4- Tuesday, March 6, 2012
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ASHLEY GRIESSHAMMER
JOSEPH LICHTERMAN and ANDREW WEINER JOSH HEALY
EDITOR IN CHIEF EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS 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.
Imran Syed is the public editor. He can be reached at publiceditor@michigandaily.com.
Risky business
Michigan can't support new casinos
Twenty-two new casinos have been proposed for construc-
tion in Michigan. Both private investors and Native Ameri-
can tribes are pushing for more venues throughout the
Lower Peninsula. The proposed construction would almost double
the number of casinos in the state - there are currently 25. This
push comes in response to the record-breaking revenue of the three
Detroit casinos in 2011 - an astounding $1.4 billion. While more
casinos could help bring revenue to the state, doubling the number
has significant potential to oversaturate the market. Michigan is
not a destination gambling spot like Las Vegas, and too many new
casinos could hurt the existing ones.
One candidate needs to drop out after Super Tuesday
so there will be the correct number of stooges.
#SuperTuesday"
- Comedian Andy Borowitz tweeted about the Republican presidential
candidates in advance of today's ten Super Tuesday primaries.
W
Intelligence is relative
Two efforts, one led by Michigan First and
ballot proposal Michigan Is Yours, propose to
increase the number of casinos. The two pro-
posals call for four new casinos in Romulus,
two in Detroit, two in Port Huron and more in
Macomb and Oakland counties.
The obvious benefits of adding casinos
to the state include more jobs and a boost to
the economy. Outside of revenue taken in by
the casinos, patrons spend additional money
at local gas stations and nearby restaurants,
which benefits surrounding businesses.
Lansing Mayor virg Bernero is in favor
of some casino expansion. He has expressed
interest in having a casino in Lansing, and
thinks building casinos would be helpful for
cities outside of Detroit. Detroit currently hosts
three casinos: the MGM Grand Detroit Casino,
the MotorCity Casino Hotel and Greektown
Casino Hotel. Detroit seems to have enough
casinos already, and adding more could take
away revenue from the existing ones.
The casinos Michigan already has are
clearly successful. The record-breaking rev-
enues from 2011 are a testament to that. But
those numbers cannot be sustained forever.
An oversaturation of the Michigan market
will take away from existing casinos. Michi-
gan residents and nearby travelers will reach
a point where they won't spend any more
money in the industry. Once that point is hit,
the casinos will suffer.
In Las Vegas and other destination cities,
people travel from around the country and
world to visit the casinos and hotels. The
Michigan gambling demographic consists
mainly of Michigan residents and residents
in neighboring states such as Ohio and Indi-
ana. Without a huge market, it's doubtful
that Michigan would be able to support 22
new casinos.
Jake Miklojcik, president at Michigan
Consultants in Lansing, said Michigan could
safely support a 20-percent growth in casinos.
This number seems more realistic than a near-
ly 100-percent growth. Without a large audi-
ence for the casino expansion, doubling the
number in Michigan would be a risky gamble.
Choosing a safer route by adding a few casi-
nos in key areas would be a more responsible
alternative that would create jobs and boost
the surrounding area's economy. Overexpan-
sion will hurt the existing casinos and would
not be beneficial to the state.
E veryone is a genius.
But, if you judge a fish
by its ability to climb
a tree, it will spend its whole life
believing it is
stupid." This
Albert Einstein
quotation came
to mind several
times over the
course of last
week. These
profound words HARSHA
sum up an inter- NAHATA
esting idea -
intelligence is
relative. There isn't a singular cor-
rect measure we can use to judge
how smart someone is, and people
often are "geniuses" in different
areas. This begs the questions: How
can one single standard judge the
relative value of all different types
of talent? Can we really say one
type of "smart" is above, or better,
than another?
This past week, I was on an Alter-
native Spring Break trip in New York
City, volunteering at various non-
profit organizations. I spent a great
deal of time working at the Boys and
Girls Club, helping 2nd and 3rd grad-
ers with gym and homework.
These kids come from low-
income backgrounds, from the
inner city with inadequate resourc-
es and low academic achievement.
They come from the type of back-
ground characteristically por-
trayed as most likely to lack good
quality public education.
And yet, from my week working
with these kids, I can definitely say
they weren't by any means stupid.
Yes, some of them were easily dis-
tracted, but what 8 year old isn't?
The main problem wasn't that these
kids didn't care about school or that
they didn't want to learn. Often
times, they didn't understand the
way things were being explained
or couldn't follow the reasoning
behind what they were asked.
Looking over some of their prob-
lems and examples, this was no
surprise. The way that simple math
concepts - such as addition and
subtraction - were explained was
confusing, even to me. The lessons
complicated basic addition - add-
ing a series of steps and rules that
resulted in averylongand unneces-
sarily complicated process.
For example, let's look at an addi-
tion problem: 47+14. Instead of just
liningup the two numbers and add-
ing the ones and then the tens, as
we normally do, the kids were told
to first add 3 to 47 and subtract that
3 from 14. Then they would have to
add 50 and 11, coming up with 61.
The idea here is that it is easier to
add with numbers that end in zero.
Yes, this is a handyshortcut, but the
problem was there were no basic
addition concepts to add the short-
cut to.
One of the girls I worked with
struggled quite a bit with this long,
drawn-out process. When we lined
the two numbers up and added nor-
mally, she did it excellently - get-
ting almost every answer correct.
But the pages in the workbook that
required us to use this method were
a different story. She had trouble
keeping track of all the steps -
sometimes rounding one number
to the nearest zero but forgetting to
adjust the other - she would con-
fuse the order, or she just couldn't
understand what she was being
asked to do.
For kids who are just learning
concepts, teaching in a complicated
manner only adds to the confu-
sion. Moreover, the real goal isn't to
teach kids the shortcut, but instead
to make sure kids can add in the
first place. So, if a child is able to
easily add the long way and under-
stand what is going on, why force
them to learn a complicated short-
cut that will only throw them off?
Teach concepts,
not how to jump
through hoops.
The students are then tested not
on the basis of how well they know
the concepts, but on whether or not
they can use these various compli-
cated methods. If you asked the girl
I worked with to add, she would do
great. But on tests and homework
asking her specifically to employ
the shortcut she wouldn't do well.
There are times when it's good to
know different ways to do some-
thing, but in this case, whether or
not she knows the shortcut doesn't
really matter. It's not adding much
to her knowledge of the subject, but
she'll be punished for not knowing
how to do it.
Which brings me to the Ein-
stein's quote. A lot of what is defined
as smart or not has little to do with
actual intelligence and more to do
with how well someone is able to
answer questions in the way that
the test-givers want. This isn't
necessarily measuring true abil-
ity, but simply how well students
can jump through the hoops they
are told to. And here is where these
low-income kids will struggle most,
as they don't always have someone
telling them which loop to jump
through next.
- Harsha Nahata can be
reached at hnahata@umich.edu.
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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS:
Aida Ali, Kaan Avdan, Ashley Griesshammer, Nirbhay Jain, Jesse Klein, Patrick Maillet, Erika
Mayer, Michael McHenry, Harsha Nahata, Harsha Panduranga, Timothy Rabb, Adrienne
Roberts, Vanessa Rychlinski, Sarah Skaluba, Seth Soderborg, Caroline Syms, Andrew Weiner
SARI KRUMHOLZ|
We have a voice
Stick a tampon in it
'A re you there God? It's
me, an old white guy.
Now let's talk about
A few weeks ago, the Republican controlled
House of Representatives Oversight and Gov-
ernment Reform Comittee members held a
congressional hearing on the Obama admin-
istration's proposed birth control mandate
to ensure women have access to birth control
with no co-pays, regardless of where they work.
Republicans refused to let a single woman
speak in support of the new birth control ben-
efit during the hearing. In fact, Republicans
said that a woman impacted by the policy and
who was scheduled to testify wasn't "appropri-
ate or qualified" to speak on the issues. A photo
of five men testifying before the House panel
went viral in a matter of minutes.
I, as well as many others, was outraged by
the congressional hearing's explicit exclusion
of women over a matter that concerns women's
bodies and lives. Regardless of religious and/
or political ideologies, 99 percent of sexually
active women have used birth control at one
point in their lives, according to the Guttm-
acher Institute. Isn't the pointof representative
democracy that the people who make the deci-
sions represent those who the decisions affect?
If I had the chance to speak on the panel,
this is what I would argue:
Birth control is basic health care, and its
accessibility to all women is vital. It enables
women to avoid unintended pregnancies,
but according to Planned Parenthood, it can
also provide protection against endometrial
and ovarian cancers; serious infection in the
ovaries, fallopian tubes and uterus; iron defi-
ciency anemia; and premenstrual symptoms,
including headaches and depression to name a
few. It also reduces cramps or menstrual pain,
regulates menstruation and treats acne. In fact,
according to the Guttmacher Institute, only 42
percent of pill users have strictly contraceptive
purposes for the pill.
The Obama mandate enables all women
to have access to this essential health care.
Birth control can be extremely expensive - a
woman can sometimes pay up to $50 a month
for it, according to Planned Parenthood.
This high cost can prevent its accessibility
to many women. For example, one in three
women has struggled to pay for prescription
birth control and as a result used birth con-
trol inconsistently.
Many women who use contraception
already have children. They have knowledge
and experience pertaining to the cost of a
child and are making a pragmatic decision
based on their own well-being as well as their
family's. However, they may not be able to
enact this decision if birth control is too cost-
ly for them to afford. In fact, many women
who do not have the resources to raise a child
might also not have the resources to afford
birth control. This leaves some women in an
extremely difficult quandary.
Affordable birth control not only benefits
women but also the federal government. If
insurance companies foot the bill for contra-
ceptives then we are reducing potential gov-
ernment spending on childcare, foster services,
welfare services and the list goes on.
Lastly, this is a matter of women hav-
ing agency over their lives. This is matter of
women choosing to rely on themselves rather
than their partners in order to guarantee safe
and protected sex. This is a matter of women
having a say in their futures.
House Republicans are trying to drown
out this voice, and therefore we must spread
the message: We support the Obama admin-
istration's proposed birth control benefit that
ensures all women have access to birth control.
Sari Krumholz is an LSA senior.
how we can keep
our hands in the
proverbial vagi-
nas of Amer-
ica, shall we?
We'll show you,
Shelly Peters!
You turned me
down for prom?
Well, how does
a political war on
your basic rights
sound?"
MELANIE
KRUVELIS
Or, at least, so goes the intro-
duction to Newt Gingrich's latest
autobiographical masterpiece, "Dr.
Strangelove or: How the Human
Pillsbury Doughboy Got With So
Many Hot Staffers." Or wait, was
that Rick Perry? Rush Limbaugh?
It's gettingso hard totell these days.
After all, as we get closer to the
impending doom - erm, the 2012
presidential election - it becomes
clearer: Our current Republican
leaders do not care about your
vagina. Or your uterus. Or "that
fappy thing that I will touch on
any woman who's not my wife."
Because when it comes down to
it, protecting the rights of half the
population? Upholding the egali-
tarian beliefs intrinsic to American
society? Not calling a law student a
slut on national radio? Sure sounds
like a bunch of women's troubles to
me.
Take, for instance, Texas. Now
there's a state that likes its eggs fer-
tilized. And if proposed budget cuts
are any indicator, Texans like eggs
a la less likely to be tested for ovar-
ian cancer, too. A year after massive
cuts to the state's family-planning
funds, the state is now calling for
elimination of its Women's Health
Program, a plan for reproductive-
healthcare services that helps nearly
130,000 women who fail to qualify
for Texas's strict Medicaid require-
ments. The reason? Under federal
law, Texas can't prevent care provid-
ers like Planned Parenthood (or any
other qualified medical care provid-
er) from WHP plans.
The logical response: refuse the
millions of federal dollars offered
to the state to fund WHP, discon-
tinue the program and leave the
low-income women of Texas -
which is the state with the high-
est level of uninsured women - to
fend for themselves when it comes
to annual exams, STI testing and
access to birth control.
And since the well-being of hun-
dreds of thousands of women isn't
enough of an attention-grabber
these days, here's a dose of repro-
ductive irony for you: those abor-
tion clinics that the state legislature
was so hell-bent on exterminating?
Well, 14 Planned Parenthood clin-
ics in Texas that perform abortions
somehow had the foresight to cut
themselves from any state-affilia-
tion and currently run as separate
entities. Since these clinics don't
receive any state funding, the pro-
posed cuts really won't stop them
from terminating any unwanted
pregnancies, throwing birthday
parties for the antichrist, or what-
ever else abortion clinics do. As for
the other 51 Planned Parenthood
clinics that provide reproductive
healthcare to women in the state?
Well, yeah, they're screwed. But you
know what they say - everything's
bigoted in Texas.
I don't mean to pick on the Lone
Star State. To be fair, there are plen-
ty of other politicians that care just
as much about women as Bush cared
about black people and Lou Bega
cared about Mambo No. 6. Like
Newt Gingrich, for example. To his
credit, I've never seen a beached
whale so interested in the female
reproductive system. For the past
several decades, Gingrich's aerial
attacks on areolas and all things
women read like the back of Now
That's What I Call Misogyny - "99
Problems But a Ditch Ain't One,"
"Pro-Life on Mars?" and that time-
less classic, "Women's Rights are
Dumb and Stuff, Pt. II." Remember
the so-called Personhood Amend-
ment, the Mississippi legislation
that declared that life begins at
fertilization? Despite the defeat
of ballot initiative, Gingrich still
wants to see a nationwide expan-
sion of the failed bill, ultimately
making all abortions illegal, even in
cases of rape, incest or to save the
life of a woman. And good news:
Gingrich isn't alone. Both Gingrich
and Rick Santorum have vowed to
only appoint pro-life justices to the
Supreme Court bench, a move that
ultimately places the life of a fetus
over the life of a woman.
Our Republican
leaders don't
care about
your vagina.
And as I sit here, blasting Alanis
Morissette and pounding away at
my keyboard, I just have to wonder
- when was the last time I shaved
my armpits? But perhaps more
importantly, will the conserva-
tives ever care about the unshaven,
alternative Canadian rock, angry
women types? But since I'm just
about out of room, and I'm tired,
and I'm just not interested in filling
the opinion page with any more
platitudinous rants, I'll end with
one lastbit of advice. When it comes
to women's rights, the Republicans
need to step up or, better yet - stick
a tampon in it.
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- Melanie Kruvelis can be
reached at melkruv@umich.edu.
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