To the Daily:
The article "DOT plan may make air bags safer for kids" (9/14/98) brought tears to my eyes. There is absolutely no excuse for the senseless deaths of over 65 children because of air bags. These "safety precautions" that only protect the adult male population are just one example of how our society is still sex and age biased. Air bags should never have been installed into vehicles unless they could protect all occupants. Women and children ride in cars everyday - yet the article states that "current federal rules require that they only protect belted and unbelted male dummies."
If car companies can not test new products for all people, then they should not be installed at all. Only when the death tally reaches an extreme high will car manufacturers realize that the population consists of others besides adult males.
Lisa McAnuff
LSA sophomore
To the Daily:
Although I am not Jewish, I always assumed the maize-and-blue buttons I see on campus representing donations to the Half-Shekel campaign were a good thing. After all, we all support charitable gestures towards those less fortunate than ourselves, and I commend the "helping hand" the campaign lends to homeless shelters and hunger programs. But I was quite angered and disturbed reading the Daily's coverage of the Half-Shekel campaign ("3-year-old Half-Shekel campaign kicks off again," 9/14/98). The reason? The campaign "helps Jews from North Africa and Russia emigrate to Israel" ... this sounds very innocent to the uninformed, but the fact is Israel is an overcrowded state, and many of these "immigrants" move to settlements in the West Bank. These settlements are illegal by U.N. declaration, international law and according to the new tribunal in The Hague, which makes settlement of occupied territories a war crime. Thousands of Palestinians have been ousted from the homes their families have owned for centuries to make room for these settlers. Illegal settlements have made the situation in the occupied territories tense and violent. The cost of human life, particularly Palestinian life, has been tremendous. Continued settlement also flies directly in the face of the Oslo peace accords, which expressly prohibit such activities. How can the United Jewish Appeal claim to be promoting "tikun olan" - meaning "repairing the world" - when they are supporting internationally condemned activity and waging what amounts to an assault on a lasting Mideast peace? I fully support charitable causes, but am disgusted at piggybacking support of an illegal and unethical practice onto those causes.
Saladin Ahmed
LSA senior
To the Daily:
Any public institution has the right - moreover, the responsibility - to "better" the community they serve. This responsibility includes attempting to break the cycle of poverty, hunger, crime and despair that exists within that community by providing real and viable alternatives to those suffering from these hardships. In the case of the University, that community is the world; the opportunity we can provide is an education. We must continue to afford all individuals an equal chance at hope.
What I am saying, then, is that admissions standards at this institution should be allowed and expected, (much like life), to take into account more than grades and test scores. They should review individual circumstance and decide whether or not admission to the University would be likely to enable the individual in question to better himself. I am not advocating admission based solely on the grounds of race, gender, religion or any of the other politically correct buzzwords. I am instead suggesting that we reward individuals' success in life at least as richly as their success in academia.
After all, who is the true victim: The daughter of a middle-class suburbanite who is forced to choose from a handful of fine institutions? Or is it the young man who had to raise his siblings because his father left and his mother had to work 16 hours every day to make ends meet? Would you like to be the one to tell this man that he has no future because he wasn't able to devote enough time to his studies? More importantly, would you deem his experience and "life" achievements to be less important than the ability to drop an egg from a building without it breaking? I think not.
Granted, the egg test is important - we'd never have explored the surface of Mars without it. But until we live in a world that affords all people equal opportunity to better themselves and their families, we must continue to provide the means by which they will be able to do so.
Matthew Laura
School of Music
To the Daily:
I'd like to suggest a novel idea: The Michigan Daily should actually inform readers about what's going on in the world so they can make informed judgements about various issues Case in point: the September 14 article on The United Jewish Appeal Half-Shekel Campaign ("?3-year-old Half-Shekel campaign kicks off again"). In it, we read that a portion of half of the donations to this organization "helps Jews in places like North Africa and Russia emigrate to Israel." The article doesn't comment on this statement, a quote from a member of the organization. We don't learn that many immigrants to Israel are provided with subsidized housing by the Israeli government in occupied Palestinian territory like the West Bank. We don't learn that these settlements are illegal under international law - the Fourth Geneva Convention, which Israel signed, prohibits population transfer from an occupying country to occupied territories.
We don't learn anything of the depth of suffering that these (armed) settlements planted in their midst causes to Palestinians. These settlements are very often created on Israeli "state land" confiscated from Palestinians by home demolitions and other military actions and available only to Jews. The idea that the Half-Shekel Campaign's actions (including admirable ones like supporting battered womens' organizations and the homeless) can altogether be described as working for "tikun olam" (repairing the world) is doubtful, given the situation that settlements in occupied territories perpetuates. Unfortunately, the Daily doesn't give us the facts about the situation (which is openly discussed within Israel itself, among other countries). I hope that this article doesn't represent a pattern for the Daily's performance this year.
Aaron Stark
LSA junior
To the Daily:
A message to any and all campus groups: Whatever your political statement or service may be, go ahead and chalk it wherever you want. But beware the consequences of chalking the Diag benches! This may result in the exact opposite of your message being shown to the entire campus, via the rear ends of the innocent. That's bad advertising for all of us.
Jason Martin
LSA senior
09-17-98
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