ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Thursday, December 10, 2015
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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S W E E T E N YO U R D AY
GOVERNMENT
Court hears arguments in Fisher v. Texas case Supreme Court to once again consider use of race in college admissions process
DAVID SONG/Daily
LSA sophomore Sarah Gizzi and LSA freshman Marielle Dewicki make sugar cookies after a cookie baking demonstration by a Michigan Dining chef at the Michigan Union on Wednesday.
CITY COUNCIL
Year in Review: Ann Arbor leadership faces transition From deer cull to departure of key city officials, 2015 marked year of change By ISOBEL FUTTER Daily Staff Reporter
For City Hall and the Ann Arbor City Council, the past year has been one of major changes — from an influx of new faces on
city staff to an unprecedented decision to hire sharpshooters to reduce Ann Arbor’s deer population. As the year wraps up, The Michigan Daily is reviewing City Council’s major challenges and successes throughout 2015, and what the year’s progress, or lack thereof, will mean for the year ahead. City staffing changes In 2015, the city of Ann Arbor lost upward of five key city leaders. Among these were the police chief, the city
administrator, the city fire chief, the city community services area administrator and the city planning manager. A challenge for the city in the coming months will be finding the resources and staff to accommodate council’s needs. According to Councilmember Zach Ackerman (D–Ward 3), an LSA senior, council will need to slow down with policy change in the beginning of 2016. “We have a leadership vacuum in City Hall, five of them are
By SAMANTHA WINTNER Daily Staff Reporter
senior positions that all left the city within a year,” Ackerman said. “The responsible thing is to slow down policy wise and make sure that we have the key players we need to make sure that what we want to implement can be implemented.” Chuck Warpehoski (D–Ward 5) also said the openings will slow down Ann Arbor for a while. “There’s a lot of vacancies at the top of the organization and the organization is tight on staff See REVIEW, Page 3A
Amid increased discussion of race on college campuses across the country, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in Fisher v. University of Texas, a case that could diminish the use of affirmative action in college admissions processes. The case considers the legality of institutions of higher education using race as one of many factors when making admissions decisions. Abigail Fisher, a white woman from Texas, is suing the University of Texas at Austin because she believes she would have been admitted to the school if not for her race. At the time, UT-Austin granted automatic admission to students who were in the top 10 percent of
TECHNOLOGY
RESEARCH
New policy to standardize safety in labs Policy also creates oversight board to ensure best research practices By JACKIE CHARNIGA Daily Staff Reporter
After University President Mark Schlisselpledged in April to enhance on-campus laboratory safety, the University has implemented a standardized lab safety policy, on top of creating an oversight committee on laboratory and research safety. The new Academic Laboratory and Research Safety Policy applies to all University students, faculty and staff. The policy outlines the responsibilities of those in a management or supervisory position for the safety of those who serve under them. Danielle Sheen, associate director of research and operations safety from the Office of Occupational Safety and
Environmental Health, said the policy changes intend to put more emphasis on following existing policies and formalizing current safety practices. “There have been some recent tragedies on university campuses across the nation and University leadership wanted to be proactive to emphasize the importance of safe research to prevent any similar outcomes on our campus,” Sheen wrote in an e-mail interview. The policy begins with emphasizing reporting and resolving health and safety issues. Position-specific responsibilities increase with the level of authority, the majority of which rests with the laboratory director. “A culture of safety is a shared responsibility and this policy formalizes the role of everyone in the U-M research community,” Sheen wrote. “This information did not previously exist in a policy format for individuals to reference.” The new policy also defines the roles of those on the University See LAB SAFETY, Page 3A
their high school classes, which makes up about 75 percent of UT-Austin’s student body. Though this plan does not explicitly consider race as a factor, it is intended to result in a more diverse collegiate student body since high schools in the state may not be diverse. Fisher did not make this cut at her high school. The Supreme Court previously heard the case in 2012, when the justices remanded it to a lower court. The case then made its way back up through the court system through the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Fifth Circuit ruled against Fisher, but that decision was appealed and again sent to the Supreme Court in 2014. The case follows a line of Supreme Court decisions ruling on the use of affirmative action, including two cases challenging the University of Michigan’s admissions policies. In 2003, the court ruled in Gratz v. Bollinger that the University’s point system for undergraduate admissions was unconstitutional, but that the use of race as one of many factors by the See SCOTUS, Page 2A
‘U’ licenses 3D-printed tracheal splint device Device has already saved the lives of four children, pends FDA approval DAVID SONG/Daily
By ALEXA ST. JOHN
Linda Winkler, vice chair of the Human Rights Commission, listens to citizen complaints about the Police Oversight Resolution at Larcom City Hall on Wednesday.
Residents say more debate needed for police oversight Human Rights Commission holds forum on proposed civilian commission By RIYAH BASHA Daily Staff Reporter
The Ann Arbor Human Rights Commission met at Larcom City Hall on Tuesday night to discuss an advisory report on improving
police-community relations. The commission, which reports directly to the Ann Arbor City Council, opened the meeting to the public. More than 30 community members attended, over half of whom voiced concerns about the 42-page report released last month. In the report, the commission calls for the formation of an independent civilian review board, the hiring of an independent police auditor and the formation of crisis
intervention teams. The discussion of the proposals comes at a critical time for the city’s police force, as James White, an assistant chief with the Detroit Police Department, will take over as the department’s new chief in January. Commissioner Dwight Wilson, who said he met extensively with various local organizations and community members before drafting the See COMMISSION, Page 2A
Daily Staff Reporter
The University plans to take its 3D pringing initiatives one step further. The University has signed a license agreement with Materialise, a 3D printing and software company headquartered in Belgium, to commercialize 3D-printed tracheal splints developed at the University. The splints already saved the lives of four children, and are used to mitigate complications associated tracheobronchomalacia, a condition resulting from the malformation of vascular structures in a person’s airway. The malformation can result in a weakened trachea or bronchi, which can cause the airway to See PRINTING, Page 3A
the b-side
Ann Arbor awaits release of new ‘Star Wars’ installment
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News
2A — Thursday, December 10, 2015
MONDAY: This Week in History
TUESDAY: Campus Voices
WEDNESDAY: In Other Ivory Towers
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THURSDAY: Twitter Talk
APPETIZING APPLES The Career Center gently reminded students of approaching job and internship deadlines at semester’s end.
“Here Today. Gone Tomorrow. Maybe Not Quite Tomorrow. But They’ll Be Gone Soon! Upcoming Job & Internship Deadlines.” -@careercenter
“ MARINA ROSS/Daily
Ypsilanti resident Claire Milldrum makes caramel apples at Kilwins on Wednesday.
Gov. Rick Snyder (R) tweeted Detroit has more work to do.
“One year after Detroit’s exit from bankruptcy, we have seen what the power of working together can do #ComebackCity” — @onetoughnerd
“
WHAT: Part of a weeklong symposium on Caribbean tourism, histories and gender identities. WHO: Arts at Michigan WHEN: 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. WHERE: Duderstadt Center Media Union, Video Studio
documentary “How to Survive a Plague,” chronicling the work of AIDS activists at the height of the epidemic. WHO: The Spectrum Center WHEN: 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. WHERE: East Quad, Room 4123
Latina/o Studies talk
Beethoven Fossil Fuel sonatas recital lecture
WHAT: Arlene Dávila will give a lecture titiled “El Mall: The Spatial and Class Politics of Shopping Malls in Latin America.” WHO: Screen Arts and Cultures WHEN: 2:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. WHERE: Haven Hall, Room 3512
WHAT: Detroit Prof. Aaron Berofsky’s Beethoven Sonata Class will perform all of Beetoven’s sonatas for violin and piano. WHO: School of Music, Theatre & Dance WHEN: 8 p.m. WHERE: Walgreen Drama Center, Stamps Auditorium
SCOTUS From Page 1A Law School, challenged in Grutter v. Bollinger, was constitutional. However, Michigan voters in 2006 opted to ban the use of race in admissions via a statewide ballot initiative. Richard Primus, a University professor of constitutional law, said what is currently being presented to the court for consideration is hardly different than what was discussed back in 2012. “As a substantive matter, there’s very little in this oral argument that didn’t already exist in the paper record,” he said. “People will over-evaluate the oral argument for signals, but most of the time, at least much of the time, that is a mistake.” Substantively, oral arguments are a forum in which the justices question the counsel of both sides of a case. Primus said in cases that are overwhelmingly technical or nuanced, oral arguments can be very informative for justices, but it is less so here since this is the second time the court is hearing this case. “Oral argument is least likely to change an outcome in a case like this one,” he said. “Every judge has a well-developed sense of these ideas and a well-developed set of views about these ideas. The information has been thoroughly digested and re-digested. They’re not going to (use the) argument to learn new things.” Justice Elena Kagan has recused herself from the case, and the court’s four more conservative justices are expected to side with
COMMISSION From Page 1A report, emphasized the importance of community input. “We cannot set aside the fact that police cannot be expected to police themselves. Right?” Wilson asked, to loud applause from the audience. However, Nearly all of the community members who spoke criticized the resolution because of insufficient power delegated to citizens. Public Health student Rebecca Ahmad-Robinson, a member of the advocacy group
WHAT: Students in the EARTH/ENVIRON 380 class will lecture on whether the University can become independant from fossil fuels. WHO: Program in the Enviornment WHEN: 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. WHERE: North Quad, Room 2435
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Interviewing Valerie Jenness talk workshop WHAT: A UC Irvine criminology professor will lecture on how prison shapes gender through the feminization of transgender women. WHO: Dept. of Sociology WHEN: 3:10 p.m. to 4:40 p.m. WHERE: 2239 Lane Hall
Each week, “Twitter Talk” is a forum to print tweets that are fun, informative, breaking or newsworthy, with an angle on the University, Ann Arbor and the state. All tweets have been edited for accurate spelling and grammar.
University students take to Yik Yak to discuss the realities of finals.
CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES
‘Conjuring the Film screening WHAT: There will Caribbean’ be a screening of the
FRIDAY: Photos of the Week
WHAT: The Career Center, in partnership with the LSA Psychology Department, will review common interview questions and share tips on how to prepare. WHO: The Career Center WHEN: 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. WHERE: East Hall, Room
Music recital WHAT: The School of Music, Theatre & Dance will host a free wind chamber music recital. WHO: The School of Music, Theatre and Dance WHEN: 8 p.m. WHERE: Earl V. Moore Building, Britton Recital Hall
THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW TODAY
1
Despite efforts from the state government barring refugees from entering the state, a Syrian family of six settled in Dallas, Texas this week, the Associated Press reported.
2
Daily Arts Writer Matthew Barnauskas explore the new Star Wars movie in this Jedi-centric edition of The B-Side. >>SEE B-SIDE, PAGE 1B
3
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanual apologized for the 2014 shooting of Laquan McDonald, the Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday. Protestors gathered downtown to call for the mayor’s resignation.
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Fisher. Of the four remaining justices, three are expected to side with the University of Texas and Justice Anthony Kennedy will likely be the swing vote. In oral arguments, Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the four conservative justices, referred to some beliefs which questioned the place of some minority student beneficiaries of affirmative action at public universities during the oral arguments. “There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they will not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less — a slowertrack school where they do well,” he said, according to the transcript of the oral arguments. “One of the briefs pointed out that most of the Black scientists in this country don’t come from schools like the University of Texas.” Scalia continued that AfricanAmerican students come to colleges from “lesser schools,” and arrive at college to find the classes are too hard for them. “I’m just not impressed by the fact that the University of Texas may have fewer (African-American students),” he said. “Maybe it ought to have fewer. And maybe some — you know, when you take more, the number of Blacks, really competent Blacks, admitted to lesser schools turns out to be less.” Gregory G. Garre, legal counsel for the University of Texas, said the court had previously rejected that sentiment. “If you look at the academic performance of holistic minority admits versus the top 10 percent admits, over time, they fare better,”
he said. “And, frankly, I don’t think the solution to the problems with student body diversity can be to set up a system in which not only are minorities going to separate schools, they’re going to inferior schools.” The University’s Black Student Union did not respond to an interview request. Citing his judicial record, media outlets and academics speculate Kennedy will join the conservative four in a ruling against the University of Texas, but Primus said that may be too speculative. In speaking about the utility of the oral argument, he noted Kennedy could also opt to send the case back to the Fifth Circuit. “If there’s anything in the oral argument that’s fodder for further prediction, it’s the possibility that Justice Kennedy, once again, might like to find a technical way out,” he said. “In his questioning of Fisher’s counsel, he talked about the possibility of sending the thing back to the district court. Later, he seemed to back off that a little bit.” However, in the event of a tie vote, with Kennedy joining the liberal justices and siding with the University of Texas, the previous Fifth Circuit ruling will prevail. Media outlets and academics have also been speculating what the court’s decision — due in June or early July — could look like, and what could be the implications of outlawing the race in admissions. Some have suggested that universities may turn to other forms of affirmative action, such as class-based or socioeconomicbased methods. Primus said the adoption of class-based systems opens another
can of worms, but that the potential effects of such programs to achieve racial diversity could affect the outcome of the case at hand. “The more Justice Kennedy thinks that race-blind, classbased affirmative action can produce racial diversity, the more likely he is to rule against the University (of Texas) in this case,” he said. “The more he recognizes that such means don’t produce that result, the more likely he is to rule for the university.” Ann Lin, a professor of public policy at the University, said Fisher’s argument is that 10 percent plans — whereby the top 10 percent of high school graduating classes are guaranteed admission to a state university — like the one at the University of Texas, are preferable to holistic review processes that use factors including race. “That approach is one that schools like Michigan have always
rejected — rejected them because top 10 plans only create (racial) diversity if you have extreme segregation in your state … this works in Texas because Texas is one of the most segregated states in the nation,” she said. “But, it doesn’t work if either you have diverse school bodies in which the top 10 percent of the school doesn’t reflect the diversity of the school, and it also doesn’t work if you have pockets of racial segregation in which the high schools are also of different sizes.” To that end, Primus said proponents of affirmative action might rationally fear that Kennedy will rule with Fisher against racebased affirmative action, and that the court’s decision will fail to specify the circumstances under which universities are allowed to conduct holistic review, even without the use of race. “The reason in that circumstance
that universities might not be able to do holistic review would be the claim that they could do percentage plans instead,” he said. “And then the whole game would be about arguing that a given university, given its local demographics, or its size or its mission, was not wellsuited for the use of a percentage plan.” Lin said holistic plans allow institutions like the University to be aware of race in admissions, even if they don’t explicitly consider it, and to achieve a broad definition of diversity. She said schools can use other parameters, such as first-generation status, which are correlated with race to reach this diversity. “If you have a broader definition of diversity, including diversity of skills and talents and socioeconomic status, you cannot get it from a top 10 percent plan,” she said.
Ann Arbor to Ferguson, specifically questioned the decision to allow the mayor to select the review board. “(The report) is lacking teeth in a lot of ways,” she said. “The language has been changed multiple times so that it looks more like a watered down civilian review board. We would seek to empower the civilian oversight board to participate in the hiring and firing of police officers.” The commission set about writing the report last November, motivated in part by the police shooting of Ann Arbor resident Aura Rosser, and the subsequent scrutiny of the
city’s police department and national conversations about police brutality. Rosser’s name was invoked multiple times by community members during the meeting, but Ypsilanti resident Michelle Barney, a representative of the NAACP, cautioned the commission against leaning too heavily on Rosser’s legacy as an immediate motivation. “You have been engaged in a make-nice process,” Barney said. “You look like you’re doing something so that we don’t have riots in the streets, so that we don’t have Ferguson, Chicago (or) Baltimore.” Shirley Beckley, an Ann Arbor
resident and an organizer with Ann Arbor to Ferguson, echoed that mentioning Rosser cannot cover up the recommendations’ shortfalls. “You mention Aura’s name several time in the opening, and then propose a review and not an oversight. Anything less than community control of the police is worse than nothing,” she said. The evaluation of community involvement on the resolution shifted to a critique of the meeting’s format itself. Though the agenda only allowed for comments from the public, speakers demanded replies from commissioners as well. The audience’s insistence
ultimately pushed Linda Winkler, the vice-chair of the commission and acting chair, to motion for time specifically reserved for questions. “This is important enough to me as a Black community person and a person who cares about this town, that we have dialogue,” Beckley said. “When you don’t talk to us, it just makes us feel like we’re not important, and this is just something that you designed. I know how hard Dwight Wilson worked on this report. Don’t throw us off like that because you’re going to do nothing but anger us. We’re trying to work with you. I’m not going to sit here another
70 years and see this happen in my community. Please talk to us.” The resulting extra time for discussion centered around the commission’s concrete takeaways from the forum and commissioners emphasized that all concerns voiced will ultimately be passed on for City Council’s consideration. Though the report is only a set of nonbinding considerations, commissioners and community members agreed that the commission, the community and White, the incoming police chief, need to engage in more discussion before the report appears on the council’s agenda.
FILE PHOTO/Daily
Protesters demonstrate outside of the Supreme Court during the Fisher v. University of Texas case on Oct. 10, 2012.
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LEFT: New city council members Zachary Ackerman (D-Ward 3), Sabra Briere (D-Ward 1) and Jane Lumm (D-Ward 2) recite the oath before being officially inducted to City Council on Nov. 16, 2015. RIGHT: Protesters block cars as part of a march organized by Ann Arbor to Ferguson on Monday in protest of police violence on the one year anniversary of the shooting of Aura Rosser by Ann Arbor Police Officer David Ried on Nov. 9, 2015.
REVIEW From Page 1A to begin with, so managing all of that is going to be difficult,” he said. “We all have to reel in our expectations a bit about what we can do as a staff and what we have the resources for.” The search for a new city administrator is an extensive process that could take up to three months. The administration committee, with the help of a search firm, will narrow down the potential applicants for the post. After finalists are selected, a series of public interviews and forums will be held before a recommendation is made to City Council. Tom Crawford, Ann Arbor’s chief financial officer, is serving as interim city administrator. Ackerman said it will be crucial in the coming months to find suitable replacements for these key positions. “We will need to hire a terrific city administrator who can oversee the whole operation, hire a strong community service administrator who can improve those customer service aspects of City Hall,” Ackerman said. “Then, make sure we have a good building manager and planning manager to make sure that any development that does go forward is attractive and safe.” In November, council unanimously approved City Administrator Steve Powers’ recommendation to appoint James White as Ann Arbor police chief. Currently an assistant police chief with the Detroit Police Department, White begin his new position in Ann Arbor on Jan. 11, 2016. Police-community relations The year started with continued protest against police brutality in light of the death of Ann Arbor resident Aura Rosser, who was shot by an Ann Arbor police officer last November. In late January, the Washtenaw Prosecutor’s Office concluded Ann Arbor Police Officer David Ried would not face criminal charges for the fatal shooting. Following the ruling, protesters gathered outside City Hall to protest the decision. Protesters filled downtown streets, disrupting traffic and shouted chants including “Black Lives Matter.” Late December 2014, council voted to appropriate $173,760 to upgrade the police in-car cameras and body cameras. However, in 2015, discussion continued surrounding the use of cameras, as many activists say that policy does not go far enough. Austin McCoy,
PRINTING From Page 1A become too narrow or collapse. According to Scott Hollister, a professor of biomedical and mechanical engineering, tracheobronchomalacia occurs once in every 2,200 births. In the United States, that averages about 1,500 to 1,800 patients a year with the condition, with ranging severity. While some kids with a mild form of the condition will not need medical intervention, those with moderate to very severe forms require treatment that can potentially be life-saving. “The kids exhale, which puts a negative pressure in the airway that tends to want to collapse the airway,” he said. “With normal cartilage it will hold up the airway, but with these kids it collapses completely and they can’t get air out of their lungs.”
a Rackham student with the grassroots activist organization Ann Arbor to Ferguson, said he has seen no evidence of progress from the police. “We don’t know if the police are using them yet, we don’t know if the police is undergoing diversity training,” McCoy said. “We just know that it was announced a long time ago.” Ann Arbor to Ferguson was created after Rosser’s death, aiming to fight for justice of Rosser’s death in the spirit of the protests in Ferguson, Mo., where a Black man was shot by police in 2014. City Council’s Human Rights Commission announced in January it would explore the creation of a Civilian Police Oversight Board to review police conduct. In September, Council unanimously approved a proposal to grant the Human Rights Commission the authority to review individual discrimination complaints brought forth by residents. As of now, there is no explicit Civilian Oversight Board. Also this year, John Seto, former AAPD police chief, announced his retirement andaccepted a role as director of the University’s Housing Security and Safety Services. A question for many, like McCoy, is how City Council will address police-community interaction in the coming year, especially with the new Police Chief James White. McCoy said it’s been difficult for the Ann Arbor to Ferguson group to hold conversations in Ann Arbor about these issues. “In terms of Aura Rosser’s killing specifically, folks have been able to rationalize it,” McCoy said. “They say there’s only been one shooting in the last 30 years, this was a mistake. Ann Arbor is typically seen as a progressive, small city. Then it’s like, with all these sorts of discourses around the city circulating, raising the issue becomes a little tough. There are people who just believe that this is an anomaly and that there’s not really a problem.” McCoy said he hopes that White will enter his role with context of the Rosser shooting in mind. “We would hope from any new police chief here would first be an acknowledgement of what happened last year with Aura Rosser and the shooting,” McCoy said. “We also want to see that the police chief has done some studies on police-community relations, especially as it pertains to people of color in this city.” Among questions from those like McCoy, several council
Hollister said he began working with 3D printing technology as an approach to treating the condition when he met Glenn Green, an otolaryngologist at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, in the summer of 2011. Green suggested working on an external device that could directly treat tracheobronchomalacia. The splint used for tracheobronchomalacia is three-quarters of a cylinder, with a small opening on one side of the cylinder. Since a person’s airway is similar to a tube, and part of that tube is collapsing, the splint is placed surgically on the exterior of the airway to pull the airway open. “We do a CT scan for the child prior to the surgery, and so when the child exhales we can see where the collapsed segment is and how long the collapsed segment is,” Hollister said. “Then from the inhalation scan, we get an idea from the
members said they believe White is well positioned for the job. “Chief White has experience working with a civilian review board in Detroit, so I think he’ll be very useful to help us navigate that process,” Warpehoski said. “Moving forward, we need to work so that we have a very comprehensive look at race and policing, and really incorporating a commitment to that into our training and processes and programs,” Warpehoski said. Councilmember Chip Smith (D–Ward 5) said he is confident in White’s ability to take on the role of police chief. “The new chief was selected largely because he’s been a leader in the police community interactions in Detroit,” Smith said. “They were fraught with a lot more issues than we were. I’m really excited to see the new ideas he brings in and I do think there will be a considerable push to have the police be more a part of our community.” Pedestrian safety and transportation In early 2014, City Council designated a citizen-led task force, dubbed the Pedestrian Safety and Access Task Force, to research and produce recommendations to City Council in regard to pedestrian and cyclist safety in the city. In August 2015, the task force released a 59-page report, detailing the causes of accidents involving pedestrians in Ann Arbor. The report also provided dozens of recommendations and suggestions regarding crosswalks, sidewalks and roads. In September, the task force presented the report and its findings to the council in awork session. They unveiled Vision Zero — an initiative that strives to eliminate fatalities or serious injuries to pedestrians. The study found that crashes involving pedestrians only represented about 16 percent of all crashes in Ann Arbor. However, pedestrians account for one-third of the fatalities and one-fourth of all serious crash-related injuries. It also noted a 22-percent increase of pedestrian crashes per year over the five-year period 2010-2014. In an October meeting, the council voted to adopt the Vision Zero initiative and made it an official city goal to have zero traffic-related fatalities by 2025. Despite the adoption of Vision Zero, Smith said there is a long way to go before he will be satisfied with pedestrian safety in the city. He said City Council needs to reevaluate how they are budgeting for pedestrian safety. “We allocated $115,000 to
diameter of the collapsed region under inhalation pressures.” The doctors take measurements from both scans and use those measurements to design the splint. While all splints have the same general geometry, the diameter and the length of the cylinder are customized for each patient. Hollister said the doctors were worried about whether or not the splint would allow for growth of the patient over time. To address this challenge, doctors took periodic imaging to look at the size of the airways, and determined that airways still grow, even with the attached splint. Hollister said he was already familiar with Materialise, as he had previously used their software to teach a class and employed it while developing the splint. Hollister said the company contacted him upon hearing about the first procedure
implement the recommendations of the Pedestrian Safety Task Force,” Smith said. “That’s the cost of one rectangular flashing beacon. This doesn’t reflect what people want here.” Smith said he hopes that council will continue to work on improving these issues through 2016. “We’ve had two cyclist deaths in the last month,” Smith said. “You never want tragedy to define policy solutions that your city develops. However, what these two tragedies say to me is that we have a need in Ann Arbor for nonmotorized infrastructure. As we look forward to how do we create better conditions for walkers and bikers, we have to be able to fund those infrastructure ordinances.” Deer cull Winter is looking dreary for the deer population of Ann Arbor. Council voted in September to implement a deer management program. Then, in November, the council agreed to hire sharpshooters to carry out a deer cull. The cull — or selective reduction of wild animals — was implemented in hopes of controlling the deer population in Ann Arbor. The cull is set to begin in January 2016. Whether deer will be killed on campus property remains unclear. Surprisingly to many council members, the cull received significant uproar in the community. At an early November council meeting, roughly 200 people filled the council chambers to provide input on the cull. Ann Arbor resident Sabra Sanzotta also decided to take matters into her own hands. Last Monday, she filed a petition to recall Councilmember Kirk Westphal (D–Ward 2) due to his vote in support of the plan. If the petition receives 1,791 signatures from registered 2nd Ward voters, this would force a special May runoff election ahead of the August primary. Warpehoski said the deer cull has been a significant challenge for the council in the past year. “The deer cull has been the most controversial issue we have faced this year,” Warpehoski said. Many community members felt that the cull was a violent solution or that the deer population did not pose a threat to the community. However, not everyone was against the cull; some residents attended the November council meeting to express their support. Council will continue to see the effects of the cull into the coming year and re-evaluate how to further address the influx deer population in Ann Arbor.
using the splint in 2013, and wanted to help develop the technology for clinical use. The company, which has a branch in Plymouth, Mich., used its technology to help design the customized splints. Since Green and Hollister work on the project through the University, Materialise needed to work with the University to come up with a licensing agreement for the technology. “This agreement is a critical step in our goal to make this treatment readily available for other children who suffer from this debilitating condition,” Green said in a press release. Polycaprolactone, the material used to make the splints, is bioresorbable, so fluids in the body will cause the polymer to break down over time. This particular polymer takes about three to four years to be completely resorbed by the body, making a repeat surgery unnecessary.
Smith said he hopes Ann Arbor will begin to address different issues in 2016 and move on from the deer cull. “It disappoints me as a resident of this community, that if you were to ask me what the biggest story of 2015 was, it would be the deer cull,” Smith said. “We have so many other issues: pedestrian and bicycle safety, the ongoing discussion of police community relationships, several high level city people at the city leaving. People are going to look back at 2015 as the year that the deer debate dominated everything.” Housing affordability Housing affordability in Ann Arbor has also been a hot topict this year. Throughout the year, several different housing plans have come forward for debate.. In January, council began discussing accessory dwelling units. Accessory dwelling units are located within a home’s interior or serve as a new addition to a home. The council began to discuss loosening the city restrictions on accessory dwelling units to allow for more of them. In February, council approved a new set of affordable housing goals, committing the city to work with other partners in creating nearly 2,800 affordable housing units by 2035. In August, council voted to amend the 2015-16 budget to provide additional funds for affordable housing in Ann Arbor. They allocated an additional $450,000 toward improving and expanding the supply of affordable housing in the city. This gave the Ann Arbor Housing Commission money to use toward the demolition and redevelopment for 64 new apartments. In other development-related decisions, council considered several other housing projects and re-zoning ordinances. Among the largely discussed were the properties on State Street south of the Stadium Boulevard bridges, which received final approval at a September meeting. The new apartments will offer affordable rates to households earning 60 percent or less of the area median income. Tenants will pay rents equal to 30 percent of their income. In 2016, council will continue working toward the goal of making rent in Ann Arbor cheaper. Smith said he hopes affordable housing will be a top priority for council. “Our budgeting process needs to be improved and it needs to be reflective of what our priorities are,” he said. “It’s a wants versus needs; we need affordable housing in order to be a sustainable
While currently the technology is not approved by the FDA, the agency has given clearance to use it for emergency life-or-death cases. The splint has been implanted in four children, all of whom were between about three and 16 months of age. The doctors reported that the patients all responded well to the surgery. “Here at Materialise, we strongly believe in the transformative power of great collaborations, such as the one we have enjoyed these past two years with Dr. Green, Dr. Hollister and all others who have contributed to this life-saving application of 3D printing,” said Bryan Crutchfield, managing director of Materialise U.S.A. in a press release. “This collaboration is proof that when the right skill sets and technologies are combined, solutions can be found for problems once thought impossible.”
community.” Smith said that finding the resources and allocations to achieve the 20-year goal will be difficult. “For us, nearly 3,000 units doesn’t sound like that much, but when we’re barely doing 20 units a year, it’s a big deal,” he said. “We need to find interested partners and put our money where our mouth is.” Timeliness of council meetings Council meetings are known for running late into the night, keeping city staff and council members in council chambers into early Tuesday morning. Though no significant changes will be made to the agenda format in the coming year, a few changes are under consideration. Warpehoski and Councilmember Julie Grand (D–Ward 3) proposed a change to thecouncil’s set of rules. A section of the agenda, new business, usually consists of a non-contested itinerary of resolutions proposed by city staff. Typically, items of new business concerning staff are voted 11-0 with little discussion. Grand and Warpehoski said they wanted to move the section to the beginning in sake of the city staff’s time. “By putting them at the end of the meeting, staff or people that have something to do with that resolution are sometimes there until 11 p.m., midnight, 1 a.m. in the morning to be ready to answer questions about an agenda item that we don’t even talk about at the end,” Warpehoski said. The council approved the new set of rules on Monday in a unanimous vote. New business will now come before consent agenda and ordinance readings. City staff involved in the ordinances would then be able to leave after their responsibilities were fulfilled. “We weren’t running meetings in a way that is optimal to staff,” Grand said. “We almost uniformly vote on (staff-related proposals) unanimously, with little or no discussion. Staff has been staying until the end of our meetings, which often go until very late into the night, instead of being home with their families, or doing just about anything else.” Ackerman, who started as a council member in November, said he felt that council had not been working efficiently as a team. “As a body, they weren’t working collaboratively enough,” Ackerman said. “There has to be a basic understanding that we all want to see a healthy and vibrant Ann Arbor. The approaches might be different, but at the end of the day we should be operating in mutual respect and collaboration.”
LAB SAFETY From Page 1A Laboratory and Research Safety Committee. Sheen said there are various other committees that address specific safety concerns, but there previously wasn’t one designed to investigate general safety in research and academic labs. The policy explains that the committee will function much like other University oversight committees, such as the Institutional Biosafety Committee or the University Committee on Use and Care of Animals. Committee members will monitor how well laboratories adhere to the policy, and serve as liaisons between unit safety committees that work with academic laboratories. The committee, composed of faculty and staff, will review incidents and concerns regarding safe practices in labs and research, and amend policies where necessary.
Opinion
4A — Thursday, December 10, 2015
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com JENNIFER CALFAS EDITOR IN CHIEF
AARICA MARSH and DEREK WOLFE EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS
LEV FACHER 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.
“I
Food vs. figure
really wanna lose three pounds.” You’ve heard it before, from Regina George, from your best friend, your mom, your sister, your girlfriend, etc. Most ALISON teenage girls are thinking SCHALOP it, because even those who are at a healthy body weight feel the need to be thinner. Throughout my teenage years, I have grappled with this issue. I’m torn between telling myself, ‘You are beautiful the way you are, you don’t need to change,’ and wishing my stomach was a little flatter, my thighs a little narrower. According to Harper’s Bazaar, the 2015 body ideal is more unattainable than ever. Where women used to try to be as thin as possible, like Kate Moss or Twiggy, we are now reaching for a whole new level of impossible. There’s the thigh gap, the big butt and the flat abs. Unless you are Beyoncé and have more money and time than Jim Harbaugh — who I guess has a lot of money but not a lot of time — this look is nearly impossible to achieve. Most women either have the curves or the flat stomach. Sometimes neither, but rarely both. And if, by genetics, you are blessed to look this way, I won’t lie to you, I’m envious. As a woman, I can’t deny that I obsess over how I look. This comes in many perverse ways because sometimes I think, “Should I not wear makeup to show people that I don’t care too much?” I eat cookies and then feel guilty. And then I feel guilty for feeling guilty because the radical feminist in me wants me to love myself the way I am. I know I am not the only girl who feels this sentiment. My roommate mentioned to me that she was trying to lose weight the other day, and I immediately responded that she doesn’t need to. This reaction was not only because I’m an excellent friend (clearly), but also because I genuinely believe it. She is, in my eyes, tall, beautiful and thin. However, this isn’t how she sees herself. We’re taught to constantly try to be thinner, prettier, tan-
ner if you’re white, lighter if you’re a person of color. This is a problem for everyone, but seems to be especially prevalent for women. With the issue of dieting and obsessing over body weight comes the “I love food” complex. Yes, everyone loves food, especially sweets and carbs and other things that we shouldn’t dare touch to our lips, but we talk about it way too much. “I don’t get how people diet all the time, like I just love food so much.” Have you ever heard a girl say this to you? This conversation, in my opinion, is nearly as damaging as the “I wanna lose three pounds” conversation. Sometimes, it feels competitive: I love food even more than you! I Instagram it day and night! Does that mean you have a healthy relationship with it? Does that mean you are happy with your body? Probably not. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying food, or Instagramming it, but this doesn’t mean we must constantly discuss it. It often seems girls are trying to cover up their lack of eating by reminding everyone how much they love food. This isn’t only a conversation we’re having with our peers: I grew up in a household saturated with talk of weight loss. This was a toxic environment for me. When I’m home I feel embarrassed to eat a lot because I know multiple eyes are watching me. “Don’t eat that” is a phrase that gets thrown around. My body image has gotten significantly healthier since arriving in Ann Arbor, a few hundred miles away from home. I always attributed this to my all-girls high school that was rampant with eating disorders, but my home kitchen was nearly as bad. For most of us, this is inescapable. Whether it comes from our friends, our moms, the media or even just ourselves, the pressure to look a certain way is everywhere. To seek out any sort of help related to disordered eating on campus, you can visit University Health Services.
As a woman, I can’t deny that I obsess over how I look.
—Alison Schalop can be reached at aschalop@umich.edu.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Caitlin Heenan, Ben Keller, Minsoo Kim, Payton Luokkala, Aarica Marsh, Anna Polumbo-Levy, Jason Rowland, Lauren Schandevel, Melissa Scholke, Rebecca Tarnopol, Ashley Tjhung, Stephanie Trierweiler, Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe
W
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
The best advice
ith the semester coming to a close and most everyone on campus nearing some sort of breakdown over their finals, I, as an eternal font of wisdom, felt it was appropriate to expound upon some of the best advice and the most important SARAH things I’ve LEESON learned so far. To begin with, what you look like in pictures isn’t a reflection on what you actually look like, and even if it was, it doesn’t matter. A while ago I was looking through old pictures with my mom and we found what must be the worst picture of myself that has ever been taken. It’s from middle school and it’s just horrible: the lighting is bad, the angle is weird, and my position is just incredibly awkward and unflattering. My mom went to skip past the picture to save me some embarrassment, cringing on my behalf, but I stopped her so I could laugh at it. It was so ugly it was hilarious. If there was anything at all to be embarrassed about in this situation, it was probably how hard and long I was able to keep laughing at it. A few years ago I would have had a very different reaction to that picture, but through a mix of positive self-esteem practices (like smiling at myself in the mirror, inflating my ego to unknown heights, some major plastic surgery and the adoption of a new identity) I got over my aversion to looking at pictures of myself. I no longer so closely
associate my appearance with who I am as a person or my value. What you look like has no bearing on your worth as an individual, so stop untagging yourself in your friends’ Facebook pictures. The second piece of knowledge I have to impart is that dogs are the most important thing. Just, in general. Hands down. No dispute possible. Next, no one knows what they’re doing, even if they appear to or if they claim to have a plan. All of us are making it up as we go along. I recently got involved with the planning of MHacks, and while the other planners have quite a bit of experience and the event is going to be amazing, I get the impression that it’s all an experiment in sinking or swimming in the best way possible. The sky’s the limit and there’s basically no one to tell us no (except the fire marshal sometimes). In fact, the amount of freedom that we have here is almost overwhelming and it makes me wonder if this is what it would be like to be a man. (But really, the MHacks event is going to be amazing.) Another point: Call your favorite person tonight and thank them for being the best. Expressing gratitude has been linked to well-being, so it’s to both your benefit when you call your mom to thank her for fielding your ridiculous phone calls about how to get nacho stains out of sheets, you terrific piece of chaos. But really, how great are dogs? Finally, happiness is a choice, and you deserve to have it. Recently, I
had a pretty miserable day featuring some poor grades and some stressful paper writing. But on the same day, I also received some free cider and cookies and I remembered the name of the song that had been plaguing me all week. I made the decision that this was actually a good day after all, and it was. At the same time, I do realize that this is a huge oversimplification, and that there are some challenges and miseries in people’s lives that are insurmountable. I will say, though, that happiness is relative, and if you can find one good thing to focus on, you can get through just about anything. Plus, if you feel that nothing in your life brings you joy, then you deserve better. If your significant other makes you miserable, if you’re not thrilled with what you’re studying or if you’re bored with your Netflix queue, then it’s your responsibility to yourself to try something new. It’s never too late to change directions, meet someone new, refocus on what actually interests you and have confidence to throw yourself into situations that challenge what you’ve assumed about yourself, others or the world. We’re all wrong about something. So, in conclusion: You’re going to pass your finals, you’re very pretty and smart, you’re not falling behind your peers and it’s never too late for you. Also, dogs exemplify all goodness in the world.
Happiness is a choice, and you deserve to have it.
—Sarah Leeson can be reached at sleeson@umich.edu.
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I
Time to unwind
’m not one to sit still. When I was young, I was always getting in trouble for playing under the table at restaurants, hiding on the playground at recess after it was over and, of course, never staying seated in school, but instead running around and GRACE leaving the CAREY wreckage of a tornado in my wake. At the age of 6, my family nicknamed me “the cannon ball” because I would throw myself down the ski hills of Vermont in my bright, all-red snowsuit, crouching as low as I could in order to gain as much speed as possible before inevitably crashing into something (or someone) near the bottom. Starting in first grade, my parents tried 4 a.m. figure skating lessons to “tire me out” before going to school, hoping to give my teachers some relief. Needless to say, it didn’t do much. Still, to this day, it’s unlikely for me to walk down an empty hall without doing a few cartwheels along the way. Studying in locations such as the UGLi and the Reference Room physically pains me because they’re too quiet, and I can’t move around as I would like. My friend Noah likes to joke that I do my best studying upside down: in a handstand or hanging off my chair. If I’m not physically moving at the gym or elsewhere, you can almost guarantee I’m busy somewhere else: in a meeting, running errands, practically anything but sitting still. Business is what keeps me going, which is why sometimes I forget to take the time to relax. To be completely honest, if I had a night with absolutely nothing to do — no classes to attend, obligations to fulfill, exams to study for, papers to write or events to plan — I wouldn’t have a clue how to spend it. Fortunately for me, and the countless other college students who I expect may feel the same, there are actually studies on this. What exactly is the correct method of relaxation? If you took a poll of the ways in which college students choose to unwind, I have no doubt that the words “going out” (two words that seem overwhelmingly normal
when in reality they describe a very abnormal drinking culture) and “Netflix” would be high on the list. Though I’m not opposed to spending nights with friends or binge watching my latest TV-series obsession, Netflix and chilling are not very effective methods of relaxation (technically speaking). College students turn to late nights of one or the other in order to unwind, when in reality, nights of staring at a blue-light ridden screen and binge drinking are doing more harm than good. Nope. Not relaxation. Sports psychologists and other scientists have done endless research on “the perfect relaxation method,” usually ending with the promotion of some 10-letteracronym recuperation technique that can be used to put the mind at ease and prepare for the task at hand. Some practices include “staring at your own eyebrows in the mirror and telling yourself ‘I can do this,’ ” or the lesser known yet just as effective “downloading-ayoga-app-ontomy-phone-andbruising-myselfon-my-dormroom-furnitureto-the-soundof-chirpingcrickets.” I’ll pass for now. Assuming I come out of finals week alive and with my sanity, I hope to take what relaxation time I have and put it to better use. It will be tempting over Winter Break to do nothing but hibernate in my bed, catching up on sleep and TV shows. It will be even more difficult when three weeks later, the whole cycle repeats: school will resume, and my free time will dwindle to nothing. Though some relaxation techniques are time consuming — exercise, yoga or that weird eyebrow-staring method — there are also a number of smaller things that can be done on a regular basis to promote relaxation, most of which revolve around increasing a sense of presence. Focused-attention meditation, which may benefit college students in particular, simply encourages individuals to pay close attention to one’s activities in the moment with undivided attention. Observing without judgment is easier said than done, and includes not just inhibiting judgment of others, but
self-judgment as well. Personally, I can’t remember the last time I ate, and just ate, without my phone, computer, homework or with another person to talk to. As I said, slowing down isn’t my specialty. Countless other methods have been experimentally proven to benefit individuals who partake in meditative activities. With the implementation of transcendental meditation in schools, the David Lynch Foundation found a 21-percent increase in high school graduation rate, 10-percent improvement on test scores and GPA, increased attendance, decreased suspensions and a “40-percent reduction in psychological distress, including stress, anxiety and depression.” Additionally, the foundation reports benefits to veterans, including a 40- to 55-percent decrease in symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, 42-percent decrease in insomnia, a 47-percent reduced risk of cardiovascular-related mortality and a 30-percent increase in satisfaction with quality of life. In an interesting study on telomerase activity, individuals who attended a meditation retreat expressed higher concentration of telomerase (an enzyme that repairs the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes; shortening of these caps is associated with oldage) than those who didn’t attend the retreat. For someone who can barely find time to eat and sleep, let alone go on a week-long retreat, smaller, more consistent doses of meditation and mindfulness may be a more effective way to relax. Though I’ve grown out of my bright-red ski snowsuit, I know I’ll continue to cannonball through my time here at Michigan, and probably even accelerate wherever I end up after. The proof is in the research. But practicing mindfulness and relaxation can be more difficult in stressful situations. The irony is that the busier I get, the more desperately I need the time to relax. Finals week, anyone?
Practicing mindfulness and relaxation can be more difficult in stressful situations.
—Grace Carey can be reached at gecarey@umich.edu.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Thursday, December 10, 2015 — 5A
2015 Season Review: Quarterbacks By JAKE LOURIM Managing Sports Editor
Editor’s Note: With the Michigan football team’s 2015 regular season in the books, the Daily looks back at the performance of each unit this year and looks ahead to the future in 2016. In this edition: quarterbacks. Jim Harbaugh, a former Michigan and NFL quarterback in his own right, arrived to coach the Wolverines in his first year with quarterback as one of the team’s biggest question marks. And as the season went along, fifth-year senior Jake Rudock provided as positive an answer as Michigan could have hoped for. Rudock came as a graduate transfer from Iowa, where he started for two seasons, throwing for 4,819 yards, 34 touchdowns and 18 interceptions. In August, he emerged from a crowded quarterback competition after beating out junior Shane Morris and redshirt freshman Wilton Speight, among others. Initially, he was seen as a stand-in. With his one year of eligibility, he would come in and keep the offense under control while the defense, the team’s strength, carried the Wolverines. The label of “game manager” followed him for most of the season. He was successful in that role. After a three-interception performance in the seasonopening loss at Utah, Rudock slowly began to limit his turnovers while a dominant defense led
RUBY WALLAU/Daily
Fifth-year senior quarterback Jake Rudock improved throughout the season to become one of Michigan’s most valuable assets on offense, finishing with 2,739 yards.
Michigan to a 5-1 start. Then, the Wolverines suffered their second loss of the season, and they were in danger of taking their third when Rudock went down with an injury Oct. 31 at Minnesota. At that point, Speight provided some temporary relief. Though he struggled at times this year, Speight put it all together for one gutsy comeback drive in Minneapolis. He threw the go-ahead 12-yard
touchdown pass to redshirt junior wide receiver Jehu Chesson with 4:57 left, helping Michigan escape with a win. Rudock returned to action the next week in top form, putting together a memorable November in which he threw for 1,296 yards, 11 touchdowns and just two interceptions in four games. His brief Michigan career will come to a close Jan. 1 in the Citrus Bowl against Florida, but
he became a valuable asset to the Wolverines in his one year. HIGH POINT: In the first half of the season, for the most part, Rudock merely avoided mistakes. But on Nov. 14 at Indiana, he helped win Michigan the game. That day, he threw for 440 yards and a school-record six touchdowns in a double-overtime, 48-41 win. He also carried seven times for 64 yards. His experience showed in
the final moments of the game. With 2:52 left in the fourth quarter and the Wolverines trailing, 34-27, he led an eightplay, 66-yard drive, culminating in a five-yard touchdown pass to Chesson with two seconds left. In overtime, he threw touchdowns on back-to-back plays, first a 21-yard toss to junior tight end Jake Butt and then a 25-yard bomb to redshirt junior wide receiver Amara Darboh to give the Wolverines
Classifieds
the lead. LOW POINT: Rudock’s Michigan career got off to an inauspicious start in the season opener at Utah. He threw three interceptions, including one pick-six to provide the difference in a 24-17 loss. His performance was a surprise given that he threw just five picks in 2014. But Rudock quickly recovered, never again throwing more than one interception in a game. THE FUTURE: Next season’s situation is promising but uncertain. Rudock’s departure will leave a hole in the Michigan offense, but the cupboard isn’t bare. He is questionable to play in the bowl game with a shoulder injury, perhaps opening the door for Speight to gain more experience. As for next year, Speight will return as a redshirt sophomore. Junior John O’Korn, a transfer from Houston who was ineligible this season due to NCAA transfer rules, will enter the fold. Morris and freshmen Zach Gentry and Alex Malzone all redshirted this season and will be back in action, too. Finally, four-star quarterback recruit Brandon Peters, the No. 6 pocket passer in the class of 2016 according to ESPN.com, will be on campus with a chance to compete as well. If last season is any indication, Harbaugh could even recruit another graduate transfer for 2016. No quarterback battle appears to be too crowded for Harbaugh, and as he would say, it’s shaping up to be another “fair, honest, healthy competition” for the job next season.
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RUBY WALLAU/Daily
Senior guard Spike Albrecht has played in eight games this year even as he recovers from two offseason hip surgeries.
Albrecht balancing rehab, game action By SIMON KAUFMAN Daily Sports Editor
With time running down in the Michigan basketball team’s rout of Houston Baptist on Saturday, the Wolverines and the Huskies scrambled, scrapped and skipped into the air to fight for a loose ball. A handful of players tipped it around the key before it finally got deflected toward half-court. There, senior guard Spike Albrecht elevated — his back to Michigan’s basket — and rifled a two-handed, over-the-head, volleyball-like pass to redshirt freshman forward D.J. Wilson, who was all alone. Wilson took one dribble and two steps, then dunked. Not even a week earlier, on the last day of November, Michigan men’s basketball coach John Beilein said that he planned to shut Albrecht down. Beilein said he was concerned about the time it has taken Albrecht to rehab from his two hip surgeries over the summer, and that for the foreseeable future, Albrecht would prioritize rehabbing over practicing with the team. Despite limiting his on-court practice time, however, Beilein didn’t rule him out from playing in games. The very next day, when junior guard Derrick Walton Jr. left the Wolverines’ game against North
Carolina State in the first half because of a foot injury, Beilein didn’t hesitate to play Albrecht. In five second-half minutes, the guard recorded just two statistics — a personal foul and an assist — but showed that despite still being on the mend, he’s capable of being on the court in games. Saturday, against Houston Baptist, with Walton still sidelined, Albrecht came off the bench again to give sophomore guard Muhammad-Ali AbdurRahkman — who replaced Walton in the starting lineup — some rest. Albrecht recorded four assists in 12 minutes in the contest, including his acrobatic dish to Wilson. After the game, Albrecht admitted he’s still not sure where he stands health-wise and what the plan is going forward. “I don’t really know what’s going on,” Albrecht said. “Right now we’re kind of just — I’m not practicing every day — I’m always game ready, though. I’m always available to play, but just between school, classes and then practice for two to three hours, I don’t really have a window to go and get rehab done for like an hour and a half, two hours.” Given the choice between two hours on the floor or two hours doing rehab, Beilein and Albrecht both said that for now,
he’ll do rehab. “It’s kind of like a day-by-day thing,” Albrecht said. “Coach Beilein and our trainer, Alex Wong, get together and help game plan for a two- or threeday period, and I just show up wherever I’m supposed to be.” Not on the stat sheet from the game against the Huskies: a loose ball Albrecht dove for in the second half — hips be damned. “I’ve been playing like that since I was 7 years old,” Albrecht said. “I’m not going to change the way I play.” Walton was on the bench again when Michigan went to Southern Methodist on Tuesday, but Beilein opted to play Albrecht for just three minutes in the first half. In eight games this season, Albrecht is averaging fewer than nine minutes per game. Last year, with injuries to Walton and senior guard Caris LeVert, Albrecht was forced to take on a larger role. He averaged 32 minutes per game and started 18 contests. Physical ability aside right now, Beilein stressed he wants Albrecht on the court given his experience. The senior has played in more games than anyone else on the roster. “We need his head out there,” Beilein said. “We need his brains out there as much as we can have it.”
FOR RENT
RELEASE DATE– Thursday, December 10, 2015
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 Mennonite sect 6 Nasty bit of trickery 10 Chopped side 14 Trunk full of organs? 15 “Casablanca” heroine 16 Speck 17 Airline seating for Mensa members? 19 Milne’s Hundred __ Wood 20 Fire dept. employee 21 Many ages 22 Out of the country 24 Subordinate’s yes 26 Jewish folklore creature 28 He’s a horse, of course 30 Watched for the evening, say 34 Bar in a shower 37 Mark of approval 39 Justice Kagan appointer 40 WWII threat 42 Andy Capp’s spouse 43 Preen 44 Mulligan, for one 45 Counting-out word 47 Natural balm 48 Embarrassing mistake 50 Antihero? 52 Big spread 54 Like Yogi or Smokey 58 One of the haves 61 Prefix with port 63 Constrictive creature 64 Empty auditorium effect 65 Mickey Rooney and Danny DeVito? 68 Management level 69 Electrified atoms 70 Like some reprimands 71 Shangri-la 72 Goddess of victory 73 Resting places DOWN 1 On the main 2 Toddler’s gleeful shout
36 Japanese relative 55 Structural 3 More than just beams of the zither annoyed 56 Old language 38 Sierra Nevada 4 Abbr. on old that gives us product Eurasian maps “berserk” 41 Very ambitious 5 Windbag’s 57 Moves with care sort output 58 Big bash 46 “__ be sorry!” 6 Grain holder 59 Battery fluid 49 Cancels the 7 Metallic sound 60 Passé pronoun reservation, 8 Donkey 62 Otherwise maybe 9 Tandoori __: 66 Miss Piggy 51 Blue blood, for South Asian tagline short spice mix 53 Express gratitude 67 Bigelow’s Sweet 10 Overly Dreams, e.g. to ingratiating little devils? ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: 11 Daft 12 Gillette razor 13 Locationdependent plant designation 18 First known asteroid 23 Coltrane genre 25 “Hee-Haw” humor, but just a touch? 27 Billiard table shape 29 Postpones 31 Advance using wind 32 Big bang cause, sometimes 33 Sticky stuff 34 Street border 35 Explorer Tasman xwordeditor@aol.com 12/10/15
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6A — Thursday, December 10, 2015
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Line changes spark explosion for ‘M’ Kile, Nieves, Selman unite to form powerful second line By MINH DOAN Daily Sports Editor
Two weeks ago, after the No. 9 Michigan hockey team played a weekend series against Dartmouth, the Wolverines switched up their top two lines. Junior forward Alex Kile moved to a line with senior forwards Boo Nieves and Justin Selman, while freshman forward Kyle Connor joined junior forwards JT Compher and Tyler Motte.
And it worked. Michigan scored 12 goals this weekend, and the top two lines were involved in nine of them. “The coaches saw something that even us players didn’t notice,” Selman said. “It’s just that little tweak, that one player, that one kind of thing, which opened up the scoring for both of the lines.” More importantly, Selman’s line, which had scored just three goals in the last six games, found its scoring spark once again. Friday, Selman scored the goal to tie up the game at four, and Connor scored an emptynet goal to finish off the Badgers. But the line felt they were clicking, and it showed early Saturday night. Just 1:29 into the game,
Selman found himself wide open in the left circle and fired the puck at the Wisconsin net. Badger goaltender Matt Jurusik made the initial save but couldn’t corral the rebound, and Nieves was able to put the puck away to put Michigan up early. Selman gave a lot of credit on the goal to his new linemate, Kile, who made the cross-ice pass to Selman to start the goalscoring play. “(Kile’s) a really, really skilled player and makes some great plays,” Selman said. “On Boo’s goal, that first one, he made a great pass and hit me coming down the ice. He’s really skilled, he’s easy to play with. He’s physical too, so he plays really hard on both ends.” But the trio wasn’t finished.
Just three minutes later, the line went on the penalty kill. Once again, Nieves and Selman found themselves on an odd man rush. But this time, Selman took the initial shot and cleaned up the rebound to put Michigan up by two goals less than five minutes into the game. The line also scored the Wolverines’ third goal of the night when Selman again finished off a play, putting Michigan up by one after Wisconsin tied back up the game at two. “(The adjustment period) was maybe two drills in practice,” Selman said. “We kind of even said like ‘Wow, we’re kind of gelling pretty good.’ I think we found chemistry through
the weekend, and we kind of expected to have a good weekend after making some good plays earlier in the week.” But Selman noted that while on the stat sheet the change seemed to make a big difference, there wasn’t much of a difference between Kile and Connor. “Kile plays a similar game to Kyle Connor,” Selman said. “He is that skilled, crafty, shiftytype forward mentality. “I can’t really put my finger on the difference between (Connor and Kile), but they’re both really, really good players.” For Kile, though, playing on a line with Nieves and Selman was a little different than his old line.
“The coaches saw something that even us players didn’t notice.”
“On Motte and JT’s line, I was waiting for the puck to come to me,” Kile said. “They’re two players who like to grind in the corners and work for the puck. Playing with Boo, he adds a little bit of speed. I like to try to keep up with him. I’ve always liked playing with fast players.” Even after the statistical success of his newly minted lines, Michigan coach Red Berenson wasn’t completely pleased with them after the game. “I can’t say I didn’t like them, but I can’t say I did like them,” Berenson said after Friday’s game. “I thought it was a real scramble of a game.” But even if Berenson wasn’t completely pleased with his new lines, the changes brought offensive success. And with a big series against Minnesota coming up, the Wolverines will take scoring anywhere they can get it.
SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily
Junior forward Alex Kile moved to a line with Boo Nieves and Justin Selman, and the results were overwhelmingly positive.
Results mixed for Flaherty Sophomore scores 33 at Princeton, improving on last trip to home state By BRANDON CARNEY Daily Sports Writer
Sunday’s loss to Princeton may have been the Michigan women’s basketball team’s first game of the 2015-16 season outside the state of Michigan, but Katelynn Flaherty enjoyed having a home crowd of her own. The Point Pleasant, N.J., native returned to the Garden State for the second time in her career and scored 33 points — the second-most in her career — in the Wolverines’ 74-57 loss. With family and friends in the stands, Flaherty was determined to put on a better show than in her previous appearance in her home state. In last year’s visit to Rutgers, the then-freshman laid an egg, shooting 1-for-5 from the field and finishing the night with just four points off the bench. It was one of Flaherty’s worst performances in the season she was named Big Ten Sixth Player of the Year. This time around, Flaherty impressed everyone in Jadwin Gymnasium at Princeton. Despite being double-teamed and physically challenged, the sophomore stepped up and put on one of the best performances of her career. “It shows how much I’ve grown since freshman year,” Flaherty said. “I think coming back was much more of an enjoyable experience this year, just because I’m more confident and more into the flow of the game. I had a lot of fun playing this year compared to last year when I was more nervous.” But Flaherty wanted not just to put on a memorable individual game, but help her team earn a signature win. Her 33-point night wasn’t enough to lift the Wolverines past the Tigers, who sit just outside the top 25 in this week’s
SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily
Katelynn Flaherty scored 33 points in her return to her home state Sunday.
polls. Outside of Flaherty’s 11 made field goals, Michigan shot 25 percent from the field, and no other scorer reached double digits. Flaherty’s zero assists and zero rebounds added to a frustrating night for the Wolverines. Besides her point tally, the sophomore accumulated just two other statistics — two steals and four turnovers. It looked like the rest of the team was struggling in ways Flaherty did in her first trip back home against the Scarlet Knights, especially freshman guards Nicole Munger and Boogie Brozoski — who were also making homecoming trips. Munger and Brozoski — from Doylestown, Pa. and the Bronx, N.Y., respectively — showed their freshman inexperience and struggled in their first trip back to the Northeast in performances similar to Flaherty’s last January in Piscataway. The freshmen combined to shoot 1-for-6 and turned the ball over five times in 27 minutes on
the court. Now, having shown she can personally handle the homecoming, Flaherty will have to take on a new challenge before the Wolverines return in February to take on Rutgers in their regular-season finale. The amount of regional high-school accolades between Flaherty, Munger and Brozoski can’t be counted on one hand, but the number of wins in the Northeast for Michigan can’t be counted at all. It’s up to Flaherty to change that. If she can help her teammates make the leap she’s made between her two trips home, then come February, the Wolverines likely have what it takes for the current group to earn its first win in New Jersey. “Katelynn cares about the team first,” said Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico. “She knows she’s going to need to be able to have nights like that. We need to get everyone on the team involved for us to be successful as well.”
B
The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | Thursday, December 10, 2015
by Matthew Barnauskas Daily Arts Writer Design by Mariah Gardziola, Francesca Kielb, Anjali Alangaden and Shane Achenbach
the b-side
2B — Thursday, December 10, 2015
STAR WARS From Page 1B A Long Time Ago in a Family Room Far, Far Away … I remember the first time I watched “Star Wars.” Sitting among the rows of white, plasticshelled Disney movies and singa-long tapes that no doubt drove my parents slightly insane was the black-bound VHS boxed set of the original trilogy: “A New Hope,” “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi.” They were an alluring alternative compared to the brightly illustrated cartoons that I regularly watched. Summoning the courage, I asked my mom if I could watch one of them. “Only if you watch them with Dad,” Mom said, still fighting to preserve my wide-eyed innocence. So I waited impatiently until my dad came home from work. I asked him to watch it with me, and thankfully he agreed. Oddly enough, I watched “Return of the Jedi” first. Sure, plot details were lost in my young mind, but I was enthralled as a small band of heroes triumphed over an intimidating Empire, two black-caped villains and a giant slug. There were laser guns, spaceships and the iconic lightsabers — everything my young heart could desire. Over several viewings, I learned the names of these heroes and villains. I’ve watched the growth of Luke Skywalker from farm boy to Jedi, the romance between Princess Leia and Han Solo and the final redemption of Darth Vader more times than I can remember. The creator, George Lucas, became an idol along with his collaborators, including University alum Lawrence Kasdan, the writer of “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi.” The series remains a timeless, cultural landmark, even as it must withstand aging and a disappointing prequel trilogy. Now with Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm in 2012, a new wave of “Star Wars” films approaches, beginning with the upcoming release of the seventh installment, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” An industry perspective “The big thing everybody points to in ‘Star Wars’ is that it’s modern myth,” said Oliver Thornton, a Screen Arts and Cultures lecturer. “It’s a story, even when we teach screenwriting here at
the University, that’s the universal point of reference that everybody knows. If you want to talk about the ‘Hero’s Journey,’ we can always say at the end of the day, 30-some years later that most students have that frame of reference of Luke Skywalker and that first basic journey he goes through.” Sitting down for an interview with the Daily, Thornton elaborated on the appeal of “Hero’s Journey,” outlined by Joseph Campbell. “I think there’s just something about that story, about that basic hero of somebody who’s a nobody who ends up being a somebody and ends up heeding the call of adventure,” Thornton explained. “It’s universal and that’s why kids love it and why we continue to go to it.” On the sixth floor of North Quad — a few feet from Thornton’s room — is the office of fellow lecturer Dan Shere, who echoed Thornton’s statement in a separate interview. “I think that George Lucas, in the originals especially, tapped into something very deep in the human psyche,” Shere said. “He created stories that are enduring precisely because they sort of follow this mythic structure. It follows the same story template you see from the Bible to Greek mythology and he put a new twist on it and infused that age-old template with this brilliant creativity of his.” That creativity, according to Shere, spawns from the marrying of the fantastic future with the ancient past into something oddly recognizable. “They gave us a vision,” Shere said. “Even though it’s a galaxy that’s far, far away, we’re dealing with futuristic technology, which is this incredible fantasy world. We as kids, and even adults, want to be able to get in a spaceship and zoom into a galaxy far away and yet the spaceship itself is really like an old, beat-up Chevy. The Millennium Falcon is both futuristic and cool, but also completely familiar because it’s always breaking down and Han Solo and Chewbacca always have their tools and are always working on it. So it’s at once forward looking and also completely familiar as this archetype, and I think that’s overall what the films did well.”
Shere’s career is closely intertwined with “Star Wars,” thanks to a short film made early in his career. “The year, I believe, was 1999 and I was just freshly graduated from the University of Michigan,” Shere said. “I moved out to Los Angeles and lived with my good friend Joe Nussbaum, who had just graduated from USC film school, and he was an aspiring director and looking to get his start in the industry by making a short film, and he had a little bit of money saved away and was looking for an idea for a short film. So he and another friend came up with this idea, ‘George Lucas in Love.’ At the time in ’99 we were all anxiously awaiting the first of the prequels and then also ‘Shakespeare in Love’ had just won some awards, it was popular at the time. It just all kind of clicked and once he brought me that title, we sat together and kind of brainstormed a six, seven minute short film that would describe a young George Lucas in 1967 as a film student at USC trying to write his thesis screenplay and he’s got terrible writer’s block.” Over the course of the film, a young Lucas draws inspiration from around his college campus, including a girl who “leads the student rebellion,” a pot-smoking roommate who rants about a mystical force and a guy who’s always trying to fix his Chevy with the help of his incredibly hairy friend, all of whom serve as predecessors to Lucas’s classic characters. “We really crammed as many little ‘Star Wars’ references into seven minutes as we could and I think we did a pretty good job at it,” Shere said. “And definitely ‘Star Wars’ fans have appreciated it throughout the years.” Moving into his professional career, Shere drew inspiration from the series that captivated him at a young age, especially when working on the 2013 film “Epic.” “I had this scene where the good guys steal the uniforms of the bad guys in order to infiltrate their evil lair,” Shere said. “And I was reminded really quickly by my friend, ‘Oh you mean just like how Han Solo and Luke dress up
“Star Wars” hasn’t just endured — it has thrived.
COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK
An emotional ode to delivery men Rain or snow, the one true love of my life never fails to bring what I require By CAROLINE FILIPS Daily Arts Writer
Of all the men I have loved and lost, there is one to whom I’m forever indebted. Between his charm, charity and coy shrug that always follows my expressions of gratitude, I cannot fathom a more suitable suitor. Here’s looking at you, Mr. Delivery Man — my one true love. It’s strange to feel you’ve cracked the code that’s crippled the curious and puzzled poets for lifetimes, centuries, rainy afternoons, etc. Since the first savages of this Earth subsisted on a Paleo diet before peak trendiness, some force has driven us heathens together — science says it’s for procreation, I say it’s for the euphoria of seeing him standing there, deadpanned gaze, logo-bearing hat, cardboard box in hand. Though I’m certain that ours is the love of a lifetime, it wasn’t always that of fastfood fairytale. Before college, friends spoke highly of him, yet he and I seldom crossed paths. I only called when I pined for pepperoni, when I ached to have my arteries clogged. But as college began last fall and the temperatures plummeted the following winter, I needed him more than ever.
And now, here he is, knocking at my door. His eccentricity never ceases to amaze me. Unlike the other boys who ask their dads how to shop for women, he’s known all along. His insight is remarkable — all too often, there he is, static and slouched, holding the universe together — with extra cheese, no less. And, though his actions speak louder than his words, he knows what to say when I’m at my worst. “Sign here, please,” he says. Cue the dopamine. When I just can’t bear the outside world or brave the elements, he does the opposite. Just last week, he endured the snow and the wind and the deathly cold — by bike, by bike — all to bring me fried rice. I know, right, he’s a moment maker! How lucky am I to have found The One so young? And still in my pajamas!
How lucky am I to have found The One so young? He keeps our love alive even through the most trying of times. During finals week, when I want nothing more than a quick exchange of cash for carbs, he’s there to balance my emotions with his emotionlessness. “Here’s your sandwich,” he
says, blank as ever, passing the torch. He gives, I take. I smile, he frowns. It’s perfect. He’s the trustiest of steeds and the only phone call I look forward to. Unlike routine check-ins with mom, he doesn’t ask the hard questions. With him, it’s never about my GPA, just my needs. He’s there to ease the troubles and so graciously take orders. When I overanalyze our interactions, I realize the onesidedness of our relationship. I put in zero effort, but for some reason he keeps coming back for more — with more food. I literally just call his name — whatever his name is that day — and he’s there in 45 minutes or less. God, he’s so agreeable. So yeah, my only intimacies are accidental — the last time a guy touched me was when Mr. Delivery Man handed over the goods and grazed my hand. I tipped big. My midnight booty call isn’t a booty call at all — it’s a speed dial to Pizza House. And when my hotline blings, bae doesn’t arrive, a pizza does. I know what you’re thinking, it’s too good to be true. But it’s not all serotonin and Szechuan chicken. As with any great love, the doubt seeps in. I can’t see us working out long term. Between my neediness and his nearsickening devotion, natural selection will take us out soon enough (and take-out will prevail). But for now, when my relatives ask about the boys in my life, I reply honestly. Yes, Aunt Barb, there is a man in my life. And unlike your ex-husband, he consistently delivers.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
VIRGINIA LOZANO/DAILY
Ann Arbor local Connor Kessler looks at the Star Wars books on display at Vault of Midnight.
in Stormtrooper uniforms on the Death Star.’ Even something like that which I knew wasn’t directly thinking of ‘Star Wars,’ it’s always sort of hovering there in the back of my mind, influencing on a very subliminal level a lot of my creative instincts.” “I can’t say everybody, but most people from my generation, I feel like when you say, ‘Why did you go into film or TV or anything media related,’ points to ‘Star Wars’ when they were little and just wanting to do that,” Thornton said, reflecting on the widespread influence of the series, an experienced shared from one generation to another. “It’s still a good story, but it was also this shared cultural experience from when my generation was kids, and now sharing that with another generation is a way of keeping that experience that we had alive. It’s something you pass down. ‘Star Wars’ still evokes this remembering what it was like to be a kid and to go to the movies and have this fun and innocence. I want my kids to have the same thing.” Entering the vault “Star Wars” hasn’t just endured — it has thrived. With the upcoming release date of “The Force Awakens” comes numerous pieces of additional merchandise — comics, books, toys and any number of future collectibles. Few places in Ann Arbor are as acquainted with these forms of storytelling as Vault of Midnight. Located on Main Street in downtown Ann Arbor, the award-winning store is a local centerpiece for geek culture. Entering the store on a snowy Sunday morning, I randomly browsed the rows of comic books, graphic novels, action figures and clothing. Though wide open in space, the Vault is chock full of the latest entertainment and issues from a wide variety of publishers. I walked to the register and the assistant manager, Marcus Schwimmer, gave me a more guided walk through the store. After showing me the all-ages material, including cartoonist Jeffrey Brown’s popular series, “Jedi Academy,” Schwimmer brought me over to Marvel’s latest offering of “Star Wars” material. Circling the multi-tiered display, Schwimmer gave a brief rundown of every series and book in sight, the knowledge coming effortlessly. A comic grabs his attention, “Star Wars: Chewbacca.” He grabs the comic and carefully opens the plastic
bag that encases it. He mentions the artist, Phil Noto. “The guy was put on this planet to draw Chewbacca,” Schwimmer said as he showed off the artwork. One image shows Chewbacca, Han Solo’s Wookiee companion, all by himself, lying in a field of light pink flowers. The character, usually seen in pitched battles or letting out his distinctive roar, is at peace in the field. It’s hard to argue with Schwimmer about Noto’s beautiful artwork. My attention was then brought to Curtis Sullivan, owner and operator of Vault of Midnight. Guiding me down into the basement-level game room of the Vault, Sullivan, another longtime fan who claimed to receive “Star Wars” toys every birthday and Christmas for years after seeing “The Empire Strikes Back” for the first time in theaters, sat down for an interview. “Comics and ‘Star Wars’ have a long, awesome history and most recently Disney bought Lucasfilm,” Sullivan said. “Disney also owns Marvel Comics, the original publisher of ‘Star Wars’ comics way back when it started. Marvel now has the ‘Star Wars’ license again for comics and it’s a really great homecoming. They have ran with it and made the best ‘Star Wars’ comics in my time of reading ‘Star Wars’ comics, which is 30-plus years. It’s the best time to be a reader of ‘Star Wars’ comics.” In explaining the “Star Wars” universe to me, Sullivan clarified the somewhat complicated nature of the “Star Wars” canon, which already had an expansive set of stories and histories known as the Expanded Universe. “This Expanded Universe is now referred to as Legends, it’s not canon proper,” Sullivan explained. “But, everything we have now from Marvel, ‘Star Wars’ and the new novels is now canon proper. Until who knows when they reboot it. Most of our readers in our store are just looking for a good ‘Star Wars’ story. I know you got some die-hard fans who will talk about every stitch and every piece of clothing, but a lot of people we talk to or sell comics to are cool with a good ‘Star Wars’ story and aren’t worried that it fits every nook and cranny that they think is established canon.” And now is the perfect time to find those “Star Wars” stories, according to Sullivan, who reiterated the consistent strength of
Marvel’s latest series of comics that fill in the gaps between the original trilogy films. “They expand, they go in between the movies and they are also leading us into ‘Force Awakens,’ ” Sullivan said. “So there’s a great book (‘Shattered Empires’) right now, that just wrapped up that takes us to the end of ‘Return of the Jedi’ right into ‘Force Awakens.’ So it fills in all these great gaps and they’ve hired the top talents in the industry to do this, they spared no expense creatively. So the writers and the art teams on these books are the best in the business.” From Phil Noto to other artists like Salvador Larroca, who illustrates the “Darth Vader” series, Marvel has enlisted some of the most exciting comic book talents, including writers like Mark Waid and Charles Soule who wrote series about Princess Leia and Lando Calrissian, respectively. Sullivan also mentioned Jason Aaron, an author he claims is, “one of the best writers of all of comics,” and also helms the comic series known simply as “Star Wars,” a personal favorite of Sullivan’s. “Every book they’ve put out has been a world-class writer and a world-class artist and just the best in the biz, not cheap, page-rate employees,” Sullivan said. “They seem like considered editorial decisions like, ‘Who is the good writer to do this book?’ they’re not just grabbing a big name for the sake of ‘Oh this, is a popular writer.’ It feels like they’ve selected the right people for each project.” Speculating on the popularity of these series, Sullivan could only see growth in the future. “ ‘Star Wars’ fever is kooky right now, it’s very high,” Sullivan said. “But I don’t think we’ve begun to see the beginning of ‘Star Wars’ fever. Let’s talk about this again the week after the movie releases. I think it will be inescapable.” In the meantime, Sullivan will keep selling comics and waiting for the release of the next film in a series that has touched so many. “The last trailer for ‘Force Awakens,’ like many people, I was damn near crying watching the trailer,” Sullivan said. “I just thought that it invoked all the feelings that are bigger than ‘Star Wars.’ It’s bigger than lightsabers and spaceships. It’s a feeling you get when you hear the music and the sound effects and the characters. I just can’t wait.”
MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW 2015 is coming to a close and The Weeknd had his best year yet, musically. He had two number-ones, a sold-out A arena tour and has been Into the nominated for Record Night of the Year The Weeknd (“Can’t Feel My Face”) and Album of The Year (Beauty Behind The Madness) — but more than that, the Canadian R&B star now has a brand. The Weeknd’s brand is sleek, sexy, a little dangerous and a whole lot of fun. His newest music video “Into The Night” is a continuation of that brand. The Weeknd plays opposite current-girlfriend Bella Hadid in a gangster love story complete with strip clubs, assassinations, slit throats and mass amounts of sexual tension. The song
REPUBLIC RECORDS
explores dark themes of sexual abuse and sex work. Hadid performs as a young woman under the thumb of a ruthless gang, as The Weeknd yearns to help her out of her detrimental situation. The music video climaxes as the Weeknd feels a gun pointed at the back of his head in the hands of the gang’s leader. Just as viewers come to grips with the death of the video’s protagonist, “Into The Night” twists the narrative as a bullet punc-
tures the back of the gangster’s head. Hadid emerges from an abandoned building and the two ride off “Into The Night” on a motorcycle. The video’s plot isn’t pioneering, but with the MJ-inspired sound, tangibile content and trippy imagery, paired with the failure to paint Hadid as a damsel in distress, the video adds one more success under the Weeknd’s year. - CHRISTIAN KENNEDY
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Thursday, December 10, 2015 — 3B
ARTIST
IN
PROFILE
COURTESY OF DOUG COOMBE
LEFT TO RIGHT: Brad Hales, Robert Wells and Breck Bunce spin classic soul records at the Blind Pig.
Soul club unites fans at Blind Pig Monthly event has devoted underground following By RACHEL KERR Daily Arts Writer
Don’t come yet, a message on my phone reads at 10:04 p.m. I’m sitting in an Uber outside of the Blind Pig. It’s empty, the next message says. “Shit.” My friend and I shimmy out of the Uber. We’re supposed to be meeting another friend, whom the messages are from, inside the venue for something called the “Ann Arbor Soul Club.” “It’s an event we started coming up on nine years ago. There was a University grad student named Robert Wells, and he suggested the idea of doing a night out here,” said Brad Hales, owner of Peoples Records in Detroit and co-founder of the event that occurs on the first Friday of every month. “Basically, it’s like a European style night, where DJs seek out these obscure records that were never played on the radio. They weren’t commercially successful, and they’re really hard to find. (We don’t play) the soul music that Americans grew up on the radio with.” It’s 10:37 now. We’re eating ice cream. We’re staring at our phones. We’re trying to kill time. We’re deciding when we should go. “From 9:30, when we begin, until about 11, when people tend to arrive en masse, we can play ballads and earlier ’60s R&B stuff to set the mood and kind of get things started,” Hales said. Seems we’re right on time then. As we shuffle into the venue at 10:45, with the masses Hales described, I’m aggressively reminded of my underaged-ness when they mark me those fateful Ms (for minor!). But I continue on, unaffected. The Bling Pig, if you haven’t been, is intimate; the space holds only a bar, a couple circle tables, a dance floor and a small
stage. On that stage, the DJs are busy spinning, only a few beers and a collection of 45s with them. “(We have guest DJs) nearly every other month or third month. Soul music DJs and fans from around the globe often travel here, and the night can be a fun stop for them. We’ve had friends visit and spin from mostly the UK, but also Germany and Switzerland, as well as many from all over the States,” Hales said. Tonight, it’s Nick Soule from the Windy City Soul Club in Chicago, playing with resident DJ Breck T. Bunce. Hales usually DJs, too, but couldn’t because of a persistent illness. Around the bar stand a few 40-somethings, but the dance floor is almost exclusively full of college-aged students. “When we started, the night definitely got more townies and people that I had known from living there in the mid-’90s. Now none of them show up. It’s all younger students,” Hales said. “You can tell they’re there for the first time if they’re saying, ‘Hey, I don’t know if you take requests, but are you going to play Al Green?’ ” These students seem to know exactly what they’re doing, though, swinging and jiving and grooving (and any other dated dance term I can use here) to the song playing. But, I have no idea how to dance to soul music. Our generation has been trained to just, like, bump and grind on things. Introduce rhythm into the equation and it gets tricky. So my friends and I stand off to the side at first, observing that, contrary to Hales’ observation, there are in fact some “townies” sprinkled among the students: the group of lumberjack-looking men drinking IPAs, the old woman wearing sunglasses inside, the singular 70 year old drinking whiskey. When we finally make our way onto the dance floor, the moves begin to ooze out of us. Limbs brush against one another, hairs fall out of place, sweat drips from foreheads. But we don’t
care because the music is fun. Not until I hear “Get Ready” by The Temptations, recognizable only because Fergie has sampled it, do I realize this music is also incredibly significant: It helped create most of today’s sounds. “I grew up hearing rap music and wondering what it was made from, those little samples they got, where those original sounds were from. Growing up hearing that kind of thing led me down a path to older music,” Hales said. And he didn’t have to look much further than the greater Metro Detroit area, birthplace of Berry Gordy’s Motown Records. Arguably the most significant movement in soul music, Detroit soul introduced the world to the infectious tunes of The Supremes, the melodic styling of The Temptations, the sensual vocals of Marvin Gaye and the all-around revolutionary musicmaking of Stevie Wonder. When Motown Records moved to Los Angeles in 1973, Detroit’s soul seemed to leave with it. The Ann Arbor Soul Club just wants to help us find it again. “Our state served as a cultural organ donor for the rest of the world,” Hales said. “People here threw it away, and people elsewhere embraced it and kind of saved it from the trash bin of time. So I think it’s extremely important that we do represent our area and give that kind of night a presence. You should hear it here. It’s from here. People should definitely learn about it.” We leave the Bling Pig at 12:30 a.m., sweating and smiling, aware that something great just happened though not sure quite what. Students continue filing into the venue, bringing with them both the soul and spirit that both the music and the city need for revival. Check out Peoples Record’s website for more soul sounds: http://peoplesdetroit.com/. Hales also suggests you watch the movie “Northern Soul,” now available on Netflix, to give the Ann Arbor Soul Club some context.
TRAILER REVIEW Paramount’s “The Big Short” trailer is reminiscent of the “The Wolf of Wall Street” trailer in that it’s deceptively glamorous — casually cutting to images Bof semi-nude The Big strippers and $20 Short bills f loating Paramount everywhere. The people in December 11 these trailers really need to invest in rubber bands. This is a movie about the economy collapsing, right? This is probably the whitest movie trailer of all time. It cuts to the core of the basic khaki-wearing, Ruby Tuesday-going Caucasian male fantasy of wearing nice suits,
COURTESY OF LINDA GREGERSON
English Prof. Linda Gregerson’s “Prodigal: New and Selected Poems” is available now.
By KARL WILLIAMS Online Arts Editor
“Prodigal: New and Selected Poems, 1976 to 2014” collects the best work from English Prof. Linda Gregerson’s long and successful career in poetry. The book collects poems from nearly 40 years of published work, which has appeared in magazines such as The New Yorker and Poetry and in books, including her National Book Award Finalist “Magnetic North.” However, Gregerson, who is also director of the Helen Zell Writers Program, didn’t begin her career as a poet. Instead, after graduating from Oberlin College, she lacked a thorough sense of purpose and wasn’t sure what to do. A love for learning sent her into a PhD program at Northwestern University where she studied Shakespeare, but after a bit of scholarly work, she decided to pursue theater. Working in theater, coincidentally, led her to write poetry between periods of production. “During those between times, I was writing to really keep myself going, and decided I really needed some proper training because I’d never taken a creative writing course in my life, ever,” Gregerson said. “So, I’d had the good fortune to publish some poems. When I applied, miraculously I got into the top programs I applied to and decided to go to Iowa. But I always had it in my head to go back and do the PhD.” After her time at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she worked with notable poets such as Louise Glück, Donald Justice and Bill Matthews, she considered returning to Northwestern. But the academic environment had changed from when she was there, so she followed other paths, ending up at Stanford University. During her initial PhD work at Stanford, she thought she would focus on 20th century American lyric poetry, such as the work of Wallace Stevens and John Ashbery. But the theater lured her back. She changed her dissertation work to Renaissance drama. However — once again — a sea change: the Renaissance epic drew her in. While Gregerson has studied the master poets —
Shakespeare, Milton, Eliot, etc. — and learned much from them, her work reading poem submissions at The Atlantic during the 1980s was crucial in her development. Poetic missteps provided as much insight as the triumphs. Although the monthly magazine only published about two poems a month, Gregerson read all submissions — she estimates that she read nearly 60,000 poems a year. Gregerson’s career as a poet took off when she discovered/ invented her own stanzaic form, which all of the poems in her collections “The Woman Who Died in Her Sleep” and “Waterborne” follow. With variations, the form is a tercet with five, two and four metrical feet.
Her poems confront life and death with fear and wonder. “It was really crucial. I began writing this sort of default form when I was in my MFA program. Virtually everyone was writing stanzas that were flush left. That’s just what poems looked like. And so they were stanzas I think of as block stanzas,” Gregerson said. “I needed something more jagged that had some asymmetry in it, some spin that had more resistance to syntax building, and more syncopation. I played around a lot, and I finally evolved that tercet, which it had the lines differ both because they’re differently indented and because they’re different lengths. It was a godsend. It gave me patterns of resistance. It gave me momentum. It gave me syncopation.” Gregerson’s poetry displays a magnificent sense of detail and an ability to navigate between scales. In the title poem, “Prodigal,” Gregerson shifts between the local and the cosmic. The body of a young girl, with bountiful copper hair, is both the flesh of the individual and a text for human life. The girl cuts herself, and the lacerations on her skin are a “many-layered
hieroglyphic / raw, half healed, reopened.” These inscriptions are a metaphor for the ways in which human life constantly transfigures — and pollutes — the natural world. Here, the personal is the ecological, too, and Gregerson shows her adroit ability to negotiate and examine the particular and the general at the same time. Her poetry, too, revels in the minute profundity of existence and exhibits a wonder for the natural world. “I continue to be amazed by embodiment,” she said. “I’m amazed by living in a body. The brilliance of the biosphere — I can’t get over it. I am stunned at the intelligence quite separate from us. The part we do on purpose seems so trivial to what is done on our behalf by everything.” “The Bad Physician,” from her collection “The Woman Who Died in Her Sleep,” examines the genius of the body and the cellular processes that both maintain and destroy human life. Gregerson writes, “even in error the body / wields cunning.” But the machinations of biology are indifferent to human life. They don’t care if we live or die. It is this tension, between the horror and beauty of the life process, that motivates the poem to its brilliant conclusion: “The beautiful cells dividing have no mind for us, but look
what a ravishing mind they make and what a heart we’ve nursed
in its shade, who love that most which leaves us most behind.” Gregerson said that there are only two themes — love and death. They’re themes that her poems confront with fear and wonder. Many have confronted these themes before and many will do so in the future, but few have done so as well as Linda Gregerson.
SINGLE REVIEW
PARAMOUNT
playing golf and spending time with tall, skinny blonde girls. It’s not that I dislike movies with lots of slick white guys in them on principle (though I really hated the woefully insincere “Black Mass”), this just seems like a pretty egregious pleasure-show aimed at a painfully specific audience. The “clock ticking” motif of
the trailer’s music is a bit onthe-nose thematically, but it provides an alright structure in which to present the film’s aesthetic. I can’t say I’m not excited to see this movie — though its cast is pretty horrendously milquetoast, you can’t deny their talent. - JACOB RICH
Layers upon layers of textured, dripping sound culminate in a funky yet daunting net to create Detroit-based Omar S’s newest single, “The Lost A Albatross.” The missing alba- The Lost tross mentioned Albatross in the title could refer to many Omar S aspects of the track — mainly FXHE its impossibleto-pin-down melodic progression. Just when you think you have figured out the different, synth-soaked elements and how they work together, Omar S switches up the composition, throwing listeners through a continual loop.
FXHE
The beats and melodies build continually upon each other, easing in and out of the forefront to allow one or the other to shine. The melody moves from non-existent to a whisper in the background to the most prominent aspect of the piece only to once again be swallowed by some scratchy synth beats. The
piece is both modern and retro, playing on the synth style of the ’80s while questioning its own place in current music. Despite its constant compositional change, “The Lost Albatross” consistently submerges listeners in waves of complex, grooving sound. -CARLY SNIDER
4B — Thursday, December 10, 2015
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
CULTURAL CURES COLUMN
D
Dear Gillian: Searching for love from the other side of the lecture hall
ear Gillian, There is a boy — a very cute, smart and well-dressed boy in my class. While I would normally go for it considering these attributes, he’s also got that, “I’m top-tier and super-intimidating” swagger. GILLIAN How do I JAKAB approach this? Staring lustfully across the room is not going so well. We have had absolutely no contact and he hasn’t expressed any interest, but there just seems to be something there (am I crazy?). – Drooling From Across The Room Dear Drooling, Crazy? You mean just because you believe in a romance between you and someone who doesn’t know you exist? Yes, you might be crazy, but not in a bad way. Let’s start with some lyrics. Here are the opening lines from Alicia Keyes’ “You Don’t Know My Name,” which does mention
“crazy:” (The music video is everything you’d hope for from a early 2000’s production.) From the day I saw you Really, really wanted to catch your eye Somethin’ special ‘bout you I must really like you ’Cause not a lot of guys are worth my time Oh baby, baby, baby It’s gettin’ kind of crazy ’Cause you are taking over my mind And it feels like ooh You don’t know my name And here’s Antônio Carlos Jobim’s “The Girl from Ipanema,” a hit in the ’60s and one of the most covered songs in the 50 years since — there’s a great, soulful Amy Winehouse version: Oh, but I watch her so sadly How can I tell her I love her Yes, I would give my heart gladly But each day as she walks to the sea She looks straight ahead, not at me Tall and tan and young and lovely The girl from Ipanema goes walking And when she passes, I smile, but she Doesn’t see. She just doesn’t see
But don’t feel too crazy, Drools, because you and your boy are precisely where every single love affair in the history of the world began — brimming with private passion and oozing with pure potential, but otherwise, nowhere. You are the secret admirer, like Shakespeare’s Viola in “Twelfth Night,” cloaked in a pretend disinterest. The question is how to de-cloak.
You might be crazy, but not in a bad way. First of all, don’t let the top-tier swagger dissuade you. From Psyche’s betrothal to a supposed monster (actually Cupid in disguise, but not the point … ) to Ron and Hermione’s romance that overcomes her towering superiority in potions class and everywhere else, love often deals in nonsuperficial traits — charm, sincerity, perseverance and humor are surely among them, but they are innumerable. Your
challenge will be to summon your strengths, your most attractive qualities, and get them into his view. How do you approach this, you ask? You don’t have to be the Daily’s liberal arts advice columnist to know that you and Swaggy, although you’ve never spoken, have something obvious in common: the class! I’ll get to the point of this in a moment, but first, a couple of words of caution. Drools, this might not work, so give it your all, but don’t get obsessed. Don’t cling like Velcro to a couple of passing smiles like the protagonist Professor Gustav von Aschenbach in Thomas Mann’s “Death in Venice.” He becomes erotically obsessed with a beautiful young boy, and stays in Venice stalking the lad despite the Cholera epidemic, of which he becomes a statistic. In the critically acclaimed 1975 Francois Truffaut film “The Story of Adele H.,” Victor Hugo’s daughter becomes irrationally obsessed with a military officer and does some world-class trans-continental stalking, certain they will marry. Of course, he thinks she’s a lunatic and she ends up spending 40 years in an asylum. Point is, erotomaniacal obses-
sion is never a good look and always end badly. As I said, you’re in a good place across the room. We often imagine love at first sight in more grandiose settings, like walking along the Seine, riding a wave in Waikiki, or on the steps of a grand museum. This sometimes happens. Often, however, it’s those we see everyday in our apartment buildings, regulars at our favorite coffee shops, or like you: in class.
Don’t let the top-tier swagger dissuade you. “L’Amour de Swann,” one section of a larger work by Marcel Proust, details the beauty of quotidian, everyday love. Charles Swann begins to love the mundane things about his lover Odette and takes pleasure in her everyday rituals and actions rather than the idealized beauty and glamour
he used to be attracted to. I wouldn’t take this relationship as a model, for it proves to be a painful projected illusion, but Proust brilliantly explores the ways in which a person can permeate our own day-to-day experiences. So, as long as you remain grounded and don’t begin to creep around this guy’s life, you’ll be good. I’d advise you to build an approach around the class itself: suggest a pre-finals study session or a term paper critique swap, or even just ask for a day’s notes you may have missed. Find a class-centered way to start talking to this boy, preferably in a cozy coffee shop over some lavender-honey lattés, and take it from there. Crazier things have happened. Send an email to DearGillian@ michigandaily.com or anonymously here describing a quandary about love, relationships, existence or their opposites. Gillian will attempt to summon the wisdom of the arts (literary, visual, performing) to soothe your troubled soul. We may publish your letter in the biweekly column with your first name (or penname). Submissions should be 250 words or fewer and may be edited prior to publication.
EPISODE REVIEW Warning: Our favorite TV couple may be splitting up. In this week’s midseason finale of “The Mindy Project,” new parents A Mindy Lahiri (Mindy The Mindy Kaling, “The Project Office”) and Danny (Chris New Episodes released Messina, “Vicky Cris- Tuesdays tina Barcelona”) have a Hulu heated argument about kids and Mindy’s duty as a mother. Mindy, a successful OB/GYN and unconventional mom, isn’t one to stay at home with the kids. As she explains to Danny, the “Peanuts” kids are growing up just fine without the constant supervision of adults. But Danny takes a different view:
“Charlie Brown’s 10 years old and he’s bald and he has no friends. Yeah, he’s doing fine.”
most of her time with Danny and Leo. Complaining, Danny swings low by saying that the
HULU
There are other bones to pick between the two parents, too, like the fact that Mindy still owns a private million-dollar apartment, though she spends
Virgin Mary, perhaps the most famous mother of all, didn’t have a separate apartment in West Village. Mindy snaps back, “If Mary had an apartment as cool
as mine, she probably wouldn’t have been a virgin.” Jokes aside, a reflective Mindy enters a flashback of the couple’s first meeting at Shulman and Associates, very “When Harry Met Sally”-esque. Revisiting their uncomfortable first encounters and their mutual loathing of each other in the months that followed, Mindy is able to again see the flaws in Danny, but also how they overcame their arguments: like when Mindy insists that she move a giant armoire into her new office and Danny agrees that if it fits, it’s meant to be. Back in the present, a tearyeyed Mindy brings Leo’s crib to her apartment for a test. When the crib fits in the room, Mindy takes down the “For Sale” sign from outside. Does this mean Mindy and Danny are no longer meant to be? - HAILEY MIDDLEBROOK