ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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RESEARCH
Study finds high rates of concussions in American adolescents AYUSH THAKUR/Daily
20 percent of teenagers have sustained head injuries, underscoring role of sports
Ann Arbor residents listen to speakers at the City Council meeting in City Hall Monday.
City Council urges community to unite after local, national incidents Council members demand expedited installation of parking garage protective railing ISHI MORI
Daily Staff Reporter
City Council was held in a somber mood Monday after a gunman killed 59 people in Las Vegas and a 56-year old man fell from the parking structure at the corner of South Fourth Avenue and East William Street. Mayor Christopher Taylor expressed frustration at the
lack of coordinated response to the Las Vegas incident, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. “The fact that this occurs in our country, I believe it is a national disgrace,” Taylor said. “Other nations are able to deal with it as a matter of culture, a matter of legislation. I believe we should do so as well.” He also lamented the incident at the parking structure, the third in a month after a
22-year-old man also fell from the same parking lot Sept. 7 and an 81-year-old man was found dead in the Huron River Sept. 20. “It is a tragedy of mental illness, of community health,” Taylor said. “It’s something we need to focus on. We need to make sure that people who apply for help receive them.” Councilmember Chuck Warpehoski, D-Ward 5, urged residents to engage in
community activities that will distract from the sadness and forge bonds with other residents. “This has been a heavy day for a lot of us in the community,” Warpehoski said. “In heavy times like these, it’s important to find things that give us life.” Warpehoski added there are signs of hope. He explained the city is going to expedite the installation of railing on See COUNCIL, Page 3
KATHERINA SOURINE Daily Staff Reporter
A recent study conducted by University of Michigan researchers has found 20 percent of adolescents and teenagers have sustained a concussion at least once. This research project was directed under the 2016 Monitoring the Future study, a broader project conducted under the University, which explores the behaviors of American students from kindergarten through university level. This study is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and is conducted by the Institute for Social Research at the University. This specific study, “Prevalence of Concussion Among US Adolescents and Correlated Factors,” was conducted using
data from the MTF 2016 survey, a project that occurs annually and conducts an in-school survey in grades 8, 10, and 12. In this 2016 survey, 49.8 percent of students were male and 46.8 percent were white. The age range of students surveyed was 12-18 years old, the modal age being 16 years old. University researcher Philip T. Veliz, one of the authors of the report, explained this data has had an important role in solidifying a base knowledge on this issue. “Part of this study was finding a baseline number of what the selfreported/diagnosed concussion is within the adolescent population, and then starting to track it,” Veliz said. He emphasized the implications of this research will only be inferable with time, as they continue to survey and record whether there are longSee SURVEY, Page 3
Faculty government pushes for ‘U’ Student-run A2 compost resources for textbook affordability company business
BUSINESS
CITY
enjoys nat’l successes
Noting poor access and high costs, SACUA proposes University-run bookstore
MONTA aromatherapy started in dorm room, now sold at Urban Outfitters
The Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs met on Monday to discuss methods of encouraging more interaction in meetings, budget concerns and award recipients. SACUA also mentioned possible solutions to the textbook availability problem campus faced at the beginning of the semester. Members first spoke about ways to improve the structure of meetings. To address comments made in previous Senate Assembly meetings, members considered moving meeting locations to rooms more conducive to interactive discussion. Rooms in Rackham Graduate Building were suggested, which led to a motion to re-examine the committee’s budget. The discussion then turned to the issue students had buying books at the beginning of the semester, specifically with the relocation of Ulrich’s. SACUA Senate Secretary David Potter, a classical studies professor, believes the University of Michigan needs to handle the textbook availability problem better, as it created difficulties for students. “We need to discuss the failure of the University to react to changes in the bookstore market; Ulrich’s
CORY ZAYANCE Daily Staff Reporter
While most University of Michigan students spend their gamedays tailgating, Business sophomore Gabi de Coster spends her Saturdays going back home to Grosse Pointe, Mich., to work on crafting scents for her aromatherapy company, MONTA. MONTA is a health-andwellness business that utilizes all-natural products to create unique products like scented rollerballs, bath soaks and body sprays. “I’m taking inspiration from the place the products are named after and translating that into scent,” de Coster said. “It’s the colors, feelings and emotions that I tie to those important places in my life that are relayed in the plants I use to make the scents.” Originating in a South Quad Residence Hall dorm room, MONTA now has a dedicated studio in de Coster’s home. The extra space was needed to keep up with additional products and rising demands, See MONTA, Page 3
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CORY ZAYANCE Daily Staff Reporter
closed and students were left to find books whatever way they could,” Potter said. “Not having bookstores on campus where students can buy used books is putting our students at a grave disadvantage.” SACUA Chair Robert Ortega, a professor in the School of Social Work, agreed with Potter and noted the impact the problem had on faculty as well.
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“What happens to the faculty is they’re moving forward while students are still trying to get books,” Ortega said. “It’s a dilemma for instructors as well.” To combat the problem, members mentioned a central location for students to pick up books, focusing more on electronic books and having a library representative talk to the assembly. They also
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suggested a University-run bookstore to alleviate the issues caused by privately owned bookstores. Students picketed administratrors for a student-run bookstrore through the `70s due to exorbitant textbook costs, but those calls died down as the online market due. Members moved on to the Faculty Undergraduate See SACUA, Page 3
JOSHUA HAN/DAILY
INDEX
Vol. CXXVII, No. 2 ©2017 The Michigan Daily
accused of negligence
Competing waste firm accuses WeCare of site and contract violations MAYA GOLDMAN Daily Staff Reporter
LSA sophomore Jane Sheedy came to school this fall excited to start composting in her off-campus apartment. Her hometown doesn’t offer composting services and after learning about harmful methane release that results from putting organic materials into landfills last year, she was thrilled to learn Ann Arbor does. “We’ve got some mixing bowls in our freezer and any time we’ve got something compostable, we put it in there,” Sheedy said. “So vegetable scraps or if something goes moldy… or something like that. And when that’s full, there’s a bin behind our apartment complex that we can just empty the bowl into.” From there, the city of Ann Arbor takes over. A roadside pickup service picks up the compost much like it picks up regular trash or recycling and takes it to the city’s compost facility located only about five miles from campus. As it turns out, the facility is also the site of a local controversy. In 2010, the city of Ann Arbor decided to award its compost See WASTE, Page 3
NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 ARTS......................6
SUDOKU.....................2 CROSSWORD...............6 SPORTS.........................8
News
2 — Tuesday, October 3, 2017
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ON THE DAILY: COLLEGE GOP PAINTS THE ROCK The University of Michigan’s chapter of College Republicans painted the Rock Sunday night to send a message of solidarity to the minority groups that have been targeted by recent hate crimes on campus. Two weeks ago, three Black students in West Quad Residence Hall had their door name tags vandalized with racial slurs. That same weekend, other racist graffiti were discovered on a downtown mural, and posters reading “Free Dylann Roof” were found throughout campus. In the weeks before that, anti-Latino sentiments were found painted on the Rock, and a local skate park was vandalized with racist and anti-Semitic graffiti. Last week, several protests occurred throughout campus as a call to action and to draw attention to these events. Protesters blocked the C.C. Little bus station, flooded the room where a panel spoke about changing the name of the C.C. Little Science Building and sat with School of Public Health master’s candidate Dana Greene as he kneeled on the Diag for nearly 24 hours. University President Mark Schlissel
MOMS MARCH
wrote in a statement that he supports Greene’s right to kneel. “I share with many the belief that our nation does not always live up to its highest ideals, including the equal rights we hold dear,” Schlissel wrote. “To me, the American Flag represents many things, including those very rights. I support (Greene’s) right to engage in peaceful protest.” Like many other organizations on campus, the club paints the Rock every year, according to LSA junior Amanda Delekta, vice president of College Republicans. However, the group decided to be a little more purposeful with its paintbrushes this year, in light of recent campus incidents. “This year with the rhetoric on campus and some of the hateful incidents that have occurred, we wanted to create a really clear message of what our group stands for and disassociate from some of the other groups that tend to get lumped in with us,” Delekta said.
Michigan Students @UMichStudents Monday mornings = internal debate of walking to the IM gym or not and then ultimately whispering “you’ll get em next week tiger” University Unions @UMichUnions Live, laugh, eat. Food trucks at the Grove every Mon. & Thurs. from 11-2 thanks to @MichiganDining <-- check their page for more info
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Moms Demand Action march in support of increased gun laws Monday.
CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES 57th Annual Organ Conference Student Recital: Sarah Simko
2017 Fall Career Expo
WHAT: Sarah Simko will perform an organ concert in memory of Prof. Robert Glasgow. WHO: School of Music, Theater & Dance WHEN: 10 a.m. WHERE: Hill Auditorium
English Honors Program WHAT: Come learn about the English Honors program and its application process. WHO: Department of English Language and Literature WHEN: 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. WHERE: Angell Hall, Room 3154
WHAT: Over 90 companies will be the the University to recruit for summer and full-time opportunities. Come to this firststep event to find out more. WHO: University Career Center WHEN: 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. WHERE: Michigan Union
Peace Corps Company Day WHAT: Come learn about roles in the Peace Corps at this company day. WHO: Engineering Career Resource Center WHEN: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. WHERE: Duderstadt Center, Duderstadt Connector
MDP Project Preview Night
Optiver Tech Talk WHAT: U-M alum Alex Tikin will explain how he transferred what he learned here to his job as a softwaredesigner for Optiver, a proprietary trading firm. WHO: Engineering Career Resource Center WHEN: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. WHERE: Duderstadt Center, Media Center
WHAT: This event will showcase each of the more than 25 MDP research projects looking for student involvement. WHO: Michigan Engineering WHEN: 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. WHERE: Tishman Hall, BBB
Zingerman’s @zingermans
Library of the Future Design Challenge: Physical Design
Daily Staff Reporter
Students attempted to rename the C.C. Little Science Building Sunday night by covering the sign with a new sign that read “Mary Henrietta Graham,” the first Black woman to attend and graduate from the University of Michigan. The University has since removed the sign. The renaming attempt followed an LSA Student Government panel that discussed removing the name of former University president, C.C. Little, who worked in eugenics primarily against women of color. Protesters took to the panel and voiced
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has been a massive outcry JASON ROWLAND and ASHLEY TJHUNG against the naming of the CC Michigan in Color Editors michiganincolor@michigandaily.com Little building. Renaming it ANAY KATYAL and NATALIE ZAK Senior Michigan in Color Editors: Christian Paneda, Adam Managing Arts Editors arts@michigandaily.com ourselves and after a woman Brodnax, Halibut Olaniyan, Tanya Madhani, Sivanthy Vasanthan Senior Arts Editors: Dayton Hare, Nabeel Chollanpat, of color makes the most Madeline Gaudin, Carly Snider sense because reclaims the Arts Beat Editors: Danielle Yacobson, Danny Hensel, Erika ELLIE HOMANT right of marginalized to Shevchek, Matt Gallatin, Naresh Iyengar Managing Social Media Editor UM.” Senior Social Media Editors: Kayla Waterman and Anna Haritos MICHELLE PHILLIPS and AVA WEINER The University hasn’t Managing Design Editors design@michigandaily.com commented officially on the sign or its removal. “We don’t know why the sign was removed, but it CAYLIN WATERS Brand Manager honestly make (sic) sense that they did because they CLAIRE BUTZ EMILY RICHNER Business Development Manager Sales Manager only care about student JULIA SELSKY JUEUI HONG dissent if it works for the Local Accounts Manager Special Projects Manager brand they’re trying to SANJANA PANDIT CAROLINE GOLD protect,” Radfun stated. © sudokusolver.com. For personal use only. Production Manager Media Consulting Manager puzzlebysudokusyndication.com The petition circling to rename the building has just The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the came to over 1,000 Generate and solve Sudoku, Super Sudoku and Godoku puzzles at signatures. sudokusyndication.com! University OF Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office
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We can speak to why our collective decided to support the name of MHG, which was because there has been a massive outcry against the SUDOKU naming of EASY the CC Little building.
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several groups at UM that are implicated in the fight for social justice,” Radfun wrote. “We can speak to why our collective decided to support the name of MHG, which was because there
Zingerman’s Bakehouse celebrates 25 years with a new cookbook -- our book debut party is tomorrow!
WHAT: RSVP to this challenge activity where participants will design a library for the future. WHO: University Library WHEN: 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. WHERE: Shapiro Library, Design Lab
Radfun claims building name change to honor first Black female student at ‘U’ their frustration over the lack of University buildings named after women of color and the honoring of a man who aided eugenics. The University group Radfun, which describes itself as “radical anticapitalist deviants & forum of united nonconformists” posted a photo of the sign on Facebook with the caption “Our buildings should be named by us, and never named after the Oppressor!” In an email statement, Radfun called for campus community members to start referring to it as the Mary Henrietta Graham Science Building. “The decision for this name was based on research and support provided by
so umich cars to protect the diag from msu spray painting it but doesn’t give a f*** if a white dude pisses on the diag covered in BLM...
WHAT: This will be a conversation with Detroit-based performance art group and a Detroit art collective. WHO: Institute for the Humanities WHEN: 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. WHERE: 202 S. Thayer St
Students attempt C.C. Little rename with sign recognizing Black alum CARLY RYAN
kate @mojit0mami
Art and Archive panel discussion with The Hinterlands and Design 99
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CITY COUNCIL From Page 1 the Fourth Street parking structure. He said the process was delayed in the past because of high costs and other construction in the area. “Given today’s death, we’re moving forward to get the railings put in with those higher bid numbers,” Warpehoski said. “If we find out because of the other construction that it’s going to take a long time, we’ll go ahead and put lower-cost chain-
SACUA From Page 1 Scholarship, which is a $5,000 need-based scholarship given to undergraduate students and that can be can be divided between one or two recipients. This year, Ortega motioned for the award to be given to two students with the money split evenly among them. SACUA member Dave
MONTA From Page 1 as the company has found its way into retailers across the country. MONTA has even been featured on Buzzfeed, obtaining a spot on its “26 Awesome Beauty Products You Didn’t Know You Could Get At Urban Outfitters.” De Coster’s business is a solo operation; she manages all the marketing, branding, production and social media. She finds she needs separate calendars for school and MONTA to keep up with the volume of work. “Balance is still something I’m trying to figure out, honestly,” de Coster said. “You have to make a lot of sacrifices and really love what you’re giving up some normal college experiences for.” The business was born out of personal struggles in de Coster’s life. While in junior high, de Coster experienced medical issues that forced her to be more cautious about what she puts in her body. This, in conjunction with an extensive leg injury obtained four days into de Coster’s freshman year, provided the inspiration for MONTA. Instead of sitting in her dorm room, however, de Coster used aromatherapy as an outlet for her negative emotions and created the first MONTA products. “MONTA was born to express my longing for nature and to relay those emotions in another language,” de Coster said. “There is a faith component, as it expresses my relationship with God also; I
link fences or something else that can be deployed more quickly.” Ann Arbor resident Peter Eckstein agreed placing a railing would help prevent suicide. He dispelled the common myth that “if someone is determined to kill themselves, they will, so putting up a fence will make them do it another way.” “The statement defies itself,” Eckstein said. “‘If they’re determined!’ But often people aren’t determined in that same sense. It’s an impulse.” Eckstein shared the story about his friend jumping from
the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco after his girlfriend broke up with him. The bridge did not have railings back then. “These things are often done on impulse, the gloomy moment. It’s dark out. The sun may come out in half an hour, in 10 minutes. By then you’re dead,” Eckstein said. “You may get a job, you may get a purpose, you may get another girlfriend or boyfriend. It’s not ‘if you’re determined, you’re going to do it.’ And it is so easy to just climb up that wall and jump off. It’s scandalous that we let it happen.”
Wright, an accounting professor in the Ross School of Business, brought up the introduction of a campaign to raise more money for the award, since the committee only grants the scholarship every four years. “There are three years of students who aren’t eligible for that scholarship,” Wright said. “If we had more money in the pot we could be doing this every year.” As further support for
dividing the award between two students, Ortega mentioned splitting the money would have less of an impact on the winning students’ financial aid. This ushered in further discussion on amending the scholarship. SACUA member Ruth Carlos, a professor in the Medical School, believed the award should not negatively affect a student’s financial aid. “We’re just substituting one grant for another grant,” Carlos said.
can look outside and view his ultimate creativity.” MONTA has partnered with other businesses to craft new, communal products. One such collaboration is with Los Angeles based fashion line Gracemade, where the two will create a rollerball entitled “Be Still.” De Coster will also be working with Alex Elle, writer and self-care advocate, and Tara Mackey, owner of The Organic Life. Jasmine Rennie, creative
story; her whole concept of creating her scents was based on her own faith journey and things and places she experienced in her discovery of who God was in her life,” Rennie said. “She has a great mind and a great spirit about her and it shows throughout everything she does in her company.” As MONTA begins to gain more traction, de Coster is planning to expand the size of her operations. She intends on taking advantage of the Business School’s student facilities, like the Zell Lurie Center for Entrepreneurship, to help her make this transition. As her business begins to grow, so will her workload. Business sophomore Max Devooght, a friend of de Coster, believes de Coster’s work ethic is well suited for this change. “Everybody’s sitting there and enjoying themselves on gameday and she’s building a business,” Devooght said. “Her business is literally an extension of herself; I didn’t know it was possible to be that connected to a business.” MONTA has not only been an outlet for de Coster’s emotions, but for her artistic side as well. She sees her products as a unique blend of business and creativity and feels it will not be easy for anyone else to replicate. “I consider MONTA half business, half art,” de Coster said. “There is no one else that has the same design eye or personal experiences as I do, so I like to refer to the products as my sensory diary and no one else can write my diary for me.”
She just has a beautiful story; her whole concept of creating her scents was based on her own faith journey and things and places she experiences in her discovery of who God was in her life, director and owner of Gracemade, chose to work with de Coster due to a shared faith-driven background and mutual appreciation for each other’s brands. “She just has a beautiful
S I R PA U L
CLAIRE MEINGAST/Daily
Paul McCartney performs in Detroit Sunday evening.
WASTE From Page 1 facility to an outside source. It put out a Request for Proposal — known in the city as an RFP — looking for a company to contract the compost management. WeCare Organics, which was then based in New York but since merged with Arkansasbased Denali Water Solutions, answered that call. In February of 2011, it took over the contract and has been managing Ann Arbor’s compost since then. This summer, that contract was up and Ann Arbor once again put out an RFP for a composting contractor. WeCare submitted a request to renew their contract, but this time, the Holland, Mich.-based Cocoa Corporation also turned in a proposal. It did not receive an interview or site visit from the city. According to Cocoa Corporation CEO Adam Brent, his company felt its case was persuasive. Not only did he think it was the best company for the job, but he also claimed WeCare was grossly mismanaging the site. “From my perspective, there is mismanagement going on at the facility, and then the contract was awarded to a company who is certainly going to continue what I believe is business as usual, which is ‘we get paid for the tipping (service of accepting unsorted compost material), and we’ll just pile it up and leave it out back like everyone else is doing and maybe one day it’ll turn into compost,’” Brent said. “The city of Ann Arbor has an excellent compost facility … and the resource is being, in my opinion, squandered.” Brent and his CFO Richard Hornstein based their allegations on the fact that WeCare was not grinding large material or moving enough of their compost off the facility. Grinding is an important part of composting because it breaks down large woody materials so they can help along the composting process. Grinding and moving compost is a big part of Cocoa Corporation’s business model — it sells most of the compost it accumulates to local farmers as soil fertilizer — and it claims it was part of WeCare’s original contract, too. “The requirement is, in the contract with the city of Ann Arbor, is that the compost facility is supposed to grind all the woody material and remove all the contaminants,” Brent said.
SURVEY From Page 1 term effects. “A subpopulation of the sample will be followed over time,” Veliz said. “So we’ll be able to see how are these diagnosed concussions influencing outcomes as these adolescents age into adulthood. So again, we’ll have two groups, those who were concussed versus those who weren’t, and we’ll be able to ask are there differences? Are they drastic?” He also mentioned the role that sports play in this study. “There are quite a few
Tuesday, October 3, 2017 — 3 “If you go to the site, none of that is taking place. In the RFP, we requested through the Freedom of Information Act after we had been denied the contract their contract … it lists that they have two grinders. Grinders would be what breaks down the material. They don’t have two grinders there and the one grinder they do have has been broken two years, according to the employee that we spoke to back in August. So they’re not following through on their initial contract.” Brent and Hornstein also expressed frustration that WeCare doesn’t seem to be giving back as much revenue to the city as its company would, if given the chance. “We asked for the financial information from the city but they wouldn’t give it to us,” Brent said. “We don’t know how much WeCare has repatriated back to the city based on the tipping and the sale. That would be an interesting thing to compare because their original RFP said they were going to give back $36,000 a year. I’d like to know if they did that.” For Brent, the most infuriating part of the whole debacle surfaced when he found out whom WeCare had listed as references on its proposal submission. One of its references was Christina Gomes, the Ann Arbor solid waste and recycling coordinator. To Brent, this seemed like a clear conflict of interest. “The thing that upset me the most was that Ms. Gomes was listed as a reference on the WeCare RFP,” Brent said. “She’s one of the three people to make the decision as to who’s going to get the contract.” Neither Gomes nor the city of Ann Arbor responded to requests for comment, but city communications director Robert Keller forwarded a memo sent by the city to Brent and Hornstein when the pair asked why they had not received consideration for the contract. In the memo written by Craig Hupy, public services area administrator, the city denied all the allegations Cocoa Corporation had brought against WeCare. In response to the claim that WeCare was violating its contract with the city, Hupy wrote that Cocoa Corporation had misunderstood the contract and that the actual document does not require any tonnage quantities of waste removal be met. The city also denied WeCare has created
a potential landfill problem at the facility. “Cocoa’s accusations and assertions are incorrect, and also show a lack of understanding of municipal compost operations,” the memo read. The memo goes on to explain why it decided not to interview Cocoa Corporation after receiving its proposal submission. “Cocoa’s priority was third party waste, which did not fit within the program goals the City was looking to accomplish with the RFP. … Furthermore, Cocoa presented extremely limited previous experience in compost management, its experience being only at a single facility that processes compostable materials in large part from a limited, and consisted category of sources… and only since 2015,” Hupy wrote. There was no mention in the memo of the potential conflict of interest raised by Gomes being a reference of WeCare and a member of the selection committee. Mike Nicholson, WeCare’s senior vice president and development manager, also said he did not want to comment directly on the allegations made against his company. However, he said he felt the company was following all the rules it were supposed to follow. “At this point in time, we are in procurement with the city as our client, and we are following what we believe to be the rules of procurement,” Nicholson said. “We’re kind of keeping our comments to ourselves at this point in time.” In Nicholson’s eyes, WeCare, which is a founding member of the Composting Council of Michigan, is doing a great job in Ann Arbor. He said the company feels it’s been quite successful in its six years working with the city. “We’ve been very successful,” Nicholson said. “We view the city as a partner, and we have provided leadership in the state. … We are now providing services for the University of Michigan, for their zero-waste program for all their athletic facilities. And most importantly, we helped the city implement their residential food waste recycling program.” That occurred about three years after WeCare took over the compost contract, Nicholson said, and it’s the reason Ann Arbor residents and students like Sheedy can compost at their homes.
adolescents who participate in sports; I’m not saying that sports is the leading cause of concussion, but there is a strong association between participating in sports and having a head injury,” he explained. “We also have to understand that 75 percent of children and adolescents participate in sports at a competitive level.” Nursing sophomore Lucy Sandell, a member of the University’s Women’s Club Soccer, claimed this information didn’t come as a surprise to her. “I definitely believe that; especially with sports,” Sandell said. “I’ve had three concussions throughout my life, all from playing soccer. Experiencing more than one
can be very serious, my third caused migraines that lasted three weeks.” The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in Sept. 26, 2017. LSA sophomore Will Olvera responded he also initially associated this statistic with sports, especially with the student body at the University. “Upon first reaction, I’m not surprised,” he said. “I’m not really into sports in general, but I feel like no matter how much protection you use accidents happen. It’d be interesting to see how much more you’d see among certain sports like football or lacrosse ... but that number really doesn’t surprise me.”
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Opinion
4 — Tuesday, October 3, 2017
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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LUCAS MAIMAN | COLUMN
Patriotism, progress, protest
D
onald Trump wants to be your tour guide on what makes America great and how he is making it even greater and even more patriotic. You can kick off your journey with a visit to Charlottesville, Va., a place with “some very fine people on both sides.” There, you’ll be treated to proud displays of Confederate flags and monuments — testament to the “patriotic and idealistic cause” known as the Confederacy, whose flag “proclaims a glorious heritage” — Trump’s friend at Breitbart helpfully explains. Next, venture to Alabama to bask in the patriotism of newly elected Republican Senate candidate Judge Roy Moore. Who could be a more patriotic or devoted American than Judge Moore, who, like Mr. Trump, has questioned Barack Obama’s birthplace and would, if he could, have homosexuality outlawed? If all this country-loving has worn you out, perhaps unwind at your nearest NASCAR track, a venue where, according to Mr. Trump, you would not find any disrespect for our country or our flag. Here you will find one of the few remaining places for patriots unsullied by lesser Americans where the crowd is reliable, united by race, orientation and creed. After completing your tour of Mr. Trump’s America, do not despair if you still don’t grasp Mr. Trump’s brand of patriotism (dodging Vietnam, slavishly yielding to Russia, indiscriminately mocking those beyond his “base”). Maybe you don’t play to cameras by literally wrapping yourself in a flag, but unless you’ve truly gone out of your way to be mean and obnoxious to others, you’re almost certainly a truer patriot and a more devoted servant to American ideals than Mr. Trump. That is because what Trump and his ilk celebrate is not real patriotism. It is selective patriotism — deference and respect are reserved only for individuals who hew to their narrow mindset. In The New Yorker last week, Prof. Jelani Cobb explained that Trump’s selective patriotism is what “drives him to curse at black football players but leaves him struggling to create false equivalence between Nazis and anti-Fascists in Charlottesville.” Prof. Cobb exposes the lie of Trump’s patriotism. How can Trump glibly condemn Black football players who protest
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peacefully, yet struggle to condemn Nazis, attack Russia’s meddling in our elections, and acknowledge the Confederate monuments and flags? The mind does gymnastics trying to reconcile these obvious discrepancies as anything other than racism. Of course, Trump cloaks his conduct and words in patriotism. But the founding fathers were wary of such exploitation of patriotism. In his farewell address to the nation in 1796, George Washington warned Americans to “guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.” Alexander Hamilton expressed similar thoughts: “(I)n popular commotions especially,
Being a patriot in the United States means fighting to lift the most downtrodden of people.
the clamours of interested and factious men are often mistaken for patriotism.” Contrary to what Trump and his acolytes think, true devotion to the United States of America does not mean wrapping oneself in a flag and covering one’s eyes. Nor does it mean being self-righteous about one’s love for country. Being a patriot in the United States means fighting to lift the most downtrodden of people. It means refusing to accept inequalities and injustices in society, even if doing so invites criticism. “True patriotism,” as the famed criminal lawyer Clarence Darrow once said, “hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.” The country has had, and continues to have, many true patriots — those who advocated for women’s suffrage, traveled to Mississippi as Freedom Riders in an attempt to desegregate the South, marched in Washington with Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963, marched in Washington 30 years later to fight against LGBTQ discrimination and millions more who have enlisted in the military, voluntarily or otherwise.
Like the current movement by some professional athletes to take a knee during the playing of the national anthem, these historical acts of patriotism were also seen negatively at the time. As The Washington Post noted, most Americans viewed the Freedom Riders and the March on Washington unfavorably. A Newsweek survey found that only 23 percent of Americans thought that the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation “did more good than harm in the fight for gay rights.” Today, however, few, other than self-proclaimed “patriots” like the Charlottesville Tiki torch bearers and Judge Moore, would deny that the advances gained by the suffragettes, the Freedom Riders, civil rights activists and others who marched to promote the welfare of all Americans, greatly improved this nation, its social fabric and the lives of tens of millions. Protest has lifted the most marginalized in our nation. Protest has jolted the United States out of systemic injustices that run counter to the values enshrined by the Constitution. When we consider the progress that we have made in our 241-year history, we look to the individuals who have had the courage to believe that this nation can and must do better. Those kneeling in protest hold that same belief. Colin Kaepernick took a knee not to object to the flag or the anthem, but to object to the selective application of the justice system in the United States. In Slate, John Legend called the protests “an attempt to educate the public that criminal justice — mass incarceration, lengthy sentences, police brutality — is the civil rights issues of our time.” Kneeling, a silent and nonviolent protest, aims simply to call attention to the grave failures of our institutions, especially toward Black Americans. These athletes simply seek to highlight how pervasive these racial disparities are, however uncomfortable this might make some of us. They challenge President Trump, our political leaders and all of us to not be blind nationalists but true patriots, loyal to our most cherished ideals of fair, honest, equal treatment and opportunity for all.
Lucas Maiman can be reached at lmaiman@umich.edu.
NOTABLE QUOTABLE
It seemed like rapid fire. There was blood pouring everywhere.
— Melissa Ayala, witness to the mass shooting in Las Vegas late on October 1
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A meditation on Parisian loneliness
I
’m studying abroad in Paris this semester, something I’ve dreamed of doing forever. And I’ve been here for a few weeks already — time is flying! I feel really lonely; I miss home and Ann Arbor and school and familiarity. And that’s not something I expected. Going abroad, in my mind, didn’t include any of the difficult stuff. I think I have this image of myself as a self-sufficient person, a lifelong New Yorker whom friends describe as charismatic and surprisingly outgoing, a boy who only needs a backpack filled with a book, journal and maybe a bottle of water to be good to go. But since I’ve arrived, I’ve begun to learn how to appreciate my most intimate friendships, even as the friends themselves are thousands of miles away. I often walk around this beautiful place wondering why I’m here, what image of myself I’m trying to cultivate and for whom. Why I’ve intentionally surrounded myself with people I don’t know, in a new place, where people speak a language that I have to think quite hard about before saying anything of substance. I’ve thought a lot about how people here read me, about the personality I have. Quiet and unassuming, I’d imagine. I’ve never been called these things before. I become, then, a stranger even to myself. Both on internal and intersocial levels, I become intra-alienated. How I regard my circumstances is skewed by my present nostalgia for home, and, in trying to speak to people here, I am read in a specifically alienating way, as well. I really want to be with my best friends in the places I know best. I’m a senior, so time in Ann Arbor, a place where it feels as if I’ve lived about seven individual lives filled with friendships and follies and discoveries and observant strolls through the crannies of my mind, is coming to an end. I check my Snapchat on Saturdays to get a glimpse of the tailgates I’ve experienced for the past three years. And when I get caught up in all that I’m missing out on, in all that’s not here, I very quickly sink into myself, such
that everything here, all of the beauty and excitement of being here, the budding friendships with other students here — all of it dissipates, becomes an afterthought. None of it holds weight anymore. I feel confused by this sudden change in emotion and outlook and I ask myself: If only I were home, why do I do this, why do I stray from the familiar just for the sake of it? Why do I do this, when staying home would be so much easier? With these thoughts going through me, I neglect to explore the city, instead staying in my apartment and FaceTiming friends from home. Which makes me feel guilty, as if I’m doing this wrong, as if I’m not taking advantage of being here, as I should be. Shame gets mixed into the equation, as well. I immediately begin to feel starkly, existentially terrible, in a way that isn’t sustainable. My loneliness here is something I need to figure out. Before coming here, I didn’t think about the impact a place can have on how I feel within myself. How the ability to identify with a certain place — like I do with Ann Arbor or with New York City, where I grew up — allows me to feel enlivened, and how not being able to identify with a place, as I have felt here, can make me feel stultified and, at worst, unhinged. Being lonely and grappling with all this newness have specific effects on my psyche. My past experiences become dim and distant while my present sorrow becomes everything I know. All that I love feels so far away, and all that I do not have here, all the absence I feel without my best friends and my family, takes over. Stepping back and arriving in a place where I can consider and comment upon these instances of bad feeling, through selfreflection and conversation with loved ones, I’ve learned a couple important lessons. First, there’s not one right way to do this, to be here. I’m not here to see the sights of Paris necessarily. I’m here to live, to exist in a new place. Whatever that means for me — staying indoors, walking all day, feeling lousy, feeling fantastic — whatever life brings.
Because this is still life, even though I’m away. And living is complex, regardless of where one is. New baggage will always form, regrets will take shape, grass will always appear greener somewhere else. And through those conversations with others, I remember the love I have in my life, both with other people and with other places. My dad, with whom email has always been the predominant form of communication, articulated this lesson particularly beautifully: “What and who are physically present is different/maybe less than all that is only psychically present. But whatever is present (coupled with what is only available in your mind, via memory and anticipation — we’ve been with you and we will soon again be with you — all of us — is what you have — that combination of psychically and materially present stuff (people and things). It’s what you have, that combination. It’s what I have too — that combination. I have you here (the imagined Isaiah, reading this; the imagined Isaiah with whom I am currently in psychic connection by writing this) and the Isaiah I eagerly anticipate seeing soon; and all the recollections of 21 years of beloved Isaiah.” We all feel loneliness. And maybe one way of measuring the strength of friendships is by testing that psychic connection, by measuring how well you can feel somebody with you even if they are thousands of miles away. Which, in turn, warms my heart. Because of how strongly I feel so many of my friends and family are here with me right now. In that sense, by spending time away, my friendships are increasing in strength and clarity. I ought not to think of the absence of my friends and family as that, as an absence. But, instead, I ought to think of all those people as being here, to think of their presence, to reflect on all that we have shared and, crucially, to think of all the moments — psychic and material — to come.
Isaiah Zeavin-Moss can be reached at izeavinm@umich.edu.
EZRA GERARD | OP-ED
F
Engage in conversation
rom the moment I entered the Michigan League to attend Tuesday’s panel discussion on the renaming of the C.C. Little Building, I sensed the evening’s event would be a contentious one. Little, former president of both the University of Michigan and the American Eugenics Society, has been subject to increasingly heated debate — due in large part to his involvement in the eugenics movement. As I walked to the event, I found myself in the midst of protesters also headed there. I heard one protester responding to their friend’s comment about the discussion they were about to attend: “What discussion? It’s racist to have a discussion.” The frustrations of the students of color and their allies at the event are entirely justified due to the University’s inaction regarding concerns over buildings named after racists and the broader struggles minority students face in their battle against racism and other forms of bigotry on campus. But snubbing the exchange of ideas is not the way to further a cause. Members of the panel, Professors Alexandra Stern and Martin Pernick and LSA senior Joshua Hasler, were consistently unable to speak, due to protesters interjections — angry over the lack of progress in the name change process and insistent that the academics in front of them weren’t doing enough, or even that they were part of the problem. As I stood and watched the events unfold, I found myself torn between the grievances of the protesters and the educational, though not politically detached, position of those on the panel. Reconciling the division between radical activists and the academics who can give them the tools to engage in critical and historically informed ways with their activism is a major challenge in current
university student movements. The categorical dismissal of information proffered by educators and the rejection of discussion creates an environment hostile to learning and understanding. While I agree wholeheartedly with efforts to change the name of the C.C. Little Building — and all other buildings which threaten to normalize and valorize the University’s bigoted past — rebuffing information and debate does no service to accomplish these ends. Regardless of a person’s certainty in their point of view, it’s crucial that they listen when information is offered in order to maintain an informed opinion. Furthermore, I doubt anyone in the room would dispute C.C. Little’s racism; the purpose of the event wasn’t to debate whether his views were justified. But consensus on that point shouldn’t mean the end of discussion. While formal efforts to change the name have already been made, continuing to learn about Little and other problematic figures in the University’s past (and present) is crucial to provide an evidential basis for the removal of such names. Perhaps the greatest frustration I observed at this event is one often directed at historians, who are tasked with having “the answers.” While history may not provide us with straightforward solutions, a knowledge of history will show a reasonable adversary that you care enough to have educated yourself on the nuances of your cause and will bolster the gravity of your appeal. In an institution steeped in tradition, acquiring historical knowledge will show administrators that you recognize the significance of names. It can also help you come to a solution that stops validating proven racists, while not devolving into erasure and whitewashing. There’s also an important distinction to be made
between commemoration and remembrance. The debate isn’t about whether to remember C.C. Little. It’s about whether his name should be emblazoned on a science building as a sign of honor, or whether his memory would be of better use in a museum that can educate future generations on the University’s past failings and the power of students in creating new histories. I am also quite concerned that students fail to understand the implications of spurning the offer of information from University professors and the dangers of rejecting debate. While I understand the critique that the panel was all white — which is something that should be remedied in future discussions — the fact that professors are willing to discuss this topic is an educational opportunity that shouldn’t be taken for granted. Listening to a person speak does not mean you have to agree with them. But shouting down educators (especially when they are, in fact, supporters of your cause) only creates rifts, instead of fostering a fruitful learning environment that can serve as a springboard for activism. Fundamental to a university setting, as well as a democracy in general, is that people feel safe to discuss ideas and to practice critical thinking. The individuals participating in the protest, as well as those on the panel, are playing an important role in rectifying a wrong in the history of the University. If protesters would allow themselves to be historically informed, their case to remove Little’s name and their continued, valiant struggle against the ennoblement of the University’s bigoted past would be all the more powerful.
Ezra Gerard is an LSA senior.
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ALBUM REVIEW
Tuesday, October 3, 2017 — 5
FILM REVIEW
RCA/TEXT
SUNDANCE
Looking simultaneously Form follows function in at new Four Tet and Cyrus indie-romance ‘Columbus’ practically any reference to the era from Can’t Be Tamed to Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz. In many ways, that era of Miley is the one which we’re Gone are the days of Miley most familiar with now, and Cyrus pole dancing in front this pivot will strike many as of thousands of screaming confusing, especially since pre-teens, or smoking salvia it goes largely unprocessed from a large on this release. bong at a house There are no party. Miley has, serious cathartic Younger Now apparently, had tracks about Miley Cyrus her near decade of her past, no experimentation explanations for RCA and found herself her behavior. again, essentially Instead, we’re — right back where meant to simply New Energy she started, accept that this living in a happy is, yet again, the Four Tet rainbow land. new Miley. Text Younger Now, It’s this her latest, is a missing piece country pop album that lacks that makes Younger Now, while clear chronology. To call it occasionally enjoyable, largely timeless would be a mistake, a disappointment. When the as that indicates a more lasting feverish background vocals on appeal, but Miley does f loat in “Malibu” really come through some odd, newfound balance on the second chorus, you between past and present want to grab that Miley by the on this project. If she hadn’t shoulders, pull her out from been pulled through the TMZ behind the curtain and beg her ringer back in 2009 for her to scream louder. It’s like she’s very typical teenage behavior, hiding behind a well-groomed this could easily have been her version of herself who needs third album — not her sixth. you to know that she’s fine, That the road back to her and what that strangles is the roots has been so long does satisfaction some prior tracks come with rewards. The had, like “Wrecking Ball” and sappy, sometimes plain, never “Lighter.” too deep songwriting has There are a few moments of an earned quality to it, now fun here. The title track can considering her past tumult. On be played a few times over and lead single “Malibu,” she sings, still be enjoyed, and “Inspired” “I never would’ve believed you is nice enough, almost if three years ago you told me actually inspiring. There’s an / I’d be here writing this song” endearing Dolly Parton feature and she sounds genuine, with that’s mostly notable for the distant pain in her voice. It’s voicemail from Parton, where hard to deny the sweetness of she talks about recording on this sentiment. Unless you’re a cassette and using a f lip a tabloid writer or a Twitter phone. The rest tends to bleed stan, we don’t generally wish together. for the emotional downfall of a Which brings me to distant pop star we don’t know. another Friday release that There’s a lot of real joy in also suffers from a bit of hearing that she’s happy with blandness. Four Tet’s newest who she is now. album, New Energy, is a The problem, though, is that not nearly the whiplash of there is a piece missing on this Miley Cyrus’s genre switch, timeline, and it is hard to accept but it does include some that we’ve arrived at this boundary pushing beyond his cute, content and inoffensive discography, as Kieran Hebden country pop album without is want to do. MATT GALLATIN Daily Music Editor
He keeps to his trademark here, mixing very natural, life-like sounds on top of a subtle club beat that is always controlled and never explodes. He uses an Eastern-inspired harp noise on this release, and it remains a constant throughout, applied most intriguingly on “Lush” and “Two Thousand Seventeen.” The former bounces back and forth in simple trance, while the latter moves languidly between the Eastern harp and soft, moody synths. Hebden has a skill for changing the scene up just when you thought the sound would get redundant. It’s what made Rounds and There Is Love In You so powerful and interesting. He employs that on this release too, but lets some of the duller moments go on for longer than they should. “Daughter” sags at the start, as does “You Are Loved,” and though the payoffs are praiseworthy, the build-up can be exhausting. He would have done well taking a few more cues from his impressive remixes, like his recent of The xx’s “A Violent Noise.” He’s particularly successful when he draws you in just far enough, hinting at a climax that never exactly comes. That might sound frustrating, but by the end you’re itching to start the song over to experience that journey again. Four Tet’s project above all is about the process, so it’s not surprising that there are slower moments on his releases. When it works, you’re left with an infectious inner rhythm that suggests a dance, but one in solely in your head. This is achieved on the album’s single, “Scientists,” which combines voice, drum patterns and the organic harp in a growing chorus that almost reaches a Gregorian chant at its peak. So as with most Four Tet albums, New Energy can be overlong and taxing, but it manages, at points, to continue the project that Hebden has been working on for nearly two decades.
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talk movie where the characters just happen to be talking about Senior Arts Editor modernist architecture. A stunning debut feature from Kogonada, “Columbus” owes a At the center of “Columbus” is great deal of it’s staying power a bank designed by Eero Saarinen. to it’s cinematographer Elisha It’s the first truly modernist Christian (“In Your Eyes”) who bank, a simple unimposing composes shots with precision glass building. Built in a time and nuance. The camera lingers in — Casey (Haley quiet long takes that “Columbus” Lu Richardson are balanced and “Split”) tells us — beautiful. Buildings Sundance Institute when banks were and nature are fortresses where given equal screen Michigan Theater tellers sat behind time and we are bars. asked to look at both through the Then Saarinen came to admiring eyes of the two leads. Columbus and rewrote the rules Through their eyes — and through for what a bank, and really what Christian’s — banks and hospitals a building, should be. “Columbus” become things of immense beauty. takes it’s name from the same Most movies have at least one sleepy Indiana town that boasts shot that floors me. “Columbus” Mike Pence’s birthplace and is a movie made entirely of those a concentration of modernist kinds of shots. architecture. And like Saarinen’s Richardson and Cho’s bank, the film breaks from the chemistry isn’t initially apparent. conventions of modern indie films Their first interaction — smoking — simplifies, elevates and opens cigarettes on either side of a fence them up. — is odd. They make bad jokes and After his estranged arcitect have to explain them, but both father ends up in the hospital actors have the subtlety to infuse during a business trip, Jin (John their slow, and often awkward, Cho “Star Trek Beyond”), a courtship with charm. translator living in Seoul, travels Richardson especially proves to Columbus. He meets Casey, herself to be at the top of her who shares his father’s love of class. She is an absolute dream as architecture, and lets her take Casey, giving the kind of nuanced him around the city showing him and vulnerable performances the buildings she loves. The result most actors only find in their late is a lot like a Linklater film — careers. quiet and simple with meticulous “Columbus” is a romance and visual composition. It’s a walk and yet it’s not entirely clear who is MADELEINE GAUDIN
falling in love with whom. There’s the obvious couple, Jin and Casey, but there’s also Jin’s unresolved feelings for Eleanor and Casey’s flirtation with Gabriel. Ultimately it seems the real love story, the most compelling romance, is that
‘Columbus’ takes it’s name from the same sleepy Indiana town that boasts Mike Pence’s birthplace
between people and buildings. It’s a romance in the sense that it’s a movie about love and the ways in which people share what they love. It’s a movie about a girl who loves a bank and tries to tell a man why she loves it. But, of course, it’s impossible to put something like that into words. “Columbus” is as unexpected as it’s namesake. A secret stash of beauty in a genre — quiet indies — that often prioritize quirk and cleverness over aesthetic composition. Like the buildings it depicts, “Columbus” cares equally about form and function.
ALBUM REVIEW
Young Thug harkens to his classic sound on latest JOEY SCHUMAN Daily Arts Writer
By the time I started writing this review, Young Thug had just been arrested for possession of marijuana and tinted windows. This development is unfortunate but also equally Young Thug, not in terms of illegality, but in nonconformity to societal strictures. Strictures, including within his music — bars, some form of rhythm, the essentials — aren’t something with which he concerns himself. In this sense, the rapper is different, not “normal”; we know this. He knows we know this, but he says things like “Everybody got tigers / So I’m gon’ go get a liger” so we know he knows that we know this. If you create your own canon of rap experimentalism, as he has, this is just something you do. If you’re Thug, most recently, you make a balladheavy album (Beautiful Thugger Girls) with the most croony guitar the genre has seen since Jay-Z ironically brought one out to mock Noel Gallagher at Glastonbury in 2008. While the guitar gets left
behind on Young Martha, Thug’s latest — a collaboration with Carnage — stays weird, because it’s just something Thug does. This form of weird begins with the grandiose on “Homie”; Meek Mill trades punches between passionate Thug hooks (“I got a bottle of Ace and I popped it and I don’t even pour it up”) that reinforce the type of energy we’ve come to expect from him. This EP is more Jeffery — a trap landmark thanks to its defiance of convention — than Beautiful Thugger Girls, employing more traditionally thumping production and leaving out the more tender exclamations we heard from Thug on the latter. “Liger,” for example, is confidently Thug, as he shows quirkiness and pomposity, the closest thing to normal being Carnage’s synth cuts. The track feels primed for a mainstream splash. That a rapper can make such a splash after making strong statements ranging from the political to the, well, inescapably political, is an impressive ref lection of his inf luence within the industry. And, while his status as a catalyst for previously ambiguous rap territory has
been given a ton of attention at this point, it doesn’t make his quintessential self any less entertaining. “10,000 Slimes” sees Young Thug at this most quintessential self, with quips (“her booty ja-jiggly, wiggly”) that we would never hear from Drake, or J. Cole, or anyone of that vanilla variety, and it makes it all the more fun. The highlight might be “Don’t Call Me,” which features multi-instrumentalist production infused with an explicit pop sensibility before unheard from the rapper. Here Carnage’s touch shines, allowing enough room for a chopped Shakka hook that pulls the song together as something definitively un-Thug. In his world of undefined boundaries, we welcome the dancehall. Young Martha isn’t really “new,” but if that sounds disappointing, it shouldn’t. If it’s not a marked progression in his development, it is, at the very least, a fun diversion, four tracks that layer effectively but still masquerade as cogs in this typical Thug fun machine. Enjoy Young Martha for now — he’ll probably “twist it like a tootsie roll,” or something of that sort, again, very soon.
Arts
6 — Tuesday, October 3, 2017
FOOD COLUMN
What I ate last Monday and Tuesday Children, listen: The best thing to read on the internet is New York magazine’s Grub Street Diet. Once a week, the site publishes someone’s food journal of the past few days — a culinary diary from people who range from minimally famous to Kristen Bell. Of course, the great secret of the Grub Street Diet is that, often, it’s the random author you’ve never heard of or the CEO of a company you didn’t know existed that writes the best piece (spoiler alert, Kristen Bell’s diet sounds atrocious). The best of these diary entries read like the world’s best food writing from people who aren’t even food writers; they’re ridiculously entertaining vignettes of a few days eating around New York, San Francisco or LA. The worst Grub Street Diets are unfortunately bland, rote descriptions of food. And sometimes you find one that is, truly, impossible to explain — a great sentence to take out of context here is this: “I have a lot of calls to do this morning, so I pour a cold sugar-free Red Bull into a hot large coffee and gulp it.” Obviously now, in honor of my favorite weekly content machine, I’ll try my best to recreate a Grub Street Diet for a couple of uneventful days. Let’s all be mindful that I’m in college, I was on the tail end of my grocery supply and I simply did not have the time to cook that much. I apologize in advance. (And now that I think about it, I take back what I said about New York Giants running back Rashad Jennings writing a shitty blog post. I’m sorry, Rashad. Much like playing with Eli Manning as your quarterback, this was harder than it looks.) Monday, September 25 Keeping with the theme of “harder than it looks,” I wake up at 7:20, 10 minutes before my alarm is supposed to go off at 7:30. I hate that. That’s a fitting omen: It’s going to be a horrible week! I have — and I believe this is the metric unit used around the world — a shit-ton of work, all due before Thursday and with no time to do it. But I must eat, of course, so after a solid shower, I head down to the kitchen and make some coffee. I look around for something, anything, before I find some honey. There’s yogurt in the fridge, so I slap some into a bowl and drizzle a bit of cheap, Trader Joe’s honey on top. The coffee tastes like ass. It’s fine. This is good enough. Hungry and tired, several hours and a lot of hard work
later I realize I need to head home to make myself a grilled cheese. I’d like to say here that, if nothing else, my grilled cheeses are fantastic. Even if I don’t have the ideal bread (pullman loaf, of course), I still always manage to put together a solid sandwich. It takes a slightly unhealthy amount of butter, that plastic Kraft American Singles stuff and, as I’ve learned, patience. I down a quick one made with
NABEEL CHOLLAMPAT multigrain bread, sliced into triangles, and then I’m off to the Espresso Royale. Everyone calm down. Of course it’s the one on State Street; I don’t hate myself. Despite a good 20 minutes of actual work and two hours of, well, not that, I feel in need of a treat. I pick up a small coffee and a blueberry muffin. Espresso’s baked goods aren’t the greatest, but they get the job done. And they fill you up! Alas, dinner that night is a special one. I’m working production at the University’s most editorially and financially independent newspaper, so we all decide TK Wu is the way to go. TK Wu, on E. Liberty, is a staple of the last few years I’ve been at the Daily. There’s nowhere else on campus you can get such good shitty Chinese food, and at such an affordable price! And if you’re going to go bad Chinese food, you might as well go full bad Chinese food: I order the General Tso’s Chicken with white rice. It’s incredible for the first few bites, and then once you realize all that murky, red liquid at the bottom of the container may not, in fact, be actual food, you throw it out. It’s glorious. I’m only slightly embarrassed. Tuesday, September 26 Mondays suck, of course, but Tuesdays are a great day of the week for me. I don’t have class until four, but again, since this is a week of endless papers and math assignments, I get up early in the hopes of getting it all done. I make another cup of really bad coffee (guys, don’t worry, it’s just that my coffee
machine sucks), and then head to the gym. I make it back an hour later, shower, throw on a dope outfit, eat a banana and step outside. It’s still hot as nuts. Nevertheless, I make my way over to my temple (the Espresso on State Street), and, sweaty and flustered, I order another coffee. I hammer out a couple essays of dubious quality. Bruegger’s, which is apparently the only place in Ann Arbor you can get a bagel, is across the street; I blurt out the classic line — “Can you watch my stuff real quick?” — to no one in particular and trot over. My take on Bruegger’s fluctuates. It’s obviously not the greatest restaurant on the planet (you’ll notice I’ve lowered my standards for a lot of things this week), but they do serve smoked salmon. I order the sandwich with lox, cream cheese, tomatoes, red onions and capers. It’s good, and just filling enough. Ethically, it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t cook at least one meal for this goddamn faux Grub Street diet. I’ve realized now that, again, I am in no place to criticize New York Giants running back Rashad Jennings for the quality of his internet writing. But I will say this: This is a pretty boring diary so far, to be sure, but I’m a college student in Ann Arbor with a limited budget. If you’re an East Coast media elite-type in New York City, you have no excuses. Buy that $4 fucking coffee and tell us how it tastes, man. As for my own meal: Today’s dinner will be... chicken breasts! Ah, chicken breasts, that famous dish we all know and love. I’ve marinated them in a quick solution of olive oil, garlic powder, onion powder, chilli powder, salt, pepper and then whatever else I could find in the spice cabinet. They all taste the same. Except for cinnamon. They do not all taste like cinnamon. The first thing I do is get a good sear on these bad boys, because that’s crucial. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I pop them in the oven to finish off, because you’ve got to cook the meat, of course. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I microwave a bag of that Trader Joe’s frozen brown rice stuff, because that’s what I had time for. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. After a quick sautee of broccoli and mushrooms, I carefully compose a plate of one piece of chicken, a handful of rice and some vegetables. Nice! This is a good enough image to end on.
FILM REVIEW
‘I Am Blues’ gives lost legends moment to shine back to the birthplace of blues to take the audience on a tour Daily Arts Writer of the once-glittering world of B.B. King and Jimmy Reed, Before there was rock ‘n’ roll now a wasteland of neglect or country or hip hop, there fueled only by the few, devoted were the blues. players dedicated Blues, the father to keeping the “I Am The of soul, were blues alive. Blues” born in the deep Through south, nursed in interviews and Film Movement the swamplands impromptu jam of Louisiana with sessions with Michigan Theater a broken piano blues masters and cradled along and key players, the Mississippi River with a now in their late 80s, “I Am The horsehair guitar. From the Blues” illustrates the passion, smokehouses to the BBQ joints artistry and history behind to the churches to the cotton the art that lives on. The film fields, there was once a time is grounded in the present, by when blues were everywhere. following blues legends like Documentarian Daniel Cross Bobby Rush, Barbara Lynn, (“Chairman George”) goes Lazy Lester, Little Freddie BECKY PORTMAN
King, Henry Gray and more, while expertly painting a vivid picture of the lively past of the genre solely through stories and
Before there was rock ‘n’ roll or country, there were the blues first-hand accounts (the only archival footage is shown in the credits). Despite their age, these legends still have their rhythm, but most importantly, they still have their blues.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
FESTIVAL REVIEW
COURTESY OF MANHATTAN SHORT FILM FESTIVAL
2017 Manhattan Short Film Festival successful films highlighted unique and inf luential figures in history, such as the Auschwitz prisoner who cut the hair of a Nazi general for four years in tense For one week every year, silence (“Hope Dies Last”), and film lovers gather in over the Italian woman who defied 250 cities across the globe the law that forced women to to simultaneously watch and marry their rapists (“Viola vote on the ten Franca”). The short films of most complex and Manhattan the Manhattan disturbing film, Short Film Short Film “Mare Nostrum,” Festival. Highly worked to dignify Festival competitive, Syrian refugees prestigious and and complicate Michigan Theater interactive, the act of risking Manhattan Short one’s life in Films seeks to showcase talent the name of hope. The only from around the world and animated piece, “In A Nutshell,” enable viewers to determine was a visually stunning stream the merit of each screened of consciousness that linked piece. This year, the 10 selected unlikely objects together. films exhibited diversity in The festival ended with “8 both genre and nationality, Minutes,” a moving piece set in with compelling stories and an apocalypse that strengthens performances condensed in 15 the bond between a magician minutes or less. and his son. Selected from over 1,600 Overall, the festival was a submissions, it is clear why fun and entertaining showcase this year’s ten short films of diverse international talent. made the cut. Though more The viewing and voting or less predictable, every film process is unique in its way was clean cut, entertaining of connecting the viewer to a and well-paced. The strongest global community of people SYDNEY COHEN Daily Arts Writer
J O I N D A I L Y A R T S P L E A S E
watching and voting on the same pieces at the same time. I really enjoyed the experience
For one week every year, film lovers gather in over 250 cities ... to simultaneously watch and vote on the ten short films of the Manhattan Short Film Festival
and recommend it to anyone who enjoys succinct and compelling film.
RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 Carpet thickness 5 Crowbar, basically 10 Vanishing ski lift 14 Preemptive rescue op 15 Wear down 16 MasterCard rival 17 *Boot camp newbie 19 Not fer 20 Slap in the face 21 Play the hand you were dealt 23 Smooth engine sound 25 __-Locka, Florida 26 Aetna’s bus. 27 Michelin product 31 Ancient vase in a museum, say 33 Fuel-efficient Chevy 34 Physics work unit 36 Starts the kitty 39 Truth stretcher 40 Nebula Award genre 43 Undiluted 44 Untrue 46 Acquired 47 __ Minor: Little Bear 48 Chinese menu promise 51 Company co-founded by J.P. Morgan 53 “The Simpsons” disco guy 55 Sport-__: 4 x 4 56 90 deg. at the North Pole, e.g. 57 Overly long and generally unproductive activity 60 One of Santa’s reindeer 65 “SOS” pop group 66 *Defensible alibi 68 Baked desserts 69 Latest craze 70 Ointment additive 71 Tortoise racer 72 Spiritual guardian 73 Identity hider DOWN 1 Prefix with scope 2 Hall of Fame catcher Rodriguez 3 Newton’s motion trio
4 Color of raw silk 5 Professors’ talks 6 Boot the ball 7 “Parlez-__ français?” 8 Manuscript fixer 9 Make another recording of 10 Promo on the tube 11 *Grand scheme of things 12 From China, say 13 Tirades 18 Pre-college, briefly 22 Simba’s playmate 24 Defunct Ford division, for short 27 Baby whale 28 Sports shoe brand 29 *It may be rational, in math 30 Sculptor’s subject 32 Data to be processed 35 Band tour booking 37 Highland tongue 38 Close tightly 41 Basketball transgression
42 “Agreed!” ... and what can be said about the start of the answers to starred clues 45 Grounded Aussie birds 49 Mark of disgrace 50 Columbus, by birth 52 Lay’s chips-in-acan brand
53 Dangerous bacterium 54 Knee-to-ankle bone 58 Lessen, as pain 59 Skull Island ape 61 Rip-off 62 Island dance 63 Those, in Mexico 64 Cause serious nose-wrinkling 67 Stop working, as an engine
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
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By Roland Huget ©2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/03/17
10/03/17
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Tuesday, October 3, 2017 — 7
Wolverines go to double overtime once again, settle for another tie Sarkisian’s return serves as promising sign for Michigan MAGGIE KOLCON Daily Sports Writer
So far this season, the Michigan women’s soccer team has had a consistent story — the Wolverines (2-1-3 Big Ten, 5-2-6 overall) have utilized a talented crop of freshmen to fill in the gaps left by a multitude of injuries. Michigan’s battle against Nebraska (1-1-2, 7-3-2) on Sunday was consistent with this narrative, with one notable exception. Fifth-year senior Ani Sarkisian returned. Sarkisian was the only senior starter, and one of just three seniors to earn minutes in the drag out 110-minute, 1-1 tie. “It feels like I’ve been out for a year, but it’s been like a week and a half,” Sarkisian said. After a three-game absence due to injury, Sarkisian resumed her spot back on the field, but not in her usual position. The experienced co-captain had to make up for other Wolverine losses on defense in the first half, before she was moved to a more familiar midfield position to start the second. “I put (Sarkisian) at centerback,” said Michigan coach Greg Ryan. “She’s played about 10 minutes of centerback before today. We were just trying to find answers.” But just two minutes into the second half, after getting the wind knocked out of her, Sarkisian stayed down for an extended period of time. The game clock paused before she slowly reached her feet. She jogged off the blow, but just a few minutes later, Sarkisian drew a yellow card. Once again, she looked slow to get up. This time, her teammates capitalized on the free kick, and redshirt junior forward Taylor Timko found the back of the net.
Michigan would not score again. “More than anything (having Sarkisian back) gives us a leader on the field,” Ryan said. “I think Ani’s presence was clearly felt by everybody in the game. If she got the ball she was calm with it, she connected us.” While the Wolverines had scoring difficulties, the Cornhuskers were also unable to break the draw, but not for lack of shooting. Nebraska ended the double overtime game with 25 shots, six of which were saved by freshman goalkeeper Hillary Beall. Michigan had just nine shots all match. With the shaken up defensive line missing key components in sophomore Brooke Cilley and freshman Alia Martin, Beall needed to perform at her peak. In the last seconds of the second overtime, Beall was forced to jump on a live ball in the middle of a scrum. She held on, solidifying the Wolverines’ sixth tie of the season. “I have tremendous confidence in Hillary,” Ryan said. “This was a big game for her, to play against another real quality opponent and to do well. We’ve had her in some big games. We had her against No.1 South Carolina; she played 90 minutes in that game.” Beall is one of six freshmen that earned a starting nod for Michigan. The injuries have caused players, like Sarkisian, to learn new roles quickly — and surprise their coach with their success. “We had two freshmen playing wingback for us today,” Ryan said. “Sam DeVecchi hasn’t been out there — I don’t think she’s ever played there in her life — and I thought they both did really well. That’s been a big bright spot for us.
MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY
Flanagan, Michigan shine in South Bend EFE EDEVBIE
Daily Sports Writer
The Michigan men’s cross country team had an impressive showing Friday at the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invitational in South Bend, finishing fourth in a field that featured 10 nationally-ranked teams out of a total of 21. Leading the way for the Wolverines was fifth-year senior Ben Flanagan, who finished 14th out of 177, pacing the team with a 24:05.0 time on the five-mile course. “The race was actually pretty similar to one of the resources we have just off of campus (in) Rogers Farms,” Flanagan said. “I think we came in kind of with a little bit of an advantage understanding what to do on this type of terrain and (I) think that ultimately helped quite a bit.” The fourth-place finish for Michigan comes two weeks after a first-place finish in the Adidas XC Challenge at North Carolina State. This weekend’s invitational served as an important outing for a team filled with freshmen and other inexperienced runners. “The thing that was wonderful about NC State and the Michigan Open starting things off is it gave guys the opportunity to figure out where they stood relative to other teammates and taught them how to work together in a smaller field, and ultimately run for a very high placing,” Flanagan said. “Whereas
today, it gave us a lot of an understanding of what races are like down the road at national championships and (the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational), where there are a lot of bodies around.” The Wolverines also received top-50 finishes from fifth-year seniors Connor Mora and Billy Bund, redshirt freshman Isaac Harding and redshirt sophomores Keenan Rebera and Ben Hill, who finished 30th, 31st, 35th, 46th and 47th respectively. “A lot of it has to do with just preparation that we put into this race,” Flanagan said. “Aside from the championship portion of the season, with the Big Ten (championship), regionals and nationals, we put a pretty good priority on this race and the Wisconsin invite in two weeks.” With momentum building, the team is putting itself in position to accomplish its biggest goal this season: a Big Ten championship. “That’s something we decided on very early, and we believe we’re very capable of doing (it),” Flanagan said. “Nationally is a bit of a harder discussion just because of how many teams there are and how chaotic the meets tend to be.” With the regular season drawing to a close, the Wolverines will look for a similar performance in Madison on Oct. 13 when they face 34 other teams in the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational, another marquee race for the upward-trending team.
The race was actually pretty similar to one of the resources we have just off of campus (in) Rogers Farms.
These freshmen like (Faith Harper) and (DeVecchi) who we’ve been able to put into different spots and they do really well anytime we put them anywhere.” While the Wolverines have been able to grind out even matches with a shuffled roster, they have not been able to push into winning territory. The shorter bench is an obvious obstacle that Michigan may soon be relieved of. “I think we’re going to have at least two more (players) back next weekend,” Sarkisian said. “It will be nice to have fresh legs out there and have people sub in and out. We weren’t really able to do that much this weekend since we didn’t have as much depth.” With freshmen proving their abilities and starters returning to the lineup, the Wolverines may soon regain their missing edge.
‘M’ goes with 5-4-1 formation, holds off Nebraska attack KATIE CONKLIN Daily Sports Writer
It was a low, cannon of a shot off the laces of redshirt junior forward Taylor Timko that kept Michigan in the game. Facing Nebraska (1-12 Big Ten, 7-3-2 overall) at U-M Soccer Stadium on Sunday, the Wolverines (2-1-3, 5-2-6) fought in a hotly-contested brawl, ending in a 1-1 tie after two, back-and-forth, sudden-death overtime periods. On an indirect kick just outside the 18-yard box, Timko took her teammate’s tap in stride. The ball was a bullet, powerful enough to penetrate the scrum and catapult itself into the bottom left corner of the net, evening the match at one. The goal was not out of the ordinary for Timko, as it was her fourth on the season. Michigan’s formation, though, was far from the ordinary. Lining up in a 5-4-1 configuration, the Wolverines worked to assert defensive dominance, win the ball,
connect and counter. And with Nebraska’s attack, a five-back formation was extremely beneficial. The Cornhuskers ran a three-front offense, highlighted by skillful strikers, all able and willing to take on their opponents one-onone. Often, the outside midfielders would push up the wing and join the front line, as well. “Nebraska is going to have a go at you,” said Michigan coach Greg Ryan. “They’re going to take you on and dribble, and if you take them on one at a time, you’re going to get beat. In our formation, if they beat one, there were two Wolverines there to deal with them. And some of our players had never been in the back before, so it was all new territory.” Fifth-year senior Ani Sarkisian, typically a midfielder or forward, found herself playing centerback at the starting whistle. One reason for Sarkisian’s appearance in the back five was the sheer number of defenders
ZOEY HOLMSTROM/Daily
Fifth-year senior midfielder Ani Sarkisian returned as a defender Sunday, helping Michigan with its defensive effort.
injured. As a two-time captain, Sarkisian’s presence as a composed player and a steady leader was indicative to Michigan’s success. And after a three-game absence, Sarkisian’s presence was felt. In fact, it was the foul she drew that led to the Wolverines’ lone score. “Our initial goal as a team is to not concede any goals,” Sarkisian said. “If you don’t concede any goals, it’s easier to get the one that counts to win the game.” Unfortunately for the Wolverines, they were the first to concede a goal. Off a cross from outside the box, Nebraska forward Elise Huber finished with a header to the near post, taking a 1-0 lead 30 minutes into the game. And though Michigan often held possession, building slowly and smartly from the back, the Cornhuskers completely dominated the shot total, tallying 25 shots compared to the Wolverines’ nine. Freshman goalkeeper Hillary Beall was a stalwart between the posts, boasting six saves on the day. “She’s very steady,” Ryan said. “It’s hard to get a shot past her, especially when you’re shooting from deep.” Beall only had to make one save during the 20 minutes of extra time, though, as her teammates came out ready to pressure. “We said anyone can come out and dictate this game and it was our opportunity to change our minds and go out and change to momentum,” Sarkisian said. “I think we did. You could see we were way more up the field and getting better opportunities. It’s an in the moment type thing, and you really only need one opportunity to create something and score.” And though the Wolverines weren’t able to find one final opportunity for the win, they left the pitch with one more point, and a lot of season to go.
Harbaugh makes splash at Water Carnival JACOB KOPNICK Daily Sports Writer
Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh stayed busy during the football team’s bye week when he dove into the pool during the Michigan swimming and diving teams’ Water Carnival event. Always the showman, Harbaugh had agreed to be a judge for a cannonball competition but was then baited into diving himself — stepping onto the platform donning his iconic pair of khakis and a Michigan hat before executing a near-perfect can-opener dive into the pool. The crowd went wild, as tweets from sports publications across the country started pouring out regarding Harbaugh’s fully-clothed descent into the pool. “That was just Jim,” said Michigan men’s and women’s swimming and diving coach Mike Bottom. “Jim and I have a great relationship — so that was like a bait, and he took it, and he took it to the next level.” Harbaugh did indeed take it to the next level, both literally and figuratively, as he executed the dive from the five-meter diving board. The cannonball competition that Harbaugh was judging was between a group of head coaches around the athletic department who were jumping off the onemeter board. The dive took place during the Michigan Water Carnival, a fun-filled swim meet between the Michigan, Oakland and Calvin swimming and diving teams. This carnival-themed meet included a wide array of unorthodox events including the 300-yard butterf ly with fins and the 25-yard freestyle knockout. The freestyle knockout was the most intense race of the day as swimmers went head-to-head in this unique competition. The event was structured so that eight swimmers began the race each swimming a 25-yard distance.
Then, the slowest of the eight was eliminated, reducing the competition by one. This process was repeated until only one swimmer remained and earned bragging rights around the locker room. With each swimmer eliminated, the noise level increased as the crowd itched to see who would be crowned the winner. Eventually, it was Junior Catie DeLoof who won the women’s knockout and senior Paul Powers who won the men’s. The rest of the meet was just as wild as former longtime diving coach Dick Kimball led a clown-themed diving show while other events were being conducted. The show featured members of the Michigan diving team, as they completed intricate dives including leap frogs, belly f lops and even a dive off a bicycle. All of the divers were wearing carnival-themed costumes and many were utilizing unique props such as umbrellas and streamers. While this event was just for kicks, the Wolverines still exhibited incredible talent, winning every single event except for the final mixed 400-yard freestyle relay, an event they lost by nine onehundredths of a second. This is the first time that FILE PHOTO/Daily Michigan has hosted the Michigan coach Mike Bottom held the Michigan Water Carnival on Saturday. carnival in four years due to negotiations with Kimball over his eccentric dives. “Dick was going off the 10 meter without his hands and landing on his head, and I said we can’t do this anymore,” Bottom said. “The pool’s named after him, so I can’t tell him what to do — so we couldn’t do it until he agreed not to do the dive.” Thankfully, Kimball agreed and the Water Carnival is now back in the Canham Natatorium for all to enjoy. “We had so much fun, I think we’re gonna be calling for it every year now,” said junior Becca Postoll. “It’s good fun, and you don’t get to do stuff like this all the time.”
Sports
8 — Tuesday, October 3, 2017
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
For Hill, Michigan State rivalry is ‘personal’ TED JANES
Daily Sports Writer
Two years ago, when cornerback Lavert Hill was still a high schooler, he sat in the stands at Michigan Stadium, watching one of the most unbelievable finishes to a college football game the world had ever seen. Hill stood in shock as Michigan State’s Jalen WattJackson carried a mishandled punt all the way into the end zone for a last-second, gamewinning touchdown. Then a senior at Martin Luther King High School in Detroit, Hill was one of the nation’s most sought-after recruits. Besides Michigan, his top choices included Penn State, Southern California, Tennessee, Clemson and — most importantly — Michigan State. The decision came down to the two in-state schools, and he ultimately decided on Ann Arbor and joined coach Jim Harbaugh’s first full recruiting class. Academic, athletic and personal reasons — his older brother Delano played for the Wolverines — swayed Hill to Michigan. Two years later, Hill is now a starting defensive back for the seventh-ranked Wolverines (1-0 Big Ten, 4-0 overall), and this weekend he will finally have the opportunity to make his mark on the MichiganMichigan State rivalry. “It was pretty devastating,” Hill said of Michigan’s 2015 loss to the Spartans. “This game is pretty personal to me.” He prepared over the bye week by tuning in as Michigan State (1-0 Big Ten, 3-1 overall) defeated Iowa, 17-10. Hill paid close attention to Michigan State wide receiver Felton Davis III, who caught two touchdowns and recorded a career-high 114 receiving yards. As the Spartans’ top
target, Davis averages 64 receiving yards per game, and he was named the co-Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week for his performance against the Hawkeyes. Hill and the rest of the Wolverines’ secondary understand how important it will be to shut Davis down. “(Davis) is a pretty good athlete,” Hill said. “He knows how to track the ball in the air. We just got to get our hands on him, disturb him on the line… We expect him to do what he can, but we’ll be ready also.” Hill also discussed Michigan State quarterback Brian Lewerke, mentioning his ability to extend plays with his feet. Lewerke’s first touchdown throw to Davis last weekend
came on a rollout to the right. He gave himself time to find an open receiver and Iowa’s secondary couldn’t stay disciplined in coverage. Hill said that a cornerback can never lose sight of its mark if it wants to guard the type of passing threat that Lewerke brings to the game. “Don’t look back at the quarterback until the ball is in the air and you know that you can get it,” Hill said. “Have your eyes on your man.”
Ultimately, Michigan’s secondary should be ready for Michigan State, especially having had a week off to prepare. With three interceptions and two pick-sixes — one of which belongs to Hill — the Wolverines have allowed just 134 passing yards per game, ranking as the fourth-best passing defense in the nation. Although young, the secondary and Hill have proved they can stop opponents in the air. Lewerke, Davis and Michigan State will be their toughest opponent yet, but Hill believes the Wolverines
We’re going to have to get after it Saturday.
will succeed if they continue communicating and adjusting well. And while Hill has been waiting to participate in the rivalry, he knows he has to stay focused on the task at hand. He can’t get too caught up in the excitement. But that’s pretty hard when you have to play under the lights, at primetime, against your rival and against former high school teammates and foes. All that will be the case when Hill suits up this weekend for the first Michigan-Michigan State game in Ann Arbor since the fateful botched punt in 2015. “We can’t lose at home,” Hill said. “We’re going to have to get after it Saturday.”
AMELIA CACCHIONE/Daily
Sophomore cornerback Lavert Hill still remembers sitting in Michigan Stadium as he watched the infamous fumbled punt against Michigan State.
FOOTBALL
Nate Johnson arrested for domestic violence, pretrial hearing scheduled for Oct. 11 ORION SANG
Daily Sports Editor
Michigan football player Nate Johnson was arrested over the weekend for an alleged assault that took place Sept. 30. Diane Brown, spokeswoman for the University’s Division of Public Safety and Security, said a housing security officer found a female student outside South Quad Residence Hall shortly after 2 a.m. Saturday morning. The woman reported she had been assaulted by Johnson, who was subsequently located nearby. Johnson was arrested on charges of domestic violence and taken to jail, where he was arraigned on Oct. 1 for one count of domestic violence. He was released on a $5,000 personal recognizance bond and a pre-trial hearing is scheduled for Oct. 11. The Michigan football team released a statement on the afternoon of Sept. 30 stating that Johnson, a sophomore cornerback, had been suspended indefinitely from all team activities. A spokesperson for the athletic department declined to comment on Johnson’s arrest, instead referring to the original statement of Johnson’s suspension. This is a developing story. Check back at michigandaily. com for more details.
‘M’ defense a threat Harbaugh names O’Korn as starter in opening contest ICE HOCKEY
ORION SANG
Daily Sports Editor
ROBERT HEFTER Daily Sports Writer
The Michigan hockey team’s 10 goals against Western Ontario on Saturday night was a spectacle of an offensive performance. What many overlooked, though, was how pivotal the defense was in securing those goals. Senior defenseman Cutler Martin’s snipe past the opposing goaltender for the Wolverines’ eighth goal against the Mustangs was evidence of such. “We have to understand and get in the habit of moving the puck up quick,” said Michigan coach Mel Pearson. “We want to be a quick transition team and try to go from our defensive zone to the offensive zone as quick as we can.” Pearson’s sentiment is consistent with the way the Wolverines’ blueliners performed in their first exhibition match. “I think that coming back — this is going to be my fourth year — the defense has a good footing on what we need to do,” Martin said prior to the exhibition Saturday. “We need to play defense first, have that mindset, be aggressive, be mean on the ice.” And mean they were. Immediately at the onset of the matchup, sophomore defenseman Luke Martin fired off a shot from the blue line that found its way into the net off a deflection from senior forward Dexter Dancs. Throughout the night, the defense simultaneously protected the Michigan net while forcing a plethora of
scoring opportunities for the offense, giving the whole squad a weapon behind the blue line. In the second period, Martin assisted fifth-year senior forward Alex Roos, and junior defenseman Joseph Cecconi assisted senior forward Tony Calderone. Then, in the third period, Luke Martin assisted junior forward Cooper Marody, junior defenseman Nicholas Boka assisted Martin, Cecconi assisted sophomore forward Jake Slaker and Boka again assisted sophomore forward James Sanchez. In total, the Wolverines’ defense racked up nine points, proving just how multi-faceted the team may be this year. From the crisp passing to the multitude of scoring opportunities from every point around the ice, the Michigan offensive effort — which includes the defense in this scenario — seemed cool, composed and deadly. “I think it’s guys just buying into the system,” Calderone said. “I think a lot of guys are starting to hold onto the puck more, getting more confident.” In a game that most regard as an easy matchup, the Wolverines certainly showed that their aggressive mentality works. And while some might argue Saturday’s outburst came in a meaningless exhibition game, one would only need to look back at last year’s exhibition for a sign of growth. Against Windsor, last season’s Michigan defense recorded zero points. This much of an improvement in a year’s time shows that Pearson’s master plan may result in a higher-powered attack from both ends of the ice.
I think it’s guys just buying into the system.
Opportunities like this don’t come around very often. And yet, here it is: after transferring and patiently sitting out a year, after losing the starting competition twice, John O’Korn is now the starting quarterback for No. 7 Michigan as it heads into the biggest matchup of the season thus far, a night game at home against in-state rival Michigan State. “(Wilton’s) going to be out,” said Jim Harbaugh on Monday afternoon. “John O’Korn will be the starter.” It won’t be known until later in the season whether the job is permanently in O’Korn’s grasp. For all we know, he may have earned the job outright by leading the Wolverines to a comeback victory over Purdue two weekends ago. But Harbaugh announced redshirt junior Wilton Speight “won’t be able to compete this week,
or for multiple weeks,” which means this case won’t be reopened for quite some time. Until then — and maybe even for the rest of the season — this is the John O’Korn Show. “John’s done a fantastic job ever since he got here,” Harbaugh said. “Every role that he’s been in, he’s acquitted himself very well, including coming off the bench and leading our team to a victory against Purdue. I think that speaks volumes.” Added fifth-year senior fullback Khalid Hill: “Being a quarterback, you’ve got to be ready. I think John did a great job (against) Purdue, coming in and performing the way he did, but that is expected from everybody. Coach Harbaugh always says, ‘Next man up,’ so always got to be on your Ps and Qs because you never know when your time is called.” O’Korn, who completed 17-of-26 passes for 270 yards with one touchdown and
an interception against the Boilermakers, appears to have earned the full confidence of his teammates. “... (O’Korn) just came in composed, he came and he was ready,” Hill said. “I applaud him for coming in and playing the way that he did, because you don’t expect that to happen.” For Hill, the difference in O’Korn’s demeanor has been noticeable. According to him, O’Korn spoke the other day about taking his time after feeling like he was always facing pressure. Now, Hill says, O’Korn is taking a more relaxed approach by letting things come to him. And while senior offensive tackle Mason Cole couldn’t speak to that — he grinned as he said he has no idea what O’Korn does as he blocks for him — he still agreed with Hill on O’Korn’s readiness. “When he came into the game, the transition was just
really effortless,” Cole said. “He came in like he’s been there all year, and I think that’s the biggest thing — we knew he’d be ready to play if he had to, and he was. “... We knew the talent John had and we knew he would get the job done if he had to go in, and he has.” In the offseason, O’Korn spoke candidly about dealing with the loss of his confidence after transferring from Houston and struggling early on at Michigan. The hiring of passing game coordinator Pep Hamilton, he said, reignited his game and brought him to a level he had never seen before. Now, Michigan will get a full chance to see what that level is. “That gives you confidence — your quarterback comes and performs ... the way he did, it gives you confidence and John’s going to hopefully do the same thing this week,” Hill said. “I know he’s preparing to have the best game of his life.”
KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily
Fifth-year senior quarterback John O’Korn was named Michigan’s starting quarterback, as Wilton Speight remains sidelined with an injury sustained at Purdue.