4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, October 26, 2004 OPINION 0 U 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 bdu ua tothedaily@michigandaily.com 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 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 0 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