Clinton's immoral acts should be examined thoroughly

To the Daily:

There has been much debate about President Clinton's conduct concerning his "personal" matters. Although both sides have presented many strong points in defense of their stance on this matter, the media in general has sought to ignore or not portray the true circumstances surrounding this issue, instead choosing to write this off as a partisan attack on the president, or more commonly, as the whole issue being about sex.

While the first argument is up to one's personal opinion, the latter is not. Of course we as Americans value our privacy and thus, even the privacy of the president, but this virtue should not avoid the facts. Below are some questions which the media obviously did not care about even though they may have helped change the atmosphere of the debate.

How many papers have expounded on the fact that Clinton had Monica Lewinsky perform oral sex on him the day he met her? She even claimed that he didn't even know her name for months. Instead, the media is satisfied with Clinton's explanation that it was a long friendship that culminated in these activities. What about the fact that NBC chose not to air an interview with Jane Doe number 5, Juanita Broaddrick? In this eight-hour interview, she claims that while Clinton was the attorney general of Arkansas, he sexually assaulted her. What about the fact that the head of NBC News is a radical Clinton supporter? What about the English woman who claimed (and her claim is documented with the state department) that Clinton raped her while he was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, a claim she submitted immediately after the incident? What about the Miss Arkansas scandal, where Clinton took advantage of her?

What of the "hundreds" of women that Clinton bragged about sleeping with to Lewinsky? How about Geraldo's claim that no one had been prosecuted for perjury about sex? What about the fact that Clinton had a Marine officer drive Lewinsky to the White House from the Pentagon when he wanted to meet her? What about the fact that Lewinsky was pleasuring him while he was on the phone with other world leaders?

These questions have been avoided by the mainstream media and deserve to be asked. People have been swayed by their emotions, led by a media clamoring for public support, like so many other issues that the media has chosen to champion. A parting question for anyone who still cares about sexual harassment laws: Can witnesses lie about "sex" when the whole case is based on whether or not a person had a tendency to elicit sexual relations from a subordinate employee? By God, Lewinsky was 21 years old!

Joseph Kim

School of Dentistry

Dance review did not apply modern standards

To the Daily:

In the name of all people who sincerely enjoyed the music accompanying the Merce Cunningham Dance Company's performances last weekend, I loudly protest Julie Munjack's reactionary review ("Merce music overpowers," 2/15/99). Like many music critics, Munjack is not alone in suggesting that music should still be held up to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century standards. At the end of the twentieth century, it seems that many ears - with or without earplugs - still haven't caught up with our century's sound world.

Far be it from me to imply that Munjack - and perhaps many Cunningham audience members who were "chased" out of the theater by "terrible music" - might have benefited from the many educational events arranged by the University Musical Society in connection with the Dance Company's Ann Arbor residency. But Munjack should at least give credit where credit is due. Unfortunately, she did not even mention the names of the composers who collaborated with Cunningham, including John Cage, Brian Eno, Stuart Dempster, David Tudor and the Dance Company's musical director Takehisa Kosugi. Cunningham and Cage collaborated for half a century. Their ideas have influenced artists working in every creative medium. Their attitude toward the independence and interaction of music and movement demonstrates one of the most radical developments in the performing arts. Cunningham's support of composers working with live electronic music has been uncompromising. This "cacophonous," "intolerably loud," "irritating and obnoxious" and "unbearable" music does not have to be merely "an obstacle."

And by the way: the music I heard was also quiet, humorous, beautiful, mysterious, playful, indeterminate and highly interesting. Cage and Cunningham believed that by experiencing sound and movement in unconventional ways, our perception could be challenged, and eventually changed.

My final gripe with Munjack's review is that she implies that Cunningham and his dancers did not receive "the applause they deserved." The two performances I experienced both ended with explosive applause and standing ovations. Munjack's omission of this detail makes me wonder if she might have been one of those poor listeners who ran horrified from the Power Center with her hands over her ears.

Amy Beal

School of Music

Race-based admissions are unfair

To the Daily:

In July of this past year when the U.S. District Court denied the motion to intervene to the many would be co-defendants in the lawsuit challenging the University's admission procedures justice was undoubtedly served. The judge fairly refused the motion of Intervention of Right because he concluded that the proposed defendant-intervenors failed to assert any right to have the current admission procedures continue. They also failed to show (as the Intervention of Right motion must) that that they were not adequately represented by the existing parties. So imagine my disgust when I read in the Daily that two more groups were attempting intervene.

The arrogance of people like Lee Felarca is appalling. Who is he to represent the University and its applicants by attempting to become a defendant? In his haughtiness he contends that intervention "is a matter of democratic right." Well I propose that it is every University applicant's right to equal protection under the law as provided by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Felarca continued making irrational claims in stating that the U.S. District Court's denial of the motion to intervene is "racist" and part of a larger "pattern of discrimination by the court."

Nothing is more discriminatory than giving students of color priority over others in admission to college. In fact, it is insulting to minorities. The University is saying that they don't have enough faith in them as a group to be admitted on their own merit.

Jeremy Peters

School of Music

02-17-99