Monday, August 6, 2001 - The Michigan Daily - 5 Socking it to the Machismo, one Britney Spears at a time Irite you over the sounds of war. Mind you, 45 pesos is about $4.75, out yourselves. The first time I heard the explosions, unless the dollar is sagging. Pretty I've found Mexico to be hospitable thought they were bombs going off cheap. that way. When I ask someone for direc- - or maybe they were searching for oil Boom. tions, they don't look at me like some in the hills. Day after day, I thought they Americans also seem to have a prob- foreign goon who's out to rob them. might be imploding another building. lem with the tip-as-you-go system at all- They invite me to the bar for a cerveza. Boy, I was mistaken. I'm just surround- you-can-drink bars. I suppose it's partly due to the fact ed by TNT-happy Mexicans. Instead of using that Mexicans as a whole are a pretty That's right, faithful readers. I'm in rudimentary math powerless people. They don't have that Mexico for two months learning how to skills to pay the American ideal of rugged individualism be an expatriate. And it's a difficulttjob, p P. waiter in incremen- or the pressure of the American Dream what with having studied with a group tal sums, they give surfacing in the back of their minds. from Tennessee for the last month. But American patrons a Instead they have an outdated Machismo now they're gone and I'm finally alone bad name by thing that has given Mexico City one of with my thoughts. Though many of you rrequesting to speak the highest AIDS rates in the semi-devel- would say being able to communicate at to the manager. oped world simply because Mexican a third grade level doesn't make an JOSH And when the man- men are too manly to use condoms. American alonejust normal. WICKERHAM ager tries explain My response to the Machismo is to I'm stuck in a culture war of some S"L OF that "that's the way hold hands and kiss my Mexican kind. As we seal off our borders and is ..y we do it in Mexi- boyfriend on the street, regardless of our exploit our distant neighbors to the co, they have con- personal well-being. America's response south with NAFTA-driven corporate niptions and end up not leaving any tip to the Machismo seems to be summed governance, I never cease to be amazed at all, saying that the service was bad up by Britney Spears. "I'm stronger at Shaggy's "It wasn't me" pouring out and the waiters were rude. And then than yesterday" might be good for little of every other Volkswagen on the street. they brag about it the next day. repressed girls to hear, but that whiney We get "Planet of the Apes." Mexico Boom, boom. brat is not the kind of role-model Mexi- gets "La Planeta de los Simios " (with What do Mexicans do when a cab co needs. I'd rather the borders be erased subtitles). They get Catholicism, we get tries to charge them too much? They and culture swapped person to person Puritanism. Out with the old, in with the bargain. What do Mexicans do when the than through illegally copied American new. We get whatever shlock the enter- power goes out? They light candles. CDs. tainment industry markets us - and What do they do when an American Maybe if we began to treat Mexico Mexico gets it six months later in Span- smokes a cigarette next to them in the as we would have them treat us, Ameri- ish packaging. Internet Caf6 and he apologizes with the cans could learn to take it easy and God I hate Americans. They think mindset that they're going to get uptight Mexicans could learn to give up the they own' the world. Mostly, in fact, like a pregnant American mother? patriarchy. Maybe we could share the because, economically, they do. Case in "No hay problemas, amigo." prosperity. But there's not much one point: The way the members of that And what do I do when the power person can do about it. I'm content group from Tennessee communicated goes out after lighting that cigarette? I humming American music and talking with cab drivers who wanted to charge rewrite my column. No problem. What Mexican politics like a third grader. them 45 pesos to take them home after a do I do when the control-s key combina- night of getting sloshed. They used the tion in Microsoft Word doesn't save, but -Josh Wickerham can be reached viae- finger and screamed at them in English. underlines? I think you can figure that mail atjwickerh@umich.edu. I: ETTERS T E E ,aZ .. y Standardized tests 'reflect acquired knowledge' TO THE DAILY: Perusing your summer editorial ("High Standards: 'U' should not use biased tests in admissions;' 7/30/01), I noticed a failure to distinguish between correlation and causation with regard to minority achievement. Yes, some minorities, on average, score lower than whites (while other minorities, such as Asians and Jews, score better - a fact you ignore). Does this prove that the tests them- selves or racist? No. The true cause of minority underachievement is two-fold, and cannot be rectified by any redesign of the SAT. First, while as you correctly point out that the tests do not measure "intel- ligence," they certainly do measure acquired knowledge. And given the wide failure of our government-run public school system, which minorities disproportionately attend, many minor- ity students never get the same access to the educational tools and conse- quently learn less during their second- ary school years. This gets reflected on the SAT and is even evidenced in your own editorial. After all, as evidence of bias you cite a study of the 1988-1989 SAT which concluded that 575 out of 580 questions, including presumably around 290 math questions, displayed "white preference." While many could conceivably agree that the verbal sec- tion could show a cultural slant, I doubt anyone could rationally conclude that concepts such as addition, subtrac- tion, and fractions favored whites per se. What they do favor is learned knowledge, which our unequal second- ary schools bestow on whites more fre- quently than they do minorities. The second problem you your- selves alluded to - the expensive prep courses, whose fees effectively dis- criminate against low-income students, again disproportionately minority. That, like secondary school education, is a problem of income -not race. Eliminating the tests in admissions would severely hann the University's goal of admitting qualified students who can do University-level work. Success in the tests strongly correlates with success in the first year of college or graduate school because, as men- tioned before, the test reflects acquired knowledge. -It would also eliminate the only way the University has to truly "equal- ize" a diverse pool of applicants who come from different backgrounds, cur- riculums and schools. A 3.5 GPA at one school might not be as impressive as a 2.8 at a different school, for exam- ple. The SAT allows the University to compare the two students on a relative- ly equal playing field - and accord- ingly allows it to place less emphasis on arbitrary determinations about school quality (which hurt minorities just as much, if not more, than moder- ately poorer standardized scores.) JACOB EM. Osuccx Alumnus The letter writer is a student at Columbia Law School. Try this at home, kid Summer is almost over and you're bored. You have to move out of your place and store all your stuff in your ex-roommate's brother's base- ment and then stay at your parents' house even though your old bedroom has now been converted into "the fish tank room." I understand. August is the cruelest month. Since this is my last column, I've decided to come up with some pull-them-yourself pranks to make the last days of summer just a lit- tle easier to take. I've laid out two pranks for you: Just pick the one you like best and experiment. PRANK #1: Haiku Hysteria Are you looking for an exciting new career? Well, try filling out job applica- tions in haiku. This prank is even better if the application is for your current job and you're filling it out while you're at work. It will just be funnier that way. I'll give you a few sample haikus to get you started. The application I filled out, asked me to explain the difference between a network and a server, so I came up with: Network is village / Server is tribal leader ! Bearing gifts for all See how easy that was? When they wanted to know the basic difference between a Zip disk and a floppy disk I wrote: Floppy disk is cup / Zip disk is a big pitcher / Both filled with knowledge Most people have customer service jobs, right? Well, there's always some bullshit on the application about provid- ing great customer service, some ques- tion like, "What's the secret to great customer service?" Well here it is: Smile at strange man. / Do not vomit on his shoes. / Stop looking at porn: It didn't take me long to come up with these little haikus. This prank is even better when you fill out the application with someone else at your work. You should probably make up a fake identity while you're at it, unless you're applying somewhere that actually considers condescension KATIE and sarcasm valu- MULCRONE able customer PfA(YlCT.IALY service skill. (And JOKiN(3 on that note, Ameritech is always looking for good folks to man the phone lines!) PRANK #2: Fake Notification-of- STD Phone Call/E-mail Nothing says, "What the hell?" like calling up someone you've never had sex with to tell him/her that you have a sexu- ally transmitted disease! Just be sure you haven't slept with them: Your conversa- tion should go something like this: "Um, hey, this is Karen. I have to tell you something." "Karen who?" "I have HPV'" "Who are you?" "So, yeah, you should get checked out."' "Is this Karen from my history class?" "My doctor says it's pretty conta- gious." "Wait a minute. We never slept together!" This is a pretty gutsy move, though. Also, you'll probably start laughing. I recommend the e-mail approach. Just send the following e-mail to someone you've hardly ever been in the same room with: Dear Kevin, My doctor requests that I contact everyone I've had sexual contact with in the last six months to inform them that I've been diagnosed with condylo- ma acuminata, which is also known as HPV or genital warts. Untreated genital warts can eventually spread, grow and multiply into large clusters. These may cause a variety of health complications depending on where they are located. Symptoms may range from localized discomfort and pain to bleeding and difficulty in urination or swallowing. You should visit your doctor immedi- ately for an examination. We should have coffee soon and catch up! Love, Karen. You get the idea. It would be even funnier if you made it a mass e-mail or, better yet, created a group, like . That way, your false suitors can network. Oh, you don't know how to create an e-mail group? Directory "bind" / Create new group, type its name / Add members, then save. This is Katie Mulcrone's last columnfor the Daily. She can be reached via e-mail at kmulcron@umich.edu. THE BOONDOKS BY AARON McGRUDER d T m # 00 a ' L""" .:°"" t 3:7 Xr'