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I 8B The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Wensay eebe ,207 TeMihgnDal .

The MSA campaigns you haven't heard about
Mickey Mouse could be your next representative.

balls and bad music at Colonial Lane
in Ann Arbor.
After lacing up their neon green
and orange bowling shoes, members
from both groups took to the lanes
As the competition heated up, frame
by frame, members cheered loudly
for teammates with each pin knocked
over, enough to draw the attention o
the serious, glove-wearing bowlers
several lanes over.
One woman in particular, sport
ing a shirt that read "A balanced die
means eating chocolate with both

Results from the Michigan Student
Assembly elections are in. Balls
Mahoney beat Tits McGee by a land-
slide.
Neither Mahoney nor McGee, having
placed 130th and 150th, respectively, won
one of the 10 seats at stake for the MSA-
LSA council, but they did make an impres-
sive showing over fellow write-in candidate
Tony Blair.
Blair, Mahoney and McGee are three of
several unforeseen candidates in what Ryan
Bouchard, election director for MSA and
LSA Student Government, said is the elec-
tions' long-standing tradition of write-in
nominations.
This year, MSA's LSA ballot featured
24 candidates, but 174 candidates received
votes.
"Every year someone votes for Mickey
Mouse," Bouchard said. Mouse received
four votes across the different schools' elec-
tions this year, while Minnie Mouse, in what
could be foretelling of a Hillary Clinton-
esque foray into politics, received one vote
for LSA-SG.
The lire nmhe ofwrien andAidate

the way to the elections' voting page simply
in mockery or resentment.
Write-ins like "MSA is useless," "MSA
is worthless," "I want my money back" and
"Every Party In This Election Is Made Up Of
Scumbags" show how students use the elec-
tions as a venue to express dissatisfaction for
a government they think is a joke.
The election results reflected students'
views of recent scandals that have ensnared
several prominent MSA officials, like for-
mer MSA President Zack Yost, who resigned
last night after he was exposed a week ago
as having created a group on Facebook.
com that ridiculed MSA Rep. Tim Hull and
made light of his Asperger's syndrome. Yost
received a vote, but the votes for Not Zack
Yost and Impeach Yost negate the endorse-
ment. A string of what seems like one per-
son's write-in votes, separated in placing
because of ranking, reads "Zack Yost ... is not
such a bad guy ... so ease up on him ... seri-
ously don't make him resign ... He deserves
another chance."
Other votes evoke Kenneth Baker, the
MSA representative who resigned after
making his and Yost's membership to the

elections.Vuljaj, who is facing a felony charge
for allegedly crashing a rival party's website
during the 2006 Student Government elec-
tion, received four write-in nominations,
two of which were "Tony Vuljaj (Again)" and
"Tony Vuljaj (One more time)."
Scandals in MSA inspired other, less direct-
ly related write-in nominations. Engineering
senior Benjamin Yee said hearing about the
scandals drove him to vote in the MSA elec-
tions for the first time - he voted for Benjamin
"The Man" Yee, Benjamin "The Apocalypse"
Yee and Benjamin "The Alpha and Omega"
Yee with three of his write-in votes.
"In light of recent events ... I can't help
but poke fun at the whole process," Yee said.
"From what I've been told, The Apocalypse
stands the best chance of winning. You can
say I'm in favor of The Apocalypse."
Yee said he originally planned to have
himself put on the ballot but that he slept
through the submission deadline. Besides,
his platform summary that he said included
"the nuclear bomb, Mary Sue Coleman's
pants and several other words and letters"
was over the 100-letter limit allowed for
each candidate' say on the election site.

igan) Daily - I'm a big Daily fan - I thought
I'd get my name on there," Murphy said.
Murphy said it was too late to be listed on
the ballot when the scandals began to come
to light, but he rallied his friends to vote, and
had confidence that his renown for creat-
ing Youtube.com videos like "Island Dance
Party" would also give him an edge.
"I'm pretty well-known on campus," he
said.
Despite the recent bad press, Bouchard
said it's unlikely that the MSA's elections
this season invited more write-in candidates
than previous elections. Chicken, in a num-
ber of its forms, has been as likely in past
elections to receive about the same number
of votes - four - as it garnered this year.
Bouchard said the write-in option is
an important facet of the election process
because sometimes serious candidates do
win seats for some of the smallerschools after
being written in. That is the case this year for
the School of Music, Theatre and Dance elec-
tion, in which a six-way tie involves all write-
in candidates for the school's one MSA seat.
In that scenario, MSA will review those
among the six winners who are interested in

s what he called a "work
moment, all the bowlers
were two gutter balls.
S After the last pin fel
frame, members of1
e exchanged e-mail ad
y thanked each other be
d out into the freshly po
f There was no shortage,
s jokes to go around.
Engineering senior
- Muslim Engineering Stt
t ation member, said he th
h like these were a positive

47

7Z

ing together" in just those types of questions.
could muster This group is, of course, the Under-
graduate Philosophy Club.
11 in the final Lastweek, about20budding phi-
both groups losophers trickled into an Angell
dresses and Hall classroom at 8 p.m. to discuss
fore heading this week's topic: Is medicine good
wdered night. or bad?
of smiles and The atmosphere was relaxed and
there was light banter around the
Uzair Ali, a tables as people waited for things
udent Associ- to getgoing. One girl sat at the front
hought events of the room to mediate the debate.
step forward She started things off by asking the
members to go around the room,
state their name, and say whether
they approved or disapproved of
medicine.
The tally was 13 for good, four
for bad, two on the fence.
Once discussion opened, about
80 percent of people's hands in the
room shot up to get their turn to
speak.
LSA senior John Wang, the
club's president, said the clubs
meetings are intended to be more
of a social thing. The discussions,
though academic, can get colorful,
he said.
"Once we talked about capital-
ism and that just exploded," Wang
said.
Last week, the mediator played
devil's advocate to the majority,
arguing against the merits of medi-
cal technology. The basis for her
argument was that it's too ideologi-
cal to think we can make people
live so long - we're expending
resources and running out of living
space by raising people's life expec-
tudents. tancies.
arly resonant The discussion jumped to evo-
at Israeli and lution and how medicine contrib-
last week in utes to a weaker gene pool. The
ammer out a general idea was that if someone is
ding the two sick and survives thanks to medi-
cine, instead of dying off, they're
hat the talks, sapping the strength of genes to
dent grasping fight illnesses for generations to
the problem. come.
re's room for But that argument didn't enjoy
's foreign pol- much success - none of the philos-
all problems ophers seemed too extreme. Only
ng. one student in attendance fit neatly
REWKROLL into most peoples' go-to image of a
deep philosopher. He was wearing
black clothes from head to toe, had
long curly hair and sported black-
ng rimmed glasses.
As the topic wasn't very contro-
ocial versial, it became obvious that peo-
ple were stretching to make points
Ambrosia _ it's hard to argue that medicine
isn't kind of useful.
ight ponder- At the very end, the mediator
es between admitted defeat. "I'm actually done
deontology, defending this because I think
minority, but medicine's great and I want to be a
doctor," she said. "But did I at least
wd of aspir- make any good points at all, or was
ampus that that just all bullshit?"
ight to deal -LISA HAIDOSTIAN

The quiet
fraternity house
In the shell of Theta P,
campus life goes on
There is a descending smear of
strawberry sauce on the front doors
of the Graduate House at 604 S.
State St., mixed with something
that looks like chocolate. Or maybe
black beans.
The former fraternity house,
cleaned and repaired since Beta
Theta Pi was officially kicked off
campus last spring, started hous-
ing graduate students this year. But
the house's current tenants still
get nostalgic visitors, and not all of
them are pleasant.
"Every once in a while we see
someone peeking through the (mail
slot)," said first-year Law School
student Grace Natale, who thinks
the Peeping Toms - and possible
gooey food throwers - may be
ex-occupants, but it's not the first
time it's happened. The perpetu-
ators could simply be hard-party-
ing guests of their neighbors: The
house is on the same street as Alpha
Delta Phi, Sigma Phi Epsilon, Chi
Psi and Phi Kappa Psi.
"The noise is unbelievable on
Saturdays," Natale said. "Some of
the girls (in the house) frequently

call the police."
The lifestyle of the graduate
students who live in the house is a
far cry from fraternity life. There
are 10 people listed on the front
door, but Natale said she is unsure
how many people actually live at
the house. Although the advertise-
ments for Graduate House say that
its 30 available rooms are part of
"a cooperative environment," this
isn't exactly co-op living. Natale
said the tenants and the house are
quiet overall.
"I don't even know who the
guys are that live here," she said.
She's friends with her next-room
neighbor and another woman in
the house, both second-year law
students. "We walk to the gym
together."
The second floor, where Natale
lives, is all female. The wide central
staircase opens up like wings into
the third floor, which is all-male;
the fourth is designated as co-ed.
But many of the rooms - even
what must have been choice lofts or
singles at some point - are empty,
and you can look through holes
where the doorknobs should be.
The bare rooms have to-do lists
taped to the doors: paint the walls,
fix the carpet.
Natale said she decided to live
in the house this summer, after
deciding to attend law school at the
See ABOUT CAMPUS, Page 11B

hands," looked on, evidently per-
plexed by some of the bowlers.
While waiting between turns, the
engineers took the opportunity to
talk about classes and Middle East
politics.
"The great thing about bowling,"
said Jewish Engineering Association
member Aaron Potek, a College of
Engineering senior, "is that there's
time to talk between frames, which
gave us a chance to really get to know
each other without it feeling forced or
awkward."
Some of the engineers discussed
theirjobprospects after college.Afew
lamented about having to organize
one's life around the North Campus
bus schedule. In between successive
strikes, Engineering sophomore Josh
Weinstein nonchalantly discussed life
as an aerospace engineering major.
"It's only rocket science," he said.
"How hard can it be?"
At one point, a couple members
from both associations decided to
boost their chances of winning by
bowling in the same lane at the same
time. They knocked down a strike on
their first try.
But as Potek dashed to the side of
the lane and steadied his camera for

for Jewish and Muslims
The idea is a particul
one, especially given th:
Palestinian leaders met
Anapolis, Md. to try to h
peace that has been elu
countries for decades.
There's a possibility I
presided over by a presic
for a legacy, could solve
On the other hand, the
improvement with Bush'
icy record. Too bad not
can be solved over bowli
-AND
Angell Hall
philosophizi
The intellectual's s
scene - outside of
If you've sat up at n
ing over the different
consequentialism amd
you're probably in then
you're not alone.
There's a whole cro
ing philosophers on c
meets every Tuesday n