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Monday,August 13, 2012
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
fie AUC4-igan Oal
Spirit of the 'D'
Edited and managed by students at
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JACOB AXELRAD
EDITOR IN CHIEF
GIACOMO BOLOGNA
MANAGING EDITOR
ADRIENNE ROBERTS
EDITORIAL PAGE 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.
JESSE KLEIN I
Power to the youth
Michael Phelps is old. He hasn't even reached
30 and he's considered old. At 27, he's 10 years
senior to some of his swimming teammates and
competitors. The golden girl of 2012 Olympic
swimming, Missy Franklin, is a decade younger
than Phelps. Missy Franklin's accomplishments
this year include gettingherdriver's license, hav-
ing her braces taken off and beating out Emily
Seebohm of Australia for her first gold medal on
a back-to-back swim night. Seebohm is only 20
years old, but she's an Olympic veteran compared'
to Franklin and was bested nevertheless.
Of the "Fierce Five" Olympic gold medal wom-
en's gymnastics team, only Alexandra Raisman
is of age. The rest include Gabby Douglas and
McKayla Maroney, both 16, Jordyn Wieber, 17,
and the baby Kyla Ross, 15. The rule in gymnas-
tics is that a competitor must be turning 16 the
year the Olympics takes place.
The dominance of youth at the Olympic Games
does not come without controversy. During the
Beijing Olympics, He Kexin's age was the center
of scandal. There were two birth certificates, one
that put He's birth year in 1992 (age 16 in 2008)
and the other 1994 (age 14 in 2008). But even if
He was 16 at the time of the Beijing Olympics,
there's still controversy over whether a young
athlete should be under such pressure.
Thirty-hour-a-week workouts, possibly mov-
ing away from home and dropping out of public
school are routine for elite Olympic hopefuls.
Mental and physical pressures are a major con-
cern for these young champions. But if you ask
them if it was all worth it, after that Olympic
medal, they all say something to the effect of
"hell yes." The Olympics are ruled by the youth.
Youth prevalence all started at the opening
ceremonies. There was huge speculation about
who would carry the final torch and light the
Olympic cauldron. Usually the honor goes to an
Olympic alumnus, a person from the host country
who exemplifies the Olympic spirit and tradition.
But this year no one knew the names of the seven
final torch carriers, and it wasn't because they'
were English. The seven bearers had never won
an Olympic medal and had never even qualified,
but one day they would. As the NBC announcers
explained the bearers are "representing the next
generation of athletes and possible Olympians."
The "next generation" is usually a phrase
reserved for politicians to make grave remarks
about the state of the world. "We need to be envi-
ronmentally conscious so the next generation
has a world to live in." "Fixing the economy will
be a problem for the next generation" "The job
market is slim for the next generation." "We need
to get the next generation interested in science"
And as part of this so-called "next generation," I
am sick of being reminded just how screwed over
we got. I appreciate the older generation finally
giving something back to the generation that
needs to become game changers in thewnext 20
years, but they have already changed the Olym-
pic Games.
Jesse Klein is a LSA sophomore.
Have you ever been unaware of
what a conversation was really about,
until it was over?
Chrysler's
"Imported from
Detroit" adver-
tising campaign
overtly challeng-
es the assump-
tion that Detroit
wouldn't have
anything special VANESSA
enough to export,
but it seems to be RYCHLINSKI
one of those con-
versations. After
Clint Eastwood
had his Super Bowl say, Chrysler lent
its award-winning tagline to another
town with a bad rap - Gotham City
- in time for the release of "The Dark
Knight Rises" at the end of last month.
Since I can't afford a Chrysler 300 (I'm
team GM, anyway), I'm keen to reflect
on what else Detroit has to offer now
that the confident slogan popularized
by rappers, cowboys and superheroes
has been - almost - exhausted from
public discourse.
Though the auto companies remain
important for Michigan, the influx of
business has indicated the beginning
of a hopeful sea change in the "Paris of
the Midwest." Quicken Loans - cur-
rently housed in the Compuware head-
quarters - is hiring young people by
the hundreds, while Team Detroit, an
advertising company, also has begun
snappingup newtalent. Oneofthe most
exciting additions is the new Twitter
advertisingoffice inthe renovated Rock
Ventures M@dison Building. Twit-
ter will share space with tens of other
technologic startups and companies,
including the CAPTCHA formula start-
up, Are You a Human, and the infamous
Texts From Last Night. The Russell
Industrial Center is home to many
smaller ventures and local dreams. I
know some musicians that have their
own record label who pian to move
to RIC to live and record their music
and that of their friends."Everyone (in
Detroit) is sick of recording themselves
and using cluttered and crappy stu-
dios," my friend Alex told me recently.
"I think I've got the ear for it as well as
the vintage gear everyone wants to use
and the training and experience needed
to properly run it."
In Detroit, I've seen more dreams
this summer than I could have antici-
pated. On Father's Day I visited The
Church of the Messiah on Lafayette
and East Grand Boulevard on the east
side. My friend Jugo Kapetanovic -
who was accepted earlier this year
into the University's School of Public
Health - was kick-starting the trial
run of a healthy food program. It was
a hot day, and many people were keep-
ing themselves cool with paper. fans.
Downstairs, a red-faced Jugo was
cooking up kale, beans, rice and a host
of other fresh local foods, bought at
Eastern Market, in the kitchen. In the
main room, a nutritionist gave a lec-
ture for the churchgoers, who were
also given information about acquir-
ing health insurance. Jugo's big idea for
the summer was to pool money from
bridge cards in order to buy - and cook
- healthy food for everyone who came
to church.
I learned that anyone with a._per-
suasive enough idea could potentially
put their dreams into action. Such is
the case with Monique Sasser, of Nik-
ki's Ginger Tea. For 20 years, Sasser's
product has been made in the church
on East Grand Boulevard, and today is
distributed in over 30 markets and gro-
cery stores around Michigan, from the
metro to Petoskey to Ann Arbor. Jugo
and his girlfriend put together a project
proposal last August, which formu-
lated a "new model of primary care in
which you would have urban farming,
nutrition programming (and) health
insurance on top of that." After the
meal, he drove me around and showed
me several plots of land belonging to
the church. Each was an overgrown,
asymmetrical piece of land, with grass
to vour knees and surrounded by rusty
chain link. The congregation owns 103
such plots and hopes to one day use
them for urban farming.
Detroit is quickly
changimg.
Revitalization, dot-com business-
es and artistic visions are just a few
intrinsically Detroit things that have
all the spirit of the aforementioned
slogan and could potentially school a
nation. But what about giving back?
About a month ago, I went to a party
on the south side of Detroit. Most
of the people there study at Wayne
State University, and several were
old friends I hadn't seen since high
school. I caught up with a friend who
is a film major who asked me "what
I was doing." I told him about my
studies and summer work, including
my internship in Detroit and screen-
writing class in Ann Arbor. Put off a
little by his assessing gaze and lack of
response, as always, I talked faster. I
delved into describing the plot of my
drawn-out dystopian screenplay.
"There's this island but it's in the
future and there's no technology."
My friend had the same slightly
bemused, mostly unreadable expres-
sion he had had on his face the entire
time. Finally, his face cleared. Nodding,
he said decisively, "You should come to
Detroit," before walking away. Sudden-
ly I realized that "what I was doing"
wasn't even what the conversation had
been about.
Vanessa Rychlinski can be
reached at vanrych@umich.edu.
Join me in welcoming the next President of
the United States, Paul Ryan"
- Presumptive Republican candidate Mitt Romney announcing his running mate, Paul Ryan,
according to the Huffington Post.