4A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, March 25, 2004 OPINION 420 MAYNARD STREET ANARBOR, MI 48109 oinion . michigandaily. com lowtothedaily@michigandaily .corn EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 JORDAN SCHRADER Editor in Chief JASON Z. PESICK 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 hope that the holy warriors can retaliate against this awful crime by targeting the most prominent Zionist leaders ... including Sharon ." - Hamas leader Khaled Mashaa, vowing revenge against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for the killing of Hamas spiritual leader SheikAhmed Yassin, as reported yesterday by The Associated Press. 'I COLIN DALY THE MIKHIGAN DALY m I 0 Existentialism surprisingly good for Senioritis STEVE COTNER My BACK PAGES T here are two kinds of seniori- tis, but the first isn't really senioritis at all. It's what people think is senioritis, but I've had it since sophomore year. And it's not the feeling that you're winding down somehow, or reaching the end, where you tend to relax and let all the pieces of your life fall wherever they like, and sometimes things go well, sometimes they don't - some people think that's senioritis too, but that's just being lazy. No, the first kind of senioritis, the kind that probably hits most people, is where you think the same thing you thought in high school, if you can remember back that far. It went something like, "I'm better than this place, this institution with all these annoying people and its rules and requirements that don't work for me because I'm one of a kind, and I deserve my own freedom to do as I please because I know what I want." You don't think this for the first year or two of college, because everyone you know has told you that the University is a world-class insti- tution, and a real experience, and it will change your life, and you are just so happy to be here. Also, you are impressed by large numbers like 40,000 and 111,000, and you think this means you are a part of something large and impressive. But then you find out the streets and hall- ways are not paved with gold, or yellow, or whatever. You don't ever find your ideal com- munity, and you think it is the community's fault. You think, "I really need a change," and so you do "'study abroad," and you go see Stonehenge or the Louvre or a lion roaring at an elephant at midnight - and you're sure that when you get back home you won't be the same person. And maybe you're not, but you still watch TV and put off your major, and you impress a few professors along the way, but really you're just wasting time - you'll make your impact later, you figure. And eventually, you stop trying to make everything just right at this school and decide you need to move on. This is the point when most people graduate. But this isn't senioritis, it's just not trying. It's better than being lazy, because at least you have the ambition to want something bet- ter, but you're not really doing anything.. I think there are very few people who understand what a university is for. Most have probably never been to the special col- lections library or looked up the Grad's newly received books online just to see what there is. Most people don't own a reading chair. They don't attend guest lectures or listen to professors give poetry readings. They don't read much outside their major, and for their major they don't read beyond the syllabus. In short, they don't seek things out for them- selves if it's at an academic level. They never become their own authority. These people don't deserve senioritis, and I don't think they ever really get it. They get the premature whining syndrome, but that's all. Senioritis is an entirely different thing. It happens after you've understood that your studies were the most important part of your life for the past four years, not just something you did when it wasn't summer, and then you make a life-changing commit- ment because of them - maybe grad school, maybe something else - and all of a sudden you get the strangest feeling of superiority. You'll go to a house party and look at all the freshmen and sophomores wearing tight shirts and hovering around the keg, and you realize how confused they all still are, how they still have no idea what they're doing with their lives. You think how you've already forgotten more than most of them will ever care to know, and you feel very old. There's something that happens after college too - the rest of your life. But this isn't such a scary thing to think about if you get to this level of senioritis. You don't expect some big change to come over you all at once anymore: You realize that from here on out it's just you and your work, and all that's left is to do it. You can still have adventures, of course. You can quit grad school and search India for a maharishi if you want. But you understand that dreams like this aren't so good for you anymore. There's no need to waste all your time and energy trying to live like Hemingway or resurrect the Beat generation. Life is more like the stoic "Old Man and the Sea," or a good existentialist movie by Woody Allen. Eventually we find that some things work for us, and we go with them. It's like Alvy Singer's joke in Annie Hall: "This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, 'Doc, my brother's crazy. He thinks he's a chicken.' And the doctor says, 'Well, why don't you turn him in?' And the guy says, 'I would, but I need the eggs.' " It might not mean much when you're a freshman, but you'll get it by the time you're out. Cotner can be reached at cotners@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 'U' should provide academic instruction, not unrelated student services TO THE DAILY: Last week the Daily ran an article about "disgruntled students" demanding that the University Board of Regents not cut money for groups like Pow Wow, the Greek system, the Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Affairs and the Office of Multi-Ethinic Student Affairs (Students protest service cuts at regents meeting, 03/19/04). These groups are wrong. The Universi- ty's job is to provide students today with the classes, the professors and the build- ings to hold classes in and for which stu- dents pay tuition. The premise that taxpayers' money should fund higher edu- cation is based on the fact that an educated citizenry facilitates the democratic process and benefits all. The University, however, is not a nursery school, a babysitter or a project in social engineering. The University's job is to pro- vide academic instruction. If cut services like Sexual Assault Pre- vention and Awareness Center or the Trot- ter House are important enough to various individuals or groups, then those individu- als and groups should work to fundraise and procure private funds for their contin- uation. LAURA DAvis LSA junior Co-chair, Young Americans for Freedom Davis a good choice over Ivy-League pompous East-Coast types TO THE DAILY: I am writing in response to the letter to the editor from Adam Patemo, Davis a poor choice for commencement speaker (03/22/04). No, David E. Davis is not some hyper-political type as you always see at an elite Ivy League university, but with all the noise of this year's presidential cam- paign and the University administration's politi- cally disastrous moves in recent years, perhaps it's finally made the decision to play it smart and safe and pick someone more local and sanguine rather than some pompous celebrity from the East Coast who flies in, ridicules us provincial Michigan types and smugly runs back to wher- ever he or she came from. After all, didn't Granholm splash everyone last year with her insensitive comments regarding the Michigan economy? The administration has actually made a move towards getting back to reality and finding a speaker with different perspectives than the usual Ivy League commencement blather, and hopefully Davis will impress us at graduation. Surely the University is not choosing to bestow him with an honorary degree for just any rea- son, and I am optimistic that this is more than just another ploy by the administration. As for Davis's long attachment to the local automotive industry, again, it's nice to see the University actually care that it's in Michigan instead of some ivy-laden East Coast location. Of course, I don't expect Davis or Auto- mobile Magazine to hire anyone while they are on campus for commencement, but if they do, I can't think of it hurting any gradu- ates in this year's job market. JOHN LAICH LSA senior WTHEi DIS5U TiE DAilY PAYs lESS PSKOR SEE NIKE, .r IS NO: HARD. WRTE U5: 10THEALY@*,CHIGNDA.COM. . VIEWPOINT SOLE demands wage disclosure and accountability BY KRIs iN MCRAY AND MuIE SwIRYN Sweatshops did not go away. Student activists at the University and across the country have fought hard for six years to make sure University clothing is made in livable conditions, from Los Angeles to Indonesia. At the University, students have pushed for a whole system to address the reality that our clothes are made in sweat- shops, and administrators and faculty have been supportive, but it's time to take the next step: wage disclosure. Students Orga- nizing for Labor and Economic Equality has led the way to a code of conduct in every licensing contract, the full public dis- cl nce of Pv~rvnnarn4tnrv wtnt, nra Tpt~rcittr workers, as well as a factory in Jakarta, Indone- sia, called PT Dada. That is a start, but sweatshops did not go away. Kukdong is still a sweatshop. Accord- ing to the WRC, the workers at PT Dada are still unable to meet their basic needs and those of their children. Wages are at the cen- ter of this problem, and wage disclosure is at the center of a solution. To truly enforce The University's code of conduct, SOLE demands that: The University adopt a public and written wage disclosure requirement for all licensees. To initiate this process, the advisory commit- tee to University President Mary Sue Coleman must make this recommendation following its meeting on March 26. produced in sweatshops, but we all know that it is. Workers say so, students who visit the factories say so, the WRC says so. When companies disclose wages, this same public scrutiny will apply to the information, and the information will help the University enforce its code of conduct and allow work- ers to better their own working conditions, without risk of misinterpretation. When asked about wages and the idea of making them public, a worker at a facto- ry called Kolon Langgeng in Indonesia said, "I think it would be good for every- one to see information about how little we make for how hard we work ... we work until we are tired to the bone, but it's not enough to cover even our basic needs. Per- han i f rth nrc knewthe reality o mi Fi