4 - Tuesday, February 19, 2013

The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

4 - Tuesday, February 19, 2013 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom

C I
4e fitichipan+aily

Edited and managed by students at
the University of Michigan since 1890.
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, Mt 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
MELANIE KRUVELIS
and ADRIENNE ROBERTS MATT SLOVIN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS MANAGING EDITOR

You can do anything you want to do and
gender doesn't matter. Your passion is
what matters. And that's cool.:
- NASCAR driver Danica Patrick said to CNN's Don Lemon on Sunday. Patrick is the first female racer to
win the pole position at the Daytona 500.
Mailing it in

ANDREW WEINER
EDITOR IN CHIEF

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.
A higher purpose
Mich. Supreme Court's rigid ruling will hurt patients in need
n Feb. 8, Michigan's Supreme Court ruled that medical mar-
ijuana patients in the state cannot transfer marijuana from
patient to patient. The decision was based on an ambigu-
ity in the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act regarding how patients
acquire marijuana, and will likely result in the closing of medical
marijuana dispensaries across the state. While consistent with the
letter of the law, this ruling is an impediment to the legitimate needs
of medical marijuana patients and will likely result in wasted police
time spent closing marijuana dispensaries. Michigan's legislature
should pursue a proposal that would ensure medical marijuana
patients' ability to get their medication easily and economically.

While the ruling's effects on Michigan's
medical marijuana industry are not immedi-
ately clear, they aren't likely to be beneficial.
The Supreme Court case involved a marijuana
dispensary in Mt. Pleasant, which local offi-
cials will now shut down. Though the stated
reason behind the ruling was that the facility
violated health code, a broader implication
of this decision is that State Attorney Gen-
eral Bill Schuette has told county prosecutors
across the state that they now have author-
ity to close all marijuana dispensaries on the
grounds that they're a public nuisance. With-
out these dispensaries, the MMMA states
that patients will either have to grow their
own marijuana or rely on an approved care-
giver to procure it for them. Caregivers, who
serve a third of Michigan's 126,000 medical
marijuana users, are allowed to supply only
up to five patients with marijuana.
This decision, as the lone dissenting
Supreme Court justice asserted, goes against
the MMMA's intention of providing relief to
those who are ill. In effect, it contradicts the
will of the 63 percent of voters who passed
the MMMA in 2008. Enforcing the Supreme

Court's decision by shuttering the state's dis-
pensaries would require a considerable expen-
diture of local police time and resources, both
of which continue to be scarce in a time of tight
government spending and a tepid economy. The
state's net revenue from medical marijuana
sales, which was $6.3 million last year, could
also be endangered asa result of the decision.
Fortunately Republican state Rep. Mike
Callton introduced a bill co-sponsored by
Rep. Jeff Irwin, a democrat representing
Ann Arbor, that would make dispensaries
legal under Michigan law. Such a bill would
be a boon to the financial situations of local
and state level government, establishing the
legality of dispensaries and a clear set of rules
and regulations for their operation. More
importantly, it would ensure that medical
marijuana patients are able to get their medi-
cation promptly and cheaply.
Michigan's legislature should give their full
attention to this piece of legislation, consider-
ing how dispensaries operate currently and
then acting to ensure that no dispensary oper-
ating in compliance with the law will fear hav-
ing police shut their doors.

Come Aug. 1, the United
States Postal Service will
no longer be engaging in
Saturday mail
delivery. The _
post office will
still be open for
the purchase
of stamps and
shipments, and
packages will
still hurtle their
way across state JENNIFER
borders, but XU
letters - those-
slim, stiff folds
of paper - will no longer be part of
the weekend delivery flow.
The fact that the U.S. Postal Ser-
vice has been steadily going bank-
rupt is not news: For every day it
has remained open in 2012, the post
office lost a cool $36 million. Multi-
ply that a couple hundred times and
you get an annual $15.9 billion defi-
cit. Not much of a surprise that an
institution with such massive fiscal
failures would want to shut down a
couple days out of the year. No, the
real surprise was how upset I got
over the announcement.
I've only recently started appre-
ciating the benefits of living a few
steps away from the post office.
Years of accumulating on-sale
clothing that doesn't fit me has cul-
minated in my creation of an eBay
seller's account; I've now become
increasingly well-versed in all
things bubble wrap, Paypal subsidi-
zation and the weight limits of First
Class Mail.
I'm hesitant to bemoan the loss of
letter-based contact because paper
messages, in my eyes, are kind of
overrated. I mean, so what if war
wives no longer write tearstained
love letters to their sweethearts,

opting instead to jot down their
best wishes in a concisely com-
posed e-mail or sepia-toned Insta-
gram pic? We don't cry that we no
longer use the telegram to convey
our Morse code-encrypted emer-
gencies, soI don't see why the death
of a letter should result in any kind
of call to arms.
The post office has always sym-
bolized a'tangential mode of com-
munication anyway - whether
it's a text, e-mail, chat message or
letter, they're all a way of saying
flirty nothings to someone without
actually speaking to them. While
not necessarily a bad thing, such is
the truth of the letter. Even when
we stand in line on Christmas Eve,
silently clutching the care packages
we've carefully assembled for our
loved ones, speaking is pretty much
taboo. We can exchange know-
ing glances about the length of the
wait or incompetency of the postal
workers, but rarely is the compan-
ionable silence broken with some-
one asking you: Oh, hey, what's in
that duct-taped box you have there?
But the post office is, in a large
sense, a community. The first time I
filed mytaxes, I did it with the help of
the good old USPS. Neither rain, nor
snow, nor sleet, nor hail could have
prepared me for the gala of smiles,
coffee and powdered donuts that pre-
ceded my envelope's fortuitous drop
into the mailbox. Huddled amongst
the other last-minute taxpayers, I felt
like we were really connecting.
And I think what really upset me
about the announcement was what
the change symbolized; that this
bizarre little community of second-
ary communication was steadily
downsizing, one day at a time. That
basically, the communiques we
used to seal so lovingly have dis-

solved into digital bytes.
Detractors say that the post office
is an obsolete institution. Such
remarks pain me, because USPS is
trying- reallytrying- to take steps
into the 21st century. Mail is less
frequently lost and delivery is fast-
er and more precise. And the new
touch-screen machines are heav-
en-sent; I don't have to wait in line
in order to buy stamps or weigh a
package anymore. It's in and out ina
matter of minutes: touch, pay, print,
stick and drop in the box - done.
Despite USPS's
plucky attempts to
adapt and evolve, it's
still failing.
So that's why the loss of Saturday
delivery, to me, is a big deal. Because
the postal service isn't some fud-
dy-duddy. institution with its head
buried inthesand; it's makingadjust-
ments, daily, in response to our digi-
addled universe. That's what makes
the final outcome so depressing: that
despite USPS's plucky attempts to
adapt and evolve to the new world,
it's still failing - miserably.
I'm certainly not saying we're
entitled to Saturday mail delivery
if the government has to lose more
than $30 million a day to keep these
institutions open, but it's distress-
ing to know that one-sixth of the
days I can receive mail has been
forevermore curtailed. R.I.P., my
Saturday pre-approved credit cards.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
Kaan Avdan, Sharik Bashir, Barry Belmont, James Brennan, Eli Cahan, Jesse Klein,
Melanie Kruvelis, Maura Levine, Patrick Maillet, Aarica Marsh,
Megan McDonald, Jasmine McNenny Harsha Nahata, Adrienne Roberts,
Paul Sherman, Sarah Skaluba,Michael Spaeth, Luchen Wang, Derek Wolfe
ERIC FERGUSON
Death drone

Jennifer Xu can be reached
at jennifxu@umich.edu.

6

INTERESTED IN CAMPUS ISSUES? POLITICS? SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK'N'ROLL?
Check out The Michigan Daily's editorial board meetings. Every Monday and Thursday
at 6pm, the Daily's opinion staff meets to discuss both University and national affairs
and write editorials. E-mail opinioneditors@michigandaily.com to join in the debate.
JULIA MILTON -
(IUnIdef ined feminnism

a

Near the end of an episode of "Law and
Order: Special Victims Unit," a court rules
against the wishes of police and parents,
allowing 17-year-old Janey to live with her
lover Greg, 13 years her senior. After the
show's protagonist meets his new crime-fight-
ing partner by informing her that she can't
arrest Greg for kissing Janey, who appears a
lot younger than she is due to Turner's syn-
drome, he offers up a cynical greeting: "Wel-
come to the world of grey."
"50 Shades" jokes and the context of a
show about victims of sexual violence not-
withstanding, this phrase lodged itself into
my head two years ago and I haven't yet been
able to get it out. For those of you who are
unfortunate enough to have never watched
this episode of SVU, Stabler's line rejects the
notion that the courts and the law can always
divide the world into things that are "right"
and things that are "wrong." It asserts what
should be fairly obvious to those interested in
American politics, particularly small-govern-
ment advocates: laws, policies and court deci-
sions inevitably conflict at times with group or
individual concepts of morality, despite gov-
ernment's best intentions.
There's no shortage of examples of policies
fitting this description: Consider the contra-
ceptive provision in the Affordable Care Act,
or the practice of reducing the charges filed
against suspects who testify against those
accused of more heinous crimes. Though some
oppose it based on their religious beliefs, the
ACA provision provides-needed coverage to
women in need, and incentivizing criminals to
squeal on other criminals can be an essential
component of a successful conviction. Given
recent media coverage of a memo outlining
President Barack Obama's administration's
legal rationale behind its drone assassinations
of terrorists abroad who are also U.S. citizens,
some might think that the use of drones in the
global "war on terror" is one of these "grey"
issues - one that leaves a bad taste in the
mouth, but that is nonetheless lawful and nec-
essary. Those people would be wrong.
Proponents of the drone program argue
that it has been effective in enhancing national
security. CIA director nominee John Bren-
nan, whose position as chief counterterrorism

adviser to the president made him a central
figure in the drone program, also claimed in
2011 that it was achieving its goals "(without)
a single collateral death." But this rosy claim,
along with the program's supposed effective-
ness in increasing security, doesn't hold up to
scrutiny. The Bureau of Investigative Jour-
nalism has reported that the drone program
has killed thousands of civilians in at least
three different countries since its inception
in 2001. The number of civilian (and militant)
deaths is especially hard to measure because
of the administration's policy of counting all
"military-aged" males in a strike zone as mili-
tants, and there is evidence that the civilian
deaths caused by drone strikes have become a
major recruiting tool for Al Qaeda. Finally, the
program's targeting of U.S. citizens and the
administration's repeated denial of requests for
information about the program from members
of Congress raise deep concern and questions
about the program's constitutionality and the
abuse of presidential power.
The way the program has been conducted
shows that the administration has treated
the law and judicial oversight as inevitable
roadkill on the path to a terror-free world. In
spite of this, some may still find it tempting to
dismiss the drone war as just a controversial
policy that is nonetheless necessary to main-
tain the safety of the United States - that poor
oversight and civilian deaths are inevitable in
this world of grey. Obama himself seems to
agree with that assertion. But taking a closer
look at the program shows that this world's
moral landscape isn't just a washed-out mess:
When some issues are brought into focus and
adjusted for contrast, they're revealed to be
fundamentally wrong. No matter how hard
the president, his likely CIA director and
others try to justify it, the drone program is
morally repugnant and doubtfully effective.
It cannot be allowed to persist. Without some
kind of outcry against the program from the
public, the courts and lawmakers, there's an
excellent chance that the continued use of
drones will end up hurting U.S. national secu-
rity in the long run and result in even more
innocent lives obliterated by drone strikes.
Eric Ferguson is an LSA sophornore.

A couple ofweeks ago I was riding
the Friday night Oxford Shuttle -
the S.S. Keg Stand as I fondly call it
- when a pack of dudes approached
me. I don't remember what started
the conversation, but they were
drunk and suggested without the
slightest hint of subtlety that I had
"the potential to be a solid seven"
if I "grew some boobs." I'm not
entirely sure what this says about
my upbringing, but my gut reac-
tion to those kinds of comments is
generally to respond by singing the
"Spider Pig" song, except the ver-
sion where I replace all the words
with "hop off my nuts". In this par-
ticular instance, I also asked him if
he had any breast-growing tips for
me, as I so admired his full and lus-
cious manboobs - sorry, I'm not an
expert at the art of witty banter.
As I later recounted this story to
a friend, primarily with the intent
of brainstorming better future
comebacks, he casually mentioned
that he was glad that I don't "act
like a feminist" in situations like
that. I found this off-handed com-
ment unexpectedly troubling and
confusing. First of all, what exact-
ly does "acting like a feminist"
entail? Running around the streets
unshaven, burning bras and writ-
ing vagina monologues? Demand-
ing the sacrifice of first-born sons
to Wiccan goddesses via a. chain
of furious comments on Jezebel? I
mean, obviously. That's all implied.
But I began to wonder about
what draws the line between a
successful, powerful .woman and
a feminist in the eyes of society or
whether they are the same. I also
wondered whether that idea went

the other way. Does one;
cally get inducted into
circle of feminist role mo
they've achieved some cot
of being both pro-gend
ity and successful, or is
sary to explicitly state tf
a feminist? Technically sy
know the answer. I knom
tory of the feminist move
book definitions of "femin
I know where society's
often gets it wrong (Hint
zis, everything I justn
above). However, I still ha
questions about what pop
ion has decreed as falli
the spectrum of current
and, frankly, whether o
peers and I should even ct
The second reason m
comment caught me off g
that it was true. I've neverc
being a feminist as one of
ing characteristics and I
Professionally, I am a strai;
getting a degree in a male-
field. My intent in pursuit
isn't the outright promotio
.nism as a self-containede
intent is to be unequivocal
what I do. Socially, nearly
of my best friends and I c
ably be described in somec
"total bro" - and by that tf
we like playing Mario Kart
ing pizza and drinking che
participate in the occasio
tification of women and
- "Dude, but seriously, M
is hotter than humans
allowed to be." And while
on social justice issues f
exactly in line with what3
expect from someone to:

automati- the importance of gender equality, I
the close don't think I've ever really contem-
'dels once plated whether I want to be thought
mbination of as a feminist or not. I don't think
er equal- any of my actions thus far in life
it neces- would place me in the societal-per-
hat you're ceived spectrum of what a feminist
peaking, I is. Unless you count that one time I
w the his- got my skinny, pale, "almost a solid
'ment, the seven" ass kicked out of a Victoria's
ism," and Secret for prancing around.making
portrayal faces like the Krakeriwhile yelling "I
: Femina- am the newest Angel!" - though I'm
nentioned not sure that really counts as scath-
:ve a lot of ing social commentary.
ular opin- I think what I was unnerved about
ng within was the answer to what; if anything,
feminism our generation considers to be inher-
r not my ently feminist. Is it the Lena Dun-
are. ham's of the world, boldly declaring
y friend's on cable television that women who
guard was don't have meant-for-cable-television
onsidered bodies can be - and are - romanti-
my defin- cally pursued by men with demigod-
still don't. like bodies and degrees in medicine?
ght female Is it the gay, straight and transgender
dominated activists who devote their lives to
ng success pursuing equality through politics?
in of femi- Is it me and my fellow women in engi-
entity. My neering who switch between steel-
ly good at toed boots and high heels, between
every one poetry and off-color jokes, without
ould prob- givingthe slightestthought togender
circles asa roles or if we should be taken seri-
hat I mean ously? We already know the answer
while eat- and don't particularly care what
eap beer. I other people think in that regard.
nal objec- We believe strongly in social equal-
men alike ity but shy away from being labeled
lila Kunis "feminist." Some people might call
should be that empowerment; some might call
my views itignorance; I want toknowifanyone
all almost calls it feminism.

you would
uching on

Julia Milton is an Engineering senior.

14