4 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, November 4, 2005 OPINION ilhe arttuan antlij JASON Z. PESICK Editor in Chief SUHAEL MOMIN S M SINGER Editorial Page Editors ALISON Go Managing Editor EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com NOTABLE QUOTABLE 44 U of M girls give me UofM head." - Rapper Ludacris, modifying a line from the song "Southern Hospitality," during last night's concert at Hill Auditorium. KIM LEUNG Tb TKOU BOX .900 01 06 %Ah 01 '4', ' ' '~ ,a'sJJ~ NE TAN A"T lis-T " z5 1me. ____ Fitzgerald in '08! Fitzgerald in '08! JESSE SINGAL TElM TIE TIDE *I was on my way to Madison, Wisc. last Friday when I first heard Patrick Fitzgerald. I had just passed through Chicago, the town where he usually resides as a U.S. attorney, and with the Sears Tower still clinging to my rear- view mirror, I happened upon his press conference. As the Department of Justice special counsel who investigated the Val- erie Plame leak scandal, he was discussing the five-count indictment that had just been issued by a grand jury against Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby - or "Scooter" to those who prefer their public officials to have ridicu- lous nicknames. Fitzgerald was immediately impressive. Sim- ply put, he knew his stuff. He was extremely knowledgeable and confident, but modest. For many of the questions the reporters in attendance asked him, he said it would be outside the bounds of his authority to answer them. He made it clear, time and time again, that he was doing his job and nothing more - this wasn't, from his point of view, about politics or the war or an opportu- nity for him to wield power - it was about a very specific set of accusations he had investigated to the best of his ability. Listening to this incredibly intelligent, articu- late man answer questions on the fly in an impres- sive manner, my thoughts turned, of course, to our president. I quickly realized what was going on here. I thought about the Seinfeld episode in which Elaine meets "bizarro" versions of Jerry, George, Kramer and Newman - that is, people who initially seem exactly like her friends but dif- fer greatly when it comes to their personalities. It's not a perfect analogy because Fitzgerald doesn't look like Bush, but the rest applies: Fitzgerald is Bizarro Bush. Whereas Fitzgerald speaks authoritatively and immediately grabs you with his eloquence, Bush, well, doesn't. Whereas Fitzgerald is a careful, measured speaker who is wary of unnecessary rhetorical flourish and who seeks to avoid hyper- bole or abstraction, Bush - uncomfortable with specifics - can only deal in concepts found in the Bible, Greek myths or children's books. Fitzgerald deals only in facts and exercises restraint when he does so - he's not one to make wild charges or to disregard salient evidence for the sake of a pre-existing agenda. Bush ... you get the picture. Noting these differences, I came to the only logi- cal conclusion: If Bush is a poor president, and Fitzgerald is Bizarro Bush, then Fitzgerald would be a good president. And I mean it: I want this man in the Oval Office. I don't even care which party he'd run under, though I'm assuming he'd run as a Dem- ocrat - things could get awkward were he and Scooter to be present at the same GOP fund- raiser. I've been so numbed by five years of ter- rible governance, by fumblings and bumblings and obliviousness and macho saber-rattling, that I am starved to the point of emaciation for compe- tence. And in this regard, Fitzgerald is a gut-bust- ing, five-course meal. Would someone as fastidious as Fitzgerald have started a war based on faulty intelligence? Would someone as humble as Fitzgerald, as self- consciously aware of his role, its limitations and the importance of listening to qualified experts around him, have waged it in such a bloodily inept manner? And would Fitzgerald, who seems above all else to exude and admire competence, have appointed to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency a man whose talents would have been better utilized on a dude ranch? The questions stretch out to infinity: landings on air- craft carriers? "Mission Accomplished" speech- es? "Bring 'em on" exhortations? It's hard to imagine as polished and knowledgeable a public servant as Fitzgerald committing a single one of these gaffes, let alone all of them. So let's get the exploratory committee started. Let's churn out bumper stickers and glossy pam- phlets and bobbleheads. We'll need slogans, lots of slogans - people love slogans. The bar's been set pretty low, so this one shouldn't be tough: "Fitzger- ald: He knows what's he's doing." "Fitzgerald: He's not Bush." "Fitzgerald: For those who don't see cowboy boots as a qualification." So please, Mr. Fitzgerald, make a run at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. You're more than quali- fied, as anyone who heard your press conference can attest, and you're exactly the sort of breath of fresh air we need. If you won't do it for the people, then do it for me, a college columnist who is sin- cerely tired of writing about a president and an administration so remarkably poor at doing their jobs well. And if you don't see the importance of sweep- ing out the old in Washington now, you will when Robert Novak outs your CIA agent wife in his next column. 01 Family ties Marriage is nation's best bet against poverty Singal can be reached at jsingal@umich.edu. We join the editorial bard in saluting John Edwards for keeping the poverty issue alive (Johnny's two cents, 11/03/05). Indeed, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina spot- lighted a disturbing reality: Poverty per- sists in America. However, we dissent from our colleagues where solutions to poverty are concerned. Beyond educa- tion, strengthening the American family is the most necessary tactic in the war on poverty. U.S. Census data shows that chil- dren born into poverty, especially those reared by the uneducated, unmarried and young, are likely to remain in pov- erty. Twenty-two percent of Americans who do not graduate high school are poor. Nearly 11 percent of adults who do not work remain poor over the long term. Beyond a lack of education, children raised by overwhelmed and unprepared mothers are more likely to be brought into the world in poverty. On average, a child raised by an unwed mother is nine times more likely to live in poverty than a child raised by two parents in a stable marriage. Finding a lifetime partner and waiting until marriage to have children, takes a step toward fighting poverty. For instance, a single person who mar- ries and finds employment increases his chances of leaving poverty by more than 50 percentage points. Personal respon- sibility, abstinence and marriage are not only religious ideals but also proven deterrents to poverty. Unfortunately, contemporary culture places disturbingly little emphasis on the importance of marriage and abstinence. Within its lyrics, "Gangsta"rap glorifies the "pimp" lifestyle, degrades women and diminishes the accountability of fathers. Those who speak out against these soci- etal dangers are labeled insensitive, sexist and racist - just ask Bill Cosby. At what point in U.S. history did criticizing con- duct detrimental to society with morality become intolerance? The effects of poverty hit black Amer- icans as a demographic group hardest. A National Public Radio report found almost 70 percent of black children are born out of wedlock. However, it is more politically effective for black leaders (Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Julian Bond, Harry Belafonte, etc.) to blame conservative, white America for their constituents' problems. Granted, past discriminatory injustices certainly hindered the upward social mobility of black Americans, but statistics show the black family structure is now the root of black poverty. The black leadership labels courageous black Americans like Bill Cosby, Condoleezza Rice and J.C. Watts "Uncle Toms" and "Aunt Jemi- mas" because they dare to look inward instead of pointing the finger at white America Refusing to address irrespon- sibility in their own communities, black leaders continue to play the blame game and in the process, perpetuate the belief that the behavior is socially acceptable. Former President Reagan famously declared, "Real change requires real change." Re-emphasizing the traditional family values that permanently liberate impoverished Americans is real change. Enacting policies that encourage young Americans to graduate high school, seek a lifetime partner, wait for marriage to start a family and take personal respon- sibility by working will decrease poverty. We commend the Bush administration for encouraging abstinence-only educa- tion, emphasizing the societal benefits of marriage and funding faith-based, pov- erty-elimination programs. The most dangerous sexually transmitted disease in America is poverty - irresponsible behavior not only mires today's poor in poverty, but ensnares future generations as well. Temporary relief, such as raising the minimum wage, only serves to pro- vide a false sense of accomplishment in the war on poverty. In order to enact real change, Americans have a moral obliga- tion to discourage behaviors that feed the beast of poverty. Will Kerridge is an Engineering junior. John Stiglich is an LSA junior. Reach them at willker@umich.edu or jcsgolf@umich.edu. News that stays news ZACK DENFELD 8-BIT CRITIC Five or six hun- dred words of shame. Acciden- tally stumbling upon a website I can never unsee. Staying up all night turning over the Turing-test wrong clicks I have made on the Inter- net super traffic jam. Learning from Lagos means that if the world makes a rush hour floor plan, convert the highway into the city square. The public green runs at 16 miles per hour. There is an internal logic in cell-phone-to- newscast subsistence living. An information slow burn that still scorches in this, the 10th year after the Information Bomb. I got video running through my cracks and Democracy Now after- images pouring over my ear canal. Candy-coated commercial radio goes satellite, and the real audio excavation returns to the 12 city blocks where it can do the most damage. Never forget that human eyes are information limiters, and if we could see the purple rays and space junk runaways, our minds would freak. A decade or so after the W3 dropped, even here in A2 I am reminded that the Whole Earth catalog is gone, the planet is smaller and shrinking and my self-portrait is more like epidemiology than physi- ology. I might have hos in area codes, but I lost my PDA, and I am a lonely information-provider even though my MP3s have wiggled their way through every zip code in the country. It's a distributed existence. All side to side, supermarkets in alleyways, grab some sunlight between winter month comas and First World summertime slumming: the creative class in ruins, rich Detroit suburbanites' beach-going breast implants exploding, beaming reality show reflec- tions from cell phone cameras in Cancun to Dad's biotech conglomerate near the edge of nowhere. It's all unlimited rhythms and forbidden touch- ing, and my generation is the most conservative we should have seen coming. A damn waste to not party it up during the end of days. On the plus side: Zax Google capital is rising steadily, and there seems to be no end in site. I am trying to get a grant to make a Surinamese TV stream that flows into the global cultural current. A four-channel remix that bypasses international intellectual property rights. But I might be out of bucks: My Ebay rating is at 40 percent and diving because I wanted a box of old Vietnamese comics. The transaction botched and now I can't even be trusted to sell used car parts to South American muscle car revivers. The black market doubles back on the backs of the poor and fallen, someday soon the secondary market will rise up to pop the neoclassical mystics on their well-padded asses, and a panarchic regime of actors and agents will probably make me pine for some good ol' state of nature. I like buildings, but architects have given up trying to make them because the world moves too fast to contain us. My advice stands: If you want to live forever you better hire a damn good lawyer so her kids' kids can defend your right to nanotech regenera- tion when you leave your frozen haven. If you want to know why there aren't more black movies, follow entertainment companies with economies larger than Third World countries and their ancillary profits. The only resistance to escape velocity melt- down is gardening as slow as possible. Denfeld can be reached at zcd@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Vagina Monologues this year silence some women TO THE DAILY: I received an e-mail regarding the upcoming production of the Vagina Monologues and quickly noticed the additional subtitle: "A Colorful Pro- duction." As it turns out, this year's show will consist of an all women-of-color cast, based on a belief that it is time "for women of color to have a place center stage." Now, I am hardly an essentialist, believing that women can come together through supposed "sis- terhood," and be united on the sole connection of their gender. Instead, I completely respect and understand the complexity lying within intersec- tions of race and gender. I could never associate my experience as a woman to that of a woman of color, as I have an amount of undeniable privi- lege that comes with being white in this society. It would be offensive and ludicrous for a white actress to present any monologue intended to rep- affect women of any color. Race is not the only issue involved in removing white women from the Vagina Monologue's cast. In actuality, you are also silencing lesbians, rape and domestic violence survivors, women of varying socioeconomic sta- tus and others who all have a stake in defining and shaping the perceptions of gender. I ask the producers of the Vagina Monologues to reconsider their decision in casting only women of color for this year's production. Good intentions aside, gender does not solely intersect with race, and your actions implicate such. Please consider how you are silencing numerous voices that could work in cooperation with women of color in pro- viding a well-rounded portrayal of female experi- ence. Thank you. Erin Cosens LSA junior A /-!- " 71 .. these policies, I can vouch for this personally. Second, if Broyles really is the "first to admit" that affirmative action is flawed, why does he bear no share of the onus of developing a supe- riot alternative? "It's the best we got" isn't a very good reason to support something. Last, if the intent of affirmative action is to remove the racial divisions in our society that have been left by an ugly past, why must we continue the ugliness into the present? I am not quite naive enough to think that racism doesn't exist, but I don't think that people who oppose affirmative action should be automatically labeled as "racist." This is simply evidence that whether one is for or against affirmative action, it is a subject that inherently breeds controversy. There probably is no way to avoid this controversy, but there might be a way to be a bit more civil about it. Dan Bertoni LSA junior "In Dissent" opinions do not reflect the views of the Daily's editorial board. They are solely the views of the author. Editorial Board Members: Amy Anspach, Reggie Brown, John Davis, Whitney Dibo, Sara Eber, Jesse Forester, Mara Gay, Jared Goldberg, Eric Jackson, Ashwin Jagannathan, Theresa Kennelly, Mark Kuehn, Will Kerridge, Rajiv Prabhakar, Matt Rose, T 1 " r Tl "T _1 _ C -- 1.- -1- T - - - C - AI T 'T _1 Affirmative action debate could stand to be more civil Football crowd fueled up . I 7h it Mn1f * "cwh P I'51£ v1av'f~