2019-03-19

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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City Council discusses police oversight commission, housing affordability Meeting included rejection of a senior living development, while affordable living resolutions passed

Students not shocked by admissions controversy Some at ‘U’ say wealthier families can provide children with legal and illegal benefits LIAT WEINSTEIN Daily Staff Reporter

Ann Arbor City council congregates to discuss various resolutions at city hall monday night.

CATHERIN NOUHAN Daily Staff Reporter

Ann Arbor City Council met Monday night to discuss the affordable housing resolutions and the appointments of the police oversight commission.

Affordable housing issues addressed the Lockwood development and developments on Main Street and Industrial Street. The Lockwood of Ann Arbor senior development resolution failed, while three resolutions dedicated to an affordable housing development passed.

The appointment of 11 nominees to the Independent Community Police Oversight Commission appointment was passed despite community member interruption during the vote.

The Lockwood of Ann Arbor Apartments development is a three-story senior housing

facility proposed to be built on a controversial area of residential land near the intersection of Wagner and Jackson roads. The developer guaranteed 40 percent of the units to be dedicated to affordable housing ensured for 99 years. Many opposing councilmembers cited zoning ordinances as the reason to decline the resolution, as the area is currently a single family unit zone and the Lockwood development would require the council to change it to a planned unit development zone.

Councilmember Jeff Hayner, D-Ward 1, voted no to Lockwood specifically because of zoning.

“It’s a zoning question before us,” Hayner said. “To decide, I’m going to be asking myself, ‘Do the community benefits offered meet the standards of

the PUD?’” Other opposing councilmembers cited environmental concerns.

Councilmember Anne Bannister, D-Ward 1, discussed her concerns with the development impinging on the dioxane plume treatment site.

“I am very convinced by three experts who have told us that this property is a key location for remediation of the plume,” Bannister said. “It is near the main plume the source site of the dioxane and it is the best location, that I’m aware of, to pump and treat this chemical out of the ground if possible.”

LSA senior Krishna Motta and LSA sophomore Hannah Bradshaw spoke to the council about the importance of affordable housing in Ann Arbor. Both Motta and Bradshaw discussed how affordable housing affects

KAYLEAH SON/Daily

students, senior citizens and people with a lower socioeconomic status. They pointed councilmembers to multiple resolutions that offer various options for the city to pursue affordable housing.

“There’s a lot of options that the city has passed up even though they say they support affordable housing,” Bradshaw said. “There’s some great resolutions in front of you today where you can take action on affordable housing and start providing for the community.

Even though (Ann Arbor) claims to be a diverse and welcoming place, the reality is that it’s not for a lot of people in a lower socioeconomic status, and that’s making your city less diverse and less welcoming to a lot of people.”

See CITY, Page 3

For many University of Michigan students, the recent college admissions scandal — in which federal prosecutors charged 50 people for various offenses related to college admissions, including buying their children entry into some of the nation’s most selective schools — was not wholly surprising.

Lauren Schandevel, Public Policy senior, said last week’s events highlighted how common it is for wealthier families to give their children advantages in the college process through both legal and illegal measures.

“In actuality, this kind of stuff happens all the time,” Schandevel said. “If not through explicitly breaking the law, there are plenty of legal ways through which wealthy parents can give their children a leg up into college. I was not surprised when I found out that these families are actually breaking the law to make that kind of thing happen because I’ve heard so many stories about the legal ways in which these things happen.”

The scandal, which was revealed to the public on Tuesday, was the largest college admissions scheme ever prosecuted by the United States Justice Department and sparked discussions nationwide

CAMPUS LIFE

William J. CSG candidates debate issues facing Burns talks campus ahead of March 27 election U.S. foreign Discussions touched on issues of U-M emergency response, climate action, Title IX policy goals REMY FARKAS Daily News Editor

Former diplomat looks at workings of American international relations ARJUN THAKKAR For the Daily

The Ford School of Public Policy and the Center for Russian, East European, & Eurasian Studies hosted former ambassador William J. Burns on Monday afternoon in the Annenberg Auditorium of Weill Hall to detail the inner workings of American international relations.

The event was this year’s Vandenburg Lecture, a series of presentations named after former U.S. Sen. Arthur Vandenburg, a U-M alum, and funded by the Meijer Family Foundation. About 35 people from the Ann Arbor community attended the event, entitled “American diplomacy in a disordered world: A conversation with Ambassador William J. Burns.”

Burns has held several highlevel positions within the U.S. State Department spanning decades of administrations. He joined the Foreign Service as a career ambassador in 1982.

BARBARA COLLINS & PARNIA MAZHAR Daily Staff Reporters

On Monday night, the University of Michigan Central Student Government hosted a candidate debate for the upcoming election March 27 through 28. The event included a presidential debate followed by a vice presidential town hall, which consisted of 12 questions

See POLICY, Page 3

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asked by Senior News Editor Remy Farkas. The questions, compiled by The Daily, touched on topics including campus climate, sustainability and student body unity.

The event was moderated by Director of Debate Aaron Kall.

This year’s candidates include presidential candidate Ben Gerstein and vicepresidential candidate Isabelle Blanchard, members of the Engage Michigan Party. The other presidential candidate

is Engineering freshman Shub Argha, who is running without a party.

LSA sophomore Gerstein is from Highland Park, Ill. and represents the Engage Michigan Party. In his opening statement, he described how the party’s platform aims to ensure students’ voices are heard.

They also plan on bridging the gap between CSG and other student organizations, as well as increasing accessibility across campus.

“Between Isabelle and I, we each have a combined four years of experience in CSG.” Gerstein said. “(We will work) to make sure that every single student on Michigan feels valued, recognized, heard, has their voices and passions elevated and understands that CSG’s purpose is to work for them and to elevate their needs to the school’s administration.”

See CSG, Page 3

about economic inequality in selective public and private schools. Parents were charged with bribing athletic coaches and standardized test proctors to secure their children acceptances into schools such as Stanford, Yale and the University of Southern California, among others.

The list of parents indicted in the scandal included actress Lori Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, along with actress Felicity Huffman. After the scandal unfolded, USC launched an internal investigation into the scam and Loughlin was fired by Crown Media, the media production company that previously employed her on Hallmark Channel.

According to the indictment unsealed in federal court on Tuesday, the leader of the scheme, William Rick Singer, founded the Edge College & Career Network in 2007 to help parents bribe coaches and entrance exam proctors. The indictment revealed parents involved in the scandal paid Singer between $15,000 and $75,000 to have members of the organization either take the ACT or SAT for the student or correct the answers once the test was completed.

See COLLEGE , Page 3

GOVERNMENT

Presidential hopefuls campaign in Michigan Former U.S. Rep. Rourke, U.S. Sen. Gillibrand make their case to MI voters LEAH GRAHAM Daily News Editor

Two presidential hopefuls made their cases before Michigan voters for the first time on Monday as they seek the Democratic nomination for the nation’s highest office in 2020, preceding a rally for President Donald Trump planned for next week in Grand Rapids.

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, taped a town hall forum with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes in Auburn Hills, later appearing with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at a “Fems for Dems” rally in Clawson.

Former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, made two campaign stops in metro Detroit the same day, visiting Center Line and Ferndale.

Following a two-month exploratory phase, Gillibrand officially announced her candidacy on Sunday. At the Auburn Hills town hall just the next day, she faced questions about her plan to stand out in the crowded Democratic primary.

KATELYN MULCAHEY/Daily CSG presidential candidates Shub Argha and Ben Gerstein share their platforms at the CSG Presidential Debate in the Michigan League Monday night.

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INDEX

Vol. CXXVIII, No. 89 ©2019 The Michigan Daily

NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 CLASSIFIEDS................6

Read more at MichiganDaily.com SUDOKU.....................2 ARTS...................5 SPORTS.................7

News Senate Assembly elects new SACUA reps, hears from Philbert

2 — Tuesday, March 19, 2019

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Provost discusses value of a University of Michigan education, three out of 10 nominees earn Advisory Committee spots HANNAH MACKAY

“We in Ann Arbor and other campuses around the country are constantly accused of being the last bastion of liberal thought and of actively propelling diversity of thought,” Philbert said. “There’s a pervasive perception both inside our walls as well as outside that spending is wasteful, extravagant and not transparent.”

Philbert countered these arguments by defending the value a bachelor’s degree holds in our society, along with research and the pursuit and accumulation of knowledge.

“Research certainly advances knowledge; the whole point of scholarship in many regards is to uncover new understanding, new insight or new knowledge itself, and hopefully if not immediately, at

For the Daily

On Monday, the University of Michigan Senate Assembly met in the Michigan League, where Provost Martin Philbert discussed the fiscal context of general higher education as well as budget demands and changes and investments to expect at the University. Elections for the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs were held after nominees gave short remarks to the group.

Senate Assembly Chair Neil Marsh called the meeting to order and welcomed Philbert who began his presentation by acknowledging recent attitude shifts regarding educational spending and the scrutiny of institutions of higher education.

some point they will become useful to society,” Philbert said. “Certainly, the University has been, and for the foreseeable future will be, one of the major conservatories of history and culture.”

Philbert continued, articulating how the University receives funding from a range of sources, both private and public, and a careful equilibrium of finances must be maintained in a changing fiscal landscape. He also outlined budget goals and priorities, which included furthering academic excellence through a commitment to community engagement, access and affordability for a U-M education to all and enforcing fiscal discipline.

“Compared to many of our peers, the University receives a modest

amount of state support per student, meaning that we must rely on other sources to deliver excellence and to provide the wealth of opportunities that we do,” Philbert said. “What are the goals of our budget here at the University of Michigan?

Always, first and foremost is increasing academic excellence — enhanced access and affordability is something that Mark Schlissel has spoken about over and over again, and then it has always been there in our mission, but Mark has begun to talk more forcefully and more openly about societal engagement and societal impact.”

Philbert elaborated on the University’s investment in these goals, referencing the Biosciences Initiative, infrastructure development with the Michigan

Research Cores, the potential of augmented-, virtual- and mixedreality technology and research on poverty solutions. He also reiterated the success of programs such as Wolverine Pathways, the HAIL scholarship and Go Blue Guarantee, which provide access to higher education for low-income students.

“This is not ivory-tower research — faculty and students are deeply connected with communities working with local and state governments, public schools, health care providers and organizations,” Philbert said. “With augmented, virtual and mixed reality in the changing landscape of higher education, we’re investing in new ways to shape instruction and the undergraduate experience for the future.”

Philbert remarked specifically on the University’s continued investment in programs that make a U-M education more accessible to in-state and low-income students.

“Based on the success of HAIL, we’ve transitioned to the Go Blue Guarantee, which is free in-state tuition for all with a family income of less than $65,000,” Philbert said.

Philbert concluded by looking ahead to future challenges, like a dip in high school graduates in Michigan, and acknowledging the University’s successes thus far.

“Clearly, we have a national and international brand that has been able to attract the brightest and best,” Philbert said.

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From the Editor: Gift from the Madigan family will help create sustainable, diverse future for the paper John Madigan didn’t work for The Michigan Daily when he was at the University of Michigan. He studied business and didn’t have any plans to go into the field of journalism. He began a career in finance and investment banking after graduation, and one of his clients was The Chicago Tribune.

After a couple years of working with the company, they hired him as a CFO in 1975. As he rose through the ranks of The Tribune, he eventually became CEO and chairman of the Tribune Company.

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Madigan says that’s a big part of why he and his wife, Holly, Sudoku Syndication decided to give back to The Daily.

In 2015, they donated the funds

to support the renovation of The He said it was Lipinski who helped students. In future years, The Daily’s newsroom and endowed a steward him into the world of Daily plans to run a fully-funded need-based scholarship for Daily journalism. residential summer camp that staff. And now, they’ve given us “I needed to learn a lot,” he said. will give high schoolers first-hand an incredibly generous gift of “One of the people that really helped experience with the work we do at more than $300,000 to devote to me along the way was Ann Marie the paper. professional development, building Lipinski. That’s part of the reason “I remember opportunities that a diverse newsroom and creating a that Holly and I want to honor her I had as a high school student that sustainable revenue model for the with this program.” were hugely inf luential to me,” paper.

Lipinski, who currently works Lipinski said. “It was this idea that “I’m really proud to have run a as the curator of the prestigious somebody would take you seriously major news organization and the Neiman Foundation for Journalism, and see you as somebody ... who least I can do is just give back so told me she was honored — and might be able to have a career in this other people have an opportunity surprised — to learn the Madigans thing that you really loved.” to develop themselves so that they had decided to name the fund after The gift will also enable us to could do the same someday,” he said. her. Like so many of our alumni, she expand the reach of the scholarships The gift will be known as the has a sentimental attachment to The we offer at The Daily, in an effort Lipinski Journalism Fund, named by Daily — after all, it’s where she met to make working at the paper a the Madigans in honor of Michigan her husband and spent many of her viable experience for students from Daily alum Ann Marie Lipinski, college days. Beyond that, though, all socioeconomic backgrounds. former editor of The Chicago it also served as a sort of classroom Ultimately, our goal is to bring the Tribune. As Madigan told me, he and for her. feeling of acceptance that Lipinski Lipinski became “fast friends” after “I had the opportunity to cover felt both before and during her meeting while they both worked at Chicago politics and to work with time at The Daily to students of all The Tribune — they bonded http://www.sudokusyndication.com/sudoku/generator/print/ over two reporters — together, we won backgrounds — especially those of their shared love for the University. a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the minority identities who might not Chicago City Council,” she said. have ever thought of journalism as a “But the first time I ever walked field they could pursue. into a city council meeting in my On behalf of the entire staff of life was in Ann Arbor. I covered the The Daily, I want to thank John City Council for The Daily and I’m and Holly Madigan and Ann Marie pretty sure I can draw a straight Lipinski. We have ambitious goals line from that experience to my at The Daily — goals that will experience in Chicago. There’s undoubtedly require financial such clear and direct connection.” backing to accomplish. With the The Lipinski Journalism Fund generosity of the Madigans, we can will allow us to continue this continue to improve this paper and tradition of enabling students to the staff that run it for years to come. grow as journalists and people Madigan told me on the phone through experiences at The last week that if there’s anything he Daily. Using the Madigans’ gift, hopes to see come out of this fund, we will expand our professional it’s journalists who are prepared to development efforts by bringing do the work that’s asked of them in veteran journalists (including this world.

Daily alumni) into the newsroom “Journalists are going into so for short-term fellowships and many different things than when sending staff members out to I graduated from school. But I just journalism conferences. hope that they’re well prepared to The gift will also help The Daily be very successful. And I just think create a new revenue model to there’s a lot of room for that. I’m achieve financial stability so it can pleased to do my little thing to help remain a resource for students on that goal.” campus and aspiring journalists at Thank you, Mr. Madigan. We’re the University. pleased, too.

Additionally, we’ll use the gift - Maya Goldman, Editor in Chief to help younger students from a of The Michigan Daily by sudokusyndication.com wide range of backgrounds explore © sudokusolver.com. For personal use only. journalism through workshops targeted toward high school

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The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the University OF Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for September-April are $250 and year long subscriptions are $275.

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COLLEGE From Page 1 Schandevel said while these extreme measures indicate how wealthy students are given numerous advantages during the college admissions process, the fact some public schools are given more extensive funding than others is one of the biggest ways students are benefited when applying to college.

In January 2018, Schandevel started Being Not-Rich at UM: A Guide, a 115-page document offering advice to lower-income students about how to adapt to life at the University, to help bridge some of the gaps between students who come from wealthier school districts and those who do not.

“It’s really clear that higher education sort of reinforces this economic and subsequently racial hierarchy,” Schandevel said. “Even if you don’t send your kid to a private school, you still have a public school system that’s

POLICY From Page 1 From there, he served as ambassador to Jordan from 1998 to 2001; assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs from 2001 to 2005; ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008; secretary for political affairs from 2008 to 2011; and deputy secretary of state to under the Obama administration from 2011 to 2014.

Burns is currently the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a foreign policy think tank focused on promoting peaceful policy among government leaders, business leaders and civil society.

Public Policy Dean Michael Barr facilitated the conversation

CSG From Page 1 Argha is from New York City and is not running under a party name. After several light-hearted anecdotes in his opening statement, he highlighted how his platform includes improving campus sustainability by banning plastic water bottles and increasing the awareness of CSG across campus.

He also focused on providing free feminine hygiene products to University students.

“The last time you went to a public restroom, how much did you pay for the toilet paper? Nothing, right?” Argha asked. “So why is it any different for period products? Period products are not a luxury but a basic human right. This should be free here at the University of Michigan and everywhere else.”

The event then proceeded with questions from Farkas, Kall and audience members. One of the first issues brought up by the moderators was regarding Saturday’s reports of an active shooter on campus, which were later proven to be unfounded.

Gerstein was randomly chosen to respond first via a coin toss. He began by describing the importance of acknowledging the reality of the active shooter threat. He emphasized the need of more student involvement in the Division of Public Safety and Security. Gerstein did not acknowledge the current 10-person DPSS Student Advisory Board.

“An integral part of Isabelle and my campaign … is to make sure there’s an active student voice connected to DPSS and advising them on ways to handle emergency situations on campus,” Gerstein said. “Obviously, one of the issues that was somewhat unclear throughout the entire process

CITY From Page 1 Residents living adjacent to the proposed Lockwood Apartments issued complaints of the development worsening the dioxane plume as reason to stop the building of the senior complex. They also cited the alleged lack of care from the developer to environmental concerns as especially troubling.

Public Policy senior Lauren Schandevel said although environmental concerns are most definitely valid in these discussions, in the

News

Tuesday, March 19, 2019 — 3

predicated on the notion that local taxes will supplement state and federal funding. When you have that policy, it advantages wealthy districts over poor districts and sets those poor districts up to fail automatically.

So even if you’re in the public school system, the American education system is still favoring wealthy people.”

In response to the scandal, University Public Affairs released a statement condemning the indicted parents’ actions and reaffirming the University’s commitment to a fair admissions process.

“At the University of Michigan, we use a comprehensive, holistic approach to review every candidate for admission to identify a talented, diverse class of students who will flourish on our campus,” the statement reads. “We engage multiple readers and reviews in evaluating the full set of credentials offered for consideration.”

Students related the recent scandal with wealth disparities

present at the University, even though the University was not involved with the scheme.

Griffin St. Onge, LSA senior and co-chair of Affordable Michigan, a student organization representing low-income students, said she wished the University would focus more on the needs of students who are first-generation or come from schools with fewer resources.

“I think if Michigan as a public university that is always striving for that ‘uncommon education for the common man’ thing, I think if they feel an obligation to fulfill that goal, then there needs to be a lot more effort,” St. Onge said.

Even so, St. Onge said programs like the HAIL scholarship, which began in 2016 and offers full tuition scholarships to accomplished students from low-income backgrounds, have made some progress in bridging the wealth disparity gap although there is still work to be done.

“They’ve done a lot of

previous things with the HAIL scholarship and they’ve been trying to go out to different communities, but I think there needs to be a bigger conversation of where are we getting our students from, how are we supporting our students who are low-income or first-generation who do come here and end up in a very different environment where they need additional support,” St. Onge said.

A report by the Equality of Opportunity Project — cited in The New York Times’ The Upshot in 2017 — found the median family income of a student at the University is $154,000, the highest of 27 public colleges classified as “highly selective”.

A report from the Detroit Free Press also found that the graduation rate for Pell Grant recipients at the University is 86.9 percent, as opposed to a 92.5 percent graduation rate for nonPell Grant recipients.

University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald wrote in an email interview with The Daily that

the University’s overall high graduation rates still make a University degree a worthy investment.

“A family’s investment in a University of Michigan education is a good one,” Fitzgerald wrote. “A consistent 97 percent of students return for their sophomore year, and 92 percent graduate from our Ann Arbor campus within six years — among the best retention and graduation rates in the nation. These are positive proof points that we share often with prospective students and families.”

Joseph Aranoff, LSA sophomore, said the scandal revealed some of the illegal ways wealthy parents give their children advantages in the college process, but also said he doesn’t think these illegal methods do not reflect the majority of wealthy students at a university.

“I think everybody that’s here at this university deserves to be here, and if we’re judging

people of means and of wealth and making the assumption that they don’t deserve to be here because somehow their wealth is equivalent to a bribe, it’s a dangerous precedent,” Aronoff said. “Just because you have the means to attend a good university doesn’t negate the work you had to do to get there.”

Students also noted how the consideration of legacy status in admissions decisions favors students from wealthier backgrounds. A student is considered a legacy applicant if a member of their family is an alum of the University.

Fitzgerald wrote in an email interview with The Daily that while the University does take legacy status into account, that factor alone does not determine the admission of an applicant.

“The university also considers alumni ties, but it is not a primary factor in admissions decisions,” Fitzgerald wrote.

“Alumni ties can be a useful indicator of a student’s interest in the university.”

as a promotional event for Burns’ new book, “The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal.”

Barr asked Burns to define what diplomacy means to him and Burns started with a preliminary definition.

“Diplomacy is what we do to promote our interests and values abroad, to try and persuade other government to act in ways that are consistent with ours,” Burns said.

Burns attempted to clear up common misunderstandings about how diplomats work. “(There’s) the notion that diplomacy is just about talking nicely to people, or indulging foreign leadership — something that I think the president himself sometimes is guilty of — but the truth is, diplomacy is hard work,

and it’s about that persistence,” Burns said.

Much of the discussion centered around Burns’ reflections on prior administrations and how they handled international relations.

He described his work under the Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations within the Middle East, and emphasized that diplomacy can be a dangerous career. According to Burns, more American diplomats have died in the past several decades than military generals.

Burns shared what he observed to be important for a leader to succeed in international relations.

“You’re never going to get very far in effective diplomacy or effective foreign policy if you don’t have a vision, if you don’t a strategy, if you don’t (have) a

theory of what’s animating the international landscape, of what your own strengths are, and connecting ends to means,” Burns said. “You need to have that vision, and the best presidents and the best secretaries of state that I’ve seen and worked for have that.”

When discussing the tough decisions a diplomat has to make, Burns expressed regret in his role under then-Secretary of State Colin Powell regarding the choice to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

“Given all the sectarian differences and grievances and anger that that rigid and autocratic regime was sitting on, once you take that lid off, you could imagine some of the sectored and political consequences that would happen,” Burns said. “My greatest professional regret, as I say in the

book, is not acting more effectively to underscore those concerns.”

Burns criticized how President Donald Trump’s State Department handles international relations, noting how following a process can seem inefficient at times, but the absence of process is also troublesome.

“My concern in the current era and this administration is that I don’t really see any process,” Burns said. “Policy gets driven from tweet to tweet. I say that because we’ve been fortunate that as we’re almost two and a half years into this administration, and there hasn’t been a prolonged international crisis yet. Those are the moments when you need a process that’s disciplined.”

Barr asked Burns about his views on a variety of prevalent

international issues, including the country’s relationship with Russia, the Iran nuclear deal, the Syrian civil war and Saudi Arabia’s conflict with Yemen. Burns shared an anecdote from meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin on his first day as ambassador to the country.

“In your first meeting (as an ambassador), you present your credentials,” Burns said. “Before I can hand him my letter (of credentials), President Putin saunters forward and says, ‘You Americans need to listen more.

You can’t have everything your own way anymore. We can have effective relations, but not just on your terms.’”

was the lines of communication and the misinformation that were being spread through the event.”

Argha responded to the question by stating the University community needs to take steps to ensure responders get to an emergency situation as quickly as possible. He then connected this issue to a bigger dilemma on campus regarding the lack of diversity.

“Diversity is a big issue in the University of Michigan, and at the same time, while we are the leaders and the best, we are not the leaders and the best when it comes to diversity,” Argha said. “That is an issue we should all work to resolve, and that comes with working with CSG and the administration …”

In light of the Climate Strike at the University on March 15, candidates also discussed their platform on sustainability and climate change on campus. Argha hopes to implement an initiative titled “Ban the Bottle” in which he would like to ban all plastic water bottles on campus.

“One of my main efforts is also to ‘Ban the Bottle’,” Argha said.

“Banning plastic bottles on campus, while it may seem like a small step, increases student awareness and brings all students together to increase sustainability efforts in our community, and at the same time, it is part of a much bigger plan and a much bigger structure.”

Gerstein hopes to address issues of climate change and sustainability long term by integrating a fiveyear sustainability plan. According to Engage Michigan, short-term, tangible solutions the party hopes to implement include providing a low-waste grocery shopping guide and encouraging students to not buy plastic bottles.

“We can work to incentivize

students to not buy plastic bottles and working towards eventually becoming a plastic-free campus,” Gerstein said. “But ultimately, I think the crux of our sustainability platform is working with the student body and the students most invested in this issue to find a comprehensive solution we can present to the administration that puts our university on the track for positive sustainability in five years.”

Additionally, candidates discussed how, if elected, they would handle Title IX issues on campus. At last week’s CSG Student Assembly meeting, students voiced concerns regarding the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling the University must provide the chance for the accused party to cross-examine the accuser.

Furthermore, current CSG President Daniel Greene, along with Shamina Merchant, Ohio State University’s student body president, recently sent a letter to U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos voicing concerns regarding the Department of Education’s recently proposed Title IX regulations.

Gerstein answered by stating Engage Michigan believes and stands by survivors. He said he hopes to consult organizations such as the Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center and Office of Student Conflict Resolution to create an environment supportive of survivors.

“We need to make sure we’re consulting relative campus organizations like SAPAC and OSCR and partnering with them on the support of this issue,” Gerstein said.

“Overall, the great thing about how we should approach issues of sexual misconduct and, specifically, this cross-examination policy, is trying to create an environment most

conducive to supporting survivors and allowing them to feel comfortable and safe at this University.”

Argha discussed placing resources like SAPAC and the Spectrum Center on the Michigan app as well as incorporating these resources into freshman orientation. He also hopes to change the mentality of sexual harassment on campus by working with other student organizations and does not believe the University should turn into a courtroom when dealing with Title IX issues.

“Many students at the University of Michigan have the Michigan app, but SAPAC’s hotline is not on there,” Argha said. “CAPS after-hours hotline is not on there. Let’s get them on there so when we need the help, we can get the help. I would also like to work with other organizations on campus to change our mentality of sexual harassment on campus.”

Later in the debate, Gerstein and Argha answered questions about racial equity and inclusion on campus. In a University of South California report on racial equity at public universities, the University received an F in racial equity.

Candidates discussed the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion on campus as a whole.

Argha discusses how his identity, as someone who grew up in Bangladesh, has impacted his time at Michigan and encouraged the creation of an annual multi-cultural event.

“It is not enough for the University and our community to want more diversity,” Argha said. “We need to celebrate diversity in our community, and CSG must play an active role. … I would like to push for more cultural events, at least one every year where different organizations can come together and put on performances

history of affordable housing conversations, excuses like these are often used to shut down these developments.

“I can understand if (the dioxane plume) is a genuine concern that they may have,” Schandevel said. “My only fear is that I’ve witnessed other conversations about affordable units and there are a lot of excuses made by community members that may be disingenuous because they don’t want ‘those people’ near their community, so I think that’s something that we have to keep in mind.”

Following the discussion of affordable housing, the council

moved onto a vote to confirm the nominations to the Independent Community Police Oversight Commission. The commission has been an ongoing concern in City Council meetings since January 2018, when the Human Rights Commission called for increased accountability and transparency from the Ann Arbor Police Department in response to incidents linked to police brutality, most notably the shooting of Aura Rosser by an Ann Arbor police officer and the rough arrest of Ciaeem Slaton by Ann Arbor police officers at the Blake Transit Center.

Since the initial call for

increased oversight, City Council created a task force in March 2018 to develop a police oversight commission.

Throughout the development of the commission, councilmembers and citizens alike have argued over the appointment of commission members and the agency of the commission.

After months of contentious discussion, on March 11, City Council announced the names of those nominated to the Independent Community Police Oversight Commission. They voted Monday to confirm the appointees of the commission.

The confirmation was passed

and share ideas and educate our whole community.”

Gerstein understands the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion. According to Gerstein, the students of color resolution mandates CSG representatives attend student of color organization meetings once per month.

“From those smaller initiatives, we allow the greater Michigan community to understand the perspectives and experiences of students of color and other marginalized students at the University, and can work through that understanding, to understand the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion on our campus as a whole,” Gerstein said.

After a five-minute break, debate resumed with a town hall with Blanchard, the only vice-presidential candidate running this year.

One of the questions the moderators asked Blanchard pertained to the lack of diversity within CSG itself. The December 2018 CSG demographic report revealed nearly 60 percent of representatives identified as white. Blanchard responded by acknowledging the statistic and expanding upon how to diversify.

“I think there’s definitely an issue with demographics of CSG,” Blanchard said. “I think especially for low socioeconomic-status students, this is definitely an issue prevalent for them. I think there is a lot of work that needs to be done, and I think the first step to that is really talking to these students who feel that they are facing these issues to gain more insight.”

Moderators further questioned Blanchard about affordability on campus. Blanchard explained the importance of affordability in regards to tuition but explains that there are

even with community concerns and audience interruptions.

Sargeant DonovanSmith, a doctoral student in anthropology and history at the University of Michigan, continually raised concerns during City Council about the transparency of the selection process. Many of DonovanSmith’s comments were directed at Councilmember Jane Lumm, I-Ward 2.

“Why did you nominate someone who works for McKinley Properties?”

Donovan asked. “Someone who has systematically discriminated against formerly incarcerated people in Ann

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

other areas of affordability that should be addressed as well. Specifically, she touched upon academic affordability by increasing resources in the library and subsidizing homework access codes and food affordability.

“I think there’s also food affordability issues that were mentioned before, and I think increasing public microwaves on campus is an indirect solution to the problem where it helps encourage and allow students to bring their own food from home, rather than having to buy food from campus,” Blanchard said.

To end of both the presidential and vice-presidential debates, Kall asked each candidate to express something complimentary about their opponent and talk about how they look forward to working with their opponent in the future if they do not win the election.

Argha was selected to respond first, stating a common goal of bettering the University.

“I’ve spoken to Ben, I met with Isabelle, and I love that you guys are running such a great campaign. You have a beautiful website and I love the platform that you’re running on to get Michigan involved, and that is one of the main steps towards making Michigan beautiful just the way it is.”

Gerstein complemented Argha on his candidacy and hopes to improve the Michigan experience together.

“Shub, I want to compliment you on running as a first-year student and caring so much about the needs of this university and the needs of the students.” Gerstein said. “Regardless of whether I win or not, I look forward to continuing to advocate for our platform and continuing to make the Michigan experience better for every student, regardless of their identity.”

Arbor? Tell us how these people are qualified.”

Mayor Christopher Taylor said he is proud of the commission that was chosen.

The members were nominated by by Councilmembers Julie Grand, D-Ward 3; Ali Ramlawi, D-Ward 5; Elizabeth Nelson, D-Ward 4; and Lumm.

“We strove to work with staff to find something that was both practical for their purposes and for councilmembers,” Taylor said. “No system is perfect.

From my part, I’m comfortable with the core picks and the tryit-out basis. In six months, if it’s a disaster, then we’ll either know it or they’ll tell us.”

Opinion

4 — Tuesday, March 19, 2019

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

EKATERINA MAKHNINA | LETTER TO THE EDITOR

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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.

TIMOTHY SPURLIN | COLUMN

M

Protect our parks

ost, if not all, of my efforts to relocate and remove favorite memories in them.” The establishment of my entire Yosemite drove out life take place inside the Ahwahneechee a national park. people who had There was the time inhabited the land I climbed a 14,000for thousands of foot mountain years prior. located in a national This is just one forest in Colorado, example in a laundry or the time I spent list of injustices multiple days carried out against TIMOTHY indigenous nations hiking in beautiful SPURLIN by the United Zion National Park in Utah. One of my States government most surreal experiences throughout history. It is occurred laying on a beach important to include this part in Acadia National Park in of the narrative when talking Maine, staring up at more about the national parks. stars than I had ever seen Current campaigns like Stop at one time, connecting the Con are aimed at raising them to form constellations awareness around issues and seeing the Milky Way involving conservation and shine brilliantly across the indigenous people globally. The expansive night sky. My parks are beautiful monuments times in the national parks to nature that millions of are what have driven my Americans enjoy every year, but passion for the outdoors and to disregard their complicated my relationship with the past would be irresponsible. environment. It is difficult to see these places and not leave with a profound discovered respect for the natural world.

This is not a unique sentiment.

The national parks are visited each year by hundreds of millions. Summer is one of the most popular times for the parks, especially among students looking for a more adventurous summer break than the typical beach trip.

There is no doubt Recently, President Donald that today the National Trump’s administration Park Service is one of the surprised many by signing an most beloved and enjoyed expansive public lands bill government agencies and is that actually expanded the often something supported by amount of protected land and both major parties. The first permanently reauthorized the national park was Yellowstone Land and Water Conservation in Montana and Wyoming, Fund, which supports efforts established in 1872. It wasn’t to conserve and promote until Woodrow Wilson came outdoor recreation nationwide. around that the National Park Environmentalists hailed Service was created under the this as a major victory in “Organic Act” in 1916. an administration that has Before going further, I feel historically championed it is important to talk about slashing as much something often overlooked environmental regulation as in the history of the national possible. National Geographic parks: the indigenous keeps a comprehensive people who inhabited the running list of how the land. Parks such as Glacier, president is affecting the Badlands, Mesa Verde, the environment, and it is mostly Grand Canyon and Death all bad news. Could this Valley were, as an article by be a turning point for the Hanne Elisabeth Tidnam in president?

Medium describes, “taken Unfortunately, it doesn’t from the Native American look like this is the case. communities that lived within President Donald Trump them as part of the United released the Department of States government’s larger the Interior’s Fiscal Year 2020

We collectively need to do a better job of caring for these lands

budget this week, and it deals devastating blows to public lands and the national parks.

Thankfully, as Wes Siler for Outside said, “the president does not set the official budget — Congress does.”

While it is extremely unlikely that this version of the budget ever gets passed, it still highlights where the current administration’s priorities lie.

All of this comes just a few months after the longest government shutdown in history, which left many of our beloved national parks unprotected for days — if not weeks — on end. During the shutdown, many of the parks suffered damages as staffing was drastically reduced.

Joshua Tree in California, for example, suffered damages to its ecosystem that could remain for over 300 years as vandals came and cut down the protected trees from which the park gets its name.

Headlines like these are extremely concerning to those who value the parks.

What can be done?

By all means, I highly encourage traveling to national parks.

Michigan is actually home to a few nationally protected areas such as Pictured Rocks, Isle Royale, and the Sleeping Bear Dunes, which are each breathtaking in their own way. But we collectively need to do a better job of caring for these lands and treating them with respect. That means recognizing their complicated history and actively cherishing the land. It also means providing adequate funding for conservation and maintenance needs.

If you do find yourself traveling to one or multiple locations in the future, it is crucially important to be mindful of your surroundings and take care to not disturb the environment around you.

As the old saying goes: “Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints, and kill nothing but time.” In line with its original directive, we need to make sure to leave the parks unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.

Timothy Spurlin can be reached at timrspur@umich.edu.

I

Communicating through crisis

am writing in response to The Michigan Daily’s coverage of the incident on Saturday. While I really appreciated the care and sensitivity with which the writers approached this topic, as well as the discussions of the ways the incident particularly affected Muslim and minority students, I have to take issue with one detail — the way The Daily presented the role of word-of-mouth information during the events. While

misinformation and the spread of rumors should, of course, generally be discouraged and in this particular case such rumors did more harm than good, I don’t think it is wise to discourage students from texting their peers and friends during potentially dangerous situations. In the absence of official news, which, like all sources of human knowledge, is fallible, these fleeting rumors and texts are all we have. On Saturday we didn’t need them,

and now we condemn them. But imagine a day when we do — ­ when there is a real dangerous situation and official sources are not responding. Word-ofmouth information, despite its easy and frequent misuse, could mean life or death in a real active shooter situation.

As the famous proverb says, better safe than sorry — ­ and better confused and scared than dead.

Ekeaterina Makhnina is a freshman at the University.

SUBMIT TO OPINION ABOUT THE EVENTS ON SATURDAY

If you felt impacted by the circumstances surrounding the false reports of a shooting on Saturday, we encourage you to submit an Op-Ed to The Michigan Daily. You can send any writing to Joel Danilewitz (joeldan@umich.edu) and Magdalena Mihaylova (mmihaylo@umich.edu).

SAMANTHA SZUHAJ | COLUMN

I

Disconnecting to combat distraction

cannot pay attention. was always, “Live in the In an age in which moment” — and she was we are so thoroughly right. Due to the reality that interconnected, there is my brain is consistently always something else to do. multi-tasking, I cannot fully Something to read, appreciate what is to look up, to watch, going on around to communicate me.

— there is always Within the something.

Being last few months, forthright, while I came to the writing this, I determination that probably checked my taking a social phone, went on social media hiatus would media and worked cut back on my on an assignment. SAMANTHA technolog y usage With information and allow for me SZUHAJ so accessible, to participate more constant distraction feels fully in what is happening inevitable. This inability to in the present, instead of entirely devote my attention viewing life through edited to something for an extended squares and filtered posts. period of time has only While this worked for some gotten worse and this lack of time, my dependence on not discipline has seeped into all necessarily just my phone, aspects of my life. but access to distraction, Family gatherings, remains. I still use my phone hanging out with friends, just as often as I would have class — the dynamics of how beforehand, maybe just we interact are different given approaching social media that almost everyone has with more of a second thought access to devices that allow than before. them to divert their attention elsewhere. It is one thing to look up further information How can I live more in on something in class. It is another thing entirely to miss the moment and move out on what is happening past this persistent around you.

This sounds like something need to always be that may have an easy solution — simply just putting one’s doing something? laptop away or phone down should do the trick. But in a society in which we are so dependent on technolog y, is that even really feasible? I This leads me to pose the have, along with many college question: How can I live more students, become entirely too in the moment and move accustomed to living with the past this persistent need to ability to access information always be doing something? whenever and wherever I Can I, with the prevalence want and a transition away of interconnectedness, take from such could prove a step back and just be? I do difficult. not know. I could put my My struggle to pay phone away, use it less or attention has taken away my not bring my computer to ability to live in the moment. class as a means to ensure I Growing up, my mom’s pay full attention, but would response to being on phones these disciplined choices be

drawbacks in a society in which usage of technolog y is almost expected?

With these resolutions come the fear that, without technolog y, I will fall behind.

I will not be caught up on the latest piece of news, what is going on with friends or family or even the weather.

I will not be fully equipped to manage my day-to-day without the possibility to be efficient and juggle the differing expectations. This anxiety that I could always be doing something else takes away from focusing on one thing and doing it well.

While I understand this might not pose an issue for everyone, many of us seem to live in this frantic manner in which technolog y is an omniscient presence — an accessory to our being. This has caused a counteraction, with many, some ironically on social media, saying that they are going to “unplug.” This movement away has become in vog ue, but is it possible?

Moving forward, living in the moment will be a priority.

I can do so much more if I fig ure out how to silence the noise of constant distraction or the temptation to check my phone in class or at work.

I can be without having to think about the next thing.

I want to be able to sit and have a conversation, read a book or finish something for school without having the urge to try and accomplish numerous things at once. I want to be able to rid myself of the inability to be present that technolog y has created by firmly establishing myself within a sing ular moment.

I cannot pay attention — and maybe I should start by putting my phone down first.

Samantha Szuhaj can be reached at szuhajs@umich.edu.

SUBMIT TO SURVIVORS SPEAK The Opinion section has created a space in The Michigan Daily for first-person accounts of sexual assault and its corresponding personal, academic and legal implications. Submission information can be found at https://tinyurl.com/survivorsspeak2019.

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Letters should be fewer than 300 words while op-eds should be 550 to 850 words. Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to tothedaily@michigandaily.com.

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Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Tuesday, March 19, 2019 — 5

FILM REVIEW

MUSIC REVIEW

NETFLIX

BMO RIGHTS MANAGEMENT

‘Triple Frontier’ is a bad Karen O/Danger Mouse romp full of testosterone collab is fresh, invigorating SAMANTHA NELSON Daily Arts Writer

I can appreciate the old-timey charm of “The Sting,” the wit and absolute hilarity of “Snatch” and even the sub-par jokes in “Tower Heist.” That said, there is secret sauce to any heist movie, an imperative ingredient without which the plotline will inevitably fall flat. So, what makes a heist movie solid? It isn’t really about the heist at all. It’s about the characters.

Unfortunately, “Triple Frontier” doesn’t follow this golden rule from the heist handbook.

Though stacked with a starstudded cast and a potentiallyintriguing storyline, Netflix’s latest release only manages to offer guns, brawny men, money and more guns, failing to include any relationship development, humor or substantial flavor.

The film begins in classic-heist fashion, with a group of ex-Special Forces operatives reuniting with the shared motive of filling their wallets. Leader of the pack Santiago (Oscar Isaac, “Ex Machina”) reveals his intentions to rob a high-profile, South American cocaine lord, Lorena, who is known to be swimming in money. Though not without coaxing, Santiago manages to convince former operatives and friends to put their honored reputations as war heroes on the line and embark on the ultimate heist, for a shot at the massive jackpot. However, Santiago and company quickly find themselves in for more than they bargained for, when their swift plan to get the money, take out Lorena and split goes awry. In short, the men soon find themselves on a nightmarishly long journey across South

America, racking up a troubling body count and falling under the dangerous spell of greed.

In order to care about an elaborate plan to finesse the system and finagle millions of dollars, we first have to care about who is doing the finessing and finagling. While the film is chalk full of talented actors like Ben Affleck (“Justice League”), Charlie Hunnam (“A Million Little Pieces”) and Pedro Pascal (“If Beale Street Could Talk”), through such weak dialogue and little to no background, there is no real inclination to invest in these men or their operation. The link between the five men behind the heist is clear: They are all buddies from their back-in-the-day military careers. But the existence of this link alone isn’t enough to convince us of the emotions and friendship between the characters. Aside from scenes

Triple Frontier Netflix

of them shooting or being shot at, the only other interactions between the men revolve around drinking or having dull conversations. Though the film’s use of five central characters has opportunity for development, (i.e. establishing one member of the gang as the funny one, another as the cynic and so on) by not taking the time to thoroughly distinguish each character’s personality, they become interchangeable and awkwardly all morph into one.

Along with its overall lack of life-blood, the film’s portrayal of gender and masculinity is frustrating. The level of

testosterone in “Triple Frontier” is so high that it practically radiates through the screen.

Yes, guns and dollar-bills are quintessential staples in any heist flick, but that doesn’t mean either should be treated with the same importance as the characters themselves. The very fact that filmmakers include entire scenes of money being burned or dramatically flying in the wind, but cannot manage to create semi-entertaining character conversations or connections, is undeniably problematic.

Further, throughout the film there are quips about Santiago’s informant Yovanna (Adria Arjona “Pacific Rim: Uprising”), a beautiful woman in need of his help rescuing her brother from police captivity. Without fail, the other men consistently bring up Santiago’s “girlfriend,” boyishly aiming to tease him (and successfully irritating us). The film’s reiteration of Yovanna’s looks and hints at an underlying chemistry between her and Santiago, despite her minimal screen time and lines, is a tired and weak attempt to slap a sidestory onto the already poor main plotline. Quite simply, we needed more from the film, but a poorly constructed romance wasn’t it.

“Triple Frontier” was not doomed from the start. The film could have adhered both to genre conventions like money, weapons and long-lost friendships, while still crafting an element of originality through fun character personas.

But instead, it relies entirely on the former and does nothing to create the latter. By not fully utilizing its talented cast and focusing too heavily on the heist framework, the movie loses itself and its viewers.

MADELEINE GANNON Daily Arts Writer

Once upon a time, there was Karen O, frontwoman for the early 2000s rock band, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. There was also hip-hop artist turned music producer Danger Mouse.

One day, they decided to unite their respective powers to gift humanity the ultimate musical collaboration of 2019 (thus far): Lux Prima.

Lux Prima, at its core, is a story. Together, Karen O and Danger Mouse weave together dreams, presenting an album which is fluid, authentic and unbound by any limitations.

The nine-track album is characterized by seamless transitions and natural progressions.

The title track “Lux Prima” opens softly, slowly warming up like the introduction to a good book, or drowsily climbing from slumber on a Sunday morning.

The track is long, nearing eight minutes, but it never feels overdone.

The surreal echoes of the “Lux Prima” envelope the listener like a warm breeze — all at once sad, comforting and hopeful. Vocals are minimal for the majority of the song, instead emphasizing the dreamlike atmosphere of the track. One feels almost as if they’re drifting aimlessly along a lazy river.

Then, Karen O and Danger Mouse take the audience for an unexpected but very welcome spin. As the track nears on minute three, where most songs would usually come to an end, the electronic ambiance fades out, replaced by steady drum beat. It’s as if O and Danger

Mouse have shifted gears, or flipped on a new track. It is a song hidden within a song — a plot twist that could rival the best of ABC’s Thursday night television lineup. Then, by the six-minute mark the song abruptly transitions back to the same soft sound waves of the introduction, but rather than falling to an end the track ramps up for the rest of this powerhouse album.

The following tracks “Ministry” and “Turn the Light” are good, but largely unremarkable on their own. Rather, they are more important in the context of the album, building the momentum to the album’s climax: “Woman” and “Redeemer.”

“Woman” is the highlight of the album — and the song is everything it should be with a name like that. Powerful,

Lux Prima Karen O & Danger Mouse BMO Rights Management

strong and dominant, O comes roaring in with a distinct surge of energy. The song feels like an assertion of her identity and womanhood. It’s the type of unapologetic, sassy, foottapping song that you can’t help but rock out to. “Woman” easily steals the thunder of the album. And unlike the beginning of the album, the song is more grounded, more human. “Redeemer” continues the momentum of “Woman,” still powerful but grittier. It feels as if Karen O and Danger

Mouse have awoken both themselves and the listener from the distant dreams of the opening “Lux Prima.”

The album slowly winds down from its climax of “Woman” and “Redeemer,” symbolic of how the story woven together by Karen O and Danger House is slowly coming to an end. “Leopard’s Tongue” is notable for the subtle, exotic tone of the bass beat (vaguely reminiscent of Mayssa Karaa’s “White Rabbit”).

“Nox Lumina” rounds out the album as an appropriate end to this refreshingly unusual story.

Starting soft and then growing fuller, the ending track is noticeably more somber, and just a touch ominous.

Karen O and Danger Mouse’s album collaboration is fantastic not because the songs are engaging (which they are) or for good lyrics (all together haunting, energetic and hypnotizing), but because the album seemingly breaks all the rules.

Together, these two artists found a way to find some much desired originality without compromising their authenticity.

Together, Karen O and Danger Mouse created something new, beautiful and unexpected. The nontraditional structure of tracks like “Lux Prima” and “Nox Lumina” keeps the listener on their toes, eradicating the boredom accompanied by the lackluster effect of drawn-out albums. Meanwhile the storyarc design of the album keeps the music grounded amidst the rabbit-hole of Karen O’s enchanting vocals. Simply put, Lux Prima is invigorating for those weary of all things cookie-cutter.

BOOK REVIEW

Horrified and elated: Professional wrestling literature MIRIAM FRANCISCO Daily Arts Writer

This week the book review will be featuring works from Gimmick Press, a independent publisher of niche literature and art based in Plymouth, Michigan. Gimmick was established in 2015 by Josh Olsen and Katie MacDonald with a commitment to diversity and inclusion of both subject matter and voice throughout all aspects of their work. Gimmick publishes digitally through “Worthless Treasures” and calls for printed chapbook and anthology submissions throughout the year. They’re currently accepting submissions for an anthology of creative nonfiction about pop culture obsessions.

“Three-Way Dance,” a collaborative effort combining work by Michael Chin, Frankie Metro and Brian Rosenbacher, is a collection of creative work on professional wrestling. This singularity is not particularly rare; there are lots of onlyone-on-this-topic books, and the professional wrestling niche is practically its own genre. The onslaught of books about very specific subjects (historically significant beverages, insomnia, dirt, the

evolution of houses) usually sits comfortably in nonfiction, but “Three-Way Dance” entirely shuns jovial didacticism. This is no Bill Bryson romp through the glut of WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. Stay with me) — it’s Allen Ginsberg as a Reddit poet, “Fight Club” starring “Arrested Development” era Michael Cera, a fully plausible analogy for the palatial scale of absurdity in American life.

Like professional wrestling itself, the collection is cheesy and heartbreaking, true but not real.

For those who are unfamiliar, professional wrestling is an orchestrated performance: a match whose outcome is decided beforehand, whose every move is predetermined and practiced. Fight becomes theater, thrill, spectacle, a concertina of pain (real, manufactured) and glory (the same) packaged for maximum entertainment. WWE is the biggest professional wrestling corporation in the United States. It’s a conglomerate that includes a film production wing (animated and live action), a publishing sector for biographies and calendars, a f leet of private jets and even

a music studio that releases albums of entrance music as well as songs sung by wrestlers (John Cena’s “You Can’t See Me,” for example). I say this because it’s important to understand the giddy, unhinged hugeness of WWE, the enormous size and scope of its excesses.

Neither informative nor

“Fritz Von Erich wasn’t a Nazi soldier, but he played one in the ring in the 1960s,” writes Chin in “The Family Trade.”

What a way to start a poem!

The whole book is shot through with a sense of the surreal: “Was it that you were the first white dude I ever saw wearing a do-rag, a fashion plate / Before your time, well before

Three-Way Dance Michael Chin, Frankie Metro and Brian Rosenbacher Gimmick Press 2017

consistently beautiful, “ThreeWay Dance” is simply weird.

What’s so captivating about the collection is the exhausting comprehensiveness of the authors’ infatuation with a wacko slice of American culture, this overlooked world of violent dramaturgy and faithful spectatorship.

Hulkmania, and I can’t believe your fuzzy boots never / Caught on with the mainstream,” Rosenbacher writes.

For Chyna, one of the only female professional wrestlers, Chin writes an ode: “You signed a new contract. This time with Red Light District Video. A distributor for your homemade

sex tape. They called it, ‘One Night in China.’”

In “Todo Lo Malo,” Metro writes, “It seemed only right to take a pound of f lesh as a souvenir, maybe not a full pound, thought El Matarife, as he commenced to digging at the boy’s right eye and finally removing it, tossing it into the horrified/elated crowd.”

Split into three distinct sections by author, “ThreeWay Dance” never feels cohesive or purposeful. The jarring differences between the authors’ styles and formats pushes the book into dangerous territory; meaning is often obscured in exchange for unsatisfying simplicity or confusing distortion. This would be more of a problem if professional wrestling didn’t offer up so many incredible tidbits, so much rich material to be transformed.

Luckily, WWE has nearly everything: gender, childhood obsessions, money, sex, consumption, race. Facades of control, appearances, histories.

You watch knowing the fight is a sham, that it’s made up, but your eyes insist this must be real: the contact of face on mat, fist on face, teeth forced into gums and bones into

muscle. It’s love, death, failure, opulence. It’s all fake.

“Three-Way Dance” is unafraid of these contradictions.

Instead, Chin, Metro and Rosenbacher embrace the ways professional wrestling presents a version of the world and then immediately negates it. The book is a tempest, directionless and unpredictable, and within that mess sentences often jump out for their succinct loveliness.

Rosenbacher, in “O is for Ole Anderson and Ox Baker”: “2nd best bet – Ox Baker’s heart punch. / It landscapes cemeteries.”

A heart punch, landscaping cemeteries: what a startling gem in a jumble of truly mediocre poetry. This book is full of awful lines (“It is in falling that we might rise,” Chin writes in “The Falls”), but when it’s good, it’s good. Which is sort of like wrestling, in a way. When it’s bad, when you see through it, when the fight is boring, you’re reminded of the falseness of the whole enterprise. But when it’s good the fight takes on an eternal drama, something that (like literature) both requires and rewards faithful attention.

“Like Icarus who dared to touch the Sun / Like Icarus who dared to burn too brightly.”

Arts

6 — Tuesday, March 19, 2019

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

DAILY FOOD COLUMN

VIDEO GAME REVIEW

South African cuisine ELI RALLO

Daily Food Columnist

In South Africa, french fries are called hot chips.

Of all the incredible lessons I learned in my 12 days on a theatre culture exchange in Johannesburg, South Africa, one of the most interesting and lasting is rooted in a common South African culinary staple — hot chips. When I look back on the past two weeks, when the world took my life as its own and completely spun it around and around, shaking my perspective, I reflect on the people I met who took part in sharing their stories with me. On the way home during my final moments in the continent, I had a lasting connection with a stranger about hot chips that really widened my perception of South African culture even further. Maybe the lesson I learned about the name we give fried potatoes was about more than just potatoes.

Maybe it was about subliminal differences embedded in our striking similarities. Maybe it was about the universality of humanity that I’d found and recognized in so many people, in so many moments, in so many cracks in the surface of such an incredible country.

The first time I came in contact with hot chips was when I ordered dinner on our very first night in Johannesburg, jetlagged and under the warm African sun. The waiter asked me if I wanted a side of hot chips or mieliepap, which is commonly known as “pap.” Mieliepap, I learned, is a type of cornmeal porridge typically served as a side dish to meats and curries, and, to my excitement, is gluten free. However, on our first night, before I got to know the culture a bit more, I took the safe route and opted for hot chips, picturing a plate piled high with warmed up Lay’s potato chips. As you can probably assume, my expectation for warm Lay’s chips was not met when my meal was served. Let’s blame my misconception on exhaustion.

It hit me when my meal was set in front of me that a mix of ignorance and my American identity fueled the image I created of hot chips in my mind.

Hot chips in South Africa are essentially the equivalent of American french fries. However, many differences are hidden below the surface. Not only was this my first meal in Africa, it was also my first realization that I was across the world, in a country where culture, colloquialisms and social cues would be completely different from those of America.

The name “chips” makes sense historically because South Africa was colonized by British rule in the 1800s, and the British refer to french fries as “chips” and potato chips as “crisps.” The food in South Africa is an amalgamation of flavors that emerged from waves of colonization and immigration from folks of Dutch, Italian, Greek and British origin in the 1800s. Much of the food additionally has Indonesian, Portuguese and Mozambican influence, and the culinary scene has developed into a melting pot of different cultures and traditions. Some popular ingredients and dishes include chicken wings and fried chicken, seasoned with piri piri sauce, malva pudding (a sweet spongy apricot pudding), ostrich pate (which I was not adventurous enough to try), pumpkin fritters and fish and chips. Fish and chips is a widely popular dish in South Africa and all over the United Kingdom. Nomenclature aside, chips and french fries are the same thing, right? If you’d told me before ordering, I would’ve thought that the gloriously golden, unhealthy slices of fried potato can’t vary too much from place to place. This is not unlike how I never realized that much of our American culture would be vastly incongruent with South African culture, despite the fact that we have commonalities through the English language. It took traveling all the way across the world to come face to face with a realization that, while I think I may understand another country, I can never truly know a reality until I meet it face to face.

In South Africa, hot chips can be compared to American steak fries — a thicker cut potato with a lighter fry and a center that tastes more like a baked potato than a french fry. Still, they can’t fully be compared to American steak fries, due to unique

seasoning, how they’re served and how often you can find them. First and foremost, hot or “slap” chips (the Afrikaans name for french fries) are normally covered in salt and vinegar, or a dusting of cajun seasoning.

Rarely are they found without some sort of added flavor. They’re much larger and softer than the french fries we’re used to in the United States, fried lightly with a fresher taste. Hot chips can accompany nearly every entree and are found on every menu I encountered throughout my time in South Africa.

A scenario that sticks out prominently when thinking about hot chips is a fiasco I experienced in McDonald’s.

In South Africa, McDonald’s includes not only a vegan menu, veggie burgers and lime chocolate milkshakes, but also hot chips. I began to realize no menu in South Africa was quite complete without the staple “hot chips” listed under side dishes. On the menu, our favorite American fried delicacy is still labeled “french fries,” but to my shock, they actually taste like potatoes. I can’t put a finger on what American McDonald’s fries taste like, but in South Africa, something about them tastes … better. McDonald’s is generally known for its salty, thin, crispy french fries, hidden in the bottom of a white paper bag. However, in South Africa, this beloved side dish is thicker and slightly softer, and its flavor replicates the starchy vegetable from which it originates.

I spent many of my meals eating piri piri chicken wings and hot chips because, as a tourist who’d never been to Johannesburg, I was told to steer clear from any fresh vegetables and fruits that had been washed in water that could potentially not agree with my stomach. For a foodie who’d been ultimately thrilled at the prospect of trying new cuisine in South Africa, I was discouraged by the many internet articles and other tourists who advised me to be careful about what I was eating to avoid spending my week depressed and alone on the hotel toilet.

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Call: #734-418-4115 Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com

Release Date: Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

FOR RENT

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis DOWN 1 Wall and Bourbon: Abbr.

2 Kubrick’s out-ofcontrol computer 3 Dublin’s land: Abbr.

4 Faux ally 5 Proofer’s find 6 Bronchial woe 7 Capital of Tibet 8 Yank 9 Ace’s value, at times 10 They don’t like company 11 Taco truck allure 12 Calligrapher’s swirl 13 Wedding reception highlight 18 Mouth off to 21 Visibly healed, as skin 22 Advice to sinners 23 Messing of “Will & Grace” 24 Restaurant survey creator 26 Lexi Thompson’s sports org.

27 Sainted fifthcentury pope

29 Mythical horned equine 32 Cards with pics 33 Amazon Echo’s assistant 34 Mosque toppers 35 Narc’s discovery 38 Cookware items 39 AFB truant 44 Calls it off 45 Ready to drive, as a golf ball 46 Figures of speech 47 Hard-to-miss sign

48 Value 49 Hawaiian hi 50 Romanov royals 51 “__ shoe fits ... ” 55 Use a wrecking ball on 57 In favor of 58 Former Mideast org.

59 Embroidered pronoun 60 World Cup shout 61 Jazzman Montgomery

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

By Gail Grabowski and Bruce Venzke ©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Bioware stumbles with profit-hungry ‘Anthem’ ELI LUSTIG

Daily Arts Writer

The rage of gamers is a force powerful enough to plummet sales, topple studio executives and make some game publishers file for bankruptcy. So, when “Anthem,” an experience hyped up to be so good it would pacify the screams of every dissatisfied gamer, actually turned out to be trash, anger ignited like never before. The failure of “Anthem” is the most recent instance in a long history of studios promising an experience that their game doesn’t deliver on.

To provide some background, “Anthem” is an online shooter-looter where the player inhabits an Iron Man-like mechanical suit on a distant planet populated by aliens and monsters. The game was developed by Bioware and published by Electronic Arts.

The truth is there are redeeming qualities to “Anthem”: The combat is engaging, the graphics are polished and the flight mechanics are responsive. However, when you’re a studio like Bioware whose past projects include Game of The Year winning franchises like “Mass Effect,” you are held to a different standard. Like many great studios, Bioware succumbed to its hubris and expected gamers to swallow any explosion heavy sci-fi experience they could scrape up. Despite this, the failure of “Anthem” is not entirely Bioware’s fault. There is plenty of blame to go around, and while some

can be placed on the forces that were out of the studio’s control, some can also be pointed at bad experimentation by Bioware.

It should not be forgotten that “Anthem” was published by Electronic Arts. The video game colossus dominates the market and, therefore, has a powerful hand in dictating what its studios can and cannot do. It’s no secret

Anthem Bioware PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows

that Electronic Arts tries to squeeze profit out of every pixel in their games. Yet, in “Anthem,” this corporate greed translates into painfully annoying gameplay that frankly pisses people off. Not only are players constantly prompted to engage with “Anthem”’s microtransaction system (in-game purchases with real money), but the game feels like its purposely crafted to hold back content so the player either comes back at a later date or buys their fun with real money. If you take a look at pre-release footage of “Anthem,” the world looks vibrant, populated and dynamic. Once players got their hands on the actual game, it becomes very clear that the pitch that was sold to them was a lie, and most of the content was

withheld by Electronic Arts for monetization. It can never be known how much Electronic Arts had its fingers in the development of “Anthem,” however, it does give Bioware a little bit of absolution since Electronic Arts tends to ruin any games it senses could maybe become a cash cow.

Though Electronic Arts did have significant influence in the making of “Anthem,” at the end of the day, it was still Bioware’s game. In my opinion, Bioware tried to experiment with features that just aren’t their specialty and paid a steep price for it. Past projects like “Mass Effect” and “Dragon Age” have always had an emphasis on narrative, branching story arcs and multidimensional characters in addition to fun gameplay mechanics.

In “Anthem,” the story takes a backseat and puts multiplayer front and center. Bioware has never been known for it’s multiplayer and as a result, “Anthem” suffers for it. This isn’t to say multiplayer is a bad function to implement, but when you have a massive world and lots of emphasis on lore without a story to back it up, everything just seems flat. Accordingly, players are much less likely to stay, which in turn keeps multiplayer lobbies empty and renders the whole system useless.

The failure of “Anthem” is probably not the end of Bioware, but it’s definitely a wake-up call.

Unfortunately, Electronic Arts will still be the money machine, and “Anthem” will barely affect its profits.

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

Classifieds ACROSS 1 Factory work period 6 Choral part 10 Stand the test of time 14 Hang around 15 Deliberately avoid 16 Nabisco nibble 17 Period with dreams, e.g.

19 Screenwriter Ephron 20 __ Ark 21 Rest area array 22 Timber shaper 25 Subject of some weather advisories 28 Stars and Stripes squad 30 Soup spheres 31 Delivery doc 32 Movie lab assistant 33 App annoyances 36 Gp. that isn’t gun-shy 37 Apple tablet from 2013 to 2016 40 Real estate buy 41 Have some grub 42 Ranch grazers 43 Botanical swelling 45 Yellow Brick Road dog 46 Back-of-book lists 48 Summit Plummet at Disney World, for one 52 Bit of pageant attire 53 Fashionista Mary-Kate 54 Flowers, in Florence 56 Pothole’s place 57 Perform in the theater ... and what can be done to the end of 17-, 25-, 37- and 48-Across 62 Drive-__ window 63 Chicago mayor Emanuel 64 Scrabble 10-pointer 65 Diary securer 66 Vein yields 67 Several hairpin turns

BIOWARE

03/19/19

03/19/19

England meets Germany with London Philharmonia SAMMY SUSSMAN

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Daily Arts Writer

The London Philharmonia’s performance for the University Musical Society in Hill Auditorium this past Thursday was a tour de force in late-19thcentury German orchestral music. After a Tuesday night performance of conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen’s “Cello Concerto” and Stravinsky’s complete ballet version of “The Firebird,” the orchestra settled on two staples of the repertoire: Schoenberg’s “Verklärte Nacht” (“Transfigured Night”) and Bruckner’s “Symphony No. 7 in E Major.”

Few orchestras possess the broad dynamic range of the London Philharmonia. At the beginning of the “Verklärte Nacht,” the quiet end of the strings that were on display — the first few notes were just barely audible, seeming to grow out of the hushed, expectant silence that enveloped the hall. (“Verklärte Nacht” is written for string orchestra.)

From this quiet beginning, the piece quickly blossomed into an active, highly complex texture. Fragmented melodic lines in various keys were passed around the orchestra. At one point, a solo line was passed from the concertmaster to the principal second, then to the

principal viola and finally the principal cello. Had I closed my eyes, I would have no idea that the line was moving between instruments — the line moved seamlessly and effortlessly between instrumentalists.

One common pitfall in performances of “Verklärte Nacht” is the dissonance of the harmony, as it sometimes begins to overpower the searching, complex melodic textures that lie hidden under the surface. Yet at no point in this performance did I begin to feel as though the piece was losing momentum.

Salonen managed to keep the orchestra’s intensity intact, preserving a gradual crescendo over nearly 20 minutes of music, even as minor, local zeniths came and went.

Towards the end of the piece, Schoenberg returns to the tonal harmonies of his immediate predecessors and tonal contemporaries. Salonen chose to emphasize this return to tonality by slowing the tempo slightly, relaxing for a brief moment in unexpected triadic harmonies.

While I have listened to this piece many times before, this was a fresh take that I found interesting and oddly compelling, particularly given the Bruckner piece that followed. Though Schoenberg is normally viewed as a highly innovative serialist figure,

this performance made his music seem almost derivative in regards to that of Mahler, Bruckner, Wagner and other late-19th-century German composers. The opening of the piece had been highly dissonant; the ending was arresting and beautiful.

After the intermission, the strings returned to the stage with the percussion, brass and woodwind sections for Bruckner’s “Symphony No. 7 in E Major.” After the timbral simplicity of the first piece, the addition of these sections was a little overwhelming — I found myself reacting in shock to the volume and power of the first chord, goosebumps forming in reaction to an otherwise simple beginning.

This symphony, perhaps Bruckner’s most famous and successful orchestral work, is known for its lower brass parts, particularly the four Wagner tubas that he features prominently in the second movement. And in this performance, the orchestra did not disappoint. After a moving yet more restrained first movement, the lower brass upped the ante in their confident, commanding opening.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Sports

Tuesday, March 19, 2019 — 7

Full spring ahead

Spring practice opens: Jim Harbaugh gives Josh Gattis keys to offense, Shea Patterson at top of quarterback depth chart MAX MARCOVITCH Managing Sports Editor

Seventy-nine days after watching the thorough dismantlement of his team in the Peach Bowl against Florida — anchored by a listless offensive performance — Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh finally addressed the elephant in the metaphorical room of the offseason: the hiring of Josh Gattis as offensive coordinator.

And in doing so, Harbaugh offered resounding answers on the defining questions facing the program.

“He’s going to coordinate the offense and call the plays,” Harbaugh said, uttering 10 simple words that will read more like beautiful hymns to some fans.

Gattis was hired to run the offense after spending a year as the co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach at Alabama. Prior to that, Gattis spent four seasons at Penn State, two at Vanderbilt and one at both North Carolina and Western Michigan. It was during Gattis’ tenure in Kalamazoo — just over 100 miles west of Ann Arbor — that Harbaugh first heard about Gattis and his offensive prowess.

“The first time (I heard about Gattis) was … I heard from somebody or (former Western Michigan coach) Bill Cubit told me, when Josh was at Western Michigan. He had been there a month,” Harbaugh recalled. “Bill Cubit was introducing him to his son, or somebody, and said ‘Son, this is Coach Josh Gattis. Talk to him, get to know him, he’s not going to be around here very long.’

“The players he’s developed at each stop from there — Western Michigan, Vanderbilt, Penn State, Alabama — is eye-catching.”

And the list is long. From Dae’Sean Hamilton to Jordan Matthews to Jordan White — an All-American at Western Michigan in 2011 — to Jerry Jeudy, and plenty in between, Gattis has

shown a demonstrated ability to develop wide receivers. That should provide a boon to Donovan Peoples-Jones, Tarik Black and Nico Collins — arguably the most talented trio of receivers in the Big Ten. Now, Harbaugh and Michigan are making a sizeable investment in Gattis’ ability to translate those skills to an entire offense.

His hiring comes with the clear subtext of a sea change in Harbaugh’s tenure at Michigan.

Gattis, touting his mantra “Speed In Space” at every turn, brings apparent philosophical differences to Harbaugh’s traditional West Coach style. While it remains to be seen how profoundly different the offense will look next season, it’s no small matter that Harbaugh appears willing to cede the keys.

“I think the biggest difference that people will see will be the tempo,” Harbaugh said. “The tempo is more up-tempo, less huddle. That’ll be number one.”

Though tempo is inherently difficult to measure, Michigan averaged the 18th fewest possessions in 2018 at 12.25 per game. This, critics would argue, stems from an offense that was frequently too conservative with its abundance of weapons — an offense that was tied with Vanderbilt for 30th in the nation in yards per play, at 5.9.

But it seems Gattis will prioritize aggression from the jump.

“It’s got more of an attacking feel to the offense in terms of tempo, in terms of going downfield in the passing game and some other things, different personnel groups,” Harbaugh said. “It has that same feel that we’ve always done — multiple personnel groups, you know you’re attacking in that way.”

There’s an extent to which words will remain inherently hollow until next September. There are crumbs of evidence to suggest there is, indeed, substance behind the talk. For one, Harbaugh — a staunch advocate for the fullback

— admitted the position “will be used in short yardage and goal line situations, predominantly,” a potential sign of transition toward more spread looks. Former quarterback Wilton Speight intoned at Pro Day on Friday that, based on conversations he had with people around the program, the offense was shifting closer to the spread style Speight ran at UCLA under Chip Kelly.

“I actually think, after talking to people around here, they’re kind of moving in that direction, with Coach Gattis,” Speight said. “I can’t wait to watch that.”

The Wolverines return four starters along the offensive line, quarterback Shea Patterson and an array of talented weapons around them. Black, Collins and PeoplesJones, notably, could parlay big seasons into NFL contracts a year from now. In all, Michigan boasts perhaps the highest offensive potential in several years.

If that potential reaches fruition, the hire of Josh Gattis could be seen down the road as a pivot point in the Harbaugh era.

“We’re all working together,” Harbaugh said. “… He’s really good.”

MAX MARCOVITCH Managing Sports Editor

Coming off perhaps the most efficient season from a Michigan quarterback in over a decade — one in which he posted 2,600 yards passing, 22 touchdowns and 8.0 yards per attempt — Shea Patterson will return for his senior season as the presumptive starter.

Any development to the contrary would be downright stunning.

And yet, don’t expect any such declaration from Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh any time soon.

“Right now, Shea, Dylan (McCaffery), Joe (Milton) are all getting equal reps, and they’re all looking good,” Harbaugh said, diplomatically. “It’s a really good, talented quarterback room.

Brandon Peters, Cade McNamara getting in the mix. Mike Sessa is doing a really good job.”

Still short of breaking from his core tenant of incessant competition, Harbaugh offered rare insight into the quarterback depth chart as it stands today.

“Depth chart: Shea is No. 1, Dylan’s No. 2, Joe’s No. 3,” Harbaugh said, “and there’s no possible way Shea Patterson

will be able to put his feet up, in my opinion. They’ve got serious competition there with Dylan and Joe right now.”

“We’re not going to send each other Christmas cards” Harbaugh’s media availability Monday also provided his first chance to publicly express his sentiment toward the surprising departure of defensive line coach Greg Mattison to rival Ohio State. The 69-year-old Mattison joined the staff of new Ohio State coach Ryan Day as the Buckeyes’ new defensive coordinator after spending nine seasons on staff at Michigan.

Still cordial, Harbaugh didn’t hide his personal displeasure with the move.

“I wouldn’t say shocked — I was surprised, yeah. But he wanted to be a coordinator again. They darn near doubled his salary. I’m not going to hold that against him,” Harbaugh said. “We’re not going to send each other Christmas cards, based on where he went, but that’s how I feel and understand it.”

Mattison and linebackers coach Al Washington both bolted for Columbus in early January, each

leaving behind sizeable holes to fill on the defensive staff. In his time at Michigan, Mattison regularly produced high-caliber college players and NFL prospects. The list of elite players he’s developed includes five first- or second-team All-Big Ten selections along the defensive line, in Taco Charlton, Rashan Gary, Maurice Hurst, Chase Winovich and Chris Wormley. Shaun Nua and Anthony Campanile were hired as the defensive line and linebackers’ coaches, respectively, shortly after their departures. Washington’s departure will be felt most strongly on the recruiting trail, where Harbaugh credited him with making a serious impact in his year with the program.

Still, it’s Mattison’s move that will sting most, both for on and offfield reasons. With Mattison gone, Jay Harbaugh is now the only coach to be on staff for the entirety of Harbaugh’s tenure at Michigan.

“Still a good man,” Harbaugh said. “Still a ton of respect for him.

We’ll be friends again some day, when we’re both done coaching.”

New players in new spots Among the array of changes for Michigan this spring, there will be some new faces in new places on the field.

Harbaugh ran down a list of players trying out new positions in spring camp, including players operating at multiple positions.

Freshman Ben VanSumeran will transition from fullback to running back and linebacker, perpetuating the notion that the old-school fullback position will be de-emphasized with new offensive coordinator Josh Gattis calling plays. Freshman Hassan Haskins, who operated at both running back and VIPER this past season, will focus strictly at running back.

Read more online at MichiganDaily.com ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said Monday that offensive coordinator Josh Gattis will call plays for the Wolverines.

Beaubien becoming reliable reliever ‘M’ wears mustaches for a cause AIDAN WOUTAS Daily Sports Writer

KELSEY PEASE/Daily

Sophomore left-hander Meghan Beaubien is growing more comfortable in a relief-pitching role after early struggles.

AKUL VIJAYVARGIYA Daily Sports Writer

About a month ago, Meghan Beaubien looked more out of character than ever before.

In Michigan’s ACC/Big Ten Challenge matchup against North Carolina on Feb. 15, the sophomore left-hander took the circle during the bottom of the fifth.

With the score tied 3-3, Beaubien collapsed, giving up three hits, two walks and five earned runs. Michigan coach Carol Hutchins pulled her out in the same inning but the damage had already been done. The Wolverines proceeded to lose, 8-3.

“My biggest takeaway is definitely to let go of the results and the outcome and just focus on the process, just relaxing and playing our game,” Beaubien said two days after that performance.

Exactly one week later, Michigan trailed 2-1 against a formidable Stanford team.

During the bottom of the sixth, Hutchins wanted to give the Cardinal a different look, substituting freshman righthander Alex Storako out for the opposite-handed Beaubien.

The result: two hits, two walks, four earned runs, five batters faced in .1 innings

pitched.

However, when Beaubien started, it was much of the opposite. In her 12 starts so far, she has allowed more than two runs only twice.

Though Beaubien claimed that these multi-run innings were a result of mentally struggling in the circle, Hutchins thought it to be an issue with the speeds of her different pitches.

“We need to have a better off-speed pitch right now,” Hutchins said on Mar. 9. “That’s because when you’re a pitcher of (Beaubien’s) caliber, that’s a pitch that can really make you great. It’s been a pitch that’s been great for her. It’s been inconsistent this season.”

In the final non-conference series of the season against Kent State this past weekend, Beaubien had phenomenal outings as the starting pitcher for the first two games, allowing four hits without a walk or earned run in eight total innings.

But Beaubien’s biggest challenge of the weekend came toward the tail end of the weekend.

Holding a 3-1 lead in the top of the sixth during Sunday’s second game, Storako began to struggle. With two outs and two runners on base, she hit a batter which ended her night.

Hutchins, rather than turning to a fresher pitcher in sophomore right-hander Sarah Schaefer, turned to Beaubien with the bases loaded, trusting her to finish off the inning without letting the Golden Flashes inch back.

Beaubien attacked Kent State’s Brenna Brownfield, striking her out as she watched the ball hit senior catcher Katie Alexander’s glove – exactly what Hutchins had been asking for the entire season – ending the inning.

In the seventh, Beaubien forced a fly out while striking out Megan Turner and Kristyn Eckl with a mix of fastballs and offspeed pitches, earning her first save of her sophomore campaign and helping complete a sweep of the Golden Flashes.

Now, after three consecutive performances without giving up an earned run as a relief pitcher, including one against then-No. 9 Louisiana State, Beaubien is scorching. She’s found her swagger as a starter. But most of all, she’s started to mold into a reliable reliever as well.

And if the Wolverines have any plans for a conference championship, the pitchers will have to continue to attack and Beaubien knows well that she’ll be leading the pack.

In Michigan’s dominant homeopening series against Manhattan College, it might have been easy to miss the many Wolverines now donning mustaches.

It wasn’t just a way for players to stay warm after returning to Ann Arbor from their two sunny series in California and Florida. Michigan is taking part in “mustache March,” a campaign against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

The Wolverines are joining East Carolina and Memphis in growing out their mutsaches over the month to encourage donations to the ALS Association’s “Strike Out Lou Gehrig’s Disease” campaign.

This is Michigan’s first year taking part in the campaign, which originated at East Carolina four years ago. Michigan coach Erik Bakich has ties to East Carolina from both his playing and coaching career, which helped the mustache-growing effort take root in Ann Arbor.

East Carolina coach Clifford Godwin, who enlisted Bakich in the ALS campaign, looks back fondly on their years spent together playing in Greenville, North Carolina

“He is one of my best friends,” Godwin said. “Meeting him back in the fall of 1998, Erik a California kid and me an Eastern North Carolina kid – what people would probably consider a ‘country boy’ – at first we were just trying to feel each other out and see how those worlds mixed.

“At the end of the day, no matter what our different backgrounds were, we all loved one another because we just wanted to make EC baseball better.”

And that they did. Bakich and Godwin, along with current Michigan assistant coach Nick Schnabel, helped the Pirates win back-to-back conference championships in the 1999 and 2000 seasons and earn No. 1 seeds in NCAA Regionals both years.

The two reunited at Vanderbilt in 2004-05 as Godwin served as Director of Baseball Operations while Bakich was an assistant coach for the Commodores.

ALS is a meaningful cause in any case, but it carries personal significance for Bakich and Godwin. In their two seasons together as Pirates, the two coaches played under Keith LeClair, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2001 and later succumbed to the disease.

Memphis, meanwhile, is taking part because the father of a player passed away

from the disease last year.

“When our second baseman at the time proposed having a mustache March, I told him, ‘No way unless it’s for a great cause,’ ” Godwin said. “So, when he came into my office the next day proposing we do so in an effort to raise money for Lou Gehrig’s disease, I was completely on board.

“In the offseason I called up Erik to get Michigan baseball involved since he, Nick Schnabel and I played for Keith. Of course, he was happy to join. … The disease hits home for both of us.”

Last year, ECU and Memphis combined to raise over $10,000 to fight the disease. With the Wolverines involved this year, that total promises to be even higher.

“Our players are not only hoping to help raise awareness but also put some financial traction behind the good cause,” Bakich said. “Hopefully we can make a nice contribution.”

Beyond that, with the team quickly approaching the busiest stretch of its season, Bakich is also glad to have a source of levity.

“I don’t know how growing a mustache got picked,” he said.

“But in addition to helping a great cause, it’s certainly provided a little comic relief, too.”

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily

Michigan coach Erik Bakich adopted “mustache March” to raise awareness for Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

Sports

8 — Tuesday, March 19, 2019

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Michigan State sweep fuels Wolverines with tournament approaching ARIA GERSON

Daily Sports Writer

CHICAGO — Twenty minutes after Michigan looked on as confetti cannons burst and the United Center lit up in green and white, celebrating Michigan State as the Big Ten Tournament champions, the Wolverines were ushered to their selection show watch party.

Suddenly, the Michigan men’s basketball team had to switch gears to the NCAA Tournament. Cameras were trained on the Wolverines, ready to catch their reaction as their draw — a No. 2 seed playing Montana in Des Moines — was announced.

The announcement itself was anti-climactic. Michigan knew it would be in the tournament and though the Wolverines

stood and clapped while they were announced, they were devoid of the same energy as teams with undetermined fates — and teams that hadn’t just been dealt a crushing loss.

Back in the locker room afterwards, the mixed emotions collided.

Some players were sullen, refusing to even face reporters.

The ones that did simultaneously faced questions about what had gone wrong in Michigan’s third loss to its most bitter rival and questions looking ahead to March Madness.

But the answers to those two questions are connected.

“Here we are on Sunday and

we’re down,” said Michigan coach John Beilein. “We’re on to the NCAA Tournament and now we’ll see what we can do there and learn from what we did today.”

Before blowing their second title opportunity in two weeks, the Wolverines blew away both Iowa and Minnesota in earlier rounds of the Big Ten Tournament.

Neither of those teams is great — but both made the NCAA Tournament as No. 10 seeds, and Michigan hadn’t beaten a tournamentcaliber team so decisively since January.

Ask the players, and they’ll

We’ll see what we can do (at the NCAA Tournament).

tell you that the fact that those wins came so soon after the loss at the Breslin Center on Mar. 9 — which compeleted the regularseason sweep for the Spartans — wasn’t a coincidence.

“The loss at Michigan State kinda brought a lot of us together and kinda evaluate ourselves,” said sophomore forward Isaiah Livers on Saturday after the semifinal win. “Look in the mirror, are you doing what’s right for us to win?

What’s going on? Why are we coming up short against our rivals?

“It was just, some people just self-reflected, some had a little meeting. It was just small stuff

Look in the mirror, are you doing what’s right?

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Michigan coach John Beilein wants the Wolverines to learn from their Big Ten Tournament final loss to Michigan State ahead of the NCAA Tournament.

Michigan draws Kansas State in first round of NCAA Tournament

MILES MACKLIN/Daily

Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico will take her team to Louisville to play Kansas State in the NCAA Tournament.

CONNOR BRENNAN Daily Sports Writer

The Wolverines are officially going dancing.

Nine days after the Michigan women’s basketball team bowed out of the Big Ten Tournament with a semifinal loss to Maryland, the Wolverines secured their secondconsecutive NCAA Tournament berth.

“You never want to take for granted the opportunity to play in the NCAA Tournament,” said Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico. “It’s always a special day.

It’s like Christmas in March. It’s a great honor to be selected. It’s great for our seniors but really for our younger kids to have this experience.”

As the No. 8 seed in the Albany Region, Michigan will face Kansas State in the Round of 64. The two teams will meet on Friday in Louisville, Kentucky.

The Wildcats’ season followed a similar trajectory as the Wolverines’. Not only do both squads enter the tournament with a 21-11 record and finished fourth in their respective conferences, but

Michigan and Kansas State both went on late-season runs to cement their postseason resumés. The Wolverines won eight of their last nine to finish out the regular season, while the Wildcats ended on a five-game win streak — punctuated by a season sweep of powerhouse Texas.

“They had some great wins through the course of the year and had a really strong finish,” Barnes Arico said. “I don’t know when the committee was going through that if they thought, ‘These are two teams that finished strong, it would be a great first round matchup,’ but they seem very similar to us.”

Receiving an at-large bid was not a surprising outcome for Michigan, but the team was blindsided by ESPN prematurely displaying the bracket three hours ahead of schedule.

“Right when practice ended we talked at the circle,” Barnes Arico said. “I said ‘There’s been a leak but there are so few surprises in your life, so if you guys can wait it will be fun to hold out.’ That being said, obviously everyone went to their phone, so by the time we got to our little party, everybody

already knew.”

If Michigan gets past Kansas State, it will likely face No. 1 seed Louisville. At 29-3 overall, the ACC runners-up are one of the tournament favorites.

Adding the Cardinals’ homecourt advantage to the equation means the Wolverines would be playing the role of underdog in that matchup. The teams’ most recent meeting — in November 2017 — ended with a 25-point win for Louisville.

Before it can think about a potential Sweet Sixteen run though, the Wolverines must focus on the game at hand.

Michigan has played its best basketball of the season as of late, but with almost two full weeks between the Big Ten Tournament and Friday’s game, the team might struggle to continue their recent momentum.

Nevertheless, the Wolverines seem ready for the challenge.

“Our kids really have a belief that they can play with anyone,” Barnes Arico said. “When you’re going into the NCAA Tournament, you kinda have to have that belief in yourself and your teammates. We’re feeling pretty confident right now.”

like that and I could see from starter all the way to walk-on, just a difference in the practices last week. It felt a lot more competitive and focused.”

The title game made clear that those issues aren’t totally resolved. But there were some improvements, tweaks that came out against lesser competition.

And perhaps the road to another March run is taking those tweaks a step further — something the Wolverines have no shortage of motivation to do.

“I think every loss has been a rallying point for us,” Beilein said. “That we learn from every

loss and we’ll learn from this one. … We’d like to avoid losing to get better, but the fact of life is it’s gonna happen.”

Michigan likely won’t soon forget the way it felt in the locker room. Even amid the joy of a high NCAA Tournament seed and the fun of March Madness, the pain of the Spartan sweep will still be there, fuel for a team that still very much has something to prove.

Of course, it’s a tough task to fix everything so quickly.

The Wolverines play again Thursday, and there’s only so much prep that can go into such a short turnaround. Beilein himself couldn’t offer up any promises Sunday, but when asked if it was really possible to produce an uptick in efficiency in a mere matter of days, Beilein did offer a glimmer of hope.

“We have before.”