World Wide Voting: MSA should open Internet ballots
Michigan Student Assembly elections never garner a significant number of students at the polls. Apathy, combined with the inconvenience of waiting in line, repels many students. A set of amendments to the MSA Compiled Code presented at last week's meeting would offer students the chance to vote over the Internet. The change could significantly increase voter turnout - which would fulfill part of MSA's responsibility to encourage the participation of its constituents.
Anniversary of freedom: Court must protect legal abortion
On Wednesday, the 24th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision, which legalized abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy, worry more than celebration may fuel women's voices. Last week, explosions at an abortion clinic in Sandy Springs, Ga., injured at least seven people. The blasts serve as a sobering reminder that the war for women's reproductive freedom is far from over. The decision is a milestone, embedded in women's advancements in the last 24 years.
Peace process is beyond paper
The tangible effects of last week's agreement between Israel and the Palestinean Authority on Hebron are profound. Israel's occupation of Hebron is over and it will undertake three more withdrawals from the West Bank by mid-1998. The symbolic impact of the agreement is even more stunning. A conservative Likud government accepted the land-for-peace formula with the Palestineans. By turning his back on a key element of his electoral constituency - and this agreement is unquestionably a betrayal of the far right - Benjamin Netanyahu has, on paper at least, created a great opportunity. By bringing his coalition - minus extremists - into the land-for-peace universe, he has created a "vital center" that will give him political cover for further progress toward peace. This opportunity for progress, like the agreement that created it, is on paper. Of course, previous agreements between Israel and the Palestineans have been penned, only to be ignored in reality. (Paper, as we know, is something that can be torn, shredded or - most important - ignored quite easily.) When a political relationship is as fragile as the one between Netanyahu and Yassir Arafat, personality, perception and politics become vastly more important than written agreements. There is a reason that this agreement was signed in the middle of the night with little fanfare, and that is the same reason why the process has been bogged down for months. The principals do not trust each other or the process. (This is not to say that Yitzhak Rabin or Shimon Peres ever personally trusted Arafat, but they trusted the political/peacemaking process.)
01-21-97