w w w. 7 qw I' qw w -W THE EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK with GARY GRACA table of nt t A look at the big news events this week and how important they really are. Conveniently ranked from one to10. Wednesday, September 5, 2007 - The Michigan Daily AM- Personal S 4C YOUR FIRST APARTMENT Know your rights when you're talking with your landlord and paying your rent. SC HOT WHEELS The UM Solar Car Team takes another trip to Australia to show off its newest, fastest model. 6-8C SL MAKING IT BIG You never know where life will " take you, but you can make a lot of money along the way. 9C ONCE A CHEATER, ALWAYS A CHEATER The psychology behind why you're cheating on that psych test and why you'll cheat on your income taxes later in life 11B WATCHING OVER THE FLOUNDERS A lifeguard describes her experiences watching her professor play on a nude water polo team. MOVIN'ON UP After the state legislature moved the pri- mary elections to Jan.15, the new number twoin the primary season is Michigan. In 10 response, New Hampshire is planning to hold its election tomorrow. IT'S BETTER THAN NOTHING For four hours on Friday, same-sex couples in Iowa were allowed to marry after a county judge lifted the state's ban on same-sex marriages. changing his mind, he 10 postponed his decision, awaiting an appeal. 3 Even Britney Spears's marriage lasted lon- ger than that. THOSE WEREN'T POTATOES Add Idahoan Sen. Larry Craig (R) to the list of hypocritical same-sex critics alongside evangelist Ted Haggard. After serving a lifetime as a beckon of conservative val- 10 ues, the senator was looking for a different 4 kind of service in an airport bathroom. 0 0 0, LABORINGON LABOR DAY President Bush must misunderstand what he is supposed to do on Labor Day. Instead of taking Monday off, he made a surprise 10 visit to Iraq - the only day he has actually 4 done hisjob this year. BUT NOTHING JUST SUCKS Ruling that the issue is moot, 6th U.S. cir- cuit court of Appeals denied an appeal challenging the constitutionality of Proposal 2. Sorry minorities; apparently 10 racial disadvantage is only a hypothetical 3 concern. BYE, BYE GONZALES Following on the heels of Karl Rove, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned from his position. when asked for a comment, he couldn't recall how he 10 lost his job, but he thinks he might have 7 been present at the meeting. rule 34: AA is a program for alcoholics, not an acceptable abbreviation for Ann Arbor. rule 35: Guys don't drink out of straws. rule 36: It's acceptable to drink at noon if you're with two or more peo- ple. You can push the accept- able time up an hour for each extra person you're with. - E-mail rule submissions to TheStatement@umich.edu Trading bathing suits for birthday suits PERSON OF THE WEEK TIM JOHNSON With slurred speech and the aid of a motorized chair, Sen. Tim Johnson is expected to cast his first vote in the Senate today since he suffered a severe brain hemorrhage in December. The South Dakota Democrat was hospitalized just weeks after last year s elections, and his critical condition left the new 51-to-49 Senate Democratic majority literally on life support for several weeks. After spending nearly eight months in intensive therapy to regain his speech, Johnson joked last week that he had an advantage over his colleagues in the Senate - his stroke made him the only senator whose mind worked faster than his mouth. f the walls of the Intramural Sports Building could speak, they would have a few words to say about the men's water polo club that meets in its pool every Friday. I know Ido. My story of the water polo club is not meant to elicit sympathy or repulse you to the point that you refuse to swim in the IM Building's pool ever again. Instead, it is my intention to simply inform you of a long standing tradition at the pool - a tradition whose existence I know you will second- guess. I had worked as a lifeguard for the Department of Recreational Sports at the University for three semesters before sign- ing up for the Friday afternoon shift at the IMSB pool during the 2006 spring semester. The three semesters had been fairly typical of most lifeguard jobs involving a couple bloody noses and a few instances of helping apply flippers to an elderly man's feet. The semesters were ordinary. The Friday afternoon shift is different. The club calls itself the Flounders. I was curious, but never asked where the name came from. In fact, I tried to keep my ques- tioning the Flounders members to a mini- mum. Contrary to my prior experiences of being a rule-barking lifeguard, I took direc- tions from these pool patrons. With the Flounders in my pool, I was humbled. The club is comprised of about twenty or CHEATING From page 10C back and forth between the two poles until it settled on a nice balance. The innocents wisen up, and the crooks stay creative. In lecturehall evolution, tattle-tales will be naturally selected when the cheating gets out of hand. We're not at that point yet. In my quest to become better acquainted with the early letters of the alphabet, I sit for exams and watch the cheaters leave for the bathroom, peek into their bookbags, read off the backside of their water bottles. And from within, a slow, seductive voice whispers to me. "Don't do it. Be a man. Take the goddamned C+." offerir --- -dona WRITE FOR THE STATEMENT. 2420 Mass meeting. Thursday, (734 Sept. 6 at 8 p.m. at 420 HOU Maynard St. so men, but only a dozen showed up every week. There were a couple of regulars you could count on always being there, but I often saw new faces. A few of the men were young, but most were probably over SO. Awkwardly enough, one of them was a for- mer professor of mine. After the men got warmed up and broke The job of a lifeguard is hard enough without the water polo players swimming nude. into two teams, they usually only had 45 minutes for their match. As a former water polo player, I'm familiar with the rules, but the Flounders played a version of the game I've never seen before. They had no goals and, seemingly, very few rules. One team just had to get the ball from their end to the opposite wall, by any means necessary. They held each other underwater and by the neck, pushed each other up against the wall, and there were many instances of crotch grabbing. And it gets better. They played naked. I'm not sure if it's because I'm a girl or if it's because I'm acting on lifeguarding instincts to always wear proper swimwear in the pool, but I cannot for the life of me understand why these men needed to be naked to play this game. Maybe it's some gentleman's club ritual that I'm just unfa- miliar with. But, Ihavea feeling the reasons are a lot more deep-rooted in the twenty men who showed up to play the game week- after-week. Charitably, the men didn't always play naked in front of me. they usually only feel comfortable playing naked in front of a male lifeguard. Unfortunately for them, the one male lifeguard at the time willing to watch them had another commitment on Friday. So they changed into swimwear while I sat quietly in the pool hallway, and they were careful not to expose themselves while playing. There were, however, instances when play- ers showed up late and took off their pants only to realize later that there was a female lifeguard. And when the game got intense, Speedos slipped or tore. I will admit to see- ing some things that I hope I never have to again. Even with their swimwear loosely cling- ing to them, the potential for nudity made me uncomfortable to the point that I spent the 45 minutes every meet staring at my Sudoku puzzle and only looked up if I heard cries of pain. In an e-mail to my boss only minutes after I returned home from my first Flounders shift, I wrote that I felt "extremely uncom- fortable for a majority of my shift. The men were very unhappy to discover that I was their guard ... I am hoping that a male guard can take over the Flounders portion of my shift. I really do not think I can continue to work this shift." My request fell on deaf ears. Nobody wanted my shift. After about the third week, some of the Flounders started calling me "doll" and ceased their whispers that the "girl" life- guard was back. I still couldn't get past the notion that I had been set up by employer, and the Flounders were a practical joke. I was still waiting for the head lifeguard to pop around the corner during my final shift and shout "Gotcha!" I haven't checked on my friends at the IMSB since that last shift more than a year ago. Perhaps some of the men have graduat- ed to the world of lap swimming since then, but I hope that if the Flounders are still around, they've gotten a male lifeguard so they can continue to play their rather rowdy game of water polo naked. - Theresa Kennelly is an associate editorial page editor for The Michigan Daily. Crohn's Disease or Ulcerative Colitis? If so, We Need Your Help at the Next IBD Student Group Meeting. Many students on and off campus manage a full time student life and their Crohn's / Colitis. We need STUDENTS to share their experiences and ideas, as well as to engage even more STUDENTS. Be a part of someone's life or make a difference in your own on Thursday, September 20"" at the group meeting! 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