4 - Friday, March 1, 2013 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 4 - Friday, March 1, 2013 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom 74C fitichiclan l 4:lat*lu MAGGIE MILLER E-MAIL MAGATHORgUMICH.EDU I Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com MELANIE KRUVELIS and ADRIENNE ROBERTS MATT SLOVIN EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS MANAGING EDITOR WHAT YOU IMAGINE SPRING BRE AK IS LIKE: y* WHAT SPRING BREAK IS ACTUALLY LIKE: v00 v'rrs 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. Scientific accessibility Obama opens up federally funded research to the public Responding to an online petition posted to the White House's We the People platform, the Obama administration issued a memorandum through its office of Science and Technology Policy to mandate that federally funded scientific research be made available free of charge to the public within the year. The proposed policy would centralize and publicize the data sets, methodologies, results and conclusions from research funded via federal agencies at institutions with budgets greater than $100 million. Such measures are in line with the global call for further open access in science, dem- onstrating the Obama administration's commitment to pushing the nation's scientific efforts forward. This policy is beneficial to the pub- lic, scientists and science as a whole and finally lets taxpayers have access to the information they pay for. The grie o moving on 0 Knowledge that springs from publicly fund- ed research belongs to the taxpayers who pay for it, in the same sense that roads and parks do. However, the results published in scientific journals are currently inaccessible to the pub- lic. Hidden behind exorbitant pay walls, inde- cipherable language and scattered through hundreds of repositories, information is guard- ed instead of dispersed. However, this policy could go further. The proposed action places a heavy emphasis on research in the sciences but fails to con- sider research in the humanities. Though the National Endowment for the Humanities, the nation's largest federal agency that supports humanities research, favors and intends to follow the spirit of the proposed expansion of open access research, the policy would be stronger if it applied to all research. In fact, open access to scientific research is a logical foundation and natural extension of the current trends toward making education and knowledge more open and available. Mas- sive open online courses - where millions of interested people can receive world-class edu- cations - would benefit from freely obtainable, high-quality content. Having direct access to research allows content creators to craft bet- ter teaching materials and gives others a way to use it to create new knowledge. For the first time in the history of this country, the direct contents of federally funded research could be made available to anyone who wishes to see them. Removing the barriers to entry will only prove benefi- cial with time by fostering an open dialogue between researchers and the general public. While this proposal should be expanded to all research, including the humanities, it is an encouraging sign for a country struggling over questions of who owns information and knowledge. n September, I ducked out of my feminist theory class to take a call from my dad, who had been phon- ing me every few minutes. "Mormor has lung cancer," he said as I leaned against the win- t dowpanes of j the wide Uni- EMILY versity hallway. PITTINOS "It's bad." It wasn't a secret that my grandmother had mistreated her lungs. She started smoking at 11 years old in Denmark and spent the 1970s working as a carpenter at poorly ventilated con- struction sites. "That's just how it is now," my dad told me. "People are living so long that everyone's going to get cancer and die from that." I stood in Angell Hall surrounded by students who were reading, tex- ting and chewing pencils - bored out of their minds as they waited for classes to turn over. As I thought of my grandmother watching the winter birds feed through her bay window, I tried not to become "that girl" - weeping in the midst of a crowded hallway. I told him I'd make it up north soon and hung up. After immigrating to the United States, Mormor raised three kids alone and started several business- es. She could drink more schnapps than anyone else I've met. She was the strongest woman I knew, and now she was dying. On the crowded bus ride to my art class, I realized my grand- mother wasn't going to make my wedding dress and repeated the phrase to myself until a stranger in a fur hat looked as if she could cry by osmosis. This is when I started treating myself like a victim of her illness. I'd sulk in my bedroom hours from home, mourning her last bit of life over a Styrofoam box of Bibim- bap and a bowl while my parents dwelled in the true shadow of her sickness. They sprinted between pharmacy, radiology and oncology and lived in a limbo between diag- nosis, prognosis, treatment, toilet and bed. Five times a week, my dad drove her to radiation - an hour each way through the snow. "Doctors treat her like she's already dead," he said through the phone in a whisper. As the months went on, Mor- mor's list of illnesses lengthened - strokes, seizures, thrush, pneu- monia - and my courage in the face of her deterioration grew. Every other weekend, I drove four hours through Flint and frozen farm country to be with her. Because much of that time was spent in the hospital, my dad, sis- ter, mom and I lived in a circuit between the cafeteria, a visitor's room with free coffee that tasted like shoe polish and Mormor's bed- side, where we'd catch up with her many specialists and watch the Food Network on a small television mounted on the ceiling above her bed. The hospital elevator became a place where I'd manage a moment to myself, and if a stranger accom- panied me on the ride we'd stand in silence as we speculated about the other's source of sadness. After a particularly difficult day at the hospital - she didn't speak or look into our eyes - my father swal- lowed tequila; my mother gulped gin. I sipped red wine and shucked the shells of frozen crab legs with my bare hands. There was nothing else for us to do. As ice chips flaked onto the cobalt countertop, I watched them melt and realized I was already griev- ing. We all were. Grief's undertow had taken us while we were caught in the frenzy of diagnosis and treat- ment, and now that recovery wasn't an option we were surprised to find ourselves already out to sea. We each treaded water in our own ways. My mom coped with her mother's sickness by making diora- mas with Risk pieces and Inter- net printouts of medieval villages. My dad dove into his work, which was selling instruments out of our house. I digested feminist theorists and used candle wax as a metaphor for cancer in my art projects. My sister was 10, so I don't know how she dealt with the imminent loss. I don't know what she could have done; Mormor was her third parent and best friend. "Grandma has lung cancer" he said. "It's bad." In January, my mom called, and the next day some family friends drove me through a blizzard to my grandmother's house. All evening we sat weeping by her bedside, and i she asked me to hold her for a while. And I did, telling her it was okay to go. That night, as I knit a hat in the living room, the dog barked and she died. I visited my parents last week- end, and somehow- maybe because they didn't have to make hospital trips or wonder what would hap- pen next - I expected them to be relieved within their grief. My dad told me otherwise. "It's all still there," he said. "She's gone, but it's still there. We cry all the time." And of course they did, and still do, but why don't I? I think my grief is the quiet kind. I go to class, make art, write col- umns, go to workand keep myupper lip stiff, because that's what she'd have done. My grandmother was a hard-working warrior of a woman and, though I miss her stern grace, I feel at peace knowing I wrung , myself out to her before she died. She didn't leave without knowing that she taught me how to be strong, so l can never be without her. - Emily Pittinos can be reached at pittinos@umich.edu. 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 BARRY BELMONT I The lives of mice and men Twenty-one years ago, a man named Rod- ney Coronado firebombed the offices of a pair of animal research scientists at Michi- gan State University. In addition to more than three decades worth of lost research, the MSU facilities suffered more than $1.2 million in direct damage. Coronado, acting as part of the Animal Liberation Front, tar- geted Richard Aulerich, a researcher who fed minks potentially contaminated food - fish caught in Saginaw Bay in Michigan - to mea- sure the effects of polychlorinated biphenyl pollution in the Great Lakes. Minks were known to be highly susceptible to food toxins and thus would show signs of poisoning well before other animals in the food chain. Coronado avidly disagreed with using animals for scientific research and made his point on the night of Feb. 28, 1992, as he had many times before - by planting homemade incendiary devices in the offices of those he perceived to be wrong. If the sheer volume of books, articles, treatises and Internet comment sections are anything to go by, ethics is a contentious sub- ject. Because the actions we take matter, and because our actions are propelled and limited by what we consider we ought and ought not to do, our moral opinions have very real con- sequences. If we think that there isn't such a thing as private property, theft becomes hard to dissuade. If we contend that charity doesn't help people, we might be disinclined to give to charity. In fact, it's only because our actions have consequences that the morality inspiring them matters. Moreover, the consequences only matter if they affect the overall well-being of someone either positively or negatively. The use of the term "well-being" here is meant to encapsulate all the thingsothat go into making someone (bio- logically, psychologically, existentially) happy, content, fulfilled, etc. It's meant as a catchall term, like "health," to describe the physiologi- cal state of biological beings, given the limited space of our discussion. Thus, the reader will know what I intend when saying that stealing in most cases likely diminishes someone's well- being, whereas being charitable most likely increases another's well-being. If there were no effects on well-being, the morality of our actions would be moot. It's this consequentialist framework that surrounds the debates on animal testing for scientific research. The debate focuses on whether the methods and results of animal testing justify the use of animals. The facts of the matter are that millions of animals each year are subjected to millions of scientific experiments, many of which can cause pain and suffering. Great scientific progress has been made as a result of these experiments, alleviating the pain and suffering of millions of people and animals around the world. How one sees the balance between the first and second points is what leads some to feed fish to minks and others to throw bombs. Make no mistake - many of us are alive today because of the efforts of scientists working with animals. Vaccines for chicken pox, cholera, diphtheria, influenza, hepati- tis, measles, mumps, polio, rabies, smallpox and tetanus, every single medication on the market, many medical procedures (from angioplasty to organ transplants) and most life-saving medical devices (replacement and artificial organs) all come as a result of tests first done on animals. However, many would contend that these ends - good as they are - don't justify the means by which they are achieved. What's taken from animal research, be it from mice, rats, dogs, cats, monkeys or people, isn't suf- ficiently balanced by what's gotten out of it. That is, the suffering (minimal as it may be) and deaths of animals are too high a price to pay for the value achieved, just as stealing doesn't make all parties involved richer (and in fact makes us all poorer). Our relationship with our fellow animals (are we not merely mammals?) must be estab- lished if we are to properly gauge the benefits and detriments of our actions to them and for ourselves. Should we consider them property, meaning that we can do with them whatever we'd like? Should they be given rights, forc- ing responsibilities unto beings incapable of understanding them? These are difficult questions that need answers if we're to ever to increase the overall well-being of all rel- evant subjects. The borders of our morality need illumi- nation, and it's with the light of reason - not from the flames of terrorists - that we'll con- tinue to find them. Barry Belmont is an Engineering graduate student. 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. MAX HELLER I Thawing the diplomatic ice Next week, John Kerrythe recent- ly confirmed U.S. Secretary of State, will embark on his maiden overseas trip. During the trip, he will visit nine countries in 10 days throughout Europe and the Middle East. Among the countries he will visit are two that are critical to long-term stabil- ity in the Middle East: Turkey and Egypt. The two countries are major power players and currently sit at a crossroads in their diplomatic rela- tions with Israel - the United States' central ally in the region. During his trip, Kerry should work hard to set the stage for improved relations between these two countries and Israel in order to serve the best inter- ests of those who desire long-term stability in the region. Kerry will be visiting Turkey, which has experienced frosty dip- lomatic relations with Israel ever since the Turkish-supported Gaza Flotilla incident in May 2010, in which radical anti-Israel extrem- ists and terrorist members attacked Israeli soldiers. While Israel has since made efforts to normal- ize relations with Turkey, those efforts have been largely rebuffed by the nation and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In advance of Kerry's visit, Israel has recently sent Turkey several signals that it hopes to push their diplomatic relationship in a more positive and productive direction. Israeli defense firm Elta recently decided to deliver $100 million of equipment for Turkish Airborne Warning and Control Systems. This equipment will enable Tur- key to better defend itself against airborne threats through the radar system that it provides. By sending over this equipment, Israel signals that it supports Turkey's efforts to protect itself from threats to its national security. Additionally, Israel has recently offered to lay a natural gas pipeline through Tur- key to Europe. This pipeline would surely provide longterm economic benefits to Turkey and could very well be lucrative for both countries. However, the Turks have yet to respond to this offer. If Kerry can convince Turkey to accept Israel's pipeline offer as a signal that they hope to work towards positive and mutually beneficial relations, it would be a huge step in the right direction for the region. In Egypt, Kerry approaches a slightly more complicated situation. Still dealing with the after-effects of a revolution during the Arab Spring, Egypt's internal politics and power structure are hardly stable. As a result, it may be difficult to con- vince Egyptian leadership to make any long-term decisions regarding foreign affairs. Kerry can work to establish a sounder Egypt by pro- moting rule of law and respect for human rights with government officials. Such efforts will further legitimize Egypt's current regime and enable them more flexibility to take on ambitious efforts in foreign affairs. A stronger Egypt will hope- fully be empowered to promote the rule of law along the Gaza border, which could vastly improve Israel's long-term outlook for peace. While Egypt and Israel have seen their relationship become more com- plicated since an Islamist govern- ment was elected in Egypt, whose leader has been recorded delivering anti-Semitic rants, they still share a mutual interest in promoting the rule of law. In Egypt, these efforts will better the Morsi regime's grip on power internally, and in Israel, they will go a long way toward pro- viding stronger national security. Kerry has a long list of priori- ties during his first trip overseas. He will also be meeting with criti- cal U.S. allies such as Germany and Saudi Arabia during his trip, and must build his relationship with diplomats in those nations as well. However, his visits to Turkey and Egypt can and should set the stage for a joint pursuit of long-term sta- bility in the Middle East. Max Heller is a Business senior.