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Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor rent ranks among fastest growing for college towns
Average one-bedroom rent jumped from $850 in 2018 to $985 in 2019
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MI House passes bills in response to Nassar case Lawmakers propose revoking medical licenses of convicted sexual predators BARBARA COLLINS Daily News Editor
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Ann Arbor rents are skyrocketing, according to recent reports. The city’s rent is the second fastest growing among college towns. Separate reports from rental and real estate websites Zumper and RENTCafé confirmed Ann Arbor’s increasing rental rates. Zumper examined the year-overyear rental growth rates of 50 college towns around the country, comparing the average rate for
one bedroom in 2019 to the rate in 2018. With a year-over-year rent increase of 15.9 percent, Ann Arbor came in second following Gainesville, Fla., the home of the University of Florida and a 16.7 percent growth rate. Ann Arbor’s average one bedroom rate has increased from $850 in 2018 to $985 in 2019. East Lansing also made it into the top ten of the rankings — its rent increased by 14.3 percent. However, rent was lower in East Lansing than in Ann Arbor, increasing from $700 in 2018 to
$800 in 2019. Social Work student Laura Rall is president of Affordable Michigan, a student organization focusing on improving the quality of life for lower-socioeconomic status students at the University. Rall attended the University as an undergraduate student and has noticed rent and housing costs increasing during her time in Ann Arbor each year. “After living here for six years, I’ve definitely noticed rent continuing to increase,” Rall said. “Every year, landlords will send
you a notice about renewing your lease, and they often say, ‘If you renew your lease, rent will go up this much.’ I’ve never had a friend whose rent stayed the same after renewing their lease.” LSA junior Hailey Pantaleo has noticed the differences in rent between Ann Arbor and other college towns in Michigan. Pantaleo’s sister attended Saginaw Valley State University in University Center, and her rent was around half of what Pantaleo pays in Ann Arbor. See RENT, Page 3
The Michigan House of Represenatives passed a series of bills with the hope of correcting issues uncovered by the Larry Nassar sexual abuse case on Wednesday If signed into law, House Bills 4372 and 4373 would revoke doctor licenses of doctors convicted of sexual assault. These bills are sponsored by state Reps. Annette Glenn, R-Midland, and Daire Rendon, R-Lake City. The set of bills come as the Department of Education fined Michigan State University $4.5 million Thursday for inadequately responding to the Nassar case. In an interview with The Daily, Rendon said the bills’ passage was a long time coming. The damage the perpetrator leaves is profound, she said, and it is important that the survivor does not feel alone. “The severity of the
A2 Council SACUA discusses bid to host 2020 vetoes plan debate at first meeting of school year for DDA’s Assembly talks emergency alert opt-out project, committee updates new office ANN ARBOR
City rejects $27 M proposal to expand parking, $4M for a community space MICHAL RUPRECHT Daily Staff Reporter
A proposal to issue up to $27 million in bonds to expand and improve the Ann Ashley Parking Structure was rejected by the Ann Arbor City Council 9-2 on Tuesday. The main expansion to add three parking decks would cost $21.7 million. The proposal also includes a $4 million plan to build a new Downtown Development Authority office and community meeting space, which was recommended by the Design Review Board and unanimously accepted by the DDA board. City Administrator Howard Lazarus said the $4 million project was proposed because the current DDA office’s lease at 150 S. Fifth Ave. expires soon — in two years, according to MLive. Lazarus added the proposal is more cost efficient. “The proposal was analyzed and proved to be more cost efficient over the long term over renting and also provided much needed community meeting space,” Lazarus said. DDA Executive Director Susan Pollay said the meeting space would “encourage more public participation in local matters.” See DDA, Page 3
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The University of Michigan Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs met on Monday for their first meeting of the academic year. Members primarily discussed various Senate Assembly committees, such as the Academic Affairs Advisory Committee, the Government Relations Advisory Committee and the Student Relations Advisory
Committee. SACUA Chair Joy Beatty, U-M Dearborn professor of organizational behavior, began the meeting with several announcements updating the group on the University’s application to host the 2020 presidential debates on campus. She said the University should hear within the next six weeks if it receives the bid. “It could be a really tremendous opportunity for
classroom activities related to the election,” Beatty said. “But we don’t know if it’s happening yet.” Beatty then asked SACUA members to provide feedback to the provost’s office on the emergency alert optout project, which would automatically register all University students, faculty and staff to receive emergency alerts. Currently, the University has an opt-in system, meaning
individuals must voluntarily sign up to receive alerts. During the March active shooter scare, many University community members did not receive alerts because they had not opted-in to the system, Beatty pointed out. ll SACUA members agreed the project would be a positive step. Deirdre Spencer, a University librarian, highlighted the opt-out system still gives users choice. See SACUA, Page 3
ALEC COHEN/Daily Senate Assembly Chair Joy Beatty leads the discussion of Senate Assembly committees at the SACUA meeting in Fleming Administration Building Monday afternoon.
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Vol. CXXVIII, No. 129 ©2019 The Michigan Daily
punishment — it seems severe and it is, but it pales in comparison to the long-term punishment and the longterm memory that these victims have to take with them and to deal with for the rest of their lives,” Rendon said. “Their trust was violated, and it takes a long time to rebuild that trust.” Engineering sophomore Leah Webber is a Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center volunteer involved with the Consent, Outreach & Relationship Education program. She said the bill is a step in the right direction. “I think anyone who was convicted of sexual assault should not be able to be practicing medicine,” Webber said. “I think medicine is a very physical science ... (those convicted of assault) should not have access to people’s bodies because they don’t have control over themselves around other peoples bodies.” See BILLS, Page 3
GOVERNMENT
Proposal would ban privatized prisons State Senator Jeff Irwin introduces new legislation to Michigan Senate EMMA STEIN
Daily Staff Reporter
State Sen. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, recently introduced a bill to ban privately owned prisons in the state. The bill comes after the news that the North Lake Correctional Facility, a prison owned by the correctional institutions company GEO Group, is reopening. It has been contracted by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to house nonU.S. citizens for immigration offenses, according to the Detroit News. However, even if the bill passes, it will not impact the use of the North Lake Correctional Facility in this case because it was contracted by the federal government, Irwin said. “There’s nothing a state can do that can impair the federal government and their ability to spend their money how they want,” Irwin said. “So that’s just the practical reality of the law — that the state can’t pass anything that would prevent the federal government from engaging their contract.” In Irwin’s opinion, Michigan has not had a good track record with private prisons. See PRISON, Page 3
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is a “woman and minorityowned C-Corporation that provides strategic development solutions that enable organizational leaders to build high performing and inclusive cultures that thrive in a competitive and changing environment.” Sharie Sell is the city of Ann Arbor’s diversity, equity and inclusion officer. She said the eventual diversity, equity and inclusion plan will provide guidance and ensure the city facilities are inclusive. “The consultant will assist the City by advising on the best way to set up a sustainable, comprehensive Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Plan that is organizationally transformative,” Sell wrote to The Daily in an email interview. “One that
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RENT From Page 1 “Her rent there was probably $300 to $400, whereas I found a really, actually, pretty cheap place about three miles off campus — so I do have to commute a bit — and that’s still $800-something dollars. Most places downtown for just a room, it’s like $1,300. My sister’s older and she’s wellestablished and even her mortgage on her house is less than my rent in Ann Arbor.” Rall said high rent can push students into uncomfortable and unsafe living situations in an effort to save money. “I know of situations where two or three people will split one bedroom,” Rall said.”Which is definitely not legal — there’s a certain amount of square footage the city says each person must have. Even one of my friends was literally living in a closest — he was able to fit just his mattress in there — to save money on rent, and he was still paying around $600 for a tiny closet.” The increased rates are partly driven by increasing enrollment at the University. Students must choose between living in University dormitory housing or off-campus housing, which is often less expensive. Rall said luxury student housing also contributes to high rent, as other property management companies see students have a higher willingness to pay. “Luxury high-rise apartments might charge, let’s say $1,400 for one bedroom,” Rall said. “Then landlords see this and charge $1,000, because they know there will be students who maybe aren’t willing to pay $1,400 but will see $1,000 as a better deal.” Pantaleo agreed, saying housing options are limited near campus since landlords are free to charge higher rent to wealthier students. “A large chunk of the student body comes from a lot of wealth,” she said. “So it’s not really an issue, their parents generally pay their rent or something … the places know that students need a place to live so they can charge as much
BILLS From Page 1
Additionally, House Bill 4378, sponsored by Rep. Kristy Pagan, D-Canton., would ban disclosure of the names of people filing civil actions alleging sexual misconduct under public records laws. Webber said she thought the bill would help protect the anonymity and wellbeing of survivors of sexual assault. “For a lot of victims, for a lot of survivors, it’s really hard to come forward and have a case,” Webber said. “It’s a really personal choice whether survivors choose to come forward and disclose to anyone or let alone law enforcement. It’s really important that we take down any barriers so that it’s easiest for the people who choose to disclose and file lawsuits so that they have the easiest and the least traumatic course of action to do so.” These bills are a part of a larger package of bills formed in the last term to address sexual assault following the Nassar case. Many of the bills were approved by the legislature but did not clear the Senate before the end of session. “What was revealed by just simply following a case — and
SACUA From Page 1 “I think it’s nice to have an option,” Spencer said. “You’re taking your life in your hands. If you opt-out, it’s a risk.” The rest of the meeting was dedicated to discussing members’ experiences on several Senate Assembly
as they want. And honestly their rates are pretty similar to how much they charge for dormitory housing. So it’s kind of like you’re trapped, you don’t have any other options.” Jennifer Hall, director of the Ann Arbor Housing Commission, said the University should partner with the city to alleviate housing affordability issues for students. “The U-M owns a lot of land that could be developed as housing or mixed-use,” Hall wrote in an email interview. “The housing could be owned and managed by the U-M or the private sector. The housing could be dedicated to students and/or faculty and staff.” Rall echoed Hall’s sentiments and said additional student housing from the University would help address increasing demand for affordable housing near campus. “I live in the Northwood apartments right now and I pay $650,” Rall said. “There’s one other person and we share a two bedroom unit. I think that’s pretty reasonable for Ann Arbor, and having more housing like this would be beneficial. There are so many more applicants to University housing than units available.” Pantaleo suggested the University add or expand bus routes to make living off campus more accessible. Pantaleo, who lives about three miles off campus near the stadium, has to leave home 45 minutes before her 8:30 a.m. class to be on time. “I drive to campus and then park, and then I take the bus to my class,” Pantaleo said. “If the University expanded its bus routes or maybe got more bus routes that went further and more often — because I have to take the city buses and the city buses are more unreliable, more so than Michigan buses - that would help in getting students to maybe live further off campus and be able to afford housing.” Hall said the Ann Arbor City Council and the Housing Commission have been assigned to analyze under-utilized cityowned properties to see if they are ideal for affordable housing. Affordable housing is in demand
in Ann Arbor. In November 2018 more than 4,000 residents applied for 600 spots on an affordable housing waiting list. “That analysis is currently underway and we will be presenting our analysis to City Council in November,” Hall said. “The city, like the U-M, County and other public entities, own land that is underutilized and could be developed as housing, whether that is affordable or market rate housing. Any market rate housing that is developed that has pent-up demand, will have a positive impact on the housing market if the goal is to reduce increased housing costs.” Hall said the increasing rental rates affect residents in more facets than housing. Local businesses have been negatively affected as well, which will in turn impact the Ann Arbor community. “The service industry is one of the back-bones of the economy and something that many people take for granted,” she said. “Local service industries such as restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, landscaping and the like are reporting that they are having a hard time filling positions because the people who work in those industries cannot afford to work in Ann Arbor due to the cost of the commute or literally the difficulty and time it takes to commute if they do not own a reliable vehicle.” To Pantaleo, it is unreasonable that both landlords and the University expect students to pay high rent while in school. She believes the University has a responsibility to help make offcampus housing more affordable and accessible for students, and hopes they will partner with the city and local property management companies to make housing more accessible. “I’m under a lot of scholarships for my tuition, but I don’t have anything for housing and that’s my biggest expense here,” she said. “The University should step in and talk to these rental places because it’s pretty outrageous for any place to expect students to pay $1,100 a month when in school.”
it’s not just the Nassar case, there’s other things that have come to light as well,” Rendon said. “Particularly, when you’re dealing with athletes and college campuses, it’s hard for some of these things to get overlooked as long as they did, and that’s why this legislation is designed to make sure this type of thing does not happen again.” To become law, the bills still have to be approved by the Michigan Senate and signed by Whitmer. State Rep. Yousef Rabhi, D-Ann Arbor, voted in favor of all three bills. He said he thought 4378, which prohibits the publication of survivors’ names on public records, specifically was an important part of the package. “A lot of times, unfortunately, these predators are the folks that are committing sexual misconduct or sexual assault are able to find records of who is filing these cases and can often either retaliate or continue to find information about them that can help them to be predatory,” Rabhi said. “And that’s unacceptable.” The bills all had bipartisan support. “I do think that we as a state should have had this on the books already,” Rabhi said. “But now we’re making that change, which I think is
necessary, and will help to address future problems that arise.” In an initial review of the bills, Rabhi said he noticed an existing statute that essentially already made it illegal for a doctor accused of sexual assault to hold a medical license. However, the statute assumed the assault to take place between a male doctor and a female patient, and included a marital loophole. He made amendments to the bill that made the language more gender neutral and eliminated the marital loophole. Rabhi also mentioned he had a bill in the package that would prevent K-12 schools from reprimanding students who come forward to report instances of sexual misconduct or assault. In response to these bills, state Sen. Jeff Irwin wrote in an email to The Daily that work still needs to be done to improve laws against sexual assault. “We still need improvements to shore up the weaknesses in our laws against sexual assault,” Irwin wrote. “These bills are another step in that direction but they should be broadened to include other individuals in positions of trust and authority.”
committees. While some reported positive engagement with productive, organized committees, others expressed concern their committee experience was a waste of time. While acknowledging the time commitment required, Beatty emphasized the importance of SACUA members attending committee meetings.
“I get it, it takes a lot of time … especially if you’re going to one that felt like ‘This is not the best use of my time,’” Beatty said. “I think there’s still something about making sure SACUA is at these meetings and has a presence, if we can.” Nursing professor Ivo Dinov questioned if the Senate Assembly had too many committees. “Quite frankly, I’m
Tuesday, September 10, 2019 — 3
PRISON From Page 1 He cited the same prison, the North Lake Correctional Facility in Baldwin, as an example of a private prison that has treated inmates inhumanely. “They promised costsaving but instead had cost overruns,” Irwin said. “They cut corners in ways that resulted in people being abused, and the state being sued, and the state having to pay out all sorts of money, and many of our people being treated inhumanely. It was a total disaster.” Despite the bill not directly impacting the facility, Irwin said it sends a message to private prison companies and the federal government that Michigan does not want privately owned prisons in the state. History professor Heather Ann Thompson, a Pulitzer Prize winning author, said private prisons are a mechanism for companies and people to profit off of mass incarceration and the suffering of others. “Private individuals and stockholders and companies are profiting off of the fact that other people in society have been victimized by a crime, or victimized by the fact that their sentences are far too long and disproportionate to whatever they’ve been accused of doing,” Thompson said. LSA senior Kate Westa, co-president of WeListen and former vice president of Young Americans for Freedom, said while she agrees there are many problems in the prison system, the solution is not to eliminate for-profit prisons. The market competition could actually help reduce repeated offenses, Westa said. “I think that it falls on common narrative that just because something is free market or for profit that it’s inherently bad,” Westa said.
DDA From Page 1 The Republic Parking customer service and administrative office at Maynard Street Parking Structure has a space shortage, only one toilet and doesn’t have a back exit, Pollay said. The proposal would have provided a new office for them as well. Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor and Coucilmember Julie Grand, D-Ward 3, were the only two in favor of the proposal, while other council members voiced concerns about an increase in downtown parking and the cost of the proposal. Councilmember Ali Ramlawi, D-Ward 5, expressed concerns over the price tag of the proposal. Ramlawi said the plan could prevent other developments. “I’m just stunned by the cost estimates to build out on land that we already bought,” Ramlawi said. “It seems (like there’s) lot of uncertainty … (this proposal) could prevent us from doing a lot of things in the future if we wished to looking at our debt and rating.” Councilmember Jane Lumm, I-Ward 2, voiced similar concerns as Ramlawi. Lumm said the plan is two to three times typical construction cost, preferring a plan without the $4 million expansion. Lumm added DDA didn’t
not convinced that SACUA needs twenty independently-run committees,” Dinov said. “Are these all facultyrelated business? Why can’t we handle it with less? It sounds like we’re all over the place, with overlaps and synergies. If there’s time later in the year, let’s reconsider that.” Neil Marsh, a former SACUA chair and
“I see the free market and an increase in competition often helping in a lot of ways that it otherwise isn’t when the government runs the entire show.” Irwin said he’s noticed support from his colleagues in the state Senate and House of Representatives for private prisons, since they can create job opportunities in more rural areas of Michigan. “I think that the bill faces an uphill battle because many of the same legislators who are in the Senate now served
We should — as principle — outlaw anyone from being able to profit off the misery of someone else.
with me in the House when we passed legislation to support private prisons,” Irwin said. Martha Abrams, an LSA senior studying history with an emphasis on crime and policing, acknowledged private prisons do need people to work in them, but she said because these facilities are not owned by the state, the level of training that employees are required to go through is minimal. That can lead to abuses of power against the prisoners, Abrams said. “There’s an argument within Michigan right now, that there’s an economic benefit within the community because prisons create jobs for residents,” Abrams said. “The problem is that there’s a severe decrease in training for the people that
communicate well with the council about the addition of the $4 million project to the proposal. She described it as spontaneously appearing on the council’s agenda with “no heads up.” “All of this happens with no discussion of council,” Lumm said. “I’m sorry, but this is a terrible process and just not how this partnership is supposed to work.” Pollay said there are only about 350 surface parking spaces near the Ann Ashley structure. She said she feared these spots may be eliminated in the future when they’re redeveloped into projects with new residences. Pollay said the proposal would be an “investment in the future.” “If you look around downtown, much is built out,” Pollay said. “The exception is the west side of downtown … our hope is to see the redevelopment of that portion of downtown. We hope by adding this public parking to this garage, we can see these parcels be put to much higher uses … it’s a chance to see those not used by cars.” In an email to The Daily, Grand wrote the proposal could have aided in meeting affordable housing goals. She added she voted for the proposal because it was thoroughly vetted by the DDA board and included needed community meeting space. “This project would eliminate a commonly cited barrier,
chemistry professor, noted there had to be a minimum of 11 committees, as each University vice president was responsible for chairing one. Beatty proposed SACUA further examine the necessity of the nine additional committees at a later meeting. Members also reviewed each committee’s goals for the year. In this
go into these correctional facilities in sort of any field, so they’re not trained how to deal with people who are in a psychologically harmful environment.” Thompson also said private prisons can lead to an increase in mass incarceration because a higher prison population will generate more profits. She said in order to keep the facilities full, prisoners will sometimes be moved away from their friends and family, which can have repercussions when it comes time for them to re-enter society. “The state will promise a private company that ‘X’ number of their beds will be full, so that incentivizes criminalization; it incentivizes keeping people in prison longer, even though all evidence suggests that that’s bad for the broader society,” Thompson said. Thompson said Irwin’s bill is important for Michigan because it will ensure that correctional facilities and criminal justice are kept in the hands of the government and out of the private sector. “I think we have to have some serious legislative action on preventing any company who is in the business of locking people up from impacting laws that determine how long they’re locked up,” Thompson said. “And also, we should — as principle — outlaw anyone from being able to profit off of the misery of somebody else.” Abrams agreed the bill is a step in the right direction, but thinks more reform is needed. “For people who don’t know a lot about prison history and mass incarceration in general, it’s important to note that banning private prisons is certainly a step, but it can’t be the final one,” Abrams said. “It’s often referred to one of these red herrings legislatively, that, once it gets passed, it’s certainly great, but people will stop fighting as hard.”
parking, to the re-development of surface parking lots within the downtown,” Grand wrote. “As we begin serious discussions regarding the potential of cityowned properties, particularly as it relates to our affordable housing goals, having a plan in place to replace some of that parking makes sense.” Hayner said the proposal wouldn’t help residents stay in the city and there are too many needs that should be addressed. “Building housing for cars, not people? If we could bond $30 million on the DDA’s back to provide workforce housing in the downtown, I’d do that in a second before I build housing for cars,” Hayner said. “I wouldn’t support it in a modified format, either. I think it’s too much.” Councilmember Jack Eaton, D-Ward 4, said he would like a new proposal “without luxury office space.” In response to these concerns, Lazarus wrote the debt service for the expansion and improvements would be paid from parking revenues. He added parking is needed for new development in the city. “Additional parking is need(ed) to help support growth of the northeastern part of downtown (and) to make up for the future loss of surface parking as those properties are developed,” Lazarus wrote in an email to The Daily.
discussion, Classical Studies professor Sara Ahbel-Rappe emphasized she would like to see focus on the issue of free speech protections for faculty communicating about politics. “I do think these issues are problematic and dangerous,” AhbelRappe said. “As we move into a situation where they seem to be less democracy and less
freedom, I think it’s important to clarify the legal protections that are in place for our faculty.” SACUA then moved into closed executive session to discuss an update on a 5.09 matter, which is the University’s procedure for dismissal, demotion or termination of tenured faculty.
Opinion
4 — Tuesday, September 10, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
BRITTANY BOWMAN | COLUMN
Why we still need to fight for women’s liberation
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ANIK JOSHI | COLUMN
Why the University is being sued — and who’s to blame
T
he University of Michigan is being sued right now. Thanks,
Obama. Well, the actual story is a bit more complicated, but the gist of it is that a student is currently suing the University, and the court was seeking a deposition of University President Mark Schlissel up until late August. How did this happen? Well, it goes back a few years and it goes beyond Schlissel and the University. This entire saga is related to former President Barack Obama and a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter that his Department of Education issued back in 2011. That letter changed the adjudication system for sexual assault on campus in three important ways. First, the standard of proof was dropped from “clear and convincing” to a “preponderance of evidence.” Secondly, the letter enabled double, triple and quadruple jeopardy by allowing the accusations to be tried again and again. Finally, the letter disallowed cross examination by the accuser. All three of these changes made the defendant’s life much more difficult and effectively turned Title IX hearings into kangaroo courts where guilt was determined by accusation or less. In addition to being personally odious, these policies may have run afoul of the law, and that brings us back to the University and Schlissel. The Detroit Free Press discussed the problems within the U-M system. A student was about to graduate and had been accepted to the U-M Graduate School for Engineering when he was accused of sexual assault. The University froze his transcripts prior to an investigation, which made moving on from the allegations nearly impossible. This action is antithetical to the principles of justice and due process and demonstrates the problem with the current system of Title IX policies relating to sexual assault. These were changed
after the aforementioned ‘Dear Colleague’ letter — namely, that they result in the violation of people’s rights and the destruction of their lives. This student was accused and afforded no chance to clear his name. The punishment was given to him before his trial, which represents a perversion of any justice system. After this, the student turned around and sued the school, which is when Judge Arthur Tarnow sought the deposition of the president. Schlissel and the school had previously been unsuccessful in avoiding this appearance in court, and on June 12, he won an appeal to delay his appearance.
The current Title IX system is incongruous with a society that values rights for the accused However, on Aug. 24, a 6th Circuit Court of Appeals panel blocked Schlissel’s required appearance. It is easy to understand why the judge would want to ask the president about policies governing the University, especially when those policies ignore due process, complicating these latest developments. It does lead one to think that, as The Michigan Daily Editorial Board argued in a previous piece, considering Schlissel oversees the policy, he has a duty to be able to explain it. If Schlissel both stood by the policy and felt that the students at his campus follow it, he should have taken the opportunity to make those statements under penalty of perjury. His unwillingness to do so suggests that he understands the current Title IX system is incongruous with a society that values rights for the accused as
well as a fair trial. Universities are supposed to expose students to new ways of thinking as well as foster respect for the tried and true methods of the past. When schools don’t do this and fail to foster freedom of speech (like at Middlebury College), or due process (like the Title IX provisions relating to sexual assault that existed between the Obama letter’s issuance and its withdrawal) or any other virtue, they do their name, their administrators and their students a tremendous disservice. Universities are supposed to prepare the leaders of tomorrow, and if Schlissel feels that they don’t deserve due process, he should have appeared before the court to say so. Seeing that he chose not to, he should reconsider whether the policy should exist. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and unfortunately, this is no exception. When Obama’s Department of Education issued the letter, they intended to address problems related to sexual assault on campus — and in no way do I mean to minimize the good faith behind that. When former Vice President Joe Biden went on his “It’s On Us” tour to promote the need for men on campus to take responsibility for their actions, I was in the audience and agreed that a culture change was needed. I disagree with him regarding what that change should be. There can be harsher punishments for sexual assault that do not trample on the rights of the accused, which is something that the Obama letter and subsequent guidance did. This type of policy should be pursued and the University president being unwilling (and possibly unable) to defend his existing one in court should serve as a warning to other Universities and their leaders. Anik Joshi can be reached at anikj@umich.edu.
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P
eople often argue that Western societies have made great leaps in the struggle for equality between men and women. Women now outwardly have the same legal rights as men, and because of Title VII, discrimination in the workplace based on gender is illegal. Nonetheless, the battle for achieving gender equality continues, leaving some to wonder why it is necessary. The standard that women strive to be equal to their traditionally male counterparts has always existed. It is an encapsulating and toxic ideal of the gender binary. It is important to consider reforming language as we know it in order to change societal thinking toward controversial topics. While it appears superficially that women have the same legal rights as men, there are still inherent biases present in both professional and private spheres. From medical environments to political stages, the systemic understanding of femininity and a gender binary creates heaps of issues. In Western culture, the concept of a gender binary exists almost everywhere and is especially apparent in the language we use, though one may easily pass over this construction if not actively searching for it. Detrimental binaries have been used for centuries, placing women as the inferior, subpart, second-in-line to the androgyny of society. In the Greek myth of Pandora, for instance, as well as many other classic works that frame modern psychologies, the text embodies phallocentric and androcentric anxieties of femininity, where women inherently lack something when compared to men. In “Pandora’s Tongues,” a feminist analysis essay of the Greek myth, Karin Littau boldly states that “it has always been the aim of Western philosophy to obliterate this foreignness or otherness in the quest for the return of the same.” In the long and slow march toward equality for women, the overbearing dominance of
men throughout society’s most popular tales and history books has shrouded the importance of female and feminine characters. This has contributed to the idea that women are inferior, lacking, subordinate and unoriginal. The interpretations of classic literature over centuries has undoubtedly shaped the way Western civilization structures itself, and this is why analysis of our language now is so important when striving to fight the systemic oppression of women and confounding of gender binaries.
Gender and women’s liberation are inherently different from gender and women’s equality In the past, the feminist movement has called for embracing “womanness” and attempting to reclaim femininity. Visibility has increased as women’s marches have occurred. T-shirts have been made with fronts espousing the words “Woman” or “I am woman” or “Human Woman.” However, with this trend of visibility, owning and wearing one own’s womanhood may only further solidify the construct of a gender binary. This isn’t to say that visibility of feminist movements is a bad or good thing. Perhaps this agenda to collectively claim womanhood can work to unify the movement by stirring up solidarity among its members. However, by emphasizing a homogenous “womanness” within the movement, we also diminish potential commonalities with those who do not necessarily identify with visibly extreme femininity. Equality for all human beings is incredibly important, but we
need to consider just what equality means. Equality oftentimes neglects to address issues of diversity as well as failing to address differential impacts on individuals and populations. Using language such as “equality” means that women and femininity should strive to reach the standard of the male counterpart, which innately embodies a binary that men are inherently above women and women must work to lessen the space between the two. Using language such as “liberation” works to break down this system, as well as all other binate structures. The word liberation explicitly implies the dismemberment of complex systems to remove oppression of marginalized groups and individuals. Gender and women’s liberation are inherently different from gender and women’s equality. Women’s liberation encompasses the indiscriminate abolition of the classes of women and men and of the gender binary in general. The fight for gender and women’s equality today is thereby based on preserving the system of gender as we know it modernly — a system which serves to reinforce the social position of men as the standard to which we should aspire. Gender and women’s equality assumes gender as innate and the differences between genders as natural, whereas gender and women’s liberation negates wanting to be “just as good” as men. Using the term liberation instead of equality calls for freedom from the traditional gender binary, freedom from the suffocation of traditionally oppressive womanhood and freedom from the violence of manhood. Women’s liberation calls for nothing less than freedom from the burdensome gender binary, systemic discrimination and laws of difference that work to dictate our lives from birth to death. Brittany Bowman can be reached at babowman@umich.edu.
SAM FOGEL | COLUMN
F
Joe Biden — a man of many pitfalls
ormer Vice President Joe Biden is unfit to be the Democratic nominee, let alone president. He is a geriatric relic of a bygone era, a candidate that represents stagnancy in an age of political revolutions and upsets. Out of the many candidates on the Democratic stage, he is the second oldest only behind Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vt., and only by a single year. The ripe age of 76. Not even former President Barack Obama seemed to be keen on Biden running, reportedly telling his VP, “You don’t have to do this, Joe, you really don’t.” His opinions are antiquated, conflating the poor with Black people and the privileged with white people. He represents an old guard of Democrats, even older than the neoliberal Clinton-era troupe. My blathering about this particular baby boomer isn’t going to change minds, but maybe a look through his history will. Biden started his career in the ‘70s dealing with the longcontentious issue of forced integration in student busing, in which he backed the wrong side and adamantly stood against the Department of Education’s efforts to integrate segregated school districts. Fellow 2020 candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. (who has had plenty of problematic positions dealing with racial inequality in the past herself ), criticized Biden about this in the first presidential debate on June 27. Of course, he tried to defend himself with convoluted excuses, but the issue still stands. When it came to the fight for civil rights, Biden couldn’t sacrifice his constituents in Delaware to fight for what was right. In a 1975 interview with the People Paper, he said “I don’t feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather. I feel responsible for what the situation is today, for the sins of my own generation. And I’ll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years
ago,” seemingly ignorant of the concept of generational wealth. People seem to forget Biden was an architect of the war on drugs. His voting record concerning minimum sentencing and bills relating to drug related crimes has been horrendous.
He is an antiquated man who has antiquated opinions He was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995, helping write many laws that led to a more punitive justice system. Said laws have laid waste to many already marginalized communities, putting people in prison unjustly and ruining lives as a consequence. In response to former President George H.W. Bush’s plan for decreasing drug use in 1989, Biden said that it “doesn’t include enough police officers to catch the violent thugs, not enough prosecutors to convict them, not enough judges to sentence them and not enough prison cells to put them away for a long time” — a statement that has aged like milk. The laws Biden helped write include the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which included (by his own admission) over 70 new enhanced penalties and 125,000 new prison cells. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court re-opened old wounds for many, reminding Americans of Justice Clarence Thomas’ predicament with Anita Hill. Similar to Kavanaugh’s accusations of sexual assault, Thomas was accused of sexually harassing Hill, who worked under Thomas in the Department of Education. And in the hearing for Hill, many remember Biden
being inconsiderate and unfair to the law professor. Biden even said in an interview a year later that he “erred in not attacking the attackers.” In recent years, however, Biden has claimed to apologize for her treatment. He claims to have had little power over the proceedings. But considering how his apologies have been conspicuously welltimed with his presidential campaign, I suspect hollow amends. With sexual harassment finally getting its due consideration in our culture, the light cast upon Biden from this folly is not a good one. Joe Biden’s career is long, and with that comes the baggage of missed opportunities and grave mistakes. I don’t even have to mention his vote on the Iraq War to come up with a comprehensive list of things he was wrong about. Sure, people can change. I think that Biden is allowed to make amends with his past mistakes. But that doesn’t mean I think he can become worthy of the Oval Office. He is an antiquated man who has antiquated opinions, and that is not what America needs. In the 21st century, problems have arisen that need a new, fresh and unorthodox approach. I can’t think of a more traditional candidate than Joe Biden. The issue with tradition is that the establishment politics Biden represents led to a nationalistic despot like President Donald Trump taking office. His positions are inadequate to face the issues that plague our nation today, and that inadequacy is directly due to his antiquity. Climate change needs direct, forceful action. Healing and solving our racial divide once and for all needs more than hedging a compromise with bad faith actors. Americans deserve a president who can lead the country into the future without hypocrisy and a vacillating will. That president will not be Biden. Sam Fogel can be reached at samfogel@umich.edu.
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Tuesday, September 10, 2019 — 5
HUMOR COLUMN
MUSIC REVIEW
Becky Portman: An Earthgang take hard look at ode to Julio Torres themselves on ‘Mirrorland’ JIM WILSON
BECKY PORTMAN
Daily Arts Writer
Daily Humor Columnist
On a February day 32 years ago, a beam of glitter from space crashed into a home in El Salvador and Julio Torres was brought into existence. You might recognize the otherworldly comedian from his work as a writer on “Saturday Night Live,” his crafty witchiness starring in and co-creating HBO’s “Los Espookys” or his most recent HBO comedy special, “My Favorite Shapes by Julio Torres.” Torres’s comedy is unlike anything you have ever seen before in this time, dimension or universe. He spends his stand-up, for instance, mostly sitting down behind a playful conveyor belt in a silver jumpsuit and clear slippers a la one particularly forgetful Disney princess, highlighting as his special’s name promises — his favorite shapes. Torres disassembles the staleness of the classic stand-up routine and reconstructs it with grace and care. “My Favorite Shapes” is the kind of comedy I want injected into my veins or stirred into my coffee. It’s the kind of comedy you don’t know you need until you’ve had it. Have you ever experienced that magical moment where you go from having not seen your favorite movie to having seen it? It’s like you can’t imagine your life before and now your life is better after? That is what watching “My Favorite Shapes” for the first time feels like. Like most good things in this world, “My Favorite Shapes” was born at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (see “Fleabag”). I think that one of the most admirable aspects about Julio Torres is his dedication to his art. He has a need to show us his shapes because it has to
anybody else would.” Torres has to do this special and we need to hear him. “As I was preparing this show,” Torres says, “and deciding which shapes were going to go in which order, and I was weighing out the pros and cons of all of them. I thought ‘Oh, I’m sorry, is this one of the many good jobs that I’m stealing from hard-working Americans?’ Look, I’m just doing it because no one else was doing it, and it needed to be done.” Within “My Favorite Shapes” Torres shows three shorts narrated by the likes of Lin Manuel Miranda, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. The shorts are dramatic and absurd, reminiscent of Torres’s writing for such “SNL” sketches as “Papyrus” and “Wells for Boys.” Miranda voices a cactus inhabiting the home of his deceased predecessor, Gosling tells the emotional story of one existential racing plastic penguin and Stone questions her purpose as a massive stiletto whose role is to display smaller shoes. Everything about Torres’s aesthetic is the opposite of what stand-up comedy has made itself into. In an interview with The Atlantic, Torres says of performing “It’s all drag, anyway.” “Comedians like the idea of presenting that they were just wandering down the street having their musings and then they wandered onto the stage,” Torres explains. He challenges the concept that comedians are average joes with witty stories — he is first and foremost a performer. In an act of radical self-awareness Torres acknowledges the wacky uniqueness of his craft with careful consideration. “I have often been called
How many releases these days have accompanying mobile games? In the early and mid 2010s, these types of things ran rampant, especially in the film industry — to build hype for a film, studios would commission a mobile game to be made to better explain said film. Blockbusters like “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Terminator: Genesys” both released mobile games in conjunction with each film’s release. Since then, however, mobile gaming has fizzled out and this trend has all but come to an end. Until it was time for Earthgang to release their latest album Mirrorland. When Earthgang released Mirrorland, they also released a mobile game. How many other musicians have done this? The game, in which the goal is to defeat bad guys in levels themed after their latest albums from Rags to Mirrorland,
Mirrorland Earthgang Dreamville
won’t blow anyone’s hair back, but is enjoyable for a couple of minutes. The fact that the group decided to do this proves that members Olu and Wowgr8 aren’t interested in doing what every other rapper is doing. They aren’t just breaking the mold
— they’re making a new one, and Mirrorland goes on to bolster this claim. After countless delays and setbacks, Mirrorland is finally out this month, and it was well worth the wait. Its songs capture the energy and spirit from the group’s previous releases, but with a new level of
continue to build on these themes on “Swivel” through “Blue Moon,” climaxing at the fantastic “Tequila.” The song concerns the stresses of life and dealing with them with vices like tequila. It features a Latin-inspired beat and a guest verse from T-Pain in which he discusses his alcohol dependence and its downfalls.
How many releases these days have accompanying mobile games? They aren’t just breaking the mold — they’re making a new one polish and poise. Olu and especially Wowgr8 display astronomical growth, in both their vocal performances and lyrical ability. On the album highlight, “Top Down,” the two are at their breeziest, absolutely f loating over a bombastic, bassheavy beat produced by Childish Major. What is most noteworthy about this song and Mirrorland as a whole is the dichotomy between Olu and Wowgr8. Where Olu bounces, Wowgr8 slides. The two rap about similar things like running from the police and old f lames, but hearing how differently each man attacks the same beat is nothing short of amazing. It’s like they’re two sides of the same coin. Mirrorland’s first handful of songs are lighthearted and fun, but the album’s midsection begins to turn inward, beginning with “This Side,” a track that attempts to make sense of the group’s celebrity status and the woes that come with it. The men
After “Blue Moon,” the album begins to lull. The sounds get tired, and the songs begin to feel overly long, proven by the abundance of features that attempt to spice things up. “Stuck” is a stunning track, but at this point in the tracklist, its length and tempo make the album drag. However, closing song “Wings,” an uplifting cut about working hard and being proud of yourself, picks things back up and ends Mirrorland on a high note. If anything, Mirrorland proves that Earthgang doesn’t care about their image. They want to do what they want to do, and it pays off. Wowgr8 and Olu have crafted an album that showcases their outer and inner selves, often doing so in the same song. While the setbacks and delays were a nuisance, the album was well worth the wait because Earthgang continues eschew the mold and stay to true to exactly who they are.
Torres disassembles the staleness of the classic stand-up routine and reconstructs it with grace and care. “My Favorite Shapes” is the kind of comedy I want injected into my veins or stirred into my coffee.
be done and he absolutely must do it. It reminds me of the famous Hillel the Elder quote (or what Ivanka Trump attributes to Emma Watson) — “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? But when I am for myself, then what am “I”? And if not now, when?” But for Julio Torres: “If I don’t tell you about my favorite shapes, who will? And if not now, when?” He even explains this further through a phone call with his mother as special begins: “I need to show them. If I don’t, I don’t know that
too niche,” he declares at one point in his special as the camera zooms in on his fingers delicately placing a crystal into a miniature chair, “To which I’ll say, I have no idea what you could possibly be talking about.” Julio Torres is an avant-garde modernist of comedy, deconstructing and reconstructing humor like Marcel Duchamp did with the ready-made or Gertrude Stein with the novel. If the future of comedy looks like Julio Torres, I think we’re in good shape.
DREAMVILLE / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
FILM REVIEW
A very honest, very true review of ‘It Chapter 2’ ANISH TAMHANEY Daily Arts Writer
Despite its herculean ambition, “It Chapter 2” retains none of the contagious charm of the original. And make no mistake about it; this movie is ambitious. “Chapter 2” fires on every cylinder at its disposal, with twice the budget of “It”and an A-list adult cast as the aged-up Losers’ Club. Still, the original film’s quirky, light-hearted appeal
is replaced by a tedious slog that manages to retroactively worsen the first movie. “Chapter 2” follows the seven members of the Losers’ Club 27 years after their traumatic experience with the hilarious demon clown Pennywise. When Mike (Isaiah Mustafa, “Horrible Bosses”) learns that murders are happening in Derry that mirror the pattern of those from his childhood, he gets the gang back together to end the clown for good. Unfortunately, the performances of the adult
WARNER BROS. PICTURES
Losers’ Club are hit or miss. Jessica Chastain (“Molly’s Game”) and Bill Hader (“Inside Out”) excel as Beverly and Richie, bringing to life a layer of character development that felt genuinely special in relation to their younger counterparts, Sophia Lillis (“Sharp Objects”) and Finn Wolfhard (“Dog Days”). One notably disappointing cast member was James McAvoy (“Split”) as Bill, the leader of the Losers. Capable of an actor as he is, everything McAvoy does in “Chapter 2” feels like part of a different movie. It’s not just that he’s overacting — it feels like he’s overthinking, too. He exclaims painfully when other characters are speaking quietly, he yells in full sentences at his most intense. And neither the unintentional comedy of his performance nor the nuance of Chastain’s can distract from the general clunkiness of the script. In “Chapter 2,” there really is no such thing as subtlety. Every jump scare is more fantastical than the last, and after the 10th effects-driven set piece, the horror of it all becomes a drag too. The film trades the impact of its scares for a hollow goofiness. Where the first installment peppered in comedy to make the horror more digestible, “Chapter 2” finds its jokes in the absurdity of that horror. Muschietti’s use of CGI is partially to blame. The visual effects team was in the position of a kid in a candy store, encouraged to stretch their monsters to creative breaking points. And as much I can appreciate the film’s foray into realm of Tim Burton, there’s a point where zany just isn’t scary. Sure, there were shudders, jolts and occasional yelps in the audience, but there was mocking laughter equally present during the film’s gravest moments.
Part of the charm of “It” was how breathless and contained it felt. The story happens almost entirely in the summer of 1989, nailing the identical vein of nostalgia on which the series “Strangers Things” thrives. Yet, for all the care the first chapter takes in immersing its audience in a single summer, “Chapter 2” is a temporal collage. Flashbacks are half-baked character notes, often occurring
It Chapter 2 The State Theater Warner Bros. Pictures within the timeline of the first film. Moreover, where the perspective of “It” felt limited to only the characters we care about, “Chapter 2” detours wherever it pleases. Both of these choices make for a far more sprawling, far more exhausting journey. The contrast between the two halves of the story is a fascinating case in how the financial backing of a franchise affects its identity. “It” emits a vulnerability that goes beyond the adorable chemistry of its child actors. The first chapter feels genuine, investing its emotional core above everything else. It’s one of the reasons the movie reached so many audiences. The creative minds behind “Chapter 2” were aware of its likely success, discarding the finale they had intended — the one they seemed to promise us as an audience — for a numbingly zealous procedure, a mere performance of emotion.
Arts
6 — Tuesday, September 10, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
TV REVIEW
‘Good Talk’ is adequate, if that’s your sort of thing MAXWELL SCHWARZ Daily Arts Writer
Anthony Jeselnik is a comedian who likes dark comedy. “Good Talk with Anthony Jeselnik,” a new Comedy Central series starring Jeselnik, appears to be his first mainstream foray into television, aside from a Netflix stand-up special called “Thoughts and Prayers,” which happens to be what one might call very dark. As is the case with comedy, it seems as though there’s something out there for everyone, and in order for something to be enjoyable, it really has to appeal to one’s sense of humor.
“Good Talk” is very much like a visual podcast. It isn’t necessarily an interview, per se, but it does have an interview-like quality mixed in with comedic games. Anthony Jeselnik sits in an unusually ornate room, adorned with low lighting, red drapes and bookshelves stocked with leatherbound copies. Across the wooden table sits another comedian. In the series premiere, it’s Nick Kroll, known most notably for voicing Nick Birch, among other characters, on Netflix’s “Big Mouth.” The format is very straightforward. Jeselnik asks Kroll questions on topics ranging from Kroll’s career to the theme of his bar mitzvah. Kroll proceeds to answer the questions, and Jeselnik makes snide jokes — all in good humor — throughout Kroll’s interview. Peppered throughout are small stand-
COMEDY CENTRAL
Good Talk with Anthony Jeselnik Series Premiere Comedy Central Fridays @ 11 p.m.
ups clips, mainly used as jokes for what I believe is their ineffectiveness. To be clear, I am not one for dark humor. I go to great lengths to seek out more wholesome humor that isn’t really at the expense of others. So Anthony Jeselnik and I probably would not be acquaintances. But he isn’t so bad here. “Thoughts and Prayers” is a genuinely terrifying special that neither begins nor ends well. Most of that is absent in “Good Talk,” even if he does poke a good amount of fun at Kroll. The dynamic can be very awkward at times because Kroll does his best to give very genuine answers to the questions Jeselnik asks, so — at least to me — Jeselnik’s jokes tend to feel misplaced. The show also features quick interview games, like “Agree or Disagree” or everyone’s favorite, “Does This Describe an Actual Turtle or Ya Boy, Turtle, From ‘Entourage?’” The questions are more fun than anything, of course. Much like the rest of the show, if you respond well to Jeselnik’s style,
you’ll probably get a kick out of it. Jeselnik delivers most of his jokes with the same even-paced, slightly-mocking voice. Often, the punchline is his knack for making genuine questions sound completely disingenuous. “Good Talk” is ultimately bound to be compared to other successful comedian-centric interview shows, such as “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” or the very idiosyncratic “Between Two Ferns”; however, I think all these shows appeal to different tastes. Perhaps “Good Talk” offers something different from what these other shows can offer. Jeselnik’s style of humor is certainly different. If you’re looking for interviews that are more playful and less serious, you might get a kick out of “Good Talk.” Ultimately, I can’t say whether or not this show is good or bad, because I’m not a fan of Jeselnik’s humor. But if you’re a fan of Jeselnik, or enjoy the comedians who come on the show, you may find something worthwhile in “Good Talk.”
BOOK REVIEW
Jia Tolentino refuses simplicity in “Trick Mirror” MIRIAM FRANCISCO Daily Arts Writer
“I have felt so many times that the choice of this era is to be destroyed or to morally compromise ourselves in order to be functional — to be wrecked, or to be functional for reasons that contribute to the wreck,” Jia Tolentino writes in “The Story of a Generations in Seven Scams,” an essay from her debut book “Trick Mirror.” This is the kind of observation that sets “Trick Mirror” apart from other recent cultural commentaries. In a sentence, Tolentino names one of the defining dilemmas of modern life, and in doing so she offers her readers a double-edged sword: She sees us, but that means we are seen. Do you remember that awful weekend in the beginning of August, when Beto O’Rourke acknowledged that the shootings in El Paso and Ohio might have something to do with President Trump’s violent and racist rhetoric? “What the fuck? Hold on a second,” he said, when a journalist asked him what President Trump could do to make the situation better. Finally, he had lost it with the bullshit, and it was a painfully gratifying to see someone express the raw anger I felt. That’s what “Trick Mirror” feels like: Relief, because finally someone has taken up the Herculean task of articulating all the complication of being alive right now. In “Trick Mirror,” subtitled “Reflections on Self-Delusion,” Tolentino explores a number of topics: Feminism, politics, capitalism, religion, technology, marriage. The book is at turns biting and heartbreaking, and Tolentino never lets herself — or her reader — off the hook. In what appears to be her strongest essay, “The Story of a Generation in Seven Scams,” Tolentino meticulously describes how scamming has become an integral part of American life. Release Date: Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 For both men and women, as a school 5 “Now!” letters 9 White vin 14 Jason’s ship 15 Southwest tableland 16 Piece between steps 17 Smokes, for short 18 Nerve impulse carrier 19 In tune 20 One on a dean’s list 23 Eclectic musician Brian 24 Put mileage on 25 Wood-shaping tool 26 __-relief 29 Imperfection related to an inherited disorder 33 Word after ink or knee 34 Small island 35 Horne of jazz 36 Help for a small climber 39 Electrical unit 40 Civil War sword 41 “Well, start talking” 42 __-Caps 43 Agnus __ 44 “The Third Man” or “Double Indemnity” 48 Service charge 49 “Mr. Blue Sky” rock gp. 50 Many times o’er 51 Old horse 54 Parliamentary rules violation ... or what each circledletter quartet represents? 57 MD meeting an ambulance 60 Parcel (out) 61 Subtle glow 62 Safari heavyweight 63 Composer Stravinsky 64 Bearded flower 65 Seth who played Wozniak in “Steve Jobs”
66 Feline feet 67 __-dish pizza
DOWN 1 Hidden supply 2 Mythological night-sky hunter 3 Christmas drink 4 “I can only __ much” 5 Piled up 6 Hockey team on the ice, e.g. 7 Not worth __ 8 Way to watch bamboomunching zoo bears 9 Medal metal 10 Dryer fluff 11 Set a price of 12 French word in bridal bios 13 Call out 21 Prepare to tackle 22 Whirling current 26 U.K. network, with “the” 27 Clearasil target 28 Oater badge shape 30 English derby site 31 Blood of the gods 32 Swing willy-nilly
36 Broadway hit, in slang 37 “__ from Muskogee”: Merle Haggard song 38 Eye rudely 39 Potato chip go-with 40 Scuffle 42 Études, typically 43 Feels otherwise 45 Recent rightist
46 Like pitches that bounce in the dirt 47 Last 52 Cliffside abode 53 Fully comprehend 54 Corn bread 55 Draped Roman garment 56 Sudden attack 57 Go wrong 58 Letter after pi 59 Project for an archaeologist
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
By Roland Huget ©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
RANDOM HOUSE / FACEBOOK
Deception is woven into the fabric of American mythology. It’s the basis for nearly everything: Joanne the Scammer and President Trump, Elizabeth Holmes and LuLaRoe. Scamming, Tolentino argues, scales itself out from the personal to the structural and back again. We’re taught that scamming is how to get by. It’s how we play the system, but it’s also how we play ourselves. Tolentino zeroes in on a hard truth of capitalism in “Seven Scams”: In an economy like ours, trying to buy responsibly is nearly
That’s what “Trick Mirror” feels like: Relief, because finally someone has taken up the Herculean task of articulating all the complication of being alive right now.
09/10/19
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impossible. You buy something from Amazon — because it’s cheap, and you’re poor or you’re busy or you have a disability — and you’re directly contributing to a whole host of bad things that will soon befall another human being, another person who is also poor or busy or disabled. This is America, where we’re all screwing each other over in a million different ways. “Trick Mirror” doesn’t offer any answers to the question of how we might begin to break this cycle. Still, there’s something immensely satisfying in hearing the problem described so well. Tolentino is a superb writer; she manages to accurately characterize most complex social problems of our time with an ease that is unmatched. Best of all, she always implicates herself. The book is as much a reflection on culture as it is on her own relationship to it, and it’s a pleasure to read about how Tolentino herself has struggled to understand the world and her place in it. Her essay “We Come From Old Virginia,” about sexual
assault on the University of Virginia’s campus, is an especially personal piece, since Tolentino attended the school as an undergraduate. She approaches the topic of the now-retracted Rolling Stone article, “A Rape on Campus,” with both empathy and anger. In the article, written by Sabrina Erdely, a woman (referred to as Jackie) describes a horrifying story of sexual assault. Much of the article was fabricated, however, and Erdely was sued for defamation. “There’s a part of me that feels as if Jackie and Erdely inadvertently sentenced me to a life of writing about sexual violence — as if I learned to report on a subject so personal that it imprinted on me, as if I will always feel some irrational compulsion to try to undo or redeem two strangers’ mistakes,” Tolentino writes. Simultaneously, she understands something about the two women’s mistakes. Jackie reminds her of her time in the Peace Corps, about which she writes, “I felt, monstrously, that there was no boundary between my situation in the larger situation, between my injustices and the injustices everyone faced.” This dilemma is at the core of “Trick Mirror”: What is personal? What is political or structural or cultural, and to what extent can we hold ourselves and others responsible for the wrongdoing caused by our involvement in these larger systems? “Trick Mirror” avoids attempting to answer these questions and instead tries simply to articulate them. It’s clear upon reading “Trick Mirror” that part of the problem is that the questions themselves are so obscured. In this sense, “Trick Mirror” is more a work of philosophy and less a book of solutions. It left me with the feeling that simply understanding the many dilemmas of modern life would itself be revolutionary. After all the scamming, all the delusion and uncertainty, what we’re left with is the task of naming the vague, ever-present feeling of chaotic wrongdoing. Luckily, “Trick Mirror” isn’t a trick mirror at all. It shows us just as we are.
Trick Mirror Jia Tolentino Random House Aug. 6, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Tuesday, September 10, 2019 — 7
A breakthrough After multiple goal-less games in a row, the Wolverines topped Bowling Green, 2-0, to go back above .500 MOLLY SHEA
Daily Sports Writer
Cross. Shot. Rebound. Goal. After 327 minutes, Michigan finally ended its scoring drought when sophomore Raleigh Loughman ripped a shot into the upper corner 80 minutes into Sunday’s game. The play started when sophomore Meredith Haakenson received the ball from the corner, took a touch, turned and sent the ball towards the goal. The goalie dove and blocked the ball with an outstretched arm, but it rebounded right into Loughman’s path. A second later, the ball found the back of the net. The crowd and the Wolverine sideline erupted. Loughman’s goal propelled the Michigan women’s soccer team (3-2-0) to a 2-0 victory over Bowling Green (2-1-1) on Sunday. Just two minutes after Loughman’s goal, sophomore Skylar Anderson netted her first career goal on a header off a free kick from Loughman. Anderson disappeared into a sea of white as her teammates celebrated with her. “I can’t even put words to it,” Anderson said. “It was amazing. The whole team was there and it was just great. There’s no words.” Entering the game, the Wolverines were fueled by something stronger than their need to snap a two-game losing streak — it was Senior Day, and emotions were running high. Despite the added motivation of Senior Day, the Michigan offense struggled to capitalize on opportunities early on. Every time a player touched the ball, she dribbled the ball down the field, crossed it in, and a teammate aimed to get a head or a foot on the ball. Rinse. Repeat. Chance after chance came and went, but through 45 minutes,
the ball never found the net. Opening the second half, Michigan searched for a spark. Thirty seconds after the whistle, freshman Lily Farkas took on a defender one-on-one, dribbled and rifled a shot off that sailed just over the crossbar. Minutes later, sophomore Emma Cooper dinged a shot off the crossbar too. The Wolverines were a different team. “(I told them to) just keep moving the ball,” said Michigan coach Jennifer Klein. “Look to continue to build and get in and around the goal, and when we get in, just shoot.” With the offense missing opportunities to find the back of the net, the Wolverine defense felt the pressure to shut down Bowling Green. It outmuscled,
outworked and outperformed. Play after play, the defense swallowed every ball that came its way. When Michigan’s offense seemed to stall out, the defense stepped up to create chances and restart the attack. The core of Michigan’s defense are two veterans, senior Sura Yekka and junior Alia Martin. Every player that took either of them came up emptyhanded, and through 90 minutes, Bowling Green didn’t register a single shot on goal. “One of the biggest improvements from last year to this year is our defensive organization and presence,” Klein said. “... We have to make sure that we’re really good at not giving the opponent a lot of chances in front of our net.”
JACOB COHEN
Daily Sports Writer
Shortly after her team snapped a 327-minute scoreless streak en route to a 2-0 victory, Michigan coach Jennifer Klein stood on the pitch explaining what it took for the team to finally find the back of the net. It wasn’t that the link-up play was sloppy or that the team couldn’t march their way towards their opponent’s 18-yard box. The offense’s lack of production boiled down to the failure to adhere to one simple phrase. “If you wanna score goals,” Klein said “you gotta shoot the ball.” The logic behind that statement is pretty
straightforward; if you don’t shoot, you don’t score. Finally, Michigan adhered to that philosophy, a change that led to an unmistakable shift in the team’s win against Bowling Green. After taking only seven shots in a 1-0 loss against Notre Dame on Friday, the Wolverines more than doubled their shot total, pounding the net for an impressive 16 shots on Sunday. The end product took some time to show itself, but the team’s persistence paid off as they scored two goals in two
minutes late in the second half. The drought-breaking goal perfectly embodied Klein’s words as sophomore midfielder Raleigh Loughman immediately struck the ball when it bounced toward her right foot on a rebound. No hesitation. One touch, one shot, one goal. Up until Loughman buried her shot in the 80th minute, the game had been full of frustration. Numerous shots fell right into Falcon’s freshman goalkeeper Becky Moss’s hands or careened off the post. It was clear, as Klein said, that the team had just been missing opportunities. Although the Wolverines dominated possession for the entirety of the match and had taken 13 shots before hitting home, it felt like the streak may have been doomed to continue to at least 337 minutes. That’s why the joy was palpable when Loughman’s shot flew into the net. It emanated from the huddle of players celebrating Loughman’s third goal of the season. “There was definitely a sense of release,” Loughman said. Now that Michigan finally hoisted the weight off their shoulders, all eyes are looking forward. Although Sunday was the team’s Senior Night, this is still very much the beginning of the season. The Wolverines still have all of Big Ten play ahead of them and would love the 327 minutes before Loughman’s goal to become a distant memory. “Hopefully that’s what they needed to keep moving forward in the season,” Klein said.
There was definitely a sense of release...
KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily
Freshman midfielder Raleigh Loughman scored in Michigan’s 2-0 victory on Sunday, breaking the Wolverines’ 327-minute scoring drought coming in.
Close calls create frustration as How ‘M’ approached overtime Michigan falls to Washington, 1-0 FOOTBALL
ARIA GERSON
AIDAN WOUTAS Daily Sports Writer
Ultimately, it’s all about finishing. The Michigan men’s soccer team learned that lesson Sunday evening in its 1-0 loss to No. 13 Washington. Despite plenty of close calls and solid scoring opportunities, the Wolverines were unable to break through when it mattered. Michigan started off confidently and maintained control of play for most of the first half. The Wolverines’ defense consistently frustrated Washington’s attack and recovered the ball when they needed to. “I don’t think we make many mistakes defensively,” said Michigan coach Chaka Daley. “We really only made one this evening, and that’s when they scored.” This defensive strength was mirrored by the Huskies’ on the other half of the field, though, and Michigan often had trouble converting possessions into scoring opportunities. When those rare chances did come, the Wolverines failed to connect. Early in the second half, Michigan’s attack proved to be much more assertive. For a moment, it seemed the Wolverines would break the gridlock when freshman forward Christian Pulselli stole the ball and fed it to sophomore forward Derick Broche in the middle of the box. As the crowd roared in anticipation, the ball rolled just beyond Broche’s control into the keeper’s hands. Yet another scoring opportunity fizzled away. “I thought we were quite dangerous and had them on the back foot a lot in the second half,” Daley said. “We were finally able to move into the final third in possession — but after that it’s a matter of making the right choice and picking out the right guys. We have some new personalities so figuring that
out is where we struggled a little bit.” In the 50th minute, the Huskies were the ones who were able to open up the scoring. After a combination play and missed slide tackle, Washington defender Kasey French took control of a cross and smashed the ball past Michigan senior keeper Andrew Verdi’s hands into the top left corner. This momentary lapse from an otherwise-poised defense would come to define the rest of the game. A remarkable series of chances as the half progressed showed the Wolverines had figured out how to set up chances for themselves against the Husky defense. But an air of frustration fell over the team as successive chances in the box ended without success. “At halftime we discussed how we can keep them pinned in and also not allow them to play as much as they did in the first half where they kind of rolled out and played,” Daley said. “It was a positive tactic for us but there were a lot of near misses — they made a great save or a shot hit the post or the crossbar.” Indeed, shot after shot from Michigan missed by inches or was barely deflected. Notably, junior forward Umar Farouk Osman fired the ball toward
the goal from the middle of the box in the 64th minute, but it flew past the keeper’s hands and bounced off the crossbar back into the box where Osman was unable to recreate the shot. Hallahan came similarly close in the 56th minute. He regained control after the Huskies initially cleared away Michigan’s corner kick and fired a shot past Washington’s diving keeper, but the ball bounced off the post. Washington’s defense remained poised and stopped the persistent Wolverine attack in its tracks. Michigan’s defense, meanwhile, returned to form for the remainder of the game and denied Washington any chance to extend their lead. “We owned every big moment tonight and that’s what we were trying to educate our guys about,” Daley said. “We own tonight’s result and we owned those moments — the question is how we can take more advantage of them and put good teams like Washington away. “It’s a big step forward in belief for the coaching staff — we can really compete if we can win the big moments.” That was of little consolation to the Wolverines and their fans. Despite a wealth of close calls and near misses, salvation by an equalizer was out of reach.
CARTER FOX/Daily
Michigan coach Chaka Daley lamented the missed opportunities offensively shortly after the Wolverines’ 1-0 loss to Washington on Sunday.
Daily Sports Editor
If there’s one team you really don’t want to face in overtime, it’s probably Army. Like any team that runs the triple option, the Black Knights thrive on a short field, chipping away at the green turf until there’s no more empty space. The Michigan football team saw firsthand what Army could do with such an advantage in the first half Saturday after two fumbles on two separate drives led to two touchdowns. But the Black Knights started their first three drives after halftime from their own 35, 25 and 23 yard lines and came up empty each time. Overtime, though? That’s a whole different animal. Each team gets one drive from the 25-yard line. Defensive coordinator Don Brown knew that meant an Army advantage. “You don’t want to get into those scenarios, you really don’t,” Brown said Monday. “Because the short field is their friend.” To combat the high probability of a Black Knights score, offensive coordinator Josh Gattis had a plan: an aggressive approach that attacked each possession with urgency. It was the same mentality he’d used when calling plays in the fourth quarter, including once when he passed up a potential field goal only to get stuffed on fourth-and-2. Then, Gattis had wanted to run out the clock and end the game on Michigan’s terms, knowing that the more time Army had, the more likely they’d get close enough for a field goal. Those calls hadn’t worked then — and in fact, probably got the Wolverines to overtime in the first place. Neither team scored in the fourth quarter and a made kick could’ve won the game in regulation. But Gattis was right about one thing on the second fourth down. The attempt ate up
enough clock that Army could only get to Michigan’s 33-yard line before time expired, forcing the Black Knights into a 50-yard attempt that was decidedly out of range for kicker Cole Talley. So the Wolverines went to overtime and again took the aggressive approach with them. “Win the game,” said junior center Cesar Ruiz. “That really was just it. Knuckle up and win the game. This is it right here.” Michigan’s defense got to work, methodically forcing a third-and-4, but senior viper Khaleke Hudson lined up offsides. The five-yard penalty resulted in a first down for Army. Two more runs and the Black Knights were in the end zone. “ ‘Would you please look down the line of scrimmage?’ ” Brown recalled thinking. “ ‘You’re offsides, dude.’ I mean, can you believe that? But we lined up offsides on a big play and it hurt us.” Knowing they needed a touchdown, the Wolverines got to work. On third-and-6, senior quarterback Shea Patterson found sophomore wide receiver Ronnie Bell for a first down, then a pass interference on the next play moved the ball to the 3-yard line. From there, freshman running back Zach Charbonnet punched it in. Michigan could’ve chosen to take matters into its own hands right there, but going for two was never really a consideration. The same analytics that both coach Jim Harbaugh and Gattis pointed to as influencing the fourth-down decisions earlier said that a kick was the better option — not to mention that the Wolverines had tried a two-point conversion against Middle Tennessee that failed. So Jake Moody trotted out and sent the game to a second
overtime. “Kick it and obviously flip it back around and be on offense,” Gattis said. “And we felt really good about where our defense was playing and how well our defense was playing. … Getting into the second overtime, the juices kinda get going a little bit more and we wanted to ride that wave from where our team was.” But in the second overtime, that wave crashed back to shore. Patterson had three straight incompletions — an overthrow to a wide-open Nico Collins in the endzone, a pass that redshirt sophomore wide receiver Tarik Black dropped and another attempt to Black that wasn’t really close. So the Wolverines settled for a field goal. It was up to the defense, and as Michigan’s season hung in the balance, it came up big, holding Army to just a two-yard run on first down, making a tackle-for-loss on second down and then, finally, strip-sacking the quarterback on third down and recovering the fumble. “When they jumped off the bench at the end, you kinda felt like our energy is right,” Brown said. “We’re going to have a chance to get out of here. And you saw it. You saw the three plays.” On the play, sophomore defensive end Aidan Hutchinson only remembers hitting the quarterback. He doesn’t remember exactly how sophomore defensive end Kwity Paye fell on the ball, but he knew the game was over and began to run and jump and celebrate as the team streamed onto the field. Beating a team like the Black Knights in overtime isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s no wonder Harbaugh gave Hutchinson a hug afterwards.
‘You’re offsides, dude.’ I mean, can you believe that?
Sports
8 — Tuesday, September 10, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Panic Meter: How worried should you be about the Wolverines? MAX MARCOVITCH Managing Sports Editor
If there’s ever been a better timed week three bye, you’d be hard-pressed to find it. By the skin of its teeth, the Michigan football team emerged victorious on Saturday against Army. That has done little to deter criticism in its aftermath. The Wolverines enter their first of two bye weeks, with more questions than answers. How much of that cynicism is warranted? Let the official Michigan Daily Panic Meter assess those worries. Offensive line: 6.3/10 Facing a team without a defensive player over 300 pounds, and only a handful over 250, Michigan’s offensive line allowed pressure in pass protection and got pushed around at times in run blocking. The Wolverines ran the ball 45 times (more on that later) at just 2.4 yards per carry including sacks, 3.3 yards per carry excluding them. It was an alarming figure against a team Michigan’s offensive line, frankly, should have mauled at will. Ryan Hayes, in particular, struggled in pass protection after a laudatory week for the redshirt freshman. After the game, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said 2018 first team All-Big Ten left tackle Jon Runyan Jr. appears set to return against Wisconsin. That would be a boon. “Jon was just really on the verge of being ready to play,” Harbaugh said. “He could have played … He looked good in practice, but we just felt like we would give him another week to make sure this isn’t something that’s a season ongoing problem.” Is he going to play in two weeks?
“Can I say that now? Most likely,” he added. Where does that leave everything, two weeks into a year that portended the offensive line as an offensive pillar? Wisconsin will be the ultimate test here. If Runyan returns to stabilize the left side and the interior cuts down on some miscues, this ship could find its level pretty quickly. But the offensive line being a strength seemed a foregone conclusion two weeks ago. If it ends up a liability — or even merely average — that severely hampers the ceiling of a unit that needs to be one of the nation’s best if it wants to win the Big Ten. Defense: 3.8/10 The sheer volume might have been overwhelming, but Michigan held Army’s tripleoption attack to 3.8 yards per carry on the day. And most importantly, it came up with plays when it needed to. Lavert Hill snagged an interception near the goal line at the end of the first half, and Kwity Paye and Aidan Hutchinson teamed up for the play of the afternoon — forcing a fumble in overtime to narrowly escape. “That was a gem of a defensive performance, no doubt about it,” Harbaugh said after the game. “You can talk about the last play, that last defensive series, just the entire football game. We made mistakes offensively; penalties, turnovers and turnovers on downs that the defense was not in the best position.” While much of the concerns feel warped into the offensive struggles, there are still reasons to be (slightly) concerned about this defense. An upper-echelon Big Ten defensive line should be able
NATALIE STEPHENS/Daily
Defensive linemen Aidan Hutchinson (second to right) was one of two players who helped force a fumble to clinch Michigan’s win on Saturday afternoon.
to win at the line of scrimmage against Army 10 out of 10 times. At times, the Wolverines struggled to do so. Some of that is anchored in the lack of depth along the interior. With Wisconsin looming, finding a run defense capable of holding up against maybe the nation’s most bruising rushing attack is priority No. 1, 2 and 3. It is tantamount to any hope Michigan has of emerging from Madison victorious. We’ll soon learn if the Wolverines have the personnel to do so. Quarterbacks: 3.0/10 Read Ethan Sears’ SportsMonday column. Play-calling: 7.8/10 Run/pass play-calling distribution is often overblown. Game context dictates those decisions more than anything
else, and so, deducing concerns about play-calling down to the 45/31 split we saw on Saturday misses the point. But when a reporter approached Ben Bredeson and asked where the “speed in space” was, it was an entirely valid question (though not really Bredeson’s domain). It wasn’t that Michigan ran the ball 45 times yesterday, it was that each one seemed to be an inside zone without any legitimate quarterback read. It wasn’t that the Wolverines didn’t run as many RPOs, it was that their best offensive weapon, Nico Collins, had three targets in a close game in overtime. Far be it from us to understand all the nuance involved in playcalling, there are clear tenets of
what the Wolverines are trying to do missing from the field. They are not getting the ball to their best players. They are not finding creative ways to utilize talent. And they are not getting premier speed in space. Until (if?) that changes, this offense will be handicapped by itself. EVERYTHING?!?!?!: 5/10 To be fair, had Army’s field goal at the end of regulation drifted inches further and left, the entire tone of this story would be cranked up several notches. A loss to Army ostensibly ruins Michigan’s most lofty goal, the College Football Playoff. A nearloss to Army obviously doesn’t. But the concerns that put Michigan in such a tenuous position don’t seem easily
amenable. And that’s where the panic should concentrate. The presumptive returns of Runyan and Donovan Peoples-Jones will help, no doubt. That will not fix the depth issues on the defense. It will not make the scheme more assured nor the play-calling less aggravating. It might help Shea Patterson take care of the ball and play more efficiently, but it will not be a magic bullet. We are two weeks into the season, and the Wolverines have performed significantly worse than expectations. Given the nature of their opponents, they can afford to use those two games as wake-up calls to help right the ship without a season-altering loss. But if it sustains beyond this bye week, that record won’t stay unscathed much longer.
Gattis seeking to eliminate errors ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor
It’s unlikely Josh Gattis ever tried to envision what his first in-season press conference as Michigan’s offensive coordinator would look like because, frankly, he has better things to do. But if he did, he probably didn’t picture reporters trying their best to play Operation, guessing at potential issues to try and find an answer for why his offense hasn’t worked. But the Wolverines enter their bye week with no topic of greater importance. They will likely spend the 11 days before a trip to Wisconsin doing the same thing — watching, diagnosing, fixing. If they don’t, their season will hang in the balance sooner rather than later. Through two games, senior quarterback Shea Patterson is averaging 7.1 yards per passing attempt, down from 8.0 last year. Michigan’s run game is averaging 3.8 yards per attempt, down from 4.8 last year. Those two games came against Middle Tennessee State and Army, and to put it kindly, neither defense
C O M M E M O R AT I N G
AY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2019
Michigan Law School, 1225 Jeffries Hall 4:10–5:30 p.m.
NVERSATION WITH
EPRESENTATIVE STIN AMASH
onsored by U-M Office of the Provost
is representative of what Michigan will see in Madison, or throughout the Big Ten season. To hear Gattis, and Michigan’s players, tell it, the problem lies in self-inflicted errors. The system is working, but the execution is not yet there. “When you look at it over the past two games, we got seven turnovers, we got seven fumbles, we have 10 penalties and then we also have seven drops,” Gattis said. “And so, you go back and you look at all those plays in critical situations, they’re killing us now. “There’s been a lot of positives over the past few games. We’ve ran 160 plays, we’ve had 17 explosives and we’ve had a number of different other explosive opportunities that we’ve just missed, whether it’s overthrown balls, dropped balls, guys wide open to create some big opportunities. We’ve missed about six of those. We just gotta get our timing down in every phase and every asset of our operation in offense.” There’s truth in this — the conversation would be different if Michigan hadn’t
C O M M E M O R AT I N G
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2019 University of Michigan Law School, 1225 Jeffries Hall 4:10–5:30 p.m.
A CONVERSATION WITH
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JUSTIN AMASH Sponsored by U-M Office of the Provost
lost five fumbles in two games. There’s no inherent correlation between a spread offense and a lack of ball security. Ditto for penalties and drops. It’s not the whole picture though. When an offense predicated on forcing players into conflict — be it on zone reads or runpass options — becomes predictable, the ball getting handed off 37 times and the quarterback rarely keeping the ball on options, it won’t work. “Everything that we do has some level of read, whether it’s an RPO read or quarterback read run,” Gattis said, and if that’s true, the Wolverines don’t seem to be taking advantage. Maybe that has to do with Patterson’s oblique injury, which Gattis said has been an issue in both games. But the offensive coordinator also seemed to believe it had little effect on his quarterback’s play. The reads are more complex than they seem, he said, particularly against a team that might be playing defenders wide up the field, cutting off a potential run by the quarterback. “He made some good decisions in there,” Gattis said. “There were some decisions, obviously, that you wish you could have back, but you gotta continue to correct those decisions and get better from them.” Gattis’ message — fix the obvious errors and everything else will fall into place — holds true. Center Cesar Ruiz searched around for the right phrasing to describe the struggles and never quite found it. “I wouldn’t call them growing pains,” he said, “but there’s some things we got to — some things, we understand the offense. We understand everything. … Every game’s not going to be perfect.” Right now, mistakes or not, the Wolverines must find a way to run the offense as Gattis described it in the spring. Option-heavy, fast, keeping defenses off-balance and above all, modern. “Obviously is there areas and room for growth? Yes,” Gattis said. “Like I said, the mistakes and everything. But I think ultimately, it’s my job to put them in a position to be successful.”