Monday, July 2, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com The irc(Jimn A M ai JEFF SORENSEN I VIEWPOINT Pure beauty Monday, July 2, 2012 T The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 7 TV NOT E BOOK Old-fashioned ideas in new' Girls' Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St.- Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@umich.edu JACOB AXELRAD EDITOR IN CHIEF GIACOMO BOLOGNA MANAGING EDITOR ADRIENNE ROBERTS EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorialboard. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solelythe views of their authors. Victory isn',t enough Michigan needs to set up health insurance exchanges A ccording to the World Health Organization, the U.S. ranks 37th in the world for its health system but spends more on it than any other country. For years, this deficit has been apparent through sub-par health care, leaving millions of Americans disheartened with their health insurance companies. President Barack Obama has been working to change this, and with the help of the Supreme Court on June 28, he has gotten one step closer. It's now imperative that states take action to bring the benefits of the Affordable Care Act to their citizens. In particular, the state of Michigan must take action to set up health insur- ance exchanges because they have the potential to benefit many citizens, especially those who are lower-income. I don't want to protect Michi- gan's environment because of political leanings. The part of me that wants to protect the Sleeping Bear Dunes doesn't particularly care whether our nation's next president is Barack Obama or Mitt Romney or whether taxesshould be raised or lowered. Of course, decisions of that kind are some- times relevant for the prospects of vital environmental protec- tions, and it's important for con- servationists to understand any connections that truly exist. Still, the heart of my desire to protect Michigan's natural beauty cannot exist within the political realm. In fact, it can't exist in any realm of inherent conflict. Think about this: each of us spends a significant portion of our time in some realm of conflict. Take an hour to walk through a city. Surely, there will be beauty. There will be seemingly impossi- ble feats of engineering. But there will also be conflict - lots of it. Even our greatest developments don't quite know how to exist nat- urally in nature. The same goes for our brains. Moments of soli- tude or reverence are all too rare. Michigan's protected nature areas provide an escape from all of the conflict. I can walk through Nichols Arboretum by my home in Ann Arbor and observe life in har- mony. I could plan a weekend - or, if I was lucky, a week-long - trip through Michigan and experience a vast array of natural beauty that is simultaneously halcyon and exhilarating. During such a trip, I could witness as much natural beauty as any person could at any location in the world. Having recently visited north- ern Michigan with a group of friends from Brazil, Austria, Ger- many and Colombia, I was not surprised to see Facebook pho- tos of the area receive numerous comments in Portuguese, German and Spanish. And though the lan- guages varied, the messages from all over the world were strikingly consistent: I want to go there. It's shocking and sad that our legislators cannot see what people from around the world perceive so clearly. Michigan's natural beauty is world-class. In the past month alone, our state repre-, sentatives have passed multiple bills eroding protections on sand dunes and placing harmful lim- its on nature areas. In a time of immense struggle for many parts of our state, areas such as Sleep- ing Bear Dunes, Tahquamenon Falls and Mackinac Island serve as a sort of fallback. These places - along with various state parkss inland lakes, beaches and nature areas - have always been there for us. They provide an escape for Michiganders and serve as much- needed tourist attractions. The world wants to see Michigan. This is why I love my state. This is why we all love Michi- gan. This is why we should join hands across the political aisle in hopes of preservingnatural beauty so stunning it transcends all political barriers. Our legisla- tors apparently don't understand this. So we should ask ourselves one question: If our "representa- tives" don't value our state's most precious resources, why should we let them represent us? Jeff Sorensen is a LSA senior. Gritty, realistic moments in HBO's 20-something drama By JACOB AXELRAD Editor in Chief Recently, my friend Nick and I discussed HBO's "Girls" over ham- burgers. "I really like it," he said, his voice trailing off. "But my parents, they hate it. Any time I watch it with them they go on, like, a 30-minute rant about how it's not supposed to be that way." "Not supposed to be what way?" I asked. "Your twenties. They're always talking about how they loved their twenties and how it makes them sad how miserable the people are on that show." He paused. Then, as though guilty about something, he said, "And then I'll notice simi- larities between me and people on 'Girls'... man, if I'm ever living like those characters, it'll be the worst. The absolute worst." After a moment of forced laugh- ter where we both likely thought about the dreaded possibility of a post-collegiate life that in any way resembles that of Hannah Horvath, he added, "And my parents'll kill me." I've heard that Lena Dunham - series creator and star - is the voice of our generation. Hailed as "raw" and "real," "Girls" which recently completed its first season, is sort of like "Sex and the City" aged down about 10 years with a cast of charac- ters more likely to make you cringe thanogle at their sexual and roman- tic exploits: They are, as one critic points out, diametrically opposite to the "sleek eye candy" typically seen on cable television. While it's true these characters are at times cerebral to the point of paralysis, I can't help but wonder if this is really what one's twen- ties looks like circa 2012. Do those of us entering the work force today actually belong to a generation so trapped in our heads that some- thing as visceral as sex becomes a platform for over-intellectualiza- tion? "Girls" (supposedly) presents life as we truly live it, complete with the job-interview screw-ups, the college friendships that can't sur- vive past graduation, the endless worry of paying rent. But it seems important, I think, to remember that when talking about such a phenomenon, we're still looking at heightened reality, albeit one that glorifies the ironic and the absurd over the glamorous. Though the young Manhat- tanites' lives do bear a kind of resemblance to the awkwardness of my own experiences, these char- acters are still fundamentally cine- matic, archetypes drawn to compel, to draw you in and make you feel something toward the people on screen that you also, see in yourself. It's good art, but it's not the banali- ties of our day-to-day encounters. Which means this so-called ultra- modern, post-feminist cable show is in fact old fashioned; the stuff that's always filled our very best dramas. Take Hannah's boyfriend Adam (a wonderfully endearing Adam Driver, "J. Edgar"). In many ways he plays like the traditional Holly- wood brute with a sensitive heart lodged beneath a hard-edged exte- rior. In the first episode we find him shirtless in his apartment, working on his carpentry - a profession he describes as "honest." Between his casual scorn for Hannah and her inexplicable attraction to him, it's hard not to be reminded of a young Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowal- ski in "A Streetcar Named Desire" as he toys with a Vivien Leigh who is simultaneously repulsed and entranced by his charm. Adam ignores Hannah's texts until she arrives at his doorstep, offeringher- self to him and his creepy bedroom deviances. Is this how it goes? Possibly. Yet I propose that Lena Dunham could also have us fooled. By creating a 'I don't know how to break this to you, but there's a medical-grade scale in your living roon.' look for her show that's just a bit he grainy, and just a bit on the low- Bu budget side - similar to Dunham's by film "Tiny Furniture", which one my critic called a serious film posing as an amateur one; and by writing ser dialogue that sounds just a bit more ho natural than the canned aphorisms the sometimes heard on television, she wb has produced powerful realism. un Except realism is still a type of fic- ho tion, like the difference between a th painted portrait and a candid photo- ha graph - one is premeditated while so: the other captures the moment as it go truly happened. In episode eight, when Adam freaks out at a car that almost hits him and Hannah after storming out of his own play rehearsal, I half expected him to yell, "I'm walking here!" invoking Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino before him in "Midnight Cowboy" and "Scarface", respectively. It's worth noting that both actors were also playing the outcast in their movies. But the big difference between a character like Adam and the clas- sic Hollywood misfit is just how explicit he happens to be about his magnetism. "You don't know me and you don't know yourself," yells at Hannah after a party in ushwick shortly before getting hit a car. "I'm a beautiful fucking ystery to you!" "Girls" dives deeplyinto the most rsitive and squeamish moments, lds there for a beat too long and en lets its characters talk about hat they're thinking, which is comfortable, but probably very nest about our times. So maybe e reason Nick's parents claim to Ite the show is because there's me sort of generation-divide ing on. Maybe when you're any older than Generation Y you're just accustomed to letting certain things go unsaid. Dunham's story of New York- hipsterdom does in fact ring of modernity - the characters' lives are lived out loud, like the endless stream of an instant feed gener- ated from friends' computers. It just so happens that the characters' and the story's foundation can be found in characters dating back to our parents' and grandparents' gen- erations; the real disparity between then and now is only on the surface. On Thursday, June 28, the Supreme Court and Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. ruled that the individual mandate in the ACA was unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause but is constitu- tional as a tax. His ruling proved to be the key vote in a 5-4 major- ity decision. Many of Obama's reforms in health care can now take place, including the require- ment for insurance companies to allow young adults up to the age of 26 to be included on their par- ents' health insurance policies. Other provisions include increas- ing access to Medicaid and pro- hibiting discrimination based on gender or pre-existing conditions. Given the current state of the job market, allowing young adults to remain on their parents' health insurance policies under the age of 26is very beneficial for many graduating students. Those struggling to find work shouldn't be punished by having their health insurance taken away. In such a tough economy, it's likely that many students today find themselves unemployed and without health care - a terrify- ing combination. In a country that prides itself on its freedoms, our young citizens shouldn't feel trapped by inadequate health coverage as soon as they leave the safety of their university. This provision will greatly help to alleviate this problem. The establishment of health care exchanges within the state of Michigan is crucial for stu- dents whose parents don't have health insurance. The ACA pro- vides a more affordable insur- ance option for individuals aged 19-25. Estimates report that 2.5 million young adults will gain coverage because of this new option. The only way citizens can obtain this care, however, is if the state sets up a program through which we can purchase the insurance. Though the dead- line for the creation of the health care exchanges isn't until 2014, legislators in Lansing will be shortchanging their constituen- cies - and future workforce - if they don't enact this reform as soon as possible. A strong and well-run govern- ment is one that takes care of its people. One of the best places to start is making sure that its citizens are physically healthy enough to perform the tasks that keep the country moving. The Obama administration and the Supreme Court have laid down all the tools to create a health care system that actually cares. It's now time for the state gov- ernments to put them to use. NOTfA BLE QUTBL According to producers, the individual mandate is NOT valid." - CNN reporter, Kate Bolduan, speaking on CNN as the health care decision was released. CNN later corrected itself. Affordable Student Co-op Housing 2. 4 and 8 Month Contracts on North and Central Campus All utilities, High-speed Internet itHomemade Meals 4.Shared Work, Shared Fun 4@Leadership opportunities Single/Double rooms o Parking available WWW.ICC.COOP (4) INFO@ICC.COOP The Inter-Cooperative Council 337 E. William St., Ann Arbor, Ml 48104 Phone:(734) 662-4414 (ext.100) KORRA From Page 9 The same can be said of council- man Tarrlok, whose role demands total reevaluation after the back- story revealed in the finale. The rushed storytelling can be for- given in his case, if only-because the flashback was so utterly rivet- ing. It humanized Amon, who, like Ozai (Mark Hamill, "Star Wars") in the original series, is made all the more terrifying by his absence and mystery. But at its heart, "Korra" -is everything it' promised to be and more. It is an ambitious show that succeeds on multiple levels, driven by creators as dedicated as their most devoted fans. If the first sea- son is any indication, "Korra" is poised to become a legend. I I