-9 V 9 V V 9 9
v
s
0
Wednesday, January 0" Daily
ABOUT CAMPUSTR A
T4RE jUm4i o --q
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"We are hoping and pray-
...patients were lymg ing that they will not be
everywhere, and people able to deny what the Lord
were dying before they has ordained."
got treatment." -
-ROLAND BUIRRIS a former Illinois attor
Donation duds
'U' to eccentric donors:
Thanks, but no thanks
The big donors to the University
are easy to spot. The $100 million
that Stephen M. Ross donated to the
business school is obvious to any-
one on Central Campus who looks
south, and the story of William
Cook's famous donation to build the
Law Quad is told to all prospective
students on campus tours.
But not all donations to the Uni-
versity, as anyone who has worked
for the Telefund would know, are
large, obvious or even of the mon-
etary sort. In fact, some of the
donations the University has been
offered were so bizarre or inap-
propriate they were rejected, said
Judith Malcolm, spokeswoman for
the Office of Development Commu-
nications and Donor Relations.
An alum recently offered the
University a taxidermied wolver-
ine as a token of his continuing loy-
alty to the University. But unsure of
where to display the wolverine, the
University graciously declined the
offer.
Malcolm said donations of deco-
rative items like the wolverine are
not uncommon. The University
sometimes receives clothing from
historical periods, which are passed
along to the School of Music, The-
atre and Dance, as well as works of
art, which are given to the Univer-
sity of Museum of Art if they are of
any value.
Another common donation to
the University is real estate, both
commercial and residential. Sev-
eral times, the University has been
named in a will as the titleholder to
a deed for a piece of property.
But some of these offers were
unfavorable for the University
to accept. Many times they have
unpaid mortgages which the Uni-
versity would have to pay off, are
located on contaminated lots or
have serious structural problems.
If the University is able to accept
the donation of real estate, it is
usually sold for its monetary value
unless the property could be of use
to the University.
The University will also receive
donations that it cannot accept due
to the ideology surrounding the rea-
son for the donation, Malcolm said.
"(W)e have to be careful that we
don't accept gifts that are illegal,"
she said. "(We) cannot cross the
boundaries of what an educational
instruction is supposed to do."
One donation that crossed this
boundary was a monetary gift from
a donor who wanted the University
to create a professorship in econom-
ics - one specializing in the eco-
nomic structures of fascist regimes.
Malcolm said it became evident
upon further discussion that the
potential donor did not just want a
professor to explore fascism objec-
tively, but rather to endorse it and
promote it to the students in the
class. The University did not accept
the donation.
The University has also received
donations of the theological sort.
Recently, there was an offer to fund
the construction of a chapel of a
specific undisclosed denomination
on campus. The University declined
on the grounds that it is a secular
educational institution, Malcolm
said.
It is not often that the Univer-
sity will refuse gifts. Normally, an
alum is in a constant dialogue with
the University to avoid all possible
donation hiccups or is already a fre-
quent donor who knows the ropes.
But once in awhile, a new, more
eccentric donor is spontaneously
compelled to give back, even if that
means dusting off great-grandma's
old bathing suit in the basement
or having the spoils from a recent
hunting trip taxidermied for the
sake of an alma mater.
-KRISTEN STEAGALL
k *~
ILLUSTR ATION BY L AUR A GARAVOGLIA
TALKING
POINTS'
Three things you can talk about this week:
1. War in Gaza
2. Ponzi schemes
3. Vigil parishes
And three things
you can't:
1. Richard Simmons
and feet
2. Lance Armstrong in politics
3. Ballot recounts
BY THE NUMBERS
The decline, in percentage, in car sales at Ford Motor Company last
December, compared with sales in December 2007
The decline, in percentage, in Ford's total sales in 2008
The decline in number of Ford cars sold in 2008
Source: The New York Times
- ERIK FOSSE, a Norwegian doctor volun-
teering at Shifa Hospital in Gaza, explaining
the overflow of hospital patients who were
injured during the Israel-Hamas conflict.
ney general, on his appointment by Gov. Rod
Blagojevich to fill Barack Obama's Senate seat.
Blagojevich is facing federal charges for trying
to sell Obama's seat, and many lawmakers have
threatened to block Burris' appointment.
r-
"Every time she opens her mouth, it gets worse."
- ANN COULTER, a conservative pundit and author, on Caroline Kennedy and her potential role
in filling Hillary Clinton's Senate seat. In an interview with the website wowOwow, which stands for
The Women on the Web, Coulter said that Kennedy doesn't deserve the seat and that her candidacy
is headed for a "crash landing" .
YOUTUBE
VIDEO OF
THE WEEK
Cooking Doggystyle
What happens when Snoop Dogg
tries his hand at more complicated
recipes than gin and juice?
In this video, Snoop works under
the watchful eye of Martha Stew-
art, who coaches Snoop on the finer
points of fresh mashed potatoes.
With his characteristic swagger
and unique, if sometimes incoherent,
dialect, Snoop starts out by telling
Stewart that he's never before cooked
potatoes with a "machine." Instead,
he says, "we inthe 'hoodwelike 'yah,
yah, yah, yah,' "while making karate
chop motions with his hands.
After Stewart tells Snoop to cut
the skin off, Snoop says "ahh, the ski-
zin," which prompts Stewart to ask
about his vocabulary. Snoop laments
the fact that nobody really under-
stands him, not even his kids. Then
he adds: "And you know what's crazy,
Martha? I don't even understand it."
When they finally start mashing
the potatoes, Snoop asks Stewart if
he can add something to it. Perhaps
predictably, Snoop then presents a
bottle of cognac that is shaped like a
voluptuous woman's body. The bot-
tle is wrapped in what appears to be
a red evening gown, with a matching
red hatadorningthetop,trulyresem-
bling a miniature woman.
The only problem, says Snoop, is
that the skirt is too low. He then deli-
cately hikes itup.
-BRIAN TENGEL
See this and other
YouTube videos ofthe week at
youtube.com/user/michigandaily
A grammar turf war in the English department
PRONOUNS, FROM PAGE 5C
"they" to respect their users' desire
not to be labeled in terms of sex.
But as Facebook started to
attract users from other countries
and began to offer its services
in other languages, a problem
emerged with singular "they."
In languages where making pro-
nouns gender-specific is obliga-
tory whether in writing or speech,
there is no understandable transla-
tion for "themself."
Never once entertaining the
concept of gender-neutral "he," the
website then made users designate
themselves as male and female.
One argument against the
change is that convenient transla-
tions shouldn't come at the cost
of people's personal identities and
original meaning.
"You've chosen not to specify, so
why in translation would you have
to specify?" Curzan said.
But as Gleit wrote in The Face-
book Blog, "themself" isn't an actu-
al word, and it's also as awkward as
could be.
THE PROFESSOR'S
CHECKING PEN
Despite all the confusion sur-
rounding singular pronouns in
areas of public life, there's a reason
why most college students know
not to match their singular ante-
cedent with a plural pronoun.
"There is no such thing as sin-
gular 'they' - 'they' is plural,"
English Prof. John Rubadeau said.
"It's counter intuitive and oxymo-
ronic. There are some people in my
department who disagree with me,
but they're wrong."
For Rubadeau, spoken English
is spoken English, formal English
is formal English and Facebook is
irrelevant to the composition of
any class assignment short of being
a distraction.
It's a familiar stance for an Eng-
lish instructor, one that holds that
while it is one thing for Obama to
use plural "they" for the sake of a
more fluent speech, formal written
English requires a higher level of
grammatical attention.
"What you say and what you
write are two different things,"
Rubadeau said. " (For example,)
'Everyone has their own opinion'
- I would say it but I would never
write it, because it's basically illit-
erate."
The difference between spo-
ken English and written English
is where the University's English
Department splinters. Linguists,
like Queen and Curzan, typically
believe that the syntax of the com-
mon English speaker should be
accepted as formal English. But
a professor like Rubadeau, who
is known for grading grammar
severely, refuses to accept a singu-
lar plural.
"Students have to kind of know
what kind of professor they're
dealing with," Queen said.
Curzanand Rubadeau areknown
around the department for their
semi-jocular grammatical rivalry.
The two have met a few times over
a strategy Curzan teaches her stu-
dents to introduce singular "they"
to academic writing.
"What I tell my students, actu-
ally, is that they're welcome to use
singular "they," she said. "And they
should footnote the first incident of
it and I say they can actually cite
me and their professor can come
talk to me."
What the clash of the lecturers
shows is that even a department
that attests to teach English at the
highest level can't settle the matter
of one of the language's simplest
building blocks - generic pro-
nouns elude us still.
THEME PARTY SUGGESTION
Resolution dissolution - It's the first full week
of 2009, which means that many of you are prob-
ably still confident that you'll be able to keep your
New Year's resolution. You're still going to the gym
every day, you haven't smoked pot yet or you've so
far refrained from uttering one of those four-letter
words. But let's face it: you won't make it into Febru-
ary. Cut the idealism and throw a party to indulge
your sins. After all, it'll happen sooner or later.
Throwing this party? Let us know. TheStatement@umich.edu
STUDY OF THE WEEK
Happiness can be contagious among friends
In a social network, happiness can spread to people as many as three
degreesremoved from each other, according to a study published last
month in the British Medical Journal by James Fowler, a political sci-
ence professor at the University of Californiain San Diego, and Dr. Nich-
olas Christakis of Harvard Medical School.
In the study, the researchers used data from the Framingham Heart
Study to chart a network of 4,739 spouses, siblings and friends. Then,
they examined the network members' self-reported happiness levels
from 1983 to 2003.
The study concluded that each happy friend increases a person's like-
lihood of being happy by 9 percent. Moreover, according to the study, a
person is 15 percent more likely to be happy ifa direct relation is happy,
10 percent more likely ifa friend of the friend is happy, and 6 percent
more likely ifa friend of a friend of a friend is happy.
The study said that sadness also spreads, but not as fast as happiness.
- BRIAN TENGEL