4A - Wednesday, September 7, 2011
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
4A - Wdnesdy, Setembe 7, 211 Th Michgan ily- icigndil.o
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JEFF ZUSCHLAG
E-MAIL JEFF AT JEFFDZ@UMICH.EDU 10
STEPHANIE STEINBERG
EDITOR IN CHIEF
MICHELLE DEWITT
and EMILY ORLEY
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS
I don't see why the GOP
Is camppinigso
fiercely for teW eHouse;
apparently, they already
Following caving Into demands have It,
during the debt ceiling talks,
President Obama has recently
scrapped ti hter smog
regulations.
c a
Acoursemi irony
NICK SPAR
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.
FROM TE DAILY
Not just all talk
-Obama must turn rhetoric into jobs
T he city of Detroit celebrated Labor Day with more
excitement than usual on Monday. President Barack
Obama came to the Motor City to speak to a packed
crowd at the Renaissance Center about job creation and
rebuilding Detroit. While Obama was successful in energiz-
ing the crowd with enthusiastic rhetoric, the phrase, "actions
speak louder than words," is ringing in many people's ears -
especially the unemployed.
The president's decision to spend Labor
Day in Detroit is an encouraging acknowl-
edgement of a city that has faced more than
its fair share of struggles during the past
several decades. But Detroit and its resi-
dents don't need an inspirational speech.
They need a concrete plan and specific gov-
ernment action to bring the city back to
life. Obama needs to show that he takes job
growth and the nation's staggering unem-
ployment seriously by delivering a real plan
and real results.
Obama's speech came on the heels of the
jobs speech he will give to Congress Thurs-
day evening. This event has gripped much
of the nation's attention and is an important
step toward encouraging bipartisan gover-
nance, but he could have used the Detroit
speech as an opportunity to outline his plan
for job construction. Rather than save that
speech for Congress, Obama could have used
the gathering to explain how he is going to
get Congress to work together and tackle the
serious obstacles that face the job creation
process.
Many residents of Detroit need jobs now,
and while Obama did touch on a plan in the
works to create major infrastructure proj-
ects, he didn't explain how he planned to
get these projects funded in light of pending
budget cuts. In order for these projects to
come to fruition, Congress needs to support
them. But the last time Congress had a dis-
cussion about federal funding, the govern-
ment nearly shutdown, and Obama ended up
conceding to Republican demands. Tomor-
row night, Obama needs to firmly support the
promise he made to the city of Detroit and
ensure that Congress doesn't delay or dimin-
ish these projects.
Obama told his audience that he was going
to defend union rights, but in light of the debt
ceiling negotiations, constituents are justifi-
ably concerned about the president's ability
to stick to his guns in the face of adversity.
Obama needs to recognize the importance
of unions in making the auto industry func-
tion properly and defend these organizations
before Congress.
A Sept. 2 report by the U.S. Labor Depart-
ment indicated that no jobs were added in the
United States during the month of August.
This information is reality for thousands
of struggling Americans and many people
throughout the city of Detroit. Regardless
of party affiliation, it should be the goal of
the U.S. government to make the economy as
strong as possible. Obama needs to turn his
powerful rhetoric into action and use Thurs-
day's speech to unite Congress and begin the
process toward lowering the nation's unem-
ployment rate.
W ASHINGTON D.C. -
Of all the challenges I
expected to be wrapped
up in teach-
ing a course for
Michigan stu-
dents in Wash-
ington, D.C.
last fall a suf-
focating sense
of irony and
despair was not NEILL
amongthem. MOHAMMAD
Politi-
cal science is
often a depressing topic. Introduc-
tory courses on international rela-
tions deal with terrorism, genocide
and the multiple reasons why we
shouldn't expect any cooperative
effort to address the defining chal-
lenge of our lifetimes: catastrophic
man-made climate change. These are
sad problems with few solutions.
This semester's class should, at
face value, be much less bleak. I'll be
teaching research design, which is a
fancy way of saying that it's a course
on critical thinking, built around
constructing an original piece of
research. We'll focus on what makes
a good argument, like identifying a
specific claim about the world that
students can support with empiri-
cal, or "real world," evidence. Ideally,
students will leave the class not only
better able to perform research, but
also as more sophisticated critics of
other people's political arguments.
This is all well and good, except
for the problem of the class loca-
tion: Washington, D.C. This is not
the kind of town that rewards care-
ful arguments based on evidence -
or rewards simply behaving in good
faith, for that matter. This is often the
case during times of crisis. For exam-
ple, when Senators John McCain
(R-Ariz.), Lindsay Graham (R-N.C.)
and Joe Lieberman (I-Coon.) spent
the entire summer complaining that
President Barack Obamawas notsuf-
ficiently committed to overthrowing
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi,
only to have it reported by Wikileaks
that the same three senators had
promised Gaddafi two years ago that
they would do everything in their
power to sell him more American
weapons.
Similarstories unfold duringelec-
tions as well. Most reporters have
already decided that the prodigious
job growth in Texas last year con-
stitutes a "miracle," even though the
picture is much more complex given
unusual immigration patterns there.
In any event, Texas Republican Gov.
Rick Perry, a presidential candidate
papered over his state's budget deficit
with federal stimulus dollars only to
declare that no stimulus would ever
be adopted during his presidency.
And then there are the rumors
that Obama will offer a much-needed
mortgage restructuring program to
the public, but only after firstdevising
a deal to give immunity to America's
largest banks against any prosecu-
tion for widespread fraud and abuse
ofordinary consumersthatgoesback
decades. The total settlement fund
is capped at $20 billion. In compari-
son, Florida's state pension system
alone lost $62 billion in value in 2008
after mortgage-backed security shell
game came to ascreeching halt.
But those are all large, compli-
cated, difficult issues. Sometimes the
doublethink comes in much smaller
packages, which are more entertain-
ing but also even harder to justify.
Take former Democratic Con-
gressman Harold Ford and former
Republican Sen. John Sununu, who
are both paid lobbyists for Broad-
band for America - a group that
represents Internet service provid-
ers. Ford and Sununu recently co-
authored a piece for the San Jose
Mercury News arguing that Netflix,
the popular streaming video service,
should pay more for the bandwidth
needed to provide videos to their
customers.
D.C. doesn't
reward debates
based on facts.
How much more? It's unclear.
Why? Because Ford and Sununu
believe that Netflix doesn't pay
"enough." But Netflix, just like any
other customer, is simply paying
whatever price it's given by its sup-
pliers. The entire point of a market
is that the goods and services being
traded are priced at whatever their
worth and are worth whatever
their price. The ISPs represented
by Sununu and Ford could just raise
their prices if they think they're
getting a raw deal, but they won't.
Instead,they'lljusthave the two con-
gressmen on their payroll try to mug
theirbiggestcustomer.
And that's par for the course for
politics at the highest levels. Nor-
mal people - sane people - find it
hard to say one thing and do another,
like McCain and his colleagues on
Libya, or to adopt positions that are
so clearly at odds with the way the
world actually works, like Ford and
Sununu. I hope that this semester's
Michigan in Washington students
don't find that sanity is a liability.
-Neill Mohammad can be
reached at neilla@umich.edu.
ERIKA MAYER|
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
Bed break-up
At least twice a week I wish there were
more hours in the day. I'm sure I would be
such a good student, have a great social life,
be able to keep up with world events and be
really well rounded if there were 30 hours in
a day. Some people sacrifice sleep to achieve
this goal, but I'm a little too in love with my
bed for that option.
A few of my friends are about to embark on
a mission to find those extra hours in the day.
Their method: polyphasic sleep. Instead of
the monophasic sleep - one long sleep period
- employed by most humans, they'll be tak-
ing several short naps throughout the day.
In every four-hour period they will sleep for
20-30 minutes and awaken feeling refreshed
and ready to take on the next four hours. The
total sleep time per day: two hours.
Excuse me?
For 22 hours a day polyphasic sleepers are
awake and functioning. The cycle is hard
to establish, taking about a week of serious
sleep deprivation before the body adjusts
to the new schedule. Essentially, polypha-
sic sleepers train their body to immediately
enter Rapid Eye Movement sleep, or REM.
This usually occurs later in most people's
sleep patterns, but after the first week of
polyphasic sleeping the body (supposedly)
falls directly into REM, meaninga 20 minute
nap is enough to recharge the body for the
next four hours.
Being stuck in the car with these guys, I
listened to a two hour conversation about all
the things they would do with their extra
time and how cool it would be to be awake
while everyone else was peacefully dozing.
They agreed they had to do it together, or
they would fall asleep at 3 a.m. out of bore-
dom, then returned to a list of places you
could sleep on campus at 2 p.m. and how
it would work for football games (the idea
being that enough people pass out in the stu-
dent section that no one would notice).
As they explained this to me, my eyes
almost popped out of my head. Like a magic
genie appearing out of a leftover beer bottle
my wish was answered. Six extra hours to
work out, socialize, read, actually finish my
homework. It's a college student's dream.
Until I got back to the little issue of my bed.
There's nothing I love more than cocoon-
ing myself under the covers for a solid eight
hours. And then there's the little issue of
believability. Surely this didn't actually work.
I did a quick Google search and found a guy
who successfully tried polyphasic sleep for
almost six months. His website - stevepavli-
na.com - detailed his journey and eventually
his return to monophasic sleep. Surprisingly,
polyphasic sleep seems to be everything my
friends said it was. Steve was able to sleep for
a total of two hours a day and be a productive
human being the rest of the day.
It still seems like magic to me, but there
was one last thing tugging at my mind.
Everyone who has been through the jet-lag
period when returning from abroad knows
that being awake at 4 a.m. when everyone
else is sleeping is not the most exciting part
of life. It's one thing to stay up all night with
friends at a party, but is it really possible to
be the only one awake without falling asleep
or sinking into depression? Steve apparently
agreed with me - being a polyphasic sleeper
in a monophasic world was just too hard.
I'm not sure I'll ever find out if I could
pull it off, no matter how tempting the extra
time is. I just like my bed too much. But it'll
be interesting to see if these guys can pull it
off. At the very least, I might have someone to
hang out with when Ihave jet lag.
Erika Mayer is an LSA senior.
Foreign roots
few months ago, during my
semester abroad in France,
a winemaker told me the
key to cultivat-
ing the perfect
grape. When-
ever he plants
new grapevines,
he explained, he
looks for the dri-
est, rockiest dirt
to plant them in. MATTHEW
By this logic, the GREEN
less fertile the
soil, the deeper
a vine must set its roots to receive
the nutrients it requires. And the
longer the roots, the more minerals
they can absorb to lend the grape its
unique flavor. To make the perfect
grape, the winemaker said, "the vine
must suffer."
It's a poetic, all-purpose sort of
metaphor - that suffering gives
you character, and the best things
in life come from hard work. (Inci-
dentally, "cliche" has the same
meaning in French as in English).
But for me, it's a poignant symbol
for my semester abroad. Admit-
tedly, it's difficult to say I did a lot
of "hard work" that spring I spent in
the South of France. I recognize the
many ways I was uniquely blessed
to have this privilege. Yet my expe-
rience required more from me than
I was expecting - it wasn't just the
gallivanting-through-Europe that
my Facebook friends might've rea-
sonably assumed from photos.
This past January, I traded Ann
Arbor for Aix-en-Provence, France.
I would stay for five months, taking
classes in French and living with a
host family who spoke no English. I
understood that this was about leav-
ing home, friends, family - forgo-
ing the familiar for the unforeseen.
That's what made it so appealing:
the opportunity for personal explo-
ration. Or at least that's what I, and
virtually everyone else, wrote in the
program application.
But leaving who and what I loved
proved painful for a while. It wasn't
so much about homesickness as it
was about foreignness. I didn't mind
water without ice or hanging my
clothes to dry. What got to me was
how people were constantly staring
and how exhausting it was to com-
municate true emotions or thoughts
deeper than, "une crpe nurella, s'il
vous plait." I met terrific new people,
but in many ways I was alone.
I also had my first experiences
with anti-Semitism, and I had to
consciously choose if and when I
would disclose my Jewish identity
to my host family and others. The
French, for whom etiquette reigns
supreme, ignore all politesse when
sharing their opinions with strang-
ers - particularly when it comes to
America and/or Tews. I never felt
threatened, but the feelings associ-
ated with "coming out" as Jewish
affected me in a powerful way. Per-
haps only in France would "coming
out" as a Jew be harder for me than
coming out as gay. Although that,
too, affected my sense of foreign-
ness.
And all the while, I wondered
what was going on at home. I
enjoyed the croissants and wine and
bceuf bourguignon, but from time to
time I mused on what life would've
been like had I chosen to stay home.
In my lonelier moments, I imagined
Ann Arbor teeming with the people,
places and things I adored.
Ultimately, my time in Europe
was phenomenal. As rough as it
is to feel foreign, there's really no
avoiding that when you're in, well, a
country that's not your own. I built a
couple lasting relationships, became
nearly fluent in French and I'll never
forget the drag show in that Buda-
pest gay bar. I'll refrain from enu-
merating the lessons I learned, and
I'll save discussing my "personal
growth" for my therapist's couch.
But I'd like to make the point that
uprooting and rebuilding oneself is
a far more significant challenge than
I assumed last December. Doing so
may be difficult in any place, notjust
while studying abroad. But for all
the people who think study abroad
is a semester-long, summer-long or
yearlong vacation, it's worth know-
ingthatitcanbeharderthanitlooks.
Semester abroad
is harder than
people think.
Like anything else, studying
abroad means something different
to everyone. It may be about falling
in love, escaping home, learning a
new language, exploring your his-
tory or drinking your way through
each member state of the European
Union. If it makes sense for you to go
abroad, you shouldtryit. Whetheror
not extending deeper roots made me
into a tastier grape, I can only hope
it did. It's possible that study abroad
just turned me into a wino, or a snob
about things like... wine. What I do
know, however, is that I'd do it again
in a heartbeat.
Matthew Green can be reached
at greenmat@umich.edu.
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