4A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 23, 2004 OPINION aiiz idt au &dIu 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com I 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 pieces do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. NOTABLE QUOTABLE This is very nice, but where am I going to get the money for the taxes?" - William Toebe, who was at the taping of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in which Oprah gave everyone in the audience a free car. The audience members will have to pay approximately $7,000 in taxes, as reported yesterday by the Chicago Sun-Times. COLIN DALY TF M :\N DALY 14 - 3W. K I - T I 1 4 , 7 7 coww"90 W- 1 t .,, / r/ /.! ,.j j I' ' 'I: l ' } r 41 '-+ IS t f f f i L L L ..i .A .r^ Tr The Cat's in the bag JOEL HOARD OH YEAH? *1 ig news in the war on terrorism! We got him! No, not Osama bin Laden. That's just silly. But we got someone just as big ... Cat Stevens! Yep, that's right, the 1970s folk-rock icon famous for songs such as "Wild World," "Peace Train" and "Morning Has Broken" was captured attempting to enter the U.S. of A. on Tuesday afternoon. You see, it seems that Cat Stevens con- verted to Islam in 1977 and adopted the name Yusuf Islam. I don't know about you, but I think anyone who would willfully give up the glitz and glamour of the folk music scene and abandon his Christian name in order to follow his heart and become a contented, peace-lov- ing Muslim has got to be a terrorist. Fortunately for us, the ever-vigilant Depart- ment of Homeland Security agrees. After they discovered that Islam was on a flight travel- ing from London to Washington on Tuesday afternoon, they diverted the flight to Bangor, Me., where Islam was taken off the plane and into custody. He was shipped back to London yesterday. Phew ... that was a close call. Who knows what evil Mr. Islam would have perpetrated if we had let him go on his merry way. Just take one look at some of the lyrics he recorded under the Cat Stevens pseudonym and you can see how dangerous this man is. For example, check out this excerpt from his hit song "Peace Train:" "Now I've been cry- ing lately, thinking about the world as it is. Why must we go on hating? Why can't we live in bliss?" Whoa, slow done there, Chief. Where exactly are you planning on driving that peace train? My guess is right into the side of a skyscraper. And I can only assume songs like "God is the Light" and "I Love Them All" are nothing but terrorist commu- niquds. As the story on CNN.com points out, "According to U.S. officials, (Yusuf Islam) is an active supporter of Muslim charities." I'm sure Islam has been ducking and dodging officials and channeling funds to these Mus- lim charities and that it took Homeland Secu- rity years of spy work to uncover what he was up to. Or maybe they just visited Islam's Web site, www.yusufislam.org.uk, where there is a list of the charities that Islam donates to, among them Small Kindness, which provided aid to 2,500 orphans in Kosovo and residents of Turkey who were devastated by a recent string of earthquakes. Sure sounds like a ter- rorist to me. The nerve of this guy, trying to provide "regular meals, housing, education and healthcare" to poor nations and to "make a real difference and bring about positive change to many people's lives." Thank good- ness our government's putting an end to that. We really should have seen Yusuf Islam as a major security threat years ago. Right after Sept. 11, not only did he condemn the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on his Web site, on VH1 and in the major media, but he also donated some of his royalties for a Cat Stevens box set to Sept. 11 victims. Sounds like somebody had a guilty conscience. Maybe we didn't catch on earlier because Islam was lying low and hiding out in some far away place like a cave in the mountains of Afghanistan or a spider hole in the Iraqi des- ert. He certainly wouldn't just live in a flat in central London, from which he could emerge regularly to speak at events that are open to the public or make television appearances. 1 The only way for us to respond to threats like Mr. Stevens/Islam is to be more vigilant than ever. We cannot rest until every Osamu bin Laden and Cat Stevens is smoked out of his hole and punished to the full extent of the law. Be on the lookout for any Muslims, athe ists, Buddhists, communists and all of the other -ists you can think of. But we can't stop there. Sniff out the peo- ple with black skin, brown skin, yellow skin or any other non-white skin and report them to the authorities. If the case of Cat Stevens has taught us anything, it's that you can't even trust white, people anymore. It used to be, "If he's white, he's all right." But thanks to Mr. Stevens, now we can expect further division among thb white race. We'll have a modern-day witch hunt complete with plenty of wild accusations and finger pointing. But that's exactly what terrorists like Cat Stevens want. They want to breed fear and mistrust. They want to dividb us. Don't let them. We honest, God-fearing Americans need to stick together through this difficult time. It'll be a difficult war, but it's a war that we can win. Hoard can be reached at j.ho@umich.ed. 0i LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Higher education bill not censorship, but good policy TO THE DAILY: A recent Michigan Daily editorial (Big Brother in class, 09/14/04) presents an inac- curate depiction of the International Studies in Higher Education Act and contains sev- eral blatant errors. The information presented more closely resembles what CBS News and Dan Rather would report, not what I would expect from The Michigan Daily. Moreover, my office was never contacted to discuss the facts of the bill discussed in the editorial, nor for a previous article that ran in the Daily con- cerning the bill. The fact is that for several decades Con- gress has annually invested millions of dol- lars in university-level international studies programs - nearly $90 million in 2004. Congress is now seeking to determine wheth- er those dollars are well spent and whether those programs are presenting diverse per- spectives to students. However, the editorial from the Daily paints an Orwellian portrait of heavy-handed censorship imposed by a board that will "study and regulate what is taught at American universities." Nothing could be further from the truth. The International Studies in Higher Edu- cation Act (H.R. 3077) re-authorizes inter- national studies programs funded under Title VI of the Higher Education Act. To ensure that international studies programs coordi- nate with other federal programs in creating an informed citizenry, the bill creates an International Education Advisory Board for all programs funded under the title. The Daily claims that "(a)t its fundamen- tal core, this bill destroys the concept of aca- demic freedom and intellectual debate." The fear is neither consistent with the intent of Congress, nor anywhere close to the actual text of the legislation. On the contrary, H.R. 3077 requires inter- national studies programs to teach diverse perspectives, and it specifically forbids the board from directing programs and instruc- tional methods or dictating curriculum. The tise in foreign language and international business arenas. This priority brings with it the responsi- bility to ensure a diversity of perspectives within international studies programs that receive federal funding - including per- spectives from outside the realm of academia and the Department of Education. Members of the proposed board would be appointed by the leaders of both parties in both chambers of Congress. Including repre- sentatives from federal agencies, such as the Department of State and the National Secu- rity Agency, it would ensure that important stakeholders from varying vantage points are provided with a voice. The advisory board is not a new idea. A similar board existed for years before it was cut due to budget concerns in the late 1980s. Censorship was never a concern raised by academics during its existence. The International Studies in Higher Educa- tion Act received strong bipartisan support in the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in September 2003, and it passed the House unanimously in October. Not a sin- gle member of Congress voted against the bill at any stage of its development. While I would like to see the bill go before the Senate before the 108th Congress adjourns, there is no specific timetable. However, it remains my hope that senators will follow our work in strengthening inter- national education programs and training informed scholars. PETER HOEKSTRA Alum The letter writer is a member of the US. House of Representatives; he represents Michigan's 2nd congressional district. The University has no position on legislation TO THE DAILY: I was happy to talk to your reporter about the proposal in HR3077, the International Studies in Higher Education Act of 2003, to establish an "advisory board" for the groups, I believe, is to discourage the expres sion of views with which they disagree. ,, At the same time, HR 3077 has the sup- port of many in Congress and elsewhere who understand and value the important work of our NRCs. The University will continue to work with our congressional representatives and others whose goal is tb enable these centers to continue and expand their critical contribution to international education. My colleagues and I are ver grateful for this interest and support. MARK TESSLEk The letter writer is a professor ofpolitical sci- ence and vice provost for international affairs at the University. Voting instructions have been confusing at best TO THE DAILY: I am concerned that Michigan Secretary of State Terri Land has inappropriately purged the voter rolls and provided inconsistent instruction to employees of the state with regard to registering voters. With regard to the first claim, I recently learned that Land has purged my name from the voter rolls without justification or notification. I had registered to vote in October 2003, received my voter identification card and assumed I would be ready to vote in November. For- tunately, I double-checked with my city clerk and learned that the secretary of state had eliminated my name from the roles for reasons I have not been able to determine. The city clerk quickly fixed the problem, but one wonders why Land's office eliminated names from the voter rolls. Have other vot- ers been affected? I would encourage voters to contact their city clerks to ensure they ark properly registered. I also have two student friends who, in attempting to register to vote at the secretary of state's office in Ann Arbor, were give contradictory information about registering to vote in the state of Michigan. Land's staff stated that voters need to have Michigast licenses to vote in the election. Fortunate ly, our city clerk clarified our rights in this I!' : a i