NEWS
Friday, September 8, 2006 - The Michigan Daily - 7
PROVOST FACEBOOK
Continued from page 1A Continued from page 1A
Sullivan was trying out for
the debate team, which Lay-
cock captained.
"Luckily, I made it," Sulli-
van said.
Laycock, a constitutional
law expert specializing in
religious liberties, joined the
law faculty after making the
move to Ann Arbor with Sul-
livan.
"It was such a great oppor-
tunity for her, it was really a
no-brainer," Laycock said.
"If it was a second-rate
law school, (the decision to
move) would have been a
little harder."
At the end of the reception,
Sullivan said she has been
continually impressed by the
drive for excellence at the Uni-
versity.
"If we can keep that, nour-
ish that - nothing else will
matter," Sullivan said.
News Feed or offer a one-click option allow-
ing users to remove themselves from News
Feed. Escaping News Feed under the current
system is somewhat complicated: Users must
remove each post on their Mini-Feed to hide
their Facebook endeavors from friends.
Group members have vowed not to update
their profiles until their demands are met.
More than 103,000 Facebook users had
signed the online petition as of press time.
Petition organizers also run www.saveface-
book.com, which keeps concerned students
abreast of the latest news on the backlash.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told
The Associated Press yesterday that his
staff is working to give users additional pri-
vacy. These changes may be unveiled today,
he said, allowing users to block categories
in the feeds. Users would still be able to
monitor their friends' Facebook activities by
looking at their mini-feeds.
In a Facebook blog entry titled "Calm
down. Breathe. We hear you," Zuckerberg
addresses the outcry.
"We agree, stalking isn't cool; but being
able to know what's going on in your friends'
lives is," he wrote. "This is information peo-
ple used to dig for on a daily basis, nicely
reorganized and summarized so people can
learn about the people they care about."
Although none of the information avail-
able via the "new Facebook" is actually new,
some students feel uncomfortable because
the information is so detailed and easy to
find.
"Facebook makes me feel like I'm naked,"
LSA junior Nick Taylor said. "It's how much
information it gives everyone you know."
Although the News Feed opposition is
fervent, there is a weak show of support
online.
One group, named "Actually, I like the
Facebook News Feed," points to its benefits.
The group's description says those who want
privacy shouldn't be on Facebook anyway. It
has only 245 members.
Other groups' descriptions say Facebook
users' primary purpose online is to stalk
anyway, and that therefore they should
embrace the feed, because it does the stalk-
ing for them.
As with any issue, there is also indiffer-
ence.
"I'm not too worried about stalkers," LSA
sophomore Annise Moy said. "I don't think
I have any."
ACTIVISM
Continued from page 1A
I've often wondered why our genera-
tion isn't more vocal. Conditions cer-
tainly seem ripe for protest. Like in the
'60s, the country is evenly divided into
bitterly partisan camps. Like in the
'60s, our nation is stuck in an unpopu-
lar war that we won't abandon for fear
of letting the bad guys win. Like in the
'60s, political opponents no longer see
the point of dialogue with their ideo-
logical enemies.
And yet, even in the supposedly far-
left enclave of Ann Arbor, there aren't
many hints of discontent beyond snarky
bumper stickers and the occasional
"Impeach Bush" yard sign. If there's an
anti-war movement at the University,
it's news to me. The group that sprouted
on here campus to protest the Iraq War,
Anti War Action!, withered almost as
quickly as did hope for a functional,
secular Iraqi democracy. Outside of a
few SOLE kids and a handful of envi-
ronmentalists, you might not even know
that there are activists here.
Occasionally, someone old enough
to remember what campuses were like
in the 'fi0s asks me why my generation
isn't out in the streets trying to stop
all this nonsense. I always struggle to
give a satisfactory answer. Maybe Karl
Rove is so good at spinning reality that
he can make any protest look futile.
Maybe today's college students, preoc-
cupied with building the perfect resu-
me and getting into grad school, can't
be bothered with changing the world.
Maybe between MTV and the Internet,
we just don't have the attention span to
launch a struggle and win it.
At the back of my mind, though,
lurks the suspicion that we don't care
because we realize that little of what's
going wrong with our country will
affect us. Our parents protested Viet-
nam because they feared the draft, but
no matter how badly stretched our all-
volunteer army gets, we know that we
aren't headed to Iraq or Afghanistan
unless we want to go. The gap between
rich and poor in America might have
grown drastically during our lifetimes,
but let's face it - highly educated pro-
fessionals like we'll be are the winners
in today's cutthroat, non-union, global
economy.
BALLOT
Continued from page 1A
voter approval. The proposal passed, but it was partially
repealed by Colorado voters in 2005.
Unlike other ballot proposals like the Michigan Civil
Rights Iniatitve and the now unnecessary Raise the
Wage campaign, the Stop Overspending Proposal had
almost no organized student support.
"I would have voted for it, butI don't know anyone
on campus who was actively supporting it," Brian Steers,
secretary of the College Republicans, said.
Alum Ryan Bates joined the Michigan Voter Edu-
cation Project in Ann Arbor last summer to campaign
against the overspending proposal after he graduated last
summer. He, too, had never heard of a student who gath-
ered signatures for the petition.
Typically a petition drive that turned in 500,000 sig-
natures would have no problem getting on the ballot.
Even if 10 percent of the signatures are disqualified,
which is average for a statewide petition, there are still
more than 317,757 signatures: the amount needed to
make the ballot. But the overspending proposal ran
into trouble because its petitions contained an unusu-
ally high number of duplicate signatures. This is espe-
cially damaging to a petition drive, because if state
investigators find two identical signatures, both are
thrown out.
Mark Grebner, a Democratic consultant with experi-
ence in petition drives, conducted an audit of the petition
signatures for Defend Michigan,a group that campaigned
against the overspending proposal. His audit found over
100,000 duplicate signatures as well as tens of thousands
that were invalid for other reasons.
"This was unlike anything I have ever seen before,"
Grebner said. "Typically you see a 12-percent rate of
duplicate signatures, but these guys had over 20 per-
cent."
The secretary of state confirmed most of Grebner's
findings through its own investigation.
Scott Tillman, a spokesman for Stop Overspending,
said the campaign's opponents would stop at nothing to
prevent the proposal from appearing on the ballot.
"Just because someone accidentally signed a petition
twice does not mean they were trying to commit election
fraud;" Tillman said.
Grebner said the petition drive probably failed because
the organizers hired unreliable paid petition circula-
tors, rather than college students or volunteers. He also
stressed that his investigation found no evidence of voter
fraud.
"It is not a criminal racket, but they had to find guys
who don't have real jobs;" Grebner said. "If you pay
people who normally spend their days washing windows
at stop signs hundreds of dollars to collect signatures,
you will get hundreds of signatures, but you may not be
happy with the quality you get."
Tillman said the proposal's backers hired National
Voter Outreach, based in Ludington, to use paid petition
circulators. He said he was not sure whether or not Stop
Overspending would take legal action against National
Voter Outreach because of the high number of duplicate
signatures.
Death reveals
underground
surgery web
Phony doctor
received $3,300 for
fatal cosmetic surgery
FRAMINGHAM, Mass. (AP)
- Fabiola DePaula's quest for
beauty took her to a condomini-
um basement, where authorities
say she paid an unlicensed doctor
$3,300 for a nose job and lipo-
suction performed on a massage
table.
But something went terribly
wrong and the 24-year-old nanny
died, exposing what investigators
say was an underground cosmet-
ic-surgery network used by immi-
grants from Brazil - a country
whose women are world-famous
for their beauty and their will-
ingness to go under the knife to
achieve it.
"Somebody has to speak out.
Go to the Brazilians, open their
minds and let them know it's
dangerous," said Jacque Foster,
a friend of DePaula's. "This is
totally beyond unsafe. You have to
think about what you are doing."
Authorities believe a Brazilian
doctor, Luiz Carlos Ribeiro, per-
formed liposuction, nose jobs and
Botox injections for three years in
the Framingham area, mostly for
the town's large Brazilian immi-
grant population and mostly for
cash.
Police say DePaula, a native of
Brazil, went to Ribeiro for a nose
job on July 27, then died three
days later after the liposuction.
According to the autopsy report,
DePaula died of complications
from the liposuction, including
pulmonary fat emboli, or fat par-
ticles in the lungs.
District Attorney Martha
Coakley said doctors in a hospital
could have dealt with the compli-
cation, which she called a rare but
known risk.
Ribeiro and his wife, Ana
Maria Miranda Ribeiro, both 49,
were arrested July 31 and charged
with manslaughter, unauthorized
practice of medicine and drug
counts. The couple pleaded not
guilty and remain in jail. Their
attorneys declined to comment.
The owner of the condo was also
arrested.
The district attorney said
Ribeiro was licensed to practice
medicine in Brazil, but his spe-
cialty was not cosmetic surgery.
Officials have not identified his
specialty.
Eliana Miranda, a Brazilian
immigrant who owns a clothing
store in Framingham, about 20
miles west of Boston, said she
doubts Ribeiro had trouble find-
ing customers.
Cosmetic surgery is "big here
too, but in Brazil, it's much big-
ger," she said. "We suffer all day
in high heels, just to look good.
Americans think about what is
comfortable. Even the underwear
is more underwear."
Youth and beauty are posi-
tively worshipped in Brazil-
ian culture, exemplified by the
scantily clad women celebrat-
ing Carnival or sunbathing on
the beach (a spectacle immor-
talized in the sultry song "The
Girl From Ipanema.") The best-
known plastic surgeons in the
country are celebrities.
Other states with large immi-
grant populations have also seen
cases in which people fell victim
to others practicing medicine or
dentistry illegally. In Miami, for
example, which has a large popula-
tion of Brazilians and others from
Latin American countries that put
a heavy emphasis on female beau-
ty, many of these cases involve
cosmetic procedures.
Some Brazilians around Fram-
ingham said it is common for
Brazilians to travel back to their
native country for all types of
operations - not just cosmetic
surgery - that often cost thou-
sands of dollars less than in the
United States.
August death toll high in
Baghdad despite predictions
Morgues and hospital
records show more than 1,500
violent deaths last month
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - More than 1,500
people died violently in Baghdad last month
- nearly the same number as in July - and
not the dramatic drop estimated just last week,
when U.S. and Iraqi officials announced that
their new security crackdown was working.
The Iraqi Health Ministry says its final
August tally of violent deaths in Baghdad was
1,536. That is nearly three times the same agen-
cy's preliminary estimate last week and shows
a nearly undiminished epidemic of killings by
insurgents and sectarian death squads.
Asked yesterday about the new, higher fig-
ures from the ministry, U.S. spokesman Lt.
Col. Barry Johnson declined to provide an
explanation or revised outlook. He referred
The Associated Press to a statement on a U.S.
military Web site that said the murder rate in
Baghdad dropped 52 percent in August from
the daily rate for July.
The Health Ministry offered no explana-
tion for how the original estimate of 550 vio-
lent deaths in August could have been revised
upward so dramatically.
The final figures for Baghdad, based on
reports from morgues and hospitals, showed
that 1,536 people died in Baghdad in August
due to sectarian and political violence, said
Deputy Health Minister Hakem al-Zamly.
The revised tally could be due in part to a surge
in killings at the end of the month. More than 250
people died in bombings and shootings in Bagh-
dad during the final week of August.
Delays in gathering information could have
also played a role. The Health Ministry bases
its monthly counts on reports from government
hospitals and morgues, many of which are
understaffed and lack computers.
Either way, the new numbers raise serious
questions about the success of the security
operation. U.S. and Iraqi officials have been
eager to show progress in restoring security in
Baghdad at a time when the country appears on
the verge of civil war, and support for the war is
declining in the United States.
Asked yesterday about the higher death fig-
ures, Johnson, the U.S. military spokesman,
declined to comment directly. He referred the
AP to a statement on a U.S. military Web site
by Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, which said
the murder rate in Baghdad had dropped 52
percent from the daily rate for July.
"The violence Baghdad endured in July
receded during the month of August;' the state-
ment by Caldwell added. "Attacks in Baghdad
were well below the monthly average for July."
The confusion over the numbers underscores
the difficulty of obtaining accurate death tolls in
Iraq, which lacks the data reporting and tracking
systems of most modern nations. When top Iraqi
political officials cite death numbers, they often
refuse to say where the numbers came from.
The Health Ministry, which tallies civil-
ian deaths, relies on reports from government
hospitals and morgues. The Interior Ministry,
which command Iraqi's police, compiles fig-
ures from police stations, while the Defense
Ministry reports deaths only among army sol-
diers and insurgents killed in combat.
Cell phone makers fight aftermarket sales
Some mobile companies losing
millions of dollars on prepaid
phone resales overseas
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - People moving state to
state, armed with cash and tricks to avoid scrutiny, are
buying cheap prepaid mobile phones by the thousands
with plans to sell them in Latin America and Hong
Kong.
Cell phone companies say the practice is costing
them millions of dollars, and some have hired private
investigators to document what they say is illegal tam-
pering with their phones. Wal-Mart, Radio Shack and
other retailers are limiting how many phones they will
sell at one time.
The buying has raised concerns the phones might be
used to aid terrorism, though those in the trade say it's
nothing but capitalism at its best - no different than
reselling stock for more than you paid.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department
of Homeland Security issued nationwide bulletins ear-
lier this year warning police to be on the lookout for
bulk purchases of cell phones. Authorities are worried
that profits from the trade could end up financing ter-
rorism or that the phones could be used as detonators
in attacks.
The practice - at the center of court cases in Flor-
ida, Ohio and Michigan - appears widespread and in
no danger of subsiding soon. Participants in the trade
don't appear very bashful.
"Don't leave a phone behind. To make real money
buy them all;' urged an e-mail by Larry Riedeman
of Larry's Cell in Altamonte Springs, Fla., that was
included in a lawsuit against that entity by TracFone
Wireless Inc. "Thousands a day if you can!"
Riedman and other small companies are consid-
ered the middlemen in a system that starts with buy-
ers snapping up phones at retailers such as Wal-Mart
Stores Inc. and ends with resale of the phones over-
seas.
In Ohio, two men acknowledged last month to
authorities that they had delivered 600 TracFones to
a middleman over three months.
Also in August, three Dallas men briefly charged
in Michigan with trafficking counterfeited goods
told the FBI that several businesses in Texas buy tele-
phones "from hundreds of people like themselves,"
according to an FBI filing in that case. The phones
are then sold to middlemen in California, New York
or Miami.
Another buyer, Bilal Mustafa, 22, of Minneapolis,
told The Associated Press he travels around the Mid-
west a week at a time in search of phones. He and a
buddy will buy four to six at once at small-town depart-
ment stores, as many as 250 a day.
Mustafa sells them to a cell phone business he
wouldn't identify. He says he's doing nothing illegal
and scoffs at FBI concerns that the practice could aid
terrorists.