2023-09-20

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Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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UMich rolls out four all-electric ‘Blue Buses’

The University is working to electrify its fleet as part of its sustainability efforts MATTHEW SHANBOM Daily Staff Reporter

The University of Michigan’s Logistics, Transportation and Parking department deployed four new electric buses this fall: three of which were 40-feet long, and one 60-foot, articulated or “bendy bus.” These buses will join the University’s existing fleet of 29 diesel-hybrid buses and 27 diesel buses.

The buses were manufactured by automotive company New Flyer and can drive about 250 miles on a single charge. The arrival of the buses on campus was initially delayed due to supply chain delays and safety recalls, in an effort to prevent battery leaks.

In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Carter Starr, a student transit coach operator, said he has gotten to work with the electric buses firsthand as a driver.

Starr said he appreciates that the University is taking steps to reduce vehicle emissions. “(The move to electric buses) is definitely a step in the right direction,” Starr said. “I definitely think that it’s a good thing.”

The buses are part of the University’s carbon neutrality plan, which aims to completely eliminate their direct emissions by 2040 and to reduce carbon emission levels from purchased power to net zero by 2025. The electric buses do not

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emit carbon, and the electricity used to power them is sourced from DTE through the power grid. In March 2022, the University issued a request for proposals to source all of their purchased electricity from renewable energy and the University is still looking for ways to incorporate clean energy into their sustainability efforts.

Engineering junior Aarti Phatke recently rode one the 60-foot electric bus for the first time, which she said felt spacious in comparison to the other buses she has used in the past. Phatke said she is optimistic about the role electric buses can play toward a carbonneutral campus.

“I enjoyed my ride on the accordion bus,” Phatke said. “I think the transition to all-electric buses is going to decrease the University’s carbon emissions. I think it’s a great push to be carbon neutral.”

The electric buses are housed at the University’s new transit facility on Dean Road, which was constructed last year to support electric vehicles and improve route efficiency. In an email to The Daily, University spokesperson Kim Broekhuizen wrote that the new facility features “larger maintenance bays, a bus wash and depot chargers.”

The 60-foot electric bus is the first of its size on campus and was introduced to accommodate capacity shortages during peak transit times. Currently, the 60-foot

SARAH BAYNE/Daily

A hybrid electric clean mobility bus moves through the Central Campus Transit Center.

bus is operating along the BursleyBaits and Med Express routes, allowing more riders to fit on a single bus when the stop is busy. BursleyBaits, which connects North and Central Campus, is one of the most in-demand routes for the campus community, with buses coming

approximately every 10 minutes during peak times. The 60-foot, larger bus is being used on the Med Express route in accordance with shift changes at the hospital when Michigan Medicine employees need to move to and from the University’s Medical campus.

Phatke said there is a clear benefit to using the 60-foot bus, especially when there are events during the academic year that students need to travel across campus for.

“I think it definitely helps towards the beginning of the year when students are figuring out their

classes,” Phatke said. “Same goes (for) exam season when everyone gets out of the exam hall at the same time and the buses are packed again.”

The University expects to receive a second order of four electric buses in the spring.

AAPS Board approves superintendent resignation After 10 years, Superintendent Jeanice Swift will step down

JOEY LIN

Daily News Editor

The Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education voted 5-2 Wednesday evening to approve superintendent Jeanice Swift’s settlement and resignation, ending her decade-long tenure after many trustees called for her resignation.

Board members Susan Schmidt and Susan Baskett voted against the decision.

Swift will continue to serve as superintendent until the board appoints an interim superintendent, but not past Oct. 31, 2023. Swift will

remain on AAPS staff as transition advisor until Dec. 31, 2023. After Dec. 31, she will receive a onetime payment equal to 18 months’ salary at the rate being paid at the time of termination, estimated to be $230,000. The board released a statement Thursday announcing their decision to accept Swift’s resignation and thanking Swift for her contributions to AAPS over the past 10 years.

“The Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education and Superintendent Dr. Jeanice Kerr Swift have reached a voluntary separation agreement,” the statement read. “We would like

to thank Dr. Swift for her work in leading the Ann Arbor Public Schools since 2013 and we look forward to working together as we transition to a change in the leadership of the district. The Board is grateful for Dr Swift’s time and dedication to the Ann Arbor Public Schools and we wish her the best.”

Swift’s resignation ends over a month of disagreement on the board when they voted on a path toward removing the superintendent after concerns were raised from the board on Sept. 7.

Many AAPS parents and community members called for Swift’s resignation following

alleged a inaction after a 7-yearold special education student was allegedly abused by a school bus aide in December 2021. According to Jaime Nelson, the student’s mother, the aide physically and verbally abused her son and the school district failed to look into security camera evidence of the incident for five weeks after the incident was reported.

Nelson filed a lawsuit against AAPS, the principal of Carpenter Elementary School and Durham Transportation on July 26 for abusing her child and hiding it from her, law enforcement and Child Protective Services for weeks

afterward. In August, nearly 100 current and former AAPS parents signed a letter calling for Swift’s resignation.

Following the lawsuit, AAPS board president Rima Mohammad issued a statement saying that the board had recently learned of the incident and would take action to uphold student safety.

“The Board recently learned of the bus incident that occurred in December 2021 and we are deeply concerned and dismayed,” the statement read. “Student safety is always our top priority in the AAPS, and we are very sorry to hear about how this incident has impacted the

child and the family. As always, we will take all allegations seriously and address them promptly.”

During her 11 years in the superintendent role, Swift successfully campaigned for a tax increase for Ann Arbor residents that would benefit AAPS and passed a $1 billion capital bond in 2019 for the district.

According to MLive, Mohammad said that the board will continue to update the community and schedule listening sessions for next steps and information on a search for a new superintendent.

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CAMPUS LIFE

Community music concert celebrates new theme semester The Fall 2023 semester aims to encompass “Arts & Resistance” on campus

ASTRID CODE

Daily Staff Reporter

Students walking through the Diag Thursday evening may have seen and heard hundreds of community members singing, linking arms and swaying along to songs such as “Lean on Me” and “We Shall Overcome.” This community sing was hosted by the Michigan Community Scholars Program, University of Michigan Arts Initiative and Lloyd Scholars for Writing and the Arts with the theme “Songs of Resistance and Hope.”

Eugene Rogers, U-M director of choirs, helped lead and plan the event. Rogers told the crowd they were gathered as one community to sing together and uplift voices of resistance.

“Some people have asked, ‘What are we resisting against?’ ” Rogers said. “We are resisting against all forms of injustice, all forms of discrimination. You name it, we’re resisting it. But we’re also coming together because we’re hopeful when we think about our country, and how song has brought us together.”

Thursday’s event was one of many public events planned for the Arts & Resistance theme semester, a

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partnership between the University of Michigan Museum of Art and the Arts Initiative. The theme semester includes over 100 courses, as well as performances, lectures and exhibits such as Respond/Resist/ Rethink and Amal Walks Across America.

UMMA Director Christina Olsen told The Michigan Daily the theme was inspired by two of the museum’s exhibits: “Hear Me Now,” which displays the work of Black potters in South Carolina, and “You’re Welcome,” which will feature the work of Cannupa Hanska Luger, a New Mexicobased artist whose work focuses on environmental injustice and gender-based violence.

“I think that art has unique capacities to resist, largely because it’s often working … in a way in which knowledge and status quo and cultural categories are themselves getting questioned,” Olsen said.

“It has inherent powers of calling attention to power structures, to forms of oppression, to people and ideas that have been marginalized and disenfranchised.”

Dave Choberka, curator for University Learning and Programs at the UMMA, told The Daily most of his work on the Arts & Resistance Steering Committee involves reaching out to the U-M community

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to make their ideas happen.

“We did a lot of workshops early on about what the theme semester is and what opportunities there are to get funding to do your own things,” Choberka said. “We’ve been really trying to assist people to set up their own programs and then doing a lot of consolidated promotion of those.

The community sing is a great example of that.”

Olsen said she had long been advocating for the idea of a community sing as one of the main events for the theme semester.

“There’s something very profound and communal, of course, about singing and I love the idea of the Arts Initiative putting out to everybody that art is not just for people who are good at it,” Olsen said. “I think that singing and dancing and drawing and all these forms have to be kind of liberated from that idea of proficiency or perfection and that students so need that.”

Although accomplished singers such as Alice McAllister Tillman, Our Own Thing Chorale music director, and Jillian Burgam, Detroit Women’s Chorus director, led each song, the organizers stressed that the event was not a concert, and no skill or experience in singing was needed to join in. Christine Modey, Michigan

CALEB ROSENBLUM/Daily Aaron Samuels performs at Community Sing: Songs of Resistance and Hope on the Diag Thursday Evening.

Community Scholars Program director, helped organize the event and told The Daily that when people sing together, they often are breathing together and listening to each other.

“It creates this sense of oneness and unity that we don’t get very much in our lives in any other space,” Modey said. “That’s what makes it worth it … The feeling of

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being together and sort of breathing and singing into the world what we want it to be like, not the way it is.”

LSA freshman Elizabeth Lane, a member of the U-M Arts Chorale, told The Daily she felt a sense of togetherness and collective action at the event.

“I always get kind of nervous at big social events, but it just felt so comforting,” Lane said. “Even

Vol. CXXXII, No. 110 ©2023 The Michigan Daily

being around so many people, the community was just insane. It was so moving to be around so many people that are just together in the music and in the fight.”

LSA senior Macey Owen told The Daily she recognized many of the songs from protests she has participated in.

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GOVERNMENT

The current state of the Line 5 pipeline in Michigan

U-M community members discuss the latest Line 5 legal battles over Indigenous land rights and environmental concerns

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Since 1953, the Line 5 pipeline has been transporting oil and natural gas through Wisconsin, Michigan and Canada. The pipeline, run by energy company Enbridge, transports over 22 million gallons of light crude oil and natural gas liquids per day.

In Michigan, the pipeline crosses under the Straits of Mackinac, which has led to controversy surrounding Indigenous rights and environmental concerns, as well as a slew of legal battles working to shut down the pipeline.

Many environmentalists oppose the pipeline, citing concerns of an oil spill and Enbridge’s past pipeline malfunctions. In 2010, a pipeline run by Enbridge near Marshall, Mich., leaked approximately 843,000 gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River, a tributary to Lake Michigan. A leak in the Line 5 pipeline could have long-term impacts on Michigan’s fisheries and municipal water supply, as well as the tourism industry on Mackinac Island.

Many Indigenous groups have also expressed opposition to the pipeline, with many Michigan, Wisconsin and Canadian tribes coming together in April 2023 to call for an end of the pipeline in a joint resolution. In an interview with The Daily, Mike Shriberg, professor of practice & engagement at the School for Environment and Sustainability, said the location of the pipeline raises important questions about tribal sovereignty and land rights for Michigan’s Indigenous populations.

“All the tribal governments here in Michigan are united in their opposition to Line 5, and so they actually have a joint resolution stating that Line 5 should be decommissioned,” Shriberg said.

“It’s in part because of Indigenous water rights. Where Line 5 crosses the Great Lakes at the Straits of Mackinac is where many of the

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tribal fishing rights are actually centered, as well as many cultural aspects and creation stories and cases like that.”

Additionally, efforts have populated Michigan legislation to shut down the pipeline. There are currently two separate cases being litigated with regard to shutting down the pipeline. The first case brought against Enbridge is by the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. The Bad River Band sued Enbridge in 2019, alleging that the Line 5 pipeline crosses over parts of their reservation land without permission. In 2023, a federal judge ordered Enbridge to reroute the pipeline around the Bad River Band’s territory within three years, as well as to pay the tribe over $5 million for trespassing.

In an email to The Michigan Daily, Ryan Duffy, media relations strategist at Enbridge, said he believes Enbridge is taking the necessary steps, including routine maintenance, in order to protect the health of the Great Lakes and prevent potential oil leakage into Lake Michigan.

“Line 5 was over engineered when it was built to help it stand

the test of time,” Duffy wrote.

“The standards to which it was constructed still meet or exceed today’s standards for new pipeline construction.”

Duffy also referenced Enbridge’s recent Great Lakes Tunnel Project. The Great Lakes Tunnel, a $500-million project, will drill 100 feet below the lakebed under the Straits of Mackinac in order to eliminate the possibility of a leak and be finished in 2030. The new tunnel will also replace sections of Line 5 that are particularly at risk of a leak. Duffy said the project is meant to help make Line 5 more secure, while also stimulating the state’s economy.

“The Great Lakes Tunnel for Line 5 at the Straits makes what has always been a safe pipeline even safer, ensuring energy access and reliability, and supporting jobs and the economy throughout the Great Lakes Region,” Duffy wrote. “As we proceed with this modernization project, we remain committed to operating Line 5 responsibly with enhanced safety measures in the Straits that protect Michigan’s natural resources and infrastructure in

the Straits.”

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer brought a second lawsuit against Enbridge in 2020, which ordered the pipeline to be shut down. In an email to The Daily, Law student Timothy Dalrymple, co-chair of the Michigan Environmental Law Society, said the case is based on a legal concept called the public trust doctrine.

“The public trust doctrine is a body of law in which the government holds certain common pool resources (like water) in trust for the public, meaning the government can assert authority over the protection of natural resources like air and water,” Dalrymple wrote. “The State’s case is currently being reviewed by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to determine whether the case belongs in state or federal court.”

Dalrymple said both cases have the legal foundation to eventually shut down the pipeline, it is just a matter of if the cases succeed before the pipeline causes irreversible damage to the Great Lakes region.

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Anna Clark welcomes new Knight-Wallace fellows

Former Knight-Wallace fellow Anna Clark delivers annual Graham Hovey lecture to welcome 2023-24 fellows JUNE MACDONALD Daily Staff Reporter

The University of Michigan’s Wallace House Center for Journalists hosted its 36th annual Graham Hovey lecture Tuesday evening. Each year, the lecture centers on recent issues of public importance and highlights the journalistic contributions of Knight-Wallace alumni. Anna Clark, a Detroit-based ProPublica journalist and 2016-17 KnightWallace fellow, delivered the keynote address to welcome the center’s 2023-24 fellows.

During her lecture, titled “Government Secrecy from Flint to Oxford: Freedom of Information and the Public’s Right to Know,” Clark spoke about overcoming challenges in her own investigative reporting.

“It’s true what can seem like small-bore bureaucratic battles over this or that record often has extremely high stakes,” Clark said. “Maybe even life and death stakes. People in Flint and Oxford, two very different Michigan communities that both experienced crises, know this all too well.”

Clark pointed out Michigan is one of only two states where the Freedom of Information Act does not apply to the state legislature or the governor’s office. Clark said she believes Michigan’s government accountability practices lags behind most states and discussed her experiences

navigating these complications.

“In Michigan, no independent entity monitors the use of public access laws to ensure that they are fair and effective,” Clark said.

“In contrast, some states have an appeal board or an ombudsman that serves in such a role. Another fact: In Michigan, people who are incarcerated are denied the right to public records.”

In her opening remarks, Tabbye Chavous, the University’s chief diversity officer and Wallace House board member, spoke about the significance of diversity when combatting intimidation and misinformation.

“I believe that effectively communicating clear and informed stories about our work, about our communities, can play a huge role in countering misinformation and miseducation,” Chavous said.

The Wallace House’s 50th cohort of fellows had an opportunity to introduce themselves before the keynote. Eighteen journalism professionals from nine countries are represented in the current cohort. Many of them spoke about times they have faced violence and political pressure due to their work in investigative journalism.

Both fellows from Hong Kong had worked for news outlets that were recently forced to close.

Fellow Roberson Alphonse is the head of national news at Haiti’s largest newspaper and specializes in corruption and gang violence. In his introduction,

Alphonse said he hopes to research journalist protections this year at Wallace House.

“Last year I survived an assassination attempt,” Alphonse said. “I still have fragments of bullets in my forearms … I will turn something very tragic into something very positive by learning how to create for my fellow Haitian journalists a culture of safety while they are working in a very hostile environment.”

Clark began covering local news as a college freshman at The Michigan Daily in 1999. She completed a graduate program in fiction while working for nonprofits in Boston, and returned to Michigan in 2007 to begin freelancing in Detroit.

In 2016, Clark left full-time freelancing to enter the KnightWallace fellowship and begin writing her book, “The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy.” In her keynote remarks, Clark described how the resources and community at the University helped her develop her writing.

“Had I not done the fellowship, it would have been a different kind of book and a different kind of experience,” Clark said. “I could take classes on larger contextual issues, like law school classes on water policy and environmental justice, an urban planning class, that gave me new frameworks for understanding what I was doing. Most of all, the community connection, the fun, the rest,

the less financial precarity, was really important.”

LSA senior Aricka Croxton works at Booksweet, an independent bookstore located inside Plymouth Mall. She is a former student journalist at Emerson College in Boston and attended the lecture to distribute Clark’s book with Booksweet. In an interview with The Michigan Daily Croxton said she believes Clark’s book offers an important message about accountability and transparency.

“I want people to be safe and cared about in Michigan,” Croxton said. “I had assumed Michigan was a very transparent state. However, I was proven wrong.”

After publishing the book in 2019, Clark began working for ProPublica covering local and regional issues in the Midwest. In an interview with The Daily, she spoke about both her enthusiasm for the new position and the value of local and independent journalism.

“What I hope to do as a ProPublica reporter in Michigan is offer some sustained investigative reporting capacity,” Clark said. “Campus newspapers also have a critical role in filling some of the void in local news, providing some accountability work that wouldn’t happen otherwise both in and beyond their campuses … It really matters for the wellbeing of our communities, and in some cases, our literal lives.”

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The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is publishing weekly on Wednesdays for the Winter 2023 semester by students at the University of Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. If you would like a current copy of the paper mailed to you, please visit store. pub.umich.edu/michigan-daily-buy-this-edition to place your order.

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Wednesday, September 20, 2023 — 3

CAMPUS LIFE

Russian feminist artist Nadya Tolokonnikova talks political rage, activism Tolokonnikova spoke in the Michigan Theater about her self-directed film MALENY CRESPO Daily Staff Reporter

Hundreds of community members, students and staff gathered at the Michigan Theater Thursday evening to hear Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova discuss her selfdirected film, Putin’s Ashes.

Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist art collective consisting of women committed to contributing political and musical acts of defiance against Vladimir Putin, the Russian government and capitalist ideology.

They have received critical acclaim, backlash and solidarity since their founding in 2011. This semester, the group is featured in the University of Michigan Museum of Art’s “Arts and Resistance” theme, which seeks to engage the University community in the power of the arts to shape society.

Chrisstina Hamilton, Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series director,

opened the event by discussing Tolokonnikova’s background and journey since her last visit to the University in 2014.

“Our guest … was sentenced to two years of prison performing ‘Punk Prayer,’ ” Hamilton said. “(Tolokonnikova is) also co-founder of the independent news service and media outlet Mediazona and co-founder of Unicorn Dao, a collector’s decentralized autonomous organization dedicated to collecting and incubating NFTs created by female, nonbinary and LGBTQ+ artists.”

When Tolokonnikova began the “Putin’s Ashes” series in exhibitions across the U.S., Putin pronounced Tolokonnikova as one of the most wanted criminals in Russia. The film features a group of women burning a portrait of Putin.

After presenting the film at the event, Tolokonnikova said she is a threat to the system, not because of

physical or actual power, but because she sees her courage as contagious. She told the crowd she believes everyone has this power and has a moral obligation to use this power for good.

“I gave myself a promise that I will dedicate my life to resistance,” Tolokonnikova said.

“Putin equals death, humiliation, torture, imprisonment, darkness, eternal winter, stagnation … The dark ages for Russia. Courage is an ability to act in the face of fear.”

In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Art & Design junior Georgie Correa said Tolokonnikova’s story and artwork have creatively inspired them. They said they admired Tolokonnikova’s strength and took it as a sign for people to get more involved in politics.

“I have an interest in (Tolokonnikova) because I have heard of Pussy Riot a lot,” Correa said. “Her work is referenced a lot in the (School of Art & Design) curriculum. Her

attitude about protests and political art is a sign for me to get into it.”

Art & Design freshman Akari Fu told The Daily Tolokonnikova’s strength and creativity were an inspiration to them.

“I was actually excited for today’s speaker especially because I researched the speaker and I had not heard of (Tolokonnikova) before,” Fu said. “She’s accomplished so much and went through so much. I always have an admiration for people who use their art, creativity and voice to make a difference in the world.”

Art & Design freshman Ben Levitsky told The Daily he thought Tolokonnikova’s artwork was interesting and conveyed a message unlike anything he’s seen before.

“It’s a completely different genre of art and I have not seen something like it before,” Levitsky said. “I thought what Tolokonnikova is doing is amazing. She is doing as much as she can to stop the spread of a dictatorship.”

TESS CROWLEY/Daily Creator of Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist protest art collective, Nadya Tolokonnikova speaks about her time in prison for participating in an anti-Putin performance called “Punk Prayer” in Moscow in 2012, as a part of the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series at the Michigan Theater on Thursday evening.

BUSINESS

Michigan Athletics announces new collaboration with Peloton U-M community members can now access Peloton equipment in athletic facilities

REBECCA LEWIS Daily Staff Reporter

University of Michigan students and other Michigan football fans opened Instagram on August 22 to find a post advertising a new, U-Mbranded Peloton bike. The post, which was shared by both the Peloton and U-M Football accounts, announced the beginning of a collaboration between the exercise bike company and the U-M athletic department.

According to a Peloton press release in August, the partnership will include the availability of U-M branded Peloton bikes at The Big House and in Michigan Athletics

training facilities, discounted student pricing for classes on the Peloton app, opportunities for student athletes to participate in Name, Image and Likeness deals, and a sponsorship deal for Maize Rage — the student cheering section at the Michigan men’s and women’s basketball games.

Maize Rage president Jake Skulnik said he is excited to see how the sponsorship will impact the student section.

“I’m really honored that in the deal, Maize Rage was actually outlined,” Skulnik said. “I think it’s really beneficial for us, the student section, that the University is recognizing us (and) seeing the impact we’re making.”

The University’s collaboration with the fitness and cycling company marks the start of Peloton’s new “College Strategy,” in which the company is aiming to increase its brand awareness among college students through branded products, promotions and social media engagement.

Casey Moore, director of marketing at Peloton for Business, wrote in an email to The Michigan Daily that the company hopes the partnership encourages U-M fans, students and alumni to use Peloton products.

“With this partnership, we want to support the fitness ambitions of Michigan students, alumni and fans, and have Peloton be part of their

journey,” Moore wrote.

In an interview, Kurt Svoboda, the University’s associate athletic director for external communications and public relations, told The Daily that brand collaborations such as the Peloton partnership provide unique opportunities for student athletes to have easy access to fitness equipment that is specifically tailored to them.

“Having a partnership with a specific company such as Peloton is beneficial to our student athletes because they’re already using similar products,” Svoboda said. “Now, they get to use (products) that have a lot of visibility and name recognition and collaborative infrastructure, such as the entire Peloton network.”

This Fall, Explore T Of The Arts To Sha he Power pe Society More tha n featuring 100 public events & local & g p lobal art erformances ists, inclu ding: Feel Good Friday: fall opening celebration Sept 22 I UMMA

Amal Walks Across America Sept 23 I Diag, Downtown Ann Arbor

penny stamps speaker series:

Carolina Caycedo, DAVID DE ROSAS & Juan MANCIAS Sept 28 I michigan theater

LIGHTNING: A One-of-a-Kind Drag Show Extravaganza Sept 29 I ypsi freighthouse

Guardian Passage: The Power of Ukrainian Cultural Memory in the Face of War oct 2 I International Institute Gallery, Weiser Hall

Events presented by: UMMA, Ann Arbor District Library, Ann Arbor Summer Festival, U-M Arts Initiative, the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series, UMS, and the International Institute Gallery.

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Arts

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What the writers’ strike could mean for the future of TV SERENA IRANI Daily Arts Writer

Every childhood Friday afternoon, like clockwork, I’d arrive home to find a copy of Entertainment Weekly sitting there atop the stack of mail in the foyer. I wasn’t all too interested in the contents of the magazine itself, but by virtue of it belonging to my mother, I was always tempted to pry it open and sneak a peek.

It exuded the semi-forbidden allure of mysterious, worldly adult objects that I admired but didn’t fully understand, like the chic brown leather boots she’d only wear in autumn or the olive-green glass Aveda bottle that resided on the bathroom counter. Magazine in hand, I’d start at the bullseye of popular culture and work my way back to front, Books to TV to Film.

Usually, only half-page picture collages and 72-point font were enough to grasp my attention, but the Fall TV Schedule almost always did.

“What to Watch,” it would announce, in big, bold letters, like the authoritative voice of Television with a capital T. EW’s presence in the mail stack of my household was as consistent and reliable as weeknight TV. And because of that, the “Hollywood” that it represented felt like a formidable institution to me as a kid. A perfectly equilibrated system in which episodes of my favorite shows would air each week, interspersed with re-runs in the off-season, and when those shows ended for good, new ones would promptly arrive the next fall to take their place.

It’s been years since I read a physical copy of EW, and their print publication is longdefunct, but I wonder what this year’s fall TV schedule would look like on paper. Mostly empty boxes, with season 35 of “The Amazing Race” or the latest rendition of “Love is Blind” sprinkled in? Sounds bleak, but it’s not that far off from the present reality of television — reality television.

In light of the recent writers’ strike, this seems to be all networks have left to stand on; it’s frightening that studio executives think that the best solution here is to coast by on unscripted shows while they sit around and twiddle their thumbs, waiting for writers to come crawling back.

To be clear, I support the writers one thousand percent and feel that the issues

they’re striking for (studios downsizing writers’ rooms, streaming services eradicating residual checks, a lack of health insurance or a living wage and AI-generated writing, to name a few) have festered at the expense of creatives for far too long. Furthermore, I think that this strike has exposed a notable chasm in judgment between what executives think audiences want and what they actually do.

This is hardly the first time that writers have gone on strike, but the prospect of AI entering the domain is certainly a newage problem to be reckoned with. Writers taking issue with AI aren’t doing so for the sake of impeding technological advancement, but out of a fearful awareness of how easily it could go from being a “tool” to implement in their work to a cheap hiring substitution for studios to save a buck. The creative process of writing a show is hardly a rote, replicable task, but even if that were true, and AI was able to produce content indistinguishable from original creation, why is that something we as viewers would even want?

A few years ago, the concept of AI-generated scripts was merely a running gag on the internet. Someone would post something along the lines of “I trained an AI on 1,000 hours of Law and Order and asked it to write an episode and this is what it came up with.” The scripts were always terribly funny — emphasis on terrible — and the crux of the joke was that the idea of using AI to write an episode of a show, no matter how templated or trope-y it was, was simply incredulous.

When you watch an episode of your favorite show, you do so with the knowledge that someone (or likely, a lot of someones) took the time to craft and create the art you find entertainment in. If the couple that took six seasons to get together breaks up — someone is to blame! If the finale of a show is less than satisfactory — you’re upset with whoever came up with that ending.

How could they have let this happen? What were the writers thinking, you’d ask. Regardless of whether your reactions were that of veneration or vitriol, your sentiments were directed toward real human beings who worked on the show.

Sometimes, the reactions of viewers even directly informed writers, like when fans of “Pretty Little Liars” figured

Design by Evelyn Mousigian

out who the central villain “A” was too quickly, and they had to course correct so often it verged on absurdity. Even if that wasn’t the best choice plot-wise, the writers clearly valued the intelligence and viewing experience of their audience and went to great lengths to preserve the show’s core mystique and its penchant for shocking reveals. I assure you, AI could never concoct anything close to what those writers did.

Yet what upsets me most about the discussion of AI in TV is the notion that people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Those PLL fans definitely would have because a) you should never underestimate the tenacity of teenage girls and b) audiences aren’t dumb! Is the consensus here that TV viewers have lost the ability to discern quality art, or that they simply wouldn’t care?

As long as the television industry is able to profit from this inequitable streaming system that favors content over quality, it will continue to make decisions that aren’t in the viewers’ best interest.

While this is something that likely infuriates the writers

that work on these shows, it should also infuriate you, the sucker who forks over 10 bucks a month to these companies.

In the age of streaming services, accessibility to television (for the low, low cost of $9.99 a month with an ad-free plan!) has never been greater. The rate at which they churn out new shows was unheard of 10 years ago, let alone 20. But why is it necessary? Why do streamers think that canceling shows a season in and erasing their existence (for tax write-offs, of course) will go unnoticed by viewers, so long as they keep pumping out more material to make up for the lack?

It’s not just the forgettably cheap original content that Netf lix puts out, but the fact that nearly everything in streaming has moved towards this fast-and-dirty model to make shows quick to watch and quick to move on from.

American sitcoms and dramas used to put out 20-episode seasons and airing for multiple years was a hallmark of a series’ success and popularity.

Instead, prestige TV is now praised for its ability to work within the constraints of short seasons, and limited series

are in vogue thanks to Reese Witherspoon’s production company.

No one wants to make (or more accurately, fund) eight seasons of a scripted show anymore, but long-running series from decades ago remain among the most popular content on streamers. When Netf lix first gained its massive consumer base, it didn’t have many original series, so people used it to watch stuff like “Friends” or “The Office.”

Netf lix loves to boast about how their latest original show broke every viewing record under the sun but never shares data about how their non-original content performs. I, for one, find it incredibly interesting that a show like “Suits,” which aired a decade ago on cable, has been in Netf lix’s top 10 trending list since it was added in June.

Clearly, viewers still like multi-season shows — it’s just that original streaming series keep getting cut off at the legs before they’re able to build an audience.

Streaming services have seemingly decided that longerrunning series simply aren’t worth the cost if they don’t perform exceptionally well from the start, and that rapidly

producing and canceling shows is a more favorable (and profitable) system than the old regime of network cable.

Not only is this blatantly untrue, but it exists only to the detriment of writers and actors trying to sustain stable work and to the quality of shows that never get the chance to grow with time. With cable, not every show was a multiseason success story, but it felt like they were at least given a fighting chance.

At the end of the day, these writers aren’t asking for all that much, and we owe it to them, and ourselves, to ask more of the streaming services that we pay for. For every show that’s gotten you through a tough day or given you something to bond over with someone else, remember that someone made that, that someone wrote the lines that made you laugh or cry or question your existence. TV is more than just background noise. And I refuse to believe that it is somehow the elevator music of visual art, something we tune into numbly, blindly, with zero regard for the human beings that created it or the messages it’s trying to convey or the way it makes us feel.

Running in circles: A first look at the animation of Junji Ito’s ‘Uzumaki’ ADAEZE UZOIJE Daily Arts Writer

Junji Ito’s stories rarely work well when animated.

From “Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre” to “Junji Ito: Collection,” it seems impossible to convey his artistic visuals in animation without accidentally making the stories choppy or slightly saturated.

Sometimes, the animation can even remove the audience from the atmosphere that Ito is known to create. This hasn’t prevented artists from trying to adapt these works, and recently, that’s a good thing. Toonami, known for legendary series like “Dragon Ball Z” and “Samurai Jack,” has been working on an animated version of Ito’s “Uzumaki” for the past four years. When the project was first announced, it was a concept that seemed like a distant hope. However, with the first look at “Uzumaki,” it seems more and more promising.

Toonami’s “Uzumaki” has an eerie atmosphere that offers possibilities for what an animated Ito iteration could be; its dedication to the manga’s style, with spirals surrounding the characters, help to create this atmosphere.

“Uzumaki,” which means “whirlpool” in Japanese, is meant to cause fear and paranoia

in the reader with the sheer amount of spirals found both in the story and in the “spiraling” of individual characters who descend into madness as time passes. The story shows each character fall into some sort of obsession — either with themselves or their work or by harming those around them. The still drawings of the manga mean that one must use their imagination to follow the spirals, to see the degree of obsession of each character, and to understand the dizzying and addictive nature of the shape. An animated version of “Uzumaki” would not only bring the spirals to life but would make the concept all the more salient and meaningful.

The consistency of the spiral imagery also adds to the animation’s visuals. The manga’s line art finds its way into the animation in every aspect down to the smallest details, such as the wind and the hair. The characters’ slower movements keep the illustrations from seeming static while also keeping the animation smooth. As a result, the characters seem to be simultaneously full of life and somber, remaining consistent with the depth and nuance of the material. And of course, Ito is well known for the intricate drawings that he makes — lines one after the other, stippling that would take ages to recreate

and horrifying one-off shots of characters that would make the average viewer nauseous.

The animation doesn’t just do its best to recreate his work; it is incredibly successful.

The animation follows this style to a T, with no strand of the protagonist’s hair left out.

Even from the first look, the animators don’t simplify her at any moment. The lack of color and the focus on sound design to fully immerse the viewer shows more intent to replicate Ito’s work, something both incredibly heartwarming and exciting.

As Adult Swim, a programming block broadcast

by American cable channel Cartoon Network, releases more and more information, it feels nearly impossible to not be constantly shaking with anticipation at how incredible the animated iteration of “Uzumaki” looks thus far. Each hatched line, each image, each animated frame is a love letter to Ito and his craft, and I’m hardly able to contain my excitement at what this means for how his works could be replicated from here on out. “Uzumaki” has the opportunity to be one of the most impressive, if not the most impressive, adaptation of an Ito story, and one can only hope that Toonami upholds that expectation.

This image was taken from the official teaser trailer for “Uzumaki,” distributed by Adult Swim.

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wednesday, September 20, 2023 — 5

Running as an artist

Design by Katelyn Sliwinski

KATELYN SLIWINSKI Daily Arts Writer

This fall, three relay teams of four Daily Arts staffers will train for and run the Probility Ann Arbor Marathon. But as writers, we can’t just run the race — we have to write about our past experiences with running, how we are preparing for the marathon, what we look forward to and what we are afraid of.

I have been excited for the Ann Arbor Marathon since I signed up to join a relay team for the Arts section of The Michigan Daily. I have been a runner since middle school — running was something I initially hated but grew to secretly adore.

Since graduating high school,

I have kept running, but the marathon is my excuse to truly get back into it. Rather than randomly deciding to run a few times a week as I previously did, I now have a goal to work toward, which is something I didn’t expect to miss as much as I did. This training comes with the obvious joys of running with my lovely Daily Arts co-writers, as well as improving my own endurance and speed, but I have been thrilled to get into running again for another, particularly strange reason: fostering my imagination.

“Fostering my imagination” may sound like a vague inspirational phrase, but the concept I’m describing is a lot more childlike and delusional than you probably think. Let me try and explain: Do you

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(think Gorillaz). The faster and longer I run, the more vivid and permanent these images become — over time, I even expand them into a story. I no longer feel like a person, but an amalgam of moving thought.

I almost feel as though I’m f loating. Once I’m really in the groove of a run, I can picture a perfect, smooth animation and repeat it over and over again.

As I run, I replay the sequence in my mind and test new ideas, switching out scenes that don’t work with new ones.

When I stop running, I become tethered to the earth again. I worry about tripping or bumping into someone and fear that I’m blasting my music too loudly through my headphones.

The sequences fade to the back of my mind, and I am once again a real person. If my session

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remember being a little kid on a road trip? If you were at all like me, you gazed out the car window at the fastmoving landscape in front of you and created some sort of imaginary figure that ran or f lew alongside the car, dodging traffic and performing parkour feats. Perhaps this was a character of your own creation, or maybe you liked to picture animated legends like Goku or Naruto. Regardless of your choice of scenario, I certainly was not alone in this phenomenon.

When I run, I imagine myself as a hamster on a wheel; as I begin to run, beautiful animated sequences appear on the screen in my mind. These move in time with the song I’m listening to, often serving as a sort of animated music video

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yielded any interesting images, I quickly jot down a note in my phone as a reminder of what to draw in my sketchbook later.

I think that’s how this whole thing started. I’m a hobbyist illustrator and I have been since elementary school. Back then, when I had infinite free time, I spent hours on my Nintendo DS animating characters to my favorite songs. I never escaped that fascination with animation and its tie-ins to music, and I realized in middle school that running allowed me a new avenue to get these silly ideas out of my head. I started to think of sequences as a means to “plan” animations I wanted to make. But animation is a lot of hard work, and I eventually resigned myself to drawing concepts and stills from these scenes instead. Sometimes, I

don’t even draw them. I just enjoy the party in my head, the synthesis of music and color.

I feel at peace — therapized, even.

This all may sound a bit absurd, but it’s crucial to both my mental health and my creative process. I don’t know where I’d be as an artist without running. The time that I set aside to exercise both my body and my creative mind is sacred — on the University of Michigan’s bustling campus, I feel as though I am completely isolated from the world around me — and it is blissful. I am free to let my creativity run wild, to give myself inspiration and art ideas. Training for a marathon is difficult, but it frees us in our own ways, which is infinitely creatively inspiring to me. I can’t wait!

Minimalism, business grunge and Gen X Soft Club: A fall fashion forecast CECILIA DORE Daily Arts Writer

As I savor the last weeks of sporting my favorite summer outfits, thoughts of what I will wear as the weather cools down have begun. For someone like me, whose personal style is constantly evolving, the change in seasons commences my pursuit of finding the perfect aura for my fall fashion.

When thinking about where style is headed in the months to come, I reflect on past trends, evolution of current trends and aesthetics in the media that I consume. This year, my deep dive into fall and winter trends-to-be led me to fascinating subcultures and crevices of fashion history.

In the late ’90s and early 2000s, a revival of bright colors and styles from the ’70s overtook fashion.

From there, eclectic designs ruled the mainstream, with styles — now coined as “Y2K” or “McBling” — like low-rise pants, bold jewelry, bedazzled baby tees and velour tracksuits becoming staples for fashion icons of the time such as Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Christina Aguilera.

As these bright, bold styles and ideas became commonplace, a counter-aesthetic arose. Now referred to as Gen X Soft Club, this movement provided a neutral, natural style approach to the new millennium, leaving behind the blingy optimism that characterized popular culture of the time. Key aspects of the aesthetic include muted, cool colors, natural and purposefully messy makeup and blurry, soft photography and art. The rise of the internet and technology and everyday details of city life heavily influenced these elements. For instance, the Helvetica typeface was used in Gen X Soft Club media and designs — the same font seen on New York City subway signs.

Styles of the early 2000s have increased in popularity since 2020, with pieces such as low-rise jeans, baguette bags, micro mini skirts and butterfly clips making a

comeback in recent years. Gen Z’s nostalgia has fueled the revival, as many teenagers and young adults were eager to wear iconic styles from their early childhood. Just as the popularity of Y2K styles prompted the birth of Gen X Soft Club in the ’90s, the recent revamp of the Y2K aesthetic signals that it’s only a matter of time before the fashion of Gen X Soft Club rises again as well.

Staples of Soft Club looks such as knee-high boots, long jackets and leather pieces have already appeared in Fashion Week 2023 runways from several designers, including Alexander McQueen and Balmain. Additionally, the light, iridescent and featuresoftening makeup of recent mermaidcore and balletcore trends are the perfect segue to smudged, minimalistic makeup of Soft Club. Rooted in simplicity, this trend is easy to obtain by using basic elements of all styles. Fitted sleeveless tops, low-rise pants and duster jackets in shades of beige, black, gray and pale blues are key items for getting in touch with Gen X Soft Club.

Similar to Gen X Soft Club, ’90s minimalism will also experience a revival this fall. Though its classic tailored silhouettes and neutral colors are timeless, FW23 collections such as Miu Miu’s, which featured brown leather boots, plain cardigans and makeup-less models suggest the simple aesthetic will be dominant over the playful pleated skirts and micro-mini-everything of the past few years. Oval glasses, long-fitted skirts, cardigans and slip dresses are the pieces to use to achieve the ’90s minimalist look on cooler autumn days.

Subtle, unconventional details in clothing are staples in displaying individuality as styles become more understated.

Asymmetrical hemlines, light texture or distressed and layered garments provide slight elevation to simple looks while still maintaining the class and coherence of fall 2023 styles.

Read more at michigandaily.com

6 — Wednesday, September 20, 2023

STATEMENT

michigandaily.com — The Michigan Daily

Writing in the digital dark age DARRIN ZHOU

Statement Correspondent I miss GeoCities, and I wasn’t even alive for it.

The once-dominant web hosting platform, at one point the third-most browsed site in the world, was a place where people could create personal websites in its neighborhoods, either about themselves or their niche interests.

GeoCities felt like it was this distinct part of the “good internet” — an oral history of that period in the 90s when people still had hope, before 9/11: a self-fulfilling Humans of New York, a space not written by academics but by people and their lived lives. Most of it is gone. It did not survive.

The website was bought by Yahoo in 1999, where it slowly faded out into obscurity and eventually went under in 2009. It did not survive. It didn’t burn in flames à la left-pad and go out in calamity but simply became obsolete. When data became economical instead of experiential, GeoCities was no longer profitable enough, useful enough, to exist: it’s now only accessible through conservation projects like the internet Archive Special Collection. I can’t help but feel like an archeologist, digging up fragments of the past, unburying the fractures of a bygone relic in pursuit of nostalgia that I didn’t even experience.

When I sift through the rubble, I’m not really left with a sense of discovery, but absence. The archaic webpages I’m viewing are, by nature, imperfect. Images are dead, links rot and I see their ghosts, their ethereal forms, half-websites, floating on an internet that abandoned them long ago: it’s funerary. It did not survive. Something once thought of as an eternal part of people’s lives shouldn’t be missing, gone like

this — a memory-shaped hole in the universe, like something has gone terribly wrong.

GeoCities’ dissipation is part of a greater phenomenon known as the “digital dark age”: the idea that we, even amidst all of our electronicallydocumented glory, are living within a historical period that may one day be gone forever. “In the end, (the digital dark age) will do its work and leave the troubled skull behind, dragging its comet’s tail of memory and hope and talent and love into the marble hall of commerce. That can’t be helped. But for now, Anders can still make time. Time for the shadows to lengthen on the grass, time for the tethered dog to bark at the flying ball, time for the boy in right field to smack his sweatblackened mitt and softly chant, They is, they is, they is,” writes Tobias Wolff.

This is a problem of entropy.

Paper and microfilm are immutable mediums. A book displays itself; its flesh cannot be changed, it cannot be rewritten once it is printed, its organization set in cellulose.

Conversely, a hard drive is agonizing by its very nature, designed to be rewritten over and over again.

It will die. It needs hardware, electricity, blood, our current global infrastructure as it exists at this moment to function and to be read.

Data retrieval from a hard drive requires current ports, current computers and current operating systems, which all become obsolete, dead once new, better, faster, more useful and more profitable ways of transferring and storing data come to be. We’ve already witnessed this happen. Easy access to 5¼-inch and 8-inch floppy disks is now nearly nonexistent, with the pain in them — the memories, anxieties, euphoria, blood, gone, imprisoned within the old ways forever, antiquities of a world that no longer cares for them, of a world that no longer cares for us.

It did not survive.

Don’t worry. We will be okay. We will make it, you and I. I love you.

While the Dead Sea Scrolls have survived for nearly 2,000 years,

their interests. It did not survive.

When I dig through the rubble, I’m not really left with a sense of discovery, but death. It did not survive. I see my ghost, my ethereal

on a rotting internet, floating. Can you hear me? I am a ghost, and I am left on a dead internet, floating. Can you hear me? I am a ghost, and I am left on a beautiful internet, floating.

a ghost, and I am left in the void, floating. Can you hear me? I am a ghost, and I am left in the void, floating. Can you hear me? I am a ghost, and I am left in the void,

form, half-website, floating on a world that abandoned me long ago: it’s funerary. Something once thought of as an eternal part of people’s lives shouldn’t be dead, gone like this — a-shaped hole in the universe, and I am left, as a ghost, <a href=”https://www.thebeliever. net/ghosts/”>floating</a>. I am left floating. I did not survive. I love you. I am a ghost, and I am left on a decaying internet, floating. Can you hear me? I am a ghost, and I am left

Can you hear me? I am a ghost, and I am left on a gorgeous internet, floating. Can you hear me? I am a ghost, and I am left in the void, floating. Can you hear me? I am a ghost, and I am left in the void, floating. Can you hear me? I am a ghost, and I am left in the void, floating. Can you hear me? I am a ghost, and I am left in the void, floating. Can you hear me? I am a ghost, and I am left in the void, floating. Can you hear me? I am

floating. Can you hear me? I am a ghost, and I am left in the void, floating. Can you hear me? I am a ghost, and I am left in the void, floating. Can you hear me? I am a ghost, and I am left in the void, floating. Can you hear me? I am a ghost, and I am left in the void, floating. Can you hear me? I am a ghost, and I am left in the void, floating. Can you hear me? I am a ghost, and I am left in the void, floating. Can you hear me?

Design by Matthew Prock

modern data is mortal, its lifespan sometimes even less than our own.

It is dying soon. In the information age, data becomes a commodity.

Data becomes evergreen, and whatever individual or corporation we let control those parts of our lives for us gets to dictate <i>history</i>, gets to decide how we die. When data is entrusted into the hands of tyrants, our memory becomes intrinsically tied to their server infrastructures, their bottom lines,

When you’re handed the aux MYRRA ARYA

Statement Columnist There’s one moment every one of us has encountered: You’re sitting in the car, seatbelt on and ready to gaze out the window, when you’re suddenly presented with the holy grail of a car ride.

“Take the aux,” someone says, and in an anxiety-inducing turn of events, you’re granted the great power and responsibility of setting the vibe. Sweat beads down your spine, your thoughts zip through your head. Which playlist do you open? Rap? Generic pop? Or are your passengers the kind of people who’d appreciate the underground indie scene more and call you “basic” for playing Travis Scott?

Is it the “sing aloud” kind of vibe or more of a “stare at the trees outside in introspective silence” kind of mood? You’re panicking now. People are staring at you expectantly. Okay, okay, process of elimination. Which playlist should you not pick? Definitely

not the Disney one you sing along to in the shower. Or the one filled exclusively with TikTok songs.

After thoughtful deliberation, you pick a song, finally, and then from the corner of your eye try to gauge the audience’s reactions. Maybe some people nod along or mouth the words — you know your music taste has passed the test. Even better, someone proclaims they love this song and demands that it get turned up. Sweet validation.

The worst that could happen?

Blank looks passed around, quizzical head-cocks and then a gentle, “Wanna pass over the aux?” Blew it.

Why is sharing our music taste such a vulnerable experience? I’ve texted specific songs to friends asking them to take a listen and waited with bated breath for their replies. The exchange is even worse in person, as you attempt to decipher if they actually like the song or if they’re just trying to be polite. Why is it so important to us that the music we love is acknowledged and accepted by others? And why do we sometimes

feel embarrassed for enjoying the music we do? I overheard a girl at Panera passionately defending herself: “No, I don’t really listen to Taylor Swift, it’s just a few songs, it’s my guilty pleasure…” And why are some so quick to judge? The musically-superior crowd who sniffs at anything in the country’s top 100 hits, the lot who say rap music isn’t real music (“They only mumble nowadays!”) or the “I was born in the wrong generation” gang who listen to Queen on vinyl are all so quick to roll their eyes at others. Controversy exists within all different genres, like the constant battle between the “Taylor Swift is overrated and only writes about her exes” team and the “she is Mother Goddess who can do no wrong” team.

It’s easy to see why we feel so judged in voicing our music taste; opinions and biases constantly buzz around, heavily influencing personal perception.

Moreover, the crowd you cater to definitely affects the music you choose to play. I’ve faced more outrage from a car full of guys

when playing a love song like “Love Me Harder” than would ever be demonstrated if I played “Kim” by Eminem. (Which, I might add, is a song about him graphically killing his own mother.) Everyone is consciously or subconsciously coding themselves for the perception of their audience. Depending on genders, backgrounds or races of the listeners, the aux will connect to a different song on my phone.

For some, this phenomenon could be reduced to something as little as making their audience comfortable, but for others it goes deeper, into an indirect assimilation leading to a lack of self-expression. If someone asks me which artists I like listening to, I usually respond with The Weeknd and Eminem. And while it is true that I love these artists, the most-played artist on my Apple Music for the past three years has been popular Hindi playback singer Arijit Singh. I rarely ever mention him to my American friends, let alone play his songs when I’m with them. If my friends

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ever do tell me to play some Indian music, I gravitate towards playing artists like AP Dhillon — rappers singing to beats that would sound familiar to my white friends, who use words like “Gucci” or “Kardashian” in every few lines.

I aim to provide some factor of relatability, and in that, probably do my friends a disservice.

When I catch myself playing inauthentic music on aux, I wonder how else or in what other capacities beyond music I’m changing or shaping myself in order to fit in. Are there aspects of my personality that I mask in the same way I skip over entire playlists that I love? There must be other facets of myself that I subconsciously hide or push away to increase the ease with which I can melt into society and friendships. An accent that’s too strong, funny half-English words and trashy Indian-reality cinema were all cleared away as soon as I moved here, like a tablecloth being yanked off the table. We all, of course, project a curated image of ourselves to others, and that projection changes depending on who are the said others.

Regardless of my desire to coalesce with my audience, I also believe that I have different authentic versions of myself with different people. Everyone acts slightly different with their college friends versus the friend group they’ve had since elementary school versus a group of favorite cousins. Maybe playing different songs for all of them is an extension of who I am when I’m around them. Does that make me some sort of social chameleon?

Playing music that we genuinely love for other people is scary because musical taste, like all art we enjoy, is a part of our identity.

In the same vein, many derive selfworth from their choices of art; be it religiously following a TV show or a fashion style. An insult to the art you enjoy is an insult to your judgment, your taste, even your worldview. Art sinks deeply into your heart and becomes a part of who you are. When someone judges it, they judge that part of you along with it. The fear that someone you care about could scoff at a song you relate to or sing in the car on the way to work may push

some people to hide a specific part of themselves. What kind of music do people use private playlists for on Spotify? Maybe for some who don’t want to show their religious side, it’s an album of gospel music.

For those who don’t want to admit that they listen to country music, it’s Morgan Wallen. Private playlists allow us to hide parts of ourselves that we’re not yet ready to reveal to the world.

However, I’ve come to a rather ironic realization: I never judge people around me as harshly as I assume they will judge me. If a friend plays me a song they’re excited about, it wouldn’t cross my mind to make fun of it at her expense. Many of the songs on my own playlists, in fact, have been introduced to me by friends. We are our own worst critics in that sense. Life is short, and there is so much music to explore in such little time. So if I hand you the aux, play something you love. It can be something whacky like medieval folk rock or metal sea shanties.

Maybe a local Spanish rapper you follow or an up-and-coming international DJ. And, of course, if Taylor’s your hero, let her music blast.

If musical taste is a part of someone’s identity, learning to understand someone else’s taste is a way to understand them on a deeper level. And if you’re handed the aux, it shows a level of trust. Maybe reciprocate that trust and have faith that your audience will be open to what you like listening to. I’m not saying to be unreasonable: You should not blast Baby Shark for more than a minute on a road trip. But be easy and be genuine. Take requests, play some of your own songs and some that everyone can sing along to as well. And you never know — maybe a song of your choice will be someone else’s gateway into a new genre, artist or even language.

(This very much happened to me; thank you to whoever played that one Måneskin song that I Shazamed so quickly. I’m heavily invested in this Italian rock band now.) All this to say, the fear of judgment is often worse than the judgment itself. Revealing these small bits of our identity will undoubtedly help us forge deeper, more authentic bonds.

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STATEMENT

Wednesday, September 20, 2023 — 7

Arts versus crafts: Challenging notions of worthy creations ELIZABETH WOLFE Statement Columnist

This past summer, I was frequently alone for long stretches of time in Ann Arbor.

Eat, work, sleep and repeat, day after day. The bright summer felt dull, and I was desperate for something else — anything that wasn’t eating, working or sleeping. I saw one TikTok of someone making a card with paint and stencils, and it looked doable enough. I decided I’d give it a go without much thought beyond registering the itch in my hands to create. I looked to craft stores like JOANN and Michaels and made small purchases to begin experimenting. I painted over stencils with sponges and makeup brushes, pasted stickers, flower appliqués and free-handed simple paintings of fruit. There were birthdays and graduations to be celebrated and “Thank you’s” to be said. I sealed my creations in envelopes and hoped they would be well received.

Around August, when I finally reached a lull in occasions for card giving, I began scrapbooking as an alternative. I’ve long saved pictures, birthday cards and clippings that I have no use for but are too sentimental to toss.

With scrapbooking, I could use the same materials I’d collected for card making and have a little keepsake just for me. Those paper memories slowly trickled into an empty book that I found in my basement, finding a home and purpose. I started by making spreads of family trips to Boyne

City, Mich., and Sanibel Island, Fla. When I finished, I sent pictures to my family, and they showed an affinity that filled me with a sense of pride I hadn’t experienced before.

When my roommates and friends returned at the end of the summer, I sheepishly told them how I was spending my time, nervous they’d be judgmental of my new hobby. But as it turned out, many of them were also trying to strengthen their artistic muscles, using mediums like knitting and crochet to make clothes and blankets. Despite our commonalities, I felt as though we all were a bit embarrassed, unsure if our projects were frivolous distractions in comparison to our other responsibilities. We had become crafters, reluctant to use the word “art.” I certainly didn’t feel like my scrapbook pages were worthy of such a label. But could they be?

In the United States, craft has historically been treated not as a subset of art but as a category almost entirely separate. The label of “arts and crafts” itself constructs a fundamental difference between the two. According to the Oxford Dictionary, art in its most popular usage is “the expression or application of creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting, drawing, or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.”

Compare this to the definition of craft, as “any activity involving making things by hand or by means of traditional techniques

… (such as knitting, quilting, jewelry-making, etc.) carried out on a small-scale basis or as a hobby or pastime and often producing practical or decorative items for use in the home.”

Upon locating these two definitions, questions percolated: Why is each category married to specific mediums? Why is there no mention of creativity or imagination within craft? Craft is not an offensive term, but when separated from art as a concept, it’s connoted as a lesser form, unworthy of the respect and prestige of fine art. These small, if not superfluous, differences between the two don’t just exist in the pages of dictionaries, but rather reflect biases within the art world that may limit our expressions today.

According to the Brooklyn Museum, “the age-old aesthetic hierarchy that privileges certain forms of art over others based on gender associations has historically devalued ‘women’s work’ specifically because it was associated with the domestic and the ‘feminine.’ ” There is privilege in making art solely for the purpose of being appreciated.

Throughout the history of the United States, we see women of different backgrounds incorporate skill, creativity and aesthetic into domestic responsibilities. Native American women in North America Appalachia “expressed their artistry through weaving textiles which served their own families and those of others.” Quilting originates from pre-Civil War, when “enslaved women began to

quilt in order to supplement the sparse and inadequate bedding provided for them — when, on rare occasions, bedding was in fact provided.” Scrapbooking became a popular way for women in the 1900s to create meaningful work outside of their house chores and to bond with one another at “scrapbooking parties.” While it originated in the Middle East, knitting was a staple of women’s education and work in the colonial United States. Crafts are thus, obviously, a female version of art. And a seemingly lesser one, too.

Arts and crafts are not steadfast categories, but social constructs that are dependent on place and time. Look to other nations, and we see celebrated folk arts, such as Huichol Beading in Mexico, kites in China and pysanky eggs in the Ukraine. Other art forms, such as tattooing, are honored within Polynesian and Indian cultures but are arguably invisible in the United States’s schema of “art.”

With such considerations, the story of craft in our country does not begin and end with women, particularly women of Color, not being afforded the same opportunities to make traditional fine art. Instead, we see the passion and enjoyment found in these mediums, not as secondrate alternatives, but reflections of family, culture and the self.

The history and beauty of craft arts has not gone without recognition in modern-art spaces. It wouldn’t be strange to see mediums such as ceramics and textiles ​​ in museums today,

such as those included in the University of Michigan Museum of Art’s latest addition, Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina.

Supporting exhibits like this one, art activism organizations such as the Guerilla Girls continue to advocate for the equality and variety of work produced by female artists and artists of Color.

Considering all of this information, I come back to the same philosophical question: What is art? This question is not only pertinent to traditionally artistic spaces such as educational programs and museums, but it’s relevant in our day-to-day lives when we choose how to spend our time. Is it worth it for me to continue scrapbooking if it’s just a silly craft and not a respected art? Why do I want my work to be considered art? There is vanity in wanting to be seen as an artist, and I shouldn’t rely on such approval to continue crafting. But when art represents the upper echelons of what is respected in creative spaces, it is hard for me to resist its appeal.

Perhaps I’m grappling with another difference in connotation between art and craft: the quality.

Fine art implies excellence and mastery, whereas craft is more achievable and common. Anyone can make a craft, but only a genius can produce art. I struggle with this internal battle between the enjoyment of using my hands to create and the ever looming possibility of wasting time and money on a project that may be trashed at completion.

Within the education

system, we are learned perfectionists, taught first to color inside the lines. Our classes, extracurriculars and achievements are all poised at a greater goal, summed up in a transcript or resume. As Statement Columnist Ananya Gera pointed out in her article, In my grandma era: Trapping my worries between stitches, within universities exists “the huge pressure of hustle culture, in which an environment ‘places an intense focus on productivity, ambition, and success.’ ” Even if crafts are culturally accepted not as a sister to art but as art itself, it’s difficult to take on the activity simply for enjoyment, when it serves no purpose toward our future like a School of Art & Design project might.

There are, of course, many strong reasons to make art as a non-artist. Art therapy programs such as Paintings in Hospitals hinge on the notions that art helps to stimulate our brains, relieves stress and anxiety and boosts our self-esteem. I turned to art in isolation and to make gifts for people because I care about them. But must we always need a virtuous reason to create?

One based on mental health or on giving?

In a discussion section on the first week of school, my fun fact was that I love making art. I felt mortified the moment I stopped talking. Why did I say that? As if I was some great artist. But then, I reminded myself: I never said I was great.

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Tuned out: A day without music LUCY DEL DEO

Statement Columnist At 7:30 a.m. last Thursday, I woke up to the rumbling of construction that sounded so close, I was convinced someone was drilling on my windowsill.

In my sleep-addled state, I mistook the rat-ta-tat-tat of the jackhammer for maracas, and I worried for a second that I’d failed at my task before the day had even begun. I rolled over, trying to reclaim that last hour and a half of sleep before my alarm went off, but, unable to drown out the banging with my usual white noise, I tossed and turned until it was time to go to class. *** The other night, while on a walk through the Nichols Arboretum with some friends from high school, my closest friend and I split off from the rest of the group. As Itamar and I wandered through the tree-lined paths, we exchanged stories from our summers before moving on to more typical conversation topics:

“Have you listened to anything good lately?”

Every time I see Itamar, this is one of the first questions we ask each other. During our freshman year of high school, we took the bus together every morning, oftentimes splitting earbuds to listen to freshly discovered songs that the other person needed to hear. To this day, we constantly swap recommendations, even though our tastes couldn’t be more different. I love random indie bands, and he’s into classic rock, but music is an all-encompassing force in both of our lives.

Thus, as we walked onward toward the Huron River, Itamar said something that piqued my interest: “I don’t think I could go a day without music.”

I guess in that moment I was hungry for a challenge, or maybe I was just eager to commit to a new bit for the school year. Either way, in reaction to this idea, I told Itamar that for the week of Sept.

3, I would attempt to make it an entire day without listening to music.

The first two days were total

failures: My headphones seemed to find their way onto my ears before I even had a chance to think about it. It was an unconscious action — a habit I didn’t even know I had to break.

Perhaps I should’ve known, since I listen to music almost constantly: on my walk to classes, while getting ready for bed, while studying, while reading and even while writing. In high school, my parents tried to limit my music listening time to only while doing my math homework, worrying that I would be too distracted to finish my work at a reasonable hour. But I quit math after junior year and seized the loophole, again listening to music when preparing for any class. I currently have a playlist, maybe even two, for every situation I might find myself in: the hourlong drive down to my family’s favorite beach, the songs I play to look cool in front of people I have just met and the monthly playlists spanning over five years.

I house lists and lists of song recommendations (from friends, in movies, etc.) in my Notes app —

I could regale you with astounding Apple Replay statistics about my music-listening habits across the last few years, but you get the point.

I have always been wholly, maybe irrationally, afraid of walking into crowded rooms by myself. The minute I step through the threshold, I see everyone’s eyes snap toward me, and their laughs and conversations turn pointed and sinister — I must have something in my teeth, or maybe on my face? My walk to class holds similar anxieties: Is my backpack wide open with invaluable papers flying everywhere? Did I unknowingly sit in something?

No matter how much I try to reassure myself that I rarely judge others while walking with groups of friends — let alone look at them with anything other than a passing glance — I can’t quite seem to get my mind to settle down.

Music is always my way of quieting those voices, both in my head and in real life. Thus, I felt a wave of anxiety emerge when I couldn’t reach for my headphones

on the way to class — the first time I truly felt the absence of music. Since I couldn’t drown out the Diag with my cheesy yacht rock playlist, I used my 10-minute passing period to check in on friends and family, calling at seemingly random intervals throughout their days. It filled the hole of sensory input, although not in the same way — I still found myself wishing for a melody.

While eating lunch by myself in the Michigan League, I decided to put my headphones on and turn them to peak noise cancellation, drowning out the chatter of those socializing around me. If I had been blasting “Linger” by the Cranberries, I wouldn’t have been able to hear the snippets of others’ conversations, perhaps about me, that my brain twisted into barbs.

In situations where I can’t avoid walking home alone late at night, music usually manages to block out the various catcalls and lingering stares, or at the very least, suppress a flinch. During my week of no music, I felt exposed, as if I was somehow inviting glances and comments. I realized

how much of a barrier music had created between me and the parts of the world that put me on edge.

Even in the daylight, in times when I feel like I’ll fall apart if a piece of paper looks at me the wrong way, Samia seems to glue the jagged edges together just enough to make it through the day. When I couldn’t blast Julia Jacklin into the depths of my soul, I attempted to suffocate the persistent silence by surrounding myself with my friends, hoping their voices would drown out the terrible horror of having to sit alone with my thoughts for longer than a few minutes.

Since curbing my musiclistening habits was way harder than expected, I decided to have a discussion with Allison Earl, a University of Michigan social psychology professor. In our conversation about the constant presence of sonic stimuli, we focused on a specific study conducted by Timothy Wilson, a professor of social psychology at the University of Virginia.

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MiC

8 — Wednesday, September 20, 2023

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

How to shave off a Father

Design by Abby Schreck

JAMES SCARBOROUGH MiC Writer

Barber and beauty shops were always embedded so deeply into the media my household consumed. My dad played all three “Barbershop” films — featuring Ice Cube and Cedric the Entertainer — on a loop. My siblings and I rewatched Queen Latifah’s “Beauty Shop” until the DVD scratched. “Everybody Hates Chris”, a staple sitcom following a Black teen growing up in 1980s Brooklyn, also used a barber shop as a pivotal setting.

Chris lived both in brownstones and on my TV screen. Julius (Terry Crews, White Chicks) reminded me of my cheap ass father. Rochelle (Tichina Arnold, Martin) had a mouth only my momma could match in an argument. Chris (Tyler James Williams, Let It Shine) also had a barber named Manny (J.B. Smoove, Real Husbands of Hollywood). Occasionally, Manny gave Chris life advice shrouded in comedic relief.

Manny was the one thing I didn’t have, and as a kid, I begged for my own.

My father gave me the first

haircut I remember. My parents never wanted their boys’ hair to get too long — too feminine. So every seven days, my Dad tried to cut us into men. He dragged a plastic fold-out chair into the middle of our yellow-tile kitchen and unplugged the blender in exchange for his clippers. He’d cut me and my brothers in age order, so I was always last. As I tinkered with my beat-up Nintendo DSi, awaiting my turn, I listened to my father and brother’s high-energy conversations with intense interest. I watched lovingly as my dad asked questions he should already know the answer to.

“You’re in ninth grade, right? If you were married to your mom, what would you buy her for your anniversary? Are you still dating that girl your momma don’t like?

Your birthday’s coming up. Is that like something you’d want a gift for?”

In his defense, he didn’t spend much time with us. He had his first child at 18 and held his sixth newborn nine years later. Six children meant six heads of type-four hair that don’t listen to nobody. Six hair appointments were never in the budget for 23-year-old food pantry frequenters, so they were

forced to make something out of nothing. My dad squinted, hoped for the best and made a mess of our hairlines. When he wasn’t carving himself into a makeshift barber, he was spending his days and nights on the clock. He punched in and out of whatever job would hire a father of six with no degree. It is easy to lose track of a man that makes money but never time. This made our weekly haircuts all the more special.

He finished my brothers’ cuts. They left the chair walking different, rubbing their hands together in confidence. For three to five business days, nobody would be able to tell them nothing.

It was my turn. Maybe my father used up all his questions on my brother’s because he never spoke to me during this process.

This forced me to try and sew silence into sentimentality. I let the buzzing of the clippers run through my being, the white noise transformed into an alluring melody. My dad encased my tiny body in a warm towel meant to catch freshly fallen coils. I inhaled deeply, savoring the sensation of the metal pick caressing my dry scalp. My father’s hands pressed into my temple — his sacred temple. He

looked at his work, and only his work, with pride. I smiled into our bathroom mirror at the shitty finished product. I have mastered the ability to hand-mold this silent and cold act of necessity into an act of love.

Years later, a man from my church opened up a hole-in-thewall barbershop. This was it… my moment. No more filling in spotty fades with my mom’s eyeshadow or “yo hairline ain’t straights” on the playground. Finally, a barber who wasn’t made of pixels or obligation. Here is where Black boys could become Black men, here recipes were traded and created. Were the pseudo-players at the barbershop gonna tell us about their new fake girlfriend or one-night stand? Was the nigga who hasn’t seen his kids in six months gonna complain about his overbearing baby momma? Was I going to find my Manny?

My father led me into this new sanctuary. My lifesaver’s name is Moses, but his friends called him Mo. Dedicated to seeming cooler than I was, 11-year-old me had no choice but to hop into his chair and shout, “What’s up Mo?!?!?”

Mo smiled, pulled up a booster seat, wrapped me in a cape, and asked me how I wanted my hair

cut. No one had ever asked me that before. My father spoke for me: “Low taper, faded down to a one, nothing off the top.” Since when was there math involved in haircuts? Mo nodded, shut on the clippers, and asked me if I played any sports. With a smile on my face, I confidently declared, “Well no, but I cheerlead with my sisters sometimes.” He looked at me as if I had told him a dark secret. It’s the same look teachers gave me whenever I befriended girls on the playground or discussed the pink Power Ranger being my favorite. He went silent.

No, not the silence. Not again.

The buzzing of the clippers grew louder. I buried myself in my skin. I shifted my vocal cords into a ghost town. The little boys with fresh fades littering posters on the walls began to look less and less like me. My barber broke the silence and choked out the buzzing. “You dating any girls at school? I know they going crazy over these curls.” He’s digging for a truth I’ve spent years burying. I was prepared this time. “I’m not dating any girls, I’m practically dating all of them.” He full-belly laughed and dapped me up, a sign of approval.

Is this what it meant to be a

Heavy is the crown

KARIS RIVERS MiC Writer

To be a Black woman is to wear a crown so heavy it contains the weight of your world. All the pain, misery, anger and fear are bound up tightly in coiled locks promising to never let them see the light of day. These anxieties weigh you down, never letting you forget they’re there. It’s a silent affair, one that only another Black woman could truly understand.

When I was 13, I wrote a poem titled “Tangled” about my hair. This poem expressed a confession of insecure feelings I could never rectify and a desire to change that I could never truly fulfill. My hair always has been and always will be the hardest part of me to love. It has consumed my life and my ability to see myself as beautiful.

Each strand has brought me shame, anger and pain; my hair captured it all.

Before I grew to know insecurity so well, I used to think my hair was beautiful.

It was beautiful because it was mine and my sisters’ and brothers’. Eventually, beauty standards began to point out cracks in my self-image that I couldn’t accept. It was a problem that always reared its head and cackled at my own despair.

For me, having coiled hair meant feeling ugly all of the time. It meant seeing celebrities and icons idolized and adored for their beauty that never matched mine. It meant seeing commercials and somehow knowing the message was that beautiful hair is straight, not

Photos by Karis Rivers

curly. And on the rare occasion where a Black girl is present, her hair is straightened or very, very loose. Consequently, it meant playing with Black Barbies who all have straight hair and somehow knowing without that, I could never be beautiful.

It meant asking my mom to straighten my hair, so I could look pretty, and crying when it rained because I knew my hair would revert to its natural state.

It meant seeing the first Black Disney princess and knowing that her ambiguous hair texture teetered a line I would never be able to cross. For me, having Black hair meant I always felt

less than, that I always came up short, that I always felt trapped in my own hair.

But for all the internal problems I had to deal with, there were always a thousand more external societal issues. Even if I could escape my own inner thoughts about my hair being beautiful, I could never outrun the outer voices that told me my hair wasn’t suited as it was.

Being told by adults, program leaders and even teachers that your hair is unprofessional will stick with you. It will make you hyper-aware of what your hair looks like and how it’s “supposed to be.” Nothing prepares Black

girls and boys for the rules and regulations of wearing your hair as it comes out of your head — or the restrictions on styles designed to protect it for the sake of adhering to dress codes in work, schools and competitions.

There is no guide to navigating a world that thinks your natural state is ugly and unprofessional.

For years I was stuck there.

I was trapped in a dangerous cycle that led me to hate myself.

At some point, straightened hair became my norm, and curled hair became a rarity. The one time I tried to wear my hair in its natural, curly state, I was backhandedly complimented

for my “self-expression,” but was ultimately chastised for my seemingly unkempt appearance.

I was crushed and decided to keep my hair straightened.

My perception of my hair changed during the pandemic.

Isolation allowed me to reflect on my identity and understand who I was. It was during this period I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I would never fit the beauty standards I wanted so desperately to match.

No matter how much I changed my hair, it would always grow back the way it was meant to be.

I had straightened my hair so much that eventually, enough

man? To lie? To shave at pieces of yourself until you’re as clean cut as the others around you?

Chris Rock never told me that masculinity was required to sit in this chair.

A taller, more self-assured high school version of me moves cities. This forces my family and I to commit one of the greatest Black men betrayals of all time: switch barbers.

The new barber is a short, dark-skinned man in his early 20s. His cut is alright. (Okay, his cut is immaculate, but he will never be Mo!) My dad is in his 40s now. Gray has crept into his beard, and the years of graveyard shifts are etched into his skin.

He’s approached “unc” territory.

The barber sees it too, so he asks him for advice. He tells my dad about his newest entanglement.

In between effortlessly switching metal guards, he verbalizes an entire list of her pros of cons.

Pros: she’s kind, she’s got her business, she don’t got no kids and he is allegedly madly in love with her. Cons: she’s not his usual type, she is “plus size” and “too dark.” I learned a lot of bad from men who hold knives for a living.

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heat damage meant my curls were almost gone. That alone was a wake-up call. A line had been crossed, and it was time to try to love myself again.

Trying to love my hair took work, and it still does. I’ve been completely natural for almost two years now, and although it might be silly, it’s my greatest accomplishment. When I was younger, I never could have foreseen a future where I wore my natural hair every day. For so long, my hair was the source of all my sadness and became the recipient of all my hate. I never could have imagined a future where my hair was a source of joy. And being natural is still not easy. Embracing my Black hair has meant staying up late combing and styling, taking down old hairstyles and restyling again while my tears soaked my shirt and my face started to sting. It has meant crying in frustration when I look in the mirror and can’t seem to accept what I see. It has meant years of damage that can’t be undone. It has given me scars that have yet to heal and a pain that never faded. There are days, weeks and months where feeling beautiful seems impossible.

There are times when I wish I could have anyone else’s hair.

There are moments where I am utterly lost.

It is an unspoken truth, a silent affair, to be a Black woman who is learning to love her hair, and by extension herself. It’s been a long and tiring journey that I have yet to find the end of. Nevertheless, I breathe for the day when my hair brings me peace and holds nothing but love inside of it.

Opinion

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Wednesday, September 20, 2023 — 9

A summer with an eX: How to salvage the ruins of your social media company

JULIA VERKLAN AND ZOE STORER

Editorial Page Editors

Managing Editors

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Ammar Ahmad Julian Barnard Jack Brady Brandon Cowit Jack Kapcar Sophia Lehrbaum

Tom Muha Siddharth Parmar Max Schenke Rushabh Shah Nikhil Sharma Lindsey Spencer

Palak Srivastava Anna Trupiano Audra Woehle Zhane Yamin Alex Yee Quin Zapoli

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board.

All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

Op-Ed: President Ono, make Nike sweat MARK TALLENTS

Co-founding Member of UMich’s United Students Against Sweatshops chapter

A

s weekly flash floods of maize and blue return to State Street for another year of pilgrimages to the Big House, it’s abundantly clear that University of Michigan apparel acts as the unifying factor for Ann Arbor residents. Regardless of major, club, sport or even enrollment at the University of Michigan, a constant among the Ann Arbor community is our collective expression of pride through U-M apparel. Yet, hidden among the stitches of our block ‘M’ trademark is the irreconcilable fact that, because of the University’s $173.8 million contract with Nike, our apparel is made in sweatshops.

A 2021 Worker Rights Consortium investigation uncovered a wage-theft scheme by one of Nike’s supplier companies: Hong Seng Knitting. The WRC’s supplier database confirms the company has been manufacturing for Nike and the University of Michigan as recently as July 1, 2023. Located in Bangkok, Thailand, Hong Seng management coerced garment workers into signing predatory contracts that forced them into taking “voluntary” and “unpaid” leave during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This move allowed the factory owners to evade Thai labor laws that would have required Hong Seng to pay workers more than $600,000 in wages at the time.

More than three years later, these workers are still fighting this case of wage theft to regain the funds they’re owed, now inflated to $800,000 with interest, as per the WRC. For years, Nike has claimed that its investigations by a contract monitoring firm commissioned

by Nike found no wrongdoing at Hong Seng. It is no secret among the general public, and within the industry, that the sportswear giant has been uncooperative at

best in upholding its supply chain standards.

The WRC report details how this wage theft scheme has been hostile and violent to garment workers. Not only is the global estimate of garment workers’ average wage an abysmal $200 per month, but an integral component of the global garment industry is migrant laborers, whose unique position in the supply chain makes them acutely vulnerable to discrimination. In combination with many experiencing racism and xenophobia, migrant workers’ visa statuses are often directly dependent on their employment.

Employers will often utilize this reality to suppress wages, working conditions and union organizing.

One Myanma worker, Kyaw San Oo, discussed concerns about the factory withholding wages with other Hong Seng workers over Facebook Messenger.

In retaliation, the factory management reported Kyaw San Oo to the police. In a country where treatment of migrant workers is often arbitrary and draconian, Kyaw San Oo was forced to flee the country with his wife — a Hong Seng worker as well — and their year-old child.

University President Santa Ono’s administration receives frequent reports detailing ongoing WRC cases and investigations concerning U-M supply chain ethics. Furthermore, a group of students reinvigorating the University’s United Students Against Sweatshops chapter delivered a letter to Ono’s office on March 9, demanding action from his administration on the human rights violations within the University’s contracted supply chain. USAS students even presented the details of Hong Seng’s wage theft directly to the President’s Advisory Committee on Labor Standards and Human Rights on April 7, 2023, a committee with direct reporting obligations to the president. Ono’s silence on the issue amidst the presence of this committee can only be attributed to conscious complicity.

It is past due that the Ono administration publicly denounce Nike’s actions on the basis of egregious violations of the University’s licensee code of conduct, and moves to cut the apparel contract unless Nike takes action immediately to pay back Hong Seng workers.

This situation is not unique to current U-M administrators — in fact, the University carries a precedent of action in responding to injustices within its supply chain. Beginning in 2011, the University’s then-licensee, Adidas, was at the forefront of a wage theft case regarding a supplier factory, PT Kizone.

When the Indonesian garment manufacturer closed, laying off 2,800 workers, Adidas refused to pay the $1.8 million of severance to the now unemployed workers.

After a multiyear campaign

by USAS chapters, student organizing triggered public pressure from former University President Mary Sue Coleman and other universities, compelling Adidas to reach a settlement with the garment union representing PT Kizone workers.

The very independent monitoring source responsible for uncovering the injustice in Hong Seng, the WRC, was created as a direct result of student organizing during the antisweatshop movement. Students here at the University of Michigan were instrumental in making the University a founding member of the WRC. If anything has been clear, it’s that U-M leaders don’t act unless we do. Nothing gets done without students organizing sustained pressure on our administrators.

Despite Ono’s rhetorical commitments to tackling sustainability and climate justice, his short but compelling record on labor issues has aligned him closer to Nike corporate than the leader of one of the most distinguished public universities in the country.

There is nothing sustainable about wage theft.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

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TOM MUHA

Opinion Columnist

B

efore I delve into some of the major changes that happened to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter this summer, I want to first take some time to do a little mind experiment. I’m going to list three companies, and you’re going to think about the logo associated with each one: Apple, McDonald’s and Nike.

Pretty easy right?

Respectively, an apple with a bite taken out of it, the golden arches and the ever-sofamous swoosh. Now I want you to think about Twitter’s logo. Until recently, it was a silhouette of a blue songbird.

After the title “Twitter” was retired in favor of the name “X,” the internet’s favorite bird was replaced with a stylized “X.” Popular Mechanics noted that the new logo is just the unicode character 𝕏, a symbol used when typing out math.

Many of the traits that made (what was formerly known as) Twitter a useful tool for people to engage and connect with each other have degenerated since Musk’s acquisition of the platform. Elon Musk’s push to turn Twitter into X has been nothing short of baffling, changing not just the name and logo of the company, but the identity of the app itself.

For some observers and online combatants, the change to X is a necessary step toward Musk’s grand goal to change the landscape of the Western internet.

This mission isn’t necessarily a bad one, and if he is successful, a new era of online connection could be willed into existence.

However, Musk fails to recognize that he shouldn’t be trying to destroy Twitter and create a brand from the ground up, but should instead build off of how ingrained it already is

in the cultural zeitgeist before others try to replace what was destroyed.

Musk’s overarching goal of engineering a one-stop shop for everything on the internet isn’t a new revelation. Musk stated this goal prior to the acquisition of the company, posting on X about each change he sought to implement. The rebranding of Twitter into X demonstrates nothing more than a failure on Musk’s part to recognize the value of the company he paid $44 billion for.

Twitter was more than just another social media site. As it attracted more and more users, it became a place so significant that when major leaders in the world created an account, it made world news. Through such growth and exposure to billions of people, Twitter was no longer just a social media site; rather, it was a part of a new global culture, earning its verbiage “tweet” a place in the dictionary.

Through obtaining the company, Musk was faced with the choice of how to use such a well-known brand while simultaneously molding the site to fit his social and political goals. Musk’s choice was not to use the brand, but rather to instead destroy it and forge a new one. Musk’s decision was controversial not least because it removed an estimated $20 billion of brand value from the company. However, others saw this change as making the way for the future of social media.

While this change could make way for a future, it neglects the power that the Twitter brand held.

Musk’s decision essentially knocks himself down a large number of pegs from where he was when he obtained the site. Twitter’s brand recognizability was a selling point. By changing, it only makes it harder for the new brand to be seen by the public, who now needs to relearn

the site instead of already understanding what it was.

Musk may even realize this subconsciously through the examples of his own actions.

A major showcase of this was the setting up of a giant lit X on top of X headquarters after the brand change, which was seen as nothing more than a publicity stunt.

Aside from dispelling an extremely well-known brand from his ownership, Musk’s move to change X into an “everything app” allows room for a competitor who can market themselves as a Twitter spoof since it no longer exists.

Every change Musk makes to X that deviates from its original formula only emboldens the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, who by many accounts created Threads to work as a Twitter clone. While arguments can be made that Zuckerberg is just copying X, every change Musk makes to X strengthens the argument that Threads and similar apps are preservations of what Twitter was rather than a copy X. Musk has seemingly thrown away the keys to the kingdom through his work to rebrand Twitter into X. Instead of building off of a wellestablished brand and working to make it even more popular, he has instead opted to disavow anything that doesn’t have his ideas or support tied behind it.

This choice is dangerous for Musk and X for many reasons, but at its core, it’s the loss of an established brand for an unestablished one that could be dead in the water if too much is changed, too fast. Although the destruction of X can be seen as a positive for some and a negative for others, it is undeniable that it completely disregards the power and usefulness of Twitter’s established social clout. That, and it has given us a chance to see Musk and Zuckerberg duke it out in a cage for our enjoyment.

The ‘gifted’ myth and discovering comfort in mediocrity LARA TINAWI

Opinion Columnist

S

creaming “we are the best University in the world” along with James Earl Jones and the rest of the Big House nearly every autumn Saturday has made me believe in “The Michigan Difference.” To attend a college ranked among the top universities in the world, you have to be an exceptional candidate that stands out among thousands of applicants.

Attending small public schools growing up, I was used to — and learned to love — being lumped into the “advanced” groups and classes, where students were considered “gifted.” Eventually, I could not accept anything less.

This classification as “advanced” led to teachers pushing me in the direction of attending an IB school.

My program was filled with teachers and administrators who constantly reassured us we were the best students, would get into the top universities and test well on all our exams. While my peers and I were told we were equals, competition inevitably festered between us. I knew only some would get honors upon graduating,

and spots in various colleges would be based on our GPA. My school’s administrators fueled my ego with their praise and made me feel like I needed to exceed expectations.

Eventually, I “proved my worth” and was proud of myself when I got into the University of Michigan.

Upon arriving on campus, though, I was hit with the painful realization that I was no longer the best. In fact, I was barely average.

Terror set in. Who could possibly want me post-grad if I was no longer “the best?”

The Davidson Institute classifies “giftedness” in children as brainbased differences that result in common characteristics such as comprehending material above their age peers, being enthusiastic about unique topics, employing creative problem solving and absorbing information quickly.

The frequency with which students who do well on tests are placed into separate groups — and are then taught differently from the rest of their peers — is an example of how we have normalized “giftedness.” If you tell a child from a young age they are more advanced from their peers, and they need to be taught at a higher, accelerated level, they have

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no choice but to believe and trust you. This notion that intelligence can be measured and that there are children who are not “smart” is completely ridiculous. The brain does not stop developing until the mid-to-late 20s, and these judgments made about students from such a young age are hardly reflective of their full potential.

Gifted children become stuck in this mold of expectations, and the only way to escape it is to drop down from these advanced classes to “normal” classes. This encourages an environment where students put themselves under extreme pressure to meet the

high expectations placed on them, or deal with potentially feeling like failures for not excelling as expected.

The pressure placed on children to succeed from a young age is detrimental to their well-being.

There needs to be less separation between children from the start and an overhaul to how we think about intelligence and academic success at all levels of education.

Classifications and expectations stay with a child through the entirety of their educational careers, heavily impacting their personalities and their overall well-being.

Researchers have discovered that the two variants of the COMT gene, which affects the speed at which dopamine is cleared from the prefrontal cortex, have a strong influence on cognitive performance. Those with the variant to release dopamine slowly often perform at higher cognitive levels and handle stress better, since stress causes the prefrontal cortex to be flooded with dopamine.

However, research has also shown that those who are considered gifted and perform at higher levels experience a much higher amount of stress, and for longer periods of time. Is the tradeoff worth it?

One of the top causes of mental health problems is severe or long-term stress. The burnout many gifted kids experience is conducive to mental health issues that can potentially manifest into physical issues. The United States ranks first as the country with the most stressed students and the majority of college students today meet the criteria for at least one mental health problem. There is a clear stress issue in the United States, and gifted students are not the only victims of this epidemic.

The academic process needs to change because stress to the degree of causing mental health issues is not, and should not, be normal.

It is no surprise that the universities largely considered the 10 most stressful in the country range from the top programs in the country, including three Ivy League colleges. This list overlaps with another: the lowest acceptance rates of colleges in the United States. The more “challenging” and “prestigious” a school is considered, the more stress their students experience.

The University of Michigan does not escape this fate, with Ann Arbor coming in at number seven for most stressed college town in the United States, according to a survey done by the e-learning platform Preply. Students here like to brag that we are basically a “public Ivy.” While attending a prestigious and competitive university can definitely help finding a post-graduate job, the increase in mental health issues should not be part of the alumni package.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Opinion

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wednesday, September 20, 2023 — 10

Feels like I never left

By Opinion Cartoonist Ambika Tripathi

A student’s guide to “stuff” NICK RUBECK

Opinion Columnist

I

f you’re a student, you probably moved to campus a few weeks ago. You also probably then realized how many things you need to live comfortably.

Maybe you, even for just a moment, contemplated giving it all away and living a minimalist life deep in some remote forest.

If they’re lucky, students can get away with moving just twice a year, a few months apart. Maybe they even live in-state! But that still means hauling, storing, buying and pitching hundreds of pounds of junk, multiplied by almost the entire student population.

The twice-annual migration is hardly sustainable for my willpower, let alone the whole planet.

What are we to do as students? For starters, there are plenty of listicles on what to bring to college, what to leave behind and how to do all of the above responsibly.

These are pretty helpful for first-years and seniors alike, but they remain broad g uides that can’t possibly take into account the myriad circumstances of individual tenants, locations and rentals.

Maybe we should elect to ditch many of our physical items in favor of digital workf lows and storage. That certainly already seems to be the trend, especially following the height of the pandemic between 2020 and 2021, when class was either partially or entirely virtual. If it worked in reducing cases of COVID19, why wouldn’t it work to reduce unnecessary waste and paper?

Put simply, it’s debatable.

There are still strong incentives to both in-person and online meetings: There are certainly more networking opportunities and subtle

ATL digital illustration of an overwhelmed student sitting on the floor of a room, surrounded by stacks of cardboard boxes.

social cues in real life, but the accessibility and f lexibility of virtual spaces can be vital for immunocompromised individuals. In terms of the physical things themselves, it’s hard to beat their usefulness in terms of productivity and expressivity.

As much as students (myself included) detest heav y, expensive textbooks that are only useful for about 15 weeks, turning pages has its merits. Paper books, with their lack of distractions and physical presence, provide better retention than the same content presented digitally.

Moreover, as instructors are eager to tout, handwritten notes are also better committed to memory than typed.

Outside of education and work, art is an important use of physical space. Digital art is undoubtedly viable and

Congratulations

meaningful, but bare walls and empty shelves can be a sad sight. Whether you make your own art, gift it, receive it or buy it to own, physical art is a tangible monument to care and appreciation of craft.

It’s also a great way to support musical artists who, in the age of streaming, are often paid less for their work when accessed online.

Even though, as a bonafide Zoomer, I fully embrace digital media — film and music streaming, audio and ebooks, digital photography and video — I’m not alone in my penchant for the analog.

Outside of the “authenticity” of dusting a 12-inch record or cracking the spine of a hardcover, it just feels good to hold something and know an expiring contract won’t take it away from me.

It’s also simply the case that your mattress, food and

clothes won’t fit in the cloud.

As obvious as that sounds, it’s important to remember in the face of companies pushing for the “metaverse,” a nebulous term that refers to both a specific project by Meta (née Facebook) and more so-called decentralized platforms.

In general terminolog y, the metaverse is a digital, gamelike analog of the physical world that proponents say will revolutionize where and how the average person works, plays and shops. We may indeed see more workers (and perhaps students) using virtual reality, willingly or begrudgingly. However, it is more than a little naïve to imagine a future where humans with lungs, veins and stomachs “live” in an alternate, virtual world, as some have seriously proposed.

If we must live in this world of real things, can we at

least live with fewer things?

Minimalism, essentialism, asceticism — whatever you call your brand of property downsizing, it can be an effective way to simplif y parts of life and focus more on the most meaningful items.

Mindfulness is key, of course, because no good comes from a fixation on pitching everything that isn’t nailed down. Instead, minimalism and its related movements should act as a g uide toward cherishing those belongings, physical and digital, that bring joy. You can be a minimalist who owns lots of things.

Another consideration for a minimalist philosophy is the nature of impermanence.

Neither physical nor digital items, for either of their respective benefits, are inherently everlasting. In January, the basement I was renting f looded. A lot of my

stuff survived, but much was lost. My collection of vinyl records took a cold bath and my expensive textbooks were eaten by mold, both of which I assumed I would own in a pristine state for the rest of my life.

I had to move all my soaked things to a cramped hotel room, then to my home an hour away and finally piecemeal to the housing cooperative I joined. I’ve since purchased plenty more sentimental items, but I always keep in mind that someday I’ll use it for the last time. Nevertheless, the fragility of my belongings helps me to appreciate more fully their uniqueness and usefulness, and to accept when they are truly lost.

You will have to own some things, even if you do want to own fewer of them. Fortunately, just like temporary housing contracts, you can rent or borrow the items of life without the burden of taking care of them in perpetuity. As I’ve discussed, library services and the internet at large allow many more people to access media and physical items which would be inaccessible or unaffordable otherwise.

Even if you can afford to buy a new item for your college apartment, you can still save money or try a new hobby by checking out items from “libraries of things,” which are often hosted by local municipal libraries. They aren’t perfect, but they make me hopeful for a world where consumerism is not strictly necessary to be a productive person.

Both physical and virtual tools are essential to contemporary life, and they should — must — function in harmony. You will have to move. You will lose objects.

You will have stuff. But please — borrow, buy, gift and love physical objects. They allow us to love ourselves, each other and the world around us if we let ourselves hold them.

Wrong answers only

To our 31E scholars, recipients of this year’s Class of 1931 Engineering Scholarship The class of ‘31E and its Scholarship Selection Committee welcomes their five new scholarship winners for the 2023-2024 academic year:

Alyssa Budweg Jade Freidlis Jacob Robins

Samantha Staudinger Lillian Trudeau

They will be joining the ‘31E Honor Society and our fifteen current scholars: Sidarth Anantha Anna Klinger Alfonso Botta-Lopez Marisa May Hanna Chen Caleb Qiu Caroline Kahwati Morgan Serra Gina Kittleson Marshall Vielmetti

Kira Woodhouse Jason Yu Marcella Zarouk Claudia Zimmerman Jose Diaz Peon Gonzalez Pacheco

All of these scholarship recipients will be honored at the 41st Annual Scholarship Dinner of the Class of ‘31E, which will be held at Weber’s, 3050 Jackson Rd., on Friday evening, September 22nd, 2023 at 5:30pm.

Since the establishment of the ‘31E Scholarship Program in 1982, more than 230 aspiring engineering students have been helped to experience a University of Michigan education. They are talented people doing amazing things.

By Opinion Cartoonist Sara Fang

Sports

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com FOOTBALL

CONNOR EAREGOOD

Managing Sports Editor

Heading into this season, the Michigan football team couldn’t have more potential. The key pillars of its “no-star” defense returned. A vast array of seniors and graduate students stayed for one last shot at a national championship. And even its coach, Jim Harbaugh, affirmed that he would lead the Wolverines after NFL rumors.

The expectation became a national title or bust. But the Wolverines aren’t quite there, so be realistic about their flaws and strengths.

The reasons to be patient reared their ugly heads on Saturday. It’s hard to overreact to a comfortable, non-conference win. But Michigan’s 31-6 victory over Bowling Green showed the flaws that can hold it back at any point in the season. It showed that this team — despite all the offseason laurels and lofty goals — is human. And because of that, it’s important for Michigan to keep its head where its feet are.

“Humble,” acting head coach

SportsMonday: Don’t look too far ahead Sherrone Moore said of the outing.

“You live, you learn. You continue to progress. As long as you learn from it, you’ve progressed and you get better. I think you always gotta be humble in everything. You’re never gonna play a perfect game and obviously we got some stuff to fix, and we will. We’ll continue to put our head down and work to get to where we want to be.”

There’s plenty of work to be done, because the Wolverines’ performance was far from their expectation. After notching the two most accurate quarterback performances of any Michigan quarterback, junior J.J. McCarthy forced throws and threw a trio of interceptions. And even though the run defense stood like a brick wall, the Wolverines’ secondary gave up multiple chunk plays in the first quarter. That almost included one dropped pass that should’ve been a tying touchdown.

In spite of Michigan’s win, it showed its fallibility. And as such, it’s a perfect reminder that it hasn’t won anything yet.

But don’t overreact to one rough game, either — the Wolverines have just as much potential as before. Even after an abysmal

first quarter by their own standards, they bounced back to secure a comfortable win by the second half. Everything Michigan was billed to be in preseason — including everything it showed in the first two weeks — showed up in its strong second half.

“It was just one of them days now,” senior running back Blake Corum said Saturday. “You know, we were ready. We had a great week of practice. We prepared a lot. It was just one of those days.”

While the Wolverines can get

Michigan secondary rebounds from slow start in win against Bowling Green Managing Sports Editor

From the very first play of the game, the No. 2 Michigan football team could see that its secondary was in for a battle. As graduate corner Keshaun Harris pressed up on Odieu Hiliare, the Bowling Green wideout got just enough space to make a 30-yard sideline grab through Harris’s coverage.

While the Wolverines might’ve been ambushed, the Falcons were prepared. Because before either team had taken the field, they had already taken aim.

“I was told yesterday that we were going to take that shot,” Hiliare said postgame. “It was actually supposed to be a stop and go, but (Harris) came and he pressed, and we convert those (passes). … All credit to coach — he believes in me to make that play.”

For much of the second half, Bowling Green coach Scot Loeffler had plenty to believe in. His receivers found plenty of space upfield, tallying three big plays to keep his offense within striking distance of Michigan. But in the end, the Wolverines’ secondary adjusted from the second quarter onward to pace a comfortable 31-6 win. Whereas they allowed 88 passing yards in the first quarter, they gave up a

sterling 44 for the remaining 45 minutes of play.

But in another world, that adjustment might’ve been too late to prevent a different ballgame. On the second drive of the game and as Michigan led 7-0, Hiliare got loose after beating graduate transfer corner Josh Wallace with a double move. As Hiliare dug a 26-yard corner route with nothing but the end zone in front of him, he dove for the ball and fell forward. But that pesky end zone outdid him, knocking a potentially game-tying ball out of his hands as he crashed to the ground.

“We watched film throughout the week to be prepared for this game. We knew that they bite on double moves,” Hiliare said.

“Coach gave me an opportunity to run a double move. I wanted the route. The ball got knocked out by the ground, unfortunately.”

As anticlimactic as that sounds, no other team so far has brought the Wolverines’ secondary so much trouble. East Carolina racked up just 132 passing yards in the season opener, while UNLV tallied 168. For Bowling Green to pass for 88 in a quarter — especially compared to just four first-quarter rushing yards — the stats made evident that Michigan’s secondary unit had flaws.

Then, the game flipped on its

FOOTBALL

JOHN TONDORA

Daily Sports Editor

The first was uncharacteristic.

The second was uncanny. The third made it incontrovertible.

The once-infallible J.J. McCarthy had stumbled.

Throwing a trifecta of interceptions in just 13 passing attempts, it was “just one of those days” for the junior quarterback and the No. 2 Michigan offense according to senior running back Blake Corum.

A day McCarthy is ready to forget.

Sitting dejected in the post-game press conference, the Wolverines’ signal caller could muster little explanations for the mistakes.

“I’m going to take all those on the chin,” McCarthy said. “Put them all on me. There’s a lot of stuff that just didn’t go my way and didn’t go the offense’s way.”

The first appeared uncharacteristic for 2023 McCarthy. After a historic start to the 2023 season — and one that saw 55 straight attempts

head. The Falcons’ starter, Camden Orth, suffered an injury to start the second half. After a 7-for-10 night with a pair of big throws of more than 30 yards, Orth’s night ended. Redshirt freshman quarterback Hayden Timosciek took over having never played a live snap in college.

The Wolverines took advantage. Timosciek couldn’t fit passes through as tight of windows, and the Wolverines’ secondary stanched the big plays that ailed them in the first quarter. They forced Timosciek to hang in the pocket for longer and let the pass rush go to work. The secondary even got a pick for its efforts when graduate defensive back Quinten Johnson lurked a sideline throw intended for Hiliare in the second quarter.

“We never really look at it as a complete picture,” Johnson said.

“It’s definitely week in and week out things to execute better and at a high level.”

Though the secondary eventually shaped up, the first quarter against Orth showed its humanity. A unit without a preseason All-American in sophomore corner Will Johnson and an experienced two-year starter in junior safety Rod Moore due to injuries, Michigan’s secondary is vulnerable compared to its stout run defense. As the Wolverines heal up, their coverage should improve, too.

“I mean, it was six points they gave up,” Michigan acting head coach Sherrone Moore said. “So the defense just as a whole — secondaries, upfront — are just playing outstanding. And they’ll continue to progress and get even better. And you see starters aren’t even in the game. So the depth of the depth that we’re building for the future is really good.”

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

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away with “one of those days” against Bowling Green, the next time they might not be so lucky.

The Big Ten teams they’ll face from here on out are tougher and more talented. They’re able to pull off upsets and capitalize on Michigan’s self-inflicted wounds in a way the Falcons couldn’t.

Especially if McCarthy gets caught up in the hype and forces throws, or if the secondary stumbles like Saturday, it could still lose games like anyone else. With the entire conference season left to

LILA TURNER/Daily

FOOTBALL

CONNOR EAREGOOD

Wednesday, September 20, 2023 — 11

play, it’s far too early to expect a championship without significant improvement — even if the talent on this team makes that goal possible.

Michigan is not alone in that regard, as other top-five teams like Georgia, Texas and Florida State are full of potential, yet struggled in their week three matchups, too.

It goes to show why expectations need to be dampened this early in the season.

All it takes is one or two losses for College Football Playoff chances to dry up entirely. And with its struggles against Bowling Green, Michigan showed how possible those might be.

Even with an abundance of talent and experience, what hasn’t galvanized is the Wolverines’ ability to pull away entirely. They haven’t dropped 40 points in any of their easy non-conference games. They also haven’t gotten complete, full-game domination in all facets of offense and defense.

It’s a privileged position for Michigan’s talent to create conversations of national titles in the first place, but it doesn’t matter how much talent the Wolverines have if they can’t consistently execute

to that high level on a consistent basis.

There’s a bevy of reasons why reaching that expectation might be delayed. Multiple defensive starters are still injured, and Harbaugh was suspended for the past three games. But whatever it is holding Michigan back, leaves flaws to fix and problems to patch.

So temper your expectations and be measured. Take it one game at a time. Don’t plan for a Rose Bowl berth or bet on an undefeated season, even if they’re both possible. Those haven’t happened yet, and despite preseason hype, there is no guarantee they will.

Right now, it’s time to be reserved, cautious and calculating.

Because Michigan isn’t quite there yet, and no one has seen it fire on all cylinders. It’s a scary team now, but it hasn’t even scratched the surface of what fright it can create.

But if it fails to capitalize on this season, there’s no telling what nightmares it might have. Because nothing haunts a program like wasted potential. And until confetti falls in January, potential is all it has.

Don’t look too far ahead.

FOOTBALL

Michigan running game offers glimpse of past, future against Bowling Green PAUL NASR

Managing Sports Editor

No matter what the No. 2 Michigan football team does passing the ball, be it an effective air raid or an interception-filled night, the calculus remains simple: The Wolverines still have senior running back Blake Corum. They still have junior running back Donovan Edwards. They still have an offensive line they believe in.

They still want to run the damn ball.

And why wouldn’t they? That formula powered the Wolverines to consecutive Big Ten Championships, and offers important balance for a quarterback in junior J.J. McCarthy — who showed he’s still far from perfect in the 31-6 win over Bowling Green.

While the run-dominance of years past has proven harder to find this year, Michigan offered glimpses of it against the Falcons. Corum eclipsed 100 yards for the first time this season, while Edwards posted a seasonbest 50 rushing yards. But with 54 of Corum’s 101 yards coming off his first carry of the game and Edwards far from last year’s rushing heights, the Wolverines proved that a truly-dominant run game is still both a blast-from-thepast and a future possibility. As of three weeks into the season, they aren’t there yet.

For Corum, that’s not a problem. He sees it as being ahead of schedule.

“No concern man. Go look at the stats,” Corum said postgame.

“We probably had the same stats as last year. First three games last year I never rushed for 100 yards.

No concern man. Calm, cool, and collected. It’s gonna hit when it’s gonna hit.”

Sure, more than half of his yards came from one play. But that play — and that series which saw

him score one of his two touchdowns on the day — put both Blake Corum’s and Michigan’s run game ceilings into focus.

To start, he comes at opponents fast, just like he did against the Falcons. First play, foot in the dirt, green grass. It was almost like he slithered around defenders, altering momentum ever so slightly to leave them in his wake. Speed and strength, bundled in one. Before you knew it, he was simply being chased. 54 yards later, he was finally forced out of bounds.

An Edwards carry, a McCarthy carry. Suddenly, the Wolverines were on the 4-yard line. One more handoff to Corum and they were in the endzone. Four plays, all on the ground, and Michigan flexed its rushing muscle early.

“I felt more confident out there,” Corum said. “… I had two pullers, they did their job (and) I was able to cut underneath, press the toes of the safety, make a move on them and take off for 53 yards or something like that.”

Then and there, the Wolverines had their old running game back — or something like that.

Because as the game progressed, the carries became shorter and shorter, but glimpses of their old run-heavy cadence was back. At times, Michigan played with a more methodical, reined-

in tempo designed for clock control.. The o-line gave better pushes, runs extended just a little longer and hints of a more reliable run game were all over the field.

“We ran the ball pretty well,” acting head coach Sherrone Moore said. “Blake went over 100 (yards). … We moved the line of scrimmage very well. (I) thought those guys up front took to the challenge that we gave to them this week to continue to attack, but (it) got to a point where they just wanted to run the ball.”

Edwards wanted to run the ball, too. With 11 yards on his first carry, he totaled more rushing yards than he had in the entire game against UNLV last week when he posted just nine. While Edwards too slowed down thereafter, he pointed to a running game that’s a work in progress, not a relic of the past.

He nearly split carries evenly with Corum, and had by far his best yards-per-carry so far.

Dominant rushing is a standard the Wolverines still expect to meet soon. The opposition is still well aware of it, too, not letting smaller rushing numbers fool them.

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LILA TURNER/Daily

J.J. McCarthy stumbles in three-interception game without an interception — McCarthy’s first interception provided a humbling return to reality.

Driving deep into the red zone on its second drive of the night, Michigan’s offense looked to strike its second consecutive touchdown.

Dropping back, McCarthy attempted to lace a pass to senior wide receiver Roman Wilson. A mistimed read, McCarthy failed to see Bowling Green defensive back Jalen Huskey, who pounced on the misplaced ball for McCarthy’s first blemish of the day — and season. “(The second drive) we’re not spaced up and then we have a pick, so that all equates to it,” acting head coach Sherrone Moore said. “We weren’t spaced up on the outside so that equated to bringing the corner in there and throwing the pick. Get the ball again and just keep it moving and just a bad read.”

However, for McCarthy, the woes refused to stop there.

The quarterback got the football back in his hands nearly nine minutes later, forced to sit and stew on

the sidelines in the meantime. But that time to reflect didn’t help as the struggles continued.

Looking to strike back, McCarthy once again had the Wolverines moving deep into the second quarter.

Dialing up a deep shot, he attempted to once again prove that issues with the deep ball were a thing of the past. And yet, old sores reopened.

Sophomore receiver Tyler Morris

had exposed a busted coverage on what projected to be at worst a big gain and at best, a touchdown. No big gain or touchdown ensued and McCarthy sailed the pass over Morris’ head.

McCarthy was unable to bounce back. Trying yet another deep shot under the watchful eye of the interim coach Moore, McCarthy evidently seemed to dial his arm

KEITH MELONG/Daily

strength back. Perhaps influenced by his struggling first half, the quarterback attempted a more delicate pass — this time to graduate receiver Cornelius Johnson.

Instead of a precise pass, McCarthy misplaced the throw as the ball fell short of Johnson and into the hands of the defensive back. With just five total offensive drives in the first half, McCarthy threw an interception on two of them. By this point, McCarthy had tied his entire interception total from the 2022 regular season in just a half, and looked nothing like the leader who shined for Michigan through two games this season. “(Moore’s) main message was just throw it in the ocean and keep being me,” McCarthy said of his mentality. “That meant a lot to me to know that he still had the trust in me to keep throwing the ball.”

Though McCarthy stressed his ability “to stay in the present moment” postgame, his struggles hardly ever left him.

Even on a 50-yard touchdown

pass to Johnson, McCarthy emphasized the bobbled reception as an “ill-advised throw.” On what could just as easily have been a pass breakup, McCarthy once again underthrew a ball, this one miraculously found itself glued to the receiver’s thigh.

Whether influenced by a desire to curb overthrows, or affected by the minor ankle injury that McCarthy appeared to suffer from in the first half — nothing was going right.

And even as the Wolverines had the game in hand deep into the third quarter, in a scrambling situation where McCarthy once found heroics, he was instead humbled.

Facing incoming pressure from the Falcons’ pass rush, McCarthy attempted to use his legs as he wheeled 15 yards behind his own line of scrimmage. Finding little options, he intended to throw the ball away, yet ended up placing it in the hands of Bowling Green linebacker Avi McGary.

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SPORTSWEDNESDAY

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

The Michigan Daily — 12

Michigan defense overcomes offensive turnovers, paves way to 31-6 victory over Bowling Green Daily Sports Editor

STRIKES

wo minutes into the second half of the No. 2 Michigan football team’s contest with Bowling Green, the Wolverines found themselves in a position they hadn’t been in all season: they were in a dogfight.

Up 14-6 after committing three turnovers in its worst half of football all season, the Wolverines were teetering with their offense struggling to build momentum.

And then, Kris Jenkins and the defense built that momentum for them.

On the Falcons’ first play from scrimmage in the second half, the senior defensive lineman leapt for an underthrown ball, picked it out of the air and ran it to the 2-yard line, setting up a touchdown on the next play for senior running back Blake Corum. And on the following Bowling Green possession, the Michigan defense did it again.

Graduate linebacker Michael Barrett recovered a fumble and set up a mid-range field goal.

In just a matter of moments, the Wolverines’ defense had completely reignited the offense.

In a contest in which Michigan’s (3-0 overall) offense struggled with ball security, its defense played hero to the tune of three forced turnovers and no surrendered touchdowns, keeping the Wolverines on track in a 31-6 victory over the Falcons (1-2).

“The recipe for winning around here has been, you’ve got to play great defense,” acting Michigan coach Sherrone Moore said. “Those guys (the defense) are doing an outstanding job, and the other phases have got to keep building to get to their level.”

On Michigan’s very first drive, the offense seemed to be functioning at full capacity. It breezed into the end zone with an efficient four-play drive highlighted by a 53-yard run from Corum. But after that first drive, the offense stagnated.

On three straight possessions, the Wolverines’ offense turned the ball over. Twice, junior quarterback J.J. McCarthy threw untimely picks, and once junior tight end Max Bredeson bobbled a kickoff. But despite receiving gifts from Michigan’s offense, the Falcons were limited by its defense.

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“You know it was just one of them days,” Corum said of the first half. “We were ready, we had a great week of practice, but it was just one of those days.”

The Wolverines’ stout defense limited Bowling Green to just two field goals in the first half and kept itself afloat. Then in the second half, it came alive.

With Jenkins’ interception and Barrett’s fumble recovery, Michigan’s defense jumpstarted its offense. It engineered a near instantaneous 10-point surge a mere five minutes into the third quarter.

“It was really important,” Corum said of the defensive turnovers.

“Anytime the defense can get a turnover, or a pick, or a fumble recovery — it’s huge. It’s a changing point in the game.”

McCarthy built on that momentum midway through the third quarter, launching a 50-yard touchdown to graduate wide receiver Cornelius Johnson — who caught a bouncing ball to make the score 31-6. However, Michigan was challenged again, as on the very next drive as McCarthy threw another interception.

But the defense never blinked.

No matter where the Falcons started with the ball, they were stuffed by the Wolverines’ defense on drive after drive.

Michigan forced 10 tackles for loss, managed three sacks and collected three turnovers all while allowing just 205 total yards and 85 in the second half.

And the Wolverines’ defensive production came from all corners of the field. Of their 10 tackles for loss, only one player — graduate cornerback Mike Sainristil — accounted for more than one.

After Johnson’s touchdown, Michigan’s offense didn’t score again, but its defense didn’t budge either. It blanked the Falcons for the rest of the contest and carried the Wolverines to a convincing 31-6 victory.

But despite the win, Michigan showed genuine gaps in its game for the first time this season. With four turnovers and an offense that struggled to get going, the Wolverines showed fallibility.

Michigan had ended up in a dogfight that it didn’t expect to be in. It was a fight that the Wolverines won comfortably, and its defense was what delivered the knockout blow.

LILA TURNER, KEITH MELONG/Daily Design by Lys Goldman

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