4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, October 26, 2004
OPINION
0
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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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
If this isn't good
for my heart, I don't
know what is."
- President Bill Clinton, referring to his
decision to get back on the campaign trail after
heart surgery, as reported yesterday by the
Associated Press.
COLIN LDALY Tk-, N' JevItecN DALY
11 Z. ., ..
i Is
Holding our breath for the big sigh
STEVE COTNER Rm: ALERT
*I
o' you feel as
though someone
is holding your
head underwater?
Do you think about
going abroad every few
minutes?
When someone asks
what is your major, do you
preface your answer with
the word "recovering?"
Do you have dreams in which the doctor
diagnoses your progress in life as scoliotic and
Quasimodal?
Do you nod at the sunshine as if the two of
you are barely acquaintances?
When the ambulance siren blares, do you
imagine one of your ideals riding prostrate in
the back?
Do you watch old cartoons and wonder at
the restorative powers of spinach and gummy
berries?
Have your ears stopped perking up at the
sound of clicking heels?
Are your friends becoming more strange
and the bum on State Street more familiar?
Does the graffiti call you a traitor, even
when it is only a picture of Chuck Berry?
Do you enjoy power blackouts and losing
your keys?
Have your politics begun to seem like a stick
of deodorant applied to an open wound?
Are you easily winded?
Is your sense of smell fading?
I could go on, but you get the point. There
is something amiss these days. People need a
break. You can see it everywhere.
For one thing, politics is killing us. The
election has not even happened yet, and we
have already given up on it. For college stu-
dents who have devoted years to the canons
of philosophy, political theory, policy, English
and world literature, poetry, criticism, art his-
tory, new media, the environment, civil rights
history, foreign languages and on and on ...
this is the first election when, knowing all we
know, we still ask "What's the use?"
That's not the pep talk you're expecting before
an election. But I refuse to say any more on it.
We've all made up our minds. The people who
haven't should be shot. So for now we're all hold-
ing our breath, waiting for the big sigh. Nov. 3 will
probably not be that day, whether it's recounts or
re-election. But maybe someday.
Anyway, since my point is that people need a
break, I'm going to lead by example. I'm sort of
taking the rest of this column off. My editors must
hate me. I hope you enjoy it.
How about a poem? Have you ever heard of
Philip Larkin? He wrote:
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
And just to make sure this constitutes fair use
of his words, I will add critical value by saying,
"Yeah, man."
Cotner can be reached at
cotners@umich.edu.
S1
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Volleyball feature a
refreshing and
inspirational story
TO THE DAILY:
The article Nothing Comes Easy featured
in the Oct. 25 sports section, was trulyone
of the most refreshing pieces I have read
in my time here at the University. It is too
often that stories of sports superstars and
heroes overshadow those athletes who have
worked hard and made a name for them-
selves through massive amounts of determi-
nation and will. Stephanie Wright's piece
highlighting the career of the Women's Vol-
leyball team co-captain, Sarah Allen, serves
as a great example of how perseverance
really does pay off. Allen's story is one that
can inspire any individual whether or not
she is an athlete. I applaud the contribution
of Wright's article to the sports section of
the Daily.
that the depiction of the silhouette on the banner
was not intended to be viewed as a caricature of
the African and black community. Speak Out is a
safe forum for survivors of sexual violence to talk
about their experiences either openly or anony-
mously. The black silhouette on the banner was to
represent a person of an unknown background as
well as to represent a survivor in the shadows-of
silence. The red lips were to symbolize the power
a survivor has when speaking out against sexual
violence. In addition, the colors of black and red
are also synonymous with the Silent Witness
Exhibit, which uses silhouettes of domestic vio-
lence victims to show both the fact that domestic
violence can happen to anybody and that we often
are unaware of who experiences these crimes.
The concerns raised by the community will be
remembered next year.
Jessica Carver
Lindsay Jolley
The letter writers are LSA seniors and co-
coordinators for the Networking, Publicity and
Activism program at SAPAC
charcoal on my porch reveals a wealth of carbon, yet
no sign of "life or the life process."
The indisputable contrapositive of "life cannot
begin without conception" is "conception is neces-
sary for life to begin." Very little insight can be gained
from this observation and certainly nothing regard-
ing sufficient conditions for the beginning of life. The
statement "The life process indisputably begins at
conception" is actually the converse of the original
statement. Claiming that because a certain state-
ment holds, so must its converse is a common fallacy,
sometimes known as the "fools implication.'
Ryan Kinser
Rackham
LETTERS POLICY
The Michigan Daily welcomes letters
from all of its readers. Letters from University
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 containing statements that cannot be veri-
fied.
Letters should be kept to approximately
300 words. The Michigan Daily reserves the right
to edit for length, clarity and accuracy. Longer
"viewpoints" may be arranged with an editor. Let-
ters will be run according to order received and
the amount of space available.
Letters should be sent over e-mail to
tothedaily@michigandaily.com or mailed to the
Daily at 420 Maynard St. Editors can be reached
via e-mail at editpage.editors @umich.edu. Letters
c-mailed to the Daily will be given priority over
those dropped off in person or sent via the U.S.
Postal Service.
Sarra Nazem Letter writer exhibits
LSA senior
logical fallacy in regards to
SAPAC clarifies meaning abortion
of banner in the Diag TO THE DAILY:
TO THE DAILY:
On behalf of the Networking, Publicity, and
Activism student group working with the Sexual
Assault Prevention and Awareness Center at this
university, I would like to extend our apologies
to all who were offended by our banner, located
previously in the Diag, advertising our upcoming
event "Speak Out." It is important to both myself
and the volunteers who are committed to the NPA
program that the University at large understands
Michael O'Brien's recent letter to the editor Colum-
nist misses the trees yetstillfmds the forest 10/22/04 badly
misstates the nature of the contrapositive and distorts
the realities of propositional logic. He claims that "If
life cannot begin without conception, the contraposi-
tive must be true" and deduces "either life, or the life
process, indisputably begins at conception." To fol-
low this line of reasoning, we would find: Life cannot
begin without the presence of carbon, therefore either
life, or the life process, begins at the presence of car-
bon. However, a thorough inspection of the bag of
VIEWPOINT
Voter fraud: unjustifiable
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BY WHITNEY DIBO
With just about two weeks left until the
presidential election, officials in Oregon
and Nevada opened criminal investiga-
tions into whether canvassers working for
a Republican volunteer group threw out
Democratic voter registrations. The group
in hot water is called Voter's Outreach for
America and is headed by Nathan Sproul
- a former executive of the Arizona
Republican Committee.
Voter fraud is a major concern of many
politically aware Americans right now.
No one wants to see a repeat of the 2000
election mess, in which voter fraud could
very well have made the difference in the
presidency. Up to 57,000 voters may have
dirty politics. However, I find it sad when
the deceit leaks all the way down to the
canvassers. When a volunteer is ripping
up voter registration forms to benefit his
party of choice, something has gone ter-
ribly awry.
Imagine if students could not trust
the Rock the Vote volunteers on the Diag
to actually turn in voter applications.
Just think of it. That earnest, politically
active student in the "November 2nd" T-
shirt actually tossed your registration in
the trash once you walked away. Unfortu-
nately this idea is not so far off, as people
who registered with Voter's Outreach for
America are finding out.
Or imagine dutifully going to the polls
on Election Day, only to find out that your
aside, voter registration fraud is ridiculously
counterproductive to our supposedly demo-
cratic system. Cheating an American citi-
zen out of his/her right to vote goes directly
against everything that America stands for,
not to mention it has the ability to alter the
outcome of an election. I for one don't want
the wrong man to end up in the White House
(again). I should rephrase that. If President
Bush is re-elected, I just want to know he
deserves his place in the White House.
Americans should not have to question if
their president won the election. They may
not be happy with the outcome, (most like-
ly about half will be dissatisfied), but they
should not have to question the legitimacy
of the system.
Americans received a harsh lesson in
L
_J