CELEBRATING OUR ONE-HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH YEAR OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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BREAK IN REVIEW
HEALTH
Regulators relax blood donation restrictions Blood Battle chair says changes are a step in the right direction
By NABEEL CHOLLAMPAT ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
Since The Michigan Daily’s last print edition, demonstrators held a “die-in” outside Winter Commencement and students organized a vigil for Pakistani students killed by the Taliban. Read those stories and others on page 5A.
GOVERNMENT
Governor to focus on jobs, roads during second term In new year, state to consider education funding, LGBTQ proposal By ALLANA AKHTAR Daily Staff Reporter
Last week, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder was sworn in for another four years as Michi-
gan’s chief executive. During his inaugural address, Snyder expressed enthusiasm about his first term and optimism for his second. “We were a broken state,” he said. “We are a comeback state now, a state that is growing and thriving.” Snyder called his efforts to improve the state’s economy and bring Detroit out of bankruptcy as significant accomplishments during his first term as gover-
nor. However, he said there is more to accomplish in his second term. As discussed in his speech, here are five things to keep track of during the governor’s second term. Road improvements The Snyder Administration’s main focus is to develop a plan to increase funds for Michigan’s roads and infrastructure. Last month, the state legis-
Council passes zoning change for Main St. lot By EMMA KERR Daily News Editor
The Ann Arbor City Council unanimously voted Monday to regulate future building construction on the corner of Main Street and William Street, changing the zoning of the property from D1, core downtown area, to D2, or downtown interface area. Because there were previously no lots zoned as D2 within the Main Street character district, which provides additional regulations for buildings in that area, a new rule was also created that
limits the heights of buildings to 60 feet on the south side and 120 feet on the north side when they are both in the Main Street character district and zoned D2. Property owners and investors, not the local government, determine the types, designs and quality of buildings built in downtown Ann Arbor. Residents of Ann Arbor, however, took to City Council Monday night to voice opinions for and against proposed regulations for the property at Main Street and William Street. The property is currently owned by DTE Energy, though there are no plans for construction on the site at this time. Councilmember Jane Lumm (I–Ward 2) said she hopes this preventative measure, which came out of a two-year-long process of reviewing downtown zonSee ZONING, Page 3A
After a ban that lasted more than 30 years, gay and bisexual men will soon be able to donate blood. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recommended a change to the blood donor deferral period for men who have sex with men, or MSM. Previously, MSM were indefinitely barred from donating blood. Now, they are only prohibited from doing so within one year of their last sexual contact with a male. The American Association of Blood Banks, America’s Blood Centers and the American Red Cross issued a joint statement on Dec. 23 endorsing the proposal which stated the “current lifetime deferral is unwarranted.” This is largely due to the effectiveness with which donated blood is now tested for diseases. Under current policy, all blood donations are tested for many infectious diseases, including HIV, Hepatitis B and C and
P H O T O S TA F F O N H O L I D AY
ANN ARBOR
Regulation to restrict building heights for some downtown properties
lature approved a ballot initiative to pump an estimated $1.3 billion into transportation by increasing the state sales tax and removing the sales tax on motor fuel. The proposal will be on the May 2015 ballot. Of the $1.3 billion, $1.2 billion will be allotted to renovating roads, and $112 million will go toward public transit. The bill passed through the State House and Senate with See SNYDER, Page 3A
Daily Staff Reporter
ACADEMICS
Course to foster dialogue on U.S. health care system By IAN DILLINGHAM Magazine Editor
Imagine using “House of Cards” as your political science education.
Members of the School of Public Health are launching a course this semester that they hope will engage students in a unique dialogue about the U.S. health care system based, in part, on lessons from the entertainment industry. Firstyear medical and dental students will be required to take the course. The six-week online class beginning Jan. 12, titled “Understanding and Improv-
ing U.S. Healthcare,” is the brainchild of Matthew Davis, professor of public policy, pediatric and communicable diseases and internal medicine, and Public Health graduate student Michael Rubyan, the course producer. Students from any department on campus — as well as those at the University’s Flint and Dearborn campuses — are able to enroll in the course, See COURSE, Page 3A
Call 734-418-4115 or e-mail news@michigandaily.com and let us know.
By TANYA MADHANI Daily Staff Reporter
Last month Elim Chan, a Music, Theatre & Dance graduate student, became the first female winner of the Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition, a competition sponsored by the Prince of Wales to introduce young conductors to the professional stage. Initially competing against 225 other conductors, Chan and 19 other students were selected to fly to London and compete in the final three rounds with the London Symphony Orchestra. “Looking back it still feels kind of surreal,” Chan said. “For a long See AWARD, Page 3A
In the end, Jim Harbaugh got the job he always wanted. » INSIDE
» INSIDE
GOT A NEWS TIP?
Prince Charles presents symphony conducting award
SportsWednesday
The Bonderman Fellowship: a chance to travel the world.
HI: 9 LO: 1
Rackham student wins elite music competition
RUBY WALLAU/Daily
The Statement
WEATHER TOMORROW
CAMPUS LIFE
My father, brother, and I crawled under a barbed wire fence to sneak a peek at a secret beach in Kaupo, an isolated part of the Island of Maui in Hawaii.
Online platform opens class for Flint, Dearborn students
Syphilis. LSA senior Samantha Rea, chair of the University’s Blood Battle, said the recommendation for change is encouraging, but still not enough due to the persisting regulation on MSM to wait a year after male sexual contact to donate. The Blood Battle is an annual event held by Blood Drives United, a University student organization. Last year, BDU started an initiative called Bleeding for Equality to raise awareness about the FDA’s blood donation policy pertaining to MSM. “It’s a step in the right direction, and it’s exciting that they have considered changing the policy,” Rea said. “We still don’t think it’s enough because it still discriminates based on sexual orientation.” The FDA enacted the ban on homosexual males and bisexual blood donors in 1983 as an early response to the AIDS epidemic. According to the Center for Disease Control, MSM are more affected by HIV than any other group in the United States. At the end of 2011, 57 percent of persons living with HIV in the United States were gay or bisexual men. According to a December article in The New York Times, blood can now be better tested See BLOOD, Page 3A
NEW ON MICHIGANDAILY.COM Top of the Park to change location this summer MICHIGANDAILY.COM/BLOGS
INDEX
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News
2A — Wednesday, January 7, 2015
MONDAY: This Week in History
TUESDAY: Professor Profiles
WEDNESDAY: In Other Ivory Towers
DON’T DROP THE BASS
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
THURSDAY: Alumni Profiles
FRIDAY: Photos of the Week
SEXUAL ASSAULT
MSU updates misconduct policy Michigan State University administrators update sexual misconduct policy Michigan State University has finalized an update to its sexual misconduct policy, The State News reported. The new Relationship Violence & Sexual Misconduct Policy prohibits dating violence, domestic violence and provides a more detailed definition of consent. The updated policy gives amnesty for drug and alcohol use to students reporting cases of sexual violence. In addition, MSU’s website now presents clearer descriptions of procedures for investigations and disciplinary processes in cases of
SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily
Renaud Garcia-Fons demonstrates his technique on the double bass for the Sally Fleming Masterclass Series Tuesday at Stamps Auditorium.
ON THE WEB... michigandaily.com THE WIRE
Top of the Park location chosen By Emma Kerr The annual Top of the Park outdoor summer festival in Ann Arbor has been relocated for the summer of 2015 to the area near North University Avenue and the southern part of Ingalls Mall.
OPINION
Holidays at home By Dani Vignos Dani Vignos discusses the emotions associated with going home for break and the memories elicited by the return. She reflects on the experience of considering her past as she looks forward to the future in the new year.
sexual misconduct. Last February, The State News reported that the U.S. Department of Education was investigating MSU’s response to allegations of sexual assault. UCLA announces new entrepreneurship minor The College of Letters and Science and the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles, are jointly offering a new undergraduate minor in entrepreneurship beginning the Winter 2015 quarter. Anderson spokesperson Elise Anderson told The Daily Bruin that staff from both schools
CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES
Listening workshop
i>clicker workshop
Concerto competition
WHAT: This workshop focuses on improving listening skills and interpersonal relations. WHO: Human Resources Development WHEN: Today from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. WHERE: Administration Services Building
WHAT: Faculty, staff and GSIs will learn how and why to use i>clicker, LSA’s Audience Response System. WHO: Teaching and Technology Collaborative WHEN: Today from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. WHERE: Mason HallG333
WHAT: Students in the School of Music, Theater & Dance will participate in the final round of the Concerto Competition. WHO: School of Music, Theater & Dance WHEN: Today at 4 p.m. WHERE: Hill Auditorium
Helen & Edgar Ballroom WHAT: Acclaimed dance lessons storyteller Edgar Oliver and The Moth creative team present the world premiere of Helen & Edgar, a performance about Oliver’s childhood in Savannah. WHO: University Musical Society WHEN: Tonight at 7:30 p.m. WHERE: Walgreen Drama Center
WHAT: The ballroom dance team’s best couples will teach two dances to any students interested. They will also showcase dances in between the lessons. WHO: Ballroom Dance Team WHEN: Tonight from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. WHERE: Michigan Union, Rogel Ballroom
Fitness classes WHAT: U-Move Fitness is offering free sample classes including Zumba, Vinyasa Yoga and Hip Hop. WHO: U-Move Fitness WHEN: hour-long classes will run throughout today WHERE: Central Campus Recreational Building CORRECTIONS l Please report any error in the Daily to corrections@michigandaily.com.
began working on the proposal 18 months prior to submitting the minor for approval. UCLA created the minor in response to increasing demand from students interested in pursuing a career in business. “There are no undergraduate business programs in UCLA,” said Linton Wang, a sophomore studying business economics. “Many (students) who are in the major of business economics can only take classes on economics and accounting, and I think it will be a good learning experience for them.”
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THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW TODAY
1
Enough SAID is working with the Detroit Crime Commision and the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office to increase public and private funding to test thousands of rape kits, The Detroit News reported Tuesday.
2
Four recent LSA graduates are currently traveling the globe through grants from the new Bonderman Fellowship, which provides students $20,000 to spend eight months abroad. >> FOR MORE, SEE THE STATEMENT
3
Every year, more than 2,200 people in the United States die from alcohol poisoning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday. Most deaths occur among men, and one in four affect adults ages 35-64.
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BUSINESS STAFF Madeline Lacey University Accounts Manager Ailie Steir Classified Manager Simonne Kapadia Local Accounts Manager Lotus An National Accounts Manager Olivia Jones Production Managers Nolan Loh Special Projects Coordinator Jason Anterasian Finance Manager The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the University of Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for fall term, starting in September, via U.S. mail are $110. Winter term (January through April) is $115, yearlong (September through April) is $195. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must be prepaid. The Michigan Daily is a member of The Associated Press and The Associated Collegiate Press.
Arrest statistics point to police slowdown Arrests decline in New York after two police officers killed
NEW YORK (AP) — Despite efforts by New York City officials to tout a dip in serious crime, another statistic is getting more attention — a steep decline in the number of arrests across all five boroughs in the two weeks since two police officers were shot dead in their patrol car. The totals suggest that a rumored work slowdown has taken hold amid discord between the rank and file and Mayor Bill de Blasio, and raise questions about what impact it could have on the city’s crime rate. Patrick Lynch, head of the powerful Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, insisted Tuesday that the union was
not sanctioning a labor action. He pointed to a shootout during an armed holdup late Monday that left two plainclothes officers wounded as proof that it was business as usual at the nation’s largest police department. Officers, who are working without a contract, are “putting themselves in danger to keep this city safe just as they always do,” Lynch said. But the enforcement statistics strongly indicate that the slowdown is real, even if it was initiated at the grassroots level. Last week, the number of summonses for minor criminal offenses and traffic and parking violations decreased by more than 90 percent compared with the same week a year earlier, statistics show. For example, summonses for urinating in public were down to 347 from more than 4,077
last year. Arrests citywide last week for more serious offenses were down 55 percent. In midtown Manhattan alone, they fell to 112 from 348. Thomas Reppetto, a police expert and author who has written extensively about the New York Police Department, called the results too “overwhelming” to be coincidental and said there could be reallife consequences for the public if left to fester for too long. “If the law is not being enforced in the street, we’re all in danger,” Reppetto said. “The criminals take their cue and run wild.” The figures first plummeted in the week after the two officers were killed on Dec. 20 in a brazen daytime ambush by a fugitive who had ranted on social media that he wanted to avenge the police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. The patrolmen’s deaths exacerbated tensions between de Blasio and police officers already upset by the mayor’s remark sympathizing with protesters who claim a pattern of excessive force in minority communities. The potential for a slowdown was evident the day after the killings, when word began circulating among officers that they should wait to respond to every radio call with two cars and not make arrests “unless absolutely necessary.” A recent online posting on a site popular with police officers referred to the stance as “Operation Stand-down, Protect Yourself, Do Nothing.” Sgt. Ed Mullins, head of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, argued that in the current climate, it would only make sense that police officers would take extra precautions that could result in fewer arrests.
AP
In this Jan. 5, 2015 photo, Tan Chin Hin, center, father of a stampede victim, Tan Wei, cries, holding her portrait, as he arrives back from Shanghai, with the body of his late daughter, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Kuala Lumpur.
After stampede, China aims to prevent outcry Chinese goverment manages family members’ visits to site of disaster SHANGHAI (AP) — Some wailed and some staggered with grief as relatives of the 36 people killed in Shanghai’s New Year’s Eve stampede visited the disaster site Tuesday for seventhday commemorations that are a revered ritual in China. But each family was allowed to stay only about five minutes in the tightly managed visits, and government workers roughly dragged away one middle-aged woman when she began crying out emotionally. The government’s strict arrangements reflect efforts to keep tight controls over the disaster’s aftermath and prevent distraught relatives from coalescing into a critical group that would draw sympathy and galvanize public calls for greater accountability. “Such a major public safety incident can tug the heartstrings of the public, and the acts and words by victims’ relatives can
make the public sentiments swing, making it a key task for authorities to control the families, limiting their contacts with each other or with the media,” said Zhao Chu, a Shanghaibased independent commentator. “Struck by the same tragedy, the relatives can easily resonate with each other, and it’s only natural they want to band together to take collective actions and make collective appeals to the public, and that could mean the authorities losing control over the social sentiments.” The authorities’ grip over such sentiments comes at the expense of the victims’ families, Zhao said. “The method is brusque toward the families, preventing them from resorting to law and to the media, but — in a positive way — it can indeed alleviate the shock to the public.” The victims’ relatives laid bouquets of white and yellow chrysanthemums and bowed deeply to the statue of the city’s first Communist mayor that overlooks the 17 concrete steps on Shanghai’s famed riverfront known as the Bund where the
stampede took place. Three dozen people, including a 12-year-old boy, were trampled and asphyxiated amid a crowd of hundreds of thousands of New Year’s revelers. Late Tuesday night, Chinese state media reported that national authorities as well as governments in Shanghai and Beijing planned to tighten crowd controls during holiday events and other mass gatherings. The reports in the official Xinhua News Agency didn’t specify what additional measures would be taken other than canceling events if they violated safety rules and enforcing existing regulations on sales and promotions. Accompanied by government workers, the families Tuesday were kept in vans waiting for their turns to mourn on the seventh day after death, when the deceased person’s soul is believed to return to the earthly world after disappearing. Some relatives brought photos and offered fruits and burned some fake money. Journalists were corralled several feet away only to observe the occasional wails from the grieving.
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SNYDER From Page 1A 16 dissenters in the House and only Sen. Coleman Young Jr. (D– Detroit) dissenting in the Senate. Snyder told the Detroit Free Press he found it difficult to find an agreeable plan to increase revenue for roads during the primary and general elections last fall. However, Snyder urged the audience during his inauguration address to vote for the initiative in the spring. “We have more work to be done in, for example, transportation,” Snyder said. “No one still likes our roads, and we have an opportunity to fix that this May.” According to the Detroit Free Press, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the Detroit Regional Chamber originally criticized the plan. The groups wanted legislatures to directly vote for road improvement laws instead of putting an initiative on a ballot. The Michigan chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group aligned with the Tea Party, has also criticized the proposal for increasing taxes on the middle class. Education funding The ballot initiative to raise the sales tax will also determine whether $300 million a year will be added toward Michigan’s public schools. The bill, which will remove sales tax on motor fuel, will subsequently freeze the School Aid Fund that relies on funding from this tax. To help offset losses from this fund, part of the new statewide sales tax will go toward education, on top of additional funding from the general fund. Snyder also lauded his administration’s investment in preschool education during his inaugural address, which was included in his $15.8 billion budget in June. In 2011, the governor cut funding to higher education by 15 percent, but has since increased funding by 3.1 percent, 2.2 percent and 6.1 percent in 2012, 2013 and 2014, respectively. Employment The governor also mentioned the need to foster innovation and creative thinking in the state. He discussed the need to reinvigorate skilled trades, such as construction and manufacturing, as an “honorable career path,” while making technical education a priority. Michigan’s unemployment rate currently stands at 6.7 percent, 0.9 percent higher than the national average. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the state’s unemployment rate has dropped 3.2 percent since November 2008, though 193,909 citizens have left the labor force. During his first term, Snyder created and funded various programs to promote skilled trades as a way to boost the state’s employment. The largest, Skilled Trades Training Fund, was created in 2013 to expand training and hiring for trade-skilled businesses.
ZONING From Page 1A ing, ensures residents are pleased with new buildings downtown. “We did not want to repeat the mistake of 413 East Huron, creating a massive building that overwhelms the residential neighborhoods next to it,” Lumm said. “This site, at 425 South Main is one that has the same potential, and fortunately we do have the opportunity to address that risk before it becomes a reality.” Source: City of Ann Arbor The site at 425 Main St. currently includes a surface-level parking lot and the DTE Energy building. Downtown development has been an ongoing conversation in the City Council, and when the proposed zoning changes to this area were presented to the council for its first reading on Dec. 1, three council members believed a D2 limitation was not strict enough. There was also some confusion among council members as to the meaning of D2 zoning, and the council went considered multiple amendments to the ordinance, all of which failed. The
In October, the governor established the Community College Skilled Trades Equipment Program to work with community colleges to provide skilled trades training for students. The program cost $50 million. Throughout his first term, Snyder also promoted technical education through various pieces of legislation, including Senate Bill 66, which requires public schools to provide information on opportunities in technical careers, as well as guidance for including career and technical educational classes in the core curriculum. Snyder’s inauguration address suggested continued focus on these areas to lower the state’s unemployment numbers. “Let’s lead the nation in the career tech education and the skilled trades,” he said in the address. Detroit’s revitalization During his inaugural speech, the governor said one of his proudest accomplishments during his tenure was his work with the city of Detroit. “Detroit has a bright future, and I’m committed in supporting the city and achieving that goal,” he said. In 2013, the city filed for bankruptcy, making it the largest city in American history to do so. At the time of bankruptcy, Detroit was $18 billion in debt. In 2013, Snyder appointed University alum Kevyn Orr as the city’s emergency manager. The two devised the “grand bargain,” a controversial bankruptcy-exit plan that shed some of the city’s debt to pensioners, but involved work with the government, businesses and the Detroit Institute of Arts to slowly contribute $816 million over time to reduce the financial impact on pensioners. Though the bankruptcy concluded, critics have said the “grand bargain” has not resulted in sufficient funds for the city. The plan only generated about $900 million and projected revenue remains almost stagnant until 2023. In October, Snyder touted the city’s comeback during a talk at the Law School. LGBTQ equality Though the governor did not mention social issues directly in his speech, he has come under criticism throughout his term for the state’s legislation regarding LGBTQ rights. During the state Senate’s recent lame-duck session, the legislature failed to pass amendments to the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, which currently protects citizens from discrimination based on religion, race, ethnicity, age, weight and marital status, but not for sexual orientation or gender identity. Michigan gained national attention when the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay on U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman’s decision to allow same-sex marriage in the state. The circuit court upheld the ban this May. Many critics have called for Snyder to take a stronger stance on these issues during his second term.
zoning proposal has been under consideration since June 2014. Councilmember Stephen Kunselman (D–Ward 3) expressed concerns about enforcing strict height restraints on downtown buildings. He also referred to the risk of a repeat of the experience with the building on 413 E. Huron. “Height limits create blocky buildings. I want to see something different, something more palatable to this community,” Kunselman said Other discussions at Monday’s meeting surrounded the need for an amendment to the city’s chicken ordinance (which stipulates regulations for residents who wish to have chickens on their property) ultimately postponed until September, with multiple council members asking why they needed to worry about fixing something that is not broken. City Council is scheduled to meet next on Jan. 12 for a Planning Commission working session at the Community Television Network building. The Council’s next regular meeting will be Jan. 20 in the normal council chambers in City Hall.
COURSE From Page 1A which will feature a variety of documentary-type video segments, video interviews with faculty and interactive elements such as games and online forums. The course creators said they sought to approach online education in a unique way not yet seen at the University, which has made efforts to implement a range of online offerings in recent years. “This is the first time a course has been offered in this way,” Rubyan said. “Not that we’re presenting a drama, but what we try to do is bring different nuggets of that type of thought process into this space, so that when people are watching they have a sense of scope and feel like it’s moving, it’s dynamic.” Presented in hour-long weekly installments, the course aims to provide students with knowledge of the U.S. health care system, Davis said. The lessons will help students learn their place in the system — an effort that frustrates and confuses many Americans — and, more importantly, learn how they can work to improve the system in the future. Though ongoing health care reforms, such as the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, will be discussed, Davis said the course is designed with ample historical context. He wants to demonstrate that many of the current issues have been going on for at least 70 years.
BLOOD From Page 1A to ensure it does not contain the AIDS virus. Modern tests can detect and diagnose a human immunodeficiency virus infection, which causes AIDS, within nine to 11 days of exposure. The article also highlighted data from Australia that concluded that after a 12-month period, there was no significant increase in the risk of transfusion-transmitted HIV from MSM donors. Rea added that a more equitable policy change would ensure
Davis and Rubyan pulled videos from historical archives and presidential libraries to demonstrate how various administrations have approached health care since the time of former President Harry Truman. “The Affordable Care Act becomes so much more understandable through this lens of history,” Davis said. “We’ve taken the time to boil down 70 years of history into key themes that have an arch through all these presidents.” The course will also feature filmed interviews and panel discussions with experts from the University’s Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. Unlike some online courses, which consist of a professor lecturing over a video slideshow, Davis said the format is intended to engage students and make the material entertaining to watch. “Another benefit of the online format … is the chance to combine many different teaching and learning approaches,” Davis said. “In many cases, online learning at (the University) is a video of a lecture — that’s not what this is.” As is typical with online courses currently offered through the provider Coursera, students have the ability to earn a certificate acknowledging their completion of the course, but cannot get University credit. Davis said the course is intended as a “co-curricular” opportunity, one which students from across the University could use to supplement their standard course schedule.
the safety of all blood from all sexually active donors, rather than solely MSM. “The FDA needs to test unsafe sexual practices for all donors,” she said. “It’s absolutely unwarranted to do so just based on sexual orientation.” Rea said BDU plans to keep advocating for more accepting policy changes. “We will continue advocating for a greater change, but now hopefully we will get more donors,” she said. “It gives some hope that there will be more changes made in the future, but we still want to be pushing for more.”
Wednesday, January 7, 2015 — 3A
AWARD From Page 1A time I looked at myself as a student. I studied something I really love and then all of a sudden this kind of put me on the map.” Prince Charles attended the concert and personally gave Chan her award. Chan said she didn’t know she would meet him and was occupied with the opportunity to conduct the London Symphony Orchestra. “He was trying to talk to each of the contestants and when he saw me, he just came straight to me and he was just like, ‘You know you’re amazing, right?’” she said. “I could see that he was so moved. That he felt something in the concert, in the music and he was just like a normal person.” As winner of LSO’s conducting competition, Chan will receive a year-long contract as assistant conductor of the LSO and receive a cash prize. Chan said she is happy to receive the award as a female artist and hopes it leads the conducting field to acknowledge more of its female members. “There have been female conductors out there in leadership positions,” she said. “But of course if you compare it to the
other men out there, we don’t have a lot of us working.” While Chan had a musical childhood singing and playing piano, her interest in conducting derived from the first orchestra concert she attended, which coincidentally was orchestrated by a female conductor. “It’s so interesting what the conductor does,” she said. “You don’t make a sound. You make all these gestures and people will play. And it’s interesting because that first concert that I’d seen in my life, the conductor was also a female conductor, so immediately something kind of stirred up in my heart.” Chan said the best part of conducting is the leadership aspect of the role. “In the end, you really make the team better,” she said. “That’s what I love about it. You inspire people to become better and at the same time you become the spirit behind the team.” After she completes her conducting degree in May, Chan hopes to join the LSO and put on a concert in her hometown of Hong Kong sometime this year. “It has also been a dream for me to bring what I have been learning back home to share with people back there, like my family,” she said. “It would be wonderful if a concert could happen.”
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Venezualan textbooks teach socialism Math and science are taught in the context of the government CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Students here study math by calculating the benefits of government land takeovers. They practice English by reciting where late President Hugo Chavez was born and learn civics by explaining why the elderly should give him thanks. Pro-administration messages scattered through the pages of Venezuela’s textbooks have become yet another point of conflict in this hyper-polarized country, where Chavez’s socialist party won a bare majority in the presidential elections of 2013. Parents recently tossed books into the streets in front of some schools and burned them, acts the loyalist media compared to censorship by the Nazis in 1930s Germany. As children head back to school after winter break, many Venezuelans remain outraged over texts that treat the founder of a deeply divisive socialist revolution with the sort of reverence U.S. textbooks reserve for George Washington. Math lessons include calculations of how much production has increased as a result of the government’s agrarian reform initiative, and how much land the government still has to reclaim from private owners. Students are asked to figure out how much shoppers save at government-subsidized appliance stores created by Chavez. Learning English? Answer the question, “Where was Hugo Chavez born?” “They are brainwashing our kids, erasing our nation’s history, and replacing it with their own version,” said information technology worker Hector Cuevas, who was appalled when his son brought home the books as a
sixth-grader. For defenders, the “Bolivarian” textbooks introduced in 2011 include history traditionally left out of grade school education, and tie lessons to real-life examples in socialist Venezuela. Minister of Education Hector Rodriguez defended the books this fall, and also urged critics to work with the government to improve the collection. “Certainly they can be improved, like any human endeavor,” he said, according to Venezuelan news website Noticias24. “Those who want to criticize should read the books, and when they find an error they should let us know to correct it.” But for opponents, the problem is not errors so much as what they see as attacks on government foes and propaganda for controversial programs. An early edition of the government’s social studies book shows a photo of an elderly person writing, “Thanks, Chavez” and instructs students to explain why.
One book interrupts an explanation of fractions to praise a food program “developed by the Bolivarian government to ensure that the poor can eat.” While all students receive the books, they are in widest use in poor areas, where they are often the only option for teachers. At Consuelo Navas Tovar high school at the fringes of one of Caracas’ sprawling slums, students in navy blue uniforms study their English textbooks at grimy desks crammed into a bare-walled classroom. The book has students discuss a study hall sponsored by a government agency known by an arcane acronym. “It’s a project of FUNDABIT!” one student is told to say. “That is excellent!” the partner replies. Geometry professor Tomas Guardia of Central University of Venezuela has spent months documenting what he and his colleagues call basic errors in math books. One defines a square as a shape with four sides, when
that could be a rectangle or a rhombus. “I’m not a historian, but if the math textbook is so problematic, there’s a good chance this book is also full or errors and propaganda” he said, gesturing to a photo of Chavez embracing a child in social studies book captioned, “The future of the land of Bolivar is her children.” Cuevas, meanwhile, often pulls out his father’s old math textbook to use as a reference for his son. He fantasizes about a collection of textbooks that would reflect his less-sunny vision of modern Venezuela. “They always use examples like, ‘If your mother goes to a government-subsidized supermarket and buys two pounds of sugar and three pounds of meat, how many pounds does she have?’” he said. “Why don’t they use an example like, ‘If you mother spends two hours in lines waiting to buy sugar, and later waits three hours to buy meat, how many hours has she waited?’”
Opinion
Page 4A — Wednesday, January 7, 2015
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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.
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A new year, a new Schlissel?
, for one, have been thoroughly underwhelmed by University President Mark Schlissel since his installment as the 14th president of the University of Michigan. To be fair, I was underwhelmed at the announcement of his presidency last January, prior to public acceptance of the job. Based on his background in higher education, his visible identities and his expressed intent in taking the most highly esteemed position at this university, I didn’t see what he could bring to a campus such as ours. For much of the University community, the 2013-2014 academic year was one of community upheaval and nationally publicized campus turmoil. I wasn’t sure what expertise Schlissel could bring to our campus community that would help address the institutional fault lines and communal fractures that were so clearly in need of attention, resources and just blatant recognition. Six months in to his official term as the supreme power of all things Michigan (emphasis on the block ‘M’), I still haven’t quite figured out what exactly that special something is. In the past six months, Schlissel has really let me down. Not that I expected anything outside of the administrative status quo from him, but even with the tragically low expectations I had, Schlissel had some pretty impressive moments of blatant disregard for the student communities he was hired to represent. Ranging from his comments on student-athletes as not all academically “qualified,” to his dismissal of student demands in relation to sexual assault on campus, he hasn’t exactly proven his commitment to the various student communities. The good news, though, is that Schlissel is only six months into his inaugural term. He still has plenty of time to really prove his commitment to students and show us that he is more than an administrative mouthpiece — that he is an educator committed to investing in all students, in all of their interests and in all of their identities; that he is committed to actualizing the concept of “diversity” in all of its forms, not just using the word in public forms. So as I write my own resolutions for the New Year, I have decided to take it upon myself to write a couple for Schlissel as well. 1) Uplift Student Voices In a statement published by the Daily on Nov. 30, Schlissel responded to a list of student demands regarding sexual assault on campus by saying, “The one thing I will object to, which drives me a little nutty, is framing things as demands. I think that makes it really difficult to have discussions.” This statement dismisses and silences students’ feelings and experiences with sexual assault on campus, as well as their efforts toward
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change. It shows a blatant disregard for some survivors’ and allies’ frustration with the current administrative dialogue and action around assault at the University. In December, University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann joined students at her annual holiday party as they staged a “diein” after the no-indictment verdict in both the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases. This is the type of administrative action that empowers students. Regardless of how Gutmann feels about the verdicts, she was showing solidarity for her students and affirming their feelings. While Schlissel didn’t have to agree with any of the demands, he needed to affirm the feelings of those who wrote them, not mock his students, both survivors and their allies. 2) Stop “Listening,” Start Engaging I really do commend Schlissel on the dozens of campus conversations he has held with students over the past six months. It’s critical for any administrator making decisions on behalf of students to actually meet with the students whose lives their decisions impact. But there is a difference between simply listening to and actually engaging with student concerns. And from what I have personally experienced and heard from my peers, there has been a lot of selective listening and very minimal active engagement. While recognizing six months is a very short period of time, it’s inexcusable to be in several intentional meetings with the president and not once have him, or anyone on his behalf, take a single note on the “student feedback and input” that was requested. During numerous fireside chats (conversations where invited “campus leaders” met with Schlissel for an hour to talk about campus concerns), not once did Schlissel write down a student concern, publicly acknowledge and engage a student grievance or (to my knowledge) schedule follow-up meetings with any of the students in those meetings. So for the next convergence of “student leaders” that Schlissel plans to hold, it would be wise for him to make a sincere effort to actively engage with the invited students. This means doing homework about who is in the room, what kinds of experiences have students in the room had and what work have they already done on the initiatives being discussed. While I may not be his biggest fan, it’s one of my resolutions in the New Year to not freeze people in time, and to allow others the space to learn and grow as I have been afforded. So, happy New Year, President Schlissel. Let’s make this one better than the last. — Carly Manes can be reached at manes@umich.edu.
The economics of oil
ou’re going to get groceries, either in your car or in the passenger seat of your friend’s car. You notice the car’s gas tank is on empty, and either you or your friend drives the vehicle into a gas station. You expect to spend around $4 a gallon. However, to your elation, you realize that gas prices are incredibly low. It’s probably around $2 per gallon. MICHAEL With the recent dip in SCHRAMM gas prices, I’m sure that many of you have either experienced or seen someone else’s excitement over low gas prices. It’s great to save a nice chunk of money without sacrificing consumption. But it’s interesting to see how your saving at the pump is influencing the entire world. The reason for your savings is actually quite an extensive tale. A few months ago, production of oil in the United States rose dramatically as a controversial rock-splitting process known as fracking exposed significant oil deposits in North Dakota and Texas. With the United States adding extra supply of oil into the international market, basic supply and demand models inform us that the increased supply spurs a decrease in price. This implies that for prices to remain the same, international countries must decrease oil output. This simply wasn’t going to happen. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries — OPEC for short — is an organization that works with the world’s largest oil-exporting countries (besides Russia) to regulate the market for oil. The organization met for a regular meeting on Nov. 27 to discuss whether to produce less oil, which they decided against. Since these countries are economically dependent on the oil market, losing a piece of the market pie to America would be detrimental to the countries’ long-term financial stability — even if they must endure lost revenue from lower prices in the short run. So, major oil producers like Saudi Arabia —
the country in OPEC that supplies the most oil — are taking the hit. They’re willing to let oil drop to $20 per barrel compared to the $110 per barrel prices over the summer. And while OPEC is indifferent to these reduced prices, Russia, the largest exporter of oil, is terrified. The ex-finance minister of Russia is quoted as saying, “We are entering a full-fledged economic crisis.” Being the largest exporter of oil in the world, the country is on the brink of a two-year recession. Russia spiked interest rates to the highest rate in 16 years to stabilize their economy, and inflation is predicted to be 12 to 15 percent. This all results in a predicted economic output contraction of 7.9 percent. Not good for the former Soviet Union. I’m sure you’re reading this and asking why this international economics influences college students. Perhaps I’m being a tad of a nerd, but isn’t it at least slightly fascinating that your economic saving has such a wide impact? That it’s the topic of conversation in OPEC meetings involving 12 countries? Plus, decreased oil prices could lead to decreased costs for plane travel and express delivery companies, which could translate to cheaper expenses for you flying home or ordering textbooks via FedEx. These prices also influence your spending in areas outside of traveling. If you’ve saved money, you’re likely spending it elsewhere. More consumption equals a boost in production, labor and company revenues benefitting from heightened purchases. Your Espresso Royale owners, Uber drivers and producers of Crystal Palace are probably feeling these effects. Additionally, even though your consumption contributes to the negative economic echoes in Russia and Saudi Arabia, you may also be their savior. While a decrease in international supply could take prices back to normal, so could an increased demand. Saudi Arabia believes this too, as stated by their oil minister, Ali Al-Naimi. The intuition behind this is that the dip in gas prices will incentivize drivers to drive more. This increased demand for gas would eventually
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compensate the oversupply of oil in the economy. Therefore, your purchase of more gas could increase prices, reviving the Russian economy. So, two weeks from now, when you and your friends are planning that spring break trip to Florida or Cancun, the thought will cross your head that you have to tell your parents. Maybe they’ll be fine with it, but
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if they’re not, you have an out. If they raise concerns about the boozing and risks associated with partying in the sunshine, fire back at them that this trip has nothing to do with Spring Break. Rather, your road trip or flight is a calculated attempt at consuming gas to create an equilibrium in the international economy. You’re trying to stimulate Saudi Arabia’s economy;
you’re trying to be the Mother Teresa to the entirety of Russia. Advising against this trip is simply a disservice to the goodwill of the world. Okay, maybe that won’t work, but if it does, you’ll be thanking me for this column. — Michael Schramm can be reached at mschramm@umich.edu.
Another drop of revision
lthough the season of giving recently ceased, the need for donations of one of the most necessary resources remains constant. Blood circulates unceasingly through our veins, providing our bodies with components essential for MELISSA survival. Yet SCHOLKE dependence upon this combination of cells is overlooked until dire circumstances lead to a deficiency. Due to a tremendous ability to replenish it, we can donate blood to individuals in drastic need. The demand, however, still outweighs the supply. Therefore, blood collection agencies should unquestionably maximize the entire population of eligible donors. Doing so requires banishing unfair deferral practices. Though the Food and Drug Administration recently announced plans for the upheaval of a ban on donations from homosexual and bisexual men, its revised policy remains far from inclusive. According to the American Red Cross, less than 10 percent of eligible donors give blood, but roughly 38 percent of the United States population is currently deemed eligible. I, for numerous years, have constituted a part of this tiny percentage of donors. I’ve both worked and participated in blood drives, and I still donate annually. Unlike some of my more squeamish counterparts, I’m not bothered by needles or the sight of blood. I’ve also been lucky — considering my astoundingly low iron levels — to have consistently met all of the requirements. Friends, family and classmates were deferred from donating. Some didn’t meet the minimum weight requirement. Some possessed low iron levels, while others
were unable to donate due to recently traveling abroad or getting a tattoo. However, falling under the status of “men who have had sex with men” (MSM) was, by far, the most discriminatory reason why those close to me were deferred. Even today, friends of mine — some who are far healthier than me and are probably capable of making double red cell donations — would be unjustly deferred on the basis of sexuality. Previously, a ban upheld by the FDA — initiated in 1993 — prohibited “men who have had sex with other men, at any time since 1977” from donating blood. On Dec. 23, the agency proposed to remove the policy and instead institute a 12-month deferral period. Gay and bisexual men, under the revised program, could now donate blood, but there’s a stipulation. In order to remain eligible donors, the men must not have engaged in sexual activity with another man for a year. Eliminating the heavily discriminatory and archaic prohibition on donations from the gay and bisexual community undoubtedly demonstrates an attempt at embracing equality and good intentions to amend issues. However, good intentions don’t suffice. The new deferral period is meant to increase the pool of eligible donors. By finally granting bisexual and gay men the ability to donate, the prospective expansion is expected — according to a study by the University of California, Los Angeles — to raise the current blood supply by two to four percent. For the University and other institutions holding extensive annual blood drives — such as the Blood Battle — the inclusion of this student demographic would lead to more successful efforts and more patients receiving crucial aid. However, the new policy stigmatizes individuals in a manner similar to the previous restriction. Men from the gay and bisexual communities are eligible to donate only if they don’t possess
active sex lives. Even if the student or individual is in a monogamous, responsible relationship, they still will be denied. No identical policy requires heterosexual individuals to remain celibate for a year in order to donate. Rather, the policy suggests gay and bisexual individuals must alter an aspect of their relationships that remains unquestioned for heterosexuals. According to a statement by FDA, the rationale for the new restriction is that “compelling scientific evidence is not available at this time to support a change to a deferral period less than one year while still ensuring the safety of the blood supply.” Even if testing methods for HIV were inefficient in earlier decades, technology is far more advanced at discovering infections within the blood — discerning issues within a matter of nine days. To further ensure no problems arise, each sample of blood is examined — regardless of the donor’s gender. The same measures utilized to ensure the safety of the blood donated by sexually active heterosexual individuals can be used for gay and bisexual donors. Many countries utilize a similar deferral, but others collect blood on a case-by-case basis. If thoroughness in guaranteeing safety is the concern supporting this method of collection, then institute the deferral period on a very limited basis as definitive research is conducted to determine the magnitude of any potential risks and to promptly revise the policy to be more realistic — by focusing upon individual donations instead of stereotyping. Although it demonstrates some progress, the deferral is unnecessarily discriminatory. Blood drives are meant to aggregate life-saving resources. Donation regulations shouldn’t unfairly require one’s ability to do a good deed to be dictated by their sexuality. — Melissa Scholke can be reached at melikaye@umich.edu.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Edvinas Berzanskis, Regan Detwiler, Devin Eggert, David Harris, Rachel John, Jordyn Kay, Aarica Marsh, Victoria Noble, Michael Paul, Allison Raeck, Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm, Matthew Seligman, Mary Kate Winn, Jenny Wang, Derek Wolfe
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Protection or generalization?
his Winter Break, I took a three-week solo road trip down the West Coast. I started in Seattle, worked my way down to Portland, to San Francisco, to Los Angeles and finally to San Diego. It was my first time traveling by myself for such an extended period of time. Needless to say, it was a thrilling, life-changing experience, but it was also a terrifying one. I am a 19-year-old female, and I was traveling alone in parts of the country I had never visited before. I was equipped with no acquaintances and a delusional sense of direction in each city. I intended to embark openmindedly with the belief that everyone I met had the best intentions. On the contrary, I found myself much more distrustful and wary — something that still deeply disturbs me. Before I left, I packed my bags with paranoid precaution. I made sure to remove my lanyard from my wallet, just to eliminate easy access for thievery. I sewed pouches into all of my underwear so I could carry my cash and cards by hand. I double-, tripled-checked to make sure each pair of pants I brought had pockets so I could store a pepper spray in each one. I crossed off skirts, short-shorts and any sort of V-neck shirt from my packing list just to eliminate any potential desire for my body. Perhaps these were subconscious, automatic instincts or perhaps they were conscious ones that represented a cumulative understanding of what I learned growing up. I wanted, so badly, to trust every single person I met on the way — but society has raised me with an innate stranger-danger mindset. As a young woman, I have naturally grown to fear all unfamiliar men, especially if they are walking in my direction late at night. It feels ridiculous as a modern-day woman to guard myself with this mentality, to keep my walls up because of this anxiety. I should not have to take these precautions simply because I am female, nor
should I harbor this inherently terrified mentality. But I do. I began to wonder: Could my mentality be categorized as sexist? At a superficial level of generalizing all men as potential threats: yes, that is sexist. However, when it came down to resorting to stereotypes to determine my safety, I justified it as a pass I could give myself. I saw all those Lifetime movies and Dateline 20/20 episodes where women met awful fates simply because they didn’t take enough caution. The prevalence of female victimization stories in the media has elevated the statistics to feel higher than they actually are. This is not to say that assault should be downplayed or ignored — it’s certainly important to be updated and reminded of their occurrence. However, their dominance in the news makes it easier to spotlight all men as individuals with suspicious intentions. I began to ponder: If I was walking down a city street alone late at night, and there happens to be a male walking in my direction, what would I do? Though I certainly wish I could say I would brush the thought off and continue on my way, that is not true. I admit, I would instantly clutch onto the mace in my pocket and automatically label him as a potential threat to my safety — just in case anything were to happen. I realize it’s terrible to categorize all men into this hurtful stereotype, but in a situation that involves my safety, I often give myself an excuse to use this “sexism.” Then, I began to contemplate more complex situations. Say it was late at night and I was walking down an urban street alone. On my left, a white male was strolling nonchalantly in my direction. On my right, a calm black male was also moving in my direction. Upon first impression, neither may pose an immediate threat — but I can’t help but wonder which side of the street I would naturally veer toward if forced to make an on-the-spot choice. I have never been in this specific
situation, but I unfortunately have a terrible hunch. As a woman of color raised by school systems that emphasize diversity, I have been taught values of equality that I wholeheartedly believe in. I would like to think of myself as a progressive individual far beyond discrimination of any kind. However, how is it that society — or something inherently wicked within me — has made me naturally and subconsciously succumb to racism and sexism? Even as an educated millennial, why do I still carry these thoughts? We all carry an obscure xenophobia based on negative stereotypes, but we cannot pinpoint exactly why. We intrinsically fear other sexes and diverse ethnicities — simply because our culture has constructed and heightened this fear from a young age. As a woman, I don’t want to carry around four pepper sprays everywhere I go. I don’t want to have to think about a man’s crotch — specifically, how I can possibly knee him there — whenever I encounter the opposite sex. I’d like to not worry about how provocative my clothing may be or how to possibly keep my belongings intact. I am not the only female who carries these fears, and also not the only one who takes precautions based on stereotypes. So how do we change this widespread xenophobic mentality and exaggerated fear? More important than creating this change on a societal level, it’s vital we first change these thoughts within ourselves. Clearly, this is easier said than done. Where do we distinguish the fine line between protecting ourselves and not generalizing based on typecasts? I, like many others, am still searching for the complex, nuanced answer to all these queries, but the solution seems to be just as ambiguous as the questions themselves. — Karen Hua can be reached at khua@umich.edu.
News
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Wednesday, January 7, 2015 — 5A
WINTER BREAK in Review Obama to visit Metro Detroit Wednesday President to announce executive orders ahead of State of the Union address By SHOHAM GEVA Daily News Editor
ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
Class of 2014 winter graduates listen to NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden, Jr., the commencement speaker, discuss the importance of love prevailing in the face of conflict and tragedy.
Students hold ‘die-in’ after commencement Demonstration draws attention to policy brutality By JENNIFER CALFAS and SAM GRINGLAS Editor in Chief and Managing News Editor
Multiple keynote speakers called on graduates to use their diplomas to promote positive change at the 2014 Winter Commencement on Sunday. But after the ceremony, guests exited the Crisler Center to find about 60 students taking that drive to heart. Outside Crisler, protesters gathered for a “die-in” to call for an end to police brutality and racial profiling. The event follows several similar events held on campus in recent weeks to protest grand jury decisions not to indict police officers responsible for the deaths of two unarmed Black men in Ferguson, Mo. and Staten Island, New York. Among several speeches and musical performances during the ceremony, University President Mark Schlissel, University Provost Martha Pollack and NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden, Jr., the commencement speaker, pushed graduates to challenge the status quo as they begin their lives outside of the University. In opening his speech, Bolden echoed the remarks of the 2013 Commencement Speaker Michele Norris, a renowned journalist, who said love should prevail in light of conflict and tragedy across the nation. After protests and calls for reform erupted across the country over the last few months, Bolden called on University’s graduates to play a part in fostering change. “Much as it was for the class of (2013), you arrived at this day of celebration with our nation still struggling to provide peace and justice for all its citizens,” he said. “You are well prepared and ready to make a difference.” Under his leadership as NASA’s first Black administrator, NASA landed a rover on Mars and launched a spacecraft to Jupiter, among other feats, after President Barack Obama nominated Bolden to head NASA in 2009. “It’s time for you to go out and challenge the status quo. It’s the mission of the University of Michigan to, and I quote, ‘Educate leaders and citizens to challenge the present and enrich the future.’” During his first commencement ceremony, Schlissel said he had been looking forward to this day since he was selected as the University’s 14th president in January. In his address, Schlissel asked graduates to chart their own “Michigan stories.”
“I ask, because the stories that intrigue me most, those that drive me and inspire me, are the stories yet to be written,” he said. “You have the tools to help individuals and entire populations. You can create new knowledge and inspire communities. You have the optimism and entrepreneurial spirit to take on the biggest challenges – and you have your Michigan family to cheer you on and support you every step of the way.” University Provost Martha Pollack opened the ceremony, thanking students for their activism on campus and passion for social justice. One of her main wishes for graduates, she noted, was for them to take risks and challenge existing social norms. “I don’t think you (will) shy away from, but instead will seek out challenges throughout your life,” Pollack said. When listing possibilities for students to promote change after graduation, Pollack lauded student activism and the students’ desire for an equitable, diverse campus. “Perhaps, as so many of you have done during your time at Michigan, you will become involved in social activism, challenging all of us to become a better, more equitable and inclusive society.” After Schlissel conferred degrees, hundreds of undergraduate, graduate and doctorate students, family and friends exiting Crisler were greeted by dozens of protesters laying on the plaza. Though die-in protests held across the country over the past few weeks typically last 4.5 minutes to represent the 4.5 hours Ferguson resident Michael Brown spent on the ground after he was shot and killed by a police officer, protesters remained in position until the hundreds of commencement guests funneled out of Crisler. As commencement attendees exited Crisler, they walked around — or through — the group of protestors on the ground. Some encouraged them, while others voiced distaste in their choice of timing the protest after the graduation ceremony. LSA senior Canon Thomas, one of the event’s organizers, said demonstrating after the commencement ceremony provided an opportunity to reach a wider audience beyond University students. He also emphasized the ties between the occasion of receiving a degree and taking steps to enact positive change. “Once you get your degree, as I understand from the mission statement, you’re supposed to go out in the world and make change,” he said. “You’re supposed to take your degree and make the world a better place. So yes you have your degree,
you have it in hand, now what? Come join us and tell everyone with your degree that Black lives matter. We didn’t do it before or during, we did it after. As you walk to your car, I want you to remember Black lives matter. If it’s not appropriate, when is the time? When is the right time for justice?” Law Prof. Martha Jones, who stood beside the students for several minutes during the protest and teared up as she spoke about the demonstration, said she couldn’t imagine a better moment to communicate to the graduates’ family, friends and supporters what students have been working on and thinking about during the past semester. “It makes me optimistic because I think that when we charge students with graduation and commencement and (think about) who they’ll be… we want them to be citizens of the world and to not only have ideas, but to act on their ideas and this to me seems to be absolutely the embodiment of that.” Jones also said this type of broad discussion pairs well with the conversations about diversity and inclusion currently underway at the University. “We still have a serious conversation in house about students, and numbers and percentages that shouldn’t be lost even as we’re now very much part of this national conversation that is focused on police violence — that the experience of our students at Michigan is still very much tied to our numbers. So I hope that we’ll continue with that commitment and still working on that very challenging problem while we’re also part of this bigger discussion. They’re really companion pieces,” she said. LSA junior Rachel Webb, another organizer for the demonstration, worked with University Police to ensure the protest was peaceful and did not obstruct the ceremony. While Webb recognized the need to end police brutality, she noted that protesters must not assume all officers profile citizens based on race. “We were proud of the police officers who stood in solidarity with us,” Webb said, noting that her father is a police officer. “They were very adamant about us exercising those rights.” In response to those criticizing the protest for its placement after the ceremony, Webb said the demonstration did not aim to take attention away from the graduates, but rather serve as a forum to both educate attendees and provide a voice for concerns with which many University students are grappling. “We didn’t want to take away from graduation at all, but there’s a lot of Black grads in that crowd that are feeling these things, and it doesn’t just stop because things are happy.”
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President Barack Obama will visit Metro Detroit Wednesday as part of a three-city tour leading up to his State of the Union address, the Detroit Free Press reported Saturday afternoon.
Citing a statement by White House spokesperson Eric Schultz, the Free Press reported Obama’s visit would highlight his administration’s 2009 efforts to bail out Michigan’s auto industry through a series of intentional bankruptcies and federal loans. The statement also said his remarks would include the announcement of several legislative proposals and executive orders. No further details about Obama’s visit were available Saturday. The White House did not
immediately respond to a request for comment. There are no Michigan events currently listed on the president’s public schedule for Wednesday. Wednesday will mark the president’s second visit to Michigan in recent months. In November, he spoke at Wayne State University to campaign for Democratic candidates in a number of statewide elections. The auto bailout emerged as an issue during this year’s fall election season and was also highlighted during the president’s November visit.
ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
LSA senior Nadir Rehman reminds attendants never to conflate the oppressed with their oppressors at vigil for Peshawar on December 18.
Vigil honors Pakistani students slain in attack Over 100 gather to remember people killed by Taliban By EMMA KINERY Daily Staff Reporter
As part of a candlelight vigil honoring lives lost in Tuesday’s Taliban attack on the Army Public School and Degree College in Peshawar, Pakistan, over 100 members of the University community gathered on the Diag Wednesday evening to reflect on the recent violence in the country. In the Taliban’s most recent attack on Pakistani schools, 148 people were killed — 132 of which were children — and at least a hundred more hospitalized with injuries. At the vigil, which was organized by the Michigan Pakistanis and the Muslim Students’ Association, many of the students stood on the Hatcher Graduate Library
stairs holding Pakistani flags and signs reading, “The smallest coffins are the heaviest,” “Today we bleed together” and “#PrayForPeshawar.” At the bottom of the steps candles were arranged to spell “Peshawar.” Before student leaders shared their thoughts on the events, the group was silent for 10 minutes of reflection. Most of the speakers were of Pakistani heritage and several spoke of personal experiences dealing with violence in the country. “It’s amazing to see all the solidarity,” said MSA President Saher Rathur, an LSA senior. “People of all ethnicities attended the event to show their support for Pakistan.” Many of the speakers discussed their hope that the media does not define all of Pakistan by these attacks. Speakers asked attendants to pray for Pakistan and the families affected by the attacks. MPak President Mansoor Saqib, an LSA senior, said he
hopes the media depicts these attacks with nuance. “Instead we should focus on why this attack took place,” Saquib said. “What were the real political agendas of these groups or monsters? What is our government and the Pakistani government doing to perpetuate such violence? And more importantly, what can we as citizens of this world do to stop violent tragedies like this from frequently repeating?” Following the vigil, organizers held a traditional funeral prayer in Mason Hall and prepared a card for attendees to sign and send to Peshawar. LSA junior Haider Malik’s family lives in Peshawar and he attended school there before coming to Michigan for college. He said he hopes the United States does not react with force as it did in its response to the September 11 attacks. “Let us not seek to respond to force with more force,” Malik said. “That’s not the answer.”
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6A — Wednesday, January 7, 2015
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European Union likely to continue with sanctions EU divisions make measures against Russia difficult to overturn
ACHMAD IBRAHIM/AP
Divers from the National Search And Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) on a rubber boat conduct their search operation for the victims of AirAsia flight QZ 8501 at Java Sea, Indonesia.
Divers search for crash remnants in Indonesia Pieces from AirAsia crash discovered after weeks of recovery PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia (AP) — At least two divers plunged into the choppy waters early Wednesday during a break in the bad weather to search for two large objects suspected of being chunks of the fuselage of the AirAsia plane that crashed more than one week ago, an Indonesian official said. A U.S. Navy ship, the USS Fort Worth, detected the latest two objects on Tuesday at a depth of 28 meters (92 feet) near the Karimata Strait off Indonesia. “We will start to identify the wreckage, which appears to be part of the jet’s body, as quickly as possible,” Indonesian search and rescue operation coordinator Tatang Zainudin said, adding that teams equipped with a remote-operated vehicle will also try to capture images of the objects. So far, seven objects suspected to be parts of the plane have been detected by sonar on the ocean floor, but strong currents, silt and mud have kept divers from seeing or reaching them.
Zainudin said the bad weather that has held up the search was “frustrating.” Two more bodies were retrieved Tuesday, bringing the total to 39. But there are concerns that it will become harder to find the remaining corpses from Flight 8501, which crashed Dec. 28 with 162 passengers and crew aboard. The crash has put a spotlight on Indonesia, where dozens of new airlines have popped up in recent years to meet booming demand, but a string of deadly accidents has raised concerns about safety. Experts say poor maintenance, rule-bending and a shortage of trained personnel are largely to blame. Infrastructure has also failed to keep pace with exploding demand. The country’s transportation ministry said it was cracking down after it was discovered that Flight 8501 did not have a permit to fly between Surabaya, Indonesia, and Singapore on the day of the crash. It suspended two ministry officials and five workers at Surabaya’s main airport Tuesday for allowing the flight. Others are still under investigation. All AirAsia flights on that route also have been canceled for the time being. It is not known what caused
the Airbus A320 to crash into the Java Sea 42 minutes after takeoff, though Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency says bad weather appears to have been a factor. Just before losing contact, the pilot told air traffic control he was approaching threatening clouds, but was denied permission to climb to a higher altitude because of heavy air traffic. No distress signal was issued. No pings have been detected from the plane’s all-important cockpit voice and flight data recorders. That’s because high waves have prevented the deployment of ships that drag ping locators. The batteries in the pingers on the black boxes are likely to go dead in about 20 more days. “We are confident that rescuers would be able to locate them in time,” said Nurcahyo Utomo, an investigator for Indonesia’s National Committee on Transportation Safety. The search for the remaining bodies has been exhausting for family members anxiously waiting to identify and bury their loved ones. Eight Islamic clerics flew in a helicopter over the site Tuesday and scattered rice into the sea, a local tradition, and prayed for those who perished.
Classifieds RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
HELP WANTED
DOWN 1 Bounce back 2 Uppercut target 3 It’s tender in Johannesburg
4 Market advances 5 Picnic area barrel 6 __-Face: duplicitous Batman foe 7 __ cat 8 Rock concert gear 9 Dreidels and pinwheels 10 Adds to a conversation, as a remark 11 “A Visit From St. Nicholas” poet Clement Clarke __ 12 Seat finder 13 Delight 19 Frau’s refusal 21 Draws back in fear 24 Hairbrush targets 25 Gable/Gardner classic set in Africa 27 Actress Olin 28 __ hygiene 29 Pearl Harbor locale 30 Led to 34 Native Arizonans 35 Obama attorney general Holder
36 Bit of hail damage 39 Swiss luxury watchmaker 40 Strict 43 Deserved 46 Source of TV revenue 48 “Crikey!” 49 Midday tryst 50 Compete in a bee 51 34-Down, e.g.
53 Luau strings 54 Arg. miss 56 Religious leader associated with the ends of the four longest puzzle answers 57 State as fact 58 Great Barrier __ 60 Future bloom 61 Oral health org.
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Russia’s heavy dependence on oil and gas revenues. Zsolt Darvas, a senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels, said France and Italy are among the nations more open to lifting the sanctions while Poland, Britain and the Baltic countries want to stand firm. It’s not certain the talks scheduled for Jan. 15 in Astana will take place — diplomats say high-level preparatory talks are planned Friday. French President Francois Hollande told France-Inter radio that he would only attend the Astana talks if progress could be made in easing the tensions. “The sanctions should be lifted if there’s progress. If there’s no progress, the sanctions will remain,” he said Monday, adding that Putin “of course is not letting on that he has the slightest difficulty.” “The sanctions ... and the decrease of the oil price ... weaken him. He doesn’t say it of course, he doesn’t let people think that he has any kind of difficulty, but he has some difficulties.” So do some European corporate titans.
South Korea threatened by North Korean technology Seoul’s Defense Ministry reports 6,000-member N. Korean cyber army ISEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea said Tuesday that rival North Korea has a 6,000-member cyber army dedicated to disrupting the South’s military and government, a dramatic increase from an earlier estimate of 3,000 such specialists. Without elaborating, Seoul’s Defense Ministry also said in a report that North Korea may
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ACROSS 1 Neutral hue 5 Book of legends? 10 Irreverent radio host 14 Become painfully dry 15 Airboat area 16 Narrow margin 17 Hardly noticeable amount 18 Black-eyed peas dish 20 Like some Netflix movies 22 Wore a belittling look 23 Notable gap 26 More pleasant 27 Pretend nothing’s going on 31 Empty the recycle bin, e.g. 32 Petri dish gel 33 Cast off 37 Informal pass 38 “Also sprach Zarathustra” composer 41 Miner issue 42 Reunion attendee 44 Third Pillar of Islam subject 45 Short stroke 47 Brunch fare 50 Bygone Detroit brewery 52 Gas leak warnings 53 Starts a revolution 55 Comparable to, with “with” 59 Country star with an un-countrylike name 62 What “will keep us together,” in a 1975 hit 63 Hamburg’s river 64 “Transcendental” Liszt piece 65 Blunted blade 66 Downhill coaster 67 Pitching scout’s device 68 Lowly worker
PARIS (AP) — EU sanctions against Russia over the crisis in Ukraine are cutting both ways: hurting Russia as well as pinching some big European companies. But economic relief isn’t likely any time soon, diplomats and analysts say, since EU divisions make the sanctions tough to overturn. France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine are trying to set up talks next week in Astana, Kazakhstan, to ease the tensions behind the punitive measures that, along with slumping oil prices and U.S. sanctions, have sent the ruble sinking. The sanctions, and Russian retaliation, have in turn squeezed corporate Europe — including banks, oil companies, machinery makers and food giants that do business with Russia. European Union rules complicate any attempt to modify
the sanctions put into place last year amid the separatist violence in eastern Ukraine and after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. A unanimous decision by all 28 EU nations is needed to change the sanctions, and analysts say such unanimity doesn’t exist. The main EU sanctions — which have hit Russian banks and oil companies and have banned arms exports and the export of dual-use goods — are in place until the end of July. A first review of some sanctions could come in March. “We don’t turn any sanction screw just for the sake of turning,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters Monday. “The sanctions are responses to concrete situations from the Russian side and concrete situations in eastern Ukraine.” Under the combined blow of sanctions and slumping oil prices, the ruble has lost about half its value this year and the Russian economy has drifted into recession. President Vladimir Putin has promised the economy will rebound, but he has failed to offer a specific plan for easing
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also have gained the ability to strike the U.S. mainland because of its progress in missile technology demonstrated in recent long-range missile tests. It also said North Korea is advancing in efforts to miniaturize nuclear warheads to mount on such missiles. There is considerable mystery, and outside debate, about the state of North Korea’s opaque nuclear and missile programs, which it has persisted in pursuing for decades despite widespread domestic poverty and heavy international sanctions and criticism. North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests since 2006, the most recent in early 2013, and experts believe it has a handful of crude nuclear bombs. Many outside observers speculate that it has not mastered the technology to make the bombs small enough to put on long-range missiles, although some say it may be able to arm shorter-range missiles with warheads. North Korea has conducted several long-range rocket tests, which are seen as covers for banned tests meant to develop missiles that could hit mainland American shores. North Korea says its launches are meant to put peaceful satellites into orbit, and that its nuclear
program is crucial to protecting itself from U.S. hostility. The South Korean Defense Ministry report said North Korea’s 6,000 cyber warriors are dedicated to “paralyzing the South psychologically and materially” and have been conducting cyberattacks to disrupt the South’s military operations and main government systems. It didn’t describe how it made its assessments. The United States accuses North Korea of a cyberattack on Sony Pictures over a movie depicting the fictional assassination of the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un. Washington has slapped sanctions on government officials and North Korea’s defense industry. There are doubts in the cyber community, however, and North Korea has denied any involvement in the breach of tens of thousands of confidential Sony emails and business files. Former South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said in 2013 that North Korea was operating a cyberwarfare staff of 3,000. South Korea accuses North Korea of conducting at least six high-profile cyberattacks since 2007 and many more unsuccessful attempts to infiltrate computer systems of businesses and government agencies.
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Arts
Wednesday, January 7, 2015 — 7A
FILM REVIEW
MUSIC REVIEW
YOUNG MONEY
That’s not how you ride a motorcycle!
Minaj reveals mature ‘Interview’ fails sound on ‘Pinkprint’ COLUMBIA PICTURES
Do you hear anyone laughing?
to live up to hype Rogen-Franco comedy short on laughs By CONRAD FOREMAN Daily Arts Writer
With its release abruptly cancelled amid a hacking controversy, “The Interview” became perhaps the most polarizing movie of Bthe crowded holiday film sea- The son. Sadly, the Interview tale of the film’s release is more State Theater compelling than and Quality 16 the actual plot. Of course, Columbia Pictures longtime writing and directing partners Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (“This is the End”) didn’t set out to tell a heart-wrenching story, but rather to simply make people laugh, and give a big middle finger to Kim Jong-un. “The Interview” opens strongly with Dave Skylark (James Franco, “127 Hours”), famous celebrityinterviewer, and his producer, Aaron Rapoport (Rogen), during
an interview with rapper Eminem, resulting in the funniest scene of the entire film. Soon, it’s revealed that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is a big fan of Skylark, and requests that Skylark come to North Korea to interview the supreme leader for the exclusive of a lifetime. Seizing the opportunity to strike a vulnerable enemy, the CIA intervenes and assigns Skylark and Rapoport the mission of assassinating Jong-un which they accept. However, when the pair arrives in the enigmatic country, they find that things aren’t what they expected. They have doubts about the integrity of the mission, and their plain bone-headedness jeopardizes the entire operation. Given the hullabaloo surrounding the film, one would expect “The Interview” to incite more anti-North Korean sentiment than it does. While Kim Jong-un is certainly the bad guy, the plot goes to significant lengths to humanize him and even generate some sympathy for his position — pressure from his father, insecurity in his masculinity, etc. During the climactic interview, Jong-un’s own dialogue even flips the script on audiences, as he recites facts that call the U.S.’s moral superiority into question.
Aside from the political tones of the film, “The Interview” means to garner laughs, which it does only mildly. In this regard, the film falls short of most of Rogen and Goldberg’s previous efforts, such as “Pineapple Express” (Rogen and Franco’s first film together as co-stars) and “Superbad.” Particularly unfunny is Franco, whose character’s humor stems from his stupidity and relies on dick jokes and ambiguously gay puns. The funniest sequences of the film come from minor roles — the aforementioned Eminem interview and a short scene with Anders Holm (Ders from “Workaholics”), who belittles Rogen about the type of “news” he produces. Ultimately, “The Interview” proves more silly than serious, an escapist comedic fantasy that incorporates elements of real geo-political conditions, rather than a dramatic epic that incorporates comedy. Only someone as oppressive as Kim Jong-un could view this film as a threat. The most interesting legacy of “The Interview” might be its reception among the few North Koreans who get a hold of a copy, though Western society will likely never know if that reception is favorable.
EVENT REVIEW
BRILLIG DRY BAR
Shirley Temple. Shaken, not stirred.
New option for nondrinkers at Brillig By CAROLINE FILIPS Daily Arts Writer
If you’re hoping for a fun night out without the typically embarrassing occurrences of a liquorsoaked night, at long last, your wishes have been granted by Brillig Dry Bar. If you’ve never experienced the dry bar scene, just as I hadn’t, you might assume it to be similar to a restaurant or coffeehouse. I was also unsure of how those of legal age would respond to the nonalcoholic principle. I expected the atmosphere to be just as dry as the bar, but the latest addition to Ann Arbor’s nightlife scene is modern and upbeat, while also alcoholfree. One can enjoy him/herself at Brillig and leave without the regrets of drunken texts and Instagram posts. Throughout the month of December, Brillig has hosted multiple pop-up events to introduce itself to Ann Arborites. Hosted in its daytime coffee shop, Mighty Good Coffee, Brillig is not a permanent gathering place yet. However, its pop-up event on Dec. 26 boasted
a buzzing crowd with a line out the door, foreshadowing a promising future for the unconventional bar concept. As a viable alternative to both the late-night coffeehouse and bar scenes, Brillig is essentially the resurrection of the soda fountain, yet it caters to the new-age customer. Structured similarly to Mighty Good, customers order at the counter, then their food and beverage orders are called out for pickup. Seating ranges from couches, the bar and high and low tables. The eclectic décor, with bikes strung from the ceiling with various maps to educate customers on coffee production, adds to its unpretentious, homey diner vibe. Unlike the usual bar scene, Brillig’s energy is sophisticated, not inebriated. It’s loud, but the noise is categorized by the pleasant cadences of everyday life — friends and families greeting and catching up, with a live band adding soothing sounds of light jazz in the background. In addition to the usual fare of Mighty Good Coffee beverages, the drink menu ranges from the
popular Brooklyn Egg Cream to the Cranberry Sour that I sampled, a deliciously tart and sweet concoction of Michigan-made Vernors and cranberry juice. Brillig also caters to snack cravings, with its pastry case and menu of small plates — snack trays of cheeses and fruits, meats and mustards and the winter cookie sampler. As a Michigander through and through, my usual hangout spot has been Coney Island since I was approximately 12 years old. Though Ann Arbor never ceases to amaze me with its seemingly endless selection of restaurant and nightlife options, I was always homesick for my familiar diner scene. Yet after my positive experience at Brillig, I now hope to frequent the kitschy hotspot. Brillig fits in seamlessly to the city, as it’s everything Ann Arbor is: casual, clean and conceptually innovative. Though Brillig may be overlooked by college students at first glance, it’s a nice alternative to the standard collegiate night out, without wreaking havoc on your liver.
Nicki Minaj bucks hip-hop trends on her third release By ADAM THEISEN Senior Arts Editor
Nicki Minaj became a legend before she even dropped an album. Back in 2010, she stole the spotlight on one of the biggest, A greatest rap albums of all- The time, producing the furious, Pinkprint instant-classic, Nicki Minaj schizoid 32 bars that defined Young Money Kanye West’s “Monster” (off My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy). Not only that, she spent the start of her career making relatively bland top-40 radio hits infinitely better, going on an unprecedentedly killer run of guest verses that would showcase her seemingly unlimited drive and talent, blast loudly at high-school dances and induce nostalgia today. Unfortunately, Minaj’s first album, Pink Friday, was a disappointment. A few strong verses here and there were overwhelmed by bland pop songs. While there were obviously plenty of incentives ($$$) to go for hits, all of Minaj’s character was lost in the meandering tracks (bonus-track-turnedsurprise-smash “Super Bass” notwithstanding). Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded seemed to fix that problem. The delirious weirdness of “Come on a Cone” and the legit hip hop of “Beez in the Trap” found a comfortable home next to sugary pop numbers. Minaj’s sophomore release struck a perfect balance between all facets of her personality. Minaj’s new record, The Pinkprint upsets that diverse balance a little bit, but all in the name of artistic evolution. It’s more subdued, developed and mature, and it’s definitely a must-hear release. At 60-plus minutes (even longer
with bonus tracks), it’s a beast of an album, a sprawling work that presents one of today’s strongest, most versatile artists in a creative sweet spot. Minaj never lets up or coasts throughout the entire album, and she delivers a new high for an already impressive career. Opening track “All Things Go” is a stark beginning, with Minaj getting deeply personal right off the bat. She raps about her teenage pregnancy and abortion and the shooting death of her little cousin, starting the album with sober, powerful words that make you take a deep breath when the track ends. The production on “All Things Go” and many of The Pinkprint’s other tracks recalls Drake’s Nothing Was the Same. The droning keyboards and slow tempos evoke a dreamy, reflective mood, though instead of Drake’s often drug-induced haze we get Minaj’s more wistful remembrances. The Pinkprint starts to accelerate after the first few songs, and really gets into gear once the guest stars show up. Track four, “Get On Your Knees,” is a solid, well-produced pop song, even if perpetual-preteen Ariana Grande still seems way too young to be singing what she’s singing. And then things really turn up on the subsequent song, “Feeling Myself.” The absolutely stellar dream team of Minaj, Beyoncé and Hit-Boy (can you even imagine a better pop-music trio?) join forces to produce a more-than-worthy follow-up to “***Flawless (Remix).” Wrapping themselves in a blanket of utter coolness, Hit-Boy once again pushes boundaries with his heavy, sway-inducing instrumental, Minaj fires off lines like machine gun rounds and Yoncé literally stops the world for a moment before allowing us all to carry on. Elsewhere, Dr. Luke handles a plurality of the production duties. Putting recent unsettling allegations aside, the hitmaking superproducer does exactly what he’s supposed to do and does it well. He brings a sparse, chilly beat to the recent single “Only,” which showcases a confident-as-always Minaj but also contains a juvenile verse from Drake, some uninspiring bars
from (still relevant!) Lil Wayne and Chris Brown, for some reason. Dr. Luke also pilots the formulaic-butcatchy “The Night Is Still Young,” with its M83-esque chorus and fierce Minaj verses, and first single “Pills n Potions.” The beginning of the album’s comedown, “Pills n Potions” would be a typical slow-burn lighter-waver in most hands, but Minaj elevates it with her meaningful lyrics and emotional delivery, creating a hip-hop “Someone Like You” that’s sweet and wistful with a shade of darkness layered in. Hm, am I forgetting anything? Oh yeah, just “Anaconda,” one of the craziest, most talked about songs of the year. In a partystarting, furiously chaotic career highlight, Minaj subverts the misogynistic rap classic “Baby Got Back,” turning it into an empowering celebration of her own sexuality. Almost all of Minaj’s work on The Pinkprint is more subdued than in her early days when she tore “Monster” to shreds like a hungry lioness would devour a zebra, but “Anaconda” brings back the unpredictable maniac Minaj, and my god is it glorious. 2014 was certainly not the year of the hip-hop album. Aside from probably ScHoolboy Q, there were no huge album releases this year, with most rappers electing instead to release material as quickly as possible over the Internet, or not release anything at all (looking at you, Yeezy). But Nicki Minaj changes everything. At over an hour long, The Pinkprint is almost impossible to swallow whole in the Internet era, but even on a track-by-track basis the work is still stellar. Minaj is confident and impenetrable, not failing once while taking even more artistic risks. On the last track, “Grand Piano,” she even brings a beautiful singing voice out of nowhere. Even if the song gets a little schmaltzy, it’s just so impressive that Minaj continues to achieve success beyond her audience’s high expectations. As fantastic as she is, she’s still continuing to grow as an artist, and I already can’t wait to hear what comes next.
Arts
8A — Wednesday, January 7, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Daily Book Review: Endearing ‘Janice’
FILM REVIEW
Refreshing cop novel humanizes the NYPD By KATHLEEN DAVIS Senior Arts Editor
THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY
Sid the Sloth? Really?!
‘Imitation Game’ takes few chances Historical drama sidesteps controversial themes By ZAK WITUS Daily Arts Writer
Richard Lewis, my “Introduction to Cognitive Science” professor, might blush when he reads B the following anecdote. The In lecture last Imitation semester, while introducing our Game class to Alan The Michigan Turing, whom many praise Theater as the founder The Weinstein of computer Company science and computational theory, Rick suddenly stopped his perpetual pacing and his voice dropped out. All of us in the lecture hall stopped scribbling and typing and raised our heads. Rick’s eyes welled up with tears. “See, Alan Turing was gay,” he said. Now, you might be thinking: “that Richard Lewis is a terrible, prejudiced, homophobic bastard!” but Rick wasn’t crying because Turing was gay. Rick got all weepy because even after Turing’s scientific breakthroughs, which we still talk about today (e.g., my philosophy professor this semester (Winter 2015) just assigned our class Turing’s 1950 paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” for Thursday), and even after helping break the Nazi encryption code — the infamous “Enigma Machine” — the British government arrested, tried and convicted Turing of “indecency,” or, simply being gay. Rick explained that the British court offered Turing a choice: chemical castration or two years in prison. Turing chose the former, and then, after one year of hormone therapy, he committed suicide. “The Imitation Game” tells the same story but with the grand gesticulation and technicolor pathos of a film with the name of another man on its mind: Oscar. As they sometimes say about good film actors, “The Imitation Game” hit every mark. The filmmakers did what they thought would win the affection of the Academy: they had the actors spiel pseudo-wisdom that viewers could recite on their drive home from the theater; they told a story using the two big Oscar buzzwords (gay and war); and they told a story that’s exoterically enjoyable but makes you feel smart and sophisticated.
That’s not to say that it’s a bad film, because it’s not. By dressing itself up in the generic Oscar garments, “The Imitation Game” ends up looking pretty good. But by imitating greatness instead of creating it itself, the film is just mediocre — which people often think means “bad,” but actually just means “medium.” Though Turing was, as they say in the film, a “poofter,” the film’s depiction of Turing is not homosexual enough. The film appropriately doesn’t depict Turing’s gayness with as much flamboyant fabulousness as, say, “Paris is Burning.” On the other hand, the film shows almost none of Turing’s gay behavior. The emphatic absence of romance between Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch, “Star Trek Into Darkness”) and Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley, “Pirates of the Caribbean”) makes sense in this film, especially because Hollywood audiences would typically expect a hot, sexy romance between Knightley’s and Cumberbatch’s characters. But it’s worth pausing over the fact that though this violation of our expectation serves the gay theme on the surface we still get to gawk and drool over the heartwrenchingly gorgeous Knightley. IEssentially, the film (again) is too hetero, and Clarke/Knightley’s sexiness, instead of just echoing down the empty corridors of Turing’s homosexual desire, also resonates with the heterosexual male audience’s libidinous (ahem) “tuning fork.”
‘The Imitation Game’ doesn’t challenge its audience enough Despite being frequently mistaken for Sid the Sloth from the “Ice Age” saga, Cumberbatch has the perfect face for this character and he manipulates it masterfully. Cumberbatch adopts a refined countenance that conveys the depth of Turing’s intelligence even when he isn’t speaking. He’s had plenty of practice making the smartguy face on his television show “Sherlock.” Throughout the film, his face often evokes that peculiar feeling you sometimes experience when conversing with an exceptionally intelligent individual — which, now
that I think of it, is just the feeling of someone actually listening to you. As in real life, we respond to Turing’s (i.e., Cumberbatch’s) careful listening by listening more carefully ourselves. Turing’s attentive gaze and bright eyes make us realize that we’re dealing with a formidable intelligence, but, before Turing verbally responds to who or what he’s attending to, we don’t know what that intelligence is currently calculating or computing, so we lean in further. Cumberbatch completes his construction of the (ahem) “enigma” that is Alan Turing by adding in nervous twitches and stuttering, thus transforming what might otherwise be, and often still is, an arrogant and narcissistic English professor into an endearingly awkward but exceptionally brilliant war hero. As previously mentioned, the film riffs on two of modern Hollywood’s most popular themes: gay identity and war. But we have to ask: What image of war does this film project? What message about war does it try to convey? Just as the film avoids direct contact with Turing’s gayness, it also avoids direct contact with war. Just as we see (virtually) no gay romance or sexuality, we also see no bloodiness, brutality or violence. (The most physically violent image is a firm shoulder bump that sends the feeble Turing to the floor.) The absence of physical violence serves the film’s subject matter: The film has no superfluous pretenses about the kind of war film it’s trying to be. It’s the kind of war film where the most violent image (physical, psychological or otherwise) is the unplugging of the code-breaking computer. But it’s worth noting how war is present in the movie as it is in the consciousness of most Americans — a mere abstraction — and therefore it doesn’t present us with any sights or sounds that could potentially challenge or offend our society’s “civilized” (i.e., dull) sensibilities. Even with Turing’s gayness, which serves as a cornerstone of this film, we don’t see much of his suffering (e.g., his hormone therapy). In short, “The Imitation Game” doesn’t challenge its audience enough: By avoiding the naked reality of Turing’s gay identity as well as World War II, the film avoids too much of its potentially very upsetting and hence very controversial subject in favor of appealing to a wider PG-13 audience.
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In an intensely polarizing year, it’s hard to find a subject more relevant than attitudes towards police. Between the shootings of Michael Brown and Tamir Rice (among others) and protests for “Black Lives Matter” as well as pro-police “Blue Lives Matter,” it seems as though everyone has an opinion regarding the role of cops in the United States. Whether your recent thoughts toward the boys in blue have been critical or defending, it’s important to step back and realize one universal truth: when it comes down to it, policemen are just everyday people. There are going to be good ones and there are going to be bad ones, and sometimes it takes one appropriately timed book to bring this to light. “Uncle Janice,” the sophomore novel by Matt Burgess (“Dogfight, a Love Story”), is a refreshing cop novel featur-
ing an unlikely yet necessary hero: Janice Itwaru, a mixed race, take-no-shit young policewoman from Queens. It’s Janice’s attitude toward her career choice, motivated substantially by both the need to support her dementia-stricken mother and her childhood love of superheroes, that allows the reader to step back from recent good cop versus bad cop dialogues and view the profession from a subjective point of view. Janice’s role in the NYPD is that of an “uncle,” an undercover cop who tries to buy drugs off the street so her backups can arrest the dealer for possession charges. It’s a dangerous job, and Janice is quite literally dying to become a detective, a job that requires a certain amount of “buys” off dealers before she can be promoted. Janice wants to be a detective more than anything, and “Uncle Janice” follows the titular character as she pushes through adversity from her co-workers to make her last buys. This is all while navigating dangerous drug slingers, her personal life and her deteriorating sanity. Burgess’s portrayal of working class New York City provides a view unseen in popular works like “Sex and the City” or
“The Wolf of Wall Street.” This city is a community of workingclass people trying to get by, and sometimes that means taking on a dangerous career that requires no college education, like a cop or drug dealer. The witty internal monologue Burgess gives to Janice allows the reader to melt into her world, as one could be listening to a friend as she trashes her colleagues after a long day of work or explains how her lack of a boyfriend is due to the time commitment her job requires. Janice Itwaru isn’t a typical narrator, but that’s what makes her character so believable and endearing — even when her decision-making skills lead her into cringe-worthy situations. Like a real person, Janice has good qualities and bad ones, and she makes both good and bad decisions. The reader follows her through the realization that she may or may not be an alcoholic like her father and that she may be falling prey to the same early onset dementia as her mother. “Uncle Janice” may be primarily a cop novel, but its strength lies in the fact that this is a novel about people, and realistic ones at that.
FILM REVIEW
ANNAPURNA PICTURES
Do you know how hard it is to act with all this makeup on?
Dark ‘Foxcatcher’ a Freudian nightmare Strong performances fill characterdriven drama By CATHERINE SULPIZIO Senior Arts Editor
Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher” derives little of its suspense from the climactic spoiler the entire audience knows is coming. As it should — the 1996 trial of paranoid- B+ schizophrenic John du Pont Foxcatcher held national interest because The Michigan of its titillating Theater combination Annapurna of American Pictures aristocracy and Olympic lore. On the cinematic stage, it plays out a more psychological brand of strife: brother against brother, father figure against father figure. The brothers of “Foxcatcher” are Mark and Dave Schulz, two Olympic gold-medalist wrestlers. Post-victory, Mark (Channing Tatum, “Magic Mike”) lives in moderate poverty, training all day before returning to his dim apartment to eat Ramen and play Nintendo in solitude. In contrast, older brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo, “The Avengers”) has a successful coaching career and a loud, happy family no doubt aided by his easy charisma, which Mark holds in taciturn resentment. So when, out of the blue, billionaire John du Pont (Steve Carell, “The Office”) of the eponymous pharmaceutical company (and fortune) offers to sponsor Mark’s training at his Foxcatcher training center, he takes it up with-
out any hesitation. Mark, with his clumsy muteness, isn’t a personable character, but his immediate and childlike trust pangs the audience’s heart. Du Pont is the dwindling end of the du Pont family line: with no role in the company and an endless supply of money, he lives in the sprawling estate with his domineering WASP mother, who together, live out — surprise! — a veritable knot of Freudian neuroses. Du Pont isn’t a good coach or wrestler; he has more money than sense, along with a bevy of substance problems. However, he longs to exert a paternal influence over the fatherless Mark. Du Pont eventually lures Dave to coach the Olympic-hopeful Foxcatcher team. From here, the dueling personalities drive the second half’s tension, as Mark struggles to emerge from his brother’s influence, and John sucks Dave into a petty, unrequited rivalry. In “Foxcatcher,” the sport of wrestling is stripped from its patriotic residue. Sure, Mark and du Pont laud it as the embodiment of America’s noble, patriarchal values, but their wistful reminiscences feel as outmoded as the du Pont family. This isn’t “Rocky,” where boxing’s potent masculinity is the saving grace for an outsider. Here, wrestling chisels away at all respites to the outside world, until its protagonists teeter on an unsustainable sliver. It’s the exquisitely directed scenes that illustrate just what an animalistic and low (as du Pont’s mother puts it) sport it is. In one scene, Mark pins down his opponent, whose legs release spastic tremors like an agitated animal in its death throes. This is in contrast to the training scenes, which feel balletic
in their choreography. They’re important because they work out Mark’s intensely physical character, the type of man who feels through doing. In an early scene with Dave, their well-practiced movements glide from brotherly intimacy into tempestuous spates of simmering resentment. Needless to say, Tatum’s attention to detail is remarkable in his performances — Mark is mentally slow and quiet, but never flat. Ruffalo brands Dave with his signature sincerity, saturating him with all the natural charm and likeability that overshadows his younger brother. Perhaps it’s because du Pont receives little respective characterization that his role is stagnant. While prosthetics and makeup transform Carell’s personable face into a creepy mask, his performance is Michael Scott on ego-maniacal overdrive. In real life, paranoia and schizophrenia probably drove du Pont to murder Dave, but in “Foxcatcher,” deep-seated mommy issues and jealousy are positioned as the unsatisfying motives. As it stands, a quieter ending would have better fit “Foxcatcher” ’s modus operandi for the bulk of the film: to telescope the imperceptible, unstable and familial politics of the trio. The film is threaded with Miller’s skillfully composed glimpses, which illustrate du Pont’s power maneuvers. In one scene, du Pont’s lawyer prods Mark with a series of questions, like whether he owns property, when his parents divorced and who raised him, that methodically reveal Mark’s isolation. But for this nuanced and un-theatrical atmosphere Miller superbly crafts, that final gunshot is too loud, too disruptive.
SportsWednesday The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | January 7, 2015
C
Peaks & (Happy) Valleys
Photos by James Coller
Michigan 73, Penn State 64
HARBAUGH HIRED n Michigan introduced head football coach Jim Harbaugh last week. He has a chance to fulfill a childhood dream. SportsWednesday Column, Page 2C
STATE BEAT
n The Michigan women’s basketball team upset then-No. 24 Michigan State on Sunday at Crisler Center. Page 3C
SportsWednesday
2C — January 7, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SPORTSMONDAY COLUMN
S
Childhood aspirations become reality
ince he was a child, Jim Harbaugh has imagined leading Michigan to a win over Ohio State. “I’ve been thinking of (playing Ohio State) since I was eight years old,” ALEJANDRO Harbaugh ZÚÑIGA told the Daily before the 1986 season. “Playing against the Buckeyes in Ohio State’s stadium for the Big Ten title — that would be a dream come true.” During the week before The Game that year, Harbaugh guaranteed Michigan would beat the Buckeyes in Columbus. So confident was the quarterback that he and co-captain Andy Moeller had purchased a plaque for coach Bo Schembechler commemorating his 166th victory in Ann Arbor — a result that would put him ahead of Fielding H. Yost as the Wolverines’ all-time leader. And Harbaugh backed up his guarantee, playing game manager for Jamie Morris as the running back slashed Ohio State for 210 yards to key a 26-24 victory. “I didn’t say it to be cocky or arrogant or anything,” Harbaugh said of his promise after the win. “I just said what I felt.” Then he and Moeller presented Schembechler with his plaque. ***
N
ow that he’s Michigan’s coach, Harbaugh isn’t making any more bold predictions. “I made a guarantee a long time ago, and I’ve learned from that,” he said last Tuesday.
LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/Daily
Jim Harbaugh once guaranteed a win over Ohio State as Michigan’s quarterback. Now he has a chance to deliver as its new head coach.
But it isn’t hard to imagine greatness with Harbaugh at the helm. After all, he has succeeded everywhere he has been, including at Michigan as a player from 1983-86, at San Diego and Stanford as a college coach from 2004-10, and with San Francisco fom 2011-14. And there is returning talent across the board. The offensive line, which was passable despite its inexperience in 2014, returns in its entirety. The running back trio of Derrick Green, De’Veon
Smith and Drake Johnson will be joined by a former fivestar recruit, Ty Isaac, who transferred from Southern California and sat out last season. The secondary corps is solid, as are the linebackers and the receivers — though the Wolverines will need to replace Devin Funchess. Get a decent defensive line and forge a reliable quarterback out of either sophomore Shane Morris, freshman Wilton Speight or early enrollee Alex
“I made a guarantee a long time ago, and I’ve learned from that.”
Malzone, and suddenly you have pieces for what could be an elite team. And have you seen Harbaugh’s track record of improving quarterbacks? Can you imagine how good Michigan’s defense could be with D.J. Durkin at coordinator and Greg Mattison coaching the linebackers? “There are no turnarounds at Michigan,” Harbaugh said during his introductory press conference last Tuesday. “This
is greatness and a long tradition of it.” Maybe Harbaugh hasn’t been following the Wolverines since 2008. Then again, maybe Harbaugh’s Michigan will look more like the Michigan of 1986 than anything we’ve seen lately.
“Hackett, you did a great job. Harbaugh, get to work.”
won the Super Bowl. He didn’t go out a winner at Michigan, either — he lost the Rose Bowl his senior year. But he’s the right man for the job. And — with apologies to Jim Hackett — it’s not just because he’s a “Michigan Man,” either. He turns mediocre quarterbacks into great ones and turns losing teams in championship ones. “There is no quarterback in the country that I’d rather go into the season with than Jim Harbaugh,” Schembechler said in 1986. There’s no coach Michigan would rather go into the 2015 season with, either. One recruit expects Harbaugh to land several bigname recruits before signing day. Many current players expressed their disbelief and excitement that Michigan had hired such a big name. A former player said he wished he could re-enroll and run onto the Big House turf again. What would Schembechler say of Michigan and Harbaugh now? “ ‘You got the right guy,’ ” Lloyd Carr imagined. “ ‘Hackett, you did a great job. Harbaugh, get to work.’ I think that’s what he’d say. He’d be awfully happy.” As for Harbaugh? Well, he isn’t making any promises. But it’s time to get to work — starting with a team meeting Wednesday night. After all, Michigan hosts Ohio State in just 325 days. Harbaugh has been preparing for that moment since he was a child.
***
H
arbaugh can’t win the big game. That’s what his critics say. His 49ers reached the NFC Championship in three consecutive seasons but never
Alejandro Zúñiga can be reached at azs@umich.edu or on Twitter @ByAZuniga.
For all Harbaugh coverage Check MichiganDaily.com’s football page
FOOTBALL
Michigan appoints Harbaugh as coach By MAX BULTMAN AND GREG GARNO Daily Sports Editor and Daily Sports Writer
Jim Harbaugh’s first press conference as Michigan football coach was filled with laughter and clapping from the players, coaches and family looking on. But the room of hundreds went quiet when Harbaugh was asked if he was inheriting a turnaround program. “This is Michigan,” Harbaugh said. “There are no turnarounds at Michigan. This is greatness.” He added in his statement: “Throughout my life I have dreamed of coaching at the University of Michigan. Now I have the honor to live it.” The Michigan Athletic Department announced the hiring of the former San Francisco 49ers coach on Tuesday afternoon, the 20th coach in program history. Harbaugh agreed to a seven-year contract paying a base salary of $5 million per year. Hoarse-voiced from a gatorade bath in his NFL-finale Sunday, he handled his first press conference nearly an hour after addressing his team for the first time. Harbaugh didn’t give a timeline for when he planned to name a coaching staff. A former quarterback under Bo Schembechler, Harbaugh was an All-American and Heisman Trophy finalist, but he’s been part of the Wolverines’ program since he was nine years old. Harbaugh’s father, Jack, was the defensive backs coach at Michigan while Jim was growing up. It was then, Harbaugh said, that he first dreamed of coaching at Michigan. “When I was nine to 10 years old, there was a time when I was
sitting in coach Schembechler’s office. I was sitting in his chair; I had my feet up on his desk,” Harbaugh recalled. “He walked in and said, ‘How ya doin’, Jim?’ And I said, ‘I’m doing great Bo, how you doin’? He said, ‘Whattaya doin?’ and I said, ‘I’m sitting in your chair, coach!’ ... There’s just been times in my life where I’ve thought about it, dreamed about it, and now it’s time to live it.” In addition to his $5 million base salary, Harbaugh’s contract includes incentives for playing in ($125,000) or winning ($250,000) the Big Ten Championship Game, a $50,000 bonus if he is Big Ten Coach of the Year and a $150,000 bonus for each year the team’s Academic Progress Rate is 960 or higher. He can also earn $300,000 for playing the College Football Playoff or $500,000 for winning the national championship. His contract includes a $2 million signing bonus. Michigan marks Harbaugh’s fourth head coaching job in the last 10 years, most recently in San Francisco, where his base salary is roughly the same as it will be with the Wolverines. “I kind of think of myself as a construction guy,” Harbaugh said. “You build this home, and hopefully it’s a great cathedral, and then afterwards they tell you, ‘Go build another one.’ And I feel like that again. … But I’d really like to live in one permanently. And that’s what I’m really hopeful for here.” Harbaugh insisted his decision to take the Michigan job had little to do with his salary or financial considerations. “I really made a decision from the heart, which I thought was best for myself and my family,” Harbaugh said. “I’m very excited by it and very challenged by it.”
“There are no turnarounds at Michigan. This is greatness.”
LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/Daily
TOP: Jim Harbaugh was introduced as Michigan’s head football head coach with his family in attendance. BOTTOM LEFT: Interim Athletic Director Jim Hackett hired Harbaugh away from the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers just two months after taking over. BOTTOM RIGHT: Harbaugh stands with his youngest son, Jack, 2.
SportsWednesday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
January 7, 2015 — 3C
LeVert lead resurgence Sharp shooting powers Irvin, Shooters break out of slumps to key Wolverines over PSU offense in win By MAX BULTMAN Daily Sports Editor
STATE COLLEGE — From the moment Zak Irvin’s midrange jumper on the game’s first possession went through the net, the Michigan men’s basketball team finally shot the ball the way it’s supposed to. Coming MICHIGAN 73 off a game PENN STATE 64 against Purdue in which they shot 18.2 percent in the second half, the Wolverines rode a much-improved shooting effort to dispatch the Nittany Lions, 73-64. Junior guard Caris LeVert finished with 18 points and Irvin added 17, both bouncing back from an ugly game against the Boilermakers that saw the pair shoot a combined 4-for20 from the floor. Tuesday, the two combined to shoot over 70 percent. “I think we slowed the game down,” LeVert said. “We took (much) easier 3s, and when the shot clock came (down) I think we got good shots.” Despite Michigan shooting 53.3 percent from the floor, the Nittany Lions hung around the whole way. Even when freshman forward Aubrey Dawkins used back-to-back 3-pointers to stretch the Wolverines’ lead to double digits with 11:40 to play, the Nittany Lions had an answer. D.J. Newbill, the Big Ten’s leading scorer, and John Johnson kept Penn State alive until the game’s final minute, making 12 of the Nittany Lions’ 22 field goals and finishing with 20 and 16 points, respectively. After Dawkins appeared to create some separation in the game, Newbill led a 12-2 run that knotted the game at 53 with 7:40 remaining. But down the stretch, LeVert looked cool and composed,
creating space for himself on one jumper in the lane and beating the shot clock on another from the wing to keep Michigan steady. “They went to that matchup, that little 2-3 zone, and we kind of were stagnant a little bit,” LeVert said. “I just tried to take it upon myself to get some easy baskets.” Finally, Irvin got loose on a fast break and threw down an easy dunk to put the Wolverines up by eight with under a minute to play. And while Johnson knocked down a corner 3 to keep it close, Penn State couldn’t make another rally. Michigan (2-1 Big Ten, 9-6 overall) might have been able to run away with the game in the first half had it not committed nine turnovers. The Wolverines shot 12-for-23 from the floor and 85.7 percent from beyond the arc in the first frame, a huge turnaround from their abysmal performance against Purdue. Irvin and LeVert combined for 19 of Michigan’s 36 first-half points and went 3-for-3 on 3-pointers. Normally, that kind of showing would have given the Wolverines a large lead against a poorshooting Nittany Lions squad. But Penn State (0-3, 12-4) wouldn’t go away, thanks in part to several sloppy first-half mistakes by Michigan. Junior guard Spike Albrecht — who started alongside sophomore guard Derrick Walton Jr. in the backcourt — even took points off the board when he made a 3-pointer but had it washed out due to an up-and-down call. Albrecht was also whistled for an early out-of-bounds call along the baseline, looking uncharacteristically unaware of his position on the court. “We would drive into that jungle (down low), and they weren’t giving a lot of help,” said
Michigan coach John Beilein. “You get in there and there’s all these tall trees, and all of the sudden we were just throwing the ball all over the place.” While Albrecht didn’t score a point, he recovered from his early turnovers to record six assists and served to take the pressure off Walton, who has been battling a toe injury since the Progressive Legends Classic in November. Michigan desperately needed a win in Happy Valley to avoid getting left behind in Big Ten play before taking on the elite teams in the conference. And if the Wolverines can build off their improved showing Tuesday, which saw their freshmen rack up 24 points, they may be able to generate some momentum. “The basket is getting a little bigger right now for some of our guys,” Beilein said. “It’s not going in the way it will, hopefully, in the future, but it seems they’re a little bit smoother in their stroke. They’re just feeling a little bit better.”
By JACOB GASE Daily Sports Writer
STATE COLLEGE — For a few minutes just three days ago, the Michigan men’s basketball team looked like it may never score again. A dismal showing against Purdue last Saturday was the low point for an up-and-down Wolverine offense, which has been prone to tremendous cold stretches. Deepening the severity of the team’s recent struggles, junior guard Caris LeVert and sophomore forward Zak Irvin — Michigan’s two main options for carrying the offensive load — had both struggled with bouts of inconsistency since the Wolverines’ victory over Syracuse on Dec. 3. But in Tuesday’s game against Penn State, Michigan’s shooters — who shot 53.3 percent from the floor, including 9-for-15 on 3-pointers — orchestrated a far
more efficient offensive attack. Rather than forcing their shots, the Wolverines instead focused on picking their spots to create better scoring opportunities. “(If you average) eight shots a game, maybe if you shot six a game, you still might make three out of six and you won’t give up two possessions,” said Michigan coach John Beilein. “We all were a lot more selective today.” The resurgent offense — led by LeVert and Irvin, who finished the game with 18 and 17 points, respectively — was the deciding factor in Michigan’s 73-64 victory over the Nittany Lions. In the first half, Irvin looked like a different player than the one who went 2-for-12 from the floor in West Lafayette. After exhibiting poor shot selection and execution against Purdue — including several missed layups — Irvin was back on his game early against Penn State. He drilled a long, contested jumper for the first points of the game and also knocked down his first two 3-point attempts. More importantly, Irvin exhibited both patience and confidence with the ball in his hands. Instead of taking shots
JAMES COLLER/Daily
Sophomore forward Zak Irvin scored 17 points and added nine rebounds in Michigan’s 73-64 win in Happy Valley.
Michigan holds off late push Wolverines race out of gates, withstand late run
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Focus keys victory over Michigan State By JACOB GASE Daily Sports Writer
By KELLY HALL Daily Sports Writer
With 3:52 left in the game, Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico called a timeout. After MICH. STATE 65 jumping MICHIGAN 74 out of the locker room, the Michigan women’s basketball team had started off the second half with eight unanswered points in the first two minutes, leading to the Wolverines’ biggest lead of Sunday afternoon, 49-31. But No. 24 Michigan State was able to steadily hack away at the difference, cutting the lead to just seven points. Barnes Arico needed to steady her team. Her methods worked. Michigan was able to hold off the Spartans in a 74-65 victory. “I think we started to struggle and started to lose our confidence a little bit — especially our young kids,” Barnes Arico said. “We called a couple timeouts, just saying ‘Keep trying to stay aggressive, keep trying to get to the free throw line.’ … It was great for us to have to be in that situation and pull one out.” No one expected Michigan State to start off the Big Ten season 0-3. Nor was it expected that the Wolverines would shock the Spartans, who previously led the series by 63-16 and had won nine of the past 10 meetings. Because Michigan State (0-3 Big Ten, 8-6 overall) was without two 6-foot-7 forwards with injuries, the Spartans had a tough time guarding senior forward Cyesha Goree. Goree shot 4-for-6 in the first half and scored 14 points overall. Michigan State charged Becca Mills with the task of defending Goree by herself, a role that is usually covered by at least two players.
RITA MORRIS/Daily
Kim Barnes Arico’s team held on after a strong start against No. 24 Michigan State for a rare upset of the Spartans.
Though the Spartans were limited, Michigan State leaned on forward Aerial Powers. The redshirt sophomore recorded her 11th double-double of the season and scored 26 points against Michigan. Sophomore guard Siera Thompson set the tone early when she scored the first points of the game in the form of a long 3-pointer. Freshman guard Katelynn Flaherty would follow suit, shooting 4-for-4 from beyond the arc for 12 first-half points. Flaherty later came off the bench again, replacing junior guard Madison Ristovski five minutes into the game. Flaherty’s presence helped lead a 20-5 run midway through the first stanza. With five minutes to go until halftime, the sizable Spartan road crowd was given hope
when guard Lexi Gussert flung up a trey from the corner to lessen the gap to nine points. The Wolverines (2-1, 10-4) headed to the locker room with a 10-point lead. Michigan State couldn’t catch a break, failing to score in the first four minutes of the second half. The struggles continued as the Spartans were limited to five points in the first 10 minutes of the half. But then the momentum shifted. Michigan State went on an 11-0 run and guard Tori Jankoska hit a long 3-pointer to lessen the Michigan’s lead to eight points. Crisler Center erupted into chants of “Go Green, Go White.” The Wolverines and Spartans went on to match each other shot for shot, but nerves started to wreak havoc on Flaherty. In an uncharacteristic showing,
“It was great for us to have to be in that situation and pull one out.”
Flaherty missed two wide-open threes and turned the ball over to Michigan State to give the Spartans their best chance at overcoming the deficit. But she regained her confidence and shot a perfect 3-pointer, followed by two made free throws and a step-back jumper. “My team really helps me, even when I’m missing my shots,” Flaherty said. “They just tell me to stay confident, same with my coaches. I went on a streak when I couldn’t really hit anything and they both told me ‘Keep shooting, keep shooting,’ so I kept doing that and when things fell, I think that really pulled us away.” Added Barnes Arico: “(Flaherty) made some big buckets for us down the stretch and she made some key free throws for us down the stretch. Anytime a freshman is in that kind of pressure situation is really impressive, and I think she handled it extremely well.” Her late poise might have saved Michigan from Michigan State.
early in the shot clock and looking unsure of himself — as he did for long stretches against the Boilermakers — he seemed content to pass the ball around and wait for a better chance. “I just let the game come to me,” Irvin said. “You don’t want to force anything. (I tried) to just take open, good shots that I can make. I think that was a big reason why we won today.” Added Beilein: “(Irvin) has the ability to get (his) own shot, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good shot all the time. Just (by) waiting, getting a little bit more space, a little bit more rhythm, your shooting percentage will go up.” And even when Irvin missed a shot, he refused to give up on the play. After clanking a wide-open triple off the left side of the rim midway through the second half, he hustled to the glass to grab his own rebound. Seconds later, he kicked the ball out to freshman guard Aubrey Dawkins for an easy corner 3. In a game where the Wolverines committed 15 turnovers and allowed 36 combined points from guard D.J. Newbill and backup John Johnson, it was Michigan’s shooting that averted a secondhalf collapse. But with 7:40 remaining, Penn State used a 12-2 run to tie the game at 53. Then it was LeVert’s turn to pull his weight. Despite receiving heavy attention from the Nittany Lions’ defenders, LeVert had no trouble finding scoring chances in key situations. In two separate instances when Michigan was clinging to a one-possession lead, LeVert nailed both a stepback jumper and a difficult banked shot off the glass. Having no trouble finding shots, LeVert stifled Penn State’s comeback attempt. Ultimately, the Wolverines’ shot selection proved to be the difference in an otherwise ugly victory.
In three of the Michigan women’s basketball team’s four losses this season, one of the main problems plaguing the team was a lack of focus on both ends of the court. Confusion on defense, an ineffective transition game and inconsistent late-game shooting were the Wolverines’ undoing in onesided losses against Pittsburgh, Princeton, and Wisconsin. Facing a crucial rivalry game against No. 24 Michigan State on Sunday at Crisler Center, Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico knew her team simply had no room for those kinds of errors. The Wolverines clearly knew it, too. From the opening tip, Michigan’s defense brought the intensity Barnes Arico has been looking for all season, grabbing 15 steals and forcing 24 Spartan turnovers. In a memorable stretch to start the game, the Wolverines forced 11 turnovers before their offense gave away the ball even once. “We really came out and surprised them right away,” Barnes Arico said. “We were super aggressive and were on the attack. Our kids were really focused, playing hard, diving on the floor, doing what we had to do to be successful.” Just as important to the victory was the consistent ability of Michigan’s offense to capitalize on the defensive plays. Instead of throwing errant passes or taking quick, ill-advised shots in transition, the Wolverines made sure the Spartans paid for their mistakes. In a dominant first half, Michigan parlayed Michigan State’s errors into a 20-5 scoring run, including 12 straight points. Freshman guard Katelynn Flaherty, who has occasionally struggled with her shot against
stingy defenses, buried her first four 3-point attempts against the Spartans. All in all, the Wolverines scored 27 points off of turnovers, most of which came in the first half. “Our best offense was off of our defensive pressure,” Barnes Arico said. “When we had to set up in half-court in the second half, we kind of got a little stagnant and weren’t as aggressive attacking.” The importance of focus for the Wolverines became even clearer when they almost allowed their lead to slip away late in the second half. Despite holding Michigan State to two separate five-minute scoring droughts in the second frame, Michigan’s defense let up temporarily with 10 minutes remaining, allowing an 11-0 run. The offense fell a bit out of sync in the later stages as well, finishing the game with 14 turnovers after playing a relatively clean first half. “We had a couple lapses,” Barnes Arico said. “When you’re playing an opponent that’s beaten you 23 out of the last 25 times, you can’t take a possession off. You can’t relax.” But in the end, the Wolverines regained their focus to pull away with a 74-65 win. By getting back to knocking down shots and executing the intangibles — which Barnes Arico always stresses — Michigan was able to pick up its second straight victory over a defending Big Ten co-champion. “We really talked about staying focused, playing hard, doing the intangible things, and I thought we did (today),” Barnes Arico said. “We forced turnovers, we got a 10-second violation, we got a 30-second shot clock violation, we were diving on the floor, we were taking charges … we played incredibly well and made (the win) happen for us.”
SportsWednesday
4C — January 7, 2015
GLI, World Juniors highlight successful break for Wolverines ‘M’ wins GLI down four players competing with Team USA
WOMEN’S SWIMMING
‘M’ wins 3rd straight Orange Bowl Classic By SYLVANNA GROSS For the Daily
By ZACH SHAW Daily Sports Writer
No starts, no problem for Steve Racine. Though it had been nearly two months since his last start, the junior goaltender looked right at home between the pipes at the Great Lakes Invitational in Detroit. Racine stopped 71 of 73 shots and led the Michigan hockey team to consecutive 2-1 victories en route to the Wolverines’ 16th GLI title on Dec. 29. “I had my fingers crossed,” said Michigan coach Red Berenson about the decision to start Racine. “When you’re coaching a team and you get players on the team that aren’t playing well, they’re on the team for a reason. You know you’ve seen them play well. That’s why you recruited them. It’s just a matter of, ‘Can you do it now?’ “I thought Steve Racine stepped up and did it now.” In addition to Racine, Michigan (2-1 Big Ten, 10-7 overall) exceeded expectations at the GLI. Despite losing four key players to a brief stint with the United States World Junior Championship team, the Wolverines were able to avenge previous losses to then-No. 5 Michigan Tech before beating Michigan State the following night. Senior forward Zach Hyman led the way with two gamewinning goals, but Berenson was pleased with the entire team’s effort. “If you were to ask me a couple weeks ago about our chances in the GLI, I would have said that our team is really going to have to
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/Daily
Steve Racine led the Michigan hockey team to two wins at the Great Lakes Invitational, stopping 71 of 73 shots.
overachieve,” Berenson said. “We had players that hadn’t played that well. Our team hasn’t played that well. Our goals-against has not been what it should be. Now we’ve got some players missing, so we really had to step up. “Players that hadn’t been in the lineup on a regular basis were going to have to step in and do a job, and they did that.” The tournament win was the first of any kind for Michigan since 2011, and it comes at a crucial time. Stumbling to a 2-5 start to the season — the team’s worst since 1986 — the Wolverines have won eight of their last 10 games to put themselves back into the mix for the NCAA Tournament. “This is exactly what we needed coming into the second half of the year,” Racine said. “We
know it’s only two games, but it’s something to build off of, and we’re excited for what the rest of the year has to hold.” The wins seem more impressive when factoring in the Wolverines that didn’t contribute to the tournament title. Four of Michigan’s top eight scorers participated in the WJC, where the Americans went 3-2 before falling to Russia in the quarterfinals. Freshman forward Dylan Larkin led the U.S. team with five goals and two assists, and was named one of the team’s top three players by his coaches. Sophomore forwards Tyler Motte and JT Compher and freshman defenseman Zach Werenski also contributed to the team’s tournament run. Though they weren’t able to aid Michigan over the break, the
“This is exactly what we needed coming into the second half of the year.”
four look to utilize the added game experience in the second half of the season. “It’s really nice because we just played in a bunch of pressure-packed games, very high intensity,” Compher told MGoBlue.com. “To come back and know that there’s something to look forward to right away with a really big series helps get my mind off of what wasn’t a great tournament really.” While Compher and company competed at an international level, the Wolverines still in Ann Arbor were able to rest for the first time since the season began. Based on the results in Detroit, it was much-needed. “The break was a good chance for us to regroup,” Racine said. “The first half of the season didn’t go exactly how we wanted it to go. So we went home, had some nice time with our families. We knew coming back that we had to step it up, and that guys that hadn’t had opportunities before would be called on and had to make the most of it.”
When it comes time for the Michigan women’s swimming and diving team to compete, coach Mike Bottom leaves his athletes with one expression to draw inspiration from. “Why not me?” This past weekend in Key Largo, Florida, the Wolverines responded with a first-place finish in the Orange Bowl Swim Classic, marking the third straight victory at this shortcourse meter event. The team placed either first or second in eight of the 10 individual events. In three of those events — the 100-meter free, 100-meter backstroke and 50-meter backstroke — the Wolverines placed in the top three spots. Michigan’s swimmers set four Orange Bowl Swim Classic records. One of Michigan’s recordsetters included junior Ali DeLoof, who, despite primarily swimming backstroke and freestyle, placed first in the 50-meter butterfly (28.02). Three of her teammates also earned first with record times: freshman Gillian Ryan in the 400-meter freestyle (4:16.17), freshman Clara Smiddy in the 100-meter backstroke (1:01.44) and sophomore Madeline Frost in the 50-meter freestyle (26.36). Along with the four recordsetting times, DeLoof also took first in the 50-meter backstroke (28.90) and Kopas won the 50-meter breaststroke (32.91) and the 100-meter breaststroke (1:11.15). Junior Marni Oldershaw also added a pair of first-place finishes in the 100meter butterfly (1:04.11) and the 200-meter individual medley (2:19.14). “Realizing that I can swim
the 50-fly event made me more comfortable training,” DeLoof said. “It was nice to swim something different.” Michigan’s dominance extended to the relay races, where the Wolverines finished in first place. The 200-meter medley relay was raced by DeLoof, Kopas, Smiddy and junior Zoe Mattingly. Frost later replaced Kopas in Michigan’s winning 200-meter freestyle relay. The success caps off the team’s winter training sessions, which culminated in a dominant showing at the Orange Bowl Swim Classic, as was expected. “This was not a big meet,” Bottom said, “so those people who have not scored for Michigan can see that scoring is a possibility.” More importantly, this meet inspired the athletes to push themselves harder with the ‘Why not me?’ campaign at the forefront. Added Oldershaw: “My parents have always said ‘Why not me?’ to me, so it was touching to hear my coach say it too.” Michigan is showing that success and progress comes from a positive mindset, and Bottom has made it increasingly important that any athlete can envision herself atop the podium. With attention turning to the upcoming dual meet against Notre Dame and Northwestern, the battle between the schools will come down to total team points rather than single events. The Orange Bowl Classic was more of an individual swimmer’s race rather than a team mentality, and that mindset will shift to the opposite this weekend. “We’ve been underdogs, we’re rising and it’s becoming ‘Why not us?’ ” Oldershaw said.
‘M’ takes 5th in Tennessee Barnes Arico rekindles old WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
By NATHANIEL CLARK Daily Sports Writer
In early January, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the Michigan wrestling team had a championship atmosphere to compete in. That served as good preparation, because the 15th-ranked Wolverines will have plenty more in the coming months during Big Ten season. Five was the magic number for Michigan, as it finished fifth, with five wrestlers earning points, at the Southern Scuffle on Thursday and Friday. “This tournament was a really positive experience for us,” said Michigan coach Joe McFarland. “It had an NCAA championshipcaliber feel to it.” The tournament got off to a fast start for the Wolverines, as they went 5-0 in the first round on Thursday. Redshirt sophomore Conor Youtsey, redshirt freshman George Fisher, sophomores Brian Murphy and Domenic Abounader and fifthyear senior Max Huntley each posted victories. Fisher rode the early momentum with a strong showing in the 141-pound class. He defeated Drexel’s Franco Ferraina, 19-4, with six takedowns and five back points.
Despite falling to Oklahoma State’s Dean Heil, 7-2, he later rebounded to top Heil in a 9-3 decision to place seventh. Not to be outdone, sophomore heavyweight Adam Coon fought his way to a runner-up finish. His signature win came when he pinned Kent State’s Samuel Breese 4:27 into the match, while his only blemish was a loss to No. 4 Austin Marsden of Oklahoma State in the finals, 7-3. “(Coon) was disappointed with his last match,” McFarland said. “He couldn’t score when he needed to.” Junior Rossi Bruno also placed second for Michigan at 133 pounds. He topped North Carolina’s Troy Heilmann in an 11-1 major decision and No. 6 Mason Beckman of Lehigh in a 7-5 tiebreaker. But Iowa State’s No. 13 Earl Hall kept Bruno from the top spot, 5-2. Abounader built off his firstround success to leave the tournament with a 6-2 record and a fifth-place finish in the 184-pound class, topping No. 9 Willie Miklus of Missouri, 4-3, Nebraska’s T.J. Dudley, 4-3, and Oklahoma State’s Nolan Boyd, 5-3, in the process. Huntley followed his first triumph at 197 pounds with two more victories, including one over the Golden Flashes’ Cole Baxter,
13-2. He lost to Penn State’s Morgan McIntosh, 7-4, in the quarterfinals before rebounding for two wins and then defaulting out due to injury and ending the tournament in sixth. McFarland said he didn’t expect the injury to be a long-term problem. Although they both missed placing by a single match, Youtsey and Murphy left Chattanooga with 4-2 records in the 125pound and 157-pound classes, respectively. “There were some tough losses late in the tournament,” McFarland said. “But we had a lot of great individual performances, and that’s something we can build off of.” The Southern Scuffle was the Wolverines’ last contest before conference play begins. Including Michigan, 10 Big Ten teams are currently ranked in the top 25 nationally, with Iowa and Minnesota at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. Michigan will have to wrestle against seven of those teams, but McFarland believes his team will be healthy and ready for the daunting task ahead of them. “We were a little undermanned entering the tournament, and that was frustrating,” McFarland said. “But right now we’re focusing on conference play, and we should be ready to go.”
rivalry with newcomer Rutgers By BRAD WHIPPLE Daily Sports Writer
This weekend, the Michigan women’s basketball team bathed in the glory of defeating its Michigan in-state rival, then-No. 24 at Rutgers Michigan State. Matchup: Michigan 10-4; The Rutgers 10-4 Wolverines’ victory was When: Wednesday hard-earned, given that they 7 P.M. have dropped Where: Ruttheir last three gers Athletic meetings with Center the Spartans. TV/Radio: The win BTN Plus embodied the idea of the “Michigan way” that coach Kim Barnes Arico has alluded to in the past — a style defined by physical and mental grit. That same toughness must continue for Michigan (2-1 Big Ten, 10-4 overall) to defeat No. 24 Rutgers when the Wolverines travel to New Jersey on Wednesday. “I tried to get away from (Rutgers) when I left the East Coast, and here they are again in our league,” Barnes Arico told WTKA Radio on Tuesday. “Anytime you go to the (Rutgers Athletic Center), it’s going to be incredibly difficult.” Before moving from the American Athletic Conference to the Big Ten, Rutgers ended last season with a 2014 WNIT Championship. Luckily for the Scarlet Knights, they still have their ace — their coach. Vivian Stringer — the thirdwinningest coach in women’s basketball history — will return to the Big Ten for the first time
since 1995, when she coached her 12th and final season with Iowa. During her time with the Hawkeyes, Stringer went 26984, including a Final Four appearance in 1993, the year she was awarded the Naismith College Coach of the Year. She has also led Cheyney State College (1982) and Rutgers (2000, 2007) to the Final Four, making her the first coach to guide three different programs that far in the postseason. In her last 17 seasons in Piscataway, Stringer has led the Scarlet Knights to 14 NCAA Tournaments. And now with the thought of national success still fresh in Rutgers’ mind, Stringer is poised to have another memorable season. But she knows the Big Ten won’t be a cakewalk even with her team returning all of last season’s starters. “We know that (joining the Big Ten is) going to be tough,” Stringer said at Big Ten Media Day in October. “I can’t think of one team that is weak in the Big Ten. … We do come with a veteran team and one that is itching and excited about the possibility of, one, qualifying for the NCAAs and (two), going much further.” Stringer said that in the Big Ten, the scouting focus would need to shift from athletes to coaches. By taking a look at Barnes Arico — who battled the Scarlet Knights many times during her 10-year stint at St. Joseph’s — Stringer will find a fresh coach still developing a program. Rutgers (1-2, 10-4) will need its best players to fight Barnes Arico’s hard-pressing strategy to overcome its sluggish start to the conference schedule. Despite returning from
“I can’t think of one team that is weak in the Big Ten.”
ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
Sophomore Adam Coon finished second as Michigan took fifth place at the Southern Scuffle in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
a sprained thumb, forward Betnijah Laney has been the Scarlet Knights’ leading scorer in their three Big Ten matchups thus far. With four players taller than her on the roster, Laney has managed to become the team’s leading rebounder with 163 — 18 more than Michigan senior forward Cyesha Goree, who has a four-inch advantage over the 6-foot Laney. Rutgers will also look to leading scorer Tyler Scaife, who is shooting a team-high 50 percent from beyond the arc while averaging 16.6 points per game — more than any Wolverine. After being ranked the top point guard in the country during her recruitment, she was named the 2014 AAC Freshman of the Year after a breakout season. Michigan, meanwhile, is on a hot streak. Freshman guard Katelynn Flaherty hit five treys against the Spartans, Goree has registered five double-doubles in her last six games and the team has been smooth sailing since its last loss, which came against Wisconsin on Dec. 28. But now, Barnes Arico’s team will have its hands full against an old Eastern foe.
BY THE NUMBERS Michigan vs. Rutgers
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Programs Vivian Stringer has led to the Final Four
939
Career wins for Stringer
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Michigan players averaging doubledigit scoring totals
0-3
Michigan’s road record, with losses to Pittsburgh, Notre Dame and Wisconsin
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Wednesday, January 7, 2015 // The Statement
PHOTO BY LUNA ANNA ARCHEY
ON THE RECORD ILLUSTRATION BY MAGGIE MILLER
My Cultural Currency: Commercial Christmas B Y TA N YA M A D H A N I
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espite the fact that I belong to a long line of practicing Hindus, I am, surprisingly, a big fan of the holiday season — in particular, Christmas. You’d think I’d be uncomfortable at the sight of predominant Christian imagery and music during this time of year. But I take it in stride. I’ve bought into the commercial hype of Christmas. Maybe it’s the result of living in the United States for so long, but as soon as my calendar shifts to December my entire demeanor changes. I’m in it for the aesthetic appeal, for the very fact that everything just looks prettier around the festive time of year. Mall and home décor — considering the amount of tinsel and sparkles that occupy every corner — look like they’ve been blessed by the ghost of Liberace. It seems as if, almost overnight, I turn into an ugly-sweater-wearing, Vanilla-Bean-Noel-smelling, compulsive candy-cane-eating version of myself. I know Christmas is a significant and auspicious time for Christians, but I guiltily get excited just at the prospect of listening to Wham! and Mariah Carey Christmas tunes 24/7 without judgment. December is my moment. It’s
what I’ve been waiting for since practically the day after Christmas the year before. I can blast my Christmas Spotify playlist, appropriately titled “YAS CHRISTMAS YAS,” and put on an elaborate one-woman lip-sync performance of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” — which is ordered four times consecutively in the
... like they’ve been blessed by the ghost of Liberace. playlist — without the intense, burning shame that usually follows when I do the same thing in the middle of July. As an outsider from another faith, even the commercial buildup around Christmas can’t avoid reminding me about the true meaning of the holiday. Believe me, I’m aware that Christmas is about family, charity and worship. Diwali, the festival of lights, is a particularly important holiday for Hindu families, where, in a manner similar to Christmas, loved ones make an effort to spend time together. During the holiday, fam-
ilies will decorate their houses with lights — again, like Christmas — and eat special, celebratory meals. But, because of the relatively small Hindu community here, I haven’t been able to enjoy Diwali the way it’s mean to be celebrated. There are no light-adorned houses in the middle of October, no Diwali songs playing on the radio and no special ABC Family movie countdown. It’s just another October. And although it’s irrational — considering Hinduism is a minority religion in America — the lack of awareness never fails to disappoint me. Because my own religion isn’t practiced as widely in the U.S. as Christianity, communal celebrations of big festivals such as Diwali have been missing for the majority of my life. Christmas is a national phenomenon and by partaking in the hype around Christmas — the ridiculously-decorated houses, the red Starbucks cups — I feel like I make up for Diwali’s lack of festivity for myself. It’s comforting to know that when I’m jamming out to “Last Christmas” and starting on my 15th box of candy canes, the rest of America is doing the same. And I don’t feel so alone.
“This is Michigan. There are no turnarounds at Michigan. This is greatness.” – JIM HARBAUGH, after being named Michigan’s newest head football coach at a Dec. 30 press conference
Welcome to The Statement. This is a weekly magazine produced by The Michigan Daily’s writers, editors, photographers and designers. Over the course of 2015, our staff will explore many pressing issues facing campus, and encourage input from you, our readers, in this endeavor. Share your narrative through a Personal Statement, used to express the wide range of experiences and perspectives on our campus. Contribute your poetry, short stories or other creative work to our Literary Issue. Or just pick up our paper each Wednesday and learn a little more about your fellow students. We look forward to providing you an in-depth and unique look at previously unseen corners of the University, and the world. Thanks for reading. Magazine Editor, Ian Dillingham Deputy Editor, Natalie Gadbois
Photo Editor, Luna Anna Archey Design Editor, Jake Wellins
Wednesday, January 7, 2015 // The Statement 3B
Becoming a Townie: A knock on the head BY EMMA KERR
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wo months ago, a can of beer was thrown from the second floor of a fraternity house that will remain unnamed. Said beer can happened to find my head, and while the bruise healed, my motivation to #turnup has remained a little weak these days. Early in December, a new bar hosted its soft opening, and it was packed. Every two weeks at Mighty Good Coffee, this pop-up event draws people from all over Ann Arbor to its non-alcoholic bar. It is safe to say the organizers of Brillig Dry Bar are not aiming to attract undergraduates on a Saturday night, but as a 19-yearold living in a world where underage drinking is not only common but expected, having a social experience that doesn’t involve sweaty frat bros, Natty Light, skin-tight skirts in the middle of December or the lonely, emotional hangover that follows is rare, and the whole idea sounded pretty rad to me. Frankly, it’s classy. And while I might read George Elliot and Jane Austen for Intro to Victorian Literature, my regular mono-meals of Swedish Fish and the credit card bill I got last week filled with Pizza House entries don’t indicate I do much classy shit.
So this got me thinking. Ann Arbor is one of the best college towns in the nation, if not the best, and I rarely see it. When Ann Arbor is relatively studentfree over breaks and summers, townies jump for joy. But why? If we never leave South U. and
State St., we might never find out. I know that it’s a place of hippies and killer food, that it retains a small-town feel while offering
I can sip on a Vernors Cranberry Sour wearing an entirely mismatched patterned outfit, discussing the next Ferguson
PHOTO COURTESY OF LOUIS MIRANTE
Bonderman Fellow Louis Mirante holding “old dynamite” at a silver mine in Bolivia in November.
T H E L I S T B U Z Z F E E D, B U T B E T T E R FIVE THINGS WORTH $48 MILLION In light of Jim Harbaugh’s recent hiring, we have collated five items roughly equivalent to the contract that won him over.
1 ILLUSTRATIONS BY MEGAN MULHOLLAND
some of the perks of a city and that weed has been decriminalized for years, but what exactly does the off-campus scene have to offer? Alcohol and substance abuse at the University of Michigan — the campus of work hard, play hard — is a problem, and I’m definitely not the only one who thinks this way. The University cut Welcome Week short this year for a reason, and according to the National College Health Assessment, 70 percent of undergraduates consumed alcohol in the past month and of those, nearly half did something they regretted in the past year. Not to mention the 18 percent of students who had unprotected sex. But it’s more than the numbers. It’s someone’s abortion story that will stay with them forever. It’s a ruined friendship resulting from a drunken mistake. It’s the need for an emotional crutch — a.k.a. alcohol. So, it’s events like a non-alcoholic bar — away from the party mentality — that have an unusual sense of freshness. Where
meeting scheduled downtown or Michigan’s win in the GLI final. It’s the diversity of people at these kinds of events — events that just scream Ann Arbor — that is so attractive, and it’s the opportunity to engage in conversation with a clear mind in a new and unusual environment that will keep me coming back. In this column and over the coming semester, I plan to see what makes the real Ann Arbor tick. Off-campus events — what it means to live off-campus and what your neighborhood says about you, new restaurants, old restaurants, the people who make Ann Arbor what it is, and what it would mean for students to engage in their town as invested citizens. As I write this, watching my childhood best friend twist open another Smirnoff Ice, I resolve to enjoy all that the college experience has to offer, but also to allow myself to resist succumbing to the expectation of perpetual intoxication — one might throw around the phrase binge drinking — for the refreshing, unusual, potentially pretentious, innovative offerings residential Ann Arbor presents.
B E YO N CÉ ’ S B L I N G
Nine of Beyoncé’s engagement rings purchased by husband Jay-z, valued at around five million dollars.
2 . P R I M E A 2 R E A L E S TAT E
The most expensive house for sale in Ann Arbor at $2.9 million — 16 times over.
A G R E AT VAC AY
The entire GDP of Tuvalu, a Polynesian island nation, currently worth $40 million.
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4. MAJOR FRESHMAN F L A S H B AC K
3,843,074 cases of Natty Lite, beer of choice at U-M tailgates.
5 THE
LOT S A P I Z Z A
4,174 medium, hand-tossed, ham and pineapple pizzas from Ann Arbor’s very own Domino’s.
statement
Magazine Editor: Ian Dillingham Deputy Editor: Natalie Gadbois
Photo Editor: Luna Anna Archey Illustrators:
Editor in Chief: Jen Calfas Copy Editors:
Megan Mulholland
Hannah Bates
Design Editor:
Maggie MIller
Laura Schinagle
Jake Wellins
Managing Editor: Lev Facher
COVER BY LUNA ANNA ARCHEY
Emma Sutherland
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Wednesday, January 7, 2015 // The Statement
Wednesday, January 7, 2015 // The Statement
5B
The Bonderman Fellowship:
Eight months, $20,000 to see the world By Carolyn Gearig, Special Projects Manager
Since he graduated from the University of Michigan in May 2014, Louis Mirante has hitchhiked via cargo ship in the Maldives, attended a class taught by the Dalai Lama on Tibetan Buddhism and spent a month living in Chile. Before Easter, the LSA graduate plans to live in Southern India for a month or more before he heads to Northern India and, most likely, to Nepal to live and teach at a monastery. Mirante is traveling the world, but not on his own dime: he is a part of the inaugural class of the LSA Bonderman Travel Fellowship, and was given $20,000 to travel the world for eight months or more. Piloted with the class of 2014, the LSA Bonderman Travel Fellowship grants four LSA graduates each year the chance to travel the world. They can go wherever they want, when they want for eight months or more. The only restrictions? Fellows must travel independently and can only be with friends or family from home or a travel group for up to 10 days. They must go to at least two regions of the world and six countries, and are discouraged from traveling to westernized countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada and nations in Western Europe. 2014 LSA graduates Tyler Mesman, Erin Busbee, Ashline Hermiz and Louis Mirante make up the first class of fellows, selected from a pool of about 100 applicants in the spring of 2014. Since leaving the U.S. on or by Aug. 31, collectively, they have traveled to Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Croatia, Hungary, Jordan, Turkey, Cyprus, Zimbabwe, South Africa, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Malaysia. The program is the brainchild of David Bonderman, an investment adviser and businessman who graduated in 1963 from the University of Washington, which has hosted a similar program for about two decades. After graduating from Harvard University’s law school, Bonderman received a Sheldon Fellowship, which gave him the opportunity to travel the globe. The experience had such a profound impact on his life that he was
inspired to start the Bonderman Travel Fellowship at the University of Washington in 1995. Today, Washington’s Bonderman fellowship is awarded to seven undergraduates and seven graduate students each year. Bonderman’s daughter and her husband are both University graduates, and it was their idea to start the fellowship in Bonderman’s name. Plans for the pilot program began in September 2013, and the first class of fellows was notified in April 2014. Mesman, who is from Grand Rapids, began his travels in Istanbul on Aug. 25 and has since gone to Turkey, Cyprus, Zimbabwe, South Africa and, for the past month, India. He originally planned on going to Israel as well, but had to change his plans after it was placed on the University travel restriction list. Which brings up another program rule: fellows cannot visit anywhere that is restricted according to the University’s Travel Warning and Travel Restriction Destinations. When they applied to the program, all applicants submitted a sample itinerary, and must work with Rachel Reuter, the University’s Center for Global and Intercultural Study’s Health & Safety Coordinator, to ensure their final itinerary is realistic and doable. In recent years, two Washington Bonderman fellows have died abroad — Jennifer Caldwell traveled with the Fellowship in 2007 and died in a 2009 car accident in South Africa, and Alena Suazo was travelling with the fellowship in Guatemala when became ill and died in 2011. Jordan said they encourage fellows to extensively research any place they plan to travel to, and fellows must e-mail the CGIS office every other week with updates on their whereabouts. Additionally, if fellows want to make changes to their approved itinerary after the program begins, these changes must be approved by CGIS. “It’s a hands off program,” Reuter said. “But we’re certainly there if they need it.” After India, Mesman plans on going to Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. He also wants to try to go to Burma and Laos. “Each country and culture has its
own surprises that come along with it and eventually you kind of learn to go with the flow,” Mesman wrote in an e-mail — Internet where he was staying in India was not strong enough to support a video call. “I have actually been more surprised by how similar people are rather than the differences. I’ve been surprised by the culture shocks between each country though — going from Turkey to Zimbabwe is quite the physical and cultural leap. I don’t have the opportunity to go back to the U.S. and push the ‘cultural reset button’.” In addition to the basic stipulations, Bonderman fellows budget their travels themselves. They are given $8,000 up front, and starting one month after they leave the United States, they are given $1,500 a month. Within their budget, they must purchase University travel insurance. Reuter said managing a budget is part of what makes the program a great learning experience. $20,000 may seem like a lot, but over eight months expenses can add up fast. “Seeking out things that they wouldn’t typically do if they had more money is part of the experience,” Reuter said. Hermiz said she was initially very careful about budgeting her money, but has found that travel is cheaper than she expected. “In the beginning I thought $1,000 per country would be appropriate,” she wrote in an e-mail. Hermiz has been to Turkey, Croatia, Hungary, Jordan, Cambodia and Malaysia. “I have found that I spend much less than that and I really pay attention to ways of saving money as well as when it is OK to splurge,” she said. During the first application cycle for the program, around 100 seniors applied. A selection committee consisting of CGIS staff and faculty reviewed 18 finalists, and nine candidates were interviewed. CGIS director Michael Jordan said they hope to expand the program gradually in the future, although Bonderman’s daughter and her husband plan to keep it as an undergraduate LSA program. Jordan said they look for students who haven’t had significant internation-
al travel or study abroad experiences, who are open to new experiences and the kind of people who would make good connections and reflect on their experiences. Before the fellowship, Mesman had only been outside of the United States once: to Spain in 2010 on an organized high school trip. He described this experience as “insulated” because he stayed with a group the entire time and didn’t interact with locals or plan his own travels. “Even though I’m traveling independently I am never truly alone,” he said. “(There are) always new people to meet in hostels and around.” Mesman said the hardest part of the experience, for him, has been the “impermanence” of relationships with the people he’s met while traveling. “These relationships are temporary. At some point either they or I have to say goodbye and keep traveling,” he said. “Wash, Rinse, Repeat. I’m really a people person and I like having a sense of community — so I miss the way it felt to walk around campus and just run into people that you already know instead of just walking around as another face in the crowd.” Mesman doesn’t currently have a plan to return home. After the eight months of the fellowship ends, he hopes to travel for as long as possible. He is also making plans to travel with his mother after the fellowship to wherever she chooses. Like Mesman, Erin Busbee, who majored in anthropology, rarely traveled outside of the United States before the fellowship. A varsity track athlete at the University, she spent so much time practicing and competing that she wasn’t able to study abroad either. Busbee has been in South America for almost five months, but she nearly didn’t apply for the fellowship in the first place. Two of her friends sent her information about the program months in advance, but she glossed it over while applying to policy fellowships in the United States. She always dreamed of traveling but never thought something like the Bonderman fellowship would become a reality. “It kind of came naturally,” she said. “Traveling is something I’ve always
wanted to do.” Busbee said her experiences so far have been greatly enriched by the people she’s met in Santiago, Chile; Mendoza, Argentina; Cordoba, Argentina; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Montevideo, Uruguay; Salvador, Bahia in Brazil; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. “Most of my experience has been made by the people that I’ve met,” she said. “Going to so many places is nice. I’ve enjoyed experience different places, but after a certain point, being in Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, everything begins to look the same to me and the languages are similar. The people I’ve met and the things I’ve done have stood out.” Once Busbee leaves South America, she will travel to South Africa and then the Phillipines and Thailand. She also hopes to add another country — if her visa allows her to, she would like to go to Mozambique after South Africa. If not, she might try to go to Japan. Busbee said, the fellowship has opened her mind to a host of opportunities she had never thought she would experience before. It has been a learning experience in every sense of the word. “I’m thinking about things like living abroad for a few years whereas I always shied away from this sort of thing before,” Busbee said. “I’m definitely more open to not being in the United States and not quite having an exact career path. I can’t imagine being back and going to work every day.” Louis Mirante also said the fellowship, for him, has been about meeting and learning from the groups of people he has met. He had previously traveled in Europe and Mexico, but never to Asia or South America, and said that going to countries that aren’t dominated by the European way of thinking was one of the best experiences he had. “You learn new ways of thinking,” he said. “Internalizing these new ways of thinking can help you learn about problems in new ways and think about solutions to things you might not even have considered to be problems.” At the time of his interview, Mirante was in the Maldives, a small island nation off the coast of Sri Lanka that wasn’t originally on his itinerary. He decided to travel here after finding cheap
round trip tickets for a four-day trip — but stayed for a month. Mirante was in the Maldives when he found himself in the middle of a water crisis. After a fire at the country’s main water plant, the entire northern part of the country had no running water. Mirante was in the Maldives the entire time, and he saw how they responded to the crisis, rationing out water from public buildings and eventually, Sri Lanka and India. “The way that they distributed it was from their main cultural centers, which are the mosques,” he said. “I stood in line for water at mosques with everyone else so I could have something to drink. That was definitely a really interesting experience.” Mirante said he realized how much more he engages with a place when he does not set himself a date on when he is leaving. “When you have an expiration date for an experience or a place, it really limits how you think about traveling there,” Mirante said. “I really go with the flow. If I feel like its time for me to leave a place, I leave. If I feel like I should stay longer, I stay longer.” Before the Fellowship began, Hermiz’s only international travel was to France with her high school French class. She said the most surprising thing was how prevalent Western culture is internationally. “In some places I was not expecting to see Starbucks or KFCs everywhere,” she said. “And it is not something that really surprised me, but it saddens me to see so many products that encourage skin whitening and to hear many young Cambodian girls state that they do not like their skin because it is darker. I know how pervasive the white beauty standard is, but it is really crushing to see just how ingrained it is and how normative it is in both western and non-western cultures.” Though study abroad programs at the University can be expensive, the Bonderman Fellowship is free for all applicants. Mesman transferred to the University from a community college and only spent three years on campus. He always dreamed of traveling, but didn’t study abroad for financial reasons
and to make the most of his time in Ann Arbor. When he discovered the Fellowship, he said it was “too good to be true” and dropped all of his job applications at the time so he could focus on applying. “I knew I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t at least apply,” he said. “And now here I am.” Mesman studied political science and philosophy at the University. He originally planned on going into domestic U.S. politics, but after traveling since August, his plans have changed. “I’ve been looking into careers that are more internationally focused so I can combine my passion for travel with my work,” he wrote in an e-mail. “(I’m) not exactly sure what that looks like for me yet but I’ll begin exploring more options once I get back to the U.S.” All four fellows agreed that the fellowship has been a life changing experience, but in different ways. Hermiz said she has grown immensely because of her travels. She plans on going into Social Work, but said her experiences have helped her understand that international issues are just as important as social inequality in the U.S. “I feel so much more independent now than I did before I left,” she said. “I take more risks and I am much more outgoing and patient. I am also constantly able to reflect on my experiences, but also analyze social issues in broader context.” Mesman said the impacts of the Fellowship on his life have forever changed him. “I don’t think I’ll fully understand how it’s changed my life until it’s over and even some months beyond that,” Mesman said. “But right now I can say that I feel like the Fellowship has made me a more authentic me and tapped into my passion for exploration and learning. It’s simultaneously made me more confident and more humble about my understanding of the world and my place in it. It’s definitely shifted my perspective. There truly is nothing else like it.” The 2015 application is open to anyone who will have graduated between December 2014 and May 2015. The application requires a trip itinerary, three essays and two recommendations. Recipients will be notified by mid-February. PHOTO COURTESY OF TYLER MESMAN
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Wednesday, January 7, 2015 // The Statement
Students abroad grapple with cultural consciousness by Michael Sugerman, Daily News Editor
W
ith the plethora of opportunities for students to study abroad at the University of Michigan, it is nearly impossible to avoid destinations where the history is fraught with past violence or political tumult. In fact, it seems study in some of these places is encouraged so students can understand there is more to them than can be written in the pages of a history book. Such is the opinion of Thuy’Anh Nguyen, a lecturer of Vietnamese language in the Department of Asian Languages and Culture. For years, Nguyen, who was born and raised in Vietnam, led a summer trip there through the University’s Global Intercultural Experience for Undergraduates program. The last trip she led was in 2013. “It’s the experience for the students, not just to be in Vietnam as a tourist, but to have an actual living experience, working experience in Vietnam,” Nguyen said. The trip is about more than building knowledge, but also a “friendship” with both the people and the country, she added. The GIEU trips to Vietnam, she said, integrated Vietnamese students with University students, and this exposure to even the most basic cultural differences was important. “When they share experience with students, it can be something like … TV shows that they watch,” Nguyen said, laughing that the students bonded over their love for the CBS sitcom “How I Met Your Mother.” “Even experiences like (when) they share the rooms together. Vietnamese students may have different experiences using air conditioner. Because here it’s very cold and in Vietnam it’s very hot.” Nguyen said a huge difference is the use of the bathroom. In Vietnam, something as simple as toilet paper is seen as “fancy” — sometimes, locals use crumpled-up newspaper. She added that people flush very infrequently, which came as a surprise to American students who thought it was “less hygienic.” However, Nguyen said, bridging cultural
divides was often not the biggest hurdle; rather, it was exposing the American students to the remnants of Vietnam War violence that was the hardest. This manifested itself in a trip to the village of My Lai, where in March 1968 American soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War killed the majority of Vietnamese locals — as many as 500 people — including children, women and the elderly. “We went there, and we had first-hand experience seeing what happened and how Vietnamese people see it,” Nguyen said. “And then the U of M students would say, ‘Oh we feel very bad. We think that our Vietnamese students would hate us because of what Americans have done.’ ” However, Nguyen said, there was not hatred, but constructive discussion and subsequent community service work to learn more about Vietnamese experiences and help ameliorate them. These efforts ranged from planting trees to building houses to simply exploring old war sites and gaining a better understanding of the history. LSA junior Caroline Hickey was on the 2013 trip to Vietnam and agreed that locals’ reception of Americans was far from hateful. Though she sometimes felt she “stuck out” because she is tall, blonde and white, she felt that the students were received with open arms. “As far as the way people treated us, especially in small villages … people who were living there … who remembered the war very well were so kind to us, and invited us into their homes, and spoke with us and told us about their experiences,” she said. The personal anecdotes were one piece in changing Hickey’s perspective. Another was the opportunity to walk through a field where there were still active landmines from the Vietnam War. She said the location was one where safe paths had been carved out by local researchers, but the prospect of having active landmines just inches away from her feet was enough to keep her on the sidelines instead of walking around.
“It’s very clear that we’re still part of their country and still harming people in such grave ways,” Hickey said. For Hickey, this was the greatest takeaway — learning the nation’s history from the perspective of locals instead of U.S. history textbooks. Upon returning home, she said she felt that the U.S. education system “glosses over” the Vietnam War, and leaves little to no time for their side of the story. The importance of learning new perspectives, it seems, is what drives many of the University’s study abroad programs, especially in regions known for political unrest. This lesson is true of Taglit-Birthright, which offers a free, 10-day trip to Israel for “young Jewish people” ages 18 to 26 in an effort to “strengthen Jewish identity, Jewish communities and solidarity with Israel,” according to the program’s website. The University of Michigan Hillel organizes sponsored Birthright trips each year. Gita Karasov, Hillel’s Director of Engagement, staffed this winter’s trip, and said this summer’s heightened conflict between Israel and neighboring Arab populations in the Gaza Strip — which resulted in thousands of deaths in Palestine and hundreds of deaths in Israel — yielded not fear from students but an eagerness to gain a deeper understanding of the conflict. “The group of students were well aware of the political climate in Israel this past summer,” she wrote in an e-mail interview, later adding that, “While on the trip, students had a heightened awareness to our surroundings and our proximity to places such as Gaza, the West Bank, and Syria, which led to thoughtful discussions and questions throughout the trip.” LSA sophomore Anna Marie Mondrusov went on this winter’s Birthright trip to Israel through Hillel, and said it was an opportunity for her to learn more about Israel firsthand, as opposed to what she had learned and followed growing up. “You get to see the people, meet the peo-
ple, talk to them,” she said. “So you get to learn personal stories, not just what you heard on the news.” Mondrusov said the summer’s violence is not a huge concern for those traveling in Israel — she never felt unsafe — but certain infrastructure in Israel serves as a constant reminder of potential attacks. “The bus stops are all made of concrete; there are bomb shelters everywhere,” she said. “You can see that the city has had to change their lives to adapt to what’s happening to them.” One striking reminder, she said, was that most if not all Israelis join the army after graduating from high school. She said their involvement in the Israeli Defense Force made these people more aware of their country’s politics and history than students in the United States, and at times more mature than their American counterparts. “All of the Israelis my age there are working in the army. Some of them are working on the border, near Gaza,” she said. “So you get to hear actual stories of what happens on a day-to-day basis. We had the opportunity to stand on the hill bordering Gaza and Israel … where that summer, reporters were standing and they could see the rockets flying.” She found, however, that the Birthright participants and younger army members had a great deal in common. One anecdote that sticks out to her was their shared love of taking selfies. Ilan Ofir, a former Israel Fellow through Hillel who helped lead Birthright trips, just finished leading a two-week program in Israel with MBA students from the University of California, San Diego. He said travel within the country, despite the summer’s conflict, is very safe. “Most (of the students) have never heard of Israel before this (summer’s) events and yet chose to go to expose themselves to its strong startup culture,” Ofir said in an e-mail interview. Read the rest of this story online at www.michigandaily.com
PHOTO COURTESY OF ARI KIRSCHNER
Wednesday, January 7, 2015 // The Statement
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Personal Statement: On words and adoring them by Catherine Sulpizio, Senior Arts Editor
ILLUSTRATION BY MEGAN MULHOLLAND
T
he word mostly sits there unpondered. But beneath it patiently tugs its historical baggage, all smudged with connotation and etymology and by roots of dead languages. The word is remarkable. The word is a minute palimpsest. Whenever I ask my dad to proofread my essays, his Markup Word document comes back with a dense ladder of blue boxes, all variations of “John Gonzalez deleted the word autotelic” or “John Gonzalez replaced the word lacuna with gap.” I diligently heed the comma insertions and mend the split infinitives, but I keep the fancy words. My dad sighs in frustration. To him, good writing is practical; it communicates clearly and concisely. But I love the words that puzzle and initially withhold, yet once Googled, snap the sentence into alignment the way the simple word couldn’t. Take the word susurrus, which I first came across in Charles Wright’s “The Southern Cross.” The word means “whispering, muttering, rustling.” All three synonyms in the definition have an onomatopoeic quality, but susurrus is particularly swaddled in its raspy ss sounds. The word rustle evokes the clumsy jostling of leaves in a tree, but I imagine the susurration of leaves is finer, like a rain stick gently tipped. The perfect word can be clear, but it must be lyrical. The perfect word shouldn’t worry about being recalcitrant to the languid reader’s gaze. Send her to the dictionary! The bon mot isn’t there to roll over and play dead. The word is alive, goddamn it! Tell me the word tipple doesn’t bubble effervescently on your tongue like a sip of champagne. When I was reading “Lolita” a few years ago, I became overwhelmed by Nabokov’s luscious prose. I mean that hyperbolically, but also because I was reading an annotated edition, densely peppered with footnotes which even still couldn’t elucidate words like phocine (seal-like) and favonian (of a western wind). I started a list on my iPhone and
it grew into the sprawling 15-page Word document I keep continuously open on my computer. I write down the words that bind an abstract concept into a small bundle of syllables — a word like slatch, which means an interval of fair weather. When I added that word, it was July in Ann Arbor and amidst the thick, nagging heat I couldn’t remember what a slatch was. Now that the days are sharp and short, I pray in vain for slatches, but the delight of the word itself is almost enough. There are words that linger on the list that I’ve never used: I’m never going to write down “Assignation with C. – 9 p.m.” on my calendar, because assignation is one of the un-sexiest words for an illicit affair. Then there are words that I wish I used more, like paroxysm, which just by saying elicits the spontaneous, spluttering onset of emotion it describes. I love words so saturated with their meaning, they ooze on delivery. It is funny that my dad is the most ardent crusader against my more self-indulgent vocabulary (restraint was used here to not substitute the word sybaritic), because he is the one who instilled my love of lexicon. Almost every morning in fifth grade, we would hunch over the Word Jumble in the Union Tribune on the dining table. He knew the answers of course, but bit his tongue, letting me clench my teeth and scribble on the newspaper until it was time to go to school. It was also around this time that he gave me his battered copy of “Animal Farm” and, shortly after, “1984.” I read them, absorbed probably nothing from them, but these inductive tomes were important. Over the years, I read and re-read them and by the time I was in junior high, I’d spent so much time in “1984” that Orwell’s lucid yet evocative prose felt mine as well. Of course, Orwell detested the murky language of doublespeak, but only because it obstructed his quest for precision of word and freshness of imagery. Too often, the fancy
word slackens the taut cord of a sentence, rather than yanking it tighter. Hence, my ever-growing word list remains perpetually perused, yet mostly unused. But when the moment is right, I’m unafraid to use the fancy word. For every utilitarian Orwellian sentence, there is one by Nabokov, or, to return to my childhood, Snicket. Lemony Snicket, that is: the erudite, elusive author who penned my favorite series ever (sorry, Harry Potter), “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” the sardonic post-modernlit books tamped with literary references. Snicket taught me the words xenophobic (useful for a child of the Bush era) and ennui (perfect later for a teenager prone to overstatement), but more so, he illustrated how the fancy word could pirouette spryly in the sentence between form and function. The fancy word is adroit but aware of its witty immoderation, the guest at the cocktail party well-practiced with nimble ripostes. And more than that, when Snicket said “I know that having a good vocabulary doesn’t guarantee that I’m a good person, but it does mean I’ve read a great deal. And in my experience, well-read people are less likely to be evil,” I smiled at the snark, but swallowed the message. The fancy word pays homage to a literary history; it skirts the stage of celebrity and zeitgeist — the fancy word will not be Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year, it stubbornly protests the modern art of Internet speed-reading. The fancy word requests your attention and your intelligence, but it compensates generously for your time. It is the visible leaf in a long family tree of forgotten language and it asks you to sift through its branches. In a moment when beloved niche publications are being artlessly corporatized, raided for efficiency and use value before being jammed into a slick brand that slips off the mainstream tongue, the fancy word is a petite protest. It demands more from language and sentences and novels than easy consumption. It asks to be critically considered.
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Wednesday, January 7th, 2015 // The Statement
VISUAL STATEMENT: PHOTOSTAFF ON HOLIDAY The members of our photostaff are from all corners of the country, and over this year’s winter holiday, held roots all over the world. These are the photos they have brought back.
I spent a week of winter break looking out off of the mountainside at Lone Star Ranch outside of Stigler, Oklahoma.
JAMES COLLER/Daily
PAUL SHERMAN/Daily
It is hard to beat fish from Seattle, and it flies on occasion. At Pike Place Market, fishmongers are known for tossing fish across the shopping aread while customers are ordering.
RITA MORRIS/Daily
This was the photo we used for our Christmas card. Our mom and dad came down to fill the stockings and place the presents and of course eat the cookies and drink the milk as Santa. But they found their children already doing it instead!
AMANDA ALLEN/Daily
My cousin Chloe, age nine, shows her appreciation of a gift she received at our family Christmas celebration.
ZACH MOORE/Daily
ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
Fellow travelers at The Lourve in Paris take a selfie with da Vinci’s Mona Lisa as a crown of over 100 people push to see the famous painting.
While in Chicago, I decided to take a walk with my camera and see what I could find. I wandered into the Intercontinental Hotel with hopes of making it to the roof to witness the spectacular views of the Chicago River. Unfortunately the roof was locked, but luckily I found a window.