for the businesses and more convenient for the students if the University were to rent commercial space on campus. Ulti- mately, the decision of what restaurants can rent should be up to all North Campus students, fac- ulty and staff (not just Engineering students). A suggested solution involves a floor of commercial space in the proposed North Quad dormitory housing. The problem with North Campus isn't its isolation in itself, but rather its decidedly anti-pedestrian layout and lack of cul- ture in the form of original restaurants and shops integrated into the University buildings. SUSAN FAWCETT Rackham 4 U 4 LETTERS POLICY The Michigan Daily welcomes letters from all of its readers. Letters from Universi- ty students, faculty, staff and administrators will be given priority over others. Letters should include the writer's name, college and school year or other University affiliation. The Daily will not print any letter contain- ing statements that cannot be verified. Letters should be kept to approximately E "._ i .. 77 7 A