4 - Friday, January 13, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 4 - Friday, January13, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com 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. Promise tuition Michigan 2020 reinvests in higher education It's been said many times before, and it should be repeated until a solution comes forth - the importance of higher education can- not be understated. The state of Michigan and Republican Gov. Rick Snyder have continued a decade-long trend and significantly cut higher education funding over the past two years. College degrees are critical to strong economies - an educated workforce brings advanced technologies and jobs. A new plan introduced by Michigan Senate Democrats has the potential to help more students afford col- lege educations by subsidizing tuition. The state Legislature should continue exploring the Michigan 2020 plan, and help put higher edu- cation within reach of all Michigan residents. . EITOi:D INMCH ARAC ERSO L @CCLittleBusStop Perhaps your elec. signs could say WHEN THE BUSES ARE COMING?! We know the fight song #whatawaste -@michdailyoped Like, reall , girls. 0 Yesterday, Senate Democrats, including state Sen. Rebekah Warren (D - Ann Arbor) unveiled the Michigan 2020 Plan. Along with proposing an end to many tax loopholes for corporations, the plan gives students who attend public school in Michigan from grades K-12 $9,575 - the median cost of tuition at public colleges in the state - per year for tuition expenses at any of the state's 15 public universities. The plan would be administered by the Michigan Department of Education, and implementation would cost an estimated $1.8 billion. The price tag may appear shocking, but, its potential benefit to Michigan's struggling economy exceeds the cost. Michigan's manu- facturing and automotive markets have proven unable to sustain jobs. As the country moves toward a knowledge-based economy, Michi- gan must move away from a manufacturing- based economy. Investing in students now will increase the state's competitiveness in emerg- ing, lucrative fields in the future. A smaller-scale version of the plan, pay- ing for two years of tuition would cost signifi- cantly less - an estimated $618 million. Only subsidizing half of a degree, however, would be detrimental to a student's education and hinder Michigan 2020's success. A student would have far less incentive to finish a degree knowing state aid would cease after two years. The proposal is based on the Kalamazoo Promise, a privately financed tuition fund for public school students entering its sixth year in Kalamazoo, Mich. Michigan 2020 follows the same basic structure as the Promise, which has seen impressive results. Nearly 90 percent of eligible students have enrolled in college. That number greatly contrasts the 52 percent of non-eligible Kalamazoo students enrolled. Clearly, financial support allows more students to attain higher education, and the benefit of this to Michigan's economy will be seen in the long run. Last year, the state's funding to the Univer- sity was cut by 15 percent, and state funding has also dropped by 30 percent over the past 10 years. The cuts in public funding have forced tuition increases, makinghigher education less accessible to all. Michigan should be focusing on higher edu- cation, not continuously cutting public funds to colleges. The state is ranked 42nd among states on per capita higher education spending. That ranking is unacceptable. It worsens the state's brain drain as educated residents leave for other states because few jobs opportunities exist in advanced fields here, and it creates a workforce unprepared for the future. Michigan's responsibility to its students shouldn't end after high school graduation. The state, the University and the federal gov- ernment need to refocus on making higher education accessible. Despite high costs, the Michigan 2020 plan puts students on the right path. Since Kim Kardashian is the role model of the 21st cen- tury, all women must want to be just like her, right? To be a true Kardashian, one has to emu- late her voice, and apparently all women today are doing this. People are tak- ADRIENNE ing notice of this ROBERTS change. Numer- ous commentar- ies, studies and parodies regarding the way in which young women speak are nothing new. In the last few years, however, discussions regarding this topic have reached an unprecedented level. From research studies about the inflection of wom- en's voices at the end of sentences to trending on Twitter about #Shit- GirlsSay, this cultural phenomenon is here to stay. And I'm saying well, like, it's all bogus. Seriously. For decades people have assumed that the "popular girls" on television shows and movies are the sole sub- jects of women's envy. When Alicia Silverstone played Cher (a popular high school student in California) in the forever-quoted '90s movie "Clueless," people claimed that the rise of the phrases "whatever" and "as if" - valley Girl Speak - was due to the desire of young women across the country to sound like her. This Valley Speak is said to persist throughout speech today. In September, CNN wrote an arti- cle describing how Valley Speak is inhibiting women career-wise because it's stopping them from being taken seriously. Apparently Cher is not women's only inspiration - brainiacs like Britney Spears and Ke$ha inspire them as well. A September study published in the Journal of Voice describes a phenomenon called vocal frying. Found in college women, vocal frying is described as a croaking and creaky sound given to words, usually at the end of sen- tences. Some singers use the tech- nique in their songs, such as Lady Gaga and Zooey Deschanel, and a few celebrities speak using the tech- nique as well. While the study claims to apply to women in college across the coun- try, only 34 college females in New York are examined. While these 34 women from New York obviously do not represent the general col- lege female population, this still has become a national obsession featured on major networks such as ABC and NBC.According to reports, many women supposedly look to Kim Kardashian and Ke$ha for tips on how to be cool when talking. Not only do college women sup- posedly croak words at the end of sentences, they also say a variety of the 100 or so phrases trend- ing on Twitter as #ShitGirlsSay. From "First of all, ew" to "Twin- sies," women apparently love to talk about well, shit. Conversations about literature, politics and reli- gion are topics that readers likely assume women do not discuss on a regular basis. A YouTube video featuring phrases from the twit- ter account @ShitGirlsSay shows a man dressed in drag quoting Twit- ter. The female clothing sends a strong message that there is a dis- tinct separation between the things men and women say. Classifying the way college females speak is grossly over-exag- gerated. Women do have other role models than just the average gossip columnist or narcissistic celebri- ties. Britney Spears in "Oops I Did It Again" is not a person most women are striving to become. To say that women are inhibiting themselves career-wise because of the number of "likes" they use in daily speech or the inflection they place at the end of their sentences is unjust and sim- ply incorrect. Women are likely to be judged on speech patterns. This generalization is a reflec- tion of the real problem - that women are more likely than men to be judged on many things, even their way of speaking. Though many women hold the "likes" and have never said "as if," people assume this type of speech is commonplace. It's easy to make this claim, and at times doing so asserts power in a subtle way. Without specifically saying this, society is able to claim that young women are inferior to men because of their unintelligent speech that is perpetually influ- enced by what they see or hear in the media. Things like @ShitGirls- Say may be funny, and women can laugh along with it at times, but really it's just plain sexist. Excuse me though, I have to go, can't miss "Kim and Kourtney taking New York" tonight. - Adrienne Roberts is can be reached at adrirobe@umich.edu. Follow her on Twitter at @AdrRoberts. 0 CONTRIBUTE TO THE COVERSATION Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and viewpoints. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while viewpoints should be 550-850 words. Both must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. Send submissions to tothedaily@michigandaily.com. Predictably unpredictable EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Aida Ali, Lauren Argintar, Kaan Avdan, Michelle DeWitt, Ashley Griesshammer, Nirbhay Jain, Jesse Klein, Patrick Maillet, Erika Mayer, Harsha Nahata, Emily Orley, Harsha Panduranga, Timothy Rabb, Adrienne Roberts,Vanessa Rychlinski, Sarah Skaluba, Seth Soderborg, Caroline Syms, Andrew Weiner JESSE KLEIN I Advertising decisions Last year the National Public Radio show Freakonomics ran a 22-minute program called "The NFL's Best Real Estate Isn't for Sale." The podcast asked why a multibillion- dollar franchise that has made astounding revenues hasn't caved into advertising on teams' jerseys. The National Football League is the most profitable sports league in the United States. Owners, players and all involved love to make money. They've branded and sold everything from cup-cozies to flat-screen TVs. Yet, they are unwilling to compromise the sacredness of the game jersey. According to Freakonom- ics, the NFL could bring in an Pxtra half a bil- lion dollars a year if they sold advertisement space on jerseys. The NFL forgoes this sub- stantial pile of cash for one big reason - tra- dition. NFL teams have always been brands of their own, so while adding "Shop at Sta- ples" across the front of their jerseys would increase cash flow for the NFL, it would also lessen the brand value of the specific team's name. Like everything else in this world, however, the NFL has started to cave. They've allowed sponsors to advertise on practice jerseys. The NFL is one of the last organizations to cave to advertising, at least on jerseys. There are some establishments that have been advertising since their inception - tele- vision, magazines and newspapers. Others have only recently started. Things that were once valued because of their freedom from advertisements suddenly have multitudes of commercials. Buses are plastered with movie posters and healthcgre ads. Highways are sprinkled with billboards. Commercials of every form have taken over the Internet, which was once a free space of expression. I know I'm not the only one who wants to throw my laptop out the window when You- tube puts an ad before my video of a sneezing baby panda. Websites, mobile apps, Face- book, Google, e-readers - not too long ago all of these things were free of any obvious industry sponsorship. Just as advertisements have infiltrated the Internet, they have become a driving force in political campaigns. Everywhere I look I see "Vote for Romney" - or whoever is the front- runner this week. Ads on Youtube and televi- sion that say nothing of substance are there for the sole purpose of getting the candidates name out. Debates on the issues are second to the massive amounts of money poured into publicity. Our presidential race has come down to an ad campaign, like the latest sale on jeans at Macy's. In Scott Adam's book "The Dilbert Prin- ciple," Adams explains how cell phone com- panies use "confusifiles" - plans designed specifically to confuse - and high rates of advertisements to gain new clients. Clients are so confused and overwhelmed that they end up choosing the company or plan that they've heard of the most. The presidential race and other political campaigns are the same thing. The issues are so confusing, complicated and almost impos- sible to understand, even for the candidates themselves. Most voters don't even try to understand the issues or their candidate's position. They end up choosing based on other factors - usually the amount of times they have heard about candidate. The world is in trouble when our decisions are based on advertisements, not thought. Jesse Klein is an Assistant Editorial Page Editor. Predictions. Our society runs on them. How much will a gallon of gasoline cost a week from now? Which indus- try will grow the fastest? How many tons of wheat will Americans con- sume this year? What will the Dow Jones aver- KRISTEN age be? KILUK Or maybe a little closer to home: How long will I be on this class waitlist? Where will I work after graduation? Accurately predictingthe answers to these questions is vital to process- es from structuring national policies to the decision making of both busi- ness leaders and college students. All things on the predictabil- ity scale, however, are not created equal. For this reason, we employ individuals to act as masters of pre- diction in their fields. I'm not talk- ingabout fortune tellers. I'mtalking about mathematicians, social scien- tists, natural scientists, politicians, economist's and the like. After they spend years pour- ing over textbooks (sound famil- iar?) and weighing all possibilities, these specialists publish their find- ings, their predictions. If we follow their logic well enough, we adopt their ideas and structure decisions around them. So, why do I raise this point? Lately, I've found myself scratching my head at the weather, and have the feeling a lot of you may have been, too. Though normally I would predict the need for a winter jacket when walking outside in the heart of a Michigan winter, this has recently resulted in overheating. This brought to mind many pub- lished predictions that claim that extreme climate irregularities - events from heat waves and cold fronts to tsunamis and tornadoes - may be a consequence of human- induced climate change. The insur- ance group Munich Re reported that 2011 endured the highest total dam- age costs due to natural disasters in recorded history - $380 billion. This may be attributed to increas- ing population and value of devel- opment in storms' paths, but the possibility that this trend may be following climate scientists' predic- tions can't be ruled out. So, are the weird weather woes of 2011 attribut- able to the dynamics of anthropo- genic climate change? In Enviornmental Protection Agency's report Climate Change Indicators in The United States the term climate is defined as "the average weather in a given place, usually over a period of more than 30 years". Day-to-day weather is inherently variable. So, climate sci- entists focus their predictions on climate trends instead of weather observations. If you don't believe me, just track the accuracy rates of a weatherman's predictions. For this reason, it's difficult to correlate day-to-day occurrences with climate change, and, unfortu- nately, harder for us to contextual- ize its impacts. Contrary to popular belief, this does not demonstrate a lack of credibility or evidence. It's a more complex issue - the average person can't accurately draw conclu- sions about climatic trends without knowledge of greater records. The American political system breeds us to believe many issues have two distinct sides: pro or con, red or blue. This is a dangerous mindset to apply to climate change. One should avoid pledging to simply believe or not believe in the all-pub- lished angles of the phenomenon. Why is the global climate such a big deal? It's not just a matter of which jacket to wear or air condi- tioning unit to install. It's a matter of where and how food is produced, which regions may be habitable in the future, where resources may shift and which organisms, includ- ing humans, may or may not survive on this planet. Don't correlate weird weather with climate change. Climate scientists are still unsure exactly how all of earth's ecosystems and organisms will respond to an increased presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Still, it's a complex and severe enough question to justify continuation of and respect . for their research. Whether you sup- port every last detail or not, an abun- dant set of data and predictions on the topic of climate change will help us come closer to the reality of our situation, and continued research on climate change is more important than ever. Human nature urges us to make decisions based on predictions for a reason - so that we can prepare for the future as best as we can. I don't know about you, but I'd like to be prepared for this one. It's kind of important. - Kristen Kiluk can be reached at kkiluk@umich.edu. Follow her on Twitter at @KristenKiluk. 0 0 0i A