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Grinnell College sophomore Austin Wadle, Grinnell College Campus Democrats president, discusses students’ political concerns ahead of the Iowa caucuses in Grinnell, Iowa, on Monday.
Before caucuses, students in Iowa gauge the candidates College campuses in the state focus on vast range of policy issues By EMMA KINERY Daily News Editor
IOWA — As you push open the door to enter Grinnell College’s south loggia, the covered area
connecting the dormitories on the college’s South Campus, posters of candidates crumple. Iowa college students, like most everyone else in Iowa during the caucus, are typically surrounded with attention — and this year especially, student issues have been prominent for Democrats, with both top candidates including college affordability pushes in their policy platforms. For those students, the weeks
leading up to a caucus are full of candidate visits. At Grinnell, for the first time there was a week long “short course” before classes began where students traveled eight hours a day tracking candidates and speaking with lesser-known caucus affiliates. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D–VT) visited Grinnell’s campus last Monday. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley held a town hall there two days later. The liberal arts school of 1,600
students, of which University President Emerita Mary Sue Coleman is an alum, is known for its left leaning reputation; the campus has a big chapter of the College Democrats but no university recognized conservative counterpart. Austin Wadle, Grinnell sophomore and president of the Grinnell College Campus Democrats, said the unique opportunity Iowan students See IOWA, Page 3A
Officials hope endorsement will encourage proactive measures By EMILY ROBERTS Daily Staff Reporter
The University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center endorsed the human papillomavirus vaccine in a statement Jan. 27 calling it an important way to prevent cancer. As a part of a group effort by National Cancer InstituteDesignated Cancer Centers, the University released a statement saying the centers recognize low levels of HPV vaccination are a serious public health concern and are an opportunity to prevent many cases of cancer. The University Health Service’s website emphasizes HPV’s potential to cause
CRIME
RESEARCH
Police to look into A2 men’s rights meetup Students organize protest in response to group’s statements on rape By RIYAH BASHA Daily Staff Reporter
Campus and city police are investigating reports of a public meetup hosted by Return of Kings, a self-proclaimed men’s rights group, in Nickel’s Arcade on Saturday. The group’s founder, Roosh Valizadeh, announced an “International Tribal Meetup” to unite “other like-minded men” around the world on his website. Ann Arbor was added to the finalized list of meeting points on Jan. 22. The meetup is planned for Feb. 6th, according to the group’s website. ROK is infamous for advocating policies that would legalize rape in some circumstances and advance “neo-masculine” thought. Valizadeh’s “About” page on his website argues for the maintenance of traditional sex roles, and says that “awoman’s
value significantly depends on her fertility and beauty.” Posts in multiple campus facebook groups, such as the Ladies of UofM Facebook group, on Monday and Tuesday warned females on campus of the group’s activities. Diane Brown, spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety and Security, confirmed Tuesday night that after receiving tips, University police are working in conjunction with the Ann Arbor Police Department, as Nickel’s Arcade is within city police’s jurisdiction, to look into the meetup. Brown said University police plan to meet with campus leaders in the days to come about the planned event. “We don’t know what we’ve got right now,” Brown said. “We’ve gotten several notifications from concerned community members who are seeing several versions of this meeting around the world, including one that could possibly be in Ann Arbor.” The online discussions motivated several students, to create Facebook event for See POLICE, Page 3A
cervical cancer in women, which is the second leading cause of cancer in women and of genital warts in both men and women, according to UHS. UHS recommends the vaccine for females 11 to 26 years old as well as males ages 11 to 21, and for males through age 26 who have sex with men or whose immune systems are weakened because of HIV infection, other illness or medications. In an e-mail interview, Cancer Center Director Dr. Theodore Lawrence wrote that the NCI-Designated Cancer Centers hope the endorsement will encourage more people to get vaccinated. “There has been a disappointing uptake of the vaccine,” he wrote. “It was felt that an endorsement by all of the cancer centers would move the needle on vaccination.” Though the work did not originate exclusively at the See VACCINE, Page 3A
Study links puberty in young boys to obesity University analysis shows overweight youth experience puberty late By JENNIFER MEER For the Daily
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Engineering junior Tyler Dubay argues that the people of Michigan ought not recall Gov. RickSnyder (R) over the Flint water crisis during a Michigan Political Union debate at the Michigan Union on Tuesday.
Political association debates recalling Gov. Rick Snyder Students express mixed sentiments on accountablilty of state officials in Flint By TANYA MADHANI Daily Staff Reporter
The Michigan Political Union held a debate Tuesday on if Gov. Rick Snyder (R) should
be recalled in light of the Flint water crisis. The debate stemmed from sentiments among the Flint community and nationwide aiming to hold Snyder accountable for a perceived lack of action and involvement in the crisis. Approximately 10 students attended. When the water supply in Flint was switched from its original source in the Detroit to the Flint River in April 2014, the lead in
the corroded water line leaked into the city’s drinking water supply, but the contamination wasn’t addressed for multiple months, until residents began complaining of adverse health effects. The state, for several months, maintained that the water was safe. Following independent testing showing lead in the water, Snyder reversed course, declaring a state of emergency on See DEBATE, Page 3A
A recent study led by a researcher at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital sheds light on the impact of obesity on young boys. The study — which was performed by the Pediatric Research in Office Settings network of the American Academy of Pediatrics — suggessts that obese young males experience the onset of puberty later, while overweight boys experience puberty early. Dr. Joyce Lee, M.D., M.P.H., an associate professor at the medical school and pediatric endocrinologist at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, led the study. In an interview, Lee said as a pediatric endocrinologist, she sees See RESEARCH, Page 2A
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#ShowUsTheVote Bernie Sanders and supporters are skeptical of the Iowa caucus results from Monday night — and after losing by a mere 0.3 percent, Sanders is taking action. Sanders has requested the Democratic Party to release the raw vote count from the Iowa caucuses after a narrow defeat to rival Hillary Clinton. Clinton’s assumed easy win slipped further away from her campaign as more results poured in, resulting in an unexpected close finish with Clinton garnering 49.9 percent of the vote and Sanders finishing with 49.3 percent. Speaking to reporters on his Des Moines flight, Sanders
claimed the very tight competition with Clinton in a state where she was expected to easily win is a clear signal the public wants dramatic changes in national policies, according to The Guardian. Sanders hinted at issues with certain Iowa precincts, claiming they lacked the number of Democratic Party volunteers to accurately report delegate totals. Since Sanders’ request for the raw vote count to be released, social media users have expressed their support for Sanders using #ShowTheVote. Some posts using the hashtag have claimed if there is nothing for the Democratic Party to hide, then there’s no reason why
the public — and the Sanders campaign — shouldn’t be given the data. Social media reactions regarding Clinton’s victory, include accusations of voter manipulation and claims the Clinton campaign outright cheated to secure a caucuses victory. Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver told reporters that the Sanders campaign does not plan to contest the results but will instead request an investigation into the allegations against the Democratic Party, according to the Guardian. – BRANDON SUMMERS-MILLER
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GREG GOSS/Daily Award-winning Poet, Clayton Eshleman, performs his poems at the Downtown District Library on Tuesday. Eshleman’s poems touch on topics ranging from youth travels to cave drawings.
THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW TODAY
WHAT: LSA Dean Martin will moderate a debate between activist and University alum Bill Ayers and author Dinesh D’Souza. WHO: Young Americans for Freedom WHEN: 6 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. WHERE: The League
WHAT: Dr. Whitmore will address the question “How ‘Chinese’ is Vietnam?” while looking at movements in Vietnamese history. WHO: Confucius Institute at the University of Michigan WHEN: 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. WHERE: The League, Koessler Room
WHAT: The Modern Greek Program will host guest lecturer Anthony Kaldellis to lecture about Greek art and myth in the making of Constantinople. WHO: The Modern Greek Program WHEN: 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. WHERE: Angell Hall Classics Library, room 2175
WHAT: The Digital Media Club will offer a workshop to teach the basics of Adobe Illustrator WHO: Digital Media Club WHEN: 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. WHERE: Shapiro Undergraduate Library, room 4041
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WHAT: The RC Players will hold auditions for two full-length student directed and written plays with no prior experience necessary. WHO: The Residential College Players WHEN: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. WHERE: East Quad
WHAT: Dr. Aaron Scherer will present on “the language of medicine” in a seminar hosted by CBSSM. WHO: Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine WHEN: 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. WHERE: North Camous Research Complex building 16, room 266C
a lot of children with growth and puberty issues, including some who are overweight or struggling with obesity. “There’s been a longstanding history of a lot of questions about the impact of weight on timing of puberty in kids and so that’s why we did the study,” Lee said. According to the study abstract, the PROS had preexisting data that measured height, weight, testicular volume and other pubertal variables in 3,600 American boys, ages six to 16. Approximately half of the boys were white, 25.8 percent were African American and 24.3 percent were Hispanic. Lee’s investigation reanalyzed the PROS data. The study’s official paper explains the research team “classified children based on body mass index as normal weight, overweight, or obese and compared median age at a given Tanner stage or greater by weight class.” Though the results of the study were not entirely consistent,
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On Tuesday, ESPN The Magazine appointed Alison Overholt as their new editor-in-chief, The New York Post reported. She is the first female editor of a major American sports magazine.
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bottom line is that some studies suggest that heavier weight leads to an earlier onset of puberty in boys, and some have suggested that it’s actually a later onset. But no one actually separates out the overweight boys from the obese boys and so that’s what we were able to do with this study.” LSA senior Stuart Hammond, who is president of the PreMedical Club and an Resident Advisor for the Michigan Research Community, said studies like this provide a multifacted introduction to research. “With things like smoking or obesity or even sexual health practices, there’s this really interesting interplay between social practices, socioeconomic status, and on the flip side you have this more medical side of things,” Hammond said. “In the Michigan Research Community, not only are students participating in research but they’re also in a course centered on research ethics, research practice, the academic aspects of research — teaching them how to read and interpret scientific papers, how to add to them without plagiarizing, things like that.” Hammond added that he believed the study is important because it shows that medical research can have practical applications and is intersectional. “For students in medicine, oftentimes they think of research as a really handson, intense scientific process, or working in a lab alongside practicing physicians — things like that,” he said. “And I think one thing that a lot of students realize through research is that they don’t need to be doing something really intensely scientific to learn about health care. We’ll see students working in sociology and psychology labs or even economics work, and through those experiences, they come to realize just how much their various topics that they’re researching actually pertain to their interest in health care. I think that’s why research like this is so important. It adds an extra dimension to their medical studies.”
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particularly in regard to estrogen levels — a variable that was speculated about this study but not actually analyzed — researchers were still able to use their data to make associations between weight and puberty. “I think you need multiple studies to prove these associations,” Lee said. “One study is not going to cut it. I think the advantage to this study was that it was racially diverse, it was quite large, and it was a previously unanalyzed with respect to the types of associations (we made). This is probably going to be the biggest study of boys’ puberty that will ever happen in the U.S.” Lee also noted the gender variances in similar studies, and said a unique characteristic of her research is the separation of groups within genders in the study. “Pretty much, uniformly, all studies corroborate that the heavier you are, the earlier you go into puberty as a girl,” she said. “But there was a lot of debate about what happens in boys, and it’s partly because boys are just less studied because it’s harder to measure puberty. The
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The Iowa caucuses concluded early Tuesday morning with a close finish for two of the Democratic candidates, Bloomberg News reported. Hillary Clinton narrowly beat U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) with .3 percent of votes.
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Director of Dining Steven Mangan addresses the Central Student Government on topics regarding during their meeting on Tuesday night.
CSG votes to open South Quad early after St. Patrick’s Day Assembly hears from Michigan Dining director Steve Mangan By ALEXA ST. JOHN Daily Staff Reporter
Central Student Government voted to open South Quad early on the Saturday after St. Patrick’s day at their meeting Tuesday night. St. Patrick’s Day: CSG passed a resolution to allocate $1,000 out of the Legislative Discretionary budget to fund opening a dining hall earlier on Saturday, March 19. South Quad will open at 9 a.m. instead of 10:30 a.m., according to the resolution. Members of CSG said they introduced the resolution because they believe St. Patrick’s Day is a high-¬risk drinking holiday. These policies aim to allow students the opportunity to eat breakfast before drinking,
so that they aren’t consuming alcohol on an empty stomach, according to members. The earlier hours are carried out in conjunction with Michigan Dining, with the funding aiming to partially cover the cost of opening earlier. Similar efforts to curb the effects of day drinking with earlier dining hall hours were implemented this academic year on several football game days, following a CSGresolution passed on Sept. 9, 2015. At a CSG meeting on Sept. 16, after a pilot of the program was implemented, CSG President Cooper Charlton, a LSA senior, said he thought the program was showing signs of success. “We were able to, in my opinion, prevent some trips to the hospital because students had food in their stomachs,” Charlton said. During earlier hours on the first game day the program was piloted on, 1,394 students swiped into South Quad, as compared to 114 arriving after the usual opening time, according to CSG. An increase of stu-
dents was also reported at Hill and Bursley dining centers during the earlier hours. Tuesday’s resolution to open one dining hall early on the Saturday after St. Patrick’s day passed with 24 in favor, one opposed and one abstention. The holiday has proved a focus for an array of alcohol abuse prevention efforts on campus in the past. For St. Patrick’s day last year, Ann Arbor police officers workedwith University staff to form an alcohol prevention team. Guest speaker: Also during Tuesday’s meeting, guest speaker Steve Mangan, director of Michigan Dining, spoke to CSG on current dining hall initiatives and other measures aiming to increase student health before the body voted on the resolution. Mangan emphasized the importance of the Michigan Dining system, noting key goals include increasing the availability of local produce, renovating neglected dining See CSG, Page 3A
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Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin supported presidential candidate Donald Trump at a pre-caucus rally in Cedar Rapids, IA on Monday.
IOWA From Page 1A have through candidates’ aggressive caucusing gives them a different perspective than other universities and, at times, the networking does have significant influence over their votes. “There is a strong Martin O’Malley presence on campus, I think that’s largely because the organizer for him in this area is a Grinnell graduate,” Wadle said. “He graduated this past spring and jumped onto the campaign, so he has personal connections (on campus). That’s something you’ll hear about the caucuses a lot. It’s really based a lot on your own personal connections.” An hour away at Drake University in Des Moines, O’Malley found support as well. Like students at Grinnell, junior Gabriela Edwards said she was drawn to O’Malley for personal reasons. “I think I’m going to (caucus) for O’Malley. He’s not very popular so I’m trying to get as much support,” Edwards said. “I’m from Honduras, he’s done a lot of work in El Salvador so I like that about him, and he did that way before he was even (running for president).” Based on the attendees at a rally on campus Sunday, Grinnell students felt favorable of Sanders, who placed second in Monday’s caucus by 0.3 percent. He drew a crowd of 1,280 students during his visit. Hillary Clinton, who won the caucus with 49.9 percent, made a stop at Grinnell in November, and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, campaigned for her on campus in January. Despite the excited chatter among some college Campus Democrats before the caucusing began, in contrast O’Malley ended with 0.6 percent of the votes and dropped out of the race Monday evening. Caucus poll results show students tended to lean more toward Sanders — CNN’s entrance polls indicated that 84 percent of 17- to 29-year-old, and 58 percent of 30- to 44-yearold voters said they were for Sanders, while 58 percent of 45 to 64-year-old voters and 69 percent of 65-and-older voters chose Clinton. Regardless of the polls, though, for many Iowan students, their decision was not as clear cut as the statistics suggest. Drake senior Kendrick Dewdney said he would be alright with either leading Democratic candidate but, if forced to choose, preferred Sanders. “I guess I’d be content with Hillary or Sanders,” Dewdney said, “but I think one thing Sanders has that’s very exciting is the breaking down the big banks into a kind of a more diffused power, and then also the cease in student loans in general is pretty appealing.” Students across the state said they were enticed by Sander’s plans, but questioned the viability of them. Jaylin McClinton is a senior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; though he cannot caucus in Iowa because he is not a resident of the state, he said he chose to come campaign for Clinton in Des Moines because he saw her plans as most feasible. “I like Senator Sanders a lot as well, but I think for me, (Clinton) has some really very strong plans and I think that all of them can be implemented in the current political climate,” McClinton
said. “She’s very strong on voting rights, she has a very solid criminal justice reform policy, and I think it would be great to see a woman in the White House as the actual president, commander in chief.” Drake senior JaShay FisherFowler said she is left-leaning, but feels Sanders’ free college plan goes too far. “I’m interested in Hillary, I think she wants to make college debt-free,” Fisher-Fowler said. “I believe O’Malley wants to make college debt-free as well. My concern is with Bernie trying to make college free in general — I have a concern with that. That’s kind of unreasonable, and you don’t want to take the value away from a degree or a value from education. I think paying to go to school is good; it places value on the education that you’re getting versus getting an education for free. I really do like O’Malley’s and Hillary’s standpoint on leaving college debt-free.” Sophomore Logan Kentner, president of the Drake University College Republicans, said as a college student he would like to see reform to make college more affordable, but felt making it free was too far. “I see college as an investment into your future,” Kentner said. “I think that trying to make college free is absurd because it’s not really an investment if it’s free. I do think that making it affordable is realistic, and it needs to be done, but there’s limitations to that.” On college campuses and even at Republican candidate rallies, it was difficult to find conservative students among the crowds of supporters. Kentner said he was unsure of who Drake University students were leaning toward, but had heard a lot of talk about Jeb Bush. Bush ended in sixth place, carrying 2.8 percent of the votes, far behind U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who won with 27.7 percent. “I think there’s a large support of Jeb on campus,” Kentner said. “And you’re going to see a large support group for the more moderate people on campus just because college campuses typically don’t lean too far right — specifically on social issues.” Kentner said Drake conservatives were most interested in economic policy. At the University of Michigan, earlier this year, the University’s chapter of College Republicans told The Michigan Daily that in a straw poll conducted among the group, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R– Fla.) was the favored candidate among the group. Rubio notched a third place finish in Iowa, carrying 23.1 percent of the vote. Few college-aged students were present at a Cruz rally in Iowa City Sunday. Of the few students at a Donald Trump rally in Cedar Rapids, most interviewed said they went to see him because they were curious, but didn’t necessarily side with their beliefs. Trump came in second place in Monday’s caucuses with 24.3 percent of the vote. Hamline University freshman Chris Covert, a Iowa native who attended Trump’s Cedar Rapids rally, said he felt the candidate, while important to see, didn’t address issues he was interested in such as global warming and national security. “His message is so provocative and it catches the people’s attention, and that’s something that spoke to me,” Covert said. “He’s not a politician people are
used to, he’s speaking a message that goes against the federalist system that we have now. I’m not a huge Trump fan at all, I’m more of a Sanders guy but I think it’s important to pay attention and follow the political scene.” Emily Montgomery, a masters student at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, wore a Donald Trump beanie to the rally, which she attended with a class. She said she likes Trump because his beliefs align with hers on immigration. “I’m interested in the Republican Party in general, it’s what I identify with, and I’m interested in his immigration reform; that’s what draws him to me the most,” Montgomery said. For some students across the aisle, immigration also proved important. Fisher-Fowler and Edwards both said they have friends whose parents are undocumented, and that’s what drove them to caucus Democrat. Wadle, Grinnell sophomore and president of the Grinnell College Campus Democrats, said Grinnell students are passionate about both national issues such as college affordability and improving economic inequality, and local issues like renewable fuel standards and economic development of rural areas. At Clinton’s Des Moines rally, Simpson College seniors Natasha Shehade and Sarah Beadle, wearing pink Planned Parenthood shirts, said they supported her because of her commitment to women’s health care. “I really appreciate Planned Parenthood’s support of Hillary Clinton; personally, reproductive health is so important to me,” Shehade said. “They haven’t supported a candidate in over 100 years which speaks a lot to how important they think her work as president would be for reproductive health.” Beadle said she was interested in Clinton’s devotion to the Affordable Care Act, an issue Clinton has used to draw distinctions between herself and Sanders. “Her general feelings on health care is a big issue for me,” Beadle said. “I love that Obamacare allows collegiate students to be on their parents’ health care until they’re 26. I know I plan on going to grad school, and not having to worry about the gap between my employment in the summer is really nice.” For students in other states with later primaries, like Michigan, the opportunities to engage as directly might not be as present. Most candidates on both sides have been to the state only once or twice since announcing their campaign, or not at all, such as Sanders. Wadle said given the extra attention Iowa gets in the process, it’s heavily important for college students in the state to take part and show that they care about the issues and want to engage. “To have young people participating, that’s the most important thing to me personally,” Wadle said. “It’s really important that we have a strong presence in the Iowa caucus and we show that young people are politically engaged and they are thinking about what they want — and they have a variety of opinions. And making sure that we continue that representation on into the county convention, the district convention, the state convention and then hopefully having some delegates from Iowa to the national convention.”
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VACCINE From Page 1A
a protest against ROK’s meeting on Tuesday. One of the organizers, an LSA sophomore who asked to go by her first name only, Susanna, due to fear of retaliation from ROK, said she was initially shocked by news of the group’s presence in Ann Arbor. “I was planning on dressing up and going out and having a fun time but I started thinking, ‘maybe I should just stay inside,’” Susanna said. “Then I realized, why should I let them scare me? So I decided that instead of letting them terrorize our campus, we would organize ourselves and speak as one voice for women’s rights.” Many posts on the Facebook page urged women to be on guard, as ROK has not detailed what exactly the group’s plan of action will be after convening at Nickel’s Arcade. Valizadeh’s website calls for men to move to “final venues” after the initial meetup; one answer on a list of frequently asked questions claims that men will move to bars. Susanna emphasized that she is not a member of any feminist groups on campus, but wanted to take action. “I’m not a ‘learnedfeminist,’ ” she said. “ I don’t know terminology or events. But I do know when something is wrong.”
Jan. 5. President Barack Obama also declared a state of emergency in the city on Jan. 16. The University has also gotten involved — to aid the residents of Flint and the University of Michigan-Flint campus, University President Mark Schlissel appointed$100,000 in funds to research the water contamination on Jan. 22. During the debate, LSA junior Joshua Strup, president of the Michigan Political Union, said the crisis in Flint and Snyder’s perceived negligence of the issue should not be an ongoing problem. He said before focusing on whether or not Snyder should be recalled, people should consider whether any governor should be recalled at all, as they were chosen by popular vote. “Whether you approve of Governor Snyder or not, he was duly appointed through a direct election of the people to this position,” Strup said. “Similarly, if you were in Michigan 15 years ago, we had Governor Granholm and whether you liked her or not, she was the duly elected governor of Michigan.” Granholm was elected governor of Michigan in 2003. Strup said whenever the matter of recall is brought up the elected official becomes focused solely on staying in office instead of focusing on the issues. “While he might not have done the best job, I’d rather have him doing work instead of making speeches to keep his job,” Strup said. “I think a recall procedure is partially just political grandstanding and stops the proper governance of a state.” The electorate should be held responsible for their choices, Strup said, and the choice to elect Snyder is something that should not be reversed. “Once we make a decision, we should stick by that decision,” he said. “Our system is not perfect. We as members of the state must work to formulate a more perfect society, but we have to accept the consequences of our decisions both individually and collectively.” Engineering junior Tyler Dubay, who is from Flint, said responses from government officials to the water crisis were not punctual and there was negligence on Snyder’s behalf. “Even though there are children being poisoned and there is something that needs to be done, I think we’re going about this entirely the wrong way,” he said. “We’re focusing more on who to point fingers at than actually fixing the situation.” However, instead of debating whether Snyder should be recalled, Dubay said, people need to focus more on how to fix the water problem in Flint. “We need to focus this on a multitude of levels to figure out what the problem is and how to fix it before we go and start pointing fingers,” he said. “In order to figure out who’s to blame for this situation, we need to not point at one single person, because this is a class action against the entire government system between the city of Flint and the state level.”
University of Michigan, Lawrence said he hoped campus will be impacted by the news, and that students who have not yet been vaccinated will take the time to do so. “I have treated many patients with cervix cancer and cancers in the head and neck region, both of which can be caused by the virus,” Lawrence said. “Although many patients can be cured, many are not. Even under the best conditions, treatment has a lot of side effects and there is significant expense. Three injections of a vaccine can prevent all of this.” Lawrence said he believes that vaccines for infectious diseases, including HPV, are truly life-saving, and that the benefits far outweigh the risks, especially when it comes to this vaccine. “It is not an exaggeration to say that this vaccine is a dream come true,” he wrote. The vaccine remains controversial because it is suggested to be administered at young ages and two children have died of early onset Lou Gehrig’s disorder after being given the vaccine, according to NPR. LSA senior Alisha Vora, co-president of University Students Acting Against Cancer at the University, said she is glad that the University is promoting proactive ways to combat cancer. She said raising awareness about preventative measures is a key goal for her organization. “Being proactive in whatever we can do is a really smart idea and I am glad that the University is on board,” Vora said. “It makes a lot of sense — if there is any way for us to prevent cancer and if it is something as easy as vaccinations that should definitely be promoted.” Vora also said her club could use the news to raise awareness about specific kinds of cancer. “Our club is very open to new ideas, we ask our club members if there is a specific kind of cancer that they want to raise money for or raise awareness about and we do it,” she said. “If this is something happening on campus I think it is a great thing to raise awareness about.” Vora said she is hopeful about the future of cancer research and prevention, and believes that many students share her sentiment. “A lot of us have been personally affected by cancer so it’s something that we all keep in our hearts; hearing great improvements that are happening, such as raising awareness about vaccinations that will help prevent cancer, is great — it is great to see us moving forward,” she said.
CSG From Page 2A halls — particularly Bursley Dining Hall — and creating cheaper Acatering for student organizations. “We are able to not only move this food program forward for (students), but have an instrumental role in developing a lot of careers that work in our industry, (and) provide jobs for (students and their) peers,” he told the Assembly. Mangan said Michigan Dining also plans to initiate nutritional workshops and wellness initiatives to teach and encourage students how to cook and eat healthily even if they no longer have a meal plan. Upcoming resolutions: CSG also discussed a resolution the body will vote on next Tuesday that would recommend the Starboard Group and League administrators keep Wendy’s in the Michigan League Wendy’s or ensure student input is considered when choosing what replaces it. Currently, the Starboard Group and League administrators have the ability to remove the Wendy’s located in the basement of the building. Last summer, the company and administrators shut down Taco Bell without the approval from students and prior notice to students.
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Opinion
4A — Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com SHOHAM GEVA EDITOR IN CHIEF
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LAURA SCHINAGLE 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.
Let’s be friends
A
couple weeks ago, I accepted an invitation to get coffee with someone I’d never met before. Asking someone you don’t know well out for coffee seems normal, but I mean it when I say that I’d never met this person before — I didn’t even know what he (or she) looked like. The idea was to have fun and maybe make a new friend. The initiative came from a new campus group called SUSAN Argo UMich. LAMOREAUX Argo finds it can sometimes be hard to meet people outside the confines of class, something students across the University can related to. It’s intimidating to strike up a conversation with someone who just happens to be walking across the Diag in the same direction as you — as Argo explained in an e-mail with the Daily, “If you’re not in the same class or club, you don’t have an excuse.” Sometimes you’re too busy to join new clubs or take on more extracurricular activities. Maybe partying isn’t really your scene because you prefer talking to people one-on-one in places where you don’t find it necessary to shout over the music. You probably know you’re capable of being funny and interesting — that you’re able to hold a conversation, but only if you’re given the chance to get one started. And it can be hard to maintain relationships when you’re not involved in activities with your friends, instead having to schedule times when you can meet up in person. With all of those things in mind, I signed up for a Friday afternoon slot at Sweetwaters on East Liberty Street. At the very least, I figured I’d be able to enjoy a hot cup of tea and some macarons. Argo sends e-mails to each pair of students a few minutes before their friend-date is supposed to start, providing each with a link to the other’s Facebook page and offering a short list of questions to get the conversation going. But since I don’t have data on my phone and was coming straight from class, I didn’t have a chance to so much as glance at my mystery-friend’s profile picture, and worried that I wouldn’t be able to recognize whoever I was meeting. Almost as soon as I walked in, though, I was greeted by another girl with the words, “Hi, are you here for Argo?” Over hot drinks, we got as far as the first question Argo had sent along — What is something you used to do as a child that you wish you could still do? Then the talk went in a totally different direction as we discovered a strong passion we both shared: a love of art. We swapped preferences for paints and the best places to buy art supplies (agreeing
on www.dickblick.com, nodding sadly to the Walgreens that was once Michigan Book & Supply). We complimented pictures of one another’s pieces that we had on our laptops and phones. When it was time for both of us to leave, we looked up and found the hour had flown by. As Argo had hoped would be the case, we had fun. Though the organization doesn’t match people for their preferences, instead using time and location to set up the coffee dates, we were able to find an area which we had a lot in common, and that’s what Argo hopes for: “We know there is something really exciting and powerful about meeting someone new and discovering all that you have in common and all that makes you different — and we don’t think students get the opportunity to connect with one another in this way very often, if at all.” Though I haven’t kept in touch with the girl I talked to that rainy Friday afternoon, I did enjoy myself as we shared stories of something we both love doing. And I was able to relax because I knew we had each chosen to be in that place at that time, listening to one another. “Both parties sign up for our service,” Argo says. “So both parties want to meet someone new. … That eliminates a lot of the anxiety we feel when we don’t know if someone actually wants us to talk to them.” Overall, the response to Argo has been very positive: “We don’t personally know the majority of students who signed up for frienddates, and that’s been really validating because it tells us that yes, there is a problem, and Argo might be the way to solve it.” Ultimately, they want to help people recognize that there are others out there who feel the same way they do — who understand how, without a class or club to provide a connection, starting conversations might seem a little weird. “You can’t just strike up a conversation with the person next to you at the dining hall without getting, at least in some way, a ‘why are you talking to me?’ vibe,” Argo explains. It’s hard to turn strangers into friends, and Argo understands this — it’s what spawned the idea for the organization in the first place. As students become comfortable with Argo, and as it becomes a part of the culture here on campus, the organization aims to continue expanding its reach by taking the openness it promotes outside the boundaries of frienddates. “Eventually, our hope is that after using Argo a handful of times, students will learn that they can talk to anyone, and even more so, that they should.” For more information and to stay up to date on their project, visit them on Facebook at Argo UMich, or email argoumich@gmail.com. Susan LaMoreaux can be reached at susanpl@umich.edu.
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Bloomberg 2016?
aturday, Jan. 23, news broke that Michael Bloomberg was mulling a run for president. The 73-year-old billionaire and Independent former mayor of New York City had instructed advisers to draw up plans for a campaign. By the following Monday mornBRETT ing, however, his GRAHAM possible campaign had been pronounced dead by thousands. Not by ballots or polls, or any sort of popular voice, but by likes, comments and retweets. Almost immediately, editorials flooded into the news cycle, questioning his chances and declaring him the 2016 equivalent of Ralph Nader. But why? In a race that features intensely polarizing candidates and a profound divide between party insiders and “anti-establishment” candidates, Bloomberg has the potential to capture the ideological middle. It may not be apparent, but as party-faithfuls in Iowa and New Hampshire embrace hyperconservative rhetoric on the right and populist progressivism on the left, there are many voters who are not comfortable voting for a Donald Trump or a Bernie Sanders. Mayor Bloomberg has proven successful in both the public and private sectors. Relatively popular during his tenure in the Big Apple, he led the fight to reform public schools (with an 18-percent increase in high school graduation rates within five years of his taking office). He fought to reduce greenhouse gases, improved the city’s transportation system and helped reduce crime rates. If he could do to the country what he did to New York City, he would be one of the best presidents in modern history. Being socially liberal and fiscally conservative, Bloomberg is both pro-abortion rights and pro-immigration reform. So why, exactly, is he plagued by articles titled “No way, no how” and “Why Michael Bloomberg for presi-
dent makes no sense”? In this age of round-the-clock coverage and constant activity on social media, this new brand of article seems to dominate the news. Journalists, for the sake of ease and click-bait value, forego declarative statements and title their articles with a question, opening up discussion often without taking on the responsibility of answering it. From “Is Hillary Clinton more electable than Bernie Sanders?” to “Can Establishment Candidate Rubio Still Win for the GOP?,” articles lazily disregard an old adage in journalism — any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no. Otherwise, they’d be titled “Hillary Clinton is more electable than Bernie Sanders” and “Establishment Candidate Rubio Can Win for the GOP.” By framing these articles as questions, seeds of doubt are planted from the outset. Readers can draw conclusions without getting past the title — it happened nine months ago with Bernie Sanders and it’s happening once again with Michael Bloomberg. Days later, these sentiments were echoed by polls that placed Bloomberg at around 9 percent in races against Republican and Democratic frontrunners. In this way, articles and the journalists who write them appear impartial and unbiased — but Americans’ obsession with polls is misleading at best and downright corruptive at worst. Check the poll numbers on Bernie Sanders during his campaign’s early stages. He was referred to as the Ron Paul of the left — a quixotic long shot, a fly on the windshield of the Clinton machine. But after surmounting the challenge of low name recognition and carving out his support in the liberal base, Sanders is a household name, and millennials across the country are “feeling the Bern.” One of the most common themes in the primaries thus far has been electability. Can this candidate succeed outside of the primary states? Sanders clings to polls that say he fares better than Hillary Clinton against the majority of Republicans, while Trump rallies are often highlighted by cherry-picked data that
claim he is the outright and indisputable favorite over Cruz and Rubio. But what each and every analysis leaves out is that electability is an entirely subjective and (more importantly) fluid concept. In 2008, similar remarks about viability were leveled against a young African American senator from Illinois. In 1959, Democrats and journalists worried over the prospect of nominating a Catholic — but all their intel and political acumen were invalidated when John F. Kennedy walloped Hubert Humphrey in widely Protestant West Virginia and went on to win the nomination. To be fair, if ever there was a presidential election to cover, it would be this one. As easy as it is to blame “the media” for the long list of problems our society faces, put yourself in the shoes of someone who writes for The Huffington Post or hosts a political podcast, or has airtime on Fox News or MSNBC. How could you resist discussing a loudmouthed reality television star feuding with a Canadian-born immigration crusader, or a fiery progressive with a Brooklyn accent challenging a former first lady? This election has been political theater at its best. When I read the articles that explained why Michael Bloomberg has no shot at moving into the White House in 2017, I didn’t entirely disagree. I think he lacks the charisma and the foreign policy experience. His support of the Stop-and-Frisk program will complicate his appeal to African Americans and Latino voters. But by no means is he the unfathomable long-shot the media has painted him to be. Think of how many decisions have been made for the entire election season before the Iowa caucuses. Candidates have been pronounced underdogs, frontrunners, dead in the water or building momentum. All without a single vote cast. So, at least in the case of Michael Bloomberg’s presidential campaign, I’m not quite ready to accept the foregone conclusions. Brett Graham can be reached at btgraham@umich.edu.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Caitlin Heenan, Jeremy Kaplan, 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, Hunter Zhao DWIGHT LANG AND CANDICE MILLER | OP-ED
Class diversity needs more than scholarships
The University of Michigan-Ann Arbor is testing new approaches to recruit and enroll more highachieving, low-income students from across the state. But will these efforts be enough to attract and retain students — most of whom are the first in their families to attend college? To illustrate low-income, first-gen student experiences, imagine Eve — the daughter of factory workers — graduating high school as class valedictorian. She is the oldest of three children and her parents have combined yearly incomes of $35,000. Eve has been accepted to the University of Michigan and she loves Wolverine football. When her financial aid package arrives, Eve sees both scholarship and work-study offers — neither will have to be paid back. However, she will need substantial tuition loans over four years. This worries her parents, but she is determined to enroll in her dream college and eventually attend medical school. By early November of her first year, Eve realizes significant differences between her and her peers. New friends have travelled overseas on multiple family trips and everyone has plenty of extra money to buy things like football tickets. She will not be watching football in the Big House. Her roommate, the daughter of a cardiovascular surgeon and a trial attorney, is surprised Eve’s parents are blue-collar workers. Others proudly announce they will leave college with very little debt. How can this be? Eve wonders. But when she learns from her sociology professor that 36 percent of Michigan freshmen have family yearly incomes more than $200,000, she understands. Eve is doing very well in her classes, especially organic chemistry, but is feeling selfconscious and rather exotic. Did she make the right decision to attend
a college where she feels so out of place? Are there any other firstgens? Does Michigan even recognize students like her? Is there a place to go and talk about her adjustment difficulties? To help address financial struggles for students like Eve, Michigan has recently announced a pilot two-year scholarship called High Achieving Involved Leader for qualified, lowincome Michigan students. HAIL pays four years of tuition and covers $60,000 of necessary fees. Students, parents and guardians, high school principals and counselors at 259 Michigan public schools (rural, suburban and urban) all receieved HAIL information last fall. Another hands-on program recognizing economic challenges is a new LSA laptop computer policy. Low-income LSA students can loan laptops — at no charge — for the duration of their four years of study. This initiative will likely continue in the future and could be a significant resource for HAIL students and other incoming freshmen. We hope other colleges — Engineering, Business and Nursing, for example — initiate similar policies because buying a computer can be a major financial burden for lower-income families. We celebrate initiatives to help talented, low-income, firstgen students pay for college, but we wonder if the University will also provide the necessary social support structures. Will the University assist low-income students in feeling comfortable on a campus where 89 percent of students have parents with a college degree, and likely much higher household incomes? Research tells us that economically disadvantaged students — both white students and students of color — on predominantly middle-and upper-middle-class campuses,
like Michigan, often feel isolated. Attending a highly selective college is the initial stage in the difficult process of upward mobility — widely encouraged and celebrated in American culture. But this can be very complicated for students as they pull away from the working-class communities that carefully nurtured them. Colleges like Michigan become portals to unfamiliar economically privileged experiences and futures. Will HAIL recognize these well-known facts and help students achieve a sense of belonging — especially in their first two years of college? Could a new First Generation Student Office, for example, provide highly visible recognition that low-income students are present and supported on campus? An office could offer first-gens space to meet and help promote academic and personal success. Other universities have recognized these first-gen challenges. Five years ago, Stanford University established a Diversity and First-Gen Office that helps direct first-gens to needed resources (e.g. academic advising and career planning). Highly selective campuses can feel quite foreboding for those who have grown up in the working and lower classes. Parents and students look to the University of Michigan, with its considerable resources, for leadership in providing essential support networks for low-income, first-generation students as they pursue their American dreams. Dwight Lang teaches in the Sociology Department at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and is faculty adviser to the department-sponsored undergraduate group “First Generation College Students @ Michigan.” Candice Miller, from River Rouge, Mich., is a sophomore in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts.
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Arts
HEALTH & FITNESS COLUMN
‘Healthonism:’ Work hard, play hard L
ast August, on the last weekend of my summer internship, I entered a four-mile race in Bethlehem, PA. Though the town was typically quiet that summer, empty of neighboring Lehigh UniHAILEY versity MIDDLEBROOK students, this particular weekend marked the grand opening of Musikfest: a 10-day extravaganza of bands, beer and every form of fried food you can imagine, attended by more than a million people each year. Luckily, not every visitor entered the race that morning, and I was able to snag the first place prize: two tickets to a concert of my choice (the options were O.A.R., Snoop Dogg and 3 Doors Down; I chose O.A.R.) and a refillable beer mug the size of a small child. I was thrilled. Sticking my swag behind a tree, I ran a few cool-down miles to shake out my stiffening muscles, but I could hear music swelling over the distant festival tents and gurgles of beer from a tap, willing me to join the fun. Later, regrouped at last with my summer roommates, I posed for a picture in my race bib, a banana in one hand and a complimentary can of Coors Light in the other. My caption on Instagram read, “Post-race carbo load at its finest.” It’s no secret that working out hard tends to warrant celebration. My race was just one among thousands of running events that offer drinks at the finish line — and I’m not just talking Gatorade. Disney’s Wine-and-Dine Half Marathon ends at the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival; a new 10K race in the U.K. offers wine instead of water at rest stops, with full bottles available for purchase at the finish. And then there’s the Marathon du Médoc in French wine country, the mackdaddy of party races, in which participants are encouraged to drink 23 different glasses of wine and sample cheese, oysters, foie gras and ice cream — all while somehow finishing 26.2 miles. Marathon du Médoc’s goal? To make a running event that combines “wine, sports, fun and health.” And if trend
predictions are accurate, this unlikely combination of health and indulgence may soon be more common than you think. “Healthonism,” a term coined by J. Walter Thompson Intelligence, was featured in December on The Future 100, a list of top trends to watch for in 2016. Fox News describes the healthonism trend as such: “health-conscious millennials are offsetting consumption of alcohol with antioxidants and healthy mixers — mashing up exercise with hedonism, and flocking to a growing number of exercise-meets-drinking events.”
It’s no secret working out hard warrants celebration. Hedonism, a lifestyle most associated with the wealthy men of leisure in 17th century England (think Oscar Wilde’s “Picture of Dorian Gray”), isn’t as antiquated as it sounds: hedonists simply pursue a life of pleasure and experiences, rather than obeying structured rules of society. So a modern hedonist may be a high school student who chooses to travel indefinitely instead of going to college, or a celebrity who spends a fortune on plastic surgery but donates nothing to charity. “Healthonism” is similar in that healthonists also seek out the good life — refusing to miss out on a party or pass up a drink — but they do so in a health-conscious way. Healthonists don’t just party; they get crunk after completing a marathon, a group bike ride or a Bikram yoga session. Similarly, healthonists don’t just drink; they imbibe on cocktails with cold-pressed organic juices, like Hotamelon Tequila Cleanse and RaspberryAddict Vodka Cleanse from the brand CleanDrinking. Healthonists eat well, work out hard and play even harder. Basically, good health is their utmost priority — until they’re undermining it. Mixing alcohol and an active lifestyle, or really any healthy lifestyle, has been an obvious no-no for years. Though there are reported benefits of drinking moderately — the Mediterranean Diet,
EVENT PREVIEW
Come ‘Closer’ By MARIA ROBINS Daily Arts Writer
“Love bores you,” one character accuses another. “No, it disappoints me,” the other responds. Patrick Marber’s “Closer” skips Closer syrupy-sweet implications to Thurs. Februengage with the ary 4, 7 p.m underbelly of and 11 p.m. romance. The close-up look at Fri. February intimacy gone 5, 7 p.m. wrong is more Sat. Februrelatable than ary 6, 7 p.m. we’d often like to and 11 p.m. admit. School of Walgreen Music, Theatre Drama Center & Dance senior Free David Barnes makes his directorial debut with “Closer,” and in it he allows the audience to come face to face with shame, deceit and the disappointment of falling in and out of love through vignettes that peek into the lives of four individuals. First performed in London in 1997, “Closer” centers on the intertwined love lives of two men and two women in a way that is hardly romantic. It is peppered with deci-
sions that show desperation and questionable moral character in the pursuit of meaningful intimacy. The production, backed by student organization Basement Arts, focuses on a minimal design while tackling complex and sophisticated emotional content. The cast consists of four actors, and the set is little more than a table and couple chairs. “What’s nice about this play is that it kind of skips all of the loveydovey every day romantic life and just goes from ultimate romance to catastrophic disaster, which is really exciting for the actors because you’re not doing anything but highs and lows the whole time,” Barnes said. The show is honest and unfiltered in a way that was controversial at its outset. Barnes said theater was a fitting medium for its darker storylines. “I think it’s a very relatable show. I think a lot of theater accents the reality of humanity and kind of digs into the dark sides of people, but this show kind of takes it to another level, which is why when it came out in ’97 it was so shocking,” he said. “It’s certainly less shocking now, but it explores people doing shitty things, doing things they
recommended for Americans by the 2016 Dietary Guidelines, includes a daily glass of wine — most doctors and exercise scientists agree that if you must drink, one to two glasses is the maximum you should have. Going past this limit, especially for active people, can wreak havoc on your health. Alcohol lowers your blood sugar, making you crave sweet and fatty foods; disrupts sleep patterns, impeding recovery; and it packs on pounds, as boozy calories have zero nutritional value. Despite these negative consequences, athletes still drink. And they drink even more on days when they exercise the most, according to a recent article in CNN. Scientists have speculated a few reasons why particularly strenuous workouts (or races) inspire people to drink: there’s the “celebration factor,” when teams to want celebrate after a big win or runners regroup at a bar for post-long run beers; there’s also the guilt factor, perhaps more common, when athletes plan an intense workout before a big night out with friends. Case in point: New Year’s Eve at the gym. I was there with the rest of my hometown this past December, getting my weight lifting in before the big night, when our family friend shouted up to me from his elliptical: “Gotta burn off all those beer calories!” I’d like to say that I don’t do this, that I’m not a healthonist. Yet I find myself planning my longest run of the week the morning before going out that night; and if you asked whether I stick to lean chicken, veggies and water as a post-race recovery meal, I’d probably laugh. (For the record, my go-tos are ice cream and wine.) Am I hurting my health by celebrating occasionally? Maybe a little. But you can bet that if I didn’t have a concert ticket and beer mug calling my name in the Musikfest race this summer, I wouldn’t have ran as hard or as fast as I did. A little motivation never hurt anybody, as long as the celebration is kept in moderation. Let’s raise a cold-pressed juice cocktail to that. Middlebrook is enjoying a fine wine and cheese platter after her daily five mile run. To ask how you too can enjoy this lifestyle, e-mail hailharp@umich.edu.
shouldn’t do, doing things that we — as society — frown upon, which is so interesting because we all do stuff like that. We just kind of shove it under the rug.” Although, as audience members, it is challenging to parse where our sympathies ought to lie, Barnes suggests that the intention of the play is not to feel sorry for the characters, but rather understand their motives and rationale for behavior that has harmful consequences. “Everyone cheats; everyone lies; everyone is kind of horrible to each other, but with good reason,” Barnes said. “I don’t need the audience to like these characters. I just need them to understand them, because all of the things we’re doing are things we’ve done or we would do if we were in the situation, we just tell ourselves we wouldn’t.” “Closer” lives up to its title in the decision to present on a “thrust stage,” which essentially means that there is no backstage and the stage is surrounded by the audience on three sides. “Doing it in the thrust is really exciting because it kind of literally thrusts the actors into the audience ... the show is very aware that it’s theater,” Barnes said. Because the style and form of the play is so intimate and bare-boned, the scenes require comprehensive and meticulous text work, something that a small cast generously lends itself to.
Wednesday, February 3, 2016 — 5A
TV REVIEW
THE CW
Looking at your nudes like.
Successful superhero portrayal on The CW By BEN ROSENSTOCK Senior Arts Editor
The latest spinoff of The CW’s lucrative superhero franchise, “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow,” has a lot of problems to B overcome in its two-part DC’s premiere, and it doesn’t Legends of make it Tomorrow through withSeries Preout stumbling. Still, by the miere end of its sec- Thursdays ond hour, the at 8 p.m. show estabThe CW lishes itself as potentially a very promising addition to the superhero genre. “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow” brings together minor characters from “Arrow” and “The Flash” to form an Avengers-like team of heroes. The leader is Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill, “Doctor Who”), a time traveler who assembles the team, like Nick Fury from the Avengers mixed with the Doctor from “Doctor Who.” Rip picks Ray “The Atom” Palmer (Brandon Routh, “Superman Returns”), resurrected assassin Sara “White Canary” Lance (Caity Lotz, “Mad Men”), supervillains Leonard “Captain Cold” Snart and Mick “Heat Wave” Rory (Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell from “Prison Break”), nuclear physicist Martin Stein (Victor Garber, “Argo”) and former high school athlete Jefferson Jackson (Franz Drameh, “Edge of Tomorrow”), the last two of whom fuse together to form the Human Torch-esque Firestorm. There’s also Kendra “Hawkgirl” Saunders (Ciara Renée, “Big Fish” the musical) and Carter “Hawkman” Hall (Falk Hentschel, “StreetDance 2”), a reincarnated ancient Egyptian
“With a small cast I can spend an hour with two people working on 15 lines and really dig into it and really figure out what’s working, what’s not, why they do everything,” Barnes said. I saw him do exactly this during a rehearsal in which two characters, Anna and Dan, discuss the muddy terms of their relationship in a restaurant. During the scene, Barnes urged the actors to search for intention and purpose behind even the most seemingly small moments. Everything from an entrance to a moment of eye contact to an “I’m not hungry” is probed and replayed to further convey the emotional and psychological complexity of the interpersonal dynamics at play. Barnes asks the actors questions like “How does it feel that the perfect woman is no longer perfect?” and asks them to pinpoint moments of realization that may not be vocalized, but rather expressed through subtlety of facial expression or body language. Barnes explains the process of creating “Closer” as one that combines creativity with self-reflection to create multidimensional characters. “A lot of it is just using your imagination or personal experience and putting yourself in the mindset of where these characters would be,” Barnes said. “Like, ‘What would happen if the love of your life suddenly walked out the door?’ We talk about that, we let that simmer.”
princess and prince. Rip explains to the team that they must travel through time to find and defeat the immortal Vandal Savage (Casper Crump, “Helium”), preventing the fall of civilization 100 years into the future. That’s a lot of exposition to dole out over the course of a pilot, especially with 10 major characters, and “Legends” doesn’t quite manage to do it without feeling clunky. There are a lot of requisite expositional lines with characters blatantly stating their identities as if introducing themselves to the camera. The show also makes some unwise moves in characterization. Snart’s cartoony anti-hero persona (aided by Miller’s hilarious line readings) and Sara’s simple desire to have fun in whatever time period she’s in make them early standouts, but other characters don’t leave as much of an impression. Despite the show’s insistence that Vandal Savage is a terrifying threat, Crump doesn’t have the dark charisma or coldblooded stare that made Slade Wilson (Manu Bennett, “Spartacus”) and Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough, “Desperate Housewives”) such compelling villains in “Arrow.” Worse, Kendra and Carter immediately drain life from every scene they enter, a problem when a big part of the plot depends on their ageold battle with Savage. And while Garber is great as Martin Stein, Stein gives a bad first impression when he drugs and kidnaps Jackson to force him to join the team on their first time-traveling mission. Plots based around time traveling can be irresistible when they’re mapped out logically, but sometimes the plot of “Legends” requires you to ignore glaring inconsistencies. For example, after Savage gets a hold of future tech and as a result catastrophe happens in 2016, Rip insists that
this is only a projection of the future; time is like cement, and it won’t be set in stone until Savage, in the 1975 timeline, manages to reverse-engineer the future tech. By itself this logic makes a sort of “squint and it kind of follows” sense, but it doesn’t match up with the show’s established premise. The team’s whole journey is predicated on the fact that time isn’t like cement; it’s more like water, malleable and not gradually hardening. These problems seem significant enough to derail a typical time travel series, but it’s remarkable how much you can overlook if something is really fun, and “Legends of Tomorrow” is certainly fun. It might make no sense to have Martin Stein meet his younger self in 1975 and for the timeline to remain completely unchanged, but damn is it fun to watch. In terms of entertainment, a team of snarky superheroes traveling through time is a recipe for success. The second episode is also a vast improvement over the first, with far less clumsy exposition to deliver. It also smartly varies the character dynamics, sending Ray, Snart and Mick out to steal something while Stein hangs out with Sara, Jefferson and his younger self. Unfortunately, Kendra and Carter are still relegated to their own boring subplot, though the conclusion of the episode hints that Carter’s role will be smaller in upcoming episodes. “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow” may stumble a bit in its two-part pilot, but when it comes down to it, both episodes are entertaining throughout, and when you have a couple boring characters in a cast of 10, the problems aren’t glaring. If the series continues to focus on the moments of giddy time travel fun, it’ll be a more than worthy addition to the CW Arrowverse.
Arts
6A — Wednesday, February 3, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
FILM REVIEW
TV REVIEW
‘Hours’ falters, sinks By RACHEL RICHARDSON Daily Arts Writer
FOX
Still looking at your nudes.
‘Lucifer’ ascends By SAM ROSENBERG Daily Arts Writer
In the Bible, the devil is described as a red-colored, horned being with a pitchfork and a malevolent spirit. But in pop culture, B+ the devil has taken on many Lucifer more distinctive appearances. Al Series PrePacino played miere Satan disguised Mondays as the evil head at 9 p.m. of a law firm in the 1997 thriller FOX “The Devil’s Advocate.” Actor and comedian Jason Sudeikis parodied the Biblical figure in several Weekend Update segments on “Saturday Night Live,” wearing a cartoonishly bright red devil outfit and talking about inventing every terrible attribute of the Internet. In the 2013 apocalyptic comedy “This Is The End,” the devil was depicted as a gigantic, CGI demon that butt-fucked Jonah Hill. This year, the devil is once again taking a new form, this time as a womanizing British nightclub owner named Lucifer Morningstar (Tom Ellis, “Miranda”) in FOX’s mystical crime dramedy “Lucifer.” And it may just be the best on screen portrayal of the devil yet. Adapted from the character of the DC Comics series “The Sandman,” “Lucifer” transcends its familiar police procedural format by employing sleek visuals, a charismatic lead and stylish production values. Bored with ruling the underworld, Lucifer decides to live in Los Angeles (the “City
of Angels,” get it?) and successfully manages an upscale nightlife hotspot called Lux. But after witnessing the death of his close friend, beloved pop star Delilah (AnnaLynne McCord, “Nip/ Tuck”), Lucifer seeks to punish her killers — as well as the rest of the human scum on Earth — with the help of LAPD Detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German, “Chicago Fire”). The premise sounds very conventional and somewhat derivative, but given its comic book roots, “Lucifer” is bound to boast some enthralling material. Though most of the script is bland, there are some moments of captivating dialogue, especially with Lucifer and Detective Decker. The two have a fun banter and the sexual tension between them is evident, but what’s even more alluring about their relationship is how Decker is immune to Lucifer’s telepathic ability of uncovering people’s deepest, darkest secrets. This is what keeps Lucifer — and the audience — intrigued, and it’s arguably the strongest aspect of the series thus far. “Lucifer” ’s incredible alt-rock soundtrack is also surprisingly apt for the show; it includes songs like Beck’s “Devil’s Haircut,” Cage the Elephant’s “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” and The Black Keys’s “Sinister Kid.” At times, however, “Lucifer” can be scattershot and tonally uneven. The camera captures some beautiful shots with unconventional angles, but the choppy editing stagnates the show’s pacing. Additionally, the show doesn’t seem so sure of what genre it wants to stick with; it shifts uncomfortably
from comedy to thriller to drama. While Ellis makes a few clever, snarky quips, some of the supposedly “funny” parts of the show are cringeworthy, particularly in the scene in which Lucifer seduces Delilah’s therapist Linda (Rachael Harris, “Suits”). Unfortunately, the action sequences aren’t spectacular either and far from thrilling, as they utilize the slow-motion effect to a fault. But unlike other darker and sillier versions of the Devil in TV and film, “Lucifer” and its protagonist are much more developed. Ellis brings both the sex appeal and pathos for a character who’s a notoriously cruel, unforgiving force against the most sinful and depraved of people. He’s similar to David Tennant’s sinister Kilgrave from Netflix’s “Jessica Jones,” except with a little bit more empathy and likability. Underneath Lucifer’s smug confidence (he’s immortal, after all), his sympathy for Decker and refusal to live in the underworld again give him an emotional edge. Even the striking Lauren German brings energy and skill to her role as Detective Decker, which could have been another cookie-cutter cop sidekick. Considering its genre and content, “Lucifer” may draw comparisons to other supernatural/crime TV shows, like the CW’s “iZombie” or FOX’s “Sleepy Hollow.” When juxtaposed with the lighthearted cleverness of “iZombie” or dark aesthetics of “Sleepy Hollow,” “Lucifer” is a second-rate program. But once it learns to find its footing, “Lucifer” can hopefully join the high ranks of those two shows and the rest of television programming.
Classifieds RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
FOR RENT
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6 Front-of-bk. list 7 Red-coated cheese 8 Prefix with scope 9 Text alternative 10 Many a text 11 Get some rays 12 “The Hairy Ape” playwright 13 Yes or no follower 14 Brief arguments 21 Divided terr. 23 Cramp, say 26 Weather condition in the final scene of “Casablanca” 27 Belt maker’s tool 28 Opposite of paleo29 Flight coordinators: Abbr. 30 Light cigar wrapper 32 Part of a ring 35 __ point: embroidery stitch 37 Groceries quantity 39 “u r a riot!”
41 Menagerie 42 Excitement 43 Like the bull in the Chicago Bulls’ logo 45 __ peanuts 48 In neutral 49 Temporary wheels 50 Tenant 51 California’s Big __ 52 Can’t stand
53 Didn’t hit the books? 56 Hit the books 59 It has its highs and lows 60 Minimally 61 Skid row regular 63 Jackson 5 brother 64 Voting no 65 Discontinued depilatory 68 Part of rpm: Abbr.
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02/03/16
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By SAM ROSENBERG Daily Arts Writer
Even after a nearly 20-year long music career, Sia Furler is just starting to become a pop sensa-
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Sia shines on ‘Acting’
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of archetypes, starting with the flawed hero. I don’t know if the real Bernie Webber actually had a tragic rescue mission before Pendleton, but it’s distracting in the film, especially when it’s frequently addressed yet skimpily developed. Both crews are composed of tropes: the Pendleton consists of the cheery, singing chef, the scared youngster, the rough old man and the pugnacious man who revels in making life difficult for everyone else. Webber’s team doesn’t appear much better: there’s the inexperienced ship maintenance man, the man who holds a grudge against Webber for his previous mission and the amiable team player. This profusion of tropes coupled with the overbearing romance sink the film into a sea of predictability. Of course the fearful deckhand must take a valiant leap of faith, and something unfortunate happens to the jolly old chef. All the romantic buildup caused me to anticipate Miriam acting as the light (both literally and figuratively) that guides Webber home far earlier than I wanted to. As this aforementioned ending approached, everyone in the audience started gathering their belongings, and one gentleman had already meandered into the aisle. Then, side-by-side photos of the cast and those they portrayed slowly graced the screen. Written text accompanied the images, succinctly explaining the characters’ lives after the historic event. All the hustle and bustle in the theater suddenly subsided and the man returned to his seat, intrigued. When the lights flickered on, everyone remained seated, eloquently demonstrating the fascination with real people and true stories, not the superficial recreation.
ALBUM REVIEW
Call: #734-418-4115 Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 *Where deliveries may be left 9 Adorn in relief 15 First three of ten digits 16 Bad guy 17 *Airport pickup 18 State with conviction 19 “It’s __ cause” 20 *Modest garment 22 Extra-play qtrs. 24 Influenced by, in recipes 25 July baby, maybe 26 *Hiker’s pouch 31 Storm winds 33 Have yet to pay 34 NFC South team 35 Part of rpm 36 Whipped cream amount 38 Musical sequence found at the starts of the answers to the starred clues 40 Authoritarian figure 44 Chair part 46 Balderdash 47 Poetic tribute 48 Volunteer’s offer 51 *Infant’s dietary prohibition 54 Buck’s mate 55 Sun Devils of the Pac-12 57 Afternoon social 58 *Breaking point 62 Giant 66 Where it originally was 67 *History book chart 69 Had to have 70 Cordial with a licorice-like flavor 71 Prone to avarice 72 *Words of admonishment
The moment I realized that I wanted to be captivated by something other than Chris Pine’s alluring blue eyes, I knew something was terribly wrong. This is not to say that C+ the true story behind “The The Finest Finest Hours” Hours isn’t compelWalt Disney ling, but more that it is sadly Pictures submerged. Quality 16 “The Finest Hours” depicts four U.S. Coast Guard members braving a treacherous storm to save 32 men stranded off the Massachusetts coast on The SS Pendleton, an oil tanker split in half by the raging waves. The painfully slow exposition establishes the romance between Coast Guard captain Bernie Webber (Chris Pine, “Supermansion”) and Miriam (Holliday Grainger, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”). Once the USCG crew finally gets on the water, the pace speeds up nicely, bouncing between scenes featuring the Pendleton’s engineer, Ray Sybert (Casey Affleck, “Interstellar”) and Webber aboard the CG-36500 rescue boat. Both have their foibles: Webber too strictly adheres to the rules, and Sybert’s got this intense fear of being authoritative. Needless to say, no one actually expects either to succeed except Sybert’s father and Miriam, but that’s what makes the happy ending all the more satisfying. Visually, it’s a decently stunning maritime film. The camera movements are sleek but still give the effect of a ship violently tumbling
in the waves. All too soon, these once impressive shots and computer graphics become nettlesome. There’s an extremely clever shot where the camera acts as a messenger, following a command as it’s passed along from the ship’s top to bottom. Just a few scenes later, the motion is repeated. Cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe also relies too heavily on placing the camera in the windshield and front facing window of the CG-36500 in an attempt to make viewers feel like they’re riding along with the characters. Pine and Affleck both give commendable performances. Their subtlety adds a sense of realism; they recognize that the men did it for the greater good because it was their duty, not because they foresaw their efforts displayed on the big screen. Moments focused on these two strictly executing their missions are what keep the film afloat, as they temporarily provide the true story (with a lifejacket, of sorts). Unfortunately, just as the desired story begins to surface, it’s deluged with murky subplots. Most annoying is the romantic one. If its purpose is to help create pathos for Webber, it was redundant — Pine’s natural charisma and ’50s drawl already accomplish that. Furthermore, the episodes of Miriam disrespectfully talking to Webber’s superiors and inappropriately acting like she’s the only person who will suffer if the CG-36500 doesn’t return bog down the film, only serving to increase our yearning for the historic rescue sequence. Her piddling struggles, like her car gently sliding into a snow bank and losing her coat for a few minutes, seem utterly inappropriate. Then there’s the abundance
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tion. Before she released her first successful solo hit “Chandelier” and concealed her face from the public with her signature B+ black-andblonde wig in This is 2014, Sia was just an indie Acting songstress, Sia writing tracks for Christina RCA Records Aguilera and singing lead vocals for acid jazz outfit Zero 7. She had released five solo records, two of which made the U.S. Billboard 200 but failed to reach acclaim. However, her sixth album, 2014’s underrated, chart-topping 1000 Forms of Fear, paved the way for Sia not just as a songwriter but as an experienced musician making her way to the top. With her newest record This is Acting, Sia is embracing this newfound superstardom while retaining her deft songwriting abilities with 12 vigorous tracks. Many of the tracks off This is Acting were intended for other musicians, but Sia hones her groundbreaking vocals and maximalist production to transform each song as if it were her own. 1000 Forms of Fear reflected the pain and loneliness of Sia’s past experiences with depression, alcoholism and drug abuse. In contrast, This is Acting boasts an overarching optimism that sounds both authentic and liberating. On the piano-laden opener “Bird Set Free,” Sia howls, “And I don’t care if I sing off key / I find myself in my melodies.” It sounds corny, sure, but with the Australian singer’s impeccable vocal range, it’s impossible to not get chills. The record’s recurring theme of persistence against adversity continues in “Alive,” another spine-tingling ballad and “Unstoppable,” an empowering confidence booster perfect for exercising at the gym or a random dance party in your bedroom. Greg Kurstin — Kelly Clarkson collaborator and renowned pop producer — provides the infectious beats of the ecstatic “Move Your Body,” the dancehallinfused “Cheap Thrills” and the hip-hop heavy “Sweet Design” — arguably the album’s strongest track. Of course, there are some bumps in the road, particularly
with the middling throwaway “Footprints” and the sluggish “One Million Bullets,” which ironically was the only song on This is Acting not intended for another artist. Yet even on songs that fall flat, Sia manages to add some flavor using her powerhouse of a voice. “Reaper” suffers from being a formulaic ballad, but regains some energy through Kanye West’s production. The synth-pop jam “House on Fire” is lukewarm, until Sia soars when the chorus hits and the production switches from tepid to sparkly. The heart-wrenching penultimate track “Broken Glass” starts out bland, but Sia’s two powerful key changes save the song from sounding stationary. Sia briefly returns to a place of brokenness and despair on the album closer “Space Between.” But instead of regressing into pessimism, Sia sounds more emancipated than ever. It’s interesting to think about what these songs could have sounded like had they been recorded by their original performers. “Bird Set Free” had been rejected three times, first by “Pitch Perfect 2” producers (who favored Jessie J’s anthem “Flashlight”), then by Rihanna and finally by Adele. “Alive” was also initially intended for Adele’s 25, but didn’t make the cut, even though Sia co-wrote the song with Adele and indie pop artist Tobias Jesso Jr. Rihanna also rejected “Cheap Thrills” and “Reaper.” Some sources speculated “Unstoppable” was meant for Demi Lovato’s Confident, another pop record that, like Sia’s, channeled happiness and buoyancy while escaping past negative experiences. Regardless of how these songs could have sounded, Sia crafts This is Acting so meticulously and effortlessly that you forget about what could have been. With the right balance of electric club bangers and poignant power ballads, This is Acting hits the ground running at lightspeed and doesn’t stop until the very end. For those who think Sia reached her peak with “Chandelier,” you could not be more wrong. At 40 years old, Sia is just getting started, and This is Acting proves that she still has some tricks up her sleeve.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Wednesday, February 3, 2016 — 7A
Michigan wrestling trio has gridiron history By NATHANIEL CLARK Daily Sports Writer
The gridiron is not the only place where Michigan has brought in highly touted prospects lately. In 2013, the Michigan wrestling team hauled in the No. 1 recruiting class in the country. Now juniors, that class has buoyed the Wolverines (5-1 Big Ten, 10-2 overall) to their current No. 8 ranking. Domenic Abounader and Adam Coon are undefeated in dual meets, and fellow junior Brian Murphy, 157 pounds, is ranked ninth in the country. But before the group dominated on the mat, they all shined in another sport, too. Coon, Abounader and Murphy all were stars on the gridiron in high school. *** Coon — a 6-foot-5, 250-pound heavyweight— was sought after by fairly high-profile schools in both sports at the collegiate level. His football offers included Michigan State, Wisconsin and Northwestern. All three squads finished in the Associated Press Top 25 in 2015 and posted a combined record of 32-7. The schools were enamored by the fact that Coon was a twoway starter for the Fowlerville (Michigan) High School football team — linebacker and offensive lineman. He earned All-State honors in 2012 for his linebacker play and was voted All-Livingston County Defensive Player of the Year in 2012. “I went up to the varsity coach as an eighth grader and told him ‘I want to play varsity,’ ” Coon said. “He kind of laughed it off a bit, but when he saw that I was serious, he started thinking about it a little bit. I went to a couple of training camps and showed that I was deserving of a varsity spot and a starting job (the next season).”
Coon, for his part, was always a fan of the Big Ten’s “smashmouth” style of play, predicated on strong offensive and defensive lines. “It doesn’t matter what people say, football is won in the trenches,” Coon said. But all of that paled in comparison to his accomplishments in wrestling. He posted a 212-3 dual-meet record in high school, including three straight years without a loss. He was an individual state champion all four years and was named both the 2013 Detroit Athletic Club High School Athlete of the Year and Michigan’s “Mr. Wrestler.” These accolades made him the No. 1 heavyweight wrestling prospect and the No. 2 overall wrestling prospect in 2013. As if all of that weren’t enough, Coon finished second in the MSHAA discus and shot put events for track and field. “Track was my more laid-back sport,” Coon said. “It wasn’t as grueling as football and wrestling. But a lot of football players will take ballet to work on their foot movements. Discus was my ballet.” Ultimately, academics, a dedicated coaching staff and the desire to remain close to his mother and his father, who was his high school wrestling coach, convinced Coon to join the Wolverines. “I came down (to Ann Arbor) for a workout with the Cliff Keen Wrestling Club one day, and the coaches laid down a plan for me,” Coon said. “They said, ‘We have a great lifting program, we have a great engineering program.’ It wasn’t just about the next four or five years, it was long term. Showing that level of commitment showed me that this place really wants me.” Yet, Coon still holds on to his dream of playing in the NFL. That is, after he wrestles in the Olympics and before he attempts
to become an astronaut, as he is enrolled in Michigan’s aerospace engineering program. “(Being an astronaut) is one of those dreams every little kid has,” Coon said. “I never really grew out of it. That’s kind of the reason I’m in the aerospace program, to get my foot in the door.” *** While Abounader did not get the football recruiting offers Coon got, he still managed a strong career as a safety for St. Edwards (Ohio) High School. As team captain his senior year, he led the Eagles to an undefeated regular-season record before being upset, 63-56, by Mentor in the second round of the Ohio Division I playoffs. Abounader was selected All-State First Team that season. His former coach, Rick Fenotti, is now the director of football operations at Michigan. But it was Abounader’s wrestling that put him on the map of collegiate scouts. He compiled a 135-8 career record in high school, won all 36 of his matches his senior year and was a threetime state champion. He was the No. 1 184-pound recruit and No. 11 overall in 2013. A desire to stay relatively close to home compelled him to choose Michigan over Virginia and Virginia Tech. “(Being a multi-sport athlete) worked because football season bled right into wrestling season,” Abounader said. “It kept me from getting burned out in any one sport. You work on a lot of the same skills, especially as a defensive back.” Despite having to undergo knee surgery in 2014, Abounader emerged as a force for the Wolverines shortly thereafter. He took home the 2015 Big Ten individual title at 184 pounds; Michigan’s first individual championship in three years.
“(The surgery) was disappointing because I had a really good summer,” Abounader said. “I have two years left (at Michigan), and I want to make the most of them.” *** In contrast to Abounader and Coon, Murphy excelled at quarterback in his high school days. While he averaged more than 100 yards passing per game as Glenbard North (Illinois) High School’s starting signal-caller, he was also a threat with his legs, making him a smaller version of Ohio State’s J.T. Barrett or Clemson’s Deshaun Watson. Murphy used these skills to help the Black Panthers to playoff runs in 2011 and 2012. Murphy did not want to compare himself to those superstars, however. “I didn’t have the cannon that (Barrett and Watson) have,” Murphy said. Yet he did give a large amount credit his teammate, running back Justin Jackson, for Glenbard North’s success. If Murphy was analogous to J.T. Barrett, then Jackson played the part of Ezekiel Elliott in the Black Panthers’ offense. Jackson, who now plays for Northwestern, rushed for 6,531 yards and 85 touchdowns in high school. Due to his size, Murphy knew he would have to choose wrestling if he was going to extend his athletic career into his college years. Not that it would prove an issue for him, though. Murphy accumulated a 166-14 dual-meet record in high school and was a four-time Fargo freestyle AllAmerican. In 2013, he was the No. 6 wrestling prospect in the country at 157 pounds and was No. 27 overall.
RYAN MCLOUGHLIN/Daily
Adam Coon (right) held offers to play college football from Big Ten programs.
It was not an issue for Murphy to be a dual-sport athlete. Aside from some good-natured ribbing, Murphy’s football coach did not give him grief if he had to miss football practice for something such as wrestling nationals, as was the case in 2012. “(Wrestling) teaches you balance and strength and how to use different types of strength,” Murphy said. “It made me more explosive.” But for all of his success, Murphy has one chip on his shoulder. During his time at Glenbard North, he came within striking distance of either an individual wrestling title or a football team title in Class 8A six times. He never once took home the gold and finished runner-up in four of them — three times in wrestling (201011, 2011-12 and 2012-13) and once in football (2012). “It stung, especially in my wrestling career,” Murphy said. “But I think those things help you later on in life. Coming out of high school, I feel like I didn’t accomplish anything and it makes me work harder here. I want to
win something.” With the Wolverines’ loaded roster, both Murphy and the Wolverines will be reaching for a long-coveted championship. Michigan last won a team Big Ten title in 1973 and has never won an NCAA title — the Wolverines finished runner-up in the 2005 NCAA Championships. “It’s a big motivating factor for the team and my individual goals,” Murphy said. “I think we have potential to win a national championship, and I think I have potential to win a national championship. That’s what we are striving for.” *** Michigan wrestling may be making headlines as the No. 8 team in America, for boasting two wrestlers who are undefeated in dual play and topping defending national champion Ohio State in Columbus. But in the Wolverines’ spare time, they could also make a fairly formidable football team. Just don’t challenge them to a pick-up game.
Merchant talks The education of Zach Werenski recruiting, goals WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
By JUSTIN MEYER Daily Sports Writer
By CHRIS CROWDER Daily Sports Writer
The Michigan women’s basketball team is coming off a home win against Minnesota and will look to develop a win streak with a victory against No. 17 Michigan State. The Wolverines beat the Spartans twice in the regular season last year, but fell to them in the Big Ten Tournament. With Michigan State’s roster revitalized and healthy, Michigan will face an uphill battle when it heads to East Lansing on Wednesday. The Daily sat down with Spartan coach Suzy Merchant at Big Ten Media Day in October to talk about her ties to the in-state rivalry, new challenges in recruiting and what makes the 2015-16 season unique. The Michigan Daily: The Michigan and Michigan State rivalry has been heating up, especially in women’s basketball as of late. What do you think the state of the rivalry is right now? Suzy Merchant: It’s definitely a healthy rivalry. There’s a tremendous amount of respect between each program. But come Michigan game day, and I’m sure they feel the same way, there’s a different level of intensity and competitiveness that comes out. TMD: You grew up in Michigan and played basketball at Central Michigan. Where did you and your family lie on the Michigan-Michigan State rivalry? SM: We’re Spartans. Both of my brothers went to Michigan State, my younger brother played baseball there. I wanted to play at Michigan State, but wasn’t quite good enough, I guess, to play at a major school. Where I grew up, where I’m from, there’s
BEHIND ENEMY LINES
a lot more Spartans. TMD: You have a freshman from the Czech Republic this year. How has the recruiting process changed over the years? SM: The addition of the Big Ten Network has really changed our recruiting base. The additions of Rutgers, Maryland (and) Nebraska have opened the door to really expand your recruiting base, when a lot earlier on, before the expansion and before the network, I think we were a little more regional based with families and friends who watch us play. But now the door has really been opened. We have kids from New Jersey, California, the Czech Republic, a kid from Martinique that’s on our roster that will sit this year as an academic redshirt. And we have kids from Detroit, so it’s a unique blend of kids. TMD: What have you learned from the recruiting process that you carry into every year? SM: I think the recruiting process has changed a lot with social media. That’s probably been the most impactful situation, not only as a program where people can follow you as a fan base, but equally to have your recruits follow you, and it works vice versa. You have an opportunity to see what’s going on in their world and connect to them in ways we’ve never been able to do. That singlehandedly has changed everything. There’s no private spaces anymore. We know every visit they went on, who went with them, what time they got there, what time they left. It’s a lot. TMD: What goals and expectations do you have for your team this season? SM: Ours are always the same. We want to win the Big Ten first, that’s where you start things out, and for us we want to push and get an opportunity to reach a Final Four and a National Championship game. Every year, that’s where we start and where we want to finish.
It’s not easy being Zach Werenski. Sure, the star Michigan defender has everything going for him. He’s got a lethal combination of size and speed, hands of gold and a penchant for sniffing out the back of the net. But no player on the roster shoulders more responsibility night in and night out. Werenski is the highest-profile player on a defensive unit that has taken the brunt of criticism for the Wolverines’ shortcomings in the last two years. As such, the 18-year-old sophomore is the cross bearer of a defensive group ripe with inexperience — the messiah who could lead the way to a Frozen Four. Maybe it’s too much to ask, but maybe it’s not. After all, the National Talent Development Program product did captain the USA team at the IIHF World Junior Championships in Finland — the most prestigious tournament of its kind. Either way, this is the position Werenski finds himself in as Michigan rises in the rankings, fifth in the USHCO poll, despite a 3.13 goals against average. Those expectations are why quiet weekends like the most recent series against Penn State can be alarming. The Wolverines scored 13 goals, recording 31 points, but only one went to Werenski. That’s not to say he played poorly. Werenski recorded five shots and finished +4 plus/minus for the weekend, despite a nagging foot injury alluded to by Michigan assistant coach Billy Powers. “I want to play well for my team every night, but more importantly I want to win,” Werenski said. “There’s going to be nights where not everyone plays their best. “I can’t say I’m frustrated if we’re winning games.” The spotlight has followed Werenski ever since he took the ice for Michigan as a 17-yearold freshman, completing high school in three years. On top of
JAMES COLLER/Daily
Sophomore defenseman Zach Werenski has 17 points in 21 games this season, building off a strong freshman season.
the obvious talent, he has earned the reputation of a high-IQ player among the coaching staff. “He seeks me out to watch video, I don’t have to say, ‘Maybe we should watch your shift,’ ” Powers said. “It’s Zach coming to me. He’s hungry to learn, hungry to grow and very, very competitive.” The eager attitude paid off, as Werenski recorded 13 goals and 16 assists in his freshman campaign. The success has largely continued this year, as the sophomore has 17 points in 21 games while leading a revitalization on the defensive end. “I’ve just been so impressed, starting from last year, that a young kid could handle everything that went on in his world,” Powers said. “Last year and then this year being the captain of the World Junior team.” But Werenski has been working tirelessly on his game his whole life, and he isn’t stopping now. “I wanted to come back here to learn as a player, just grow my game in all three zones,”
Werenski said. “The main thing is learning and becoming a better player. I think I did a good job of that in the first half (of the season). I think that really showed at World Juniors — how good of a job Michigan has done developing their players.” Added junior defenseman Michael Downing: “I think he’s just gotten a lot smarter defensively. Even last year he wasn’t bad, but he’s defense-first now, that’s what is on his mind. The way he approaches the game is a lot different now, too. I think last year he had a lot of stress on him with the draft and everything.” The Grosse Pointe, Mich., native is now focused on improving his physical play in the corners, part of a team-wide effort to reduce the goals-against before the postseason. “I came in with that as one of my goals — to play harder, play more physical,” Werenski said. “I think I shied away from that a little bit after World Juniors. I don’t really know the reason for
that.” Stretches of sheer brilliance like what Werenski accomplished at the World Juniors, in which he recorded nine points in seven games, add to his enigma as a player. At times, he dominates play in Michigan’s defensive end, but in other games he assumes a diminished roll. Turnovers at the blue line and giveaways on the offensive rush have been largely eliminated as the defense grew together this season, but it’s still anyone’s guess as to whether Werenski can carry this unit against a powerhouse team like Quinnipiac or Boston College. That question won’t get answered until March at the earliest, so Werenski will keep learning and growing his game. Through all the hoopla, the draft, the rumors, the allure of the NHL, he’s surprised everyone by keeping his even keel. And who knows, maybe that is exactly the type of leader Michigan needs for a deep run this postseason.
8A — Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Hoosiers blow past Michigan Bielfeldt returns MEN’S BASKETBALL
By SIMON KAUFMAN
By LEV FACHER
Daily Sports Editor
Daily Sports Writer
For five minutes Tuesday night, the country’s second-best shooting team looked like a bunch of junior80 varsity kids INDIANA MICHIGAN 67 who’d just been told to suit up for the varsity squad — eager to throw up shots without any real sense of how to do it. Indiana took 10 shots in the first five minutes of its game against the Michigan men’s basketball team (7-3 Big Ten, 17-6 overall) and made just two. The Wolverines, meanwhile, used a string of four-straight makes to jump out to an early 10-2 lead and pushed the margin to as many as 11 in the first half at Crisler Center. But then, the script flipped: The Hoosiers (9-1, 19-4) looked varsity; Michigan looked elementary. Indiana used a 28-0 run that stretched from the 9:05 mark in the first half to the 18:36 mark in the second to cruise to an 80-67 win. In the first five minutes, it looked like the stars might align and the Wolverines might pull off an upset over the 22nd-ranked Hoosiers. But Michigan’s stars faded, and Indiana needed only one star — senior guard Yogi Ferrell — who shined bright enough to guide the Hoosiers to their conference-best ninth win. Ferrell went 6-for-10 from the field and finished with a gamehigh 17 points and nine assists to help pace an Indiana team that likes to move the ball quickly in transition. It’s the fifth time in six career games against the Wolverines that Ferrell has put up at least 14 against the maize and blue. “It’s a flow sport. You don’t have a chance to huddle up all the time,” said Michigan coach John Beilein. “So we had some open shots, we missed them. They’re tremendous in transition. Like
LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/Daily
Junior forward Zak Irvin led all Wolverines with 16 points in an 80-67 loss to Indiana at Crisler Center on Wednesday.
I said, Yogi Ferrell is as good a point guard as there is, because he can shoot off the bounce, he finds people, he’s playing team ball and they’ve got shooters everywhere.” The Hoosiers finished 50 percent from the field. But still, early on, the Wolverines looked like they could hang. With nine minutes left in the first frame, Michigan redshirt sophomore guard Duncan Robinson knocked down his second 3-pointer of the night to give Michigan a 24-20 lead. It would be the last basket the Wolverines would make until 90 seconds into the second half, when Robinson hit a jumper to end a 10-minute scoring drought. When Michigan stopped scoring, Indiana was just getting started and couldn’t miss. In the final 10 minutes of the first half, the Hoosiers went 12-for-15 from the field, including three made
3s with less than two minutes left in the frame. Michigan’s onetime lead disappeared faster than Donald Trump’s lead in Iowa did Monday night, and the Hoosiers headed into the locker room with a safe 45-24 lead. In the second half, two free throws set the tone for the formality that was the final 20 minutes of play. Sophomore guard Muhammad-Ali AbdurRahkman got fouled early in the second half, went to the free-throw line and missed both tries — continuing Michigan’s scoreless streak. “It’s just draining when you have an 11-point lead against that team and everything’s going well,” said junior forward Zak Irvin, who led Michigan with 16 points, “then just like that (it’s gone). Basketball’s a game of runs. A (28-0) run, that’s something that none of us saw coming.”
Indiana eventually cooled off — making just one of its first five shots of the second frame — but its first-half run was too great for Michigan to overcome, despite finding its touch in the second half. The Wolverines shot 60 percent in the frame, but the most they could cut the Hoosiers’ lead to was 13 points, and even that came just seconds before the final buzzer sounded. After the game, Irvin and Robinson mentioned a lack of mental toughness as a reason for the loss, but Beilein didn’t buy into that. He thought Indiana was just better. “People always throw that out there, mental toughness,” Beilein said. “Sometimes the other team is just damn better than you on that night, and I’m not the coach who’s going to point fingers at my players. We’ve got to get better, we’ll find a way.”
Seven of Max Bielfeldt’s teammates outscored him Tuesday night, and six spent more time on the floor. But when Indiana coach Tom Crean took the podium to address reporters after a beatdown far more thorough than the 80-67 score suggested, Bielfeldt was the first player he credited. “I think, in the first half, Max had a plus-25 in the plus-minus,” Crean said, later mentioning Bielfeldt among a list of seniors who have provided his team, which has started the season 19-4, with “excellent leadership.” In layman’s terms: In the 18 minutes Bielfeldt played, his Hoosiers outscored the Michigan men’s basketball team by 25. The performance, however, was about far more than simple numbers. It was a homecoming for Bielfeldt, one that came on the heels of a controversial departure that has recently seen its nastier side bubble back toward the surface. A senior with a year of eligibility remaining, Bielfeldt spent 2014-15 with his status for the following season up in the air. He played his best basketball in the final stretch of a decidedly disappointing season, proving himself a capable post presence on a team starved for experienced big men. None of it mattered. When the dust settled on a chaotic end to recruiting season, Michigan coach John Beilein had a scholarship available, yet, when push came to shove, Bielfeldt found himself in search of another program to call home. A column Tuesday in the Indianapolis Star lambasted Beilein for the way he handled the situation. Beilein said Monday he didn’t regret the decision — it was one made with the future, not the past, in mind. Bielfeldt seems to have moved on quickly, averaging 8.1 points and
4.6 rebounds with the Hoosiers. He gave Michigan fans a taste, however small, of what he could have given their team this year, pulling down a game-high seven rebounds and helping to charge a 28-0 run that left the Wolverines flailing. “Walking down here in the visitor’s locker room is weird,” Bielfeldt said. ”I got out there, and (seeing) all the guys got my adrenaline pumping. It was definitely a unique experience, but I tried to calm down a little bit before the game, you know, go back to myself. Because I’m not the crazy, energetic guy out there all the time. I was trying to find myself.” The Michigan fans who watched Bielfeldt jog out of the opposite tunnel for four years made sure his welcome was a warm one, giving him a rousing ovation as he entered. Bielfeldt was all business. He acknowledged the students with a smile and a wave, said his hellos to his former teammates and trotted across the halfcourt line to warm up with the team wearing scarlet — a color conspicuously absent from his wardrobe throughout his four years in Ann Arbor. The crowd at Crisler Center gave Bielfeldt an even lustier cheer when he checked into the game early in the first half, well before the wheels fell off in Michigan’s third Big Ten loss this season. They didn’t cheer for much longer, for Bielfeldt or for the Wolverines, who proved incapable of standing their ground as Indiana’s lead ballooned to 27. The Hoosiers were well prepared for Michigan’s baseline cuts, its ball-screen action and the rest of its game plan. Among the potential concerns for Beilein was Bielfeldt’s ability to help gameplan against a system he played in for four years. The fear proved legitimate — to an extent. “I tried to help where I could, but it wasn’t extreme,” Bielfeldt said. “It was what you’d expect.”
Signing Day primer: Top targets remain for ‘M’ Nation’s No. 1 recruit Rashan Gary still considering Wolverines By ORION SANG Daily Sports Writer
The No. 12 Michigan football team finished its season on a high note, beating No. 25 Florida, 41-7, in the Citrus Bowl to cap a 10-3 season under first-year coach Jim Harbaugh. Wednesday, the Wolverines will look to finish strong on the recruiting trail as well, with several top targets slated to announce on National Signing Day and Michigan strongly in contention for a top-5 class nationally. In what will be Harbaugh’s first full recruiting cycle after being hired near the end of the 2015 period, Michigan currently has the sixth-best recruiting class in the nation, according to 247Sports. The list of targets Michigan is after has a varied national flavor, with players from the Midwest, East Coast and West Coast all set to decide. Chief among those prospects is Rashan Gary. Gary is a defensive lineman who is ranked as the No. 1 player in the nation according to the 247Sports.com Composite Rankings, a system that takes the rankings of all four major recruiting websites into account before creating a holistic list. He attends the same high school, Paramus Catholic, that current redshirt freshmen Jabrill Peppers and Juwan Bushell-Beatty did. Michigan linebackers and special teams coach Chris Partridge, who was recently promoted from director of player personnel in recruiting, used to be the head coach of Paramus Catholic, and the relationship between Partridge and Gary has often been cited as a key factor in Gary’s interest in Michigan. Gary is the first recruit to
SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily
Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh looks to top off an impressive recruiting class by signing more top recruits on National Signing Day on Wednesday
be ranked No. 1 overall by all four major recruiting websites since Robert Nkemdiche in 2013 and would be the highest-rated recruit Michigan has signed since the debut of the 247Sports Composite. The primary contenders for Gary appear to be Michigan, Clemson — where Gary reportedly took an official visit this past weekend — Alabama and Ole Miss. According to the 247Sports Crystal Ball, 80 percent of the predictions for Gary’s final destination are Michigan, as of the time of this article. From his film, it is clear that Gary possesses a rare blend of power and speed for his size, can play all over the defensive line and seems like a good bet to crack the depth chart of any school he chooses. But Gary isn’t the only highly touted defensive lineman Michigan is after. Boss Tagaloa, the No. 13
defensive tackle in the nation according to 247Sports, will also be announcing his decision Wednesday. Tagaloa is from California and attends Concord De La Salle, the same high school as another highly-touted prospect that the Wolverines are after: Devin Asiasi. Asiasi is rated the No. 3 tight end in the nation by 247sports, but could also be a defensive end. He’s a bulky yet athletic pass-catcher who even took snaps for his high school team as a wildcat quarterback. Tagaloa and Asiasi are considering the Wolverines among a group of finalists, though most of the pair’s other finalists are closer to their home
of Northern California. The two have said they would like to attend the same school, but it is unknown whether they will follow through with their plans to be a package deal. Michigan has not signed a recruit from De La Salle, widely regarded as a powerhouse, since quarterback Matt Gutierrez in 2002. In addition to the De La Salle duo, the Wolverines will look to add another California prospect in Victor Viramontes. Viramontes was once a verbal commitment to Michigan but backed off his pledge in early December. He has positional versatility and could find time on the field as a quarterback, fullback, H-back or even
Gary possesses a rare blend of power and speed for his size.
linebacker. Another prospect from the West who Michigan would love to add to its class is Connor Murphy, a long and athletic defensive end from Arizona. Harbaugh also shares a personal relationship with Murphy’s family, having recruited Murphy’s older brother Trent while at Stanford. Despite the national scope of their recruiting, the Wolverines have not forgotten about their home state. Michigan is after three prospects from the Great Lakes state in Lavert Hill, Quinn Nordin and Alaric Jackson. Hill, the younger brother of current Wolverine junior safety Delano Hill, will announce at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. He is a highly-rated cornerback from Detroit King High School, the 2015 Michigan Division 2 state champions, and has taken official visits to Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State and Tennessee. Hill, who was named the
Lockheed Martin Air Defender of the Year by the U.S. Army All-American Bowl Selection Committee, has great agility and speed, and he could even contribute in the return game at the collegiate level. Coincidentally, Nordin shares a recruiting tie with Hill — both were once verbal commitments to Penn State. Nordin, ranked as the best kicker in the nation by 247Sports, is also well-known for more than his kicking prowess — he received media attention this summer when he participated in a commitment video to announce his initial choice of Penn State. He will presumably choose between the three schools he took official visits to: Michigan, Baylor and Southern California. Jackson, a 6-foot-7 offensive tackle from Detroit Renaissance High School, was slated to choose his college destination Monday, but reportedly received a scholarship offer from the Wolverines the same day and postponed his decision until Wednesday. Detroit Renaissance coach Lou Beatty told the Daily on Tuesday that he did not know where Jackson would commit. “(Jackson) is an athletic big man,” Beatty said. “He can move really well, and he’s a tenacious player.” Jackson, who has been a basketball player for most of his life, could be the offensive tackle that replaces Devery Hamilton in Michigan’s class. Hamilton switched his commitment to Stanford this past weekend. From the Summer Swarm camps to the overnight “sleepover” visits with recruits, Harbaugh and his staff have shown that they will leave no stone unturned in their efforts to secure the best possible recruiting class. And their seemingly unorthodox tactics have generated a lot of attention. With so many prospects left to announce on National Signing Day, Michigan could make its final recruiting splash a big one.
statement THE MICHIGAN DAILY FE B RUARY 3 , 2016
2B
Wednesday, February 3, 2016 // The Statement
ON THE RECORD
IOWA CAUCUS
“Tonight is a victory for the grassroots. Tonight is a victory for courageous conservatives all across Iowa and our great nation.”
— U.S Sen. TED CRUZ (R-Tex.) after winning the Iowa Caucus on Tuesday with 27.6 percent of the vote. ***
“I am a progressive who gets things done for people. We have to be united when it is all said and done against a Republican vision and candidates who would drive us apart and divide us.”
Copy That: The Oxford Comma B Y E M I LY C A M P B E L L
I
’ve always been a bit of a know-it-all. I can’t resist the compulsion to correct, which is annoying to both me and the people around me. However, this habit combined with my love of the written word is valued at the copy desk. Since joining the desk and spending time with many like-minded individuals with whom I can discuss critical issues like the tenses of lay and lie (if you don’t know, look it up; it’s way more confusing than calculus and I’m an English major), I’ve developed some strong opinions on topics about which most people couldn’t care less. Many grammar rules are black and white (like your versus you’re — truly, there’s no way to get around the fact that they are two different words with two different meanings), but other rules are more flexible, and therefore up for debate among nerds like me. One of the most hotly debated grammar rules both at the copy desk of The Michigan Daily and in the grammar-geek world at large is that of the Oxford comma. The Oxford comma (also known as the serial comma) is the optional comma that is placed before the word “and” at the end of a list. It may seem silly to feel so passionately about something as tiny as a comma, but I care. OK, yes, it’s my job to care, but conversely I do this job because I care. I’d argue that punctuation and grammar rules like the Oxford comma are important and deserving of thought because they create very real changes in meaning that people generally should care about if they want to communicate clearly. For example, a much-used illustration of the importance of this seemingly insignificant piece of punctuation is a sentence published in The Times that read, “Highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-yearold demigod and a dildo collector.” Now we’re all unsure if Nelson Mandela lived to be an 800-year-old demigod or collected dildos. Sorry, Nelson Mandela — if only everyone was as concerned about punctuation as the copy desk. The Michigan Daily follows AP style guidelines, which (unfortunately for some opinionated writers and editors) does not allow for the Oxford comma. In order to avoid confusion, the copy desk steps in to save someone closer to home from the same fate as The Times and Nelson Mandela. Even outside of publishing, this rule could affect your communications. Let’s say you send a text message to your friend that says, “Can you please invite the broomball players, Steve and George to our party?” Now, if your friend reads that based on the punctuation, you’re stuck with only two people invited to your party. But you wanted all of the broomball players! And you bought party favors accordingly! What a tragedy! To this day the debate rages on about the Oxford comma, but the fact of the matter is that both ways of using it are common, and neither is without its flaws. However, if you care like I do, you’d probably pick a side. Even though you won’t catch an Oxford comma in the Daily because I grudgingly remove them almost every day, I am definitely Team Oxford Comma.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY EMILIE FARRUGIA
—HILLARY CLINTON, former Secretary of State, after narrowly defeating U.S Sen. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT) in the Iowa Caucus.
*** “We’re just so happy with the way everything’s worked out.” —DONALD TRUMP after placing second in the Iowa Caucus.
KINDNESS
THOUGHT BUBBLE
EMILIE FARRUGIA/DAILY
“I find it odd that people don’t seem to value kindness as much anymore. It seems like, as college students, so much stress is placed on being successful and driven and intelligent that we can forget to be kind. It’s such a simple thing to smile at someone or tell a friend you appreciate them, but I feel like it can get lost in the craziness of college life.” – Art & Design junior ELISE HAADSMA
Wednesday, February 3, 2016 // The Statement 3B
THE Magazine Editor:
statement
Photo Editor:
Karl Williams
Zoey Holmstrom
Deputy Editor:
Creative Director:
Nabeel Chollampat Design Editor: Shane Achenbach
Emilie Farrugia Editor in Chief: Shoham Geva
Managing Editor: Laura Schinagle Copy Editors: Emily Campbell Alexis Nowicki Jose Rosales
My Cultural Currency: Spice of Life B Y TA N YA M A D H A N I
F
un fact: I lived in Texas for about four years. My first week at Voigt Elementary School, I was dared by a gang of elementary school girls to eat an entire bag of Hot Cheetos in one sitting. “In front of us,” their ringleader said with a self-satisfied smirk, as if she’d really gotten me now. She was a blonde girl whose hair, I remember, always looked like her mother couldn’t be bothered to comb through it. I gulped and looked at the bag in my hands again. My eyes bore into the “hot” section of the snack bag’s label. I glanced back and forth between the ringleader and my Cheetos; I had the lowest tolerance for spicy food in my family and I knew I would lose. But I also wanted to make friends, and taking up this challenge seemed like the perfect way to do it. After years of being awkward and shy, this school felt like the blank slate I was looking for. All of this reflection is in hindsight, though. None of these thoughts were going through my 6-year-old head — all I cared about was whether my daredevil personality impressed the Cool Kids™. “So, are you?” the ringleader asked again. I hastily opened the bag and stuffed a handful of Cheetos in my mouth. I expected my eyes to water, nose to start running and ears to turn red. The last thing I expected was to feel utterly underwhelmed. I think I finished the bag in less than 30 seconds. That was the day I realized that American food was seriously bland and, if I’m being honest here, that I went to school with a bunch of wimps. Listen to me: Hot Cheetos aren’t spicy. It’s important to me that whoever’s reading this column knows that. I grew up with home-cooked meals everyday. I’m talking freshly made rice, rotis and shaag every single day of the week, three times a day, made by my superhuman mother. She was also notorious for putting an extra (unnecessary) chili in any item. She would chop up small, but deadly, green chilies into plain (plain!) rice and beans, and serve it to us with a flourish, ignoring my brother’s and my watering eyes. Her efforts, though, have built up a certain amount of spice immunity within every member of my family. I recently ordered a No Thai dish at the second-to-last spiciest option, “yoga flame,” trying to ease my way through the levels, and felt absolutely nothing. And although it feels a bit mean-spirited sometimes — like my slam on the ringleader’s unkempt hair earlier in the column — my family and I can’t help but find someone’s inability to handle spice comical. My family and I frequent a small, Indian street food restaurant in Canton called “Neehee’s.” Its overly cramped space — with garish orange walls and ridiculously long queues — serves the most delicious, authentic Indian food I’ve ever tasted here. Meaning it’s spicy. One day, a customer in front of me, someone not of Indian origin and someone who definitely did not grow up accustomed to my mother’s palette, ordered each of their dishes by ending with the phrase “no spice please.” My father turned to me, shocked, and said in Hindi, “My god, what is he going to eat?”
That was the day I realized that American food was seriously bland and, if I’m being honest here, I went to school with a bunch of wimps.
COVER BY SHANE ACHENBACH
4B
Wednesday, February 3, 2016 // The Statement
Wednesday, February 3, 2016 // The Statement
I wasn’t kidding when I told Rob that I had a bizarre question. We’re close, but not that close, definitely not at the level where it’s appropriate to text him at 2 p.m. on a Monday and ask him to set me up with his best-looking friends. As I wait for his response and agonize over the gray dots that signify he’s typing a message, I briefly consider asking Rob out. After all, he’s the one I know, the one I work with. Sitting down for coffee with him will be easy, even effortless. But I can’t just ask him. I wait. “Let me think about it and see if any of my friends bring up really wanting to go on an old-timey date with a journalist,” he replies. Something tells me that won’t be an easy sell.
playing the game of
love By Chloe Gilke, Daily Arts Writer
Editor’s note: the name of a student has been changed, which is denoted with an asterisk.
I
’ll admit it. Somewhere in the annals of my iPhone, buried behind pages of restaurant takeout and music subscription apps, I have a Tinder account. I am the worst kind of Tinder Person. I’m an infiltrator, a Tinder imposter. I only open the app when I am in line at Meijer or waiting for my pasta water to boil, and I seldom use it to actually text or talk to a match. I just appreciate the self-esteem boost of having someone swipe right and like my profile picture, an Internet ghost with the privilege of knowing when someone thinks she is cute, but also with zero obligations to follow up. It’s all in good fun. But I’d never go on an actual Tinder date. There’s something so shameful about searching the bar for someone you only know as “Brian,” who has brown hair and made a “Pulp Fiction” reference on his profile. With only photos and a short bio section to base attraction off of, there are bound to be some mistakes. I’ve heard some horror stories from my female friends — guys often lie about their age, post misleading photos, have personalities that differ wildly from their polished online profiles. And despite what romantic types might tell you, Tinder is an app designed solely for quick meet-ups and no-strings-attached sex. It’s hard to get to know anybody from a photo and quippy comment. Every time I match with another user, I hear my grandfather’s recommendation to be a “lady of breeding and substance,” a young woman who only wears pink nail polish and
says no to marijuana. With hundreds of years of courtship tradition and gender roles weighing on me, it feels improper to be this forward about wanting sex so badly that you’ll bed a complete stranger. Apparently, not many college-aged students share my qualms about dating apps. As of late 2014, an estimated 50 million users — half of whom are between the ages of 18 and 24 — have downloaded Tinder. Each of those 50 million uploads a profile picture, short bio and only the most basic of personal information: first name, age, location. Any other user in the area can see your profile and judge your hookup potential based on this information (but mostly the profile picture). Once a couple “matches,” or mutually likes one another’s profiles, they are able to message one another. You know what comes next. But in an age where mobile dating apps like Tinder, OkCupid and Grindr turn finding a partner into a series of effortless ones, zeroes and dick pics relayed across a 4G network, a girl has to wonder if there is such a thing as real dating anymore. I don’t mean dating as a swipe on a screen and texted plans for a night chilling with Netflix — I mean dating, at a restaurant or at the movies, with a friend of a friend and the promise of a nice afternoon. The kind of dating that little girls fantasize about before they learn what feminism is; the kind of dating that brought most Gen X-ers together, the traditional couplehood that produced countless millennials. The kind of dating that brings two college kids together by fate. My father got married at 21: He was a year younger than I am now when he made a life-long commitment to a woman he loved. I am 22 years old and can count the number of dates I’ve
had on one hand. Am I falling behind because I’m behind with the times, unwilling to accept new, technology-based paradigms of dating? Is it even possible to go on a real date in 2015, or am I chasing the fairytale fantasy of a prince-type who just doesn’t exist anymore? Well, I guess there is only one way to find an answer. I’ve got to ask somebody out.
According to a study conducted at Stanford University, 30 percent of straight American couples meet “the old-fashioned way,” through friends. More specifically, 10 percent of straight American spouses meet at work or through co-workers. To get that full old-fashioned experience, I’ve got to ask a co-worker to set me up. I send a text message to Rob*, my friend, a writer at the student newspaper. I’m his boss, and he’s very charming and easy to talk to, so I assume he will oblige me and send me some names of his cute and funny friends. He’d better, or I will fire him. “Hey, I have a bizarre question for you!” I message him. “Finally!” he replies. I explain my situation: I am writing a piece about dating rituals in the digital age and investigating the viability of old-fashioned dating in a youth culture that is obsessed with efficiency and cool apps. “Do you have a friend who might be down for that? A friend who wouldn’t completely bore me or make bad dad puns?”
It’s Tuesday, and Rob still hasn’t gotten back to me a list of young men who want to go on a date with me. I’m a little worried; I have a draft of my article due the following Monday and I want to get this first date out of the way promptly in case he wants a second one. However, I feel a bit stuck. If I’m obeying the “traditional rules of dating,” like I am attempting to do with this experiment, I can’t be the one who blatantly asks someone out. According to a friend, men apparently like being the ones to do the asking-out. It’s a huge turn-off if a girl is too forward and doesn’t let the guy do the pursuing: “If he likes you, he’ll man up and ask you out.” This is certainly not true of every man, but I’m worried it’s true of Rob. I’ve decided to ask Rob to participate in my experiment because he’s one of the most game-for-anything individuals I know: He isn’t afraid to make a fool of himself performing improv and stand-up comedy. Most importantly, he makes me laugh. Our senses of humor are similar, a weird amalgamation of absurd and brainy, but he is funnier than I am. Rather than approach him in person and face immediate verbal rejection, I decide to embark on another one of my smooth texting conversations. Texting is easy, because the lack of personal affect and body language makes it easier to manipulate how the other person sees you. If you’re just going off a brief Tinder bio and picture, I can be anything and anyone. I can be the brazen, confident girl who asks her co-worker on a date. “I have another bizarre question for you!” I shout into the 4G unknown. I think he’ll appreciate the callback to my previous ham-fisted introduction. He’ll find it endearing. “Are you free for drinks this Thursday or Saturday?” The choice of drinks is intentional. I did my homework beforehand — Examiner said that a drinks date is “low pressure” and that “two people seated at a bar can be less intimidating than sitting at a table for two at dinner.” It doesn’t have to be longer than a half hour, and the bourbon might make my conversation skills a little neater. “Oh man, I’ve got late night rehearsal on Thursday and then a performance on Saturday,” he replies. Shit. Shit. He’s not interested. I messed this up. Now I understand why guys can get so nervous asking a girl out. When you’re the person stepping up, you feel at first like you’re the empowered one and the whole situation rests in your hands. But you’re just presenting an idea, and with a simple “no,” they can crush your dreams of picnic lunches and mornings after. I know enough to realize that “I’m busy” is basically a nice kid’s version of a rejection. But I won’t give up so easily. With a little coaxing and some strict assurances that I will be “chill about this,” Rob and I eventually come to a conclusion. We’ll meet at Espresso Royale, the most casual coffee shop in town, at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday. I have class then, but I begrudgingly agree to skip it. We all make sacrifices for love. Rob asks for clarification on whether “this is for the class thing,” and I reassure him that yes, it’s only for the class thing. I click my phone to lock, willing myself to think about something else, anything other than the fact that I am getting coffee with a cute boy on Wednesday. I’ve got to keep my promise to Rob.
I’ll be chill about this.
“Oooooh, I do, I do, I do, I dooooo. Hey! Oooooh, I do, I do, I do, I dooooo.” I arrive for my 2:30 coffee date with Rob at 2:28, ponytail askew and the “Hamilton” musical soundtrack still blaring from the earbuds around my neck. I’m listening to the song where Eliza sings about falling in love with and marrying a brilliant and handsome man. Cringing at my overeager-ness, I pause the song and look for a table. After a bit of searching, I find a two-top nudged comfortably against a brick wall. If we run into anyone from work, I have the luxury of squashing my face against the mortar so they can’t see I’m on a date with my co-worker. I’m on a date with my co-worker! I let another Hamilton song assuage my anxieties. It’s 2:34. Where the fuck is Rob? I peek from behind the wall, looking for a lanky 6’3” guy in a sweater. I’m certain he’ll be wearing a sweater. At this two-top in Espresso Royale, awaiting a date with a co-worker and friend whom I have occasionally considered as a romantic interest, I’m struck by a wave of nausea. Nerves again. The date feels surprisingly high-pressure despite my level of comfort with Rob; I imagine the cozy coffee shop lights morphing into sweaty interrogation room spotlights and the room full of people disappearing into cinder block walls as soon as he walks in. If he ever walks in. I look at the clock again. 2:36. I pull my phone from my purse, fingers fumbling to type a text message to my date. The door jangles — Rob arrives, wearing a cardigan despite the 75-degree November heat. I step up from the wall I’m hiding behind and greet him with an awkward hug. “ ‘Sup, dude?” he drawls. “Nah-thuh mah, brah.” He establishes the parameters immediately — we are on this date as friends and nothing more, an attractive guy doing a favor for his female friend who has a good personality. I adjust, letting my electric nerves simmer to a low blue flame. Keep calm. Dude. I order a black coffee and he a caramel latte, and he kindly offers to pay “for tradition’s sake.” I thank him, and we return to our seats against the wall. According to a friend, who has been on many more first dates than I have, good topics for conversation include shared pop culture interests and fun childhood anecdotes. Keep things light and simple. Avoid trying too hard, relax — just be cool and fun and sexy. I do my best to follow this advice as I begin the date proper. Rob and I bitch about our co-workers for 20 minutes. I’m surprised by how comfortable I feel in conversation with him; I am free to admit which writers sometimes get on my nerves and complain about editorial arguments that I should have won. He listens to my schoolgirl prattling with eye contact and an easy smile; I take notice that his eyes are blue and kind of nice. Rob checks his watch. “We should probably start talking about something else; I mean, you can’t just write that we were gossiping the entire time.” “Well, just change the subject! We have that capability, you know,” I raise my eyebrows and return a slow smile. I think I’ve caught myself flirting a little. The conversation starts to peter out a little as I become selfconscious. “I can tell from your voice that you’re still insecure about being smart and funny. You know, that’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he reminds me, after I share a particularly heavy childhood anecdote. I feel like I’m on the precipice of making an enormous fool of myself. Maybe I already fell off. “I feel like I’m on a date with my therapist.” “That’s what you get with me.” He breaks eye contact and looks behind me for a beat. “You know, it’s 3:30, I should probably get going.”
5B
I quell my disappointment and respond coolly. “Yeah, for sure, yeah, I should probably do some work too.” I walk Rob to his next class, an advanced fiction-writing intensive. We exchange small talk for a few minutes, walking side by side as the browning leaves swirl in little tornadoes around our feet. When we reach the marble steps of the marble building his next class is in, I can’t help myself. I lean in. We hug, and I thank him again for saying yes to my date proposal and for helping me out with the article I’m writing. He says that it’s no problem. As I walk home alone, I curse myself for all the things that went wrong. I got to the coffee shop too early. I let him pay, which everyone says means it’s a date. I called him “bruh,” which everyone says means it’s not a date. I over-shared, I talked too much about my own past, and made him fight for every word he could squeeze into our conversation. I argued with him. I laughed too hard when he made a masturbation hand gesture. I finished my coffee too early and slurped at the empty cup. I let him break the date off first. I hugged him — twice. I brought up that stupid fucking article I was writing again, positioning the date as a favor he was doing me and not a real date. I might have had a nice time even if I weren’t on assignment.
I don’t wait around for Rob to call me about a second date. According to a mutual friend, he’s interested in someone else, a girl I know and admire. They’d make an undeniably cute couple. I feel a tiny pang of disappointment upon hearing this news, but I take a minute to rationalize. Our date was as casual as it gets, probably the closest thing to those offhand dinner dates that characterized my parents’ college experience. We talked; we had a nice time. There was no pressure, no expectation, no steps to be taken. By any definition, it was a real, traditional date, if such a thing ever existed. On Saturday, I go to a hip whisky bar with a few work friends. I follow the obligatory leather jacket dress code, order the obligatory Buffalo Trace, stand too close to the speakers and sway to a band that sounds like tipsy uncles doing karaoke at a bat mitzvah. I revel in my coolness — my young age, my artsy pals, my status as an unattached, confident lady who can rock a pair of boots with buckles and drink bourbon and ask boys out. As a growly cover of a Taylor Swift song ends, a young man with a ginger beard approaches me. “So let me guess. Master’s in philosophy? I’m great at guessing these things. I pick up on the clues. Those tortoiseshell glasses, the boots, you’re basically screaming ‘grad school.’ I’m Tony, by the way.” I smile back at Tony and indulge him in a few minutes’ conversation. He’s not bad looking, and if this was any other night, I might have followed him back to his table and let him buy me another drink. But tonight, I just want to dance to some terrible bat mitzvah music and avoid the circling piranhas swiping at my heels and trying to get my number. Upon sitting back down at our booth, my friend asks me why I didn’t flirt back with Tony: “This sounds crazy, but he seems like the kind of guy you’d want to settle down with.” Laughing a little too loud, my cheeks flushed with the warmth of the bourbon, I respond simply. “Nah.”
6B
Wednesday, February 3, 2016 // The Statement
Social Unrest by Haley McLaughlin, Daily Staff Photographer
ILLUSTRATION BY EMILIE FARRUGIA
1
1:47 p.m. on a Wednesday night. You’re about to doze off, laid heavily upon your twin-sized bed that leaves little room for turning in your sleep. Despite the heaviness you feel on your eyelids, you begin to feel around in the dark for your phone in search of some pre-bedtime entertainment. You hold your phone in your hands, hovering it a safe 10 inches away from your face, and hold on tight (mustn’t forget the numerous incidents where you dropped it on your face and had to suffer through the swelling sensation on your nose in the darkness). Why is it that this has become the strange bedtime routine of our generation? After tiring through all of your social media, fully caught up on how all of those people (whom you care for so deeply) are doing, you decide to continue exploring, ignoring the lingering sting behind your tired eyes. It is at this point that you wander into the mysterious “Explore Posts” section of Instagram, the section where you are no longer comforted by the faces of your friends and family, but rather subjected to a strange compilation of pictures that Instagram believes you might be interested in seeing. Why Instagram thinks you might like these, you’re not so sure. Maybe these are similar to other pictures you’ve liked recently? Maybe these are some pictures that your friends have been liking? Who cares? You keep on scrolling. First, you see pictures of friends, and then pictures of friends of friends, until finally you’re left with pictures of people you’ve never met and places you’ve never gone. At this point, it would make sense to stop. Just go to bed — you don’t even know what you’re looking at anymore. If only you could see yourself — lying there alone in the middle of your small dark room, the glow of light from your phone revealing two tired eyes and a double chin. But it’s only 12:32 a.m. You have time. It is at this point in the night that things get really dismal — because now you’ve come across Instagram’s food accounts. It starts with a picture of mac and cheese that comes up in your “Explore Posts” section. You think to yourself, mm… that looks good, and suddenly you become very aware of the sad empty feeling
in your stomach. Then you decide to torture yourself further, clicking on the “food porn” account’s profile and looking through all of their pictures. Pizza, cookies, burgers, ice cream, pasta, donuts, it doesn’t end. You reach down and lay your hand upon your stomach, wondering to yourself, when was the last time I ate? It feels like it’s been centuries even though you know it’s only been a few hours. You know you should either go get a snack or just go to sleep but something is keeping you tied to your bed, shuffling through all of these pictures of melting chocolate and grilled cheeses being pulled apart. Your heart is full and your stomach feels emptier than it ever has before, and then suddenly you are cat-
My point here is that this is a made-up world of contrived ideas and people. apulted out of this swirl of indulgence and joy when you see a picture of a skinny 16-year-old girl in a bikini on the beach, who looks like she’s having the best damn day of her entire life. Sun-kissed and sparkling, her body reminds you of the lean bend of a churro covered in dazzling cinnamon sugar. The grumble in your stomach pauses, as your eyes dart back and forth between one picture of her perfectly flat stomach and the other picture of chocolate being drizzled over that disgustingly enticing chocolate chip cookie. Who is this girl? Why has she come here to haunt me and my hungry dreams? You begin
to spend far too much time searching through her pictures. You don’t understand. Does she go to school? Does she have a job? Or does she simply spend all of her time scantily clad on a beach somewhere? Soon your jealously for this stranger’s beauty is suddenly eating away at the empty feeling that, minutes ago, you thought was coming from your stomach. You wish you were smiling in the sunshine and wearing cool clothes instead of eating an entire bag of Cheetos alone in your bed. Your self-worth has all but disappeared into thin air and you can’t fall asleep because you’re too busy mentally cursing this girl’s name and the gods who made her so damn flawless in the first place. Kind of fucked up, right? We’re all jealous of these strangers and their seemingly beautiful lives, and yet we continue to torture ourselves by looking at them and fantasizing about things that we can’t have. It’s why people like the Kardashians have 50+ million followers on Instagram. That’s more than 50 million people watching these strangers taking pictures of their bodies and saying, “Try out our new Waist Trainer! If you want to look like us, use this healthfully unsound device and keep praying that one day your drastically unachievable goals will come true!” And I’m not trying to preach the often-heard tales of eating disorders and body dysmorphia that we are warned of time and again. While those are severe problems that stem from this crazy world we live in where people like Chrissy Teigen are “foodies,” I think sometimes that only serves to squander the argument. My point here is that this is a made-up world of contrived ideas and people. Nothing is ever as it seems, and yet we care about it so much. I see people my age struggle for hours to try and create the perfect profile picture, or sit around in a room bouncing around ideas for the right caption for an Instagram. We’re all trying to top one another and convince everyone that we are the ones who are the most effortlessly beautiful and that we are the ones who had the most fun this weekend. Happiness is measured in numbers of “likes” and feelings of jealousy and nobody will ever win in this game of artificial reality.
Wednesday, February 3, 2016 // The Statement
7B
One Ring to Rule Them All
I
by Thomas West, Daily Opinion Columnist
play this video game called “The Elder Scrolls V: down then. Skyrim.” I like to think I’m one of the more powBut then my quest for the ring tore everything apart. erful wizards in the Skyrim. I have all the master I am mad for it. Since all the main questlines were destruction spells: Fire Storm, Blizzard, Lightning completed I had nothing to live for — only the ring. Storm. Not to brag, but I’m level 81 and I can raise dead After discovering the ring was not in the village of bodies to fight for me indefinitely. I can cast Mayhem, Rorikstead, I unleash my full repertoire of destruction where my enemies begin fighting one another. I am the spells on the townspeople. I roasted the butcher with Arch-Mage of the wizard’s College of Winterhold. I Incinerate. I turned the priest into dust. I unleashed a wear a flaming Dragon Mask that reduces the cost of demon lord in the daycare. all destruction magic by 20 percent. I am awesome. What had I become? Where was that young and But something holds me back. A necessary item I have yet to acquire. My white whale. I do not have the Ring of Peerless Destruction. I scour the mountains of Skyrim for it. I slaughter whole villages of bandits in my search. But still it eludes me, whispering from the dark. “But Tom,” you ask. “You already have all this sick gear, why do you need that one ring?” Shut up. You could not possibly hope to understand, you filthy, casual muggle. But I will explain. I have the Dragon Mask, Nahkriin, that reduces Magicka cost of destruction by 20 percent. I have dragon bone gloves and boots that fortify my destruction even further, reducing my Magicka costs to 25 percent of the standard rate. Try to follow along. With these items alone I am fearsome: I can use lightning to roast a wooly mammoth to powder in ten seconds. But it is not enough: The cost of my power is too high. But if I had that ring, that simple, innocuous ring, the cost of destruction spells would be reduced to nothing. Zero percent. Don’t you see? How could you. Unlimited magic, you fool, limitless power. It has been my dream since I was just a young, hopeful wizard walking through the doors of the mage’s College of Winterhold for the first time. ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY WATERS Back when all I could muster was a flurry of sparks and the Arch-Mage sent me to weed out skeletons in the basement. God, I hopeful mage who wanted to save Skyrim from the miss those days. The smell of a new Grimoire. Acciden- tyranny of the Empire? I only had Illia to ground me, tally eating Deathbell in potions class. And of course, and now a bounty on my head for the massacre at Rorthat young love of mine, Illia. ikstead. The very people of Skyrim whom I had saved Oh, Illia. Shall I compare thee to a winter’s day? Your from Alduin, whom I had fought wars for against the ice spells are as magnificent. How I miss your snow- Empire, wanted my head on a spike. I would show white skin, your black lips, those cruel, sunken eyes. them. Illia and I together, we would find the ring and We were perfect for each other, a wizard and his witch. burn Skyrim’s cities to the ground, salting the earth I loved you ever since you impaled your own mother behind us. on an ice spike after she was corrupted by Hagravens. With his dying breath, the barkeep of the inn at RorPerhaps this is why I’m so sorry for what happened to ikstead gave me what I wanted: “I’ve caught word of you, my companion, mon amour magique. a powerful artifact hidden in Ironbind Barrow. You We traveled together often. She helped me defeat the should head over there and check it out.” evil dragon Alduin. It was she who helped me kill the The fool! He could not have known that his randragon priest in possession of the Dragon Mask Nah- domly generated quest would cause the extinction of kriin. In many ways, she helped me become the wizard his whole kind. Illia and I set off toward Ironbind, an tyrant I always knew I could be. Sometimes you just ancient Nord tomb in the western reaches. needed someone to believe in you. Together we beat all The tomb is crawling with undead. Skeletons, of the main questlines. I should have set the controller ghosts, those dead thralls known as draugr. Filth. We
make quick work of them, cutting through, deeper and deeper into the tomb. I can hear the ring whispering, down, down, somewhere in the shadows. A dragon priest guards the final chamber. Just past him will be a chest, and in that chest a ring. I can feel it so strongly. He erupts from his sarcophagus, Volsung, master of destruction, spouting fire, resurrecting corpses. I very nearly lose that battle — my Magicka had already drained so low. But it is I who reign victorious. I do not even deign to loot his corpse before I enter the final chamber. It is quiet. Ice covers the walls and ruined stone beneath that. A faint chanting comes from nowhere, or perhaps pounding from the chest that sits in the center of the room, and as I approach it grows louder, a hundred voices of the damned saying my name, dovahkiin, dovahkiin, dragonborn, dragonborn. I lay my hands on the chest and open it and the chanting comes to a halt and I reach in and pull out what lies within, and it is the Iron Boots of Weak Improved Health. I am fuming. Quite literally, my body begins to smoke. I am going to slaughter Rorikstead all over again. I will reanimate every corpse so that I may turn them all into dust. But then I see it. Another chest, just off to the side of the chamber, made of simple wood and bound with iron. I open it slowly, not wanting to be disappointed. Inside are nine gold, the Leather Gloves of Improved Alchemy, and the Ring of Peerless Destruction. I slip it on and can feel the power course up through my hands, through the cord and the controller, and into my own fingertips. The ring. The ring. The ring. My most powerful spell is Fire Storm. When I cast it, a hundred points of fire damage erupts from the sky and destroys everything in a 20-foot radius. Usually it would drain my Magicka completely. But not now. The ring completes me. I cast one Fire Storm, drawing death from the sky, and watch as the ice on the walls shatters and bursts into steam. It costs me nothing. I cast another. And another. Hundreds upon hundreds of points of damage. I am laughing maniacally in the game. I am laughing maniacally in real life. Skyrim is doomed. We did it, Illia and I. When I am done we will be the only ones left. I turn around to tell her, my queen. But Illia is not there. Illia is dead. My Fire Storm has killed her. She is nothing more than a charred corpse, the first victim of my wrath. Oh Illia! What have I become? The most powerful wizard in Skyrim is nothing without you, my sweet digital companion. But it was not too late to save her.
8B
Wednesday, February 3, 2016 // The Statement
V I S UA L S TAT E M E N T:
Last Sunday, the Michigan women’s basketball game against Minnesota was also its annual Pink Game. The game honored breast cancer survivors in many ways, from holding a dinner before the game, honoring the women at half time, and including as much pink in the Crisler Center as possible.
PINK GAME By ZOEY HOLMSTROM
Survivors were given reserved seats for themselves and their families to cheer on the Wolverines.
Female cheerleaders used pink pom-poms and wore pink sequined bows. The basketball pep band received shirts that read, “Michigan Fight Strong” for the Pink Game.
Guard Siera Thompson passes to center Hallie Thome in the third quarter.
Lead vocalist Tyler Joseph performs “Holding On To You.”
The Wolverines huddle together before starting the second half of their game against Minnesota.