4 -The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, November 25, 2003 OP/ED £trhenau kiI 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 (Americans) love what (Bush) represents, a man who's overcome adversity in his life from alcoholism and pulled his marriage back together and moved forward." - Democratic presidential candidate and retired Gen. Wesley Clark speaking Sunday about the president's past alcoholism on CBS's "Face the Nation, "as reported by the New York Post. COLIN DALYTE MICHIGAN DALY 1( 1 ENERGY USE tNDU ST R IC d.." The union that cried wolf: GEO's fairy-tale folly AUBREY HENRETTY NEoC'riA verybody' s heard the story of the boy who cried wolf: Boy works in fields with sheep, gets bored, likes to cause trouble, cries "Wolf! Wolf!" just to see the townsfolk come running, laughs and laughs as they scowl and return to their work. Day after day, it's the same thing - sheep, yawn, "Wolf!," townsfolk, laugh - until the day the wolf actually shows up, at which point the sheep scatter and no one comes to the boy's aid because he's ruined his credibility. The take-home lesson? Don't lie. More importantly, don't ask for help unless you really need it, because if you do, a whole lot of people who might have rushed to your side won't likely believe you're in trouble when you finally are. You're not really supposed to feel sorry for the boy - he deserved what he got - but you are supposed to walk away with an acute sense of how not to waste other people's time and the consequences you will face if you do. Now: Forgive me for simplifying a bit, but when I heard rumblings a couple weeks ago that the Graduate Employees Organi- zation might go on strike for the second time in less than two years, I reacted just like a jaded towns-(person? Is there a sin- gular form of folk??) - I didn't care. I didn't want to hear about it. See, the last time GEO went on strike, I was young and uninformed. "Oh," I thought. "Is the University mistreating the graduate student instructors?" I did some independent research and found the answer to be a resounding "No." I found that the University grants full tuition waivers and living stipends large enough that GSIs can live comfortably even in the outrageously overpriced realm of Ann Arbor apartments. "Oh," I said. "So what are they upset about?" Enter the "wolf:" They wanted the Uni- versity to pay for their children to go to daycare or some such place while they taught classes and studied. To my ears, that sounded suspiciously like, "I under- stand that YOU are paying ME to get this graduate degree at this incredibly presti- gious university, but I will not be happy until you also pay for somebody to take care of my children whilst I am working toward said degree. No, I will whine about workers' rights, applying everything I learned in my fancy undergraduate educa- tion (because there's no way I got to be a GSI here unless I went somewhere really impressive before this), all the concepts for which most real workers - hard labor- ers - have concepts but no words. I will chant and carry signs and act all downtrod- den so the liberal kids will feel sorry for me and then you'll HAVE to do what I say." Ahem. Sorry. A little carried away there. Where was I? Oh, yes: The 2002 strike taught me that many if not most GEO members don't appreciate how privileged they are. They don't under- stand that teaching two or three college courses in exchange for a free graduate education is not, by any stretch of the imagination, like working in a factory or even in a public high school. They are not downtrodden, not put upon, not abused. So what happened this time? What was the catch, the grave injustice that had some in GEO threatening to withhold student grades? The University was planning to increase the cost of GSI healthcare benefits from zero to $12 a month. Twelve dollars. For guaranteed care at the University Hos- pital - one of the best in the country. Read that again. Pause, if you'd like, to yell and wring your hands and throw things at the wall. I did. The trouble is, GEO might have been right this time. If the University was indeed prepared to violate its contract, then GEO was entirely correct to raise a ruckus about it. As long as there is a contract the University might violate, there is a need for a vigilant group of people to make sure that doesn't happen. No matter how laugh- ably minor its immediate consequences, a breach of contract is a serious offense. Nobody wants to work for an employer who doesn't keep her word. But I suspect the University's got a crack team of legal interpreters at its dis- posal, and it seems very unlikely to me that they'd risk strikes and lawsuits (not to mention all the bad press) over a piddly $12 per GSI per month. It's hard - so hard - to care about $12 a month. Even I could afford that with- out any trouble, and that's saying a lot, believe me. Even if GEO had a point this time - even if the University was in the legal wrong - I am inclined not to care about their plight (ha - plight! - now they've got me doing it) in the same way I didn't care about the boy who cried wolf. If what GEO got this time around was a lack of student support, then it deserved what it got. Henretty can be reached at ahenrett@umich.edu. 0 - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Police should be applauded for letting students rush field TO THE DAILY: I applaud the University administration and the local police corps for not resisting the inevitable students rushing the field after Michigan clinched the Big Ten title. I wag'a senior in 1997, when we beat Ohio State on our way to a national championship. That year, the authorities decided that they could prevent students from getting on the field by sporadically shooting pepper spray into the crowd and viciously tackling and handcuffing students that ran onto the field. Many people were seriously injured, includ- ing my roommate who, just inches away from me, was sprayed in the eyes. Elation turned to fear, anger and disgust in a matter of seconds. The administration responded coldly after the fact, refusing to admit error or bad judg- ment or take responsibility for such short- sighted policies. The truth is that rushing the field is a time-honored tradition; it is a show of appre- ciation and support for the players who left their hearts on the field and made us proud to be Wolverines. Indeed, Andy Mignery was quoted in the Daily as saying that the overt show of student emotion meant a lot to the players. Can you blame students who, if they are lucky, will have the chance to savor this type of victory once within their four year career at the school? Thus, when the authorities decided not to resist the torrent of students and make a potentially harmful situation even more dan- gerous, they showed that they indeed can learn from their mistakes. History did not repeat itself, students were not injured, and there was genuine celebration. Words fail to describe the feeling of being on the field for the second time in six years. I hope that this time history does repeat itself and I am able to celebrate on the field, soon again, another Big Ten championship. Go Blue. ERIC TENNEN Alum middle ground between safety and tolerance by allowing students to rush the field, but keeping them from the goal posts. Thanks to our police, Saturday was a day that I will remember for the rest of my life. This foot- ball game was a culmination to a wonderful four years, and rushing the field made this surreal experience even better. At no point during this rush did I worry about being in any kind of danger. For the future, my only suggestion is that law enforcement or stadium officials use portable stairs to make this experience even safer. . Thank you law enforcement for allowing the last football game of my college career to be such a thrilling and magnificent experi- ence, while keeping me safe. ScoTT SCHLIMMER LSA senior Carr deserves credit for a job well done against Ohio State TO THE DAILY: On the ride back from Eugene to my hotel in Portland on an awful day this past September, I was quite unhappy, stewing in an uncomfortable mixture of disappoint- ment, anger and helplessness. The national title seemed out of reach, I needed someone to blame, and I could do nothing to change the football team's fortunes. I had just watched the team play like the Michigan that had become a melancholy fixture in important games - unprepared, under- coached and incapable. Incapable of exe- cuting at crucial moments; incapable of expertly performing the routine; incapable of playing championship-caliber football. Following the loss at Iowa, I felt that I had isolated the problem: Lloyd Carr. I was convinced that were the University to get a new and better football coach, there would be no more such games, and I could forever leave behind the pains induced by football heartaches. Really, I had succumbed to the feeling that had been prevailing in Colum- bus since Ohio State dumped our favorite coach for supposed savior, Jim Tressell. But then Lloyd stepped up. The special- teams play was broken and he worked to fix it- the team's conlfidence was destroved why wide receiver Chris Gamble received so much hype before the season and where they'll find a player who can pass physical education and run with the football following a handoff, I want to applaud Carr for doing a good job. I am a vocal critic of his and will likely remain so, yet it would be pure folly to ignore what he accomplished this season. Beating Ohio State should not confer infalli- bility on Carr, nor should it obscure Michi- gan's struggles on the road. He still has room for improvement, and the team still must prove that it can win key games away from the Big House. However, Carr, like the team, needs to be commended for a job well done. My stroll up the Big House steps after the band started its post-game performance was much more pleasant than my march down the stairs in Autzen stadium earlier this fall. Hopefully my walkout of the Rose Bowl will be like the former. Go Blue! JOSEPH LITM Alum This letter writer is a former Daily columnist. Reader taken aback by Daily editorial about gay marriage TO THE DAILY: I did a double take when I came across this sentence in the Daily's editorial about gay marriage (Marry merrily, 11/24/03): "As marriage requires consent, no animals could be subject to marriage with humans, save for a select few primates with advanced sign-lan- guage skills and, perhaps, dolphins." Good luck getting Koko to sign a pre-nup. JUSTIN SHUBOW Rackham 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. 0 0 .1 A4 ;mod : r #isrl! . A: °4A t xa: t r .. e* AA