Darts & Laurels: April 13, 2018

You’ve been refreshing your email inbox every five minutes since you woke up at 8 a.m., patiently (or not so patiently) waiting to hear back from the company you hope to intern for this summer. You’ve gotten other offers, but this one is really it — the one you’ve wanted since freshman year that you’re finally qualified enough for.

Around lunchtime, you finally see the company’s name show up in a subject line of your inbox.

“Internship applicant decision,” the headline reads.

Too scared to read the verdict yourself, you hand your phone to your best friend and ask they break the news to you.

Looking at your friend’s expression, though, confuses you. You take your phone back to read the email, and you see, instead of a “congratulations” or a “we regret to inform you,” the email starts with …

Darts & Laurels

Last weekend, dozens lost their lives in a suspected chemical attack in Syria. On Monday, an attack on a Syrian air base killed 14 more, including some Iranian fighters. These tragedies aren’t a surprise, nor are they any different from what has become run-of-the-mill occurrences in Syria. Mass deaths and deadly attacks are something Syrians have come to expect in their everyday lives.

Over the course of the country’s seven-year civil war, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. Over this time, the U.S. has neglected to offer a clear plan of action. President Donald Trump recently said we need to get out of Syria but has yet to take action.

We’ve been back and forth on our stance, and it has both Syrians and Americans in confusion and disillusionment. The stakes are too high to continue to toe the line. Whatever our stance may be, we need to choose one. To the U.S., we award a dart for our nation’s apparent fear of commitment.

State officials in Michigan said Friday the state will no longer provide free water bottles to Flint, Michigan, residents. Since 2014, the city has been in a water crisis after officials decided to switch the city’s water source to save money. Because the water was not treated properly, residents were exposed to dangerously high levels of lead in their water, and pipelines were damaged.

According to Reuters, Michigan Gov. Rick Sydney’s office said that for nearly two years, tests have shown that Flint’s water is the same or better than similar cities across the state. As a result, the state decided to end the handout of free water bottles.

However, residents remain hesitant to believe the validity behind this statement, especially since not all the pipes have been replaced. To Sydney and the rest of the Michigan officials who reached this decision, we award a dart. Until each and every pipe is replaced, Flint residents deserve water they can be certain is safe to drink.

On Tuesday, Sens. John Kerry and John McCain proposed legislation to create a “privacy bill of rights” to protect people from the commercial data-collection industry. This comes after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified about the policies that led to Cambridge Analytica gaining access to nearly 90 million Facebook users’ data.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the bill would impose new rules on companies that gather personal data. This would include offering people access to data about them or the ability to block the information from being used or distributed. Companies would also need to seek permission before collecting and sharing sensitive religious, medical and financial data with outside entities.

The bipartisan proposal would be the first bill of its kind to comprehensively outline privacy law. As such, we award a laurel to Kerry and McCain for doing their part in protecting our privacy and freedom.