4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 OPINION ibe 5irbitn attgl DoNN M. FRESARD Editor in Chief EMILY BEAM CHRISTOPHER ZBROZEK Editorial Page Editors ASHLEY DINGES 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 I would shoot with Dick Cheney everywhere, anywhere, and not think twice about it." - Katharine Armstrong, whose family owns the ranch where Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a 78-year-old Texas lawyer on Saturday, defending Cheney as a "very conscien- tious hunter," as reported yesterday by CNN.com. COLIN DALY Tuv N4Ic1w;~\ D,~iy N -.~-..' ~ ~" -/ / xjW ~ L11917 ~I ~- ~-, a ~~PSPP N Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their author. 11- JT The dialogue of dating DAVID BETTS PONTIIFICATIONS 01 I'm sure the real world does this too, but people at the University go a little crazy around Valentine's Day. There are flowers for sale and speed-dating events and date auc- tions and something called the Kappa tuck- ins for all the ladies who want the honor of doing whatever the hell happens when Kappa Alpha Psi tucks them in. There are "The Vagina Monologues" and "Yoni Ki Baat: South Asian Vaginas Speak" and the poetry slam that features the Penis Mono- logues. And, as always, there is a favorite pastime of the University community: dia- logue. I think there have been and will be as many events in the two weeks surround- ing Valentine's Day as there will be drunk people skipping class on St. Patrick's Day. I can't criticize the hysteria too much. I did get a date with my first choice in a speed-dating event last Friday, and I can only hope she's as intrigued as I am. But I can say that I will never again partici- pate in a discussion about relationships and expect to gain something from it. (Unless, of course, that something is the phone num- ber of the best-looking girl in the room, but that's beside the point.) Relationship conversations are just some- thing single people do to pass time. What do women really want? Do men really think about sex that much? Why are girls orguys at the University so stuck-up? Sadly enough, during my four years at this uni- versity, I've been involved in my fair share of these discussions. Usually, I end up get- ting sucked into representing men at large, which is something I should not do. I can only speak for myself. Last week, I attended a dialogue on inter- racial dating, which is like a normal con- versation about relationships except a little more venomous. Race and gender issues are combustible enough on their own; imagine what happens when the two are mixed. I didn't expect to learn much from the dis- cussion and I didn't. Why don't I expect to gain anything from an interracial dating dialogue? Well, because I already have my dating preferences and barring an unparalleled societal shift, they will stay the same. I'm not alone in this sen- timent. Because of various social forces, I'm more likely to date black women than those of any other race, ethnicity or whatever other category there is, unless someone else is compelling enough for me to put up with the hell I'll catch for being with her. That's an open-minded, yet realistic perspective. What more can the world ask for? Eventually the conversation turned into a small-scale shouting match. Women in the room got increasingly heated over male behavior. I completely ignored the people who had already raised their hands to com- ment so I could make my points and coun- terpoints immediately. Women of color, the majority of the crowd in the room, started attacking - with some justification - the overwhelmingly white standards of beauty in the country. I decided that the few white women in the crowd shouldn't be alienated and said, "If a woman is good-looking, a woman is good-looking regardless of color." That's tantamount to saying "I like white women," which for a black man in front of mostly black women is tantamount to saying "I'm a white-woman-loving traitor." People were starting to get angry. It was kind of fun - just not very productive. Just imagine if we'd thrown issues of sexuality in there, too. The moral of the story is that I like who I like, and if you don't like it, you can kick rocks. Assuming you make an effort to get to know individuals, and not just stereo- types of people, you should feel the same way about your relationship preferences. If I can leave you with one piece of advice on this holiday - which is nothing more than a red and pink, lace-veiled, economic stim- ulant - it is this: Don't listen to all of the crap that other people tell you about women, or men, or black people, or white people or Asian people - get to know individuals. If you do that, then you are justified in shar- ing my disdain for generic relationship con- versations. Betts can be reached at djmbetts@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Send all letters to the editor to tothedaily@michigandaily. com. Love, not English, will unify Michigan's residents TO THE DAILY: Contrary to Rep. Jack Hoogendyk's (R- Kalamazoo) views, I don't see making Eng- lish the official language of Michigan as a unifying measure, but rather as encourag- ing separation. Instead, how about considering making love our state's official language? When our governmental officials meet, we could hold them accountable to use that language. Who knows what miracles could occur? Now that I would find unifying, not only for our state, but our country and world. Come on, Michigan - we can be the light house that shows others how to use lan- guage that unifies. Mary Hayhoe In fact, campus should not relax over uwireless Internet TO THE DAILY: Hans Kuder's sarcastic remark that "the sky is falling" in a letter to the editor yesterday (Campus should relax over wireless Internet issues, 02/13/2006) attempted to shield the administration from its failures to provide wireless. Yet Kuder fails to understand the importance of a global education and how the University fails to provide one. From my wireless connection at the American Uni- versity in Cairo in developing Egypt, I have concluded that the sky - the world and its changing needs - is indeed collapsing on the University. Since starting my classes in Cairo, I have harshly learned the Univer- sity failed to provide me with the tools to understand emerging international studies. like globalization, international relations and political economy. The University trumpets a "leaders and the best" mantra, yet in international stud- ies, the University can't even be compared with its peer institutions. The University of Michigan is the only Big Ten university that does not offer an IR program. Northwest- ern University, the school where the highest number of students who are accepted here but choose not to attend Michigan matricu- late, maintains an outstanding IR program that caters to any concentration, regard- ,no _ f n ,lla m Whil . t a :_.i :.rity ..nd founded the International Relations focus group under LSA Student Government in September 2004. This focus group was responsible for lobbying the University to create an IR program. In December 2004, my group presented the Executive Com- mittee with findings indicating the Univer- sity had been completely left behind by its peer institutions in IR. We provided a list of courses which could be integrated into multiple IR minors and suggested two core IR classes be included with the minors. It is now February 2006, and only last month did the curriculum committee approve an international studies minor, which may be available in Fall 2006. This is too little, too late! The University's failure to stay cur- rent with new studies of the world should be attributed to the administration and its financial priorities. When universities.and random hookah bars in the developing world provide better ways to access infor- mation than a top American public institu- tion, it becomes obvious that the University has fallen behind. U.S. News and World Report, are you listening? Stuart Wagner LSA junior Wagner is a former LSA-SG and MSA representative who is studying in Cairo. A blog post does not a legitimate source make TO THE DAILY: While it is true that a blog is public and may be accessible to anyone willing to retrieve the information, it still does not make it right to use this source of information as the base for the main ideas of an article. Almost any Uni- versity student can speak about "credible" sources, meaning first-hand information that reports fact and not merely thought or opin- ion. How likely is it for a student to submit any type of paper using a blog as a source? Also, to address the letter writer's claim that the Daily did indeed include positives regarding Moffett's stint as vice president of the campus NAACP (Everyone, including Daily, can read a public blog, 02/09/2006), nowhere in the article (Amid controversy, NAACP VP resigns, 01/30/2006) does it speak about her actual actions; it merely makes mention of her frequent attendance at cn-rifi. Pv..t Students vulnerable to crime, even in Ann Arbor TO THE DAILY: On Feb. 8, The Ann Arbor News printed a story about a violent assault. A University nurs- ing student was walking to his car from Taub- man Library. The student was approached by an assailant who asked him the time and then struck him multiple times with a socket wrench. The student's wallet and cell phone were stolen. The student sustained multiple hematomas on his limbs. The student may have been perma- nently disabled or killed. The student was me. As I was coming from Taubman, I dis- tinctly recall thinking that what I was doing - walking alone in the city after dark - was not safe. I rationalized it several ways. I was not near main campus and specifically South University Avenue, where there has been an increase in violent assaults. I was walk- ing past Main Street - a busy, well-lit area. I was headed to% a residential neighborhood, which I thought would be less likely to harbor violence. Then a man stopped to ask me the time, and I was suddenly on my back in a snow bank, using my arms to deflect the blows from my face. Students are a particularly vulnerable popu- lation in Ann Arbor. We usually walk where we need to go because parking is impossible or expensive. Our classes and studying keep us out late at night and drag us out of bed early in the morning. We walk in the dark. And many of us are young and don't stop to consider our vulnerability; Ann Arbor seems like such a safe place. I'm writing to ask every reader of this letter to take a moment and think about what you have done to protect yourself from violent crime. Protecting yourself takes time and money. It can mean taking a taxi instead of walking or waiting for a shuttle when all you want to do is go home. It can mean investing in pepper spray and self-defense classes. And it's not comfortable. We don't want to think of ourselves as targets, and we don't want to think of our environment as dangerous. But victims of crime know that the effort is absolutely worth it and that nothing is worth jeopardizing your health and safety. I am also writing this letter to a particular per- son. On Wednesday, I was driving home from the Ann Arbor Police Department, where a detective had me strip so he could photograph my bruises. I was stonned on State Street, near Yost Ice Arena, A Editorial Board Members: Amy Anspach, Andrew Bielak, Reggie Brown, Kevin Bunkley, Gabrielle D'Angelo, John Davis, Whitney Dibo, Milly Dick, Sara Eber, Jesse Forester, Mara Gay, Jared Goldberg, Ashwin Jagannathan, Eric Karna,, Mark Kuehn, Will Kerridge, Frank Manlev. Kirstv McNamara. Raiiv Prabhakar, Katherine Seid, Brian Slade, Gavin Stern, Ben I