The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 4A Monday, October 3, 2011 4A --- Monday, October 3, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michieandailv.com Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com The Onion takes to Twitter STEPHANIE STEINBERG EDITOR IN CHIEF MICHELLE DEWITT and EMILY ORLEY EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS NICK SPAR MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. Allother signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. F R OM I HE D AILtY . Funding warmth State must ensure families can heat their homes niversity students know too well the intensity of a Michi- gan winter, which can begin in the fall and run well into the spring. The severity of weather coupled with the state's con- cerning economic situation - Michigan has the third-highest unem- ployment in the country, and approximately 17 percent of the state's population is in poverty - may lead to serious problems for impover- ished residents who try to heat their homes this winter. Where were you when the United States Congress overpowered the Capi- tol Police and took a group of innocent school- children hos- tage, refusing to release them unless their $12 trillion ransom demand was met? N ILL If you saw MOHAMMAD the story as it broke last Fri- day, then you were on Twitter. The Onion, a satirical weekly newspa- per, has played with the Twitter- as-1930s-radio-play format before - like earlier this year, when a nuclear fallout-powered, 500-foot- tall, zombified Osama Bin Laden flattened New York City. Even if you weren't on Twitter, you might have heard the story anyway thanks to the legions of humorless killjoys who thought it was in bad taste. The Onion's openingtweet accounted for most of the criticism: "BREAKING: Witness reportingscreams and gun- fire heard inside Capitol building." An hour later, a hostage managed to send out camera phone footage of the "situation," which The Onion also tweeted. Heady stuff. The shocking head- line certainly looked real enough. But then, you might also expect that if there really were a running gun battle and hostage situation in the center of our American democracy, then a few more sources might have reported the news. Given that any- one who read the tweet also neces- sarily had Internet access, they had all the information needed to dis- cover it was a hoax. Popular reactions to the story fell into three distinct groups. Some were completely unaware the story was actually fictitious - this group included the police, who appar- ently reported to the Capitol to see for themselves whether The Onion had really gotten the scoop of the century. Some, like the profession- ally angry and misinformed com- mentator Michelle Malkin, blamed the Democrats. The rest found the storyline - the gunshots on the House floor, John McCain attempt- ing to fly the escape jet, a la Con Air, President Barack Obama picking up a bullhorn and taking over the police negotiations-simplyinappropriate, lying somewhere on the other side of the problematic invisible line that divides acceptable and unacceptable comedy. Why? The punch line of The Onion story was that Congress ultimately deadlocked over how to handle the ransom negotiation. And deadlock - taking political hostages - is easier now than ever before. In The Onion's version, Speaker of the House John Boehner needed a ski mask and a gun; in the real world, a single senator can anonymously threaten to object to a bill and pre- vent it from reaching a vote. Politi- cal hostage takers don't even have to risk their reputations anymore. In 2006, an unknown senator man- aged to put an anonymous hold on a bill that would have created a more transparent account of government spending. Perhaps critics were upset that the joke implied violence toward chil- dren. But the 2010 Census showed 10 percent of American children under age 18 do not have health insurance, and the U.S. regularly trails almost all other wealthy, post-industrial democracies in matters such as life expectancy and infant mortality. The Onion claimed that Congress had terrorized a few dozen kids, but it certainly caused the deaths of many more in the course of everyday busi- ness. And while the 2010 health care reform package should eventually provide coverage for some of those children - a mere 37 years after for- mer President Richard Nixon first proposed a national health insurance plan - court challenges and Repub- lican opposition make it likely that many more will, through no fault of their own, be denied basic care. Faux news story sheds light on real concerns. That'sjust one example, of course. You can replace that entire last para- graph with your issue of choice, from the dramatic to the mundane. The prestigious medical journal Lancet reckons that 650,000 civil- ians were killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2006 because of the Amer- ican war effort there, for example. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures that 3,000 people are killed in the U.S. every year by food-borne disease, and the House passed a bill last June that would cut $285 million from the Food and Drug Administration, which among other things is respon- sible for food safety inspections. These are all things that are actu- ally happening in the world around us and not just in the headlines of a fake newspaper from Wiscon- sin. The scale of the unnecessary destruction that's implied by the seemingly normal and ordinary functioning of our society and poli- tics is dizzying and immense. So, if The Onion's Twitter-play was in such bad taste where does that leave everything else? - Neill Mohammad can be reached at neilla@umich.edu. i Previously, a state-funded program, the Low Income and Energy Efficiency Fund, provided assistance to citizens who could not pay their heating bills. The program, howev- er, has run out of money. This leaves 95,000 people who rely on the LIEEF to supplement thei rising heating costs without this addi- tional source of income. The Legislature must allocate funds to the program to ensure low- income individuals can properly heat their homes. Thousands of families in need, especially in cit-ieslike Detroit and Flint, live in homes built with: poor insulation that can be extremely expensive to properly heat. Each year, stories of residents being hospitalized due to exces- sive heat or cold capture headlines. The State's Customer Choice and Electricity Reliability Act Hof 2000 created LIEEF to address these and other problems. The program was origi- nally supported by funding from the state and a coitlibution from the Detroit Edison Com- pony. In subsequent years, other energy com- panies also have given to the fund. The issue with funding arose in July when a state appeals court struck down the state's sytem for funding LIEEF, and the Legisla- tuire has not enacted a new system. LIEEF bagan providing assistance in 2002 based on tle utility rate used by DTE and Consumers Energy Co. - Michigan's two largest utility companies. The appeals court, however, ruled that lawmakers failed to authorize the fee when they rewrote state energy laws several years ago. Rep. Ken Horn (R-Frankenmuth), chair of the state House energy committee, said the Legislature must figure out a way to fund the $60 million in utility assistance. According to a Detroit News article, as a stopgap measure, Michigan law states that no utility company can stop heating a household between Nov. 1 and March 30. The measure is a relief for many. It is unclear, however, if it will be renewed for the following winter, and the move has prompted social service groups to scramble to help pay heating bills until the end of the month. And with the likelihood of extremely cold temperatures and even snow after the March 30 cut-off point, people with- out heating assistance could have a serious problem. It's crucial for this funding to be per- manently reinstated so families in need do not suffer in the extreme cold. While residents will be ensured heat in their homes starting in amonth, the possibil- ity that heat will be required in October poses a dangerous situation. The state needs to find funding to keep LIEEF functioning and make sure heat is available for Michigan residents in need. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Aida Ali, Michelle DeWitt, Ashley Griesshammer, Patrick Maillet, Erika Mayer, Harsha Nahata, Emily Orley, Teddy Papes, Timothy Rabb, Seth Soderborg, Andrew Weiner 4 1 Living life online LE Li TOR SEND LETTERS TO: TOTHEDAILY@MICHIGANDAILY.COM aily editorials should be cornsistent on issues TO THE DAILY: The Michigan Daily's editorial that ran Ionday, Sept. 26 takes the position that the d ath penalty has no place in civilized society ( rom the Daily: A fatal penalty, 9/25/2011). Bit the very next day, the same space on the page states, partial-birth abortion is a per- scnal decision (From the Daily: The right to choose, (9/26/2011). We at Students for Life find it hard to take the position on capital punishment credibly with the Daily advocat- ing against a ban on partial-birth abortion. It is unreasonable to ask the United States add the 34 states with capital punishment to abolish it for the sake of preserving the lives of those found guilty in court, while one does not oppose the taking of life from those who have committed no crime at all. Given how many people wrongly convicted add sentenced to death have had their inno- cence proven by DNA, it seems fundamen- A note to Mary Sue Coleman on sustainability initiative tally inconsistent on human rights to forcibly end someone's life when his or her unique DNA proves he or she is a living human being who has committed no crime. How can the editorial disregard such a basic scientific fact and state that the unborn is part of a woman's body when it does not have her DNA, much less heart beat, brain waves and sometimes blood type? The ignorance is astounding. Students for Life as a club is also opposed to the death penalty. However, we assert that it is self-evident the guilty cannot have a greater right to life than the innocent. Addi- tionally, it is far less inhumane to kill some- one by lethal injection than cutting open their skull and vacuuming out their brain. Individual liberty should never be subject to anyone's choice or personal preferences. Ultimately, we believe the Daily conveys the height of hypocrisy by seeking to abolish the death penalty while refusing to even con- demn abortion. James Perry and Andrew Patton Graduate students, writing on behalf of Students for Life out learning about the basics of environmen- tal conservation and sustainability because those concepts are an immutable part of the world in which we live. David Orr, a profes- sor of environmental studies, once said that to "teach economics ... without reference to the laws of thermodynamics or those of ecology is to teach a fundamentally important ecological lesson: that physics and ecology have nothing to do with the economy." Everything is con- nected, and our education about the environ- ment needs to reflect that. Now, this will mean negotiating with the heads of the many schools that make up the University to fit more material into already packed academic schedules, but it is essen- tial that this be done. It would also provide the additional benefit of cutting the costs of setting up new classes if we could instead educate our current faculty. The knowledge that we are receiving at the University comes with the responsibility to use it for the bet- terment of our society, and we cannot hope to make a meaningful use of it unless we truly understand how our work fits into the greater scheme of the world around us. Gabe Altomare LSA sophomore In what was perhaps the most significant example of meta- social networking in recent memory, Face- book users took to Facebook last week to com- ment on the , changes made to Facebook. Most of these altera- tions were pret- MICHELLE ty minor - the DEWITT giant photos that now show up on the newsfeed, the weird recent stories and top sto- ries distribution - but that didn't stop users from becoming, in many cases, irrationally angry. And who can blame them? Peo- ple form and build relationships on Facebook. They track where they are, who they're with and what they're doing on the site. Everything short of a bowel movement can be documented on the social network, so when changes are made it can be a difficult emotional blow. Along with the visible changes recently made to Facebook, the company announced some future alterations at the Facebook f8 devel- oper conference in September. These changes include swapping out the traditional profile with Time- line, which seeks to chronologically display users' complete Facebook history, and implementing a system called Open Graph that allows com- panies to synch their apps directly with Facebook. In a nutshell, Facebook aims to share all the ways in which people are living their lives in real time, and this effort is already becoming vis- ible. For example, Facebook users can synch their Spotify - a digital music service - accounts directly to their profiles, so friends can see what they're listening to as they're listeningto it. While Facebook executives like Mark Zuckerberg are enthused about the changes to come and view them as a logical progression for the site, I can't help but wonder about the societal implications of putting virtually every aspect of life online. Before you chalk this idea up to melodrama, it's importantto consid- er the role social networking plays in modern life. Facebook currently has 800 mil- lion users. The site has been cred- ited as having a role in organizing the London riots this past summer and the protests in Egypt earlierthis year. A recent study also indicated Twitter's capacity to reveal trends in the overall mood of users. People are increasingly living their lives online, and with each post the line between one's private life and the life they. broadcast on the Internet becomes increasingly blurred. So, what does it mean that Face- book wants to outline users' lives on the site - the option will also exist to add pre-Facebook informa- tion - and link their actions with third-party companies instanta- neously to a profile? It means that Facebook is becoming increasingly less intimate (though intimacy among several hundred friends was a stretch to begin with) and much more public. In a culture where the phrase over-sharing is a dramatic understatement for what informa- tion we choose to communicate, friendswill now be able to see what you're reading, where you're shop- ping and what you're watching as you're doing it. Making the decision of what to share is a problem unique for young people today. Unlike older genera- tions that valued self-reliance and discretion, living on the Internet has turned personal triumphs and trag- edies into conversation pieces for the masses. One of the chief stereotypes of our generation is that we possess a certain flair for narcissism, and our belief that every action of our lives is significant enough to be shared online with the world at large does nothing to dispute that stereotype. Facebook aims to share everything on the Internet. This generational divide became evident for me this summer when I worked as an intern for a law firm and was responsible forteaching the lawyers how to use LinkedIn and social media to market themselves online. Most of the people I worked with were in their 40s or older, and they met my instructions with one of two reactions. Some marveled at dis- covering what could be done online, what could be shared and how they could apply it to their work. Others were skeptical and couldn't fathom incorporating more advanced tech- nologythan e-mail into their day-to- day life. Both reactions pointed out a major generational gap. Members of older generations viewed social media as something counterintui- tive, but members of younger gener- ations - for the most part - couldn't imagine their lives without it. The question that exists now is how will people react to the changes in online living. I doubt Facebook's modifications, which happen rela- tively frequently, will be completely life altering. However, I think they will force users to contemplate how much of their lives they want to put on the Internet and what, if any- thing, they want to remain private. - Michelle DeWitt is the co-editorial page editor. She can be reached at dewittm@umich.edu. TO THE DAILY: President Coleman, I want to congratulate you on your recent a dress on sustainability. It represents a step tqward the truth that environmental aware- ness is not a side issue, but a core issue of every updertaking. The student body is not fully aware that everything we do has an impact on toie environment, and that all education needs ti be environmentally minded. I am particu- 1lrly pleased with your efforts to reach out to the student body with the Planet Blue Ambas- sadors program, and with our ever increasing stlaff of sustainability-minded teachers. How- ejer, sustainability needs to be integrated into tle curriculum at an even more fundamental level so that every student who graduates has a basis in the field. It's my recommendation that we need to set aside the idea of creating more sustainability- focused classes for the broader goal of incor- porating sustainability into all our courses. It is a fallacy to assume that a student can receive a complete education in any field with- 4 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor. Letters should be fewer than 300 words and must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. We do not print anonymous letters. Send letters to tothedaily@michigandaily.com A