41 Monday,August 13, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com fie AUC4-igan Oal Spirit of the 'D' 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 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.