0 0 fo 0 69 "9 THE EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK with ANDREW GROSSMAN tabv o )iIntents A look at the big news events this week and how important they really are. Ranked from 1 to10 for your convenience. Wednesday, Jnur "1,2007 -TeMcia al 3B JUNK DRAWER The most notable and outrageous quotes from current events and popular culture and other short items about the week that was. 4B THE HMONG AMONG US The neighbors you didn't know you had. 8B FORGET THE MONA LISA The art of writing the family holiday letter. PROP2 TAKES EFFECT Look for a spike in Red Bull sales near the Office of University Admissions as 10 administrators tryvto drafta new policy 6 before they havetoadhere to Prop2. THE NEWCONGRESS For thefirsttime in12years.the Democrats have taken hold of Congress. Theysaythey're eagerfor bipartisanship- butonly after they've pushed the core oftheir agenda. BAGHDAD POWER SURGE Tonight President Bushwill announce plans to send upto 20,000 more American troops to Baghdad. Students will likelybe ignor- 'ng a rally on the Diag within the week. UN-MITT-IGATED AMBITION Bloomfield Hills native Mitt Romney announced thetformation ofta committee to 0 1s explore a presidential bid last week. Romney 4 would bethenation'sfirst Mormon president. SOMALIA TheU.S. attackedtargets intheSomalia.The U.S. now has al for 2 record in not hitting benign pharmaceutical plants while bomb- 0 9 0 ing in African countries that begin with'S. NYC ODOR A pungent naturalgas-likeodorwafted over Manhattan and parts of NewJersey Tues- day. Maybe that's the price Gotham pays 0 0 10 for being located next to the Garden State. 6B Etiquette tips from an expert1 9 rule 1: Even if your pro- fessor wrote the textbook, that doesn't mean he's a good teacher. rule 2: Don't peruse Facebook in the Fishbowl. rule 3: Stop complaining about Shaman Drum. It's not that bad. - Email rule submissions to email@michigandaily.com PERSON OF THE WEEK NANCY PELOSI Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi was sworn in as the first-ever female speaker of the House Thursday. But in what may have came as a disappointing diversion to many Democrats, the nation woke up on Friday to a New York Times lead photo showing a gavel- waving, ear-to-ear grinning Pelosi at the House rostrum surrounded by the children and grandchildren of her col- leagues. Republicans everywhere were thrilled that the "mommy party" is back in charge. V inding mannners Marion Scher has been the director of Martha Cook Residence Hall, an all girls dorm and arguably the most polite place on campus, for nine years. In a soft Scottish accent, she decried what she sees as a falling-off of good manners on campus in recent years. Although rules of etiquette seem too antiquated and formal for everyday use, there's more than one reason to learn to properly wear those cuff links. Whether or not you take or leave her seven etiquette tips, it's good to know that if you have to impress your new boss or your new girlfriend's parents, you can. After all, as Miss Manners once said, poor etiquette has destroyed more relationships than evil hearts. When accompanying a lady, a gentleman always walks on the outside of the curb, nearer to the traffic. At the dinner table, always pass the salt and pepper together, never just the salt alone. Treat the salt and pepper as if they were a married couple that belongs together. The best manners aren't showy, they're invisible. Truly good manners never cause discomfort or embarrassment to anyone. When you have finish your meal, place your knife and fork perpendicularly together on the plate. This is a signal to most servers that your plate may be removed. Write your thank-you notes promptly, even for those gifts that don't fully thrill you. In life, the words"thank you" cannot be said too often. Punctuality is essential. Be punctual and arrive at the promised time. Perennial late- ness is rude and insulting. Greet people you pass in the street with a cheery "Good morning" or "Good after- noon." This will make all of campus more personable. Or, at the very least, you'll be seen as more personable. Magazie Edtor: JanionV. [Dowd Associte MagazineEditor: Coe r:PtrShonelsn Design~ers:Bidget O'Donnell Managing Editor effreyhlonom Biggest man on campus Our Back Pages ( Local History Column ormer University Presi- peppered with four-letter dent Robben Fleming words. In fact, it wasn't too wasn't fazed when a far from an average day at the group of student activists office. - came to his office presenting Fleming assumed Univer- their demands in language sity's top job in 1968, a time when student unrest was so important an issue that it dominated the discussion when the University Board of Regents interviewed him for the position. Fleming writes in his mem- oirs that after letting this particular group of activists swear at him for a bit, he had questions about their tech- nique. "I would be glad to talk to them provided the obsceni- ties stopped and we used bet- ter English," he wrote. "It was not, I explained, that I was unfamiliar with the words they were using since I had served in the Army for three and one half years and had bargained with some rough- talking trade unionists. It was just that this group used the obscenities so ineptly. A good first sergeant would be ashamed of them. There was no color or flair to it. Obsceni- ties, when used, were much better handled by experts." Fleming noted the meet- ing was much more civil after that. It's difficult to imagine a more perfect resume than the one Fleming had for the job of University president dur- ing an era when the Univer- sity was widely known as a center of student activism. A lawyer by training who had focused on labor law, Flem- ing had supplemented an aca- demic career and a few years in the army with work as a labor arbitrator, settling dis- putes between management and unions at a time when the nation's workforce was much more heavily unionized than it is today. There, Fleming learned how to negotiate between hos- tile parties. He learned that much of human behavior in confrontations is essentially theatre. And he learned to be patient in the face of provoca- tion. See FLEMING, page 6B HMONG From page 6B "There would be a better voice if all Asians or Hmong as a whole" emphasized a college education, she said. After all, there is strength - and support - in numbers. Keeping up the courseload and choosing where to go to college is difficult enough with aid from high school guid- ance counselors and parents. To beone of the only members - or the first - in your family to attend college, especially coming from high schools that provide little support for those aiming for higher education, is a feat few University students can comprehend. But for many of the Detroit-area Hmong youth, the scenario is not that far-fetched. At one point, according to Lytongpao, there were more Hmong students at the University of Michigan than at Michigan State University. The steep price of a University education and MSU's comparatively easier admissions pro- cess must be taken into consideration, as should the conve- nience of Detroit schools like University of Detroit-Mercy and Wayne State. But the decrease of Hmong students on campus may also be due to movement of the Hmong away from Detroit. Many have moved south to farm in Arkansas, Lytongpao said. Yang acknowledged that it would be nice to have more Hmong students at the University. His thoughts may yet be actualized. Osborn junior Noue Yang (no relation to Leng) has been a Project Lighthouse scholar for the past three years. When asked about where she wanted to go to school, Yang smiled shyly at the prospect of four years in Ann Arbor. "Isn't Michigan hard to get into?" she asked. She broke out into a smile when told it "wasn't that tough" to get accepted. "I had never seen anything like Ann Arbor - I always thought it was the coolest place," Maipa Vang said. Before her time at the University, she had visited her older sister there. "It's the number one school in Michigan. How could you not want to go there?" Perhaps at least for four years, the University could be a place to call home for more Hmong students..