Opinion
4A — Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com JENNIFER CALFAS EDITOR IN CHIEF
AARICA MARSH and DEREK WOLFE EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS
LEV FACHER MANAGING EDITOR
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
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Holding onto love
echnology has gotten in the way of many of our opportunities to create stronger relationships with people in our lives. We look at our phones rather than at eyes, we e-mail rather than call, we search Instagram rather than asking about a friend’s vacation. Yes, maybe technology and social media are playing a hand in destroying the art of conversation, maintained attention and MARIS genuine interaction. HARMON But technology also supplies a forum for relationships to continue despite physical distance. Maybe this causes more pain and elongates relationships that could have ended sooner, or maybe it provides real opportunities in ways that weren’t possible before. The truth is that it’s damn hard to find a partner in this world who is truly compatible with your personal vibe. The main message behind many works of art, books and movies is that love is incredibly difficult to find and maintain, and it’s also one of the best feelings in the world. While there are many fish in the sea, not that many fish seem to swim in your current. Finding love is often a matter of sheer dumb luck (five points for Gryffindor). The increased possibility of long-distance relationships by means of technology gives us the power to explore more connections in our
lives and stay linked to the people we find who really work, rather than settling for what is in our general proximity. Of course, it would be better and less painful to find someone who lives next door, but life doesn’t always work so seamlessly. If you find someone who fits in your puzzle, hang onto him or her. It’s not as common as it may seem. If things work after months or even years of distance, you will find a way to bridge the gap and make the distance disappear. Sometimes what we need is time to figure out how to be with someone when they’re miles away. Love is damn hard to find. Tinder can help, but only so much. It’s a mix of effort and sheer dumb luck. The luck is so dumb you better hold onto that person you love even if that means communicating only through Skype, texts and calls. The technology age may have created a flakey hookup culture and an eye-contactfree texting community, but it has also made great strides in the ways of love. Texts and Snapchats are not nearly as romantic as handwritten letters delivered by horseback courier every other week like in “Pride and Prejudice,” but they can help maintain a relationship pretty effectively. Keep writing letters, but also take a Snapchat or two. Send a couple texts a day. Skype when you can. When dumb luck knocks on your door, use what you can to hold onto it.
Love is damn hard to find. It’s a mix of effort and sheer dumb luck.
— Maris Harmon can be reached at marhar@umich.edu.
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The joys of trailblazing
o not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson “We’re going to go around the room and introduce ourselves now. Please tell us your name, major, year, where you’re ERIC from and your KUKIELKA favorite .” So begins approximately every class on campus. Let’s face it, the introduction class is brutal. How many people actually remember what their peers say at this time? I mean, I know I’m not the first to sarcastically think, will this be on the test? and then fade off into space as the introductions start. Sometimes I perk up when I hear the exotic locations rattled off: Istanbul, Seoul, Hong Kong. The familiar twinge of wanderlust pulls me out of my thoughts even while it simultaneously sends me back down the rabbit hole. For as long as I can remember, I have nearly always chosen the road less traveled. In fact, I’m rather sure I am a secret part of some “Road Less Traveled Adopt-A-Highway” program that was unwittingly assigned to me from some long forgotten suburban research program. At 35 years old, I have seen and done a lot. But when I’m asked, “Where are you from?” my first thought isn’t Taylor, Michigan (which is technically the first city I was brought home to). Nor is it Redford, where I lived through my K-12 years. In fact, it’s not even in any of the first three states I lived in. No, the answer to that question is Clinton, Connecticut, a place I never stepped foot in until I was already well into my 20s. Clinton. For some, the name evokes scorn, blue dresses or even NAFTA. Yet for me, it evokes StopN-Shop. More specifically, it makes me recall my horrible job stocking shelves on the night crew at that specific grocery store. You want to talk about effective interrogation techniques, put someone that loves
RACHEL DAWSON
to travel and see new places into that environment for three years, sit back and reach for the tape recorder. The crazy comes out fast. Overnights at a grocery store are the land where dreams go to die. According to Bill, dreams died during the day there, too. Bill was the seafood manager at Stop-NShop, and one of the most miserable people I have ever met. He was a mixture of the character Andy from “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” Walt Whitman and Darth Vader, all rolled into one big, depressed, basement-dwelling 20-something. Bill is also the reason I have direction in my life, and so this story is for him. Bill loved to hike. If you have never been to Connecticut, here’s a quick run-down of what it’s like (at least along Route 1): cozy, old architecture, snooty people and trees. The “servant” class (i.e. those of us working the non-finance jobs) is looked down upon. As such, there is a stark class divide among the populace. Bill and I belonged firmly on the “poor” side — he lived with his mom; I lived in a motel. Being poor, we found a lot of ways to stretch our entertainment dollar. One of our favorite activities was hiking in the parks around the area (there are a lot of parks to hike in Connecticut). In particular, Bill enjoyed leaving the marked paths and finding places we could smoke. Being the “follow the rules” type, at first I balked at this. Bill was persistent, though, and so off we went. Usually, we ended up at some outcrop of rock overlooking a small valley, or the bank of a river where we could watch the osprey hunt. Bill called it “blazing a path” (he was into ironic subtleties), and while it was frowned upon, the dozens of geocaches we found were more than enough proof that we weren’t alone in our endeavors. If that grocery store was where dreams went to die, then those forests are where dreams cruelly returned. During these sojourns, Bill would always take the lead, blazing a path
to our next smoke stop. This gave me a unique perspective, something that stuck with me without even knowing: ahead of us lay nothing but untouched woods, with no sense of direction, no road, no guidance. Behind us, you could clearly see where we had come from — the clump of wild flowers we walked around, the river we jumped, the place we stopped to enjoy a quick break. While the individual steps, the “drudgery,” were imperceptible, the path itself was distinct. And that’s how I find myself here, the unofficial “Second-Oldest Undergrad” on campus, on my second or third attempt at a degree. Looking forward, I have no idea what’s going on — I see nothing but trees and fog. Behind me, you can see the camp Bill and I made when we moved to Hawaii. You can clearly see the puddle I jumped to get back to Michigan, stranding Bill on that rock. Before that, you can see where I got married, and just over this last hill is where I had my son. Over there, you can see how obvious the path from karaoke host to astrophysicist to political scientist seamlessly flows. Even though you can’t always see it, that trail exists for all of us. The next time you encounter that “Stay on the Path!” sign, do a quick check for poison ivy and guards, and then confidently take that hard left directly into the unknown. In life, there’s only one path that matters, and that’s the one you make for yourself. Own it and enjoy it, because it will all make sense later, when you turn around to catch your breath. It doesn’t matter if your parents, your professors or even your best friend don’t understand why switching majors from civil engineering to art history is obviously the right move. It’s your trail to blaze, not theirs. And seriously, even though you can’t stand being around me anymore, thanks Bill.
There’s only one path that matters, and that’s the one you make for yourself.
— Eric Kukielka can be reached at ekuk@umich.edu.
E-mail Rachel at rdawson@umich.edu
JAY FORESTER | VIEWPOINT
A retraction 10 years in the making In the winter of 2005, I was a 20-year-old undergraduate at the University. At that time, there was frustration fizzling on campus with regards to the relations between the University and the Coca-Cola Company. At that time, I was a member of the Daily’s Editorial Board and, as its token Coke-loving southerner, advocated the minority view on behalf of the corporation. I write this letter in retraction of 20-year-old me. Then, I was engrossed in courses on topics such as the political economy and game theory. I participated in libertarian summer programs in both Washington D.C. and Hong Kong, which spilled over into graduate studies that emphasized economics. Now, I litigate cases nationwide on behalf of aggrieved employees, primarily under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Go figure. This retraction is made not only so that Ican clear the air on a personal matter of substance but because I hope it will help you see that the learning and self-exploration that you currently experience needs to continue once you graduate. Among my 20-self’s claims, I wrote: “(H)earing first-hand accounts from the people of Colombia and India has compelled me to believe that at some level, the Coca-Cola company is in violation of the University’s labor standards condition. Nonetheless, the University should renew the company’s contract when the issue comes up in June.” And: “If the University actually followed through with its labor standards policy, it would have a very difficult time doing business with anyone.” For reasons many of you may explore during LSAT preparations, these statements are flawed because they rely on glaring assumptions. First, they assume that if Coke and Pepsi’s labor standards suck, (most) everyone else’s do too. Even if this first assumption were true, they also assume that if the University has a “difficult time doing business with anyone,” it should ignore violations of its rules and regulations. Historically, the Department of Labor has found that, at any given time, just 40 percent of employers are fully compliant with the FLSA. Some estimates suggest this number is much, much lower. Nonetheless, there are many other compliant employers. And, even if the number was one percent — in terms of labor-sensitive beverage companies or employers — I would still
retract my statements. Enforcement, whether it be from an active academic community or a governmental body like the Department of Labor, is important to check harms that cannot be resolved by “market forces.” Additionally, I wrote: “At some level, exploitation needs to occur in other countries. If U.S. companies are not able to take advantage of cheaper costs in other countries, the United States would have no incentive to provide its goods to the rest of the world, and many countries — India, China, Japan, etc. — would lack the American capital that has allowed their economies to grow during the last decades. This is not to say that companies shouldn’t be held accountable. This is to say though that the University’s business should not be conditioned on labor practices.” Prior to Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” the thought that we needed sanitation laws to deter companies from exposing our stomachs to spoiled meat was somewhere between radical and unpopular. While certain meat packers could have voluntarily chosen to adopt better practices, it took Sinclair’s story to humanize the issue such that top-down change had to occur. I commend my peers for at least attempting to humanize the harms that it seemed Coke was, at a minimum, tolerating. Following graduation, my closest group of friends went on a backpacking trip to Europe where they set off for three weeks and hit up most of the hot spots courtesy of Ryanair. Perceiving that I was too cool or, really just wanting to put off graduate school, I sold my car and travelled throughout South America with a buddy who had also grown up among privilege. It was amid these immediate post-graduation months of sleeping on buses and passing through dollara-day communities that I began to consider the other side of certain arguments. Most germane, were these communities to evolve into, say, $2-a-day communities, local lives would be tangibly better and the incentive to rely on the communities for exports would likely persist. Perhaps most significantly, it was on these trips that I committed myself to retain the interest in learning and exploration that I developed in Ann Arbor. Whatever you do, don’t be afraid to change. And, wherever you go, Go Blue! Jay Forester is a 2007 alumnus.
GRANT STROBL | VIEWPOINT
We deserve better I believe in the University of Michigan. I have confidence in the fresh leadership of University President Mark Schlissel and the administration of the University, and — most of all — Jim Harbaugh. I believe in the 19 exceptional schools and colleges this University houses and the diverse perspectives from professors who work daily to create a better generation of Michigan Wolverines. I believe in each and every one of my fellow Wolverines; 43,625 students call Ann Arbor their home, and I’m proud to call them my Michigan family. I believe in the passion of leaders in the 1,375 clubs this University offers. I believe in the abilities of the governing bodies of each University school and college. I believe in the power of the student’s voice on this campus, and the idea of tangible changes being made by passionate, dedicated student representatives. I believe in the freedom to discuss the ideas that flourish with intellectual diversity. I am Greek. I firmly believe in Greek life and the benefits it provides to the University and the community.
The University of Michigan is truly a prodigious and nonpareil institution, and the students who work to represent this University at the level it deserves are truly unbelievable in regards to their service, leadership and exceptional work ethic. The students in the University’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Mu did not represent the reputation of this University and Greek life at the level it deserves: they tarnished it. We deserve better. The University is moving past that ski trip weekend, Sigma Alpha Mu’s International Headquarters is moving past that weekend, and now the Central Student Government should move past that weekend. It’s concerning that a potemtial bystander of this incident may become elected as the vice president of CSG. We deserve better. I have difficulty believing in the leadership of a person, who would be representing 43,625 students of this campus, when he was present at the disastrous Treetops Resort ski weekend. As this damaging news spread across thousands of televisions, smartphones and computers around the country, it tarnished the brand of
the University and caused parents to call their students with questions as to whether or not they knew the individuals responsible for this destruction. We deserve better. I have difficulty believing in the leadership of a person who inconsistently says he cannot be judged on the actions of his fraternity brothers, while also boasting about his position as rush chair of his fraternity for two semesters, thus potentially recruiting the members who destroyed the ski resort. We deserve better. I’m not here to judge whether or not CSG vice presidential candidate Matt Fidel participated in these events, to shed him in a negative light or dispute his qualifications: he is a fellow Wolverine. I’m writing because the University community needs to move past the issues arising from the ski trip fiasco. We deserve better. The CSG vice president should exemplify the high University standard and reputation of being the leaders and best. The University needs to move forward. If “The Team” is more important than the University, count me out, because we deserve better. Grant Strobl is an LSA freshman.