4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 + 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 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. OPINION NOTABLE QUOTABLE ''I think that he has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. - Incoming Semate Minority Leader Harry Reid, referring to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, as reported Sunday by CNN.com. COLIN DALY T NIcIiwAN DLY A goodbye, and a letter to you, who can write STEVE COTNER R.ED1 ALER' 'm a total hack at every- thing I do. I'm comfort- able with thatstatement, because occasionally hacks accomplish great things like "Louie Louie" or the dog sweater. But so far I have never done anything so redeeming. I'm just a hack, V V,4' through and through. "Now, Steve," you surely answer, "you're not a hack at all. I never knew what you were saying in your columns, but you said it so well." Thank you. That is the compliment I love to get, and you give it so well. But a few of you will agree: I am not only ahack, but a blight. A waste of space. A bag of hot air. A broken record. A sexual dynamo. Oops. Anyway, if you are the sort who has enjoyed poking my eyes out on the page with a pen, then try to bear with me just one more time. It is, after all, my goodbye column, so that should give you a little satisfaction. This isn't going to be a column in which I retract or stand by past statements. I've written a lot of dreck, but some of it wasn't so bad. Nor is this intended as an apologia for my deviant behavior. After all, am I truly responsible for getting drunk and kissing someone's friend instead of them, or for calling Daily people by the wrong name, or for generally smelling up the Student Publications Building? Who can say for sure? No, I can't touch topics like those, and they would just be stuffing, anyway. So I've decided to be dreadfully didactic one more time. I'm going to say something and what could I possibly know more about, care more about, and be more up-in- arms about, than the Daily itself? I want to start by saying what the Daily is. We don't need to goback 114 years, or even to the '60s, when our paper claimed the ideals that it clings to today by a pinky finger, to know why the Daily exists. Every day, this is the best publication in Ann Arbor - better than the Ann Arbor News, which somehow endorsed President Bush in this town of towns; better than Critical Moment, the alternative rag that is struggling to make a splash; and yes, even better than the Every Three Weekly when we made our "Jeopardy" issue last January (I am still proud of a certain "interracial high-five" diagram). The Daily, more than any other paper, really tries to keep up with this town, and that is not an easy thing to do. Music writers swan dive into the local scene, opinion writers stalk student groups as they pop up, sports writers hide in sweaty lock- ers and everyone else keeps their ear to the ground through wind, rain and snow. Or, at least, they could. Mostly, people hang around and do page layout or some other task that will help them up the hierarchy. Sure, there is plen- ty of attention to the page, but mostly for what it looks like, not for what it says. We are becoming a paper of editors, not writers. And allithe minions who come to the mass meet- ings never stay long enough to realize that: 1) yes, they can write 2) their editors can't 3) who is going to write the stories they know, if not them? Every writer takes a shot in the dark when he or she asks to be published. It could end up glorious or humili- ating, as we have seen in the last month, but it only happens if you elbow your way onto the page. I understand if an aspiring writer is shy. The Daily really tries hard to throw its tradition at you, as if there is some old blind man in the attic who tells us secrets after dark. But the secret is, we're all a bunch of hacks. I mean this in the best possible sense. We're all a bunch of students with big heads who for some reason think we can say things better than other people. And some of us can. But there is never any threshold you cross when this becomes official. A writer rises and falls with every word. There is no such thing as tenure, only the occa- sional favor for someone who proved himself in the past. And thankfully, even thebest writers have to move on from here when they graduate. The Daily is abit like Paul Bunyan's ax, with six new handles and seven heads, or the ship in Thucy- dides that has been completely re-planked or the Buddhist saying that you never stand in the same river twice. We call it the Daily, as if we have it pegged, but at any moment it is whatever students are willing to do. Respect for precedent holds us back from going crazy, but there have been more unsettled times, years ago, such as when the Daily was taken over by leftist radicals for a semester. The paper went to shit, but it was a good demon- stration of student willpower. In my time here, the strongest student response to the Daily was a boycott. What were these people thinking? Boycotts are for consumer services, like buses, because people find they can't affect them any other way. That's not what the Daily is. No one is a victim here. We are students, all of us. We have good ideas and bad ideas, and we print them because we can. If you want to change the Daily, you don't boycott it, you become it. I suppose, for some would-be writers, no amount of prodding will get them to reach for the newspaper that props the door open at 420 Maynard. Writers don't like to think of themselves as joiners. But I know there are people out there whocouldkeep this town on its toes, and I hope they try while they can. As a final goodbye, I want to thank all my friends at the Daily, past and present, who gave me an inkling of what is possible in writing and in life. I may always be a hack, but perhaps one day that will be a compliment. And as a parting gift, I just want to remind everyone that Inever accepted a paycheck - not a single one - in all my time with the paper. So let's go have a party, and say it's on me. Cotner can be reached at cotners@umich.edu. LETTER TO THE EDITOR Daily wrong to hold Dow liable for Bhopal disaster TO THE DAILY: Every year at this time I find myself cringing at the Daily's erroneous regurgitation of the facts surrounding the 1984 chemical spill in Bhopal, India. This terrible tragedy resulted in the injury and deaths of several thousand people and was one of the worst industrial accidents in history. As the Daily chooses to repeat the detail of this event annually, I would like to suggest that in the future they get their facts together correctly. In the article, (Students look to 20th anniversary of Bhopal disaster, 12/03/2004) Reddy, of the Stu- dents for Bhopal organization asserts that "Under court of law Dow is responsible" for the Bhopal incident. This is simply false. In 1984, the Bhopal site was under the control of Union Carbide India, Ltd. (UCIL), which was under the ownership of the Union Carbide Co. However, in 1989, Union Carbide, after paying $470 million to the Gov- ernment of India (a settlement determined by the Indian Supreme Court to be "just, equitable and reasonable"), sold its assets in UCIL to McCleod Russel and was later renamed Eveready Industries India, Ltd. Thus, as of 1989, the Union Carbide Co. retained no assets or liabilities from its Indian operations - these were the sole responsibility of EIIL. The Union Carbide Co. and UCIL are not and have never been the same thing, the basis of much of the confusion surrounding this issue. In 2001, The Dow Chemical Corp. purchased the stock of the Union Carbide Co., making it a separate legal entity, under the control of Dow. Dow did not acquire any of Union Carbine Co.'s assets or liabilities, but even if they had, there . would still be no legal basis for claims to Dow's culpability toward Bhopal - these fall squarely on the shoulders of McCleod Russel, Eveready Industries India and the Indian Government. Furthermore, the Dow Chemical Corp. has been an industry leader in the push for increased corporate social responsibility. A major tenet of its Environment, Health and Safety depart- ment and the corporation asa whole has been its "vision of zero" - zero incidents, zero injuries, zero environmental harm. Bhopal was a terrible tragedy for the chemical industry, India and the world as a whole. The Daily, as an entity work- ing to inform students, would behoove itself to go beyond the immediate sources of informa- tion on campus when attempting to cover issues of international scope. Ted Matherly LSA junior The letter writer is aformer Dow employee. LETTERS POLICY The Michigan Daily welcomes letters from all of its readers. Letters from Universityastudents, fac- ulty, staff and administrators will be given prior- ity over others. Letters should include the writer's name, college and school year or other University affiliation. The Daily will notprint any letter con- taining statements that cannot be verified. 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. Letters will be run according to orderreceived and the amount ofaspace available. Letters should be sent over e-mail to to @ icgandaily.com or mailed to the Daily at 420 Maynard St. Editors can be reached viae-mail at editpage.editors@umich.edu. Letters e-mailed to the Daily will be given priority over those dropped off in personor sent via the U.S. PostalService. VIEWPOINT Demolishing history BY SUSAN WINEBERG The Ann Arbor Historic District Commission is deeply concerned about the proposed demoli- tion of the Frieze Building. It was designated by the Ann Arbor City Council as a historic build- ing in 1994 and received an award for the resto- ration of the cornice in 1995. Because this is an important architectural landmark as well as a cultural touchstone for the city of Ann Arbor and its residents and because it stands at the border of the Old Fourth Ward Historic District, I spoke last week on behalf of the HDC to the University Board of Regents asking to reconsider. Built as the Ann Arbor High School in 1907, Frieze played an extremely important role in the educational development of this city - second perhaps only to the University itself. It was a magnet for students all over the state of Michi- gan who wished to attend the University. Class- es taught there often resembled those of the University. When an older high school burned in a spectacular fire in 1904, the entire commu- nity rushed to save its precious library as well as other artifacts and equipment. That is was so rapidly rebuilt on its original site is testimony to its importance to the community. Malcomson and Higginbotham of Detroit, one of the premier architecture firms of its day, designed the building. Many of its buildings still stand throughout the state of Michigan as testimony to good construction and pleasing architecture. Almost all of them are on the National Register of Historic Places or the State Register. Among them are the David Macken- zie Home in Detroit (1895); the former Detroit Central High School (1896), now part of the Wayne State University Historic District, Cass Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church in Detroit (1891), Starkweather Hall (1896) and Welch Hall (1896) on the campus of Eastern Michigan University, the Ford/MacNichols House (1896) in Wyandotte, the Henry Ford home (1908) in the Boston-Edison Historic district of Detroit, and many schools throughout the state, includ- ing Cass Technical High School (1907) in Detroit. In Ann Arbor they designed the Pratt Block (1896) on South Main Street and Memo- rial Christian Church (1891). The loss of this building will directly and nega- tively impact the historic structures surrounding it, including. the former First Unitarian Church (1882, now Hobbs and Black Architectural Firm), Harris Hall (1886), the First Methodist Church (1940), Lane Hall (1917) and the Rackham Grad- uate School (1938). The loss will also be detri- mental to the Old Fourth Ward Historic District, which borders the Frieze Building. Although not listed on the National Register, and not part of the Central Campus Historic District, this building is eligible for the National Register. Under such conditions, the University would have to go through a Section 106 Review process before any federal money could be used to demolish or replace the existing struc- ture. This process will involve review by both the State Historic Preservation Office and the .National Park Service and may prohibit the use of federal money on the project. We know the Frieze Building is in serious dis- repair and does not currently meet the needs of its users. We believe that most of the necessary repairs are cosmetic, as the building is extremely well built and should still be sturdy. But we also know thatbuildingslikeitsalloverthe UnitedStates have been rehabilitated and retrofitted for another century of use. The University recently did such a rehabilitation of the School of Natural Resources on Central Campus and the Perry School just off campus. The University is a leader in many fields, and this project could show it is sensitive to com- munity concerns. Demolishing this building and putting it into the landfill makes no sense envion- mentally or economically. Another use could be found for this building and it could be a win-win situation for all parties involved. Wineberg is a member on the Ann Arbor Historic District Commission and a University alum. THE BOONDOCKS AARON MCGRUDER bAN TA LAh _. 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