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Michigan Medicine nurses treating virus patients navigate risks amid surge in cases Health care workers deemed high-risk exposures struggle to obtain testing HANNAH MACKAY Daily Staff Reporter
Michigan Medicine nurses at high risk of contracting the virus have had different experiences navigating the risk of caring for patients versus returning to work. Michigan Medicine began conducting in-house COVID-19 testing for employees and patients on March 19 and has created a COVID-19 hotline for employees and patients as well as curbside screening by referral. Meghan Clarke, a nurse at C.S. Mott Children’s on the Respiratory Intensive Care Unit, was among the first nurses to volunteer to work in the converted COVID-19 units. She said the level of personal protective equipment and other protections provided was especially high. “The RICU where everyone was going at first was really the most protected I’ve heard of in any of the health care systems so far,” Clarke said. “All the rooms have negative pressure, so what that means is the air from that room is being vacuumed back into the room, it’s not being blown out into the hallway. We had either an N95 face mask that we had to be fitted for or a
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(powered air-purifying respirator). If you had the PAPR, that covered your whole head and face, but if you were wearing an N95, they were giving you eye shields too.” When Clarke began experiencing symptoms after about a week of
working in the COVID-19 unit, she said they were mild and could easily be written off. “If I hadn’t been very aware of the situation and trying to read up as much as I could, they were symptoms that would have been very easy to ignore
or attribute to another cause,” Clarke said. Clarke has since tested positive for COVID-19. She said all Michigan Medicine employees must go through occupational health services.
Subletting difficult amid virus outbreak Filling empty apartments, houses during summer months complicated by COVID-19 JOHN GRIEVE For The Daily
In response to the continued spread of the coronavirus and uncertainty over when the pandemic may be controlled, the University of Michigan moved all classes for the spring and summer terms to remote learning. For Ann Arbor landlords and tenants, the University’s decision means significantly fewer students looking to sublet properties during the summer months. Many students leave Ann Arbor and return home to live with their families or move elsewhere for internships over the summer. Because rental properties in Ann Arbor are typically leased on 12-month contracts, they are stuck paying rent for unused houses and
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DOMINICK SOKOTOFF/Daily Many students continue to pay rent for their empty apartments, despite returning to their permanent residencies.
apartments. To mitigate the financial burden of paying for an empty property, tenants look to sublet their properties to the few students who remain for spring and summer classes. This year, however, those
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subletters may be hard to find. The University’s move to online courses for spring and summer effectively eliminates the need for the remaining enrolled students to be in Ann Arbor, shrinking the pool of people
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looking to sublet housing. Rackham student Kamerhon Moses is a resident in the Vic Village apartment building. When the building announced that one of their residents had tested positive for COVID-19, Moses said he chose to leave. “I decided it was probably best to just get out of there because, one, I have insurance that’s only for my state, so if I get sick, I’m kind of screwed if I’m in Michigan,” he said. “You never really take it too seriously until it starts affecting people around you, and once I heard somebody in the building was the second or third case in all of Michigan, I was like, ‘Wow, this is spreading fast and it’s probably not going to be great if I or anyone around me in my apartment gets sick.’” See SUBLET, Page 3
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“We’re told at Michigan Medicine that if we have any questions, any symptoms, basically direct everything to our occupational health department, so they were the first people that I called,” Clarke said. See NURSES, Page 2
ANN ARBOR
Residents: We deserve rent relief Jobs, incomes lost as economy grinds to halt BRAYDEN HIRSCH Daily Staff Reporter
As the spread of the novel coronavirus forces businesses across the state to shut down and residents to shelter in place, many people have been laid off, leaving them struggling to pay rent and other bills. LSA senior Emily Roat lives in an Oxford Companies property. She lost her job and needed assistance paying her $420 per month rent. In an email to The Daily, See RENT, Page 3
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The Michigan Theater temporarily closes due to the COVID-19 pandemic and encouragement for all residents to stay home in Ann Arbor.
Whitmer declares state of disaster as death count rises
Governor takes action to expand Michigan’s efforts to combat spread of COVID-19 as global pandemic takes its toll on residents EMMA RUBERG Daily Staff Reporter
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of disaster Wednesday night and signed an executive order expanding Michigan’s COVID-19 response. Whitmer previously declared a state of emergency on March 10 in hopes of helping local governments slow the spread of COVID-19 and persuading Michiganders to take preventative measures. In a press release Wednesday, Whitmer said the state of disaster order would allow for a more effective response and hopes it will help reduce the impact of the coronavirus in Michigan. “Today’s action will allow my administration to respond more effectively to every facet of this crisis,” Whitmer said. “During this
time, it’s crucial that Michiganders continue to stay home and keep their distance from others. We will get through this together.” As of Wednesday, Michigan had 7,630 recorded cases of COVID-19 and 264 deaths, as Wayne County has quickly become an epicenter of the disease. Michigan has the fourth most cases of any state, behind New York, New Jersey and California. Washtenaw County had reported 400 cases of COVID-19 and eight deaths. In the press release, Joneigh Khaldun, chief deputy for health and chief medical executive of Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, explained she believed the executive order will help protect Michiganders and hopes it will slow the spread of COVID-19. “The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Michigan is still climbing, and we must continue to do everything we can to slow the
spread,” Khaldun said. “The governor has taken a number of critical steps to protect Michigan families, and this order today will allow that work to continue. I will keep working closely with the governor and our partners across state government to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.” Whitmer has previously ordered non-essential businesses to close and directed all Michiganders to stay in their homes with few exceptions. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends people wash their hands often and avoid touching their faces. Anyone who believes they have been exposed to COVID-19 should call their primary care physician or reach out to the local health department, which in Washtenaw County can be reached at 734-544-6700. Daily Staff Reporter Emma Ruberg can be reached at eruberg@umich. edu.
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NURSES From Page 1 “They were the people who did the screening with me, going over all my symptoms, and they asked me about more symptoms than just the basic three.” Clarke said she had to strongly advocate for testing because she did not necessarily meet the typical requirements of fever, dry cough and shortness of breath. “A lot of places, because of the limited supply of testing, are only testing people who really meet the criteria, so I made it really clear that one, I work on RICU so I know I’m working with people that are positive and there’s the risk of exposure,” Clarke said. “But two, even though I didn’t have a fever on reading, I had other symptoms of fever-like sweats and chills. I feel like I really had to advocate strongly for myself, I don’t meet the obvious criteria, but I recognize changes in myself that I think are similar.” Clarke said she had heard about her coworkers experiencing similar symptoms and being denied testing. “I don’t know if it’s the luck of who you
talk to or how strongly you advocate for yourself or if they called a week before I did when those symptoms weren’t being considered, but now they are,” Clarke said. “ … I just know that I really tried to make a strong case for getting myself tested.” Another registered nurse interviewed for this article has requested to remain anonymous for fear of jeopardizing their job at Michigan Medicine. The registered nurse, who works in an Intensive Care Unit at Michigan Medicine’s main hospital, will be referred to as Nurse 1. They said they were exposed to a patient with COVID-19. “We had a surgical patient that had been on our floor for a couple days, we were trying to figure out why we couldn’t get him extubated and off of the ventilator,” Nurse 1 said. “I was in there working with him without a mask because at that point he was just a typical surgical patient.” When it was determined that the patient had COVID-19, health care professionals considered to be at risk were notified immediately that they had
likely been exposed to the virus. These “exposures” include staff present in the room when certain procedures were performed on COVID-19 patients while not wearing proper equipment, such as adequate masks and eye protection. “I came back to work two nights later, he had been reintubated, swabbed for corona and was not doing well,” Nurse 1 said. “By Saturday, I woke up after my shift and I had gotten these emails from my boss … missed calls all saying ‘The patient came back positive. Because you were taking care of him on these days when he wasn’t on droplet precautions and he was extubated, it’s considered to be a high-risk exposure.’” The email from Infection Prevention and Epidemiology, sent out to employees considered to be high risk, notified nurses and other health care professionals that they may have been exposed to the virus. The email detailed exposure criteria and noted that an employee determined to have a high-risk exposure to the virus will be restricted from coming into work for 14 days. See NURSES, Page 3
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NURSES From Page 2 On March 23, two days after Nurse 1 was told to avoid work for two weeks, all Michigan Medicine employees received an email instructing health care professionals that had previously been identified as having had a highrisk exposure to return to work if they do not present any symptoms. “As a result of widespread community transmission, the state has issued new information today stating that healthcare workers who have been placed off work following travel or an exposure and who are asymptomatic may be asked to return to work,” the email reads. “If you develop symptoms, stay at home. If you develop symptoms at work, do not complete your shift and return
RENT From Page 1 Roat said after reaching out to Oxford Companies, she was told they were not planning on providing rent assistance. “Essentially they said that they were a management company and the individual property owner of 425 Hill had chosen not to make any changes whatsoever.,” Roat wrote. “The person who emailed me recommended I apply for unemployment, and said I should consider subletting — I still live there, so that is not an option, and moving in with my parents would be dangerous for them.” On March 23, Roat posted screenshots of her emails and text messages with Oxford Companies in a Facebook group with University students. Roat said in addition to declining to offer rent relief, Oxford Companies had no plans to allow tenants to break leases early. Oxford Companies owns several apartment complexes and houses in the Ann Arbor area. On behalf of
SUBLET From Page 1 Moses moved out of his apartment and returned home, but he still has to pay rent on his Vic Village apartment. He said he posted a listing for his apartment in several Facebook groups and utilized Vic Village’s sublet-assistance system but has yet to find someone to sublet his apartment. “It hasn’t happened yet,” Moses said. “But I’m still holding on to hope because rent is pretty expensive.” Moses attributed some of that trouble of finding a subletter to there being so few students left in Ann Arbor. “It’s pretty hard to find a subletter when everybody’s leaving,” Moses said. “A lot of people kind of got — for a lack of a better word — screwed, because some people just don’t have resources. I’m definitely one of the lucky ones where I am able to at least go back and have someplace here, but it’s definitely affected the market.” LSA sophomore Harrison
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Thursday, April 2, 2020 — 3
home.” Nurse 1 said when they received this email, they were beginning to experience some respiratory symptoms and attempted to get tested for COVID-19. “At that point, I was starting to have some mild upper respiratory symptoms, I was feeling pretty congested, fatigued, getting headaches,” Nurse 1 said. “I called employee health and told them all the symptoms I was having and they were basically like, ‘You don’t meet the criteria for testing at this time because you don’t have a fever and cough, so you’re okay to come back to work and just wear a mask.’” In early March, University of Michigan employees were given access to extra personal time off for COVID-19 related emergencies. Katie Oppenheim, chair of the
University of Michigan Professional Nurses Council, said extra time off was negotiated for health care professionals. “The University, March 13, put out this 80-hour special personal time off bank which is to be used for COVIDrelated things, including childcare,” Oppenheim said. “We negotiated an additional 120 hours for our members because they’re at higher risk, and then immediately the health system provided that to everybody, which is great.” Nurse 1, having stayed home while sick using the 80-hour bank, said the 120 hours cannot be accessed unless the employee tests positive and that this creates difficulties for people experiencing symptoms who can’t get tested. “I know a lot of other people on my unit are also experiencing the same
symptoms and they’re just making it really difficult for nurses to get tested,” Nurse 1 said. “Not only do I have a confirmed patient exposure and I’m sick, but the University of Michigan won’t let me access that special PTO bank that was bargained for because I’m not getting tested.” Oppenheim elaborated on the current policy of testing individuals only with strong symptoms, specifically a fever. “There’s no special treatment for anybody about testing, health care providers, anybody that works in the institution, everybody is treated the same based on symptoms,” Oppenheim said. “The only time you stay home is if you are symptomatic, so if you were exposed and are completely asymptomatic, then you’re just going to monitor your temperature and continue to work.”
Michigan Medicine spokesperson Mary Masson said she had no information to share with The Daily regarding the criteria that employees must meet to be tested at the moment. Nursing junior Rachel Quigley, who also is currently working as an aid at Michigan Medicine, said she has faith in the organization’s ability to protect students and workers. “Michigan Medicine is really committed to protecting us, I feel really comfortable and they have an employee hotline and everything,” Quigley said. “They update us numerous times every day, our supervisors have been really excellent at keeping us updated, we’re not really in the dark or anything, and there’s information being sent out all the time.” Reporter Hannah Mackay can be reached at mackayh@umich.edu.
Oxford Companies, Karin Meier, director of Shared Services, shared a statement with The Daily. Meier said the company is aware of the difficulties their tenants are facing and said they will be waiving all late fees for their residents. “The COVID-19 outbreak and the actions necessary to slow its spread are creating hardships for everyone,” Meier wrote. “At Oxford, our first priority will always be the safety and wellbeing of our residents. To that end, our maintenance staff is taking strong precautions and adhering to the protocols of the CDC and Health Department as we service the properties to ensure resident safety.” Meier wrote that the company is looking for ways to lessen the burden on their residents, but is unable to construct a universal policy for all its properties. “While we don’t own any residential assets, Oxford provides property management services on behalf of multiple property owners, each with their own unique financial considerations such as property taxes and mortgage payments,” Meier
wrote. “As such, we unfortunately aren’t able to offer a uniform policy regarding rent payments. What we can do, however, is continue the discussion around COVID-19 to understand how residents, property owners, lenders and the City of Ann Arbor are impacted and identify possible solutions.” In response to those in search of rent relief, University alum Hoai An Pham created a Facebook page for Washtenaw County Mutual Aid + Resources to support tenants who need assistance paying rent during COVID-19. She said she created the page because she feels it is important to ensure people have access to as much information as possible. “I saw lots of other Facebook groups being created around the country, and a lot of us have been learning from each other and communicating with each other. I think that’s really important to be collaborating and sharing resources when we can,” Pham said. “I was seeing a lot of people just trying to share as much as they could on their own Facebook pages in the hopes that people would see it, and there were,
like, 20 different research documents being circulated. Washtenaw Mutual Aid has been in existence for over a year, but Pham said she thought it was important for everyone to have access to any and all resources they may need in this time of uncertainty. “The Mutual Aid Network facility has existed for a year, in part connected to the Mutual Aid Disaster Relief organization, which has existed for a super long time,” Pham said. “Peace House, in Ypsi, is a house of hospitality and has been doing work for homeless folks for a super long time. Detroit has been doing all the groundwater delivery to folks who don’t have running water. So, all this stuff existed before. I think that in these times, there has been a higher need in terms of mutual aid because a lot of people are losing their jobs.” LSA seniors Sharif Krabti and Katrina Stalcup and Rackham student Casey Jong are working on a campaign called No Rent Michigan. The campaign aims to help renters receive support and guidance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Krabti said
their short-term goals are to empower tenants. “We took the approach of getting resources out there as much as possible to allow people to organize for their own situations, and hopefully get some concessions or get some relief for this month’s rent or for April’s rent,” Krabti said. “And then our long-term goal is trying to build a network of tenants across the state of Michigan. Stalcup said Ann Arbor renters should not strike by themselves. She advised renters struggling to pay rent to look at the organization’s resource guide for advice on how to approach asking for a rent waiver for April. “(Striking by themselves) puts them at risk,” Stalcup said. “Really consider our Google Doc and our list of resources that shows you how you can create a network within your own building, and then also long-term, be connected to a statewide group of people that are supporting renters standing in solidarity with renters and will continue to show up.”
George said he is also struggling to sublet his apartment for the summer. “I have it through the summer, and I was planning on subleasing it,” George said. “I had a lot of interest from people before all of this happened, and then once they announced online classes, interest started to decline for everyone. All my friends who I know who have housing right now are amazed at how drastically quick people were interested in it and then just kind of faded away.” While people had expressed interest in subletting his apartment, George said it is usually hard to sublet even without the effects of the coronavirus. “Ann Arbor is a ghost town in the summer,” he said. “The only time you’re going to get someone to sublease is usually for spring term. And then July and August are just sunk costs. Like, you are not going to get anyone. That’s usually, in my experience, how it’s gone.” Most University students are only enrolled in classes from September to April. During the 2018-2019 school
year, enrollment dropped from around 45,000 students during the fall and winter semesters to an average of a little less than 4,000 students over spring and summer. Students also expressed concerns about the greater effects of the pandemic going into the summer. Last week, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued an executive order directing all non-essential businesses to shut down to slow the spread of the virus. However, with no clear end in sight, many are worried the restrictions could last much longer. George said he thinks the stay-at-home order was the right call but is concerned about the economic effects. “The stay-at-home order is going to make it even worse now because people are going to now move out of Ann Arbor even more,” George said. LSA sophomore Trenten Ingell helped create a petition to Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor calling for the halting of all rent payments in light of the coronavirus outbreak. As of Wednesday night, the petition
had more than 2,800 signatures. “We wanted to represent both on- and off-campus housing situations and the issues that a lot of people are having with where they are living,” Ingell said of the petition. “Some people want to leave, and they still have to pay rent. We thought that was kind of — pardon my language, but — bullshit. In the dorms, people were being de facto evicted. They did not want it to look like an eviction but, I mean, it really was.” Ingell lived in North Quad Residence Hall this year but moved out when the University made the decision to consolidate on-campus housing. Ingell said he recognized the difficulty of the University’s situation but said he feels the $1,200 reimbursement that the school is offering its residents is not enough. “We ran through some of the numbers,” Ingell said. “We should really be paying, and get paid back, a little more than $3,000 just with our meal plan and housing based on the time that we would not be living in the dorms or taking advantage of the meal plan.”
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On March 27, the University announced that students will receive dining credits for their unused meals and Dining Dollars that can be used when classes resume in-person instruction. There remains a lot of uncertainty about what this summer holds for tenants in Ann Arbor. But amid all of the adjustments — returning home, adjusting to online classes, struggling to find a subletter — students said they feel like they need to remain positive. Moses said he appreciates the resources he has and is looking out for those who have less. He also said he is trying to prioritize productivity, noting that an outbreak of the plague sent Isaac Newton home from university in the 1660s. While in quarantine, Newton developed groundbreaking theories and mathematical concepts. “He went home, and we all know about Newton now because of that summer,” Moses said. “Everybody should just stay productive and try to think about other people.” John Grieve can be reached at jgrieve@umich.edu.
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EVAN STERN | COLUMN
Trump will emerge from the pandemic stronger than ever
S
ince the first cases of COVID-19 — a respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus — were reported in the United States in January, American life has been turned upside down by an event few will ever forget. The coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019, has spread to every continentexceptAntarcticaandhas claimedover42,000livesworldwide, with European countries like Italy and Spain being hit especially hard. After spreading to all 50 states and infecting over 200,000 nationwide, the American economy has come to a screeching halt. Schools like the University of Michigan have movedclassesonline,non-essential businesses have closed and stay-athome orders have been issued for more than half of the states as well as Washington, D.C. As the fallout from the COVID19 crisis continues to deepen, a dark feeling of anxiety has taken hold across the country, with some saying the pandemic’s impact is worse than the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Beyond the medical and economic implications of this crisis for the nation, the coronavirus also has broad political implications for leaders who will be judged by their response to the illness, which the World Health Organization has declared a global pandemic. In particular, President Donald Trump is under incessant pressure to respond to the coronavirus
as his re-election bid — which is being increasingly complicated by the crisis — looms this November. Many Americans — especially those who are opposed to the president’s policy agenda — may see this pandemic, which coincides with a presidential election year, as an insurmountable obstacle for Trump. But I would disagree. While many think that the infection will kill off Trump’s political career once and for all, the crisis is actually an opportunity for the President to showcase himself as a strong, capable leader for the American public. And he’s already doing just that. Since the crisis first began to rattle American society, Trump has used his executive power to protect Americans every step of the way. In the direction of qualified experts, the president first banned travel into the U.S. from China, which medical professionals like Dr. Anthony Fauci credit as a major step toward slowing the spread of COVID-19 into our borders. Later, as the pandemic ramped up outside China, the president moved to prohibit travel from Europe as well, another critical step that likely spared America from the worst the coronavirus had to offer. Beside cutting off travel from some of the worst-off areas across the globe, Trump has delivered the information and resources the American people need to overcome this illness. In a coordinated, bipartisan effort, the president helped organize a historic two
trillion dollar economic stimulus bill that passed the Senate unanimously. The economic aid package promises to give individuals and married couples, along with small businesses and hospitals, the funds they need in order to survive these trying times. In addition, with many experts fearing that America may become the next epicenter of the pandemic, Trump has taken dramatic steps to fully utilize the resources of the federal government to combat the coronavirus. Along with working to increase the availability of testing for COVID-19, Trump took the responsible step of invoking the Defense Production Act to increase the supply of key medical products and secure the help of hospital ships to combat the virus. Moreover, the president implemented “Coronavirus Guidelines for America,” an effort that has made Americans aware of important steps they can take to “flatten the curve.” Finally, the president assembled the White House Coronavirus Task Force, a group of experts, including Vice President Mike Pence, who work around the clock to contain COVID-19 and offer key information to the press and public.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com Evan Stern can be reached at erstern@umich.edu.
CASEY RHEAULT | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT CRHEAULT@UMICH.EDU
I
The challenge of renewable energy
n order to encourage exponential growth of renewable energy in the coming years, the United States must significantly invest in the infrastructure of our energy grids. Renewable energy faces two main problems: the inherent unreliability of natural forces and the cheap competition of fossil fuels. However, increasing interconnection between regional energy grids addresses these two central problems of reliability and cost-effectiveness by creating a market for the transfer of energy between states. Connecting our energy grids will allow the U.S. to boost the security of the green energy supply and integrate more renewable energy into the market. During extreme weather conditions, states need to be able to rely on their neighbors to import the electricity they need. Yet without proper infrastructure, it is impossible to buy and sell electricity across borders. Interconnection of our regional energy grids is essential for the security of green energy supply and thus for the growth of green energy. The main challenge of renewable energy is its inherent unreliability, but a green energy market would bypass the requisite of sustainability: vast energy storage. Solar energy in California, for example, falls far below the necessary energy demands in the winter months. Yet in the summer months, California often has to discard their excess solar power. The state’s fleet of solar farms frequently generates more electricity than Californians use during the middle of the day, and without sufficient energy storage infrastructure, this excess electricity is simply thrown away. Expensive storage methods such as batteries or hydroelectric energy storage are technologically possible, but extremely expensive and thus carry little political traction in California. A cheaper alternative is the development of a more interconnected regional power grid, allowing neighboring states to buy and sell energy as necessary. So in summer months when California has too much solar energy, the state can sell excess electricity instead of curtailing it. Meanwhile in the winter when there isn’t enough solar energy production, the state can import other types of green energy such as wind energy from Wyoming or New Mexico. In this way, a proposed energy market could solve our energy storage problem by bypassing the problem of storage almost entirely. Instead of requiring each green energy producer to invest in expensive energy storage on top of green energy costs, states can just buy and sell as needed. A larger, more interconnected power grid would mean each state doesn’t have to worry about diversifying their individual energy portfolio for energy stability, but can still benefit from green energy diversity in the region at large when necessary. In the European Union, for example, Denmark
already produces excess wind energy, but instead of throwing it away, they sell it to their neighbors like Norway. Norway then stores that energy and can sell the electricity to other neighbors when demand is high. Interconnection like this creates more diverse sources of energy, where different regions can benefit from their respective advantages in climate and geographical features. In this energy market, Denmark doesn’t have to plan for a day when the wind doesn’t blow by turning to fossil fuels or building other types of green infrastructure. Instead, Denmark can focus on what is most efficient for them. And, Norway doesn’t have to heavily invest in energy production when it is more cost-effective for them to invest in energy storage and import energy from Denmark. Each state can focus on their own geographic or climate niche and maximize their individual efficiency. In doing so, exporters of green energy can make a profit, and importers can import cheaper green energy. Take a step back, and the European continent as a whole system will see a decrease in green energy prices and an increase in the overall usage of green energy. While increased interconnection of regional power grids has the potential to make green energy more competitive, the fossil fuel industry could also capitalize and benefit from cheaper energy exchange. However, the energy market in the U.S., and the rest of the world, is undeniably trending towards green energy, and opening up the market will only steepen that trend over time. An energy market will always favor the cheapest and best option, and even though coal might still be competitive now, an open energy market will work to increase the rate so that the market phases out fossil fuels eventually. Instead of outlawing coal or fossil fuels, we can realistically build infrastructure in our power grids to incentivize green energy through the market. Discussion of renewable energy faces many technological and economic hurdles, but we can begin to address them right now by investing in infrastructure. Renewable energy’s inherent unreliability can effectively be addressed with the interconnection of power grids — we don’t need to wait for a miracle battery. A bigger, more liquid and transparent market would enable easier integration of renewables such as wind and solar, and help meet the country’s renewable energy and climate goals at the least cost. It would allow California solar energy to be exported rather than discarded, and enable access to a greater variety of excellent resources, such as wind energy in Wyoming. We need to invest in interconnection now to incentivize renewable energy in the future.
An energy market will always favor the cheapest and best option.
Reid Diamond can be reached at reiddiam@umich.edu.
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Arts
Thursday, April 2, 2020 — 5
FILM NOTEBOOK
Scenes from an apocalypse: ‘War of the Worlds’ ANDREW WARRICK Daily Arts Writer
Movies are projections. Yes, literally, in the sense of filmstock and screens and projectors and bulbs. But movies can also be projections of ourselves — a momentary snapshot of the internal, the introspective, the metaphysical. And given the circumstances, we as the film beat are seeing less literal projections in movie theaters and doing more projecting ourselves. So what are we thinking about? Among them are Tik Toks, Tiger King and — of course — the apocalypse. This series will traverse the cinematic doomsday in its eclectic iterations. After all, why grapple with an uncomfortable reality when you can watch movies that hyperbolize it completely? — Anish Tamhaney, Daily Film Editor * 2005 was a fantastic year for movies. In just 12 months, “Batman Begins,” “Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire,” “King Kong” and “Brokeback Mountain” all hit the screens. What do these have in common? They’re all produced by major studios like Universal and Warner Brothers, and are absolutely wonderful. Be it undercutting the superhero myth, pulling Harry into a race war, simultaneously honoring and critiquing a classic film or depicting a gay relationship with honesty and depth, each one of these blockbusters did something brave and worthwhile. Today, most tentpole movies are part of a convoluted cinematic universe, critically panned or instantly forgettable. It almost seems antiquated to imagine a major studio release that’s finely crafted. Yet 2005 was full of films like “Rent,” “Munich” and “A History of Violence,” big budget movies good enough to be revered even fifteen years later. There’s a dark horse in this lineup, though, which usually doesn’t turn up in 2005’s “Best of” lists. Yet it’s perhaps the most relevant of any movie released that year. Steven Spielberg’s “War of The Worlds” is
not considered a classic like “ET” or “Close Encounters of The Third Kind,” the director’s two other alien movies. It should be. In 2005, the USA was just four years out from 9/11 and in the midst of Bush’s War on Terror. On top of the death tolls in Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans contended with the Patriot Act, a ramping up of surveillance across the nation. Bush’s approval rating was the lowest of any president ever while prejudice like islamophobia and antisemitism skyrocketed throughout the world. Once those towers fell, it was harder than ever for people to put trust in their government, their neighbors and their own safety. “ET” just wasn’t gonna cut it anymore. “War of The Worlds” begins like many of Spielberg’s movies do, with a slice of Americana as perfect as Grandma’s apple pie. After finishing a shift as a dockworker in New Jersey, Ray, played by Tom Cruise (“Mission: Impossible - Fallout”), goes home to his kids, Robbie and Rachel. It’s his weekend to have them from his ex-wife and the first thing he wants to do is play a game of catch with his son. Both of Ray’s kids are stereotypical 2000s kids. Robbie, played by Justin Chatwin (“Another Life”), is a sullen, earphoneswearing teenager with slick black hair who complains about everything. Rachel, played by Dakota Fanning (“I Am Sam”), dresses in a colorful sweater with a pink fur hood, carries around horse toys and watches Spongebob Squarepants. If one didn’t know the title, they’d probably guess the movie would be about Ray connecting with his dissatisfied kids and maybe even his ex-wife, played by the great Miranda Otto (“Lord of The Rings”). There are some hints of the darkness to come, though. Robbie’s homework, which he refuses to start, is about the French occupation of Algeria, a notoriously violent, imperialistic campaign. In between Spongebob episodes, Rachel sees news reports about lightning storms from around the world. She changes the channel.
PARAMOUNT
That evening, a storm brews above their block, a black spiral in the middle of the sky. Lightning strikes again and again, right outside their house. The power goes out. When Ray goes outside to investigate, his neighbors are gathered around the impact zone. The earth trembles and everyone starts to run, but it’s too late. A gigantic alien machine rises above the buildings and gives a great, unearthly screech. Then it starts torching people. The imagery in this scene is ripped from 9/11 news footage. Everything is shot on street level, giving the carnage a massive scale of importance. As buildings topple and spew debris in the air and people turn to dust, it’s all right in the viewer’s face. The clothes of burn victims fly into the air with the force of the heat ray but drift down slowly, evoking imagery like that of The Falling Man. “We need to leave this house in sixty seconds,” Ray tells his awe-stricken kids when he makes it home. He goes to the mirror and realizes his skin is caked in the dust of incinerated human beings. Panicking, he washes it off. The bloodshot terror in his eyes remains. “Is it the terrorists?” Rachel asks. All it takes is one minute to bring modern America to the brink of apocalypse, to forever destroy its sense of peace and security. While the aliens are fictional, this scene played
out a thousand times over on Sept. 11, 2001. Americans watched in horror as carnage rained down from above. Afterward, they had to face their kids and try to explain that their country wasn’t safe anymore. As the alien attack continues, Spielberg destroys countless American motifs. A looming highway is blown apart, sending cars crashing into a row of townhouses. Rachel stands next to a sparkling river in upstate New York, like something out of Walden, and dozens of bodies float by, clogging the water. An Amtrak train rattles past through the dark, in flames. A statue of a Minuteman is wrapped in alien red weed. Refugees clog the main street of a small town as Sinatra plays in the background. “If I ruled the world…” Rachel herself is a breathing American symbol, the typical blonde-haired daughter in her purple coat, clutching her horse toys. She shrieks throughout the movie like a canary in a coal mine, American innocence thrown into violent chaos. In the end, when she faces the most horrific thing imaginable, she’s silent, dead-eyed. Like most of us, she’s so used to the terror that it has become everyday.
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MUSIC REVIEW
Dua Lipa reinvents the past on ‘Future Nostalgia’ DIANA YASSIN Daily Arts Writer
Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia was actually supposed to come out this week, with an original release date of April 3rd. But in late March, a full leak of the album hit the internet. This placed Lipa in a complicated position: postponing her album release would be a seemingly pointless pursuit. She addressed the situation in an emotionally packed Instagram Live stream that ranged in topics, spanning from the future of her album to the UK’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. “In these kind of situations we all need to actively work together to make a change,” Lipa said. “What I’m gonna do is, instead of my album coming out April 3rd, my album is actually gonna come out this Friday.” In light of the pandemic, many artists actually did the exact opposite, delaying their album releases. Despite the negative background surrounding its release, Future Nostalgia is a peppy, fun step forward in Lipa’s career. Lipa’s 2017 self-titled debut cemented her as a successful, stable pop force. Radio mammoth “New Rules” dominated charts worldwide and the debut garnered Lipa her status as 2017’s most streamed female artist. She played this route to pop stardom safely, though; her 17-track debut contained a lot of EDM filler, tactful collabs and on-trend Ed Sheeran lyrics about anxiety and party-skipping. Her appeal felt formulaic, almost indecipherable in a music sphere with receding pop dominance. There wasn’t a distinct personality to Lipa’s celebrity, her then lacking stage presence picking up slack in meme potential. Her leathery,
molasses-thick register was her saving grace, polished like a relic from pop music’s past. For this reason, Future Nostalgia is a testament to Lipa’s evolution and greater control of her career. The new era is as distinct a shift for Lipa’s image as her two-toned bob. Shortly following her breakup with longtime boyfriend Isaac Carew, Lipa had a relationship with Anwar Hadid and a leading single that blithely addresses her ex. “Did the heartbreak change me? Maybe,” she croons in “Don’t Start Now.” “But look at where I ended up / I’m all good all ready / so moved on it’s scary.” Her voice is strong, almost melismatic, but it glides effortlessly off the thumping percussion and pulsing synths. An electric violin in the bridge elevates this already buoyant boogie track with a groovy disco flare. stratosphere of the ’80s, but her attitude anchors it Follow-up single “Physical” has the same vintage to the future with contemporary commentary and bubble wrap, but with an anthemic intensity. Lipa references to futurist artist John Lautner. chants “Let’s get physical” over a neon, almost While never as kitsch as the intro track, a similarly jazzercise-type melody. contagious ’80s pop ether While very imitative, its coats every moment on chugging synthline and Future Nostalgia. Some synth flares don’t come songs contemplate the Future Nostalgia off as dated. transcendent, altering Dua Lipa Lipa both literally and nature of love and figuratively breathes romance. “Levitating” “Future Nostalgia” into is galactic and starry the initial title track. A eyed with wobbly, robotic voice harkens rhythmic synths and back to Prince’s “1999” while also whispering spacey imagery that call a “sugar boo” to dance “future” throughout the song’s intro. From there in the moonlight and “fly away.” Similarly, hazy hovers a comfortably cheesy keyboard melody and “Hallucinate” pulses with laser beam flares and flaring synths. Lipa wears the unabashedly chunky promises to “love you like a fool.” Other songs bassline like a chain as she proclaims, “You want a wrestle with the tension of recent heartbreak and timeless song / I want to change the game,” as if to newfound love. Most notable is her recent single state her album’s mission. The song carries the same “Break My Heart” that considers the anxiety and
WARNER
potential doom of a newfound love. Hypnotic and dreamy standout track “Love Again” visits similar territory with a simple violin melody that flourishes under the vision of developing trust in a new romance. Future Nostalgia operates under a vision that is equal parts visceral and nostalgic. With the ambition to reinvent herself, Dua Lipa modernizes an iconic pop sound. This goes down to the very fabric of the album, thumb-tacking legendary sounds and moments in ’80s music with a contemporary bend. By collaborating with disco legend Niles Rodgers on the album and tracking back to the near forgotten pop trend of the 2000s, Lipa honors the past as she breathes life into the EDM pop scene that kickstarted her artistry. Beyond the ’80s synth-packing Lipa, Future Nostalgia is a balanced blend of raw vulnerability and empowerment as Lipa navigates love, self assurance and heartbreak. Despite its newness and early appearance in her career, Lipa’s Future Nostalgia is a timeless pop masterpiece.
Arts
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Thursday, April 2, 2020 — 6
BOOK REVIEW
On writing about writers and ‘Writers and Lovers’ EMILY YANG
Daily Arts Writer
The other day I was cursorily perusing my housemate’s New York Times, and, amidst the portents of apocalypse, I came across an agitated letter to the editor in the book review. “Confirming a trend I’ve noticed with annoyance on bookstore shelves,” the man wrote, not one, and not two but “fully three” of the novels reviewed last week had writers as their protagonists. This isn’t counting Elizabeth Tallent’s memoir, which is also about writing. Four books, each written with what this man seems to see as the same sort of unforgivable myopia, the same sort of decadent navel-gazing, a literary inbreeding that can only be a dead end. “Based on the reviews,” the man continues, “all the aforementioned writers appear to be frustrated in some way.” It’s unclear whether he means the writers depicted in the novels or the writers themselves, though, of course, it can be difficult to separate the two at times. “Maybe they could find some satisfaction in writing about people with a job title different from their own,” the man writes. “There are lots of us out there.” By this point it’s mostly clear that the man wants the writers who have published novels to write about something else now; though I like the idea of him offering advice to the fictional characters of books he hasn’t read; for if these characters have the misfortune to be created by writers, they can at least avoid another level of recursion. Petty as it is, his accusation isn’t unfounded:
A lot of debut novels I’ve come across recently do seem like a frustrated writer’s attempt to exorcise their process. This can produce good art, of course: The process of becoming a writer is an extended mundanity that transforms itself into a psychodrama if you let it. While we all know that writing is mostly just fiddling with characters and situations and sentences and above all the proverbial “ass in chair” that we are all so very good at avoiding, it can be fun to pretend that it’s something else. For my part, I confess that literary fiction about writers is like candy to me. Maybe that makes me elitist by someone’s metric, and I don’t care. Another thing our irate epistolarian might have missed: A lot of people with more humble “job titles” are also writers and (depending on how you want to look at it) vice versa. Lily King’s fifth novel, “Writers & Lovers,” is a novel about a writer who also works as a waitress, and a lot more time is spent on waitressing than on writing. It’s a job title that is starting to make Casey, the firstperson protagonist, seem a little ridiculous: She’s 31, an age that functions as a pivot. Here, one is faced with the reality of adult life and the fading of the exuberance of your twenties; there are suddenly considerations of stability. To persevere as an artist requires a certain amount of fortitude, especially if, like Casey, you haven’t found much success as an artist yet. She’s been working on her novel (provisional title: “Love & The Revolution”) for six years, in the process going between cities and boyfriends all over North America and Europe. She’s ended up in Cambridge, Massachusetts after a bad breakup, is working at
For my part, I confess that literary fiction about writers is like candy to me. Maybe that makes me elitist by someone’s metric, and I don’t care
a restaurant on the third floor of a Harvard social club and living in a tiny room sublet from her brother’s sadistic friend Adam (who at one point tells Casey “I just find it extraordinary that you think you have something to say”). King might want us to see Casey’s stubborn perseverance as heroic, but it also seems like Casey is doing this simply because she can’t be happy doing anything else. The recent death of her mother in a freak accident has left Casey emotionally fraught and it becomes increasingly clear that her novel, which incorporates elements of her mother’s biography, is a way for her to cope at least as much as it is a work of art that she eventually wants to finish and show people. Casey’s character isn’t self-dramatizing in the slightest; she instead has a talent for noticing things about people, picking up on intentions and empathizing. Casey feels everything in a way that’s contagious. A lot of sentences in this book start with “I love…” Additionally, King shows us how complicated this kind of life is to sustain while maintaining one’s sanity; we see how Casey has to adapt her mind to at least two playing fields, that of the service worker and that of the aspiring artist. She goes from writing her novel in the mornings to working at the restaurant in the afternoon to going on dates with other writers or going to literary parties at night; each space requires a particular use of language, a particular code. The restaurant itself is a kind of microcosm of the double consciousness she has to sustain on a larger scale in the rest of her life — she ducks into the kitchen and has to deal with the crass behavior (and sometimes harassment) of the cooks, then brings food to the restaurant’s wealthy patrons, doing her best to charm them. This theme of double consciousness is further elaborated by that most quintessential of novelistic tropes — a love triangle. Like all good fictional love triangles, each vertex represents a possibility for Casey’s life. She meets Oscar, a 45-year-old author who runs a regular writing workshop, when he comes into her work with his sons for mother’s day.
They are, in a slightly morbid fashion, celebrating Oscar’s dead wife. Casey charms Oscar’s sons, and he takes a liking to her. Through being around Oscar and his endearing children, Casey starts to imagine a life for herself that settles nicely into adulthood but might mean giving up her writing. Also in the picture is Silas, a regular attendee of Oscar’s workshop who spurs intense physical passion in Casey but has boyish qualities, not the least of which being that he tends to vanish for weeks at a time. Her struggles to choose seem increasingly like a referendum on her life: a gentle fade into the responsibilities and small joys of adulthood or the continuation of the sometimes messy process of trying to make it work as an artist. In the meantime, so much happens. Casey has reams and reams of backstory to intersperse this mostly straightforward plot with; there’s also, of course, the business of writing and getting published, the mundane struggles of life exacerbated by precarity (a cancer scare, sexual harassment, her landlord threatening to sell out her apartment, etc.). In many ways, King has a maximalist approach to realist fiction, one that seeks to capture life as it is lived. Life tends to pleasantly overwhelm plot. The jumble of situations, the huge chaos of characters (I counted 26 after the first chapter, and more keep getting added later) and the endless backstory started to feel like the point after a while. In the face of the luminous digression of King’s style, the writing that Casey does often ends up being the least interesting part, though I was definitely rooting for her success. I feel as though accusations like that of the writer to the New York Times assume that writing about writers is necessarily self-involved, that writers treat their work as uniquely heroic and deserving of attention. It’s not like anyone has to respond to an accusation of self-involvement (really, who isn’t self-involved?) but King’s writing ultimately feels very generous. Casey’s ambitions give the plot of the story a motivating force, but it’s by no means what makes the novel compelling.
TV NOTEBOOK
What cop TV reveals about our relationship with police ANYA SOLLER Daily Arts Writer
Over spring break, I spent the day at my grandparents’ house watching old shows from the 1960’s. I hadn’t seen many of them before and was excited to laugh at the fun fashion and the era’s simplistic, slapstick comedy. After a few episodes of “Bewitched” and “Green Acres,” the channel transitioned into that night’s marathon of “The Andy Griffith Show.” While I wasn’t as familiar with other shows, I knew the basics of this one. Sheriff Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith, “Matlock”) protects and serves the small town of Mayberry while raising his young son, Opie (Ron Howard, “Arrested Development”). After the first episode about the town’s beauty pageant ended, I felt I got the gist. Sheriff Andy and the people of Mayberry are sweet and kind, with a tendency toward endearing eccentrism. The next episode was about two old ladies secretly running a moonshine business while turning in their competition to the sheriff so they’d get more customers. It was an adorable story to be sure, but one particular moment caught me off guard. When arresting one of the moonshine producers, Sheriff Andy doesn’t read him his rights. It took me a moment to remember Miranda warnings weren’t implemented in arrests until 1966, five years after the episode aired. Police procedurals have been a staple of American TV since the mid-1950s with shows like “Dragnet” and “The Untouchables” but the more modern, slightly grittier version of cop shows came later with 1980s classics “Hill Street Blues” and “Miami Vice.” These programs popularized the
format while amping up the stakes for an audience now keyed in to crime thanks to the 24 hour news cycle. Perhaps the most influential police procedural of all time, “Law and Order,” is the best example of how crime-themed TV reflected (and affected) the American public. “Law and Order,” and its successful spin-off “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” each have upwards of 20 seasons and are known for their hallmark style of including stories “ripped from the headlines.” With more serious storylines and a loyal audience, these series could explore more difficult and controversial topics than “The Andy Griffith Show” could ever dream of. The comfort of small-town justice is entirely absent in modern police procedurals which tend to examine the most frightening aspects of our society and deeply flawed legal system. As I sat in my grandparents’ house, wondering how there was ever a time before Miranda rights, I wondered if there was something deeper at play in Mayberry. In the past few years, one particular scene circulated the Internet in which Sheriff Andy remarks, “When a man carries a gun all the time, the respect he thinks he’s getting might really be fear… I don’t carry a gun, because I don’t want the people of Mayberry to fear a gun. I’d rather they respect me.” The quote garnered much attention from gun control advocates who lauded his nonviolent sentiment, but in the context of the arrest scene I watched, that positive message is complicated. The people of Mayberry trust Sheriff Andy. But, the world of Mayberry is not as complicated as the worlds depicted in “Hill Street Blues” or “Law and Order.” The world of “The Andy Griffith Show” doesn’t exist anymore, and in fact, it never existed at all. There was no idyllic, peaceful small-town
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
America. At least, not one that wasn’t plagued with other issues of racial discrimination or the oppression of marginalized groups. The trust citizens of Mayberry had for their sheriff was partly because of the town’s lack of serious crime but also because he looked and acted like them. This mutual respect and admiration, while most obvious in early examples, is a common thread throughout American police procedurals. “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” often challenges this assumption by addressing issues that affect disadvantaged communities and emphasize the fallibility of law enforcement. But for all the empathy Olivia Benson and her team elicit, they’re still cops. They sometimes arrest the wrong guy or harass suspects. In one episode, one of the SVU detectives shoots an unarmed, Black teenager and, though he regrets his actions, he is still considered the protagonist of the show. Therein lies the conundrum of police-themed TV. Do we frame cops as trustworthy heroes because we trust the police or because we wish
we did? In a time when police brutality and lack of accountability are daily news stories, our cultural obsession with crime-related entertainment presents a distinct juxtaposition between how we feel and how we want to feel. In “The Andy Griffith Show,” the suspects trust the sheriff to respect them without a statement of their rights. But that’s not how things work. We need civil rights, we need to be innocent until proven guilty, we need protection from abuses of the law. As we continue to watch shows that idealize our relationship with law enforcement, as a country we need to consider why we need the scripted format of TV to comfort us in this way. Do we just like the mystery and entertainment of crime stories and cops are the incidental protagonists? Or are we less interested in the lives of people in Mayberry and more invested in heroes like Sheriff Andy? And if the latter is true, what does that say about us? If we continue to glorify the ideal while ignoring the reality of our justice system, change will remain on screen, just beyond our reach.