Metro Times 4/29/20

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Vol. 40 | Issue 30 | April 29-May 5, 2020

Publisher - Chris Keating Associate Publisher - Jim Cohen

News & Views

EDITORIAL

Feedback/Comics ................. 6 Informed Dissent .................. 8

Editor in Chief - Lee DeVito Music and Listings Editor - Jerilyn Jordan Investigative Reporter - Steve Neavling Copy Boy - Dave Mesrey Contributing Editors - Michael Jackman, Larry Gabriel Editorial Interns - Alexis Carlisle, Brooklyn Blevins, Marisa Kalil-Barrino

ADVERTISING Regional Sales Director Danielle Smith-Elliott Multimedia Account Executive Jessica Frey Account Manager, Classifieds - Josh Cohen

Feature

BUSINESS/OPERATIONS

Navigating Michigan’s

Business Support Specialist - Josh Cohen Controller - Kristy Dotson

CREATIVE SERVICES

unemployment system during

Graphic Designers - Paul Martinez, Haimanti Germain

CIRCULATION Circulation Manager - Annie O’Brien

the COVID-19 crisis is a nightmare for many ............ 12

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Arts & Culture Film ...................................... 14 Savage Love ........................ 16 Horoscopes .......................... 17

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EUCLID MEDIA • Copyright: The entire contents of the Detroit Metro Times are copyright 2020 by Euclid Media Group LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. The publisher does not assume any liability for unsolicited manuscripts, materials, or other content. Any submission must include a stamped, self-addressed envelope. All editorial, advertising, and business correspondence should be mailed to the address listed above. Prior written permission must be granted to Metro Times for additional copies. Metro Times may be distributed only by Metro Times’ authorized distributors and independent contractors. Subscriptions are available by mail inside the U.S. for six months at $80 and a yearly subscription for $150. Include check or money order payable to: Metro Times Subscriptions, 30 E. Canfield St., Detroit, MI 48201. (Please note: Third Class subscription copies are usually received 3-5 days after publication date in the Detroit area.) Most back issues obtainable for $5 at Metro Times offices or $7 prepaid by mail.


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NEWS & VIEWS Feedback W e re c A p ril 2 g e t h it ne ig h b

e iv e d re sp onse s t o S t e v e N e av ling ’ s 2 c ov e r st ory “ W h y did M ic h ig an b y t h e c oronav iru s h arde r t h an it s ors? ”

Keith Ward: This is where we read why it’s all Donald Trump’s fault. [ After a few minutes pass, Ward posts another comment.] Keith Ward: Wow I actually retract that statement after reading it. Blame has been equally as it should’ve been. Angela Lugo-Thomas: Another article connecting the dots of the spread of the virus in our area. disqus_KeMsCyMCgm: This thing spread in part because of what many

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didn’t know, what many knew but didn’t want to accept, and/or by what many knew but ignored because the truth was in the way. We can talk about who the governments, our work places, the places we visit, and and some cases; the places we live, has failed to protect us. My logic tells me to assume that I, and everyone around me has been affected, and to respond accordingly. Dre James: Corona did a whole nationwide tour before we knew out about it. Corona was here well before anyone started testing. N ot to mention Michigan has a lot of international entry points. Steve Eveleigh: Good info. Red and blue sides better start working together or we are all screwed.


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NEWS & VIEWS

telegraphed the play. Look no further than the all treet ournal’s editorial board, that direct conduit to the Italian-suited plutocrat crowd that runs fiscal policy ut the hite House and Trump administration have been holding out because, in part, they believe if Congress keeps cutting checks for state and local governments, they will be disincentivized to open up their economies,” it opined on Friday. Recall that the central tenet of the Trump presidency is the buck stops elsewhere. He gets credit for everything that goes right; someone else gets blamed for anything that goes wrong. By pushing them to reopen now — before there’s anything like the expanded testing, contact tracing, and isolation regime experts say we need — Trump can claim credit for regrowing an economy that shed 2 6 million jobs in a month. If governors resist and their economies founder, that’s on them. If they reopen and there’s an outbreak, that’s on them, too. It’s not Trump’s fault they weren’t prepared. He told them testing was their responsibility.

Getting people killed to own the libs: protesters at “Operation Gridlock” in Lansing.

JEFF KOWALSKY / GETTY IMAGES

Informed Dissent

Donald and the Death Cult y effrey . illman

At 6:41 a.m. on Tuesday, an or-

nery Donald Trump hopped on Twitter to hate on MSN BC’s orning oe and beat his chest about how much Republicans love him and how that proved how well he was handling the coronavirus pandemic, how he got better ratings than onday ight ootball and he achelor, and, most of all, how mean journalists are to him. “It is amazing that I became President of the United States with such a totally corrupt and dishonest Lamestream Media going after me all day, and all night,” he whined, as if 50 ,0 0 0 Americans hadn’t died in six weeks. I will grant him this: It does, in fact, amaze me that Donald Trump became president, even three and a half years after it happened. It amazes me that someone so small holds the same title as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Barack Obama — hell, as Benjamin Harrison and Herbert Hoover and Richard N ixon. It amazes me that a man who will

soon rack up a body count that exceeds the whole of the Vietnam War and an unemployment rate that tops the Great Depression has the gall to boast about his news conference ratings. (For that matter, it amazes me that thumbsucking news executives broadcast these self-serving shitshows.) It amazes me that an imbecile who managed to bankrupt casinos will, despite evidence of his own failures, demand that governors reopen their states even if doing so endangers their citizens; if they refuse, he’ll sic his lackey attorney general on them. And it amazes me that, nearly 1 ,2 0 0 days into this cesspool of corruption — did you know the Trump Organization’s looking for bailouts from the Trump administration? — Democrats are still so risibly feckless. An example: Last week, the Senate passed a $ 4 8 4 billion package that funnels $ 31 0 billion into the exhausted Paycheck Protection Program. It also provides billions for hospitals and a fed-

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eral plan for COVID-1 9 testing — things that, astoundingly, Democrats won as concessions. What’s not in the bill? Money to help states and cities whose budgets have been wrecked by the economic slowdown. Unlike the feds, state and local governments generally can’t run deficits, so without federal help, they’ll face huge tax hikes and/or sweeping service cuts that invariably harm the poor — things that turn bad economic situations into human misery. Democrats wanted $ 1 50 billion in aid. Republicans blocked it. Democrats, who control the House of Representatives and could have forced the issue, rolled over like cowering puppies when Republicans pinky-swore that they’d take up local aid in the next relief package. Then, as soon as the Senate passed the bill, Mitch McConnell got that oldtime fiscal responsibility religion. aybe we can’t afford more relief pac ages, he said. omp, womp. It’s not like Republicans hadn’t

That brings us to the ostensibly grassroots ReOpen movement, which, let’s be real, is about as grassroots as the Tea Party was a decade ago. As with the Tea Party, the long tentacles of the libertarian svengali K och network are present here, too, through an initiative called the Convention of States, funded by billionaire Robert Mercer and managed by a longtime K och associate. And as with the Tea Party, the goal is to further the interests of wealthy elites by fomenting outrage and passing off organized stupidity as a populist rebellion. It’s like we haven’t seen this play before. It amazes me to see reporters mainstreaming fringe characters alongside epidemiologists and economists without contextualizing how fringe they actually are. Only 1 2 percent of Americans think stay-at-home orders are too restrictive; fewer than a third are worried they’ll be kept in place too long. Just because a belligerent frea show offers a colorful break from the quotidian drudgery of coronavirus reporting, that doesn’t mean we should pretend a molehill is a mountain. More than anything, it amazes me that we’re not calling out the ReOpen movement for what it obviously is: This isn’t about the best practices for reopening schools and businesses or even defending our First Amendment right to spread infectious diseases in the name of Jesus Christ and Almighty Capitalism. This is a political campaign. This is about getting your base pissed and turning the other guy into an enemy. This is


how the game is played now. t’s no coincidence these efforts cropped up in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and N orth Carolina, swing states with Democratic governors who are all much more popular than Donald Trump. They emerged elsewhere, too, of course: Ohio, Minnesota, K entucky, N ew York, Texas. Regardless, the goal is to galvanize right-wing factions — religious fundamentalists, gun rights enthusiasts, anti-government types — with a common purpose and a common foe headed into the election. orth arolina offers a good case study. Governor Roy Cooper is crushing Republican Dan Forest, a corporeal dunce cap who’s gone all-in on ReOpenN C as his last best hope to become relevant again. ReOpenN C held its second weekly rally in downtown Raleigh on Tuesday. A thousand people showed up. Few had masks. Fewer bothered with social distancing. The political overtones were unmista able. There were Trump flags and Dan Forest T-shirts. There was lieutenant governor candidate (and homophobic conspiracy theorist) Mark K eith Robinson maskless and ungloved, shaking hands. There was Congressman Dan Bishop, who — now that Mark Meadows has become Trump’s chief of staff — is vying to become the state delegation’s biggest embarrassment, carrying a Constitution he said he was going to deliver to Cooper “because he’s forgotten what it’s about.” There were posters equating social distancing with tyranny and signs denouncing Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert. There were anti-vaxxers and 5G paranoids and QAnon basementdwellers. There were proud displays of scientific and economic illiteracy. There was palpable anger. And there were very, very few people of color. N ot coincidentally, COVID-1 9 has disproportionately killed African Americans both in N orth Carolina and across the country. Perhaps it’s easy to be indifferent to consequences that predominantly fall on someone else. Two days later, Cooper obliged Republicans’ increasingly vehement demands for more details about how he envisioned reopening the state, laying out a cautious three-part plan that stretches into June (at the earliest) while extending his stay-at-home order at least a week, through May 8 . The words had barely left his mouth before the emails poured in: “One-sizefits all policy does not wor for orth arolina,” the influential ivitas nstitute proclaimed. “The people of N orth Carolina will

suffer needless health and economic harm if the State continues to treat its diverse population with a one si e fits all approach,” the Republican commissioners of the rural Union County wrote in a letter. ov. ooper’s one si e fits all approach for reopening is not necessary for a state as large as N orth Carolina,” Dan Forest said in a statement. Weird how that phrase kept popping up. It’s not a coincidence, of course. Only 1 6 percent of N orth Carolina voters think the state should relax social distancing guidelines. They’re not going to make much headway with a frontal assault. Instead, they’re playing into the state’s rural (often white, generally Republican)-urban (diverse, Democratic) divide, to make Cooper appear unreasonable and indifferent to your needs while he protects, you know, other people. On the surface, it makes sense that, say, Transylvania County, with just two reported coronavirus cases, or Avery County, which has none, shouldn’t be bound by the same restrictions as the rest of the state. But Transylvania County borders Henderson County, which has 1 2 3 cases as of April 2 3, and Avery County borders Burke County, which has 7 4 . Viruses don’t know borders, and, well, cars exist. It’s true that viruses spread more easily in dense population centers, but people in small towns and rural communities still gather together in churches and restaurants. It only takes one infected person to start an outbreak, and hospitals might not be equipped to handle it. Then there’s this: “Epidemic or pandemic control in the world very much depends on the weak links,” Olga Jones, a senior fellow at the Harvard Global Health Institute, told Vox. “The whole system is as good as its weakest links.” Mark McClellan was commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration during the SARS outbreak in 2 0 0 3. Like COVID-1 9 , severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, was caused by a then-novel coronavirus. Unlike COVID-1 9 , however, it could only be transmitted by the very sick. You could easily identify the people who had it, quarantine them, then trace where they got it from. Consequently, the global outbreak, which started in February 2 0 0 3, was contained by July of that year. About 8 ,0 0 0 people were infected, and fewer than 8 0 0 died. The U.S. had about two do en confirmed and probable cases and no deaths. “Here, that’s not necessarily the case,” says McClellan, now director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy.

A new study indicates that a large proportion of COVID-1 9 infections — as much as 4 3 percent — are asymptomatic, meaning the carriers have no idea they’re sick. On the other hand, if this bears out, it would seem like welcome news. The initial fatality and hospitalization rates for the disease would have been wildly overblown. COVID-1 9 is much less dangerous than we thought. N ot really, though. As Andy Slavitt, the former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, explains: “The picture of a large number of asymptomatic hosts is a chilling one. One asymptomatic spreader can spread Covid-1 9 to 9 ,537 patients in 4 0 days. … If 4 0 percent of those people have no symptoms, the impetus for them to continue to stay home is lower.” Forty percent have no symptoms, but the other 6 0 percent do. And for whatever reason — maybe age or underlying conditions, maybe bad luck — some of them become critically ill. Some die. Meanwhile, the 4 0 percent without symptoms are passing along the virus to a new generation, and the cycle repeats. “This is a fundamental feature we need to address in doing containment from here on out,” McClellan says. That’s why it’s “very important for people even with mild symptoms to stay home and get tested and to be able to initiate the contact tracing.” Asymptomatic transmission also underlines the need for strict monitoring and rigid enforcement of basic precautions like sanitation and hygiene, as well as ramping up testing and contact tracing. Right now, the U.S. is conducting about a million coronavirus tests a week. That’s an improvement from a month ago, McClellan says, and while the U.S. is well behind where it needs to be, it’s catching up. “I think we can get there with the testing capacity that will be there in the next few weeks,” McClellan says. The White House wants to double the amount of tests per week to 2 million. Health experts say that, without a vaccine, keeping the country open will require between 4 million and 30 million tests per week. Even then, there would be logistical hurdles to overcome, including billions of dollars of lab equipment to buy and wide-scale national coordination. The latter has never been the administration’s strong suit. These two statements are true: (1 ) The Great Lockdown has been devastating, and we can’t wait a year for a vaccine — or even six weeks — to reopen the economy. (2 ) Reopening too quickly and carelessly will get people killed. Reconciling them will require making di cult tradeoffs with life and death

ramifications. They should be approached cautiously, with the best available information, listening to people who know what they’re talking about — and not, say, a certain Very Stable Genius who thinks chugging Clorox might cure what ails you. In Georgia, hell-for-leather Governor Brian K emp wants almost everything up and running this week, though his state has three times as many cases and four times as many deaths as the go-it-slower N orth Carolina. Even Trump distanced himself from that harebrained notion. That’s not to say that Trump’s been a model of dispassionate sobriety. After all, he spent last weekend egging on extremists, tweeting at them to LIBERATE their states from oppressive governors. Trump’s tweetstorm took place after a Fox N ews segment about an obscure Facebook event called Liberate Minnesota, which is the way this stuff wor s. These protests were small affairs until Fox N ews personalities and other Trump-friendly pundits — and then the president himself — elevated them. Trump’s defaults are politics by agitation and confident assertions utterly detached from reality, so leaning into a faux-populist revolt that imagines it can quash a pandemic by throwing a temper tantrum is pretty much par for the course. Besides, a slow-and-steady restart doesn’t suit his agenda. His case for reelection was rooted in a robust economy. And come hell or high water, he needs to get things rolling again. If need be, your life is a risk he’s willing to take. As much as it amazes me that a charlatan like Trump is president, it amazes me more — and frightens me — how simultaneously intellectually vapid and politically powerful MAGA conservatism is: a cult of personality built around an amoral grifter whose foremost skill is convincing his followers not to see what’s in front of their own eyes. But it shouldn’t be surprising. Over the last decade, a wide body of research has shown that right-wing populists — Trump’s base, in other words — are motivated by fear, making them susceptible to demagoguery and conspiracy theories. The people marching on state capitols — waving adsden flags and screaming about tyranny and denouncing scientists — are marks in Trump’s con, pawns in a game they don’t realize is being played. That’s not to say they don’t believe that business should reopen or that the government shouldn’t dictate when and for what reason they leave their homes. (Although, with a pandemic, your freedom of movement doesn’t just affect you.) But that doesn’t mean they’re not being manipulated. And their ignorance doesn’t make them less dangerous.

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metrotimes.com | April 29-May 5, 2020

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FEATURE

SHUTTERSTOCK

Show MI the money

More than a month into the COVID-19 crisis, some Michiganders are still waiting for their unemployment checks By L e e D e V it o

On March 16, when Governor Gretchen Whit-

mer ordered the state’s schools to close at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic in Michigan, Tarissa K ing was faced with a choice: She could bring her 1 0 -yearold daughter with her to the Wendy’s restaurant where she worked, or quit her job to take care of her. To get to work, K ing takes the bus. Bringing her daughter along for a ride on public transportation seemed like an unnecessary risk of catching COVID-1 9 , as was bringing her to work. And hiring a babysitter, K ing says, wasn’t an option. “You don’t know who’s infected and who’s not,” she says. So K ing chose to quit. She spoke with her manager, who was understanding of her situation and promised she could return to her job when the crisis was over. K ing applied for help from the Unemployment Insurance Agency that day, and appeared to be approved. But then, days later, while certifying with MARVIN , Michigan’s Automated Response Voice Interactive etwor , ing hit her first snag. didn’t really now how to answer the questions because it’s kind of tricky. i e, the first uestion is Are you able to wor ,’” she says. “There should be an option on there for people who are not attending work because of COVID. But they don’t give you that option, so it kind of puts you in a bind.” Other messages mentioned Michigan’s

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requirement for unemployment applicants to search for a new job, which didn’t make any sense considering the state’s economy ground to a near halt due to the pandemic. Then, two weeks later, K ing encountered another head-scratcher: She got a message telling her to log in to her account online. But when she did, she got an error message saying her social security number was associated with a different account. he re uested tech support, which told her to call a number. K ing has never been able to get through. Sometimes a recording would say the number wasn’t in service. Other times the call would get disconnected. Sometimes it would say they couldn’t answer her call due to high call volume, and to try again later. One time, a voice warned her that the wait times could be two hours or longer; after waiting for hours, the line got disconnected. This went on for weeks. One day, K ing even tried to call before the o ce opened at a.m. to see if she could get in a queue. N o luck. “I don’t really think nobody’s working, if you ask me,” she says, exasperated. The last time K ing tried to call, there was a new automatic message, saying that the only people who should be calling are those who need to file a new

claim. Anyone else, it said, should refer to the website … the website K ing can’t access because of her tech support issue. In the meantime, K ing got her $ 1 ,2 0 0 emergency stimulus check from the federal government, which helps. For now, anyway. “Bills still got to get paid regardless at the end of the day,” she says. “Something needs to be done.” K ing says she started reaching out to local media, and even sent a letter to ov. hitmer’s o ce. o far, nobody else has responded to her. K ing’s daughter is busy now: Detroit’s school district announced a $ 2 3 million plan to get laptop computers and internet access to 50 ,0 0 0 students, so they can continue to learn from home. ut for ing, figuring out how to get unemployment money has become a full-time job. “I watch the news every day, and I’m not hearing them talk about … these problems,” she says. “I’m trying to find out answers not just for myself, but for everybody.” Brenna Welch, a baker at the Detroit restaurant ose’s ine ood, was also laid off early in the crisis, on arch , and filed a claim that evening. While restaurants are considered an essential service and allowed to stay open, Rose’s is a farm-to-table sit-


down brunch spot. Owner Molly Mitchell cleaned out the fridge and delivered groceries and prepared meals to her staff, and has since pivoted to limited offerings, including baked goods and a bread and wine club. But Welch says she couldn’t continue to work because it’s impossible to be less than six feet away from someone in the kitchen, and her immune system is considered to be compromised because she’s eight-and-a-half weeks’ pregnant. There was a meme that circulated when this all first started, and it was just li e, ow many of you felt li e you finally had your life on trac right before uarantine?’” Welch says. She and her husband, who also works in the hospitality industry, had both scored two of the best jobs they’ve ever had in their entire careers when they decided to have a baby. “We were both doing really well, and then all of a sudden quarantine happens, and we signed up for unemployment. We were li e, , it’s going to be a little bit of a pay cut, but we can do it.’” But like K ing, Welch found herself locked out of her account. Eventually, she reached tech support, which was able to unlock it, but then the system said she never filed a claim. Finally, she got a message saying someone would personally call her the next day. Welch says that they did in fact call, but were unable to resolve the issue. ow we’re li e, what’s going to come first unemployment or the baby?” Welch says. Unlike K ing, she still hasn’t received her federal stimulus check. In the meantime, she’s requested extensions for her car loan and car insurance. er ighland ar landlord has been understanding, and told her she and her husband can just pay what they can when they can. Welch has stopped trying to contact the agency, but like K ing, navigating unemployment has become a fulltime job for her, as well. “I don’t want to be the culprit of the problem that I’m upset about,” she says. “I try not to check every single day. I try to do it every other day, and on the days that ’m not chec ing, ’m doing research, or finding out new contacts, or reaching out to my friends and seeing if they’ve gotten anything. ut it’s definitely on my mind every day.” She has also tried to email Gov. Whitmer, as well as U.S. Rashida Tlaib, to no avail. Welch says she worries that prolonged lack of financial assistance could force many employers and employees back to work before it’s safe to do so. “It’s almost like we feel like, OK , are we going to end up just getting starved back to work?” she says. Stacy Bower, a substitute teacher in K alamazoo County, echoes K ing’s and Welch’s concerns. After the school district’s sta ng company sent a notice about the school closures, she applied. But her claim was flagged for a non monetary issue.” The system as ed her to fill out a form, but she can’t find it. Attempted calls resulted in waiting for four hours without getting through. Since Bower recently moved to the K alamazoo area, she didn’t have a local bank set up yet. She requested for her unemployment payments to come in a debit card, which arrived in the mail, but it’s empty. She has not received her federal stimulus check, and has three boys. “The only thing that’s getting us through is the school is delivering meals twice a week,” she says.

Michigan has seen the nation’s thirdhighest surges in unemployment claims relative to the size of the state’s workforce. The coronavirus, which is believed to have originated in Wuhan, China, late last year, has hit Michigan particularly hard — far harder that its neighboring Midwestern states — likely via Detroit Metro Airport, due to the auto industry’s connections to Asia. It has hit southeast Michigan the hardest, its spread and impact exacerbated by income and racial disparities. That industry likely brought the virus to Michigan early on, where it spread undetected. But that dominant industry has also helped make the virus’s economic impact higher here, too, with regions of the state that still rely on manufacturing getting hit harder than places with diversified economies, and employees that can more easily work from home. “I’ve heard people describe it as when the nation coughs, Michigan gets a cold,” says Steve Gray, director of the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency. Michigan has seen the nation’s third-highest surges in unemployment claims relative to the size of the state’s wor force, behind only awaii and entuc y, according to CN BC. So far, the state has seen a staggering . million claims for unemployment benefits, or nearly a quarter of the state’s workforce. N ationwide, nearly . million people have filed for unemployment since the start of the crisis — more than the 2 2 .4 million jobs added to the U.S. economy since the Great Recession. More than a month into the coronavirus crisis, the state of Michigan says it has provided $ 1 .6 6 billion in unemployment benefits to , , wor ers. or perspective, during the Great Recession about a decade ago, the agency saw some 4 0 0 ,0 0 0 claims over the course of many months, with a peak unemployment rate of 1 4 .4 percent. (This time, it saw nearly that many file in the first wee of April alone.) ac then, the agency had staffed up to more than , people to accommodate the surge. But last year, Michigan was seeing its lowest number of claims, and the agency was staffed accordingly, ray says, with some wor ers. f you figured we needed , staff to handle 4 0 0 ,0 0 0 active claims at a time, and we’re at 1 .2 million, arguably we need three times that amount to handle it,” he says. You just can’t possibly staff up that quickly.” In normal times, Michigan’s unemployment is paid from a state trust fund where employers pay quarterly taxes into the fund based on the number of people that they have working for them. Before the crisis, the trust fund was up to $ 4 .6 billion, making it the third-highest unemployment fund in the country. At the start of the Great Recession, the fund only had $ 330 million. Tony . aris, lead attorney at the aurice ane ugar aw enter for conomic ocial ustice, says that Michigan’s unemployment agency had issues

before the coronavirus crisis hit. “Although there’s no question that we are in unprecedented times when it comes to unemployment insurance demand, unfortunately, prior administrations’ decision to lay off hundreds of claims examiners, even before we’d recovered from the Great Recession, in favor of an expensive yet error-prone computer system also makes any adaptation to meet the need to quickly processing claims that much more di cult,” aris says. “This system is not only not very user-friendly, it rigidly and automatically decides many claims without human review in a way that seems like it’s programmed to err on the side of denial of benefits — or at least to cause so much frustration that people lose their patience and give up, which now many increasingly don’t have the luxury of doing.” aris is referring to i A , or the ichigan ata Automated System (yes, it is named after a famously cursed ing), which wrongly accused approximately 4 0 ,0 0 0 Michigan residents of defrauding the Unemployment Insurance Agency from 2 0 1 3 to 2 0 1 5, which caused the agency to erroneously garnish wages and intercept federal tax returns based. (Many of the victims have since been refunded.) Gray acknowledges that access issues were a problem before the crisis. A new phone system had been in the works, and he says the agency got wait times down to 1 0 minutes or less, with 6 ,0 0 0 to 7 ,0 0 0 calls a week. Until the coronavirus hit, anyway. N ow, Gray says, the agency is receiving , calls a day. e estimates with its current manpower, they can handle 1 4 ,0 0 0 calls a day. The agency extended its call center hours and added hundreds of customer facing staff. As new claim numbers have begun to drop and parts of the economy are reopening, he says they’re seeing under 2 0 ,0 0 0 claims a day. That will help them address the backlog of claims, he says. Still, the demand is daunting. The agency made it so the phone line is only for people who need to file new claims and don’t have internet access, and they disabled the chat function on the site. “The best way for people to communicate with us is to send a web notice,” he says. “But people should know it’s going to be several days before they hear back from us.” When told that everyone M e t ro T im e s spoke with has been waiting weeks for a response, and that people like K ing have gone for more than a month without pay, Gray is remorseful. “That’s an impossible situation, and she and the others who are in her boat are what keeps me up at night,” Gray says. “She’s clearly eligible, at least it seems.” Gray couldn’t say how many backlogged cases the system had, but says he’s hopeful that people can start getting paid this week. As the agency addresses the number of claims that have been flagged with errors that need technical support, he thinks that will lessen the number of people flooding the system with calls. is advice for filers is not to chec the website more than once a day, because it’s only updated every 2 4 hours anyway, and to check for any alerts or other notifications re uiring attention. “All I can say is we haven’t forgotten about you,” he says. “We know that you’re there. We keep a list every day of the cases that are still being held. And we’re trying to work through all of them as fast as we can.”

metrotimes.com | April 29-May 5, 2020

13


CULTURE

Vasilisa Perelygina, left, and Viktoria Miroshnichenko in Beanpole.

LIANA MUKHAMEDZYANOVA/KINO LORBER

A Russian breakout

Beanpole Not rated Run-time:130 minutes

By Ge org e E lk ind Beanpole is c u rre nt ly st re am ing online as p art of F ilm L ab ’ s V irt u al Cine m a se rie s on V O D .

With its juiced-up

emerald and burnt-red interiors, all captured by a gamboling camera and frequently awash in spotty golden light, last year’s Russian breakout Be anp ole looks and feels like little else. Director K antemir Balagov’s headstrong, accomplished second film (outrageously, he’s ) trails two young women: gangly, spectral, and white blonde ya ( i toria iroshnichen o), whose nic name grants the film its title and asha ( asilisa erelygina), whose more compact, beet-haired form and wily nature offer both deep and surface contrasts. The collision of the pair’s ardors, differences, and overlapping anxieties generate fuel for the film’s heated study of post-Leningrad wartime trauma, reflected in the feuding duality of its glimmering hues. This conflict, however, tends to be more sensed than spoken. At Be anp ole ’s 1 9 4 4 open, Iya’s been sent home from the front to work as a nurse treating wounded soldiers, suffering all the while from concussion-induced paralytic seizures. While there, she’s given the tender task of looking after Pashka

(Timofey la ov), asha’s tiny son, while asha completes her own term of service at the warfront. Without spoiling things, these pressures produce a star effect that deepens and sharpens the frictions between the two companions (for they cannot truly be considered friends), each struggling in her own manner to survive. In pursuing this harsh emotional and political reality, Balagov improvises often in an effort to raise the pitch. His camera wheels and dances around glittering apartments, wide lens yawning to catch every last bit of color and light. The leading women burst out in dances, twirls, and odd little spasms — driven as much by emotional turmoil as by Iya’s physical condition. In this, if not his chosen palette, Balagov’s directorial hand sometimes resembles Terrence alic ’s trusting in a strong cast and resonant setting to provide an engine for his material, the jagged edges of his style, li e alic ’s more harmonious ones, can look strangely flat lined up against each other. What results is a consistently unsteady, heated-but-hazy emotional air, and a film that’s a bit bullish in its running time and scenework — especially considering its structure. Part of the challenge with this is subject, for what alagov’s exposing is

14 April 29-May 5, 2020 | metrotimes.com

apparent at the start: a morass of pervasive struggle set atop an emotional plateau. By starting at an emotional high point amid a truly awful situation, Balagov leaves himself little place to go. The curlicues of his plot seem, as a result, not to peak or fall, but to trudge, sprint, and sometimes twirl across a boggy but level emotional expanse. Taken individually, Be anp ole ’s scenes are often marvelous in their flourishes and emotional excavations, showing facets of character in little shocks of performance and narrative revelation. Private moments, like one of Iya working as Pashka paws at her for attention, become moving for their duration and performances. As ya, iroshnichen o’s repressed, aggrieved, submissive demeanor makes her moving to watch, particularly when she’s the target of asha’s barbed words and acts of vengeance. To alagov’s credit, asha’s motivations and personal history are s etched in fully on a plot level nevertheless, there’s an extent to which he regards his own characters as mysteries, apparent depths to them he scrabbles at but can’t quite reach. t’s di cult in watching to not attribute this to gender. any of the film’s struggles revolve around mother-

hood, children, and women’s health, and while Balagov bears witness to the social realities facing women in a range of admirable respects, they are not his in the end. While other directors have managed to leap similar empathetic hurdles, he seems unable to properly access his title character’s inner life and mystifies his leading women’s collisions. Though clearly a director equipped with a sincere social conscience, that same family of considerations may have guided him here away from the potentially problematic, leaving him without the kind of point-blank emotionality that would grant his depictions a firmer structure, a more intimate point of view, and perhaps a sharper edge. Where Polish filmma er Andr ej ulaws i’s P osse ssion tore issues of gender into raw wounds, both emotional and physical, Balagov employs similar knife’s-edge techniques only to retain a guarded air. This sense of remove refines and constricts his presentation, turning the potentially personal into something more distant, politically symmetrical and fair. While stirring, Be anp ole ’s missing both an eye for structure and the type of vulnerability all its narrative and formal features might suggest. Lacking those, all its beauty means something less.


metrotimes.com | April 29-May 5, 2020

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CULTURE Q:

I ’ m a 3 1 - ye ar- old f e m ale . L ast w e e k I su dde nly st art e d t o e x p e rie nc e an ov e rw h e lm ing , c om p u lsiv e , and ne ar- c onst ant st at e of p h ysic al arou sal. I ’ v e m ast u rb at e d so m u c h look ing f or re lie f t h at m y e nt ire low e r re g ion is su p e r sore and sw olle n and st ill. I t ’ s lik e m y w h ole b ody is p u lsat ing w it h t h is e le c t ric arou sal t e lling m e t o ig nore t h e p ain and do it ag ain. I h av e no ide a if it ’ s norm al t o su dde nly h av e a sp ik e in lib ido — and I k now a lot of p e op le w ill say t h e y w ish t h e y h ad t h is p rob le m — b u t it ’ s int e rf e ring w it h m y daily ac t iv it ie s b e c au se I c an’ t f oc u s on anyt h ing e lse . M y c olle g e c lasse s are suffering because of it. I’ve even had t o re m ov e m y c lit oral h ood p ie rc ing , w h ic h I ’ v e h ad f or ov e r 1 0 ye ars! I f e e l lik e I h av e all of t h e re asons — h ig h anx ie t y re lat e d t o t h e p ande m ic , b e ing st u c k w it h an alc oh olic b oyf rie nd in the house, tons of homework, finances are low — t o w arrant a lac k of arou sal, so w h y am I drow ning in it ? E v e ryt h ing I ’ m le arning in c lass st at e s t h at se x u al de sire low e rs t h rou g h ou t t h e lif e sp an so w h y am I lit e rally p u lsat ing w it h it ? I re ally don’ t w ant t o c all m y doc t or if I don’ t h av e t o. A ny insig h t w ou ld b e ap p re c iat e d. — Ch ronic ally A rou se d

A : “There’s a general belief that

sexual arousal is always wanted — and the more the better,” says Robyn Jackowich. “But in reality, persistent and unwanted sexual arousal can be very distressing.” Jackowich is a Ph.D. candidate at Queen’s University, where she works under the supervision of Dr. Caroline Pukall in the Sexual Health Research Lab. Jackowich has published numerous studies on Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder (PGAD), a condition characterized by a constant or frequently recurring state of genital arousal — sensations, sensitivity, swelling — in the absence of sexual desire. “In other words, there is a disconnect between what is happening in one’s body and mind,” says Jackowich, “and this can be both distressing and distracting.” And while you would think stress would tank your libido — and preliminary research shows that the pandemic is tanking more libidos than it’s not — stress and anxiety can actually be triggers for PGAD. As you’ve learned, CA, you can’t masturbate your way out of this. So what do you do? Unfortunately, it’s the thing you’d really rather not do:

call your doctor. “It’s important to meet with a knowledgeable health care provider to ensure there is not another concern present that may be responsible for the symptoms and to access treatment,” says Jackowich. “Research on treatments for PGAD is relatively new, so it can be helpful to meet with a team of different health care providers to find what treatments would be most effective for you specifically. This could include a gynecologist, urologist, pelvic floor physical therapist, neurologist, and/or psychologist with expertise in sex therapy.” Talking with your doctor about this may be embarrassing, I realize, and it doesn’t help that many doctors are unfamiliar with PGAD. Jackowich actually recommends bringing printouts of information pages and research papers about the condition to your appointment and sharing them with your physician. And if your doc doesn’t take your distress seriously and/or refuses to refer you to the specialists you need to see, CA, then you’ll have to get yourself a new doctor. (You can find those information pages and research papers at sexlab. ca/pgad, where you can also learn about currently available treatments and join support groups for sufferers.) “More awareness of PGAD and research on this condition is needed to help understand the symptoms and develop effective treatments,” says Jackowich. “If you experience these symptoms and would like to contribute to ongoing research efforts, the Queen’s University Sexual Health Research Lab is seeking participants for an online study.” To take part in that online survey, go to sexlab.ca/pgad, click on “participate,” and scroll down to the “OLIVE Study.”

Q: I ’ v e

re k indle d a rom anc e w it h an e x f rom a de c ade ag o. W e are long dist anc e rig h t now b u t g e t t ing v e ry c lose . W e h av e one re c u rring p rob le m , t h ou g h : S h e doe s not lik e t h at I ’ m f rie nds w it h anot h e r e x . T h at e x h as ac t u ally b e e n a c lose f rie nd f or a v e ry long t im e and ou r f rie ndsh ip m e ans a lot t o m e . O u r rom ant ic re lat ionsh ip only last e d a f e w m ont h s. Bu t sinc e w e did h av e a rom ant ic re lat ionsh ip onc e , m y c u rre nt g irlf rie nd se e s m y e x as a t h re at . I h av e re assu re d h e r se v e ral t im e s t h at t h e re lat ionsh ip is in t h e p ast and t h at w e are now only f rie nds. Bu t m y g irlf rie nd doe sn’ t w ant m e t o c om m u nic at e w it h h e r at all. S h e w ant s m e t o u n- f rie nd h e r on

16 April 29-May 5, 2020 | metrotimes.com

Savage Love By D an S av ag e

when she’s feeling insecure about your ex but you’re not going to un-friend or un-follow her or anyone else. You can make an appeal to reason — you wouldn’t be with your current girlfriend if you were the sort of person who cut off contact with his exes — but if your current girlfriend is the irrationally jealous type … well, an appeal to reason won’t help. Irrationally jealous people are, by definition, incapable of seeing reason, UGHS, which is why they must be shown doors.

Q:

JOE NEWTON

F ac e b ook and u n- f ollow h e r I nst ag ram , and at le ast onc e a w e e k sh e ask s if w e ’ v e b e e n in c ont ac t . I t ’ s h ard f or m e t o t h row a f rie nd aw ay in orde r t o b e in a re lat ionsh ip . E v e n t h ou g h I don’ t t alk t o m y e x / f rie nd all t h at re g u larly, I w ou ld lik e t h e op t ion t o at le ast c h e c k in e v e ry onc e in a w h ile . Cu t t ing h e r ou t of m y lif e c om p le t e ly f e e ls lik e a k ind of de at h . I w ish t h e re w as som e way I could find a compromise, but this se e m s t o b e one of t h ose “ all or not h ing ” t h ing s. I also don’ t lik e t h is f e e ling of not b e ing t ru st e d and f e ar it c ou ld le ad t o ot h e r p rob le m s dow n t h e line . — U nh ap p y Girlf rie nd H as S e nsit iv it ie s

A : I can see why your current girl-

friend might feel threatened by your relationship with an ex, UGHS, seeing as she — your current girlfriend — was until very recently just another one of your exes. Since you got back together with her, the green-eyed monster whispers in her ear, what’s to stop you from getting back together with your other ex? What the greeneyed monster doesn’t say, of course, is that you had every opportunity to get back together with your ex and didn’t. And cutting off your ex now doesn’t mean you can’t get back together with her later. And what’s to stop you from getting together with one of the 3.5 billion women you haven’t already dated? You have to take a hard line on this. Tell your current you’re happy to provide her with a little reassurance

T h is isn’ t a se x y q u e st ion, b u t you are w ise and I am c onf u se d. I ’ v e b e e n f rie nds w it h a w om an f or ab ou t 1 6 ye ars. S h e ’ s v e ry f u nny, c re at iv e , lov e s t o h av e a g ood t im e . S h e ’ s also int e nse , not v e ry b rig h t , and m y f am ily and f rie nds don’ t lik e h e r arou nd. N ow t h at w e ’ re g row n w e do not se e e ac h ot h e r of t e n, b u t I ’ v e b e e n g lad t o m aint ain a f rie ndsh ip w it h h e r and g e t t og e t h e r now and ag ain. E nt e r: m y w e dding . A t t h e re c e p t ion, and sh e m ade a f ool of h e rse lf ( and m e ) b y g oing on som e st rang e , rac ist rant . T h e rac ist t h ing re ally su rp rise d and disap p oint e d m e , and w h e n I ask e d h e r ab ou t it sh e shrugged it off like, “Oh, just add that t o t h e list of du m b t h ing s I do w h e n I ’ m dru nk . ” O t h e r t h ing s sh e ’ s done w h e n sh e ’ s dru nk : t w o D U I s, w ak ing up in jail with an assault charge, having se x w it h st rang e rs, e t c . I t ’ s b e e n ab ou t se v e n m ont h s sinc e m y w e dding , and I ’ v e b asic ally b e e n ig noring h e r w h ile t rying t o de c ide w h at t o do. I lov e m y f rie nd, b u t I do not w ant h e r h u rt ing anyone e lse on m y w at c h . D o I c all h e r u p and e nd it ? S e e h e r onc e a ye ar w h e n no one ’ s arou nd? I g nore h e r u nt il sh e die s? — L oyal T o A F au lt

A : Tell your racist friend to give you

a call after she gets sober and confront her about her racism then — you know, when she’s actually capable of remembering the conversation, reflecting on what you had to say, and perhaps changing for the better. If she can’t get both sober and better, LTAF, make sure she isn’t registered to vote and then ignore her until she dies. T h is w e e k on t h e S av ag e Lovecast: D an c h at s w it h ou r e p ide m iolog ist p al ab ou t t h e st at e of t h e p ande m ic , and also w it h t h e f ou nde r of t h e Badass Army — a group working to fight for v ic t im s of re v e ng e p orn: sav ag e lov e c ast . c om . Q u e st ions? m ail@ sav ag e lov e . ne t . F ollow D an on T w it t e r @ F ak e D anS av ag e .


CULTURE

Horoscopes By Cal Garrison

ARIES: March 21 – April 20 At a certain point, you’re going to say, “Enough of this.” How long will it take? I can’t tell you, but you know as well as I do that you don’t want to get stuck here. For the next few weeks, instead of talking about it, it would be good if you could start moving in a new direction. You’ve gotten too comfortable; there’s no external pressure, and no one to give you a kick in the butt. It’s hard to say this, but your fire’s gone out. For someone who feels better about everything when there’s a new frontier to cover, it’s time to pick yourself up and figure out what it will ta e to get going.

LEO: July 21 – August 20 From what I can see, your current situation is one of those K armic tests in which you get to find out what’s real and what isn’t. If this feels like a dream come true, before too long, changes in the way people behave will start to ring up the need to see things for what they are instead of seeing what you want to see. As you wipe the dew off your rose colored glasses, you’ll become aware of the fact that others are only OK with you and your stuff as long as you adhere to certain guidelines. The minute you start being true to yourself, their tune could change in a heartbeat.

SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 21 – Dec. 20 Stop barking up the wrong tree. You keep shooting for something that you believe matters more than anything. t’s time to bac off and loo at what it gets you. This is surfacing in your work and in your relationships. In your case, it’s really important to steer clear of people and situations in which your energy gets overridden by lesser beings. At a crossroads, what I see is that it’s time to get off the treadmill and actuali e your truer gifts. Don’t get stuck on “Showcase # 1 .” Let’s hope you know better because what’s behind the curtain holds the key to a whole new ballgame.

TAURUS: April 2 1 – May 2 0 Sometimes things are too tangled up to see clearly. With too much running at cross purposes and not enough time away from the treadmill to make sense of it all, you’ve got more than your share of confusion. Part of you wonders, “Why me?” In the same breath, you shove that question under the rug because the deeper part of you wants to be on top of it. This is one of those times when part of the cure involves accepting the fact that you’re at a total loss. Reaching out for help is never a bad idea, but when things get like this, it’s an inside job, and the answers lie within.

VIRGO: August 21 – Sept. 20 The feeling that you’re stranded between the past and whatever the future holds is huge. Your deepest fear could be that you’ll remain in this state forever. This could be what happens right before the butterfly emerges from the cocoon, but who knows? What if this is it? What if it stays this way till hell freezes over? At times like this, keeping it simple is where it’s at. Tell the N azi in your head to pipe down, and keep worry and fear at bay. The Z en Masters have a lot to teach us when life gets like this: chop wood, carry water, and patiently wait on the will of heaven.

CAPRICORN: Dec. 21 – Jan. 20 Amen, hail ary, and than od — you’re free at last! N ew directions? Yours have not arrived yet, but the latest clue to whatever that’s about is waiting under the light of the next full moon. K eep your eyes open and your attention centered on the present. This is no time to be dwelling on the past or obsessing about the future. Your sense of safety and security is in your hands, and it is in this moment that you are birthing whatever the future holds. etting on the ball plays a part in this. Yes, work is where it’s at, but joy is the operative word. Make sure you include it in your efforts.

GEMINI: May 21 – June 20 N o matter what you do, it seems like people just don’t get it. The lines of communication are down, and whoever’s on the other end is on a completely different bandwidth. etting through to them isn’t in the cards at the moment. Agreeing to disagree and figuring out how to co exist with close others who can’t meet you in the middle brings up so many questions. Is it possible to remain close to people whose world view is diametrically opposed to yours? Situations like this call for a good sense of humor and the ability to focus on what you do have in common.

LIBRA: Sept. 21 – Oct. 20 Learning how to let go of what you think matters more than anything is a trick that few of us are able to master until we’re old enough to know how to get around it. You’re in a situation that loo s li e you’d be better off giving it up. The idea that you need anything this badly is a sure sign that you don’t. It’s hard to believe that in the act of releasing our attachments we begin to connect with what’s real. If this is meant to endure, it will continue. N o attempt to force things to go your way will go as far as the ability to give it all up to whatever’s in everyone’s highest good.

AQUARIUS: Jan. 21 – Feb. 20 The balls-to-the-wall syndrome could be playing out on a lot of different levels for you guys. Some of you are wor ing your ass off others are being pressured by less physical forces. The image of being boxed in by demands is being softened by aspects that make it easier for you to take them on. As the month unfolds, you need to focus on staying centered. There’s so much that could take you off course or challenge your sense of confidence that you’ve got to find an anchor — or the switch to the internal mechanism that reinforces the sense that you can do it all.

CANCER: June 21 – July 20 One step forward, two steps back is what it feels like. If you’re impatient, keep in mind that nothing goes in a straight line. These delays give you a chance to fine tune whatever’s getting a move on. In some cases, money’s a bit of a problem, but you’ve been here before and you know what to do. Part of what’s being tested right now is whether you’re willing to pour your heart and soul into things even when the financial rewards are slim. light setbacks with others have to do with not seeing eye to eye. etting around that issue is no big deal; don’t make it into one.

SCORPIO: Oct. 21 – Nov. 20 The call to get involved with people and things that appear to be right up your alley could be a mistake. I understand why you might want to do this, but sometimes “safety in numbers” and “two heads are better than one” doesn’t apply. Past experiences should be enough to remind you that you’re better off relying on yourself at times like this. Think it over carefully. And while you’re at it, look at side issues that involve the need to bring projects that you’ve already started up to speed. Multiplying your options won’t bring the desired result. et yourself bac to center.

PISCES: Feb. 21 – March 20 The stuff you’re wading through now is what’s left of things that never got settled. Between the remnants of whatever got glossed over and problems with knowing who to trust, you’re learning some hard lessons in what happens when we stop paying attention. Your situation could use heavier doses of truth and a little more soulsearching on the part of those who keep telling you one thing and doing something else. You’ve got a huge story on your hands. Waking up to the reality of what it’s all about is bound to get even more intense before it makes you stronger.

Finally, it feels like Spring has Sprung! Warmth, sunshine, and flora and fauna slowly begin to reclaim their space. During this time last year The Old Miami was manicuring the backyard lawn, preparing to open the outside bar, and giving our beloved Bob Berg Pond its yearly makeover. This year will be no different! When we are back in biz, the bar will be so clean and fresh and the fish will be happy, healthy and excited to look up at all of your pretty faces. Our massive patio will certainly come in handy as we will continue to social-distance for some time as we get back to normal.

Baby steps everyone!

Wednesday, April 29th Happy Birthday, Brian B!

metrotimes.com | April 29-May 5, 2020

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