V V V V _ - a v 0 0 w Th -McignDal -Wensdy0Otbe 007 new ul es rule 57: You're iot fooling anyone when you order a diet coke with your triple bacon burger. rule 58: Wearing a mini- skirt in sub-zero temperatures will not make you look hot. Only cold. rule 59: Picking an occupation and putting the word "sexy" in front of it is rarely a good costume idea. E-mail rule submissions to TheStatement@umich.edu THE EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK with GARY GRACA A look at the big news eventsthis week and how important they really are. Conveniently rated from one to10. WATERED DOWN ANSWERS After days of nomination hearings that didn't produce answers, Senate Democrats are threatening to oppose confirmation of attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey unless he answers in writing about whether he believes waterboarding is illegal. Senate Republicansjust suggested that they tie him down and simulate drowning untilhe answers. 5 BRINGING RACISM BACK Reversing its position that all images of the former mascot Chief Illiniwek would be banned from university activities, University of Illinois administrators allowed S the stereotypical image to be displayed during the homecoming parade last weekend. Administrators were hoping to teach one important lesson: If you want to promote racist stereotypes at sporting events, take it outside please. SCARED STUPID If you thought sexy nurse outfits was this year's most popular Halloween costume, you probably missed a peren- nial favorite - paranoia. Whether it's the NewJersey, 7 elementary school that banned Batman's utility belt orthe misguided Michigan legislature that is keeping reformed sex offenders from using their porch lights, nothing goes better with a Butterfinger than a little overreaction. NO STRINGS ATTACHED After receiving a gift of $35 million in 1961 to support the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University is being sued by the donor's children for not adhering to the donation's original intent. Thankfully, the Universityof Michigannever accepts absurdly large donations that come with petty strings attached. (Cough, Stephen Ross, cough.) CERTIFIED NON-HITLER ARTWORK Three years and more than $100,000 after starting its investigation, the University of Michigan Museum of Art can now proudly say that most of its artwork is believed to probably not have been possibly stolen by Nazis. As an important follow-up, the University hopes to maybe find out if any of its artwork was potentially stolen from people who may have been Native Americans. NUTHIN' BUT A COURT BATTLE Rapper Dr. Dre will likely be facing trial after three former Detroit city employees, includingformer police Commander Gary Brown, sued the rapper when a video- tape of the three asking concert producers to not show nudity at a 2000 Detroit concert made it onto a Dr. Dre DVD. 2 ANSWERS The greenest mayor, Seven years ago when John Hieftje was elected mayor of Ann Arbor, there were no hybrid buses, the word Green- belt - now a program providing funding for the city to secure and preserve undeveloped areas around the city lim- its - was more strongly associated with fashion than city planning, and most current students were still in high school. Now it's hard to imagine Ann Arbor without the hyper-environmentally conscious mayor's influence. Here, Hieftje talks about the relationship between town and gown, his goals for the city's energy consumption, his favorite restaurant and why it's taken so long for the Greenbelt to acquire more than a few hundred acres of land. " I teach a class at the Ford School, so I have a lot of interaction with students. One of the things I've always said is while it's true most students won't be here for very long, each one is filling a spot that, even though it's rotating, is an important part of the community. Anyone who steps back and looks at it realizes students make a huge contribution to life in Ann Arbor. " My favorite restaurant is Zanzibar.ISshouldn't say that. I like all the restaurants in Ann Arbor, but often when my wife and Ihave a chance to go out to dinner we go to Zanzibar. " So far, the city has bought about almost 800 acres of or development rights with the Greenbelt taxes, and it's poised to buy more now that the real estate -market is down. There's a silver lining to the market downturn for the Greenbelt. Many more applications have come in and soon we'll have five to seven thousand acres around the city. We expect to have that accomplished by about 2015. * The revenue that we're collecting doesn't matter that much in terms of the land we're buying right now. We're using it to work with f*mers and developers and we're buying bonds. We still have another 20 million to go, and working with all our partners, that will be magnified. " One of the problems that students encounter being involved in city government is that it's a long-term, year-round commit- ment. This acts to limit student involvement. But students still find a way to be involved; for example, they were the force behind my sponsoring the lease-signing ordinance. This year, students have been working with landlords to come up with some modest changes that will make more user-friendly for all. 9 Back in 2005,I issued the Mayor's Green Energy Challenge, which calls for the city to 30 percent renewable energy by 2010. We're at 18 percent now. And we're on the way. Just look at what we've announced in a three-week period. " Two weeks ago, we received national press for being the first city in the country to convert all the light fixtures in our down- town streetlights to environmentally friendly LEDs. It's a $650,000 program with a four-year payback because LED's are 50 percent more efficient and they last 10 years, versus two. When we are finished with downtown, we'll turn to replacing the rest of the streetlights in the city. " Last week, we announced that in working with the An Arbor Transportation Authority, we're replacing our buses with U.S.-made hybrid models using bio-diesel and regenerative braking to charge the batteries. Under 25 miles per hour, they're running completely on electricity and they're 30to 50 percent more fuel-efficient. Five more arrive in the spring - that'll give us 20, and that's more than a quarter of the fleet with more to come. * It's going to take at least five years for the city to shake off the impact of the Pfizer plant closing, but I think at that point the city will be better off in a lot of ways. SO many of our eggs won't be in the same basket anymore. It's going to take a while, but there's some very good work being done to rebuild the tax base that Pfizer represented. COURTESY OF JOHN HIEFTJE MagazineEditor:AnneVanderMey AssociateMagazine Editor: Jessica Vosgerchian Ed'tinthief: Kal Siouvil ManagingEditor:J eff evBlor Cover Photo:AngelaCesere PhotoEditor:Emma Nolan-Abrahamian Designer:Bridget O'Donnell PERSON OF THE WEEK. CRISTINA FERNANDEZ DE KIRCHNER No one was surprised when Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner became Argentina's first elected woman president after the elections last weekend, least of all Kirchner herself. After her husband, President Nestor Kirchner, decided to not seek re-election and anointed her his successor in Argentina's Peronist Party, Kirchner felt so secure with her election prospects that the powerful sena- tor didn't really bother to campaign at all. She opted to spend most of the last two months touring Western Europe and North America - hobnobbing with foreign leaders and dignitaries. But her knack for fashion and her academic speeches make lady Kirchner a strange candidate to wear the mantel of populist general Juan Peron. That's a fact that Kirchner, who sees herself as more of a Latin American Hillary Clinton than a 21st Century Evita, is quite aware of. In a victory speech Sunday night, Kirchner said being Argentina's first elected female president made her feel "an immense responsibility to my gender." But for a candidate who hardly campaigned, what remains to be seen is what form that responsibility will take after the last champagne bubble pops. OFF THE WALL A sampling of campus graffiti 1 did not SMASH FASCISM What if Jesus really is the answer? have sex in this carrel - A study carrel in the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library - The women's bathroom in Amer's on Then we're all fucked. State Street - The men's bathroom in Ashley's on State Street Ia poesic = a mort - A study carrel in the Grad Library Seen interesting graffiti around campus? E-mail thestatement@umich.edu ZING'S From page SB make enough money to stay in busi- ness and provide good jobs with benefits for people," said Pete Sick- man-Garner, marketing manager for Zingerman's, "And, well, given that, we're at about 3.5 percent." So why is it that ZingTrain can charge a grand a pop for training seminars in the Zingerman's way of doing business if it's so far from being a cash cow? Maybeit'sZingerman'sfeel-good philosophy, part of what has pro- pelled the small-town deli into the pages of business magazines and onto the front page of the Business Section of The New York Times. The restaurant has an aggres- sively loyal following and most of the employees seem to like coming to work. The principle behind the company's success - and the trade secret that's taught at ZingTrain seminars - lies in an inclusive com- pany decision-making policy. First, someone comes up with an idea of how to make the company better. It could be anything from a dif- ferent ingredient in a sandwich to redrawing a sign on the front door. That person, whether they're a dishwasher or a store manager, has an equal opportunity to carry out the change. To communicate the new policy to the staff, the employ- ees assembles a group of other employees from a few of the other areas in the restaurant, in other words, a microcosm of the compa- ny. They then work together to get the information about that decision out to customers, other employees and upper-level managers. "The employeesbuy in a lot more if they're involved in the decision than if they just hear about it from somebody," said Joariie Mallory, a manager at Zingerman's Road- house on Jackson Road. "In a way, it really helps us because it's like they're doing our work for us," she said. "They're the ones coming up with the ideas." Zingerman's believes that being a great place to work and being a great place to eat go hand-in-hand. "Oh yeah, everyone who works at the Roadhouse is really cool," said Zan De Perry, a Roadhouse busboy. "It's a good place to work." It also helps to foster a sense of humor in the employees as a way of keep- ing them loose. When asked about Weinzweig's knowledge about the cheese industry, De Perry said, "Oh yeah, Ari's a cheese," he paused, searching for the right word. "Wiz." That may be true, but just as much, and maybe more important, he's a business wiz. Weinzweig and the rest of Zingerman's staff have managed to put together a business that's propped up the community and stayed loyal to its founding principles - good food, even if it's isn't turning a huge profit. And in the end, anyone who can get people to buy macaroni and cheese for $15 must be doing some- thing right. - I he side of Angell Hall