ONE-HUNDRED-TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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STUDENT GOVERNMENT
CSG backs BSU calls for campus inclusion New intiative aligns with the Black Student Union’s seven demands ALEX GALEL/Daily
Kinesiology senior Fitz Tavernier Jr. facilities a dialogue to engage students in a discussion about the hypersexualization of Black men in the media at the Telling the Untold Truth meeting Tuesday at the Michigan League.
Talk looks at stereotypes Discussion examines hypersexualization of Black men in modern media By AMIA DAVIS Daily Staff Reporter
The Black male student support group Here Earning a Destiny Through Honesty, Eagerness and Determination partnered with the Sexual Assault Protection and Aware-
ness Center and the LSA Student Government’s Diversity Affairs Committee to kick off the first event of the Telling the Untold Truth series Tuesday evening. Telling the Untold Truth consists of a series of three panels aimed to confront the myths of sexual violence. The series also hopes to discuss types of sexual violence that are rarely discussed. Along with the panel presented by HEADS, the Spectrum Center will present an event on LGBTQ victims of
sexual assault and the Coalition for Queer People of Color will host a panel on institutionalized homophobia in minority communities. Dozens of students gathered inside the Michigan Room of the League to discuss the first topic of the series: black male hypersexualization, or the portrayal of Black men in the media as sexual aggressors, as well as other negative stereotypes of Black men related to sexual assault. Both SAPAC and HEADS facilitators discussed negative
stereotypes associated with the sexuality of Black men and how individuals can diminish these associations. “Throughout the small discussions and dialogue, I’ve seen a lot of faces perk up like, ‘Oh, I never realized that,’ and … even when we brought up some of the modern-day examples in the media, even though a lot of these people have seen these pictures before, they never really looked at the deeper meaning behind them,” Kinesiology senior Fitz Tavernier, Jr., co-vice chairman See STEREOTYPES, Page 3A
By KRISTEN FEDOR Daily Staff Reporter
Central Student Government Assembly representatives completed an initial read of a new diversity initiative at Tuesday night’s meeting that is aimed to increase minority representation on campus. The proposal includes CSG’s support of the seven demands of the Black Student Union, an increase in admissions recruiting among minorities and the creation of the Dream Scholarship for undocumented students. Additionally, the resolution demands that the minority enrollment for the 2014 to 2015 year doubles. Disagreement regarding the resolution arose among representatives and attending members of the BSU, specifically about the CSG’s formal support of the reversal of
GREENING UP
HOSPITAL
TRANSPORTATION
UMHS doctors implant world’s first bionic eye Retina surgeons use new practice to develop basic eyesight for the blind By AMABEL KAROUB Daily Staff Reporter
Ever thought about what it might be like to have a bionic eye? Surgeons at the University of Michigan Health System have. On Jan. 16 and 22, UMHS retina surgeons performed the firstever surgeries that implanted artificial retinas into the eyes of patients with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease that eventually causes blindness. Formally named the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System, the bionic eye device was developed by California-based Second Sight Medical Products, Inc. Thiran Jayasundera and David N. Zacks, professors of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the University’s Kellogg Eye Center, are the first surgeons to implant the device
since it gained approval from the Food and Drug Administration last year. UMHS has been chosen as one of 12 centers nationally to offer the retinal prosthesis to patients. Jayasundera said UMHS contacted Second Sight and requested access to the product. The company then visited UMHS to complete a site inspection. “We wanted to offer this to our patients because we see a lot of patients with advanced pigmentosa,” Jayasundera said. “We wanted our patients in Michigan to be able to have access to this technology.” Retinitis pigmentosa is an inherited disease that causes blindness through a gradual loss of light-sensitive retinal cells. Jayasundera said the retinal prosthesis works wirelessly through a camera connected to electrodes. The electrodes stimulate remaining retinal nerve fibers, causing the perception of light in the brain. “You’re wearing a video camera on your glasses,” Jayusundera See EYE, Page 3A
Proposal 2, which banned affirmative action in the college admissions process in Michigan. Business senior Shayla Scales, a member of the BSU who attended the meeting, said she was pleased with CSG’s initiative to support #BBUM and hopes to see changes in the wording that align more with the specified demands of the organization. “This is not an affirmative action model; a lot of people get that misinformed,” Scales said. “We actually just want more diversification in how we recruit undergraduates and graduates here at the University to increase diversity. And not only just race, but in thought, socioeconomic status, gender, everything.” Representatives are divided on the goals of the proposal. Rackham student Rae Scevers, co-author of the resolution, said she is open to shifting the emphasis away from affirmative action. “Being stuck on that one goal might actually be detrimental to our larger goal, which is to increase minority representation,” Scevers See CSG, Page 3A
M-TRAC announces funding for first studies In inaugural event, program awarded as much as $75,000 for innovative ideas LILY ANGELL/Daily
Lab manager Aubry Aubain and Rackham student Anita Narwani tend to an algae farm residing in the basement of the Dana building. They are currently studying the potential of algae as an alternative energy source.
GOVERNMENT
State scholarship grant funding drops significantly University hopes to subsidize loss of need-based aid By BROOKE PEARCY Daily Staff Reporter
Last year, University students receiving the Michigan Competitive Scholarship, a
need- and merit-based grant funded through the state, were awarded about $500 per year. However, in the 2001-2002 school year, these same students would have received a maximum amount of $1,300 from the scholarship. This $800 decrease in MCS funds awarded to students reflects a larger, growing trend at the University: a drastic
decline in state-funded financial aid over the past decade. In 2001, University students received about $11.1 million in financial aid from the state, but by 2012 this figure had decreased to about $2.3 million, according to Pamela Fowler, executive director of financial aid. Fowler said the UniverSee AID, Page 3A
By MICHAEL SUGERMAN Daily Staff Reporter
After the University unveiled a new, transportation-based branch of the Michigan Translational Research and Commercialization Program last year, the program announced its inaugural grant winners on Jan. 23. M-TRAC Transportation provides University professors and graduate students the opportunity to pitch proposals for prospective innovations in the transportation industry to a board of experts. The M-TRAC Oversight Committee awards selected projects as much as $75,000, as well as professional guidance to phase their research into the market. “It provides a direct link for researchers to industry,” said See M-TRAC, Page 3A
Students are pushing for a change in the racial climate at the ‘U.’
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2A — Wednesday, February 5, 2014
MONDAY: This Week in History
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SEXUAL ASSAULT PREVENTION
Syracuse students start Girl Code
LILY ANGELL/Daily LSA senior Kylie Miller, with “F.AT.” written across her shift, shared a monologue about the power of the word fat at The Body Monologues at the Michigan League Tuesday.
Syracuse University students Julie Gelb, Caroline Heres and Jackie Reilly recently founded the Girl Code Movement, an organization that raises awareness of sexual assault on college campuses, The Daily Orange reported. The three students are all sisters of the university’s chapter of the Alpha Xi Delta sorority and bonded over similar experiences of sexual assault. Inspiration to form the organization came from President Barack Obama’s recent task force dedicated to educating college campuses on the dangers of sexual assault and promoting safe campus environments across the country. “We want the Girl Code Movement to have a big impact,” Heres,
CRIME NOTES
a sophomore biochemistry major, told the Orange. “We want to wake people up.” Since launching in November, the organization has accrued thousands of followers via Facebook and Twitter and received hundreds of sympathetic messages from girls all over the world. The group also coined the catchphrase “Cock Block Crew,” which is the staple hashtag on The Girl Code Movement’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Researchers at Purdue University find possible end to childhood virus A research team consisting of graduate students, postdoctoral
CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES
Truck, stop!
Slip ‘n salt
Ariel Quartet
WHERE: 2800 Block, Pymouth Road WHEN: Monday at about 2:10 p.m. WHAT: An unidentified truck struck a vehicle as it entered the NCRC north entrance, University Police reported. There were no reported injuries or damage.
WHERE: Victor Vaughn House WHEN: Monday at about 4:10 p.m. WHAT: A subject fell on an icy walkway, University Police reported. He did not seek treatment, but facility staff were requested to salt the area.
WHAT: Israeli string quartet preformance featuring cellist Alisa Weilerstein. Tickets starting at 20 dollars. WHO: Sponsored by University Musical Society WHEN: Today at 7:30 p.m. WHERE: Rackham Graduate School, Rackham Auditorium
Pipe dreams
Peeping Tom
WHERE: Mary Markley Residence Hall WHEN: Tuesday at about 12:30 a.m. WHAT: A marijuana pipe was confiscated from a student, University Police reported.
WHERE: East Quad Residence Hall WHEN: Tuesday at about 12 a.m. WHAT: Maitenance reported stolen peephole hardware from third-floor rooms, University police reported. There are currently no suspects and the stolen hardware has been replaced.
Navigating the Road to Work WHAT: A panel will address questions about how someone should disclose his or her disability in the workplace with an opportunity to network and discover job opportunities. WHO: Services for Students with Disabilities WHEN: Today at 10 a.m. WHERE: Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library, Gallery Room 110
MORE ONLINE Love Crime Notes?
Get more online at michigandaily.com/blogs/The Wire
Driving Innovation WHAT: Lecture on how innovation can help students foster economic growth and make a positive impact in the world. WHO: Campus Information Centers WHEN: Today at 5 p.m. WHERE: Ross School of Business, Blau Auditorium CORRECTIONS An article that appeared in the Feb. 4 edition, “With $1.3M, Taubman and LSA to fund research program on urban architecture,” misstated the title of Monica Ponce de Leon. She is the dean of the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. l Please report any error in the Daily to corrections@michigandaily.com.
research assistants, research scientists and professors from Purdue University and throughout Malaysia have developed a possible end to a childhood infection prominent in Southeast Asia, The Exponent reported. The virus, Enterovirus 71, affects children in countries such as China, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan. If left untreated, it causes severe neurological disease.Rossmann, Hanley Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences at Purdue, is the primary researcher of the team. He has worked extensively in X-ray crystallography and mapping of protein folding, but his main focus is on developing a cure to this enterovirus. — ALLANA AKHATAR
THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW TODAY
1
A 27-year-old man from Rochester, New York bit off his brother’s ear during a Super Bowl party this Sunday, the Associated Press reported. Police say the injury resulted from a drunken brawl between the two after the game.
2
What is being Black at the University? As #BBUM continues to push for increasing action around campus diversity, The Statement takes a look at the racial climate in the ‘U.’ >> FOR MORE, SEE THE STATEMENT
3
Tuesday, the Scottish parliament passed the Marriage and Civil Partnership Bill to leagalize same-sex marriage and authorize gender-neutral marriage ceremonies, BuzzFeed reported.
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Afghan presidential election process begins with debates Country’s next election could mark first democratic transfer of power KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Tackling topics ranging from the Taliban to the future of foreign troops in Afghanistan, candidates battling to replace President Hamid Karzai faced off Tuesday in the first televised debate of a crucial election campaign. The presidential race is playing out in the run-up to the planned withdrawal of NATO combat troops, and the April 5 vote will be a crucial test of whether the country can ensure a stable transition after years of war and while facing a Taliban insurgency that has vowed it will Sudoku Syndication attempt to disrupt the poll. With Karzai ineligible to run for a third term, a successful
election would mark Afghanistan’s first real democratic transfer of power. Hanging over the campaign is a question about a security deal between the U.S. and Afghanistan to allow a small number of American troops to stay in the country and continue training Afghan security forces after NATO’s combat mission ends in December 2014. Karzai has been refusing to sign the deal despite pressure from Washington, placing the issue front and center for the 11 candidates vying to succeed him. On a snowy Tuesday night in Kabul, five of those candidates took their places behind podiums in front of a studio audience. After each of the candidates — Abdullah Abdullah, runnerup in the 2009 election; former foreign minister Zalmai Rassoul, ex-finance minister Ashraf Ghani, ex-defense minister Abdul Rahim Wardak and Karzai’s brother, Qayyum Karzai —
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gave a brief opening statement, the questions began. The U.S. security deal took center stage right off the bat, with Qayyum Karzai, Ghani and Rassoul all expressing their support for its signing. The remaining two candidates were not asked the question. “The security forces and the people of Afghanistan will not have the ability to function on their own,” Qayyum Karzai said. Abdullah echoed his sentiments, adding that “support from the international community to JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP our security forces will help our President Barack Obama looks at a student’s iPad project at Buck Lodge Middle School where he spoke about his Consecurity.” netED goal of connecting 99% of students to next generation broadband and wireless technology within five years. On peace talks with the Taliban, the candidates mostly shared the same views — all five support a negotiated settlement with insurgents willing to lay down arms and cut ties with terrorist groups like al Qaida. But they were more reticent suburb of Adelphi, Md. Students every child’s fingertips http://sudokusyndication.com/sudoku/generator/print/ when asked by the moderator there are assigned iPads that Before the speech, Obama visif the Taliban are the enemy of they use in class and at home. ited a seventh-grade classroom Afghanistan — perhaps with an Beyond the promise of mil- and noted one benefit of their eye to future negotiations. lions in donated hardware and Internet access: lighter knapWhile Ghani condemned the software, the Federal Communi- sacks because they don’t carry as killing of innocents and suicide cations Commission also is set- many books to and from school. attacks, he said some Taliban are ting aside $2 billion from service “Sasha’s book bag gets too big “forced because of corruption ADELPHI, Md. (AP) — Claim- fees to connect 15,000 schools sometimes, hurts her back,” he and injustice to take up arms.” ing progress in his goal to put and 20 million students to high- said of his younger daughter. Asked if the Taliban are the the world at the fingertips of speed Internet over two years. Cecilia Munoz, director of enemy of Afghan people, Rasevery American student, PresiObama last year announced domestic policy for Obama, soul answered indirectly, saydent Barack Obama on Tuesday his goal of bringing high-speed spoke of the importance of proing that “those who burn our announced $750 million in com- Internet to 99 percent of students viding high-quality education schools, who kill our children, mitments from U.S. companies within five years. He used Tues- for all students. who kill innocent people and to begin wiring more classrooms day’s announcement as another “Technology is clearly going kill our soldiers — they are the with high-speed Internet. example of how to act without to be essential to making that enemies.” Apple is pledging $100 mil- waiting on Congress. possible,” she said. Abdullah, meanwhile, called lion in iPads, computers and “We picked up the phone and The initiative builds on for a “clear peace process” with other tools. AT&T and Sprint we started asking some out- Obama’s focus for 2014 on helpthe Taliban, but said “we should are contributing free Internet standing business leaders to help ing more people join and stay in make it clear that if there are service through their wireless bring our schools and libraries the middle class amid an ecopeople who don’t want peace, networks. Verizon is pitching into the 21st century,” the presi- nomic recovery in which the there is no other way than to face in up to $100 million in cash dent said. benefits have come more quickly them.” and in-kind contributions. And The average school has the for those at the top of the income Other topics on the agenda Microsoft is making its Win- same Internet speed as an aver- scale than for those toward the included the economy and how dows software available at dis- age home, but serves 200 times bottom. to eradicate corruption. counted prices and offering 12 as many people, Obama said. Gene Sperling, a top White “There is no doubt that cormillion free copies of Microsoft About 30 percent of students House economist, said every ruption is like a cancer in Office software. have true high-speed Internet in student needs high-speed InterAfghanistan,” Ghani said, but “In a country where we expect their classrooms, compared with net, but the problem is more argued that “if you place somefree Wi-Fi with our coffee, we 100 percent of South Korean stu- pronounced in disadvantaged one who is clean at the head of should definitely demand it in dents, he said. schools where students are less government, it’s very hard for our schools,” Obama said at a He said the pledges would likely to have Internet connecothers to be corrupt.” middle school in the Washington put the world and outer space at tions at home.
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Obama seeks to make Internet more accessible to young learners Companies set aside $750 million to make classrooms tech-friendly
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M-TRAC From Page 1A Jay Ellis, program director for M-TRAC Transportation. “It’s quick feedback and expertise as to how to commercialize their ideas, and it keeps it in this region.” Mihaela Banu, research associate professor of mechanical engineering, and Engineering Prof. Jack Hu, vice president of research, earned a grant for their pitch to replace the glass in fiberglass car frames with bamboo fiber sheets. According to the project abstract, the “most effective approach” to improving fuel efficiency is “reducing vehicle weight.” Bamboo frames would offer a 30-percent weight reduction at a low price.
EYE From Page 1A said. “That video camera basically sends the information into a video processing unit that you wear on a belt. The image is con-
AID From Page 1A sity has taken measures to make up for the loss in state-funded grants like the MCS. Despite the decrease in state-funded, needbased scholarships, the University has increased the funding of average need-based grants through the reallocation of institutional and federal funds. “Since UM is committed to meeting the full need of all resident students, when the MCS award was reduced, UM covered this loss of funds,” Fowler said. “Therefore fewer funds were available to improve student aid packages for all students.” As part of this commitment, the University’s $4 billion Victors
CSG From Page 1A said. However, Rackham student Samuel Molnar, another coauthor of the resolution, disagreed, adding that affirmative action should not be removed from the resolution. “I think the student body as a whole, though, is behind affirmative action. I think that is going to stay,” he said. The language of the resolution
STEREOTYPES From Page 1A of HEADS said. Tavernier said there are many negative stereotypes associated with Black male sexuality at the University, especially pertaining to recent crime alerts. He said he believes most of the sexual and physical assault descriptions depict Black men and people of color as the aggressors.
News
Rackham student Muhammad Faisal and Engineering Prof. David Wentzloff’s idea also earned a grant to digitize cars’ embedded processors, and specifically the clocks within them. The duo’s research claims the increasing number of hardware processors in vehicles weighs them down, increases their costs and requires manufacturers to constantly alter designs to keep pace with technology. In the project’s abstract, Wentzloff said “there’s a need for lower power, small form factor and low cost electronics.” Meredith VanKoevering, entrepreneurial program manager at the Center for Entrepreneurship, said the new M-TRAC Transportation grant will increase future opportu-
nities for faculty to engage in transnational research. “It’s the first time the (process) has ever been tried outside of the life sciences projects,” VanKoevering wrote in an e-mail. “It’s a highly successful model to commercialization, so the hope is to replicate it in many other verticals once we prove its success in the transportation industry.” The Michigan Economic Development Corporation helped the University create the transportation branch of M-TRAC. Paula Sorrell, managing director of entrepreneurship and innovation for the corporation, sat on the M-TRAC Transportation Oversight Committee and said the partnership also has important implications for transportation throughout the state of Michi-
gan. “Advanced transportation is important to the state for a number of reasons and helps us leverage numerous state assets,” Sorrell said. “U of M has been a great partner in this and really worked hard to help move it forward.” University alum Alan Amici, head of Chrysler Group LLC’s Uconnect Systems and Services, also sat on the board, and said it was a great opportunity to stay connected to the school. “Not only does it give me a chance to keep current with the unique research areas that can apply to the automotive industry, but also allows me to express my interest in technology and share my experiences with present and future graduates,” he wrote in a statement.
verted into signals that wirelessly transmit it to this device that we implant on the retina.” After the surgery, patients undergo one to three months of training to adapt to their new vision. Jayasundera said this training helps the brain learn to
sort through the many impulses that are stimulated when recipients turn their head in different directions. Though the retinal prosthesis does not provide 20/20 vision, it creates an abstract, rudimentary vision that permits patients
to make out figures and light. Although the bionic eye does not offer a full cure, Jayasundera said it is a step in the right direction. “This is already the Argus II,” Jayasundera said. “In time there will be more development of these types of devices.”
for Michigan campaign includes a $1 billion goal earmarked for student aid. During preparations for the campaign, University Provost Martha Pollack asked development organizers to double the $545 million raised for financial aid in the University’s most recent campaign, the Michigan Difference, which concluded in 2008. “I just have to say, we swallowed hard,” said Jerry May, vice president for development, in a November interview. “We thought, well, we might be able to get to $800 million with a lot of hard work and some really big gifts — like $25 or $50 million gifts for scholarships — but the provost made the case that we needed to work harder … They
have said to the deans that ‘We need everybody here to know that this is our number one priority.’ ” The decrease in state-funded, need-based grants at the University is a result of years of state budget cuts for higher education, which have affected every public university in the state. While higher education funding has decreased nationwide during the economic recession, Michigan has reduced funds more than most states, cutting a third of its higher education funding between 2008 and 2012. However, organizations such as the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan — a nonprofit, higher education advocacy organization — are working to reverse the trend. PCSUM Executive Director
Michael Boulus said he recognizes the need to increase funding. “We’re one of the worst-funded states in the nation,” Boulus said. “(PCSUM’s) task is very simple. We’d like to see a long-term investment in support for higher education to make us a top-10 state in university support.” State Rep. Jeff Irwin (D–Ann Arbor) said increasing state financial support for higher education in areas such as funding for need-based grants will have a large effect on college students. “It’s important for the individuals,” he said. “We have young people who are bright and hardworking coming up in the state of Michigan, and having great public universities that are affordable are crucial for the individuals.”
was another main concern of several CSG representatives as they expressed concern regarding the overall severity of the resolution’s tone, saying it was worded too strongly. Members cited portions of the proposal describing the racial climate on campus as “The New Jim Crow,” as well as aggressive accusations of racism directed toward the University, among others. LSA senior Chris Mays, an LSA representative, said changes to the language of the resolution are crucial to clearing up the goals of
the proposal. “I think the language is a bit more rhetoric, and it doesn’t really solve the problem,” Mays said. “I think the University of Michigan and students both know that there is an issue of racism within the campus, but I think it goes too close to criticize that the University of Michigan itself supports racism.” He suggested changing the repetition of “demand” to a less confrontational one, such as “urge.” Mays said CSG would see much greater cooperation from
the administration if careful revisions to the wording were made. “We need to focus on what the problem is, how we solve it and where CSG can go in between to make sure that problem is solved,” he said. CSG will be revising the resolution at Saturday’s Resolutions Committee meeting. In other business, councilmembers postponed a vote on the resolution amending the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, a vote that was expected to take place Tuesday.
“I’m not saying these crime alerts aren’t true, but you do see a lot that is present — even here on campus,” Tavernier said. LSA sophomore Anna Forringer-Beal, a SAPAC volunteer, said the series of events will benefit the University by de-stigmatizing the issue of sexual assault and forcing students to act out against it. Before the event, ForringerBeal said she hoped people would leave with a better understand-
ing of the hypersexualization of Black men and realize there are many incorrect beliefs pertaining to sexual violence. She added that she hopes people will understand that sexual violence is something that affects every type of community. “It’s unfortunate that it’s true, but it also means that we can also provide a really strongly united front against it,” Forringer-Beal said. She said the strong coopera-
tion in the small discussions and the insightful input show there is a strong desire to change the negative stereotypes of Black men on campus. Telling the Untold Truth marked the first time HEADS organized a sexual awareness event, and Tavernier said there is a good chance that it won’t be the last. “It will definitely create a stronger sense of community here at the University,” he said.
Utah lawmakers propose bill to prevent transgender bathroom use Ongoing debate in multiple states to challenge existing legislation SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah lawmaker has proposed a bill that would prevent transgender students from using bathroom facilities of their choice, joining a debate playing out in a handful of other states sparked by a California law that broke new ground on transgender rights. Republican Rep. Michael Kennedy says his plan would pre-emptively block Utah from allowing transgendered students to choose between the girls’ or boys’ restrooms, locker rooms and sports teams, depending on the gender they identify with. A law that provides those protections for public school students in California took effect Jan. 1 over the objections of those who said it would violate the privacy of most students and lead
to false gender identity claims. Supporters of the California legislation say it will reduce discrimination against transgender students. But Kennedy disagrees. “For these individuals,” he said, sharing a restroom or showers in the locker room is “probably not going to be the best way to use the facilities” because it could make the transgender child and other students uncomfortable. Rather than allowing transgender students to use facilities set aside for the gender they identify with, Kennedy’s proposal would require schools to provide additional bathrooms for transgender students who desire one or whose families request one. Utah education officials say the issue hasn’t come up often, but this is how they have typically handled such cases. Critics say Kennedy’s measure violates civil liberties of transgender students and points them out as different. Sara Jade Woodhouse, a transgender Utah woman and adjunct film professor at Salt
Lake Community College, says they rule would further relegate transgender students to secondary status. “It’s basically hanging a sign around someone’s neck that says, ‘I’m not like you.’ And that is so damaging to a person’s selfworth,” Woodhouse said. “Really, it’s kind of frightening what it actually could mean.” Brandie Balken, the executive director of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group Equality Utah, said the measure would step on parents’ role in negotiating what’s best for their children. “It’s a misguided solution at best,” she said Tuesday. Similar debates are taking shape elsewhere. A proposed referendum aims to overturn the current California policy. Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court recently found school officials there violated state anti-discrimination law when they required a 16-year-old transgender student to use a staff restroom instead of the girls’ room. And national attention
turned to a Texas high school in November after officials said a transgender boy couldn’t take a yearbook photo in a tuxedo, a decision they eventually reversed. Gay rights have been at the forefront of Utah politics in recent weeks. Same-sex marriage was legalized briefly in December, leading to more than 1,000 weddings. A court challenge blocked the practice and a judge is expected to rule on the matter this spring. And Republican state Sen. Stephen Urquhart has proposed a bill that would ban housing and job discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Kennedy’s proposal stands little chance of becoming law this year. The Utah Senate and House have agreed to hold off on bills dealing with religious liberties and LGBTQ issues this session, Senate President Wayne Niederhauser said Tuesday. They don’t want to risk interfering with the state’s pending court case over its gay marriage ban, Niederhauser said.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014 — 3A
Microsoft picks company insider to lead tech giant Satya Nadella to oversee push into cloud computing LOS ANGELES (AP) — As longtime Microsoft insider Satya Nadella takes the company’s helm, he is declaring a new focus on a “mobile-first, cloud-first world.” So far, he only has the latter half of the formula figured out. Microsoft and its new CEO are trying to catch rivals such as Apple, Google and Amazon, which are each building their own thriving ecosystems for mobile devices. At the same time, the company wants to expand its burgeoning business as a provider of software and services over the Internet. Nadella, head of Microsoft’s cloud computing business, was named Tuesday to be Steve Ballmer’s immediate replacement. He is only the third chief executive in Microsoft’s 38-year history. The 22-year Microsoft veteran has enlisted the help of company founder and first CEO Bill Gates, who is leaving his role as chairman to serve a more handson role as an adviser at Nadella’s request. Gates will spend a third of his time working on products and technology. Nadella, 46, led the company’s small but growing cloud computing unit, in which customers pay Microsoft to house data and run applications on distant servers connected to the Internet. Those services are a departure from Microsoft’s traditional business of making software for installation directly onto personal computers. In addition to growing that business, one of Nadella’s first tasks as CEO will be to complete Microsoft Inc.’s $7.3 billion purchase of Nokia’s phone business and patent rights — part of a plan to boost Windows Phone software in a market dominated by iPhones and Android devices. “Going forward, it’s a mobile-first, cloud-first world,” Nadella said Tuesday in a video accompanying the announcement. He said he would capitalize on Microsoft’s experience making the industry’s leading productivity software package, Office. “We need to be able to pick the unique contribution that we want to make,” he said. “That’s where our heritage of having been the productivity company ... is what we want to get focused on.” Gates will remain on the company’s board. The new chairman will be board member John Thompson, who led the search for a new CEO after Ballmer said in August that he planned to step down. Thompson said Nadella was the board’s “first and unanimous choice.” Nadella has “the right background to lead the company in this era,” Gates said in a video message. “There’s a challenge in mobile computing. There’s an opportunity in the cloud.” The new CEO has been an executive in some of the
company’s fastest-growing and most profitable businesses, including its Office and server and tools business. In three years as server and tools president, he helped grow that business into one with $20 billion in annual revenue — about a quarter of Microsoft’s total revenue in the most recent fiscal year. For the past seven months, he was the executive vice president who led Microsoft’s cloud computing offerings. Nadella’s new cloud enterprise group has also been growing strongly, more than doubling customers in the latest quarter, although it remains a small part of Microsoft’s current business. Analysts hope that Nadella can maintain the company’s momentum in cloud computing and business software while minimizing the effects of unprofitable forays into consumer hardware. It’s a transition IBM Corp. succeeded in making in the 1990s, but that companies such as Hewlett Packard Co. and Dell Inc. have struggled with. Microsoft shares fell 13 cents Tuesday to close at $36.35. Nadella’s appointment comes at a time of turmoil for Microsoft. Founded in 1975 by Gates and Paul Allen, the company has always made software that powered computers made by others — first with its MS-DOS system, then with Windows and its Office productivity suite starting in the late 1980s. Microsoft’s coffers swelled as more individuals and businesses bought personal computers. But Microsoft has been late adapting to changes in the technology industry as PC sales declined. It allowed Google to dominate online search and advertising, and it watched as iPhones, iPads and Android devices grew. Microsoft’s attempts to manufacture its own devices have been marred by problems, from its quickly aborted Kin line of phones to its still-unprofitable line of Surface tablets. Analysts see hope in some of the businesses Nadella had a key role in creating. Microsoft’s cloud computing offering, Azure, and its push to have consumers buy Office software as a $100-a-year Office 365 subscription are seen as the biggest drivers of Microsoft’s growth in the next couple of years. Both businesses saw the number of customers more than double in the last three months of the year, compared with a year earlier. Nadella is a technologist, fulfilling the requirement that Gates set out at the company’s November shareholder meeting, where the Microsoft chairman said the company’s new leader must have “a lot of comfort in leading a highly technical organization.” Born in Hyderabad, India, in 1967, Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992 after being a member of the technology staff at Sun Microsystems. Partly because of his insider status and the fact that both Gates and Ballmer will remain among Microsoft’s largest shareholders and company directors, analysts are not expecting a quick pivot in the company’s strategy.
Opinion
4A — Wedesday, February 5, 2014
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Loneliness in the winter Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com PETER SHAHIN EDITOR IN CHIEF
MEGAN MCDONALD and DANIEL WANG EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS
KATIE BURKE MANAGING EDITOR
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
FROM THE DAILY
Readdressing life sentences The state legislature should approve resentencing hearings for juveniles
O
n June 25, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court banned life sentencing without parole for juvenile offenders, considering it a form of cruel and unusual punishment. The highest national court did not specify whether this decision would be limited to future convicts, those still on direct appeal, or whether it would apply retroactively to juveniles already behind bars, leaving that decision up to state courts and lawmakers. Tuesday, the Michigan House of Representatives approved Senate Bill 319, updating Michigan law to comply with the Supreme Court ruling only in future cases and those on direct appeal. However, cases regarding past juvenile offenders were addressed by merely adding a “trigger” that would allow rehearings for juvenile lifers if the Michigan Supreme Court or U.S. Supreme Court were to rule again in favor of retroactivity. While the proposed bill complies with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling for future cases, the state legislature should approve resentencing hearings for all Michigan juveniles facing life without parole. Last November, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the state had to immediately comply with Miller v. Alabama and make all juvenile lifers eligible for parole if they had served at least 10 years in prison. The judge’s ruling was stayed when Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette appealed the decision, arguing that the parole hearings weren’t warranted under existing U.S. Supreme Court precedent. Schuette currently awaits a hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals. Similarly, the Michigan Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in three juvenile lifer cases in early March, during which it is expected to review the ambiguity surrounding retroactivity. The “retroactivity trigger” was added to the bill in the Michigan House seemingly due to these pending court cases. With more than 350 juvenile lifers, Michigan is host to the second-highest population affected by the bill’s future. By relying on court rulings to settle the matter of retroactivity, the state legislature is acting in cowardice. It costs the state $2 billion per year to run the Michigan
Department of Corrections. The state government should act now, rather than wait, in order to relieve the burden on taxpayers and give juvenile convicts a second chance. In the 2012 Supreme Court ruling, one of the major arguments against juvenile sentencing for life without parole was that “children are constitutionally different from adults for sentencing purposes.” Their “lack of maturity” and “underdeveloped sense of responsibility” leads to “recklessness, impulsivity and heedless risk-taking.” Sentencing juveniles to life ignores the fact that they lack the ability to fully comprehend the nature of crimes they might commit. Furthermore, in that critical age of development, there are several factors — such as socioeconomic and family background — that can contribute to the motives behind an individual’s crime. Juveniles should be given a second chance and the opportunity to be rehabilitated. Putting these potentially constructive members of society behind bars will not help them on an individual level, and will punish crimes for which they may not be fully accountable.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Barry Belmont, Rima Fadlallah, Nivedita Karki, Jordyn Kay, Kellie Halushka, Aarica Marsh, Megan McDonald, Victoria Noble, Michael Schramm, Matthew Seligman, Paul Sherman, Allison Raeck, Daniel Wang, Derek Wolfe FOLLOW THE DAILY ON TWITTER Keep up with columnists, read Daily editorials, view cartoons and join in the debate. Check out @michigandaily to get updates on Daily content throughout the day.
THE MICHIGAN DAILY | RETRACTION OF VIEWPOINT
Retraction of “Treating mental illness like a wound”
The Michigan Daily apologizes to the family and friends of Madison Holleran. Earlier this week, we published a Viewpoint article about Madison Holleran titled “Treating mental illness like a wound.” The Viewpoint contained a variety of errors and inaccurate statements. In response, we are retracting the Viewpoint and modifying the way we evaluate our communitysubmitted pieces in the future. The Viewpoint had numerous mistakes regarding Holleran’s case. Linh Vu, the Viewpoint’s writer, relied on a PennLive article with multiple accounts other than those of the family of Madison Holleran. The Viewpoint misattributed a quotation, claiming that Madison Holleran’s mother had stated, “It’s not the kind of thing that you want shared in the halls of your high school, in fact, the fear was that it would be whispered behind her back if everyone knew.” This quotation was not from Mrs. Holleran, but from another mother of an athlete who had also struggled with depression. Mrs. Holleran has not made any statements to the press since her daughter’s passing. Additionally, the Viewpoint claimed that Madison Holleran had struggled with the dis-
order since high school. This was also inaccurate. This information related to another student-athlete. The Viewpoint claimed that “Her mother, recounting Madison’s tumultuous journey, expressed that she once felt an odd notion that her daughter didn’t fit the mold of a psychiatric patient.” We could not find evidence of this statement. Viewpoints can be written by anyone in the campus community. Vu wrote the piece as a response to her own friend’s death. She incorporated the news regarding the passing of Madison Holleran, a University of Pennsylvania athlete who committed suicide on Jan. 17, to urge the University of Michigan to refocus on mental health services. The Michigan Daily expresses its sincerest apologies for this mistake. We regret any pain or anger that we have caused to Madison Holleran’s family and friends. Madison Holleran’s passing deserved to be treated with the utmost respect and care, and The Michigan Daily failed to provide an accurate account of her life, struggle with depression and the due diligence that our community deserves. Going forward, our community Viewpoints will be subject to stronger scrutiny during the editing process.
the privilege affects you? Emma Maniere analyzes the system and change podium how we can challenge the status quo. Feminine Critique: Ever wonder how your
Go to michigandaily.com/blogs/The Podium
CONOR ANDERSON / Daily
O
utside, the wind chill is minus 30 degrees. Gusts push loose flakes across the sidewalk like tumbleweeds. Frost crawls up the kitchen window; a sponge on the sill stiffens with ice crystals. Somewhere inside our house of unwashed EMILY 20-somethings, PITTINOS a boy sings — a little sharp, a bit too earnest. Listening closely, I notice his voice crack like a glass nicked by someone coming home drunk, alone and thirsty for more. In my bed, I insulate myself by lying naked under a pile of down and fleece, trapping my own human heat. My feet find each other and rub together for warmth. From other corners of my house, I hear the giddy sounds of couples in love. They nestle under an afghan crocheted by someone’s grandmother; they snuggle on our stained loveseat, bickering about where to order the next pizza from. Their laughter pours into the hallway and under my bedroom door like a cold draft. Recently, a good friend sent me a Louis CK clip about sadness. CK says we have to let our sadness “hit us like a truck” so that we can bathe in the happiness that follows. I’ve grown to feel the same way about loneliness. When I first felt it settling in, I was resistant. My loneliness was a beast that I distracted with scraps of pleasure. I fed it casual lovers — people I’d invite into my life because they were decent, but also because they were there. I fed it films about passion gone awry; I fed it poems about sisterhood and joy.
But a persistent yearning — an ache for romance — still buzzed inside of me, like a drunkenness that was about to take hold. A week into the polar vortex — a shock of cold that would challenge anyone’s will — I turned off my TV, ended my current fling and opened my palms to my loneliness. I let it consume me. For lack of a better word, I wallowed — for days, I shuffled pathetically around the house in fulllength pajamas, preoccupied with my own romantic doom. This is it, I thought. I’ll be alone and then I’ll die. But then I was lounging with my housemates in our living room, enjoying a beer, shooting the shit, and I realized little had changed. I still laughed, I still wrote, I was still cared for by my friends and family. Admitting and accepting that I was lonely wasn’t as insufferable as it seemed. It may even be good for the soul. Now I wear my loneliness like a second skin. It’s nearly comfortable; I nearly enjoy it. I don’t feel empty, or even lost. Instead, I wake up alone knowing I have myself, and I am later lulled to sleep by that same knowledge. I do still crave connection. That buzz of yearning often returns, but I wonder if it’s merely my libido reminding me that I am alive; I hope it never goes away. When I think about everything loneliness has done for humanity, I am oddly grateful. It’s crucial to personal growth — if we were never
alone, we would never realize who we are and what we want. Plus, our desperate desire to touch and be touched by others, despite the endless distance between us, encourages our creative expression. Art of all kinds often exists to prove that we are not alone in our experiences. I doubt artists would make anything if they weren’t bursting with this desire to conquer our human distance. And, perhaps most importantly, I think that if we don’t experience loneliness, we’re less likely to recognize and appreciate love. We must grow familiar with our solitude in order to identify the kinds of people and relationships that will, at last, satisfy our longing. From my bedroom window, I watch cars skid on streets glazed with ice. My neighbor, an elderly woman who now lives on her own, applies lotion to her elbows in her kitchen. Through my ceiling, I can hear my housemate move around our attic singing, “What does it take to be lonesome? Nothing at all.” I raise the windowpane and let the icy breeze touch my face. It burns my skin, but invigorates my mind. It’s nearly comfortable; I nearly enjoy it. Most importantly, I know it won’t last. Soon I will lock my window, peel away my clothes and dive into my bed where I will be alone — or not alone — but always ready to recognize love through this close and humble darkness.
If we were never alone, we would never realize who we are and what we want.
— Emily Pittinos can be reached at pittinos@umich.edu.
STUDENTS ALLIED FOR FREEDOM AND EQUALITY | VIEWPOINT
Opening a discussion platform “If we have learned the most important lesson promulgated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — that justice is always indivisible — it should be clear that a mass movement in solidarity with Palestinian freedom is long overdue” -Angela Y. Davis, Distinguished Professor Emerita, University of California, Santa Cruz. In early December, the Academic Studies Association — the largest academic organization devoted to the interdisciplinary study of American culture and history — decided to heed Palestinian civil society’s call for “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions,” and voted overwhelmingly to boycott Israeli academic institutions. The decision made headline news, appearing on the front page of The New York Times, and sparked much heated debate and conversation on academic freedom, collective solidarity and the silencing of those who critique the Israeli military occupation. Numerous influential academics and public intellectuals have voiced support of the ASA’s resolution including Angela Davis, Judith Butler and Carolyn Karcher, among many others. As conscientious students who strive for social justice, we, the Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, stand in full support of the ASA’s resolution. We applaud the organization for its courageous stance as well as the remarkably transparent and democratic process it took to reach its decision. We are also pleased with the general progress in the public’s attitude toward Israeli settler colonialism and the BDS movement, recognizing that such a resolution would have been unthinkable in previous years. We advocate and affirm the Palestinian activists who have worked tirelessly to amplify their global calls for BDS, even amid a colonial regime that works tirelessly to systematically silence their existence. The resolution is not without its opponents though, and some,
including our own University President Mary Sue Coleman and Provost Martha Pollack, publicly opposed the resolution in a reactionary statement. It disturbs us that our University administration does not stand against harsh settler colonial policies rooted in racism and segregation that limit people’s basic right to education. It’s just as startling to us that the administration can speak on behalf of the entire University community without consulting the numerous faculty, staff and students who do support the boycott. Our University is complicit in Israel’s human rights violations not only through its investments in companies that facilitate Israeli militarism and Palestinian displacement — what #UMMockEviction sought to highlight — but also through its ties to several Israeli universities that haven’t denounced said violations, including The Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Ben Gurion University and Tel Aviv University. These universities participate in hindering the academic freedoms of Palestinians and non-Jewish Israelis through preferential treatment of reserve soldiers and Jewish Israelis overall, through public acquiescence with the occupation and through close collaboration with Israeli military and intelligence agencies. This discussion on violation of academic freedom by Coleman is contradictory when Palestinians’ very access to education is literally obstructed through daily interferences of checkpoints, arbitrary and systematic stop-andsearch policies by Israeli soldiers, Israeli-only roads and the everexpanding apartheid wall. Additionally, African asylumseekers in Israel are subjected to living indefinitely in open-air detention centers — in desert temperatures in the Negev known to exceed 120 degrees — limiting their access to educational resources. An
amendment to the Prevention of Infiltration Law of 1954 was made to grant Israeli authorities the power to detain migrants and asylumseekers up to three years without trial or deportation, while “anyone helping migrants or providing them with shelter could face prison sentences of between five and 15 years.” This “anti-infiltration law,” as it is known, is not only immoral and in violation of international convention, but also goes against the stated nature of a democratic state. Targeted by anti-Black racist policies, they are kept in detention facilities isolated from civil life to prevent them from infiltrating Israel’s nature of a Jewish-Israelionly state. Palestinians and African asylumseekers are unable to produce and share knowledge without undue constraint, which Coleman claims is an academic freedom. They are excluded from fully exercising their right to academic freedom. How can our University boast “exciting and productive collaborations” with Israeli institutions when the Prevention of Infiltration Law and other racist policies are meant to exclude from civil society anyone who threatens the religious and/or racial composition of the Israeli state? Opening a platform for discussion on the boycott while some are held in detention facilities or are prevented access to schools because of their non-Jewish identity would normalize these people’s marginalization in society. Dialogue would center on privileged voices that have unrestricted access to academic resources, detracting from the narratives of those being stripped of their right to academic freedom. Thus, it’s important to focus on those narratives by boycotting institutions and companies that contribute to their marginalization. This article was written by members of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NEWS BRIEFS EAST LANSING
Obama will sign Farm Bill during MSU visit Friday The White House says that President Barack Obama will sign the farm bill at Michigan State University on Friday during a previously announced visit to East Lansing. The White House first announced the trip last Friday. It confirmed Tuesday that he will sign the farm bill during the visit Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow chairs the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee and led the fight for congressional passage of the farm bill. The sweeping $100-billiona-year measure won Senate approval Tuesday on a 68-32 vote after House passage last week. The bulk of its cost is for the food stamp program, which aids 1 in 7 Americans.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Website problems result in fewer insurance signups Budget experts for Congress say fewer uninsured people than expected will get covered this year through President Barack Obama’s health care law. The Congressional Budget Office dropped its estimate by 2 million people. That’s partly the result of website problems that prevented people from signing up last fall when new markets for subsidized private insurance went live. Website woes have largely cleared up, but the nonpartisan analysts said Tuesday they expect 1 million fewer people to sign up through the new insurance exchanges, for a new total of 6 million in 2014. They predict enrollment will pick up and top 20 million in 2016.
PETERSBURG, Ken.
Bill Nye debates head of Kentucky creation museum TV’s “Science Guy” Bill Nye and the leader of a Kentucky museum who believes in creationism debated a question Tuesday that has nagged humankind: “How did we get here?” Ken Ham, the founder of the Creation Museum, believes the Earth was created 6,000 years ago and that the Bible tells the factual account of the universe’s beginnings and the creation of humans. Nye said he, and the rest of the scientific community, believe the Earth was created by a big bang billions of years ago and people have evolved over time. “I just want to remind us all there are billions of people in the world who are deeply religious, who get enriched by the wonderful sense of community by their religion,” said Nye, who wore his trademark bow tie. “But these same people do not embrace the extraordinary view that the Earth is somehow only 6,000 years old.” Nye said technology keeps the U.S. ahead as a world leader and he worried that if creationism is taught to children the country would fall behind..
TRIPOLI, Libya
Libyan leader says chemical weapons destroyed Libya’s Foreign Ministry says the country’s caches of chemical weapons, including bombs and artillery shells filled with mustard gas, have been completely destroyed. Mohammed Abdel-Aziz made his announcement on Tuesday after a mission was completed few days ago. “Libya is totally empty of any presence of chemical weapons ... which could pose threat to the safety of people, the environment, or neighboring regions,” he said in remarks carried by Libya’s state news agency. —Compiled from Daily wire reports
News
Wednesday, February 5, 2014 — 5A
L.A. policemen wrongly shoot at two women In hunt for officer, force violates department policy LOS ANGELES (AP) — Eight Los Angeles police officers violated department policy when they mistakenly riddled a pickup truck with bullets, injuring two women, during a manhunt last year for cop-turned-killer Christopher Dorner, a civilian oversight board announced Tuesday. Police Chief Charlie Beck and Alex Bustamante, inspector general for the Los Angeles Police Commission, independently recommended that the shooting be ruled out of policy, commission President Steve Soboroff said. He did not provide further details. Beck will decide disciplinary measures for the officers, who were assigned to non-field duties during an LAPD investigation. Possible measures could include extensive retraining, suspensions or even firings. At a news conference, Beck said he couldn’t comment on what discipline the officers may receive because their information is private under state law. He said “these officers will all and have all received extensive training as had the whole Los Angeles Police Department relative to these types of issues.” Los Angeles Police Protective League spokesman Eric Rose said the union’s president, Tyler Izen, was waiting to review the commission’s report before providing comment. Last year, the city paid the women $4.2 million to settle a claim. That was in addition to a separate $40,000 settlement for the loss of their truck. The Police Commission’s determination didn’t surprise the women’s attorney, Glen Jonas. “There (are) 4.2 million reasons I have to believe it’s out of policy,” he said. “Anyone with
any common sense would agree it’s out of policy.” Dorner, a fired Los Angeles police officer, claimed he was unfairly dismissed and vowed revenge against law enforcement officers in a rambling online manifesto. He killed the daughter of a former LAPD police official along with her fiance and two law enforcement officers over 10 days before being cornered and killing himself in a burning mountain cabin in San Bernardino County. On Feb. 7, 2013, Los Angeles police guarding the Torrance home of a high-profile target named in Dorner’s manifesto opened fire on a pickup truck they thought was Dorner’s. It actually contained the two women delivering newspapers. “This was a tragic cascade of circumstances that led to an inaccurate conclusion by the officers,” the police chief said. The officers had earlier learned that the target’s wife recently had seen Dorner in the neighborhood appearing to case the location, and just prior to the shooting officers heard over police radio that Dorner was getting off the freeway nearby, Beck said. In the early morning hours, officers said they saw the blue Toyota pickup “creeping” down the road, according to the chief’s report, with its high beams and flashers on. In his report to the commission, the chief said he expected that officers “make every effort that they determine that the truck was in fact Dorner’s.” He wrote, “While there were similarities, the truck that approached was a different make and model, different color, had no ski racks and no over-sized tires.” Beck said officers opened fire immediately after one woman threw a newspaper and an officer mistook the sound of it hitting the pavement for gunfire.
Ukrainian citizens become polarized amid controversy Protests for new government comes with violent consequences KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — The mayor of a western city warned that his police would fight any troops sent in by the president. The governor of an eastern region posted an image of an opposition lawmaker beaten bloody, saying he couldn’t contain his laughter. Two months into Ukraine’s anti-government protests, the two sides are only moving further apart. To be sure, Ukraine has never been monolithic. Russia and Europe have vied for dominance for centuries, fostering deep cultural differences between the mostly Ukrainianspeaking western and central regions that yearn for ties with the West, and the Russianspeaking east and south that looks to Russia for support. As the crisis has deepened, each side has grown stronger in its convictions — and those who stood in the middle have been forced to choose sides. The demonstrations began with an old question: Should Ukraine follow a European path or move closer into Russia’s sphere? In November, President Viktor Yanukovych — after years of touting a political and economic treaty with the European Union — had abruptly walked out on it in favor of a bailout loan from Russia. But the crisis changed significantly a week later when riot police violently broke up a small, peaceful rally in the
middle of the night on Kiev’s central square. Suddenly, the calls for EU integration were replaced with demands for Yanukovych’s ouster and a new government that would guarantee human rights and democratic freedoms. Slogans such as “Ukraine is Europe” were replaced by “Down with the gang!” The divide deepened further as peaceful protests turned ever more violent. Last month, after four protesters were killed and police were widely reported to have beaten and abused activists, the opposition’s anger became more intense. And Yanukovych’s supporters were appalled by images of riot policemen set aflame by protesters’ Molotov cocktails, the toppling of a statue of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin and the occupation of government buildings. The differing visions are rooted in cultural realities. To the west, protest-friendly Lviv feels like a typical European city, with cobblestone streets, Catholic churches and outdoor cafes. To the east, the Yanukovych stronghold of Kharkiv is an industrial city with massive Soviet architecture and a giant Lenin statue. Linguistics also come into play in a country where roughly 40 percent of people speak Ukrainian at home, a third speak Russian and a quarter speak both. for one Ukrainian to address another in one language and hear a response in another. Most speakers on Kiev’s Independent Square address the crowds in Ukrainian, but both languages are heard at the barricades.
MATT DUNHAM/AP
Tunisian security forces stand outside a bullet-riddled house in which suspected militants were holed up in the Raoued suburb of Tunis, Tuesday, Feb. 4.
Tunisian National Guard, militants create conflict Anti-terror units invade hideout, kill seven extremists TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisia’s National Guard stormed a suspected militant hideout in a seaside suburb of Tunis after a daylong standoff Tuesday. Seven radicals were killed, including suspect in a political assassination last year, a minister said. One National Guard member also died in the clash, which comes almost a year after the assassination of left-wing politician Chokri Belaid by Islamist extremists set off a political crisis in this North African nation. Hundreds of masked antiterror units flooded the Tunis neighborhood of Raoued during the standoff, filling its streets with armored vehicles. Snipers were perched on rooftops. In the aftermath of the 2011 overthrow of its secular dicta-
torship, Tunisia saw a rise of radical Islamic groups, many of whom took up arms against the state, killing politicians and clashing with soldiers. Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou told a press conference that one of the militants killed had been identified as Kamel Gadhgadhi, the suspected assassin of Belaid. Two other radicals killed were involved in the gruesome ambush of soldiers in Mount Chaambi that left eight dead, five with slit throats, he said. “We chose not to drop our guard in the face of terrorism and we will fight them despite the costs to our security forces,” said Ben Jeddou, whose job has been threatened by his inability until now to bring the killers of Belaid and another opposition politician to justice. “We will keep working to reveal the truth of the two political assassinations.” Ben Jeddou showed a photo of the slain Gadhgadhi wear-
ing an explosive belt. He said police had recovered a large amount of weapons, explosives and rocket-propelled grenades from two houses occupied by the militants. The minister identified the attackers as members of Ansar al-Shariah, an ultraconservative Islamic movement that has been banned as a terrorist movement for its alleged links to al-Qaida and its involvement in attacks. Sandwiched between Algeria, the birthplace of al-Qaida’s North African branch, and Libya, a source of weapons following its civil war, Tunisia has had to deal with a rising threat of armed militants. Nearly every month there’s news of a shootout between security forces and militants, especially in the mountains along its border with Algeria. At least a dozen soldiers have been killed in clashes around Mount Chaambi, near the city of Kasserine.
News
6A — Wednesday, February 5, 2014
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
More information revealed by U.S. on Iraqi militant Al-Qaeda organization and global network undergo separation
J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/AP Rep. Norman “Doc” Hastings, R-Wash., center, discusses a new report that proposes alterations to the 40-year-old Endangered Species Act.
Republicans propose changes to Endangered Species Act New reforms seek to grant states more power BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Republicans in Congress on Tuesday called for an overhaul to the Endangered Species Act to curtail environmentalists’ lawsuits and give more power to states, but experts say broad changes to one of the nation’s cornerstone environmental laws are unlikely given the pervasive partisan divide in Washington, D.C. A group of 13 GOP lawmakers representing states across the U.S. released a report proposing “targeted reforms” for the 40-year-old federal law, which protects imperiled plants and animals. Proponents credit the law with staving off extinction for hundreds of species — from the bald eagle and American alligator to the gray whale. But critics contend the law has been abused by environmental groups seeking to restrict development in the name of species protection. Led by Rep. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington state, who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, the Republicans want to amend the law to limit
litigation from wildlife advocates that has resulted in protections for some species. And they want to give states more authority over imperiled species that fall within their borders. Also among the recommendations from the group are increased scientific transparency, more accurate economic impact studies and safeguards for private landowners. “The biggest problem is that the Endangered Species Act is not recovering species,” said Hastings. “The way the act was written, there is more of an effort to list (species as endangered or threatened) than to delist.” Signed into law by President Richard Nixon in December 1973, the act has resulted in additional protections for more than 1,500 plants, insects, mammals, birds, reptiles and other creatures, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Republicans have seized on the fact that only 2 percent of protected species have been declared recovered — despite billions of dollars in federal and state spending. Noah Greenwald, a wildlife advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, disputed the 2 percent figure as a “gross manipulation of facts” that ignores the hundreds of protected species now on the path to recovery.
The political hurdles for an overhaul of the law are considerable. The Endangered Species Act enjoys fervent support among many environmentalists, whose Democratic allies on Capitol Hill have thwarted past proposals for change. Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio, the ranking Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, suggested Tuesday that Republicans appeared intent on gutting the law. He predicted the changes being sought would go nowhere in the Senate. “There is no appetite to overturn the (Endangered Species Act),” DeFazio said. Federal wildlife officials said they would not comment on Tuesday’s report until they have a chance to review it. Throughout its history, the law has faced criticism from business interests, Republicans and others. They argue actions taken to shield at-risk species such as the northern spotted owl have severely hampered logging and other economic development. Those complaints grew louder in recent months after federal wildlife officials agreed to consider protections for more than 250 additional species under settlement terms in lawsuits brought by environmental groups.
Classifieds RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Call: #734-418-4115 Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
HELP WANTED
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — He has commanded a relentless bombing campaign against Iraqi civilians, orchestrated audacious jailbreaks of fellow militants and expanded his hard-line Islamist organization’s reach deep into neighboring Syria. While his may not be a household name, the shadowy figure known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has emerged as one of the world’s most lethal terrorist leaders. He is a renegade within al-Qaida whose maverick streak eventually led its central command to sever ties, deepening a rivalry between his organization and the global terror network. Al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is the main driver of destabilizing violence in Iraq and until recently was the main al-Qaida affiliate there. Al-Qaida’s general command formally disavowed the group this week, saying it “is not responsible for its actions.” Al-Baghdadi took over leadership of al-Qaida’s main Iraq franchise following a joint U.S.Iraqi raid in April 2010 that killed the terror group’s two top figures inside Iraq at their safe house near Tikrit, once Saddam Hussein’s hometown. Vice President Joe Biden at the time called the killings of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub alMasri a “potentially devastating blow” to al-Qaida in Iraq. But as in the past, al-Qaida in Iraq has proved resilient. Under al-Baghdadi’s leadership, it has come roaring back stronger than it was before he took over. The man now known as al-Baghdadi was born in Samarra, about 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, in 1971, according to a United Nations sanctions list. That would make him 42 or 43 years old.
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Al-Baghdadi is a nom de guerre for a man identified as Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai. The U.S. is offering a $10 million reward for information leading to his death or capture. He is believed to have been operating from inside Syria in recent months, though his current whereabouts aren’t known. Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maan Ibrahim said authorities believe he was in Iraq’s Salahuddin province, north of Baghdad, as recently as three weeks ago, but he moves around frequently so as not to be captured. What little else that is known publicly about al-Baghdadi comes from a brief biography posted in July to online jihadist forums. Its claims could not be independently corroborated. According to that account, al-Baghdadi is a married preacher who earned a doctorate from Baghdad’s Islamic University, the Iraqi capital’s main center for Sunni clerical scholarship. The biography linked him to several prominent tribes and said he comes from a religious family, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist sites. He rose to prominence as a proponent of the Salafi jihadi movement, which advocates “holy war” to bring about a strict, uncompromising version of Shariah law, in Samarra and the nearby Diyala province. The biography linked him to Samarra’s mosque of Imam Ahmed bin Hanbal, which according to one resident, speaking anonymously for fear of retribution, was a key hub for al-Qaida decision-making in 2005 and 2006. Samarra, like Diyala a hotbed for al-Qaida activity, was the scene of the 2006 bombing of the Shiite al-Askari shrine. That attack was blamed on al-Qaida and set off years of retaliatory bloodshed between Sunni and Shiite extremists. Al-Baghdadi’s leadership of the Iraqi al-Qaida operation coincided with the final year
and a half of the American military presence in Iraq. The U.S. withdrawal in December 2011 left Iraq with a precarious security vacuum that he was able to exploit. “Al-Baghdadi has managed a remarkable recovery and re-growth in Iraq and expansion into Syria. In so doing, Baghdadi has become somewhat of a celebrity figure within the global jihadist community,” said Charles Lister, an analyst at the Brookings Doha Center. The group has kept up pressure on the Shiite-led government in Baghdad with frequent and coordinated barrages of car bombs and suicide bombs, pushing the country’s violent death toll last year to the highest level since 2007, when the worst of Iraq’s sectarian bloodletting began to subside. A series of prison breaks, including a complex, militarystyle assault on two Baghdadarea prisons in July that freed more than 500 inmates, has bolstered his group’s ranks and raised its clout among jihadist sympathizers. That notoriety only grew when his fighters seized control of the city of Fallujah and other parts of the vast western Anbar province in recent weeks. His push into Syria has won him large numbers of foreign recruits , and is helped by “a slick and effective propaganda machine, which has had a truly global reach,” according to Lister. Last year, he added “and the Levant” to the end of his group’s name to reflect its crossborder ambitions. But its muscling in on other Syrian rebel groups’ territory has created divisions among the militant ranks. The Nusra Front, an al-Qaida-linked rebel group in Syria, bristled at the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s unilateral announcement of a merger — effectively a hostile takeover — last year. Abu Qatada, a radical preacher who was deported from Britain and faces terrorism charges in his native Jordan, is among those who have criticized ISIL’s role in Syria.
Syria barrel bomb kills 11, injures more Explosions in schools and mosque injure children in Aleppo BEIRUT (AP) — Men pull a girl from the rubble and haul her onto a dirty sheet of plastic, while another child, coated in white dust save for a red streak of blood from his nose, lies with his crushed leg dangling off a gurney — the grisly aftermath from the dropping of a crude “barrel bomb” by Syrian forces on the city of Aleppo. The bombing — one of at least seven such attacks in Aleppo on Tuesday — struck a mosque that was being used as a school, killing at least 11 people, activists said. A video supplied by activists contained scenes of the carnage. It was the latest example of the heightened use of barrel bombs, devices packed with fuel, explosives and scrap metal that are hurled from helicopters, often indiscriminately. Since Thursday, around 80 people have been killed by barrel bombs used by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces to try to dislodge rebels from Aleppo, according to figures provided by the Britainbased Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists on the ground. The video uploaded from the rebel-held Masaken Hanano district showed the aftermath of the explosion at or near the Uthman Bin Affan mosque, where adults were teaching children the Quran, said activist Hassoun Abu Faisal of the Aleppo Media Center.
The video,was consistent with what reporting by The Associated Press found. A cameraman films from inside a vehicle as it speeds toward a place where dust is drifting into a clear blue sky. The camera swivels to men and boys running around a building that has been torn in half by an explosion. “Are there martyrs?” the narrator asks. His camera focuses on a lump of red flesh in a vehicle. It is the beginning of a grim litany of death, as seen from the jerking camera. A child, his legs missing, lies on the ground, partially covered by a blanket. “Are there anybody’s children here?” cries one man. “Bashar, you lowlife!” cries another, referring to the Syrian ruler, raising his hands angrily to the sky. Another man shakes a blackened body inside a vehicle. A man carries a lifeless boy, lifting him partly by his clothes, and leaves him on the sidewalk near two other mangled corpses. An older man with a bloodied face stumbles toward the child, weeping, “Oh, God, your grace, oh, God.” The cameraman also captures scenes of the boy with the crushed leg and the girl pulled from the ruins. Far from the battlegrounds in Syria, Assad’s chief ally, Russia, expressed confidence that the government would return to the U.N.-hosted peace talks in Geneva that began in January after three years of war. Assad’s government has not committed to attending the next round of talks, expected on Feb. 10.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
EVENT PREVIEW
Women lead in upcoming ‘LUNA’ Film festival to strictly feature female works By ANNA SADOVSKAYA Daily Arts Writer
Only 18 percent of the writers, editors, cinematographers, producers and directors who worked on the top 250 grossing LUNAFEST films in the U.S. in 2012 Thursday were women. at 7 p.m. LUNAFEST, Lydia Mendelsa fundraissohn Theatre ing film festival aiming to $10, $12, $15 combat gender inequality in the film industry, is coming to campus on Thursday, hoping to start a conversation about not only the film industries’ glass ceiling, but all women’s issues and equality concerns. The proceeds of the film festival will go to the Breast Cancer Fund and Take Back the Night Ann Arbor, a local chapter of a national foundation that hosts events and marches in order to stand against sexual violence and discrimination. Third-year Law School student Carlyn Williams, co-leader of Take Back the Night/University Students Against Rape, joined TBTN after her friend and co-leader, third-year Law School student Samantha Honea, introduced her.
“One of the most empowered things for me, too, was realizing how many people are survivors that I knew on a daily basis and had no idea, but who were involved with Take Back the Night,” Williams said. “Just the experience of learning from other people.” Honea added: “The most rewarding moment is feeling that all these people in this room care about something we all care about.” Consisting of nine short films created by women, for women, about women, LUNAFEST travels around the country to 150 cities, showing the films and sparking conversation within the communities. “I feel that ‘LUNAFEST’ … brings together the trifecta of aspects that are not usually covered in today’s culture,” Williams said. “There are way more men directors than there are women directors, and not many films really highlight women’s issues, without being nationally known.” Not limited to a female audience, LUNAFEST picks awardwinning films that are animated, fictional, as well as personal, in order to connect with the audience’s diverse tastes and expectations. Honea described the challenges in starting the difficult discussions that usually follow the highlighting of women’s rights issues. “I think specifically with sexual assault and other women’s issues, just being able to sit down
and have an honest conversation about it, I think is a huge problem that we have,” Honea said. The festival, started in 2000 by LUNA, the makers of a women’s nutritional bar, is a novel way to raise awareness and money, while helping organizations such as TBTN to excite their community. “For the night, our focus is just to bring a wide variety of people together,” Williams said. “It doesn’t have to be feminist groups or people fighting for women’s issues, anyone would enjoy these films and see a perspective that they wouldn’t see in their daily lives.” A continual problem, according to Honea, isn’t just the public’s lack of awareness about gender inequality, but the lack of interest in learning and understanding women’s issues at the root. “Beyond the conversation about sexual assault and the public perception of equality, you can even see the disrespect when we say it’s ‘by women for women about women,’ and some people’s eyes glaze over, and you want to fight back and say ‘no, these are great films, and you want to attend, and it doesn’t have to be such a taboo thing.’ ” By sharing empowering stories through film, LUNAFEST, along with TBTN, aims to counteract people’s projected misunderstandings about women’s issues, and shed light on what can be done within each community to combat the inequality and to take back the voice of those who have had their rights violated.
ALBUM REVIEW
COLUMBIA
Why so serious?
Broken Bells slog through ‘Disco’ By ADAM THEISEN Daily Arts Writer
Over the last decade, James Mercer and Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse) have been two of the most influential men in C+ rock. Mercer, the front man After the of The Shins, took the indie Disco world by storm Broken Bells and crossed over into main- Columbia stream success, while Burton scored major hits with his production on songs like Gorillaz’s “Fell Good Inc.,” The Black Keys’ “Lonely Boy” and, of course, Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy.” These two artists first collaborated as Broken Bells with their solid eponymous album in 2010 — and now they’re back for a follow-up. The question, though, is whether or not After the Disco lives up to the high standards set by the previous work of their solo careers. If there is a “winner” in this collaboration, it’s definitely Burton. After the Disco works best when his shiny, futuristic production dominates. By contrast, Mercer’s vocals and guitars often make the songs sound like old Shins retreads, bringing the tracks back into tired and overdone mid-2000s indie-rock territory. The LP’s cover is a gorgeously trippy abstract image of what appears to be a girl looking out into some far-off galaxy, and Danger Mouse’s keyboards do
their best to bring the image to life. On the lengthy opening track and album highlight “Perfect World,” Burton’s steady drums and spacey synths drive listeners down an interstellar highway, while Mercer’s voice rides shotgun, alternating between soaring and quietly in awe. The music is best suited for a room filled with strobe lights and lasers — or for your next trip into outer space. Nothing, however, quite lives up to the strength of After the Disco’s opener. Appropriate to the record’s title, the music is ’70s disco with a slightly more present-day electronic twinge. The production is slick and funky, but Mercer’s falsetto vocals quickly make everything sound the same. Even the first single “Holding On for Life” doesn’t come close to living up to “The High Road,” the biggest hit from their last album. The core of After the Disco is primarily filler. Broken Bells tries things here and there, like gospel backing vocals and the occasional horn section, but nothing is particularly innovative or jaw-dropping. Mercer takes over much of the music from Burton after the first few tracks, which leads to sleepy and dull soft rock. It’s solid and functional, but nothing illuminates. Sometimes it feels like Mercer and Burton were just messing around in the studio, creating an album of mostly off-the-cuff material that’s subpar compared to these musicians’ previous work. Those sticking with After the Disco for the full ride will be rewarded with at least a couple
of higher-quality tracks. “Lazy Wonderland” combines the most evocative lyrical images of the album with Mercer’s comfortable acoustic strumming, recalling his best work with The Shins. “The Angel and the Fool” also features interestingly sinister orchestral production and is worth a listen, but it’s a minor consolation for those who have slogged through the whole album.
No innovation from Mercer and Burton. All artists who are trying to sell their work to the public need to believe that their work is the absolute best. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to imagine James Mercer and Brian Burton believing this when they finished up After the Disco, especially considering the caliber of their old material. Bizarrely, the lack of innovation makes the songs seem like a play for Adult Alternative radio, but since this type of recognition barely means anything anymore, the album will end up a small curiosity — a minor work that only hardcore fans of The Shins and Danger Mouse might appreciate. The collaboration simply does not play out as well as it looks on paper. Mercer and Burton are far too talented to make an album that is truly “bad,” but nothing here is going to make much of an impact.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014 — 7A
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
COURTESY OF THE GRAMMYS
Can you guess which one has the receding hairline?
Lamenting Daft Punk’s Grammy Award win By KENNETH SELANDER Daily Arts Writer
Last Sunday, Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories won the Grammy award for Album of the Year. Their feature song “Get Lucky” might be a catchy tune and be deserving enough of a Grammy for Best Record, but it doesn’t have the power to hoist Random Access Memories to Album of the Year. The rest of the album is a disappointment considering the craze around “Get Lucky.” Electronic music is different from other genres of music because, at least in my experience, it’s highly situational. It might be good to dance to or mellow enough to play quietly in the background while kicking it with some friends, but it’s also repetitive and tends to lack excitement. Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city was far more worthy of the Grammy. Random Access Memories is a snooze of an album unless maybe you’re drugged out of your mind at a discotech. I understand that Daft Punk sometimes sets trends in music — like the recent revival of disco — but the songs themselves seem to drone on for eternity with very little progression. Turning on the first track “Give Life Back to Music,” I could’ve sworn the song was “Get Lucky.” This trend persists throughout the album, as a majority of the tracks feature guitar strums and mute notes over occasional electronic beats that sound suspiciously similar to the poignant composition of that record. Vocals on the record are somewhat uncommon, but when they’re present they often have an exaggerated, metallic, autotuned sound to them. This sound gets old quickly, sucking any
romantic elements out of “Game of Love.” Even worse, the higherpitched vocals are the most painful part of songs like “Within” and remind me of American Idol auditions — the singer is terribly off pitch, and as soon as they try to hit the high notes the judges immediately yell at them to stop. Conversely, Jay Rock in “Money Trees” by Kendrick hits all the notes just fine. In fact, most of the featured artists on Daft Punk’s album don’t sound all that great. Tom Edwards’s vocals fill “Fragments of Time” nicely, but Paul Williams and some sporadic piano accompaniment give “Touch” a Broadway feel that doesn’t mix well with the electronic components. On the other hand, Kendrick features artists that not only flow well with him, but also make their given tracks even better: Drake does his usual smooth-talking in “Poetic Justice,” and Dr. Dre adds a hype and vibrancy to “Compton” that might have been lacking otherwise. As far as semantics go, Random Access Memories itself holds little sentimental value to hold on to. During Daft Punk’s Grammy acceptance speech, the gentleman talking for the robots said that they supported gay rights and that this year had been a major victory for the cause. It’s good that they support the movement, but instead of just saying it they could infuse such values into their music, thereby adding more power and meaning to their songs. Kendrick gives his album plenty of sentimental value through the sound bites, and also by discussing difficult issues like the death of his sister and struggles of women growing up and living in the hood in “Sing About Me.”
If you want to talk about sheer popularity, Random Access Memories has only one song on the Billboard Hot 100, and — you guessed it — it’s “Get Lucky” at number two. Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city has three songs, at numbers 17, 26 and 100. Although, popularity is certainly not always a great indication of quality, seeing as “The Art of Peer Pressure” might be one of the deepest and most thoughtful tracks on good kid, m.A.A.d city. Lastly, the whole “let’s dress up as astronauts/robots” gig is cool and different, but is completely irrelevant to the music itself. If there were a “Best Costumes” category at the Grammy’s, they’d surely take the cake. A lot of the hype about Daft Punk seems to derive from sheer intrigue, but Random Access Memories itself isn’t memorable. If Album of the Year were to be chosen based on popularity and uniqueness, Macklemore probably should’ve won with two number one tracks on the Billboard rankings and a
Kendrick’s fantastic album deserved more recognition. silly haircut — but I digress. To conclude, Kendrick Lamar crafted a fantastic and diverse album this year and walked out of the Grammys with nothing to show except a stellar performance, while Daft Punk made one catchy song, and the whole album was found to be Grammy worthy. Simply put, they got lucky.
8A — Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Defensive issues lingering Last two games mark aggravating step backward By ALEXA DETTELBACH Daily Sports Editor
TERESA MATHEW/Daily
Sophomore forward Nik Stauskas was held to 1-of-6 from the field and just six points in Sunday’s road loss to Indiana.
Resurgent Cornhuskers eye upset of Wolverines Nebraska seeks revenge for home loss in January By DANIEL FELDMAN Daily Sports Writer
Earlier in the week, Nebraska men’s basketball coach Tim Miles joked that the Cornhuskers Nebraska at have been Michigan working “on our one-inch Matchup: layups” in Nebraska 11-9; Michigan 16-5 preparation for Wednesday When: night’s game Wednesday 6:30 P.M. against Where: Crisler Michigan. While the Center quip — in TV: BTN reference to Michigan’s dramatic 71-70 win in Lincoln on Jan. 9 — may have simply been a joke, the Cornhuskers’ play is far from it. After going 9-27 in conference play in its first two years in the Big Ten, Nebraska (3-5 Big Ten, 11-9 overall) will enter Ann Arbor as winners of three out of four games, including wins over Indiana and then-No. 17 Ohio State. Playing their best basketball of the year, the Cornhuskers will be seeking to move their success out of the confines of Pinnacle Bank Arena and earn their first conference road win of the season. “(Nebraska’s) always been talented,” said Michigan coach John Beilein. “Now I see a chemistry with them that they’re playing as well as anyone in the league right now. (Terran) Petteway might become the best player in the league. Then (Ray) Gallegos, the way he can shoot. They have
a tremendous basketball team.” Petteway, Nebraska’s leading scorer with an average of 18.2 points to go along with 5.4 rebounds, has scored in double digits in all but one game this season. He could prove to be the game-changer for the Cornhuskers. When the teams first met, the sophomore both kept Nebraska in the game against the 10th-ranked Wolverines (8-1, 16-5) and hindered it, committing six turnovers but countering that by scoring 16 points. Pettaway ranks second in the conference in scoring, and with the Texas Tech transfer playing well recently — averaging 21 points in his last five games — Nebraska seems to finally be putting all of its pieces together. “They assembled this group of talent,” Beilein said. “Several transfers, two junior college players and Gallegos, the New Zealand young man. When you throw them together, you have all this talent, but we all know that talent is never enough. You have to have chemistry, you have to have timing, you have to have a lot of great things. “And each game that they play, all of these great talents that Tim (Miles) has brought in have got more and more comfortable with what Tim’s trying to do. And that’s been a big difference for them.” After losing to Indiana on Sunday, halting a 10-game winning streak, Michigan and sophomore guard Nik Stauskas will look to bounce back before traveling to Ohio State and Iowa in the next week. For Stauskas, it will be important for him to be more involved on offense after scoring just six points against the Hoosiers. “We’ve got to do a better
job getting (Stauskas) open,” Beilein said, listing the three keys to the game. “He’s got to do a better job getting open, and his teammates need to do a better job of getting him open.” Though Beilein said on Sunday that the loss would help the Wolverines in the long run, another lesson that came out of Michigan’s first conference defeat was that excuses shouldn’t be made when Stauskas doesn’t get the ball. “Nik could have done things and we could have done things,” Beilein said. “And his teammates could have done things. None of us say, ‘OK, they’re denying Nik, we’ve gotta go elsewhere.’ There were opportunities for him to get the ball and we just didn’t get it to him. … We don’t want him taking six shots a game.” With defenses identifying and marking him as the Wolverines’ first option, Stauskas will have to adjust from his past playing experiences. Just as Stauskas is no longer just a shooter, he isn’t just an afterthought. “When I look back on his career here, there was Tim (Hardaway Jr.) and Trey (Burke),” Beilein said. “In his career at St. Mark’s (Southborough, Mass.), there was (Arizona’s Kaleb) Tarczewski and (former Florida player) Eric Murphy. Now, there’s Nik Stauskas’ name out there as a marked man. That’s a different mentality.” NOTES: Nebraska hasn’t played since Jan. 30. ... The Cornhuskers are 1-8 in games away from Pinnacle Bank Arena this season. ... Nebraska’s twogame conference win streak is its first since joining the Big Ten.
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One similarity transcends the Michigan women’s basketball team’s two-game losing streak — defense. Or, a lack thereof. The struggles began against Nebraska on Jan. 29, when NOTEBOOK the Wolverines put their undefeated road record on the line and came up well short. Michigan (5-4 Big Ten, 14-8 overall) allowed the Cornhuskers to score 44 first-half points on 56.7-percent shooting. Not much improved after halftime, as Nebraska ended the game with 84 points and shot 53.3 percent from the field. It was just the second time the Wolverines had allowed their opponents to score more than 80 points, and was just the third time Michigan was outrebounded this season. “Nebraska was unbelievable, and they had a special day there,” said Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico on Tuesday. “They were coming off of two really tough losses, they were ready to go, and we really couldn’t stop them from scoring. “Despite everything we tried, Nebraska kept scoring, and they have a young lady in Jordan Hooper … who was on fire for them. Everything seemed to be going right for them.” In just 27 minutes, Hooper exploded for 25 points and 10 rebounds, missing just four shots. No amount of varied defensive looks slowed her down, leaving Michigan
without a realistic solution to its most pressing problem. But what could’ve been written off as an isolated incident against Nebraska continued at home against a struggling Minnesota team. Going into halftime with a 38-34 lead, the Wolverines allowed the Golden Gophers to hit 11 of their first 13 shots in the second half, eventually leading to a whopping 77.3-percent clip after the break. “It was our fourth game in 10 days, and we weren’t sure how our kids would respond to the travel schedule,” Barnes Arico said. “(Minnesota) was unbelievable in the second half. … We really did play well, but we can’t have lapses against good teams (because) good teams will make you pay for those defensive lapses.” The Golden Gophers’ productive second half saw two of their players score 24 points each in addition to guard Mikayla Bailey’s 17, well above her average of three points per game. And despite grabbing a seasonbest 21 offensive rebounds and committing a season-low seven turnovers against Minnesota, Michigan’s defense inhibited its production and led the team to drop back-to-back losses for the first time all season. 22 FOR THE FROSH: For most of the year, freshman point guard Siera Thompson has been on fire from beyond the 3-point arc. And nothing changed against Nebraska, where Thompson hit two 3-pointers to move her season total to 50, setting a new Michigan freshman record. Amy Johnson held the previous mark of 49 in 1993-1994. Thompson is just the eighth Wolverine to hit at least 50 in a season.
“She’s been incredible,” Barnes Arico said. “She’s been steady night in and night out. She handles the ball for us and she usually guards the other team’s best guard. We are asking so much of her. … One thing our team needs to do a better job of is finding her and being able to get her some easier shots.” Thompson also hit three triples against Minnesota, extending her streak of make 3-pointers to 22-consecutive games. But despite scoring 16 points in the first half against the Golden Gophers, Thompson was held to just three in the second half. TRAVELING IN STYLE: Following Michigan’s win over Wisconsin on Jan. 26, the Wolverines traveled in style, flying on a Miami Air charter — a plane the defendingNBA champion Miami Heat sometimes use. The plane was en route to Detroit to pick up the NHL’s Florida Panthers after their game against the Detroit Red Wings.
BY THE NUMBERS Michigan’s defense
84.5
Average points per game allowed in the Wolverines’ last two games, both losses.
62
Points per game allowed in Michigan’s 20 other contests.
55.9
Nebraska and Minnesota’s average field goal percentage against the team.
42.3
Opponents’ average field goal percentage this season.
PAUL SHERMAN/Daily
Senior defenseman Mac Bennett has been an integral part of Michigan’s power play, but it has struggled in the new year.
Power play frustrating ‘M’ By ALEJANDRO ZÚÑIGA Daily Sports Editor
The Michigan hockey team certainly didn’t have too much to complain about after it NOTEBOOK took five of six possible points against No. 12 Wisconsin last weekend. But the series marked the continuation of a troublesome trend. The Wolverines haven’t scored a power-play goal since the first period of a game against the Badgers on Jan. 11. Since that tally, a shot by sophomore forward Andrew Copp that took a sudden deflection off of senior forward Luke Moffatt, Michigan has gone 0-for-18 with the man advantage. And it’s gotten exasperating. “The most frustrating thing is just seeing that power-play percentage number just go down and down,” Moffatt said Tuesday. The recent cold streak has dropped that number to just 17.24 percent, which has shaken the team’s confidence. The Wolverines could reach five full games without a power-play goal if the special teams doesn’t find twine this weekend against Penn State. “It’s a little bit of everything,” said Michigan coach Red Berenson. “It’s a little bit of our confidence, our execution and guys trying to do too much.” Though senior defenseman
Mac Bennett has proven himself as a legitimate threat on the man advantage, Berenson acknowledged that the Wolverines are missing a player like former defenseman Jacob Trouba, whose blazing slap shot helped him tally seven goals last year. Since opposing penaltykill units don’t have to account for such a vicious shot, they can collapse into the crease. “We’re constantly changing stuff up with the power play,” Moffatt said. “It’s so much fine tuning, you can change one small thing and suddenly everything works.” Saturday, Michigan’s power play looked deadly, even if just for one of its six opportunities. On its first man advantage of the night, it ripped five shots and kept the puck in Wisconsin’s zone. But the Wolverines came up empty-handed on their next five power plays, too, and managed just nine total shots. “If you have a good power play, you’re going to score one out of five times,” Berenson said. “That means you’ve failed four out of five times, but you’re supposed to feel good about it.” DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK: Freshman defenseman Kevin Lohan will have to wait even longer until he plays again. Though he told the Daily on Jan. 15 that he was nearly
practicing at full speed and would have dressed that weekend if permitted, Lohan remains sidelined with a torn lateral meniscus he suffered Nov. 1. Berenson said Tuesday that the defenseman is not cleared to play this weekend, and his status won’t change before next weekend’s series against No. 1 Minnesota. “He’s not quite cleared,” the veteran coach said. “They expect to clear him, but it won’t be this week and it won’t be next week.” Berenson added that Lohan “is on a good path” in his road to recovery. In November, two days after Lohan’s injury, Berenson said that the freshman would be out at least three months, making early February the best-case scenario for his return. ONE AWAY: Given Penn State’s perfectly futile 0-8 record in Big Ten play this year, Berenson might expect to pick up his 784th victory this weekend, which would move him into sole possession of fourth place alltime in the NCAA’s wins category for coaches. But Berenson isn’t taking any credit. “That means I’ve been around for a long time, and I’ve had good teams, and I’m at the right place,” he said after the Wolverines beat Wisconsin on Friday.