CELEBRATING OUR ONE-HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH YEAR OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Thursday, February 12, 2015
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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GOVERNMENT
Gov. Snyder presents FY 2016 budget proposals RUBY WALLAU/Daily
Students gather in memory of the three victims of the Chapel Hill shooting during a vigil hosted by the Muslim Students Association on the Diag Wednesday.
Vigil honors students killed in Chapel Hill
‘U’ community remembers victims of shooting By LARA MOEHLMAN Daily Staff Reporter
Members of the University community gathered Wednesday night for a candlelight vigil on the Diag to honor the memory
of three Muslim students shot and killed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Dental student Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23; his wife, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21; and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, were all found dead in their apartment Tuesday evening. Police linked it to a dispute over parking, but are also investigating the incident as a poten-
tial hate crime. All three of the victims were Muslim. Holding cups containing candles, roughly 200 people gathered around memorial candles placed on the ground to spell out “CHAPEL HILL” before listening to several speeches and recitations made by students, faculty and community members delivered from the steps of Hatcher Graduate Library. The University’s Muslim
Higher education, K-12 programs slated to receive funding increases By SHOHAM GEVA and JACK TURMAN Daily News Editor and Daily Staff Reporter
Student Association hosted the hour-long event. Barakat was a second-year dental student at the University of North Carolina. His wife was planning to enter the same school in the fall. Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha was an architecture and environmental design student at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Police have identified the See VIGIL, Page 3A
Despite a projected shortfall in Michigan both this fiscal year and next, higher education received a funding increase in Republican Gov. Rick Snyder’s budget announcement Wednesday morning. In a presentation to the state’s lawmakers, the governor announced the state budget for the 2016 fiscal year as well as revisions to the 2015 fiscal year budget. Those changes are intended to account for a deficit, which was announced at the state’s biannual revenue estimating conference in January. Administration officials have attributed the deficit to an
ANN ARBOR
CAMPUS LIFE
Police oversight debated
Detroit Soup raises $325 for city-based org. 60 students vote to donate funds for foster care support program By PAIGE PFLEGER Daily Staff Reporter
A crowd of 60 students slurped soup and raised money for Detroit-based charities Wednesday evening as part of The Soup, the second event of the University’s first-ever Detroit Week. Organized by the Detroit Partnership, the Black Student Union, the Black Volunteer Network, Semester in Detroit and the LSA Student Government, Detroit Week is hosting three events to examine problems the facing the city as well as promote community outreach. The week kicked off Monday with a panel on race and food in the city and will conclude Saturday with a volunteer project at the Franklin Wright Settlement in Detroit. Inspired by Detroit SOUP, a monthly dinner that funds micro-
grants for Detroit-based projects, The Soup raised $325 for charity by providing students with a $5 soup dinner and an opportunity to vote for the charity who would receive the proceeds from the event. All the participating organizations, including Detroit Urban Debate Education, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and the Loud Voice Movement, are campus groups with the mission of empowering youth in the Detroit community. “I love this event because it continues the engagement with Detroit, and allows the Detroit Partnership to collaborate with other groups,” said Public Policy junior Blair Sucher, education director for the Detroit Partnership. “To me, that’s so important, because it’s awesome to see people from all areas of study come out and support Detroit.” Each organization presented their mission and service goals while students ate their soup. Detroit Urban Debate Education is a student organization that sends students to schools See SOUP, Page 3A
unprecedented number of businesses recently cashing in on tax credits issued over the past several years. Snyder proposed a 2-percent increase to university funding and 1.4-percent increase in community college funding, a move similar to his previous budgets. Nonetheless, the overall level of state higher education funding remains lower than it was at the start of his tenure, due to a 15-percent cut the governor recommended in 2011. Even with the unexpected shortfalls, Snyder told reporters at a press conference Wednesday afternoon he was pleased with the budget proposal. “We should be very proud of the economic outcomes of our state so far and the future of our state looks very bright,” Snyder said. Last month, the House Fiscal Agency projected a $454.4 million deficit, but State Budget Director John Roberts updated that number in a recent report to See BUDGET, Page 3A
Human Rights Commision talks outcome of Aura Rosser shooting By ANASTASSIOS ADAMOPOULOS
ANDREW COHEN/Daily
Former English Prof. Lorna Goodison gives her acceptance speech as the recipient of the 2015 Shirley Verrett Award at the Walgreen Center Wednesday.
Former professor receives ‘U’ award for literary work Accolade recognizes efforts to promote advancement for women of color By SARAH KHAN For the Daily
Lorna Goodison, a former University English professor, was honored for her literary work Wednesday evening in a ceremony at Stamps Audito-
rium. Goodison, a former Afroamerican and African Studies professor, received the Shirley Verrett Award for her poetry and short stories. Given to a faculty member whose work encourages the advancement of women of color in the arts, the award was created in 2011 to honor the late Shirley Verrett, a former University professor and renowned opera singer. The award is sponsored by
the University organization Women of Color in the Academy Project. In response to receiving the award, Goodison said she felt enormously thankful. “To be associated with the caliber of Shirley Verret is a very wonderful and extraordinary thing,” she said. During the opening portion of the ceremony, Kinesiology Prof. Rebecca Hasson, a member of the WOCAP, said Verrett See AWARD, Page 3A
Daily Staff Reporter
The Ann Arbor Human Rights Commission convened Wednesday evening at City Hall to discuss the possibility of establishing a civilian oversight board for the city’s police force. Seven citizens attended the meeting in total, with several expressing discontent both about the November death of Aura Rosser, who was shot by an Ann Arbor police officer, and a prosecutor’s determinationlast month that the shooting was justified self-defense. Dwight Wilson, a member of the HRC, said he has met with representatives from four community groups who expressed their concern about the circumstances surrounding Rosser’s See OVERSIGHT, Page 3A
the every three b-side
A look at the University’s popular satirical paper
» INSIDE WEATHER TOMORROW
HI: 20 LO: 16
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INDEX
Vol. CXXIV, No. 65 ©2015 The Michigan Daily michigandaily.com
NEWS......................... 2A OPINION.....................4A S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7A
SUDOKU.....................2A CL ASSIFIEDS...............6A B-SIDE ....................1B
News
2A — Thursday, February 12, 2015
MONDAY: This Week in History
TUESDAY: Campus Voices
WEDNESDAY: In Other Ivory Towers
GOOD IMPRESSIONS
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THURSDAY: Twitter Talk
FRIDAY: Photos of the Week Each week, “Twitter Talk” is a forum to print tweets that are fun, informative, breaking or newsworthy, with an angle on the University, Ann Arbor and the state. All tweets have been edited for accurate spelling and grammar.
State Rep. Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor) tweets his take on Republican Gov. Rick Snyder’s budget proposal Wed.
.@onetoughnerd presents his budget rec. Let’s hope his good ideas (like $100M for at risk schools + expanded dental coverage) survive the House. — @JeffMIrwin
ANDREW COHEN/Daily
Art & Design junior Julia Callis prepares a monotype print as part of an advanced independent study in printmaking at the Art & Architecture Building’s printmaking studio Wednesday.
“
LSA queried students on their favorite place to eat pizza at in honor of National Pizza Day Monday.
Today is #NationalPizzaDay — one of five pizza holidays in the U.S. What’s your go-to pizza solution in Ann Arbor?” — @umichLSA
“
LOOK AT OUR #TWEETS (please) @michigandaily The School of Engineering congratulated Jack Hu, interim vice president for research, for receiving an academic honor Tuesday.
Congrats & #GOBLUE to @umich Engineering All-Star Jack Hu for being elected to the National Academy of Engineering.” — @UMEngineering
CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES
Trading simulation
Medical School Gifts of Art workshop performance
WHAT: BP America will host a trading simulation that will serve as a learning platform to understand energy markets. WHO: The Career Center WHEN: Today from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. WHERE: Ross School of Business, Room R0400
WHAT: This workshop will give advice to students interested in attending medical school about writing their personal statement. WHO: The Career Center WHEN: Today from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. WHERE: The Career Center
ON THE WEB... michigandaily.com
THE FILTER
NBC anchorman suspended BY LEJLA BAJGORIC
Brian Williams, the host of “Nightly News,” will be suspended without pay for six months following allegations he embellished a story about a 2003 helicopter episode in Iraq.
Director’s talk
WHAT: Filmmaker Matthew Torne will give a talk about his WHAT: The Vocal Arts Ensemble of Ann Arbor will documentary, “Lessons in Dissent,” perform Choral Songs of WHO: Center for Chinese Love. Studies WHO: Gifts of Art WHEN: Today from 12:10 WHEN: Today from 3:30 p.m to 5:30 p.m. p.m to 1 p.m. WHERE: School of Social WHERE: University Work, Room 1840 Hospital Main Lobby
Family Night Innovation in Pierpont celebration
Poetry reading
WHAT: Poet Jean Valentine will give a poetry reading. WHAT: An event for WHAT: A celebration WHO: University of graduate students with of students involved in Michigan Museum of Art children. Crafts, food, and innovation, creativity, WHEN: Today from 5:10 games will be provided. and entrepreneurship on p.m. to 6:10 p.m. WHO: Center for Campus campus. WHERE: Museum of Art Involvement WHO: Innovate Blue l Please report any WHEN: Today from 5 p.m. WHEN: Today from 5 p.m. error in the Daily to 7 p.m. to 7 p.m. WHERE: Pierpont WHERE: Michigan Union, to corrections@ michigandaily.com. Commons Rogel Ballroom
Oregon governor decides against leaving post amidst controversy John Kitzhaber faces scrutiny for fiancée’s policy work, office use SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Embattled Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber had reached a decision to resign because of an ethics scandal surrounding him and his fiancée, but he changed his mind, three people with direct
knowledge of the situation said Wednesday. They said the Democratic governor informed some of his aides on Sunday that he was going to resign and on Tuesday he asked his would-be successor, Secretary of State Kate Brown, to rush back from a conference in Washington D.C. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about private discussions.
Brown’s abrupt and unexplained return to Oregon sparked speculation that Kitzhaber planned to quit. Hours later, Kitzhaber issued a statement saying he would stay put. It was not clear why Kitzhaber changed his mind. “Let me be as clear as I was last week, that I have no intention of resigning as Governor of the state of Oregon,” Kitzhaber said in a statement. “I was elected to do a job for the people of this great state and I intend to continue to do so.” The governor told KGW that he asked Brown, a Democrat, to return from Washington so he could tell her he was not resigning. Newspaper editorial boards and Republican political operatives have been criticizing Kitzhaber and calling for him to leave office over allegations that his fiancée, Cylvia Hayes, used his office to land contracts for her consulting business. She’s accused of advocating policies that she was paid to promote. Hayes has been under increasing scrutiny since October, when a series of reports chronicled her work for organizations with an interest in Oregon public policy, which came as she served as an unpaid adviser in the governor’s office. The focus led Hayes to reveal that she accepted about $5,000 to illegally marry an immigrant seeking immigration benefits in the 1990s. Later, she acknowledged purchasing a remote property with the intent to illegally grow marijuana. Kitzhaber, meanwhile, has denied wrongdoing, saying he and Hayes took steps to avoid conflicts of interest. Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum has launched a criminal investigation. Kitzhaber was re-elected by a wide margin in November, easily defeating Republican state Rep. Dennis Richardson.
THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW TODAY
1
President Obama sent Congress a draft legislation asking for the use of military force against ISIS, NBC News reported. He asked for the force be limited to three years but did not restrict it to any specific geographic location.
2
This week, the Arts section explores the offices of The Every Three Weekly, the University’s premiere satirical newspaper. It’s “better than sex, and twice as often.” >> FOR MORE, SEE B-SIDE, PG. 1B
3
The Jackie Robinson West team has been stripped of it’s 2014 Little League championship title, The Chicago Tribune reported. The team allegedly used a false boundary map to fill the team with suburban players.
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Washtenaw County hit hard by influenza this year Experts tie increased number of illnesses to low vaccine efficacy BY ANASTASSIOS ADAMOPOULOS Daily Staff Reporter
As flu season continues, Washtenaw County has experienced a spike in influenza cases, as well as several deaths. According to Shantell Kirkendoll, senior public relations representative for the University of Michigan Health System, UMHS has reported 13 flu-related deaths for the 20142015 season as of Wednesday. At University Health Service, Chief Health Officer Robert Winfield said physicians have seen 156 flu-related cases. The number of patients in December alone was 89. Winfield said the number of cases in January is not yet available, but noted the figure was lower than December’s. Last month, UMHS implemented a policy encouraging people with flulike symptoms to avoid visiting patients at the hospital. Eden Wells, clinical associate professor of epidemiology, said recent flu seasons have been unusually mild, unlike the current cycle. She said many people weren’t
accustomed to the flu posing a serious problem. The effectiveness of this year’s vaccine for the H3N2 virus — about 23 percent — presents a unique element to the current flu season. According to the Centers for Disease Control, this is approximately 50 percent less effective than in usual years. In Washtenaw County, eight patients have died from the flu this season. The death toll is lower for the county than at UMHS because the health system treats patients from several counties. According to the CDC, this year has been the most fatal flu season nationally for people older than 65 years old since the CDC began collecting data on influenza in 2005. Wells said the vaccine is designed to address several different virus strains compared to the previous year’s version. She said flu experts at the World Health Organization conduct a number of studies around the world based on those strains to try and predict which strains will circulate in the fall. “You start making the vaccine, and it takes six months to make the vaccine,” she said. “Sometimes that (flu) virus loves to kind of slightly mutate throughout the year — that what ended up finally circulating this fall was notquite matched to the vaccine that was made in February”.
In an e-mail interview, Epidemiology Prof. Arnold Monto wrote that the disease changed in the Northern Hemisphere during the summer. “A lot of work is going on to develop a vaccine that does not have to be redesigned for each vaccine strain,” Monto wrote. “This past year’s experience shows why that is important.” He noted that Ann Arbor residents tend to vaccinate more than national average, but said that’s been less effective this year because the vaccine hasn’t worked as well. “We are involved in several studies which look at the occurrence of influenza in the Ann Arbor area, and how well the vaccine is working,” Monto wrote. “This has been a bad influenza season in our area, with a lot of illnesses and hospitalizations with type A (H3N2) influenza”. Still, Wells said vaccination remains the best tool to prevent the flu. She noted the message has been well-received locally due to the intensity of this year’s influenza season and the recent return of the measles. In recent weeks, the reappearance of measles has sparked discussion on the merits of vaccination. “We are hearing more now from people, parents, community members who are actually taking up the banner for vaccine,” Wells said. “So, I think that’s a good thing.”
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SOUP From Page 1A throughout the Detroit area to teach debating techniques, form debate teams and send debaters to national tournaments. Since its establishment in 2009, the group has grown to include more than 250 students from 18 high schools, and boasts a 100-percent graduation rate for its participants. The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers created a program called SHPE Jr., an outreach campaign at Western Inter-
AWARD From Page 1A had a lasting impact on women of color who are involved in the arts during the opening portion. Robin Wilson, the 2013 recipient of the Shirley Verrett Award and also a member of the steering committee, presented Goodison with the award. Wilson said the award honors women of color in the arts who are often considered
BUDGET From Page 1A $325 million. The 2016 budget also faced a projected shortfall of $532 million. To address both shortfalls, the governor made cuts to multiple state agencies. Most severely impacted were the State Police, the Department of Corrections and the Department of Community Health, which will see cuts of more than $23 million, $17.8 million and $16.55 million, respectively. However, for the state’s schools and universities, the news was more positive. During his address, Snyder emphasized the importance of investing in education, along with skilled trades and public safety “The same time when we’re cutting a number of programs, we’re making investments, investments in critically important things,” Snyder told reporters. Citing both K-12 schools and higher education institutions, Snyder said maintaining investment in education was one of the administration’s key considerations when making cuts to state agency budgets. “The way I viewed it is we’re going to protect students,” he said. “We’re not asking for sacrifices from any of those groups.” Last year, Snyder’s executive budget proposal totaled $52.1 billion and featured a 6.1-percent increase for higher education funding. The 6.1-percent increase was the largest increase to higher education funding since 2001. In 2012, he recommended a 3.1-percent raise; in 2013, a 2.2-percent raise. “Going back to the increased
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national High School in Detroit. SHPE aims to inspire Hispanic youth to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math. Attendees ultimately voted for the donation to go toward the Loud Voice Movement, an organization seeking to empower individuals in the foster care system in Detroit. The money will go toward recruitment and bringing in speakers for workshops, as well as help fund the group’s overall functions. As a Detroit native who spent time in the foster care system, LSA
senior Kamille Tynes, the Loud Voice Movement founder, emphasized the importance of providing advocacy, leadership and professional development training for foster youth during her presentation. “Right now, only 2 percent of the national population of foster youth make it to college,” Tynes said. “One of the issues that is so near and dear to my heart is education, because I know like you guys know, that’s the way to succeed in life. But if you don’t have the support system, or the skills or the resources to do it, you won’t be able to achieve it. No matter how
smart you are.” Tynes created the Loud Voice Movement three years ago when she was struggling academically in her first year at the University. She said she knew that if she was struggling, other foster kids were probably struggling, too. She took a class about community organizing to research the best ways to get the group on its feet, and last year she formally launched the program. “I am so grateful that people could hear the passion, and that they want to support what we’re doing in Detroit,” Tynes said.
an outlier, and are interested in topics not always valued by the majority of scholars. “When you look around this campus, when you look things that are named after people, there are no Black people,” she said. “This (award) is something we could create that would have longevity and would signify our presence on this campus. Being a woman of color and in the arts who had a special interest in women who were in the arts and in particular women of color.”
Throughout the ceremony, Goodison was recognized for encouraging and inspiring female faculty and students from diverse backgrounds. Robert Sellers, vice provost for equity, inclusion and academic affairs, said Verret’s spirit and influence lived on through Goodison’s teaching, performance, scholarship and service. The award ceremony included a musical performance by Verrett’s former opera students and a poetry reading in tribute to Goodi-
son by University alum Zilka Joseph, one of Goodison’s former students and distinguished poet. In an interview after the event, Joseph said while she was a student, Goodison was an incredibly welcoming and caring professor. “(She) was present and so kind and made you feel like home — someone who embraced you,” Joseph said. “We need people like Lorna in an environment which becomes almost like a machine. Sometimes we forget we are just human beings.”
education budget, I think that’s been validated multiple times that we’ve been investing in education and we continue to invest in education,” Snyder told reporters. Cynthia Wilbanks, the University’s vice president for government relations, said the University plans to work closely with state officials as the budget proposal progresses through the legislature. “We certainly appreciate the governor’s recommendation for additional state funding, especially in the constrained budget environment this year,” she wrote in a statement. “This maintains the momentum of increased state investment in higher education.” Don Grimes, senior research associate for the University’s Institute for Research on Labor, Employment and the Economy, said given the deficit, he was surprised to see the higher education funding increase, along with the proposal to elevate wages for skilled trades students. “They seemed to have been able to make good use of their revenue that they have been able to find,” Grimes said. “I didn’t expect that large of increase in university appropriations.” However, Grimes cited the continual need to reform corporate business firms cashing in on tax credits, which was a major contributor to this fiscal year’s budget deficit. “They shouldn’t be allowed to do that all in one period,” Grimes added. “In other words, they should be forced to get those tax credits spread out over a number of years.” Similar to budgets from the past three years, the governor’s recommendation also set aside additional funding for univer-
sities that meet performance metrics or cap tuition raises at a certain percent. Last year, the cap was 3.2 percent, which the University met by raising tuition 1.6 percent. This year, the cap will be 2.8 percent. Additionally, the proposal allocated $500,000 for sexual assault prevention on college campuses. Over the past year, two universities in the state — Michigan State University and the University of Michigan — have come under federal investigation for how they address sexual assault reporting. Snyder didn’t cite specific circumstances prompting the funding during his announcement. “I believe it’s appropriate to make an investment,” he told lawmakers. According to budget documents released by Snyder’s office, the $500,000 will be a one-time allocation to “provide a system wide approach to develop comprehensive prevention best practices, assessment strategies, and effective response efforts.” Education Prof. Betty Overton-Adkins said she was pleased overall that the budget proposal included an increase to higher education funding. “If Michigan is going to continue to keep pace with the rest of the nation in terms of continuing to provide a very strong program of higher education for its citizens, we certainly need it to have a contingent consideration for increases to our budget,” she said. Overton-Adkins added that the increase of funding could lead to additional funding from other outside sources. “When the legislature and governor signaled their support for higher education, it also is a catalyst for other agencies and
organizations also to support us,” Overton-Adkins said. “I think in some ways it also helps to attract additional dollars, because we can point to the support that the state provided the institution.” Along with higher education, K-12 programs and skilled trades programs also received a boost. The governor proposed a 75-percent increase from the amount currently spent on skilled trades programs — from $47.6 million to $83.2 million. He also recommended $25 million in support for a new initiative to increase thirdgrade reading scores in the state and $75 increase in per-pupil funding for K-12 schools. After the budget presentation, Lt. Gov. Brian Calley briefly discussed an upcoming ballot proposal, which would increase Michigan’s sales tax to pay for fixes to the state’s roads. The 2016 fiscal year budget doesn’t assume passage of that proposal, Calley said. Snyder told reporters later in the day that the road legislation, which was signed last year but goes before voters in May, simplifies the use of the fuel tax and the sales tax. “Fuel taxes go to local government roads,” Snyder said. “It’s a straightforward, comprehensive tax structure … that provides both certainty and adequate resources that can go both to (the) transportation system that our people deserve and the education system is protected in the meantime.” If passed, the restructuring would impact the way universities are funded. A percentage of a university’s overall state allocations would stem from the general fund instead of the School Aid Fund, which would be restricted to community colleges and K-12 programs under the proposal.
SOFTBALL
Goofy, competitive mix for Michigan Wolverines mix sharp focus, fun antics on game days By CHRIS CROWDER Daily Sports Writer
It’s a common misconception that the recipe for winning only includes competitiveness. You also need a pinch of humor. The ingredients seem like they wouldn’t work, but for the Michigan softball team, they do. They coexist, and neither outweighs the other. On the bus ride to any game, the Wolverines are dancing and having fun. But when their foot gets off the last step of the bus and onto the pavement, they flip a switch. “Off the field we have a blast, but when it’s time to get serious, we definitely get down to business,” said senior catcher Lauren Sweet. Added junior shortstop Sierra Romero: “(Sophomore infielder Lindsay Montemarano) and I go back and forth, like she makes an error and I’ll be like ‘I won’t make that error,’ so we joke about it, but it brings out our competitive side.”
The ability to remain relaxed and focused at the same time helps the team, especially in tough situations. With a team full of best friends, they love to compete for each other and strengthen their connection on and off the diamond. “If you’re tense and worried about it, you’re obviously not going to play your best,” Sweet said. “But the fact that we have that bond and can mess around with each other and have fun before the game, I think it’s an awesome thing. When we’re on the field and we’re all down, someone can make us laugh in the game and get us back up.” The team’s traditions, especially cheers in the dugout, keep the Wolverines loose while they’re at the plate. Sweet could be hailed as the team DJ, making the beats and laying down the foundation for upcoming chants. She embraces this role, but thinks that outsiders might not fully understand what’s going on. “Our cheers are kind of out there and people probably think we’re really weird,” Sweet said. “For (Romero), we have one like ‘give her the Kool-Aid.’ It’s an inside joke.” The inside jokes don’t stop
there, though, but continue with the Wolverines’ obsession over pizza. “We view going around the bases — getting to first, second and third — as making a pizza,” said junior Kelsey Susalla. “So our goal is to make a pizza (and eat it) once we get home. On second base, we sprinkle the cheese.” The team loves to have fun, but coach Carol Hutchins knows that her team is locked in on its goals and is most certainly disciplined. “Kids like to have fun, but it’s not the goal,” Hutchins said. “The goal is to play games and win them. The goal is to get better every week. That doesn’t mean you won’t have fun — fun is a sidebar.” Hutchins quipped that rec leagues are the place where fun is the main focus. Of course, with the Michigan softball program, championships are in the front of team’s mind. She likens defending something — such as a Big Ten championship, which they have won seven times — to playing capture the flag. Like the flag, the championship is both being defended and sought. Hutchins wants her players’ personalities to work
well together and achieve one collective duty: making Michigan softball great. According to her, that’s the only reason to put on a maize and blue uniform. Still, Hutchins does enjoy her team’s goofy side when it isn’t a detriment to the team. “I think this team is very passionate about Michigan softball and they care about each other as teammates,” Hutchins said. “We talk about team chemistry, and team chemistry isn’t about caring about each other and being friends. Team chemistry helps you win games.” This weekend, the Wolverines play Florida State, the team that knocked them out of the NCAA Super Regional last season. They aren’t looking back on the walkoff home run that ended it all, but they’re remaining goofy and competitive as always. When their feet hit the pavement in Tallahassee, Florida this weekend, they will have already flipped the switch. And when they make pizza, the toppings are always goofiness and competitiveness. Extra cheese.
Thursday, February 12, 2015 — 3A
VIGIL From Page 1A shooter as 46-year-old Craig Stephen Hicks, who also lived in the apartment complex. While the suspect’s wife said in a press conference that her husband was not motivated by religion, members of the victims’ families have argued the incident should be characterized as a hate crime. No motive has yet been officially identified. The Daily Tar Heel, UNC’s student newspaper, reported large crowds had gathered to attend a vigil on campus Monday night. At the vigil in Ann Arbor, many students addressed Islamophobia in the United States. They expressed anger over what they called the U.S. media’s biased coverage of the Chapel Hill shooting, and said the deaths should be seen as a hate crime. “We’re doing this ceremony because we think it’s important to bring the awareness that this was done because of hate crime,” said Education senior Sheza Mansoor, a member of the MSA. Mansoor also stressed the importance of the vigil for bringing together students of all different identities on campus. “We shouldn’t be differentiated by our religion or race or culture,” he said. “We all stand together because it’s part of humanity to stand against injustice, and this is complete injustice.” Faculty and staff members also attended the vigil to demonstrate support for Muslim students on campus. Trey Boynton, director of the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs, who spoke during the ceremony, expressed the impor-
OVERSIGHT From Page 1A death, as well as more general concerns about law enforcement in Ann Arbor. The groups included Ann Arbor to Ferguson, Ann Arbor Concerned Citizens for Justice, the University’s Trotter Multicultural Center and Black Lives Matter. An HRC subcommittee has been organized to examine the potential organization of a civilian oversight board for the police, City Council announced last month. The subcommittee members will present proposals and findings based on their research. More specific characteristics of the oversight board would be detailed during the process of its formation. Pamela Dent, another member of the HRC, noted that the HRC would be able to establish the civilian oversight board because it is already in the charter’s commission, but it would still need to be approved by City Council. She stressed that the creation of the committee has not yet been agreed upon. “We have a history of doing exhaustive research to support whatever we may ultimately recommend so that we don’t sustain any push back, if you will, and we are successful with what we ultimately determine,” Dent said. Mohammad Issa, one of the oversight subcommittee members, said he has been
tance of coming together in times of tragedy in an interview with The Michigan Daily after the event. “Vigils like this allow us to come together in community, and mourn together, and be sad together, and ask for justice together,” Boynton said. “I think that that’s important when you’re feeling deeply saddened by an act of violence like this.” Engineering graduate student Andrew Lynch, who participated in the vigil, said the event was representative of the University’s diverse community and growing atmosphere of acceptance. “The fact that we are at Michigan means that we always are willing to make space for everybody at the table, and that everyone’s welcome to express who they are,” Lynch said. However, in terms of the University’s atmosphere of inclusivity, Lynch said there was still some improvement to be made. “We’re working on it,” he said. “I think we’re better off than a lot of places, but we still absolutely have a lot of work left to do.” LSA senior Saher Rathur, who spoke during the ceremony, said she was happy to see both Muslim and non-Muslim students gathered at the vigil. “I think it was really important for the Muslim community on campus to see that solidarity from people who aren’t Muslim,” Rathur said. However, Rathur added that Islamophobia is an ongoing issue for the Muslim community, and both the Muslim and non-Muslim community have to work together to combat it. “A lot of times we’re told that whatever we’re feeling, in terms of when people say heinous things to us, or do heinous
in contact with other cities to find out how their own oversight boards work, including their role and limitations. The commission has set Feb. 23 as a deadline for the subcommittee to submit proposals on the potential oversight board. The subcommittee will meet again on Feb. 25. Along with the proposed oversight board, Wilson said he and fellow HRC member Linda Winkler have met with Ann Arbor Police Chief John Seto and discussed the training received by officers, as well as racial composition for the police force according to rank and in proportion to population breakdown. Wilson said Seto is aware of the negative perceptions surrounding Ann Arbor police officers and wants to change that. “He said that he is open to doing more things to make people understand that they are human beings,” he said. “And more fun things with the community.” The report for the civilian police oversight subcommittee will include the information Seto gave the two members, Wilson said. “We made it clear that this is more than Aura’s death,” Wilson said. “Right now we’re talking about prevention because a life has been lost. And it shall not, cannot come back. And that where we are in our society, is that police officers supposedly are employees.”
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Opinion
4A — Thursday, February 12, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
RACHEL DAWSON
E-mail Rachel at rdawson@umich.edu.
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com AARICA MARSH and DEREK WOLFE EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS
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Reconsider the honor code TO THE DAILY: I graduated from this University in 1995, and during my years on this campus, the student body protested the implementation of the Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities (SSRR), which the administration had introduced via a mass mailing to students in the spring of 1992. Of those students who voted in the November 1992 Michigan Student Assembly elections, 86 percent voted against the SSRR; sadly, the Regents implemented it the very day after those elections. Monday’s announcement by Central Student Government about creating task force to look into drafting an “honor code” to supplement the SSRR surprised me. Now, as I did then, I have to ask, “Why?” Aren’t there local and state laws against what the fraternities and sororities in question did? Don’t they have governments (the Interfraternity Council for fra-
ternities and the Panhellenic Association for sororities)? Don’t those fraternities and sororities themselves already have honor codes that apply to all chapters across the country? And why are University student leaders interested in the very sort of “in loco parentis” utopian stuff that their early-1990s Michigan Student Assembly counterparts were fighting and voting against? I am well aware that students at this University, as at other colleges and universities worldwide, are at this crossroads. They are adults, but at the same time, they are just beginning to learn about life in the real world. However, there are already laws in place for those who do not behave responsibly. Therefore, I implore CSG’s leadership to reconsider their decision to look into creating yet another “honor code.” Mark Rabinowitz 1995 Alum
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Aarica Marsh, Victoria Noble, Michael Paul, Allison Raeck, Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm, Matthew Seligman, Linh Vu, Mary Kate Winn, Jenny Wang, Derek Wolfe
O
Investing in your future
ur country’s income inequality is simply colossal. The top three percent of wealthy families own 54 percent of our wealth. The top 10 percent owns 85 percent of our wealth. This unequal distribution has been growing since the late 1990s. We can all agree that income inequality sucks, but that isn’t going to get us anywhere. We need to talk about initiatives that each of us can MICHAEL begin to help bridge the gap SCHRAMM between the wealthy and the rest of us. While a variety of factors meld together to create a person’s wealth, one of the most influential and unused tactics involves good stock investment. The wealthiest 10 percent own 81 to 94 percent of financial assets — stocks being one of them. I’m sure you’ve heard that investing in stocks is a wise decision, but not until you understand the mechanics behind compounding interest do you realize how crucial investment in your 20s can be. To make sure we’re all on the same page with definitions, interest is the amount of money you receive for letting someone borrow your money. A lot of financial institutions provide interest — including stocks, bonds and banks. Let’s take banks as an example. If you put your money in a bank, you’re doing them a favor by giving them money. They actually use this money to invest in other projects to make money. To reward you, they provide compensation by depositing a fraction of your account holdings. This compensation is the interest that is added into your account. However, not all financial institutions provide the same interest rates, and some institutions provide interest that’s pitifully low. Banks, for example, have historically only provided a 0.17 percentage annual average. That means you’d only make 17 cents per year for every $100 you have deposited in the bank. Stock averages are much greater. Though the stock market is extremely volatile, it averages a six to seven percent interest rate per year. This is the highest average return of all forms of investment. It’s in this percentage change that you could become a millionaire while depositing around one-tenth of that money. The key lies in the idea of compounding interest for long periods of time. Compounding interest is similar to the idea of regular interest except that your interest accrues interest in the next year. Let’s use stock returns to elaborate on this. Say that you invest in a stock that costs $100 and, with interest, it increases by the average seven percent to $107. Then, if your stock rises by seven percent in the following year, it’ll be worth $114.49. Notice that the increase in the price
was 49 cents more than the first year. That’s due to the fact that the seven percent interest in the second period applied the seven-dollar increase in the first period. Now, this may not seem like a significant amount of money, but over decades of time, it is. If at age 20 you invested $1,000 in a stock, it grew by the average compound interest rate, and you took the money out when you were 50 years old, you would have $7,612.26. If you pulled it out at age 60, you would have almost $15,000. That’s almost 15 times the amount of money you originally invested. Let’s make it clear that this isn’t a get-richquick scheme. Compound interest requires decades of time to invest, but think of how revolutionary this could be for people with low income. Saving $1,000 in a year only requires putting $83.33 away each month. That can be difficult for those living on a low yearly income, but it’s possible for almost anyone. If you saved $1,000 every year in your 20s and 30s, you’re estimated to end up retiring in your 60s with slightly more than a quartermillion dollars. And if you want to invest more money, you have the ability to retire with even more money. Having this nest egg leads to an infinite amount of possibilities. You could allow the stocks to continue gaining value each year and sell off the extra value, allowing yourself a multi-thousand dollar endowment each year. You can use the money as a retirement account to have a financially sound retirement. You can will your children some of the money and allow them to spend what they want and invest the rest. Now, this process isn’t as easy as picking a stock and waiting 40 years. The stock market is extremely volatile, and investing in bad stocks could lead to you losing a lot of money. If you’re going to invest, you need to put a lot of time into understanding the process and identifying valuable stocks. But the time is worth it. It’s the way for the single mother putting $50 in her savings account to take control of her and her child’s financial future. It’s how the 20-year-old flipping burgers at McDonald’s has a chance at a secure future. So go on Amazon and buy a highly regarded beginner’s investment book. Take advantage of online websites dedicated to helping investors. Ask friends for advice on getting into investment, and tell other friends about the power of compound interest. Research companies until you find ones you want to invest in. Invest, invest, invest. Don’t avoid the stock market because you don’t know much about it. Though it’s not an immediate remedy for poverty, it’s the system that can diminish it. — Michael Schramm can be reached at mschramm@umich.edu.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor. Letters should be fewer than 300 words and must include the writer’s full name and University affiliation. We do not print anonymous letters. Send letters to tothedaily@michigandaily.com.
L
Not exactly ‘notorious’
ast Friday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg answered questions from commentators at Hill Auditorium during the University’s annual Tanner Lecture on Human Values. The auditorium was packed to capacity, with thousands of AARICA political nerds MARSH drooling in their seats simply for getting the chance to lay eyes on the “Notorious R.B.G.” R.B.G. has been celebrated across the country for the past few decades as a monumental leader in the women’s rights movement. Her popularity has been elevated to that of a classic cultural icon among America’s youth. Affectionately nicknamed Notorious R.B.G. (a moniker inspired by deceased rapper Notorious B.I.G.), Ginsburg has entered the minds and hearts of thousands of young nerds across the nation, becoming an iconic leader in the battle for equality among all human beings. During the lecture, Ginsburg spoke about several topics including law, women’s rights, professionalism, famous SCOTUS cases and giving advice how to best help others. With all eyes glued to her small, shockingly fashionable 81-yearold frame, Ginsburg noted, “If you think of yourself as a professional, well you’re not just going to get a job so you can turn over a buck … You’ve got a skill, and you can earn a living from it. But if you think of yourself as a true professional armed with a skill, you could help someone who is less fortunate.” Even before Ginsburg began working in the public sphere, she embodied this sentiment. When she began law school in 1956, she was one of nine women in her class of over 500 students. She graduated at the top of her class in 1959 from Columbia
W
Law School after attending Harvard Law for her first two years. However, gaining employment after excelling in law school was nearly impossible for our beloved idol. Ginsburg mentioned during her speech that there “weren’t many legal employers who were willing to take on a woman.” R.B.G. was eventually offered a position as a law clerk. After her initial struggle in the workforce, Ginsburg steadily built an admirable career as a law professional and an advocate for human rights — specifically gender rights. Her list of accomplishments is almost unnerving. She taught at the Rutgers University Law School. She became the director for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Women’s Rights Project, winning five of the six cases she argued before the Supreme Court. She was the first tenured female professor at Columbia Law School. She was appointed to the District of Columbia’s U.S. Court of Appeals by President Jimmy Carter and wrote more than 300 opinions for the court. And in 1993 — the year I was born — President Bill Clinton nominated Ginsburg to replace SCOTUS Justice Byron White. After her confirmation, she became the second female justice in our nation’s history. R.B.G.’s popularity began to increase after her ferocious dissents in the affirmative action case, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, and the voting rights case, Shelby County v. Holder. When alternatives to affirmative action were offered during oral arguments, Ginsburg famously responded in her dissent with, “only an ostrich could regard the supposedly race-neutral alternatives as race-unconscious.” Shortly after the dissents were released in June 2014, New York University law student Shana Knizhnik created the “Notorious R.B.G.” tumblr, propelling Ginsburg to Internet immortality among America’s young, tech-savvy demographic. The creation of this tumblr turned into something devoted R.B.G. fanatics have only dreamed
about since 1993. A Jan. 6 post from the site summarizes this notion and Ginsburg’s year in two simple sentences (emphasis mine): “This year, the Notorious R.B.G. had heart surgery, celebrated her 81st birthday, and served her 21st year on the Supreme Court of the United States. But most of all, 2014 was the year that everyone realized that she is a total badass.” In 2003, only nine percent of respondents in a poll by FindLaw. com were able to identify Ginsburg as a Supreme Court justice; in 2012, that number increased to 13 percent. It’s safe to say that in 2015, more Americans (especially more young Americans) are able to identify R.B.G. as a Supreme Court justice and a passionate advocate for human rights. But is it really accurate to deem Ginsburg “notorious?” According to Merriam-Webster online, the definition of notorious is “generally known and talked of; especially: widely and unfavorably known.” Oxford dictionary online has a similar definition for notorious: “famous or well known, typically for some bad quality or deed.” The nickname “Notorious R.B.G.” is funny, amusing and clever, yet, it’s not actually a good description of Ginsburg, her work or her ideology. While Ginsburg dissenters may deem her “notorious” for her liberal beliefs about human rights, in my book she is anything but. Ginsburg is renowned, esteemed, illustrious, astounding, influential, preeminent — but she is never, ever notorious. In everything she has done, Ginsburg has worked for the betterment of humankind. She is an incredible person, and I can only hope to accomplish a mere sliver of the good that she has done in the world. For now, I will follow Ginsburg’s parting advice: “Pursue — whatever it is — your passion.”
— Aarica Marsh can be reached at aaricama@umich.edu.
The Diva Cup revolution
omen are taught to be disgusted by their bodily functions. They are taught not to burp, fart or hiccup in public. When men experience natural cycles of the human body that occur throughout the day, farts are often funny, burps are loud and spit- MARIS ting shows a sign HARMON of true manliness. In a human body, the same two acts can be received in completely dichotomous ways depending on gender. A more subtle yet arguably more destructive societal construction that distinguishes the sexes is the perception of personal genitalia. I began the article with the discrepancies between reaction to bodily functions because it is often much easier to conceive how these differences have been constructed by our male-dominant culture. However, the general idolization of the penis and revulsion of the vagina begins at an early age and carries all the way into adulthood. Often, when a little boy plays with his penis, he is “adjusting it.” When a little girl touches her vagina, nearby adults laugh in discomfort and scold her to stop. Boys in middle school draw penises all over the walls and on each other’s faces. Girls in middle school pretend vaginas don’t exist. Kids in high school join the “pen15” club. Girls in high school don’t even learn about the clitoris in basic sexed. When you or a woman you know
first experienced her period, was it a moment of acceptance and peace, or was it a weird secret that people around her whispered about? Was putting in a tampon the first time you explored your own vagina? Was it the first time you felt acceptable doing so? We are taught to be disgusted by the blood coming out of our bodies. We are told to hide our tampons on the way to the bathroom so passersbys won’t dare know we have to stick cotton up our canals to absorb the blood. We are taught to shame girls who are experiencing that time of the month by asking if their emotions are being influenced by PMS. We are taught that we must stick a plastic applicator up our vaginas to insert a dry piece of cotton into our vaginal canals so that we don’t have to touch anything that might be “gross.” Well, here’s the truth: your body is not gross. It is natural and real. Your vagina is not a secret. If boys can draw penises on the walls, we can create vagina sculptures to display in the art school. It’s time for a revolution, and the revolution has arrived — DivaCups, MoonCups, Ruby Cups. They’re all the same, and they’re here to stay. Menstrual cups are a blood-catchment system that is inserted into the vagina and rests below the cervix. A person simply empties the cup of blood into the toilet when it is full, and boils the cup at the end of her cycle. The cup can be reused for up to 10 years. Why is this so amazing? First of all, menstrual cups are much healthier for your body. They don’t have chemicals or perfumes, they avoid dryness by catching your menstrual flow rather than absorbing it, and there is no risk
for toxic shock syndrome because they are made out of 100 percent medical silicone. Plastics and chemicals in pads and tampons can cause unwanted problems. The cup can be worn for up to 12 hours, and therefore allows for much more constant physical activity and traveling comfort. Secondly, the cost savings with diva cups are incredible. In one year if you spend around $100 on tampons, then in 10 years you are saving $1000 (some simple math)! Third, landfills are benefitting so much from the menstrual cup revolution. In one woman’s lifetime, she will use around 12,000 tampons or pads, all of which (hopefully) end up in landfills. Ruby-cup.com estimates that about four diva cups in one’s lifetime can equate to about 12,000 tampons. They also report that about 170,000 plastic tampon applicators are found along U.S. coastlines in a single year, each of which takes about 500 years to break down. Ruby Cup is a special brand of menstrual cup that works a bit like TOMS Shoes: buy one, give one to a schoolgirl in a developing country. This means that she has more flexibility to go to school all year round, stay healthy and contribute to her society. Girl by girl, we can change the world. The menstrual cup revolution can remodel our relationships with our vaginas, our blood, our earth and, most importantly, ourselves. We are reclaiming our rights to our bodies and our blood. The cup may seem small, but it’s changing the flow. — Maris Harmon can be reached at marhar@umich.edu.
Weekend Roundup
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Thursday, February 12, 2015 — 5A
FOUR THINGS TO WATCH
CAMPUS
When you’re not getting laid By REBECCA LERNER
Weekend Roundup Contributor
So
you’re alone on Valentine’s Day. Maybe you’ve just gone through a breakup, maybe you’re perpetually single or maybe you have the mutant cold currently travelling through the dorms and everyone refuses to get anywhere close to you, let alone touch you. But the college student’s best friend, TV, is here to comfort you and drown out the noises of your neighbor and her boyfriend who got inspired by the premiere of “Fifty Shades of Grey.” So, in keeping with the theme of love and commemoration of the day St. Valentine was martyred and buried in Italy, here are the episodes you should watch while you’re not getting laid:
“30 Rock” Anna Howard Shaw Day To elude the pressures of Valentine’s Day, Liz (Tina Fey) schedules a root canal, forgetting that she needs someone to drive her home. Watch if: You want to picture all your ex’s lined up in dental hygienist uniforms.
By CARLY NOAH
You were guaranteed a heap of valentines by placing a shoebox on your desk Back in the day, you received many Valentine’s Day well-wishes simply by making a cardboard mailbox. You didn’t have to worry about graciously accepting a gift you weren’t crazy about (read: boxes of raisins) because gifts could be given anonymously. Also, you left Valentine’s Day with a pile of free candy and adorable cards. It wasn’t hard work, either. The giving process wasn’t very difficult. All you had to do was head to your local dollar store and buy a pack of festive CatDog- or SpongeBob-themed cards. After signing your name on them, you were free to accept the rewards for your hard work. To sign “From” or “Love” was the hardest decision you had to make. With that being said, it could get tricky when
Thursday, 2/12
“Parks and Recreation” Operation Ann
“Love Shack” Valentines on the Diag 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Diag
Leslie (Amy Poehler) tries to find love for her best friend, Ann (Rashida Jones), by enlisting her co-workers to bring blind dates to the department’s Valentine’s Day dance. The real star of the episode is the recently broken-up-with Chris (Rob Lowe), the morbid DJ of the event who continuously tells a room full of couples that love is fleeting. Watch if: Seeing Ron Swanson get excited by puzzles will get you out of your break-up funk.
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered Xander (Nicholas Brendon) decides to get back at Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) for breaking up with him by casting a love spell on her. However, this plan goes terribly awry when every girl in Sunnydale except Cordelia falls madly in love with him. Watch if: You’ve been considering the dark arts as a source of revenge. Trust me, it’s not worth it.
Why Valentine’s Day rocked in grade school Weekend Roundup Contributor
EVENTS
it came how you wanted to sign your name. From personal experience, I usually reserved “Love” for my closest friends, and if I was feeling particularly brave, a member of the opposite gender. And of course, the food (read: FREE food). Valentine’s Day class parties used to be a huge deal. Cupcakes, cookies, chocolate, punch and candy hearts were generously provided by the mothers of kids in your class. A heart-shaped paper plate filled to the brim with sugary treats, accompanied by a plastic cup of red punch, was the best part of Valentine’s Day celebrations. Today, the story has changed. You’re responsible for selecting a cute and funny — but still personal and meaningful — present for your significant other. You’re also tasked with picking the perfect outfit, restaurant and ambience to celebrate the holiday. Or, there is the alternative problem: no plans. When you find yourself saddened or stressed, remember the glory days of elementary school Valentine’s Day.
Friday, 2/13 Charity rose sale 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Michigan Union
Global Divestment Day 1 p.m. The Diag “The Most Open, Open Show” 6 p.m. Duderstadt Center
FILE PHOTO/Daily
“Orange is the New Black” sex contest, betrayal and eye rolling over Valenthe description of love as tine’s Day, the inmates at You Also Have a Pizza This episode focuses on the loves of Litchfield, which will both warm and break your icy heart. As always, the rest of the cast has very different opinions on love and Valentine’s Day. There is a
intense pain. You might cry when Suzanne looks at Morella with those crazy eyes and says “I know something about loving people who aren’t smart enough to be loved back. I learned a secret that I can tell you. They don’t deserve it.” For all the
Litchfield still need any kind of love they can get. Watch if: Even after everything that’s happened, you still want to believe in all this stuff. When Crazy Eyes tells you that that’s brave, you won’t feel quite so alone anymore.
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Sports
6A — Thursday, February 12, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
‘M’ heads to Illinois on three-game skid By DANIEL FELDMAN Daily Sports Editor
PAUL SHERMAN/Daily
Michigan coach Red Berenson has been impressed with the quality of Big Ten hockey, despite the conference’s struggles.
Wolverines maintain hope for conference By JEREMY SUMMITT Daily Sports Editor
For the old diehards of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association, this year might be as good as any to wish for its return, even if only as a replacement for a lackluster Big Ten season. It isn’t the drama and intensity that has held back the Big Ten, but rather its teams’ combined poor showings in non-conference games paired with plenty of inconsistency that has kept it in the lower echelon of college hockey leagues. Even with what has been a season of underachieving for many Big Ten teams, the spectacle of Big Ten hockey hasn’t faded for Michigan coach Red Berenson. “I just think it’s a new level,” he said. “I can’t tell you all the teams are better than the teams in the CCHA, but the venues are. And it just seems like it’s a big-league environment, so that’s what I like about the Big Ten.” Berenson might be a man of few complaints this year, as his 12th-ranked Wolverines and No. 19 Penn State hold the top two spots in the conference standings. But even with two ranked teams and Minnesota on the verge of breaking into the national polls, the Big Ten still might send only one program to the 16-team NCAA Tournament. “These programs, just because they’re in the Big Ten, (it) doesn’t give them an automatic entitlement to be, you know, a top-10 or top-20 (program),” Berenson said. “We all go through cycles.” Wisconsin has been stuck in an infinite loop of disastrous proportions this year, winning just two games — the fewest of any team in the country. Ohio State has been plagued by injuries, Michigan State is just now starting to find a groove with a month left in the season, and Minnesota had been in a twomonth slump before sweeping the Buckeyes last weekend. “Minnesota is better than
their record,” Berenson said. “They’re going to surface, they’re going to be there, and we’re hoping to be there. And we’ll see if Ohio State and Michigan State get something going. It could be a down year, but wait until it’s over.” In the meantime, it’s best to sit back and enjoy the ride. “We just have really good programs, really good recruiters, really good coaching, and it’s a really good league,” said senior forward Zach Hyman. When the CCHA still existed, games were rarely televised. Now, the Big Ten Network carries games every weekend throughout conference play. “I think that playing against big name schools every night, I think that’s huge,” Hyman said. “I think Big Ten Network is awesome, being on that and getting that kind of publicity. We didn’t have that in the CCHA.” Along with publicity come new rivalries, too, and those rivalries become amplified with a larger viewership. Berenson and Hyman admitted that the games against Miami (Ohio) and Notre Dame were notable losses that came with Big Ten hockey, but those games rarely reached the same levels of regional and national audiences. “It’s too bad we don’t play those teams,” Berenson said. “Now, maybe we will in the future in some non-conference games, but that’s the way it is. “In the meantime, we get to play Minnesota and Wisconsin every year, and Penn State will become a rivalry, Ohio State is getting better and Michigan State is Michigan State, so they’re always going to be a rival.” And without conference realignment, a team like Penn State might not have had the chance to prove itself on the biggest stage. In just their second year as a Division I program, the
Nittany Lions have tripled their win total from last year and rank 22nd out of 59 teams in RPI. The Big Ten has been a sound base for recruiting and has held an instrumental role in garnering more interest around college hockey. Conference expansion might not be in the immediate future, and the six current programs will have to cope with a significantly smaller conference than the rest of the leagues. But the Big Ten region offers just as much opportunity for growth. Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois offer logical choices for expansion opportunities in the next decade. All three schools currently have club hockey programs and reside in regions with strong hockey fan bases. Sure, Iowa and Nebraska don’t have NHL franchises, but Iowa does boast seven teams in the USHL, a recruiting hotbed for top programs around the country. Michigan sophomore defenseman Michael Downing was a product of the Dubuque Fighting Saints before enrolling at Michigan. Nebraska, too, has three USHL teams, including the Omaha Lancers, who have a league-record seven titles. If they became a Division I program, the Cornhuskers would have a natural rival in Nebraska-Omaha, a team enjoying great success this season as the No. 4 team in this week’s USCHO.com poll. Much work must to be done to bring the Big Ten into the realm of the CCHA’s dominance throughout its 42-year history. Big Ten hockey might never reach the prominence of Big Ten basketball and football, either. It’s a work in progress and stands as a reality many hockey fans will have to accept. It’s not hard to tell that Big Ten hockey remains in its infancy, but don’t sleep on its potential just yet.
“I just think it’s a new level.”
Spike Albrecht had been thinking about holding a playersonly meeting. The Michigan men’s basketball team’s 72-54 home loss to Iowa last Michigan week gave him the perfect at Illinois opportunity. Matchup: In addition Michigan 13-11; to the junior Illinois 16-8 guard, senior When: Thursforward Max day 9 P.M. Bielfeldt, Where: State junior guard Farm Center Caris LeVert, TV/Radio: sophomore ESPN guard Derrick Walton Jr. and sophomore forward Zak Irvin each spoke up as well, delivering a simple message. “(Make) sure everyone knows the expectations here,” Albrecht said. “And don’t fall into that trap of (thinking) what we’re doing is acceptable.” With Michigan (6-6 Big Ten, 13-11 overall) fresh off three straight losses and traveling to Champaign on Thursday to take on Illinois, a lot is on the line. Expectations are still high, and an NCAA Tournament bid is still the goal. At ninth place in the Big Ten, Michigan’s chances of climbing back into the top half of the standings with six games to go in conference play are slim to none. Still, Michigan coach John Beilein remains hopeful his team can make some noise. “This is a year where you could be in the middle of this pack and still get into the NCAA Tournament, because you look
nationwide, and also just look at our league,” Beilein said. “What I love about our opportunity is we have the opportunity now with Illinois — who we’re fighting with somewhere in that pack — Michigan State, Ohio State. All (are) opportunities that you wouldn’t get at another level to really increase our résumé if we’re going to have any chance at the postseason.” The focus of Wednesday’s practice was Illinois (6-5, 16-8), which is led by guards Malcolm Hill and Kendrick Nunn. In the last nine games, Hill and Nunn have accounted for 52.9 percent of the Illini’s scoring. The purpose of Tuesday’s practice, though, was for the Wolverines to improve on the basics, even if it meant practicing drills usually reserved for September, like ballhandling drills. “We’ve got to keep working, but at the same time, if you saw (Tuesday’s) practice it was about catching on two feet,” Beilein said. “You can do all the game planning you want for Illinois, but if we still drop a two-onone fast break and bobble it, it doesn’t work.” Michigan could have been in a different position if a couple of possessions had gone differently in recent games. According to Bielfeldt, despite mental mistakes from the younger players and injuries to LeVert and Walton, expectations remain just as high for the
Wolverines. And the NIT is not part of such plans. Whether Michigan eventually makes the NCAA Tournament or the NIT, one priority will stay constant for the Wolverines: improve every day and take it game by game. “That’s the most important thing right now,” Albrecht said. “It’s just making Michigan better. … We’ve got to work out some kinks, and as we continue to develop and figure that out, we can look more into other teams and their tendencies.” While the next couple games will reveal if Michigan has even the slightest chance for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, there are other implications as well. “It’s important that we see this part of the future,” Beilein said. “I’m looking so forward to that, but in the meantime, I’m not giving up on today.” NOTES: Beilein said Walton has “been getting every day, but certainly (is) not ready yet” to return to action. His hope is for the sophomore to come back before the season ends, but he does not have a timetable. “When he can run pain-free, he’s going to get back out there,” Beilein said. “Now obviously there’s some rehab involved for him to get his cardio back up — he can’t do that yet, but when he can, I would say two to three days later we would put him in a game.”
“It’s important that we see this part of the future.”
Michigan in the final countdown By BRAD WHIPPLE Daily Sports Writer
It has become a rocky road for the Michigan women’s basketball team. Two weeks ago, the Wolverines (6-7 Big Ten, 14-10 overall) lost to both Nebraska and No. 5 Maryland. Then, last Thursday, Michigan narrowly defeated Michigan State despite allowing the Spartans to trim a 22-point lead to six. Sunday, against then-No. 21 Rutgers, the Wolverines almost grabbed their second lead of the game with 3:10 left, when senior guard Shannon Smith pushed through three defenders under the basket, made a layup and narrowed the deficit to two. But even a nearly impossible play by a 5-foot-7 guard wasn’t enough to ignite Michigan to an upset. Two days later in Columbus, Smith continued to spearhead the offense. With a layup, she topped off a 13-point lead over the Buckeyes for the Wolverines’ largest of the night, but they squandered that cushion in the final nine minutes, ultimately losing by four points. Michigan has just five opponents to face before Big Ten Tournament — three below the Wolverines in the standings and one that they have already defeated once this year. But even then, a lot is coming into question. It’s hard to say which Michigan squad will show up on any given night. It’s hard to say if the Wolverines’ lightsout shooters will be lights-out. It’s hard to say if this team’s defense can hold steady and not allow two different players on two different teams to score 19 second-half points. And given the inconsistencies, it’s hard to say if Michigan will reach the NCAA Tournament. With a question mark hovering over the Wolverines’ postseason, the Daily breaks down this year’s team as it approaches the end of the regular season. THE FULL 40: Though Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico has stressed to her team that it needs to put together a
ROBERT DUNNE/Daily
Katelynn Flaherty has gone cold from 3-point range in the past two games.
full 40 minutes of basketball, the Wolverines haven’t done so in their past two games. Michigan ran out of gas when it nearly upset Rutgers and held a large lead over Ohio State before giving it away. Winning one or two of those would have been a much-needed résumé booster. Instead, the Wolverines let both teams stomp on them as their defense shut down, and allowed Buckeye guard Kelsey Mitchell to score 26 total points. The defense is going to need to better pinpoint and eliminate the main scoring threats before it’s too late. Michigan will also need to fight past the fatigue with time winding down and its season on the line. DOWNTOWN SHOOTING: At the beginning of the season, Barnes Arico said freshman guard Katelynn Flaherty doesn’t play like a freshman. But recently, she has started look like one. In the last two games, Flaherty has gone a combined 6-for-28, with only one 3-pointer, missing all of her open looks against Rutgers. Meanwhile, sophomore guard Siera Thompson hasn’t been able to make up for the loss in scoring, as she too has been on a cold streak, going 7-for-31 in the last two games. Though Flaherty and Thompson combined for 21 points from beyond the arc against Michigan State, they have gone downhill since. For Michigan to win out, it’s going to need its best shooters to be efficient from long range. THE BOARD GAME:
Though the Wolverines shot 26.2 percent against the Scarlet Knights, double-digit leads were hard to come by as a result of Michigan’s efforts on the glass. Senior forwards Cyesha Goree and Nicole Elmblad have been getting batted around in the paint, but they’ve been important contributors nonetheless. Elmblad posted her second double-double (14 points, 15 rebounds) against Ohio State alongside Goree’s 14 boards. Elmblad’s aggressiveness allows her to draw fouls often, and Goree’s toughness fares well against almost any matchup. If both can stay out of foul trouble late in the game, they will continue to be the staples for a team trying to keep its NCAA Tournament dream alive. HOT OFF THE BENCH: While some of Michigan’s better players have had to come off the court due to foul trouble, Barnes Arico has been getting a lot of production from her bench. Freshman forward Jillian Dunston has played 30 minutes in the last two games, collecting 12 total rebounds. She played a big role against Rutgers, filling in for Goree, who had to leave the game with four fouls. Against Ohio State, junior guard Madison Ristovski replaced sophomore guard Danielle Williams, who has been scoreless in four of her last five starts. Ristovski finished with five points against the Buckeyes, including one triple. If necessary, Barnes Arico has efficient options to fall back on.
the b-side B
The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | Thursday, February 12, 2015
“Better than sex, twice as often.”
University improv group refuses to write scripts see pg 3B
Washed-up novelist tries to recapture old glory see pg 3B
Rome barely good enough for Daily Food Snob see pg 4B
Unable to reach wider audience, Every Three Weekly featured in The Michigan Daily Every Three Weekly separates itself from the pack. “We like to have this opportunity to interact Daily Arts Writer with our readers,” said the E3W’s Editor in Chief, LSA junior Marie Michels, when asked why they As students walk through the Diag in the used this method. “It’s a time when we can talk to middle of the day, they may come across a familiar them face to face. We can often tell jokes as we’re scene of two or three figures holding newspapers. passing out the issue, which is exciting.” The figures are saying something, and as you get This personal method of distribution is closer, you begin to make out their voices, shouting smart, as many students may not have the time or “Every Three Weekly!” energy to seek out copies on their own. And, ulti Some students ignore them and walk right mately, it is a testament to the Every Three Weekly by. Others approach them and take a copy — they’ve staff’s pride in their work. eagerly awaited the newest edition of the Univer “After we’ve spent three weeks putting tosity’s student-run newspaper that specializes exgether an issue, we’re so excited about the content clusively in humor and satire. They chuckle at the we’ve produced, and we’ve worked so hard to put it clever headlines and stuff the newspaper in their all together,” Michels said. backpacks, looking forward to reading the full ar The Every Three Weekly was founded in ticles after class. Regardless of how the students on 1997 by a group of students in the College of Engithe Diag respond, the Every Three Weekly staffers neering who hoped to create a medium for humor never complain as they stand in the sometimes blisabout life at the University. Inspired by The Onion, tering cold, presenting the beautiful copy they’ve the newspaper format is easily digestible for readbeen working so hard on for three weeks. ers. But learning to write in that style requires a bit No other University publication makes use of of a learning curve. such a direct method of distribution — one way the See E3W, Page 2B
By MICHAEL FLYNN
Arts
2B — Thursday, February 12, 2015
E3W From Page 1B “You can’t just write something that’s funny,” said Engineering freshman Peter Flanagan, a recently hired E3W writer. “You have to write something that’s funny and fits the guidelines of a standardized paper, so we’re actually parodying something. It’s difficult in that regard, getting used to it, but all the editors are really talented, so they all know how to reformat a joke to fit the guidelines, so they’re really helpful to new writers.” The combination of humor and a standardized format is an ideal one for students for whom writing is usually not one of their favorite activities. “It’s a good experience,” Flanagan said. “Engineers have to take a couple of English classes, so might as well get it in a club, too.” While the Every Three Weekly does have a distinguished and recognizable style, it’s not immune to innovation. The publication is constantly trying to think of other ways to reach out to students and gain new readers. In addition to publishing its articles on a website, the paper has recently unveiled The Click House, a section of the website that satirizes online click-bait articles, similar to The Onion’s ClickHole. “(New formats for the Every Three Weekly) are still up in the air and being debated,” Flanagan said. “With any form of web content, there’s also the opportunity to create videos, which is vastly out of our realm and scope right now. But it’s been talked about, because there’s a lot of joke opportunities to be made there.” The writing process at the Every Three Weekly begins with a meeting between the writers and editors where they pitch concepts for articles. “We all just bring ideas to the table,” said Flanagan, describing the writing process. “We all listen to each other’s ideas, and we all vote on which ones are good.” Verbally pitching ideas is essential in to determine which ideas seem to work the best. “It’s just which one gets the most laughs,” Flanagan said. A week later, the writers and editors meet to edit the articles. The paper does not publish every article the writers present to them, both due to the paper’s insistence on quality and the physical limitations of the newspaper format. “I’ve submitted two (articles),” said Flanagan. “I feel like both of them have an OK shot of getting in the paper.”
Any given issue of the Every Three Weekly brings a variety of laughter, from the “Oh yeah, that’s something silly that I can relate to,” chuckle to the “I can’t believe I just read that!” guffaw. Topics range from personal relationships and fraternity antics to serious social issues such as Ebola and the Keystone XL pipeline. Given the publication’s predilection for subversive humor and controversial topics, one might wonder if there are any topics the Every Three Weekly won’t write about. The answer is yes.
The E3W’s agenda is not a political one, but a populist one. “We’ll never approach rape jokes, under any circumstances,” Michels said. But humor based on race and political issues is fair game, with a condition. “We try to always make sure that the joke is pointed at the system of oppression and not the victims of oppression,” Michels said. A recent example of that tenet is the article “Unarmed white teen gets brutally slapped on wrist,” which was written in response to the Michael Brown shooting and subsequent controversy. “We wanted to make a joke on something as newsworthy as these murders,” said Michels, “but we knew that under no circumstances could we alienate the victims. So instead we pointed the joke at this oppressive system and the controversy surrounding it.”
“... clearly, University students value humor.” By setting up a fictional scenario and writing about it in a mock-outraged tone, the Every Three Weekly managed to use humor to deliver their commentary on a tragic, controversial event and draw attention to the absurdity of the situation. The publication is dedicated to insightful political commentary in addition to laughs. Not everybody appreciates
the joke, however, which has led to moments of controversy for the publication throughout the years. In 2005, the paper published an article titled “Phelps to major in pussy,” which led to an associate athletic director appealing to the University Activities Center executive board to limit the newspaper’s funding. Briarwood Mall took objection to the paper when it accidentally referenced the mall by name in an article about a pedophilic Santa, titled “Mall Santa tells child exactly what he wants for Christmas.” The paper was repeatedly protected from censorship by various Supreme Court precedents and University initiatives. While satire can be protected on paper and through laws, there are some things that cannot be protected against, as made terrifyingly plain after the Charlie Hebdo attack in France. As proponents and practitioners of satire, the Every Three Weekly staffers were shocked and saddened. “In our meetings, we’re constantly laughing,” Michels said. “We’re constantly joking about things that, honestly, we shouldn’t be joking about. In all of our discussions about Charlie Hebdo, there wasn’t the usual joviality.” However, this did not slow the paper down, and they committed themselves to paying tribute to the victims of the attack through humor. The result was an infographic titled “How satirical newspapers are dealing with the Charlie Hebdo tragedy.” The infographic perfectly captures the paper’s perfect mixture of humor, social commentary and sense of morals. The Every Three Weekly’s agenda is not a political one, but a populist one, seeking to reflect the opinions of the student body and show there is someone out there who understands their concerns, while the University administration may not. One of the paper’s most notable achievements in that regard occurred beyond the scope of the newspaper format. “We created a fictional candidate to run in the CSG elections,” Michels said. “He won. He could not be installed in the student government because he didn’t exist, but we created a little bit of a wave there.” The candidate for the 2011 elections was Karlos Marks, with Joseph Stallone as a running mate. Even though the fictional candidate couldn’t be installed, students saw Karlos Marks as a symbol of their dissatisfaction with the student government, and the numerous votes for him were a clear statement of that. Moreover, the stu-
TRAILER REVIEW It’s those eyes, those big, crazy eyes — when you look into them, they don’t so much as look back, but stare deep Ainto the soul. You’re trans- ‘Fifty fixed, lost in an abyss. It Shades of doesn’t mat- Buscemi’ ter that one of them might be lazy, or they often appear puffy; rather, it’s what the eyes, those big Buscemi eyes stand for. They’re the eyes of a man who knows what he wants, who thinks big, who, when he orders coffee, demands it be filled no less than six times. But how many secrets do they hide? How far must we wade to get to that most base layer, that darkest shade of Mr. Buscemi? It’s most refreshing to see
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily
The Every Three Weekly staff writers pretend that they’re not taking Buzzfeed quizzes.
dent support of Karlos Marks illustrated the Every Three Weekly’s ability to establish a meaningful connection with University students through its combination of laughs and truth. Above all else, the Every Three Weekly represents the idea that humor can be a very valuable aspect of life. “My favorite thing that humor does is allow us to take a second look at the things that surround us, the choices we make, the ways that we act and the cultures we participate in,” Michels said. “We can take a second look in a way that doesn’t startle or offend. It’s a humorous look, and we can challenge ourselves and challenge the way we perceive things, all while sharing this humor that we can all really relate to.” Sharing his perspective on the topic, Flanagan described the experience of seeing ComCo perform in Angell Hall. “They filled one of the Angell Hall rooms, and they were charging admission, too,” Flanagan said. “College students
on a budget, who could do anything else on a Friday night, decided to go to ComCo. So clearly, University of Michigan students value humor.” “And there are so many different forms of it,” Flanagan continued. “The Every Three Weekly and ComCo are completely different types of humor. But you go to the source that you find to fit yourself better, so we’re filling that void if you will.”
“... just being in people’s faces, being loud and aggravating ...” It is true that there are many humor-based organizations throughout the University, each with its own style. While one person may prefer the structure of the Every Three Weekly, another may be taken
by the rapid-fire unpredictability of ComCo, the inspired weirdness of the Gargoyle or the straightforward jokes of the LOL ROFL Comedy Club. Whatever a student may prefer, the Every Three Weekly exists to provide its unique version of humor, and the writers’ dedication to their craft has ensured that they will remain an institution for as long as University students want a laugh. Nobody can predict the Every Three Weekly’s next move, what subjects it will tackle and what new formats it will explore. But there is one thing people can be sure of: sometime within the next three weeks, another issue of the Every Three Weekly will be completed, rife with fake news and laughter, and the staffers will once again set out into the Diag to try and get the paper in as many hands as possible. “We figured just being in people’s faces, being loud and aggravating is the best way to do that,” Michels said with a smile.
EPISODE REVIEW This week’s episode of “Archer” saw the spy gang stuck in an elevator on their way to an early morning meetB ing. This meant that we got one ‘Archer’ of the few times in the series Season 6, where all of the principal Episode 5 cast with the Thursdays exception of at 10 p.m. Malory (Jessica Walter, “Arrest- FX ed Development”) were together for the entire episode. The idea was a novel approach — relying on dialogue while maintaining a single setting. Even if it wasn’t exactly ground-break-
FX
ing or original, the characters brought a flavor and humor that was enough to carry the episode. Particular highlights were Pam (Amber Nash, “Frisky Dingo”) channeling
Omar from “The Wire” while drinking malt liquor early in the morning. In short, another entertaining installment in the excellent espionage comedy. -DREW MARON
MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW
HBO
a more fleshed out character in Mr. Grey, as portrayed in supercut by Mr. Buscemi. He’s now less a cardboard cutout, barely able to stand on his own, than a rounded character with faults, desires, even limits to that dark, erotic nature. When the
going gets rough, he demands it stop. This Mr. Grey oozes power, maybe not the kind of power you were expecting, but a greater power all the same. Just look into his eyes, they’re calling … “Mr. Buscemi will see you now.” -JAMIE BIRCOLL
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The rodeo-centric “Living for Love” video features Madonna as matador surrounded by a flock of bulls, Bhowever these aren’t just any ‘Living kind of bulls. They are ripped for Love’ male dancers rocking Madonna rhinestoned Boy Toy Inc. facemasks and horns. Throughout the video she is circled by these glamorous horror-film reminiscent creatures, tempting them with her cape and fending them off with awkward choreography. She rides one in typical bull fashion, fights one in plank position and finally dances in tandem with them. The message here is clear: The rhinestone-masked bulldancers represent unhealthy relationships. They may appear shiny, but in the end they are only destructive. Madge tempts these relationships and struggles with their allure (see her near make-out with a horned man). In the
BOY TOY INC
ends she dances with a group minus their masks, embraces positive relationships and is “gonna carry on” while “living for love.” Great song, but an overly stylized video. Several outfit changes for a single-scene video, well because a Madonna video cannot simply have one or two outfits. The red and black tones work in the first half of the video, but they eventually digress into something similar to an Instagram filter everyone avoids. Upon defeating the final bull-dancer, roses fall to the
ground and Madge throws her cape. The video closes with a Friedrich Nietzsche quote: “Man is the cruelest animal. At tragedies, bullfights and crucifixions he has felt best on earth; and when he invented hell for himself that was his very heaven.” Ultimately, the video takes what is a phenomenal, uplifting song, twists it around and shoves it into a metaphorical box. Consequently, the song loses much of its original glory by the video’s attempts to be more than a music video. -CHRISTIAN KENNEDY
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Thursday, February 12, 2015 — 3B
LITERARY COLUMN
‘Mockingbird’ sequel raises questions about authorship T
he University declaring a snow day last Monday. Thoroughly enjoying Katy Perry’s halftime show (shout out to left shark). The return of crushed velvet as an acceptable material to make clothing out GRACE of. There PROSNIEWSKI are some things in life you just don’t see coming. And last week, the literary community was thrown quite a curveball. Last Tuesday, it was announced that reclusive author Harper Lee was going to publish her second novel, a sort-of sequel to her magnum opus, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The new book, titled “Go Set a Watchman,” will feature an adult Scout and is set to be released in July of this year. The single-work author of one of the greatest novels of American literature announcing a new book after half a century’s worth of refusal? Yeah, it’s a big deal. Most initial reaction to the news was, rightfully, stunned elation. The fervor, however, has slightly cooled over some troubling allegations, namely that Lee, now 88, is being exploited by her lawyer and publishers. Lee’s only published novel to date, 1960’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” won the Pulitzer Prize, and to this day continues to be taught in schools around the country. The book focuses on tomboy Scout Finch, who along with her brother Jem and wid-
owed father Atticus, live in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s. Atticus, a lawyer, is tasked with defending Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman. The trial and subsequent aftermath forces Scout to come to terms with the racial inequalities of her society, especially within the justice system. Like her famous character Boo Radley, Harper Lee has long been known as something of a recluse. Since her initial skyrocket to literary fame, Lee has refused almost all interviews and speaking engagements, and published only a few essays in the past 50 years. And, up until last week, she had never expressed an interest in releasing another book. The timing of “Go Set a Watchman” is somewhat puzzling. Last year, Lee lost her sister Alice, who was 103. Alice, a lawyer, had staunchly protected Lee’s privacy and estate until her death. And Harper Lee has been in relatively poor health since having a stroke in 2007. She resides in an assisted living home where she is wheelchair bound, nearly blind and deaf and suffering from memory loss. Attempts to exploit Lee’s fragile state have been made before. In 2007, Lee signed the rights to “To Kill a Mockingbird” to a literary agent because her eyesight was too weak to read the contract. The case was settled out of court. Frustratingly, the only input we’ve heard from Lee about this new book has always been vetted through her lawyer and publisher. Even her editor admitted that he didn’t think anyone spoke directly to Lee.
Lee recently released a prepared statement saying, “I’m alive and kicking and happy as hell with the reactions to Watchman.” And, of course, no one should attempt to discredit Lee’s sentiments simply because of her age and health history. But these statements all go through a variety of channels before they reach the public. Lee doesn’t just tweet out her thoughts like some authors. All her communication with the public is vulnerable to manipulation by third parties. And no one, not lawyers, publishers or even Lee herself, has come forward to explain the why. Why is she deciding to publish a novel that was originally turned down and that she has seemingly had no interest in releasing until now? Sure, people can, and do, change their minds all the time. But Lee’s entire life has been a study in deliberate and vigilant privacy. The fact of the matter is many people stand to make a lot of money off “Go Set a Watchman.” And people often do horrible things, including exploiting the elderly, in pursuit of a windfall. Whether “Go Set a Watchman” lives up to the literary prowess of “To Kill a Mockingbird” isn’t really the question here. Lee’s legacy as a canonical American author is almost untouchable. However, the entire situation brings up some important questions about the rights of artists and the public’s sense of entitlement to our favorite writers. Prosniewski is waiting for “Lord of the Flies II: The Hunger Games.” To help her pass the time, email gpros@umich.edu.
VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily
Members of the Midnight Book Club practice a scene.
SINGLE REVIEW Fresh off of announcing albums set to drop later this year, French producer Madeon and Passion Pit join forces on B “Pay No Mind” – a pop-fueled ‘Pay No single that Mind’ unfortunately delivers exactly what listeners Madeon would expect. feat. The track plays heavily on both Passion artists’ general Pit soundscape. For Columbia Passion Pit, this means cloaking not-so-pretty subject matter with lead singer Michael Angelakos’s charming indie-pop falsetto. Madeon provides his typically funky beat, which does a good job of highlighting Angelakos’s vocals. The beats are bouncy and the chorus is repetitive, playing more like a Passion
VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily
Midnight Book Club prepares for a long-form improv performance.
Midnight Book Club stays off the script By ALEX INTNER Daily Arts Writer
As the members of the Midnight Book Club arrived at Mason Hall for one of their biweekly rehearsals, they were talking to one another about their weekends and the day’s snowy weather. As one member went to find an open room for rehearsal, five others sat down around a table to talk to me. The Midnight Book Club is a long-form improv group on campus that started three years ago by “a group of friends who just cared about improv and each other,” according to Business junior Lauren Barrett. Its style of improv is different from what you’d see on “Whose Line Is It Anyway” in that they use suggestions and ideas to build 30- to 40-minute sketches, much longer than their short-form counterparts. Barrett went on to describe what attending their one-hour, free shows is like. “You’d sit in a room. And then you’d hear ‘Uptown Funk.’ And then we’d run in and dance. And then we’d turn off ‘Uptown Funk’ and introduce ourselves. Then we’ll take a suggestion from the audience that could literally be any word. And then we’ll kind of do an opening … It can be anything we want it to be.” When doing a show, they always take the first word they hear from the audience. It leads to completely different results each time. “There’s no scale of goodness on suggestion ’cause it’s, if someone is like ‘McDonalds,’ it doesn’t necessarily need to be set in McDonalds, it’s whatever you take from the word,” said LSA sophomore Anna Garcia. “So, if it’s like ‘playpen,’ ‘coke,’ whatever.” She recalled one scene they did where the first suggestion was “balls.” Barrett added that the suggestions are “more of a jumping-off point than a stickingto point.” Music, Theatre and Dance junior Graham Techler compared improv to playing basketball. Barrett advanced the parallel by saying, “You never know what basket you’re gonna shoot. Also, you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.” They also strongly consider their relationship with the audience. “The relationship between audience and improviser is differ-
ent in that it’s not like traditional theater with them expecting this performance,” Barrett said. “They’re part of the creation process. They’re watching us create this show on our feet. It’s more inclusive. They’re let in on an inside joke.” One of the highlights of their semester so far has been attending the Chicago Open Regional tournament for the second time. They competed against teams from all over the Midwest, including teams from Bowling Green State and Grace College. LSA sophomore Joe Ambrose was very impressed by the caliber of schools that were on the trip. “There was such a range of schools,” he said. “Some kids, like us, this is a student org for us, it’s an extracurricular … For some, like at the Columbia College of Art in Chicago, their major was comedy and writing. They had a group of 75 people.” Garcia continued the subject, adding, “They took classes such as Improv 101 and they get credit for that ... They all have coaches. They have someone to ground everyone and continuously check in.” Emily Bice, an LSA and Music, Theatre and Dance freshman who attended the tournament for the first time, was interested in the highs and lows of delivering such intense performances. “It was cool to see people who were at their peak, well not the peak, but who have really finessed and worked really hard on improv and people who were just learning. Decide where we fall on that. I thought it was an amazing experience.” The group has a lot coming up in the semester. Garcia said they have plans to perform with Michigan State University’s ROIAL Players in East Lansing. She also mentioned that the group is planning on increasing their partnership with Basement Arts, a student-run theater group. “They have these slots called late nights. Basically at 11 p.m. at Walgreen Drama Center,” Garcia said. “They give you an hour to do whatever you want. We’ve done a couple of those and they want to work closer in partnership, so hopefully we’ll be doing more late nights.” Since everything for each show is made up, there are a host of humorous moments from rehears-
als that never see the light of day. Ambrose shared one of his favorite scenes: “(I) had a really fun one with Anna where we were at the zoo. We were a couple dating. It became so real to me that for a second I thought there was some potential. That was fun. I was like, not single for a second.” Techler added that he liked one “when Lauren (Barrett) was the mother whose son had fallen into the gorilla pit so she had mad PTSD.” Barrett continued, “I was basically playing Rafiki from ‘Lion King.’ I was just shaking.” Garcia recalled a scene from the tournament where Barrett was a math teacher about to be laid off and lame-duck President Riley Taggart was the principal laying her off. Barrett discussed the scene by saying, “I wanted to be this variable in a linear equation that was greater than zero so I was worth something, or even a constant, but he thought I was a variable that was equal to or less than zero and that I needed to go.” “They were dropping formulaic equations … the audience was like ‘ah, what?,’ ” Garcia added. Each member at the table clearly enjoys performing in this manner, but each enjoys different aspects of improvisation. Techler started by saying, “What I like about improv is trying to find, trying to discover what’s going on in a group of people without getting to debrief on it. Every improv scene feels like you’ve been caught by police with friend and you have to make up a story. You have to seem like you’re on the same page even when you’re not necessarily.” Garcia spoke to the aspect of improv called “group mind”: “When we have that on stage, in rehearsal, it’s the most incredible feeling, to have your partner understand you, know where you want to be going (and) support you in getting there.” Bice continued, “I feel like college, so much of it is so formulaic … The cool thing about improv is for two hours twice a week you go and there’s nothing you have to formulate ... You get to go big and wild and forget about everything you have to think about and achieve.” The Midnight Book Club’s next show is Feb. 13 at 8 p.m. at the Michigan League Hussey Room. Tickets are free.
COLUMBIA
Pit remix than an original of either artist. While both Madeon and Passion Pit, when working individually, have created great works, their combination falls rather flat. The single is a fun pop tune, but doesn’t go any further than that – it is something to nod along to but not to be remembered. Passion Pit only scratches the surface of their ability to
capture complex human emotion and package it as dynamic indie pop, as they did on Gossamer, and Madeon’s melody, while bubbly, lacks the pungency of some of his other tracks. In an attempt to not step on each other’s artistic toes, the pairing does little more than produce a radio-ready reworking of their signature sounds. -CARLY SNIDER
KATHERINE COLOSIMO AND ROSE STACEY/Daily
Video of The Midnight Book Club, a student run longform improvisational comedy group.
Arts
4B — Thursday, February 12, 2015
ARTIST
IN
PROFILE
VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily
Poet Linda Gregerson has published five books and teaches creative writing at the University.
By CAROLYN DARR Daily Arts Writer
Someone who describes lines as gorgeous and certain writing as a miracle can only be a poet. Surprisingly, Linda Gregerson didn’t start writing poetry until her early twenties, after she had finished her undergraduate education. “Of course I loved reading poetry and especially my scholarly period of 16th and 17th-century poetry,” Gregerson said. “I’ve always read Shakespeare, read Dunn. Dunn was probably how I first learned how to be in love with
poetry, but I did not feel confident reading contemporary poetry. It was just something I was very frightened of.” Thankfully, a poet friend took Gregerson aside and insisted that, as an avid scholar of poetry, she must begin to write herself, and so began to teach her the basics of the form. Gregerson wrote on her own for awhile, but once she became more serious about writing she started applying to MFA programs and ended up attending University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Today Gregerson values poetry as both a written, read and lived experience. She believes poetry
allows its readers and writers to slow time and truly experience the beauty of living. “It’s a very important instrument for encouraging us to really inhabit this very fleeting present tense, which mostly goes by without our noticing,” Gregerson remarked. “We’re so busy with something that just happened and what we’ve got to get done next that this moment mostly suffers from oblivion and neglect, and yet of course it’s all we really have.” During her MFA studies, Gregerson honed her craft under such poetic greats as Bill Matthews
FOOD COLUMN
Finding palatable classics in Rome
T
o walk through Rome is to walk through an architectural timeline. From Archaic foundations of the Forum, to Fascist-era government buildings, Rome’s constant inhabitation for over a millennium is palpable. But the linear progression GIANCARLO of styles BUONOMO is far less interesting than the relationships between them. Notions of “old” and “new” are revised, renamed, recycled— quite literally, sometimes. For example, there is a beautiful, Early Renaissance church near my apartment, San Pietro in Montorio, whose facade may have been built using travertine harvested from a crumbling Colosseum. This is all to say, Rome
is a city with many different “classic” eras, each of which reject and reinvent the others, and each of which is still visible today. But Roman cuisine, the food I identify as “classic,” is a seemingly stable pantheon of dishes. Carbonara, fried artichokes, tripe … they’re found on most menus in Rome, and don’t seem to be going anywhere. How I judge restaurants in Rome is usually by their execution of these classics, both in comparison to others and some platonic ideal that I pretend to have tasted. Most people don’t go to Rome to taste “new” food. In fact, Rome is one of the few places where you could eat on your honeymoon where your parents ate on theirs. I have found something “new” in Rome though. Not “new” as in undiscovered, for Trapizzino, in the Testaccio neighborhood, has earned praise and profiles from major newspapers in both Italy and America. Trapizzino is “new”
because they have invented a new dish which already seems headed toward canonization. The namesake of the restaurant, a trapizzino is a sandwich, but it’s unlike any other in Rome. The name is actually a portmanteau of tramezzino, a small sandwich served as a snack in Italian cafés, and pizza. A “trapizzino,” predictably, is a combination of both. A roll made out of pizza dough is cut on the diagonal, and the spongy interior of each triangle is squeezed open to form a pocket and filled with braised meats or vegetables. This marriage of two Roman classics was officiated by Stefano Callegari, a former flight attendant turned-pizzaiolo. He opened his first pizzeria, Sforno, in 2005, followed three years later by 00100, named for the zip-code of Rome. It was at 00100, in Testaccio, that Callegari invented the trapizzino, and where I first tasted it two summers ago. I was living across the river in
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and Louise Glück. Despite associating with these heavy hitters, Gregerson’s style is wholly that of her own. Her poems do not follow traditional or received form, but rather exemplify those of her own creation. A common technique running through a multitude of her poems is a tercet, or three line stanza. “For me two durable components always, always are the line and syntax, and I begin by needing them to resist one another,” Gregerson stated. “It doesn’t begin to be written until it’s lineated, so I don’t do some crazy drafts that then start going into lines. It’s about pacing, units of sense. It’s about how much light and air is going to be around the words.” Gregerson has authored five books of poetry, and has won numerous awards for her writing, including the prestigious Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and the Pushcart Prize. It should be noted, however, that creative writing was never her original scholarly pursuit. Hired by the University in 1967, she originally began as a scholar of early modern England, a field that she is still very active in through both teaching and scholarly criticism. Today, while still introducing students to the lengthy beauty that is Edmund Spenser’s “The Faerie Queen,” Gregerson has become involved in the creative writing department and mentoring the University’s up-and-coming poets. Unsurprisingly, due to the length and breadth of her poetic scholarship, Gregerson found it hard to name a poet she adores above all others. “You know I have a million of them,” Gregerson said. “Well, of all time I can tell you Shakespeare, Dunn and Herbert, but (there are) also 20th century poets who are
very important to me. Lately I’ve been reading Maryanne Moore a lot and a lot more seriously. We all adore Elizabeth Bishop, and learn a lot from her. Bishop’s villanelle ‘One Art’ never ceases being revelatory to me. There’s (also) just a world of wonderful poets coming up now in America. There’s just hundreds actually, but on the dearto-me list at least scores really. I feel very lucky to be living at a time I’m living where there’s this much that’s good being written.” I find it shocking that Gregerson manages to find time to commit to reading new work as she balances writing and teaching. Upon expressing my disbelief, Gregerson merely laughed and conceded that though time is difficult to find, she succeeds. “It’s a sort of gift in disguise when you’re required to read on assignment,” Gregerson pronounced. “Most of us at a certain point start serving on prize committees and panels and judge and so forth. I chaired a committee for five years that called for me to essentially read the year in poetry. That’s what you do and it’s fabulous. You know, you read yourself to sleep at night, you get up early and read, you read on trains, on busses, you just read all the time.” Reading as much as possible is the primary piece of advice Gregerson hopes to give to young poets. Reading and experiencing life to find new subjects to write about. Gregerson worries that those who have only focused on creative writing their entire academic careers are missing out on the lived experience that adds the grain and color to great poems. “You need more world,” Gregerson exclaimed. “You need other stuff. Go do anything else. Poetry also needs the texture of
other things, it needs not simply to be a closed circle. I find even for people who’ve been writing very early and know that’s what they want to do that sometimes the leaps and bounds forward happen when there’s a time away.” As for Gregerson, there is no halt. Her next collection of new and selected poems will be released this coming September. Its title poem “Prodigal,” an excerpt of which is printed above, was originally released in her collection Magnetic North and may be her favorite poem ever penned. All of the new poems in her collection have a touchstone in Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” and those stories of change. “There are only two subjects, right? I mean love and death and the way we try to absorb the fact that we live in a world founded on death, that we are radically mortal as is the world we live in,” Gregerson commented. “Love is probably our big argument both against death and our consolation for death and that inevitable sentence. I think it’s a business of poetry to help us navigate that both as writers and as readers.” Gregerson believes poetry opens our eyes to the temporality of the world. “I think poetry is about focus,” she observed. “It’s about trying to be attentive to the world so we won’t have to live in complete regret that it was lost on us while we had it. I really think it’s to give us an opportunity to actually say at some future point that we will have been here, we will have noticed what happened. That we took it in somehow, that we honored this very fleeting gift of consciousness, physical life, companionship, daylight.”
Trastevere, and would often stop at 00100 for lunch or a snack. I savored their potato and speck pizza and their suppli, fried balls of leftover risotto. I viewed 00100 as the place for classic Roman pizza, and would sneer at any other place that I viewed as less authentic. Then, one humid Saturday afternoon, I stopped in for a quick bite. As I grabbed a cold Coke from the fridge and turned with a practiced motion to point at the small pile of suppli, the earringed young man behind the counter said, “Today, you try a trapizzino.” Not knowing what he meant, I said yes, and he handed me a still-warm triangle of bread, stuffed with warm tongue and salsa verde. I can only resort to cliché, and say that I’ll never forget that first bite. The bouncy, fatty tongue, cut by the acidic, cool salsa verde, all that zesty flavor soaking into the chewy, robust bread. I ate the whole thing in one continuous, hungry, hungry hippo-like motion, and then, without letting my mouth rest, called my father and ranted to him for 10 minutes about this eighth wonder of the world. In the two years between that bite and right now, I often pondered the trapizzino. There must have been something beyond flavor that made me enjoy that sandwich so much. And I was
surprised how much I had liked it, because it was “new,” and I had come to Rome determined to eat nothing but the most textbook, traditional cucina romana . People must have had the same reaction as me, because within the last two years, 00100 was renamed Trapizzino, the pizza discarded, the space renovated and the whole place is now dedicated to the titular triangle. I visited the other day, and immediately thought, “this place would do so well in Brooklyn.” An eclectic mix of Soul and Motown emanated from the kitchen, along with the aroma of slow-cooked meats and yeasty bread. The restaurant has a faux fast food feel to it — the trapizzini are served in customized cardboard triangles, which themselves rest in between the rungs of small metal racks, so that in between bites you can rest your sandwich filling-side up. They make their own beer. Even the neighborhood is hip. Testaccio was a commercial neighborhood in ancient times, whose eponymous hill is actually composed of hundreds of years worth of discarded amphorae fragments. For most of the modern era, it was a meat-packing district, until the inevitable influx of young people and businesses repurposed the old houses and factories. Part of me originally wanted
to not like Trapizzino. I wanted tradition, not gentrification, oldschool, not hip. But Trapizzino is actually all of these things, and because of that, is actually more “Roman” than most places. Let me explain. Trapizzini are not “traditional,” in the sense that no one ate them back in 1930. But what they’re filled with — oxtails, tongue, lamb innards, boiled beef — is. There’s nothing really “new” about them, other than the way in which they’ve reinvented and reimagined Roman cuisine. Like the church of San Pietro in Montorio, they’re a new icon formed out of old ones. I’m tempted to call these little sandwiches a metaphor for Rome itself. But then again, part of Rome’s charm is that it resists metaphor in favor of unadulterated joy. After I finished one trapizzino of chicken braised in vinegar, I ambled inside to give back my metal rack. I didn’t need another — I had just come for research. As I placed the rack on the counter, the pony-tailed mod behind the counter looked at me, pointed to the steaming pot of braised oxtails and gingerly picked up a hot triangle from the oven. He was right — there was no way I could leave after just one. Buonomo is eating tongue sandwiches *wink, wink*. To offer him yours, e-mail gbuonomo@umich.edu.
Design by Gaby Vasquez
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