To the Daily:
On Oct. 14, in more than 1,000 cities across the nation, students joined together to protest Home Depot's sale of ancient forest wood. A campaign, run by Rainforest Action Network, has been targeting this nationwide chain in an attempt to encourage Home Depot to make good on its promise to stop selling old-growth wood in their stores.
The United States has already lost 96 percent of its old-growth forests. More than 70 percent of the world's remaining old-growth forests are found in Canada, Russia and Brazil. Some of these forests have existed continuously for 65 million years. Consumptive habits and an appetite for a disposable lifestyle have contributed to the rapid loss of this unmatched resource.
The Ann Arbor News covered this exciting student-run event last Wednesday, showing again that it is interested in the community and the University's students. But the Daily, a supposed voice of the students, was too busy, despite much advanced notice.
When University students join together, combat the apathetic reputation that our generation has gotten and work toward the conservation of one of our Earth's rapidly dwindling resources, the Daily should be there. It is a real shame that our student newspaper can put an article about Oprah's new movie on the front page, but won't cover events organized and carried out by members of the University community.
Robin Deutsch
School of Natural Resources
To the Daily:
Sometimes, one really has to wonder what exactly is going on with the articles published in the Daily. In the review of the recent Bob Dylan release titled "Live 1966" ("Playing 'Like a Rolling Stone,'" 10/13/98) Ryan Malkin twice comments that the first disc of the two CD set (or the first set of the concert) consists of politically oriented music. Nothing could be further from the truth. All of the songs from that set are clearly of an apolitical nature. Even the linear notes say so!
By this point in his career, Dylan has pretty much rejected writing political music and for the most part has stopped performing it. There would be a few exceptions - most notably the 1976 classic "Hurricane" about professional boxer Rubin Carter, who was framed for murder because of his political stances - but for the most part, Dylan has stayed away from politics since then.
In the greater scheme of things, such a mistake is not important. But in the context of a review of "Live 1966," labeling the songs performed by Dylan as "political" severely distorts readers' perceptions of the material contained on the album. Furthermore, it calls into question to what extent the reviewer can offer an educated opinion of this release. After all, if Malkin cannot be counted on to read the linear notes or even listen to the lyrical content of the songs, how can it be assured that he paid attention to anything else.
Micah Holmquist
LSA junior
To the Daily:
Resident advisers and directors play a vital and influential role in the lives of students living in residence halls. They can be leaders, friends and role models. Sometimes, rigid policies force them to be ruthless dictators yielding arbitrary and damaging power. Such was the case last week in West Quad.
The residents of the first floor of Adams House planned a substance-free social gathering in the lounge for Friday, Oct. 16. The time was set for 8 p.m., well before quiet hours. Signs announcing the event were posted in legal posting zones around West Quad.
As later accounts would testify, the resident director went into a tizzy about the gathering because the signs referred to it as a "party," which is prohibited by official rules. Rather than confer with the first floor residents or alter the signs, the director demanded the first floor RA tear down all the signs. The residents remained clueless as to the culprit or motivation behind the removed signs for the entire week, until the details surfaced from the RA on Thursday.
All these details are completely factual. The entire episode could have been avoided with open communication and compromise. Instead, there was no salvaging the "party," and the first floor Adams residents were left with tarnished reputations, while the rest of West Quad was denied a legitimate chance to socialize. The rules of the residence halls are designed to protect and satisfy students, but they must be carried out reasonably and justly. We hope the Daily will support the airing of these concerns as well as the needed public dialog on such campus issues.
Ari Melber
LSA first-year student
To the Daily:
In reference to Sarah Lockyer's "A return to hedonism begins at Studio 624" (10/13/98), I would refrain from saying, "picture-perfect, Playgirl status ... would obviously have to be imported because God knows there's no one that good looking at the University." There are quite a few of us around, and remember, everyone's vision of beauty is different. Although Lockyer might not have seen anyone filling her ideal, these people may very well be gods and goddesses to someone else's eyes. So her "... where we could celebrate what's so great about all of us - our differences" closing sentence is meaningless and hypocritical in her article.
Also, not everyone's parents were enjoying the greed of the 1980s and making money. It seems like Lockyer's article is "notoriously clique-ish," the exact words she used to describe the campus, and any sort of creation of a Studio 54 by her standards would just replicate the behavior her article and pseudo-studio sought to defeat.
Stephanie Pitsirilos
LSA senior
To the Daily:
The Graduate Educators' Organization supports the upcoming Days of Action as part of the movement to defend affirmative-action programs at the University. As a union that is working to defend and expand affirmative action at the University, we recognize the crucial link between the struggle for worker rights and the general fight for social and economic justice, of which affirmative-action programs are one component.
We encourage all GEO members and the University community at large to participate in both Days of Action and the movement to defend affirmative action in general.
Eric Dirnbach
GEO president Rackham
To the Daily:
Who is in charge of the Daily's weather forecasts? I honestly don't think I have seen one correct forecast this year. When I get up at 6 a.m. every morning for crew, the first thing I do is turn on the TV to see the forecast so I know how to dress for practice. It always surprises me to read the Daily and see that the forecasted "low" is usually 10 degrees colder than it was when I woke up.
I understand that forecasting the weather is not without occasional errors - I think the Weather Channel has built its fortune on this premise. But I can only hope that in the future, the Daily will improve its forecasts so they are at least partly accurate some of the time.
Christopher Gerben
LSA sophomore
10-20-98
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