4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, November 9, 2005
OPINION
be S irbigun it tIg
JASON Z. PESICK
Editor in Chief
SUHAEL MOMIN
SAM SINGER
Editorial Page Editors
ALISON GO
Managing Editor
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT
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ANN ARBOR, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
NOTABLE
QUOTABLE
44It gets rid of a
lot of dogma that's
being taught in the
classroom today."
- John Bacon (R), a member of the
Kansas state Board of Education, expressing
agreement with a change that injects
intelligent design into the state's science
curriculum, as reported yesterday by CNN.com.
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The student section
DAVID BETTS PONTIFICATIONS
Barring a gradu- of the unfortunate masses who left the stadium lower decks to separate everyone - no club
ate school that evening. Thank God I stayed. I missed the seats and luxury boxes.
admissions Penn State game a couple weeks ago, possi- If indeed the luxury boxes and club seats
offer, these next two bly missing the one great win my senior year do come to the stadium, which they eventu-
Saturdays will be my may have to offer. I was in Washington for the ally will, it will be up to the student section to
last in the student sec- Millions More Movement - a once-in-a-life- ensure that Michigan Stadium is undoubtedly
tion at Michigan Sta- time experience. But part of me will probably a college venue. The students have to make
dium. I've got to be always wish I had stayed to watch the game. sure all of the traditions stay. The student sec-
honest, I'm going to Slowly but surely college football is becom- tion must continue to stand the whole game,
really miss the place. ing more commodified. The University made must continue to control the most coordinated
I'm going to miss several ill-fated attempts to get fans to tailgate wave I've ever seen, must scream and yell to
everything from the band coming out of the on both Palmer and Elbel fields. The generic fight the perception that the Big House is a
tunnel to the horde 'of people walking down ESPN tailgates were colossal failures, and I wine-and-cheese crowd. The student section is
Hoover after the game is over and everything couldn't be happier. I would hate to lose the the unquestioned lifeblood of the stadium. We
in between. I will really miss laughing at experience of walking past the individual tail- don't contribute the most revenue to the Ath-
111,000 or so people completely failing to stay gates in student neighborhoods on the way to letic Department, but we easily contribute the
on beat when singing "The Victors" and won- the game. I went to the Detroit Lions game most energy. It's the only place I've seen some-
dering whether everyone is too drunk to keep against the Carolina Panthers in October, and one dressed as Santa Claus crowd surf after a
time. I will really miss standing and watching maybe it's because the Lions are so bad, but touchdown. It's the only place where people
football games with 20,000 other students who the spirit in the building just couldn't compare will shake keys on 3rd down and then do the
may or may not realize that watching a game to the Big House. There was no monumental claw, or chop or whatever arm motion, if the
from a student section will be one of the last anticipation as the teams took the field, no defense gets a stop. Regardless of the destiny
places they can be young and dumb and have it shaking of keys on 3rd down and definitely no of the cement and steel aspects of the stadium,
be not only accepted but expected. crowd-surfing after touchdowns. All the fancy the student section must continue to be the bas-
During my college career I have seen some graphics and bright lights on the video-board tion of loud, youthful enthusiasm that separates
of the greatest games in University history. I advertisements seemed too contrived - there college from professional football.
began my freshman year with the Washing- was nothing natural about the experience, I've got two more chances to go to a football
ton game when Phil Brabbs kicked the game- nothing organic. game as an undergraduate student, and I hope
winning field goal after having been benched When the renovations to Michigan Stadium they're monumental experiences. I've got two
earlier in the game for missing kicks. My soph- actually happen, I hope the place doesn't lose more chances to watch the band come out of
omore year I witnessed Chris Perry run him- too much of its character. With so few people the tunnel and see the drum major lean back
self to being a Heisman trophy finalist while sitting up in the walled-off universe of the and put his head on the ground. I've got two
destroying Notre Dame. That same year I wit- press box, there is a certain sense of equality more chances to make the painfully long, yet
nessed a victory over Ohio State that was one in the stadium. Equality in the sense that when entertaining walkfrom the Hill to the Stadi-
holding penalty away from being a full-fledged I go to these last two games I will be sitting in um. I've got two more chances to be a kid at a
blowout. During my junior year there were sev- the same seating bowl as a Law student, the football game in a section specifically reserved
eral memorable games: the last-second victory same seating bowl as a 65-year-old alum, the for kids.
over Minnesota comes to mind, but the most same seating bowl as a guy who bought tickets
memorable game was against Michigan State. from some guy standing in front of the Union Betts can be reached at
I was about 10 seconds away from being one at 11:30 that morning. There are no upper and dmbetts@umich.edu.
Please don't 'do it for the kids'
EMILY BEAM LOOKING FOR AM ERCA
y parents' American Values disagrees. She wrote in Sun- lower stress levels. The positive aspects related
divorce day's issue of The Washington Post that "there to marriage come with the healthy, close-knit
was, as far is no such thing as a 'good' divorce." In her family relationships it can - but does not nec-
as divorces go, pretty book "Between Two Worlds," she finds that essarily - foster.
ideal. Even as a 7-year children whose parents divorce even under the What concerns me is when pro-family con-
/9 old, I saw it coming best circumstances are less likely to report that servatives take these marriage statistics and
- to the extent that I their family life centers on children and more conclude that divorce is evil and heterosexual
bet my best friend my likely to feel like adults well before their 18th marriage is the only legitimate foundation for
parents would divorce birthdays. She suggests ending "low-conflict" a family. Rather than making marriage laws
before hers. She still marriages, like that of my parents, is more more binding, as seems to be the current trend,
owes me $5. As things traumatic than preserving them and should legislators should look to promote policies
fell apart, there were important conversations be avoided whenever possible. I wasn't aware that build strong families regardless of wheth-
hidden behind shut doors that my sister and I things like spending more time alone as a child er they resemble the "Leave it to Beaver" ideal.
were not to hear, and there were unimportant were enough to invalidate cases of divorce like Focusing resources on poverty reduction, for
conversations turned shouting matches that we that of my parents, but maybe that's because instance, would be much more effective than
couldn't avoid. Everything culminated when I I'm one of those victims of divorce. the current pro-family conservative approach
was 10 with the big announcement that my dad I'm just one anecdote; I'm not Marquardt's of misinterpreting correlation as causality by
was moving out for a while. In their attempt nationally represented survey of 1,500 young blaming poverty on failing and nonexistent
to minimize the emotional damage they were adults. To some extent, she is right: Even in marriages. It might very well be the reverse, as
inflicting, they did all the good things parents what I would consider this best-case divorce the instability and financial stress that accom-
are supposed to do - explaining that it had scenario, it was still hard at times. But I have pany poverty take their toll rather heavily on
nothing to do with us and they both loved us no doubt it would have been worse had they family dynamics.
very much. My dad found an apartment, my stayed together. If my parents had stuck it I'm immensely thankful that my parents had
parents stopped fighting and we moved on out, as Marquardt suggests, would they have the foresight not to stay together "for the kids."
with our lives. realized that those last years of arguing were Our teenage years would have been miserable:
Of course, my situation is far from normal; no more than a mid-life crisis? That seems Their lives would still be miserable. No amount
few divorces proceed as smoothly as that of unlikely, of premarital counseling could have told them
my parents. I was spared evil stepparents, the Given all the direct and indirect damage that more than two decades later they might
outright pitting of the kids against the "bad" associated with divorce, making marriages not be the same people were in 1974, and no
parent and the emotional trauma of thinking I work seems a reasonable aim. Pro-family con- amount of marriage counseling could have
never had a "real home." Instead, my parents servatives highlight all sorts of statistical evi- saved their marriage once it failed. In the case
talked - and still talk - regularly. They car- dence demonstrating the correlation between of some marriages, things just don't work out.
pooled to my high school choir concerts. My healthy marriages and benefits ranging from Saving the family is more important than sav-
mom doesn't like to go to my dad's house and increased happiness to lower poverty rates. ing the marriage, particularly when marriage
they each grumble about the other from time Why is that? It's not the wedding day picture is increasingly an outdated notion of bride,
to time, but overall, my parents get along much or the marriage license that help children work groom and "till death do us part."
better than they did in the last years of their hard in school. It's not the "institution" in any
marriage. It was a good divorce. formal sense nor the blessing of whatever Beam can be reached at
Elizabeth Marquardt of the Institute for clergy or city official that is correlated with ebeam@umich.edu.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Editorial Board Members: Amy Anspach, Reggie Brown, John Davis, Whitney Dibo,
Sara Eber, Jesse Forester, Mara Gay, Eric Jackson, Ashwin Jagannathan,
MSA's Voice Your Vote
Commission didn't execute
As a former off-year Voice Your Vote
Commission co-chair, I recognize the dif-
ficulty of mobilizing voters for local elec-
direction. MSA should be commended for
creating a City Council liaison and com-
mittee this semester. However, without
real stuudent votes and Dower behind these
I