4 - Tuesday, October 29, 2013

The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.pm

4 - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom *

l e IiclIVig n ai[y

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

ANDREW WEINER
EDITOR IN CHIEF

NOTABLE QUOTABLE
Bye Lou Reed. You were the best there
was. And I really liked how grumpy you
'always seemed walking around New
York. I've never wanted and not wanted
to approach someone so much.'
-Comedian John Mulaney said on his Instagram account on the death of Lou Reed,
leader of the Velvet Underground. Reed died October 27 at the age of 71.
Addicted to bein busy

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.
What the frack?
Fracking regulation isn't an alternative for alternative energy
Since hydraulic fracturing - a complex procedure to extract natural
gas from underground shale - began in Michigan about 50 years ago,
approximately 12,000 wells have been fractured in the state. Given the
significant environmental health concerns, and unanswered questions asso-
ciated with the process, often called fracking, and because the Great Lakes
contain about 21 percent of the world's fresh water resources, several cam-
paigns in recent months have demanded a ban on fracking in the state. Michi-
gan's Department of Environmental Quality released a proposal Oct. 22 for
updated fracking regulations for greater transparency. This added oversight
is a firm step toward holding companies more accountable for their actions
and potential damage. However, the DEQ should not lose focus on finding
alternative energy sources as these regulations go into effect next year.

0
0

The proposed regulations begin to bring
clarity to an industry clouded by trade secrets.
Better monitoring of water withdrawal, water
quality sampling, chemical additive disclosure
on an Internet-based platform and more fre-
quent reporting by operators would be required
if the regulations are instituted. While these
requirements don't prohibit the pollution
causes, they provide a greater understanding of
fracking's effect on the environment.
Michigan should also be taking into account
the debates and attempted regulations that
have occurred elsewhere in the United States.
In Ohio, where more than 80,000 oil and gas
wells have been fractured since 1951, the state
Senate passed regulations on oil and gas drill-
ing in May 2012, including hydraulic fractur-
ing. Although both Niles and Youngstown city
councils in Ohio ultimately turned down the
proposed ban on fracking within city limits,
the local administrations appear to be more
concerned and involved in the decision-making
than in Michigan. In Pennsylvania, the Mar-
cellus Shale Law, which was scheduled to take
effect in April 2012, was supposed to change
the zoning laws applicable to Marcellus Shale
well drilling. However, it has been delayed due
to a growing group of municipalities and orga-
nizations asking for a more regulation powers
in their localities.
Giving local authorities more control
over fracking protocols in Michigan would
allow for greater public representation in the

decision-making process and make a larger
portion of the local population aware of the
potential effects of fracking. Additionally,
Wyoming voted in 2010 to require full disclo-
sure of fluids used in natural gas exploration
through fracking. The proposed forms of dis-
closure in Michigan have not been elucidat-
ed yet, but public disclosure of information
should be required in order to further engage
its citizens and increase transparency in the
fracking process.
While the efforts to guarantee responsible
fracking are laudable, it has shifted focus from
advancements being made in other forms of
energy harvesting. The Michigan Public Ser-
vice Commission and the Michigan Energy
office have reported that the state should be
capable of tripling their renewable energy
use by 2035, with utilities required to get 30
percent of energy from renewable resources.
Currently, the state hopes to achieve 10 per-
cent by 2015. Specifically, advancements have
been remarkable in wind technology, with the
first wind farm - built in Mason County last
year - generating 103 megawatts of electricity
since opening. More farms are planned for the
future, and the state should begin shifting its
attention toward alternative energy.
While fracking has made for an excellent
short-term investment, the enormous devel-
opments in renewable energy technologies
signal that alternative energy is a more sus-
tainable investment for Michigan.

he other day I watched Wes
Ander-
son's
"The Darjeel-
ing Limited"
for the third
time. The film
follows three
semi-estranged
brothers, Fran-
cis, Jack and ZOE
Peter Whitman, STAHL
who embark on
a spiritual jour-
ney through India: Owen Wilson's
Francis assumes a paternal role as
he plans a journey of self-discovery
for his brothers and himself. Each
day, Francis has his assistant deliver
a laminated schedule to their pri-
vate train compartment; he hopes
that by having his brothers say "yes
to everything," they will become
brothers like they "used to be."
Watching Francis' obsessive atten-
tion to detail, I laughed. Anderson
is known to be a control freak, and
I understood his mocking as self-
satire.
Though a tightly designed and
controlled movie, an open and
relaxed narrative unfolds - that is,
until the camera captures Francis
struggling to destroy one of his pre-
cious laminated itineraries. Cen-
tered in the frame, Francis attempts
to tear the document with his fin-
gers, and when that fails, he resorts
to using his teeth. At this moment,
I realized that Francis and I are
frighteningly similar.
Over the course of my college
career, I've spent endless hours
obsessively crafting schedules:

allotting time to eat my bowl of
Cheerios, respond to e-mails and
even when to write my schedule. No
part of my day would go unplanned
or unscheduled.
The only thing that got me to slow
down was food poisoning from fried
chicken. Or to be more specific, I
devoured a large Styrofoam box's
worth of fried chicken, coleslaw,
French fries and collard greens in a
moving car and proceeded to throw
up for the next two days. For the two
weeks followingthe incident, I didn't
run from meeting to class to meet-
ing and then back again. Instead, I

college. I could avoid thinking about
the other, bigger questions too.
Being busy becomes more than
just filler: The chance for spontane-
ity gets lost along the way, too. You
can't decide to see a 4 p.m. showing
of "In a World" at the Michigan The-
ater, or grab a last-minute train into
Detroit to get BBQ at Slows. And,
even more, when caught in the busy
trap, we forget the importance of
being idle.
In 2006, the accounting firm
Ernst & Young conducted an inter-
nal study of its employees. The firm
found that "each additional 10 hours

watched movies
in bed, let myself
sleep in for the
first time since
school started
and went for
walks. For the
first time in my
life, I was proud-
ly and comfort-
ably channeling
Dude of "The Big
in that time; I beg
what the writer7
said about the
of constant busy
serves as a kind of
surance, a hedge a
obviously your lif
be silly or trivial:
you are so busy, co
in demand every h<
Being busy had
a way to define m
also an excuse to
did not have to th
confront the fact ti
and, yes, also excit

of vacation
employees took,
Life is better when their year-end
performance
we slow down and ratings from
supervisors (on
take each moment a scale of one to
five) improved
as it cOmes. by 8 percent."
Though seem-
ingly coun-
Lebowski." And terintuitive, the study reveals the
an to understand importance of rest and renewal in
Tim Kreider has improving one's productivity and
ubiquitous state job performance.
'ness: "Busyness This study isn't merely scien-
f existential reas- tific justification for laziness. My
gainst emptiness; own two-week stint served as a
e cannot possibly needed reminder that life is some-
or meaningless if times better when we slow down
mpletely booked, and take each moment as it comes.
our of the day." And though I know I won't kick
become not only the scheduling habit any time soon,
y self-worth, but this time around I'll be sure start to
avoid thinking. I schedule in a few blanks.
ink long-term or
hat I am scared - - Zoe Stahl can be reached
ed - for life after at zoestahl@umich.edu.

ALEXIS NOWICKI
Those who stay will be blinded

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
Kaan Avdan, Sharik Bashir, Barry Belmont, James Brennan,
Eric Ferguson, Jordyn Kay; Jesse Klein, Melanie Kruvelis, Maura Levine,
Aarica Marsh, Megan McDonald, Victoria Noble, Adrienne Roberts,
Paul Sherman, Daniel Wang, Derek Wolfe
ARIEL KAPLOWITZ VlWPON
To the man who tried to intrude

Sometimes I make the mistake of telling
someone I meet here that I'm not that into
sports. I know I'm entitled to my own inter-
ests and opinions, but there's an unspoken
rule about being a University student that says
you have to either care alot about football, or
pretend you care a lot about football. While I
may not understand the rules or exactly what's
happening at a given athletic event, there is
one thing I'll admit to appreciating: the school
spirit. Undoubtedly, that's one of the most
obvious perks of going to school here; the stu-
dents love their school, and they show it.
In perfect harmony with the students, the
Athletic Department spews school spirit 'in
the form of weekly pre-game e-mails, social
networking and now, a monstrous digital bill-
board, complete with sound capabilities, that
was constructed over the past summer. Con-
veying promotional messages for the Michi-
gan Athletic Department, this sign, situated
between the Big House and the Crisler Center,
had to be huge to match up with the massive
size of our football stadium. And, according
to Athletic Director Dave Brandon, the sign
"won't annoy anybody" because it "happens to
be right across the street from a golf course".
There are just a few problems with this -
the first being a factor of safety. The big, bright
nature of the digital billboard provides a sub-
stantial distraction to drivers. This was pre-
dicted by Ann Arbor City Council members
leading up to its construction, and has been
proven true in the opinions of residents.
Further, the city council amended the out-
door advertising ordinance to prohibit the
conversion of standing traditional billboards
into digital ones. While the University of
Michigan doesn't have to obey these ordinanc-
es and is free to build all the huge electronic
disturbances it wants, the ordinance shouldn't
have been disrespected in this way. A number
of residents have reported it as blight on the
city - a misrepresentation of what Ann Arbor

is about.
At some universities, the school and its clos-
est neighboring city work as separate entities
and are barely associated with one another.
The appeal of attending the University of
Michigan is that the school is so intertwined
with the city of Ann Arbor. For this very rea-
son, Michigan should be collaborating with
the city, not against it. Ann Arbor is what gives
the University so much of its beauty and ambi-
ance, and the University shouldn't take actions
to endanger this relationship.
Members of the city council plan on bring-
ing forward this issue at a Nov. 7 meeting.
While they'd prefer that the billboard be
removed completely from its East Stadium
Drive location, council members are willing
to compromise. They understand that the
Athletic Department wants to advertise dur-
ing games with this sign, and would agree to
it only being active during game day. How-
ever, if safety is in fact their biggest concern,
the amount of traffic on game day actually
makes that the worst time for the sign to be
functioning.
Finally, if the University is trying to go
green, the last thingthey need is a giant digital
advertisement consuming massive amounts of
energy every day. Recent studies have led sci-
entists to predict that the replacement of tra-
ditional billboards with electronic ones will
completely negate the recent efforts of electric
companies to reduce energy demand during
peak times. The University of Michigan should
act as aleader in lowering energy consumption
- which can certainly happen in unison with
our position as a leader in school spirit.
If not for the environment, or for the safe-
ty of drivers, the University should consider
removal of the digital billboard at least in
respect of the city of Ann Arbor and the opin-
ions of its citizens.
Alexis Nowicki is an LSA freshman.

To the man in the pink bathrobe
who tried to get into my house
Saturday night:
You probably don't remember
any of this, so let me remind you.
You were in my neighborhood
around 1:15 a.m. There were a few
parties down the street, but you
were walking on a dark, poorly lit
road. My roommate was biking
home from work when you saw her.
Her bike lock wasn't working, and
as she was struggling with the com-
bination, you approached her. She
hurried toward our door. You fol-
lowed her into our building's hall-
way. She could hear your footsteps
behind her. She started running.
She made it to our door before you
did, slamming and locking it in your
face. You pounded on the door. You
waited. Inside the apartment, my
friends and I, all women, held our
breath. After a few minutes, we
could hear you turn and go through
the unlocked door of our female
neighbor's apartment. We didn't
know what to do. No one had our
neighbor's number, and we were
terrified to open our door, in case
you would come in. Although there
were four of us, and you were alone,
we were afraid of you.
After a minute passed, you left
our neighbor's apartment. She was
OK, and we were OK. You were
probably just another drunk guy

who had gotten separated from his
friends and was lost. You probably
meant no harm. But, despite your
intentions, you terrified me.
As a feminist, I'm struggling
with how to process these feel-
ings. I want to be able to say that
I wasn't afraid of you, that I stood
up to you and told you to go away.
I want to say that I never hesitated,
that I shrugged my shoulders and
said, "Poor dude, he must have been
wasted," like my male friends did
when I told them. I hate that I felt
so 'afraid of you - and so vulner-
able. I especially hate that the first
thing I did was text my boyfriend
in case I felt like he needed to come
over. It was scary to have a stranger
trying to get into my house, but the
scariest part of it was that you made
me feel instantly helpless, needing
a man's protection. Long after you
left, I couldn't stop thinking about
how small you made me feel.
The fact of the matter is that I
have every right to be afraid. One
in five women in the United States
report being sexually assaulted,
and around one in four women on
college campuses have experienced
rape or sexual assault. I am wary of
strange men because if I weren't,
I might be putting myself at risk. I
seek a man's protection because I
know that I am truly safest when
strange men see me as "claimed,"

as someone else's "property" - it
makes me sick to write this. I have
been socialized to be afraid for my
own self-protection. I know too
many women who have experi-
enced sexual assault; I myself have
experienced sexual harassment far
too often.
I could go on about rape'culture,
problematic language and gender
oppression. I could go on about
how sexism is hurtful to men, too.
I could write about how all day I've
been wanting to take a self-defense
class, buy myself some pepper spray
and keep the door locked, even
when I'm home. There's so much
more to say.
But this is what needs to be
said: The man in the pink bath-
robe frightened me last night, and
my feelings of fear are justified.
Women are not safe on this cam-
pus. But the solution should not
be that we must turn to men to
"protect us." The solution should
not be for women to lock our doors
and learn karate. What we need
is an open, honest dialogue about
gender relations on campus. What
we need is for men to be taught
not to rape, not to sexually assault
and not to see women as property.
What we need is a change in the
oppressive system.
Ariel Kaplowitz is an LSA junior.


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