2022-10-12

SAFE holds demonstration to stand with Palestinian refugees

The Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) chapter at the University of Michigan constructed a 36-foot long, eight-foot tall “apartheid wall” to represent the current Israeli separation wall that stretches over 400 miles in the West Bank. SAFE members stood in front of their version of the wall at the Diag on Thursday to share narratives from Palestinian refugees with attendees and passersby.

The separation wall was authorized by the Israeli government in June 2002 and includes electric fences, trenches and security patrols. Since it was first built, the wall has faced international criticism from the United Nations because it illegally annexes some of the most fertile lands and water sources in the West Bank.

SAFE’s wall featured paintings depicting the treatment of the more than 5 million Palestinian refugees and displayed facts about the refugees enclosed within the wall. Painted along the wall’s surface read “1.6 million Palestinians live under military blockade”, as well as other information: nearly two-thirds of those in poverty and 1.4 million of those residing in the 140-square mile Gaza strip struggle with food insecurity.

LSA sophomore Bilal Irfan, SAFE board member and LSA Student Government president, said the event’s goal was to bring light to Palestinian suffering under apartheid, a term Irfan said is accepted by the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International to describe the crimes committed by Israel authorities. Irfan said the narratives SAFE highlighted at the event come from Palestinians and allies.

‘Normalize the conversation’: Activists, politicians rally for reproductive rights

SAMANTHA RICH Daily Staff Reporter

Monday night, the University of Michigan Diag was filled with over 100 voices chanting ‘Yes on three!’ as activists and Ann Arbor community members rallied for Proposal 3, also known as the Reproductive Freedom For All ballot initiative that will appear in the upcoming midterm election.

The Reproductive Freedom For All proposal would amend the Michigan Constitution to enshrine the right to abortion, birth control and other forms of reproductive health care.

Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June, access to abortion remains legal in Michigan for the time being under a preliminary injunction blocking a 1931 abortion ban. However, this injunction has already been challenged multiple times and there is no permanent legal protection for abortion in the state.

The event kicked off with speeches from representatives for Promote the Vote — another ballot

proposal this November, aimed at increasing voter accessibility — and the Reproductive Freedom For All initiative. Representatives spoke on the urgency of voting in this year’s election to support these ballot proposals and other Democratic politicians.

Shanay Watson-Whittaker, deputy campaign manager for Reproductive Freedom For All, recounted her personal experience of having an abortion for an unplanned pregnancy. She said she was living in a shelter with her siblings at the time and was unable to financially support a child.

“I had to make the decision to terminate my pregnancy because I could not imagine raising a child in that environment,” WatsonWhittaker said. “I could not imagine putting myself through that kind of trauma and putting my family, my siblings through that trauma of raising a child in that environment. So I made that decision. I don’t regret that decision at all because I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t make that decision.”

Watson-Whittaker urged

attendees to vote ‘yes’ on Reproductive Freedom For All, which will appear as Proposal 3 on the ballot, and encourage other people in their lives to do the same.

“Speak to your friends and neighbors and your family members about why you support Proposal 3,” Watson-Whittaker said. “Normalize the conversation around reproductive care.

Normalize it. Talk to your friends, neighbors and family about it like it’s just a sunny day out here in Michigan.”

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel was also in attendance Monday evening, as she recounted reading Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” in an English class as a U-M student. Nessel said the novel, which depicts a dystopian world where women are classified as “handmaids” and forced to bear children of high-profile government officials, mirrors the current state of reproductive rights in Michigan.

“It’s not really fiction anymore, is it?” Nessel said. “It’s actually closer to reality because we now have a government that is able to

regulate and politicize the bodies of women in a way that they, frankly, don’t regulate or politicize the bodies of men.”

The event was organized by the University’s chapter of College Democrats.

LSA senior Vivi Iyer, College Democrats co-chair, told The Michigan Daily there is still uncertainty about abortion access in Michigan, but she is motivated by the support of attendees and other activists fighting for Reproductive Freedom For All.

“It’s encouraging to see so many people backing people who can get pregnant of all ages,” Iyer said. “I have more confidence that Prop 3 will pass.”

Nessel also spoke at the rally about the importance of being politically engaged, especially for students.

“If you haven’t gotten involved and you haven’t been engaged and you don’t vote, you’re not gonna get another chance to bring back your fundamental rights,” Nessel said. “Because once they’re gone, they’re gone and they’re not coming back.”

Newly renovated multicultural lounges to reopen in Michigan

COURTNEY PLAZA & EMMA SPRING Daily News Contributors

Students, faculty and staff at the University of Michigan reported feeling less positive about the general University climate but better about the diversity, equity and climate specifically than in 2016 according to the 2021 DEI climate survey conducted at the University this past fall.

The findings of the survey were discussed at a series of sessions run by the U-M Office of Diversity Equity and Inclusion for all interested U-M community members on Sept. 27 in the Michigan Union and Oct. 6 in the Michigan League. Both sessions were livestreamed, recorded and posted on the U-M Diversity, Equity & Inclusion website. These results come as the campus wraps up its first DEI five-year strategic plan, in which all departments on campus were provided a guiding framework for leadership and success by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

The framework was built around DEI Plan 1.0, which Chief Diversity Officer Tabbye Chavous referred to as “the first five-year plan”, prompting every department on campus to identify

what DEI meant to them. Many units also came up with different practices around admissions, hiring and retention that have been implemented and are already making a difference, Chauvous explained.

William Axinn, research professor in the Sociology Department, presented the survey’s approach and methodology. The 2021 survey was developed by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and mirrored the survey conducted in 2016, with new additional questions on mental health, health and COVID-19.

Axinn said the online survey yielded a highly representative sample of students, staff and faculty, whose response rates were high: 49%, 62% and 64%, respectively.

“This is among the very best that’s ever been done,” Axinn said.

“So we’re thrilled with that.”

Chavous led the conversation about the University’s DEI climate. Chavous explained the term, “climate,” and how it applies in a diversity, equity and inclusion context.

“Climate is intended to feel out a temperature that’s hot or cold,” Chavous said. “You can think about the climate of a setting in the same way — is it hot or is it cold? Is

it uninviting? Is it unwelcoming?

It really is about how people experience a setting — what they feel, observe, see on a daily basis.”

Grant Benson, Director of Data Collections for the Institute of Social Research, said he attended the event to better understand how he could implement these survey results into his work.

“I want to know: how can I contribute to bringing our department into alignment with University values?” Grant said.

“When you talk about diversity, inclusion and justice in some cases, what are the action steps? What’s the next step? What can we actually do to promote those values?”

LSA junior Sophia Grant said she supports the University’s efforts to better incorporate DEI into campus life.

“There’s definitely a lot of places where we can grow and improve,” Grant said. “Not everything is completely equitable yet. I’ve talked to people who feel like they don’t feel as represented on campus. I think it’s important that we look at the results of these surveys and look at where we can go to improve from where we are now to making U-M more equitable.”

JI HOON CHOI Daily News Contributor

Four candidates who are currently running for a spot on the University of Michigan Board of Regents met Monday morning at the Alexander G. Ruthven Museums Building for a Q&A moderated by Silvia Pedraza, chair of the Senate Advisory Committee of School Affairs (SACUA).

The candidates are running for two spots in the Nov. 8 general election to serve an eight-year term. The contenders include incumbents Katherine White (D) and Michael Behm (D) as well as Green Party nominee Sherry Wells and Republican candidate Sevag Vartanian. Lena Epstein, the other Republican nominee for Regent, was not in attendance. The board currently consists of two Republicans and eight Democrats.

All of the candidates gave brief statements before the Q&A session. Questions were chosen prior to the event and were asked either directly from the attendees or anonymously from Pedraza.

Behm spoke first and discussed the challenges the University has undergone during the past eight years of his tenure. He said while the University still has not

addressed all of its problems, it has taken strides toward making campus a safer, healthier and more inclusive place to learn.

“One of the prime problems that I found out was with communication,” Behm said.

“There was an issue you would go forward and address and instead, that did not occur with the administration, as evidenced by the no-confidence vote. So those are some issues issues that were interrelated with labor issues and also safety and the environment of safety and assault on campus.”

Behm acknowledged the numerous sexual misconduct

Three multicultural lounges in University of Michigan residence halls will reopen this fall following the conclusion of recent renovations.

The Abeng Multicultural Lounge in East Quad reopened on Sept. 13. The Edward Said Multicultural Lounge in North Quad and the Yuri Kochiyama Multicultural Lounge in South Quad will open on Oct. 12 and Nov. 15, respectively.

The lounge reopenings this fall are part of the Multicultural Lounge Program, which consists of 18 lounges in total, all housed within U-M residence halls. The program was first created by U-M alum Dr. Harvey Slaughter in the 1970s, and the program celebrated its 50th anniversary last year.

Jeannene Jones-Rupert, assistant director for diversity and inclusion at Michigan Housing, said the University’s multicultural lounge program is the only one in the country that exists within college residence halls. Jones-Rupert said the program was inspired by the Black Action Movement, a studentled initiative in the 1970s that advocated for an increase in Black student enrollment and better supported community spaces for activism work.

“These were spaces that were seen as hubs of connection, support, for socializing, for having programming, for coming together to talk about the advocacy work that (students) were doing on campus through their student activism work,” Jones-Rupert said. “The spaces were created out of a need for a place for culture and community and connection when there weren’t those kinds of spaces on campus.”

Jones-Rupert said students were involved in the process

allegations against University officials that have surfaced in recent years, specifically mentioning the allegations against former University Provost Martin Philbert, as well as the thousands of abuse allegations made against late University athletic doctor Robert Anderson. Behm also discussed the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the University and the firing of former University President Mark Schlissel as some of the biggest challenges the board has faced during Behm’s time as a regent.

this fall

Regents candidates discuss sexual misconduct, health care at forum

LILA

CARLIN PENDELL

Students construct wall representing Israeli separation barrier on the Diag

SEJAL

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., speaks at the Reproductive Rights Rally in the Daily Monday evening.

Incumbent Democrat Michael J. Behm speaks at the Regent Candidate Forum at Ruthven Building’s University Hall Monday Morning. Reproductive Rights Rally in the Daily Monday evening.

Should you feed those Diag squirrels? University

problems for local residents, as they can destroy property and carry disease in highly populated areas.

From wading through the fountain by the bell tower the first week of freshman year to cautiously avoiding the “M” on the Diag, to be a Michigan student is to participate in a rich array of traditions. To some, these customs include feeding squirrels on a sunny day. So, the question stands, once and for all, should we feed the squirrels?

Nursing senior Autumn Farnum is the co-president of The Squirrel Club at the University of Michigan, an organization of students, alumni and members of the Ann Arbor community that feed squirrels during the school year every Sunday. Farnum said they believe feeding squirrels is a good way to build a campus community, as long as they are fed healthy food.

“Having the connection between the wildlife and our students here kind of builds that friendly campus environment that we have and also makes sure that (the squirrels) have a nice treat once in a while,” Farnum said.

While Farnum — and campus tour guides — embrace squirrel feeding, animal welfare organizations have raised concerns over feeding the furry creatures. Squirrels

who are fed by people can become dependent on handouts occasionally never regaining selfsufficiency. Feeding squirrels can also contribute to their overpopulation in certain areas as the squirrels adapt to reside in areas where human handouts are popular, such as parks and urban areas.

When humans feed squirrels, whether on campus or in other areas, squirrels can lose their natural fear of humans. Ann Arbor’s fearless squirrels often approach students, especially around the Diag, because they are so often fed there.

LSA sophomore Alanna CarloPagan is a member of the Animal Ethics Society, an organization dedicated to furthering discussion about the ethical treatment of animals through

What’s next for Public Power in Ann Arbor?

philosophy, and often volunteers for The Creature Conservancy in Ann Arbor. Carlo-Pagan said it is important to think about the impact humans’ actions have on animal behavior when feeding animals like squirrels.

“What you have to take into account when you’re measuring the impact of human behavior on the environment is how it’s gonna affect humans, how it’s gonna affect other species and how it might affect that species,” CarloPagan said. “What people are mostly concerned about is how it just rubs patterns of migration and food seeking behavior and how it might lead animals to become so trusting of humans –or imprinted on humans – that they’re unable to actually go out and look for food on their own.”

Squirrels can also cause

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says while it is extremely unlikely for squirrels to contract rabies or carry the rabies virus, they can carry other diseases like typhus and ringworm.

Despite these concerns, many students actively partake in feeding the squirrels on campus and befriending the creatures.

LSA freshman Julia Holden said feeding squirrels on campus is fun for her and her friends, and it is a nice way for students to get outside.

“It’s just fun, honestly,” Holden said. “It’s just nice to be around animals. It’s a good way to get outside. They obviously aren’t antsy about being around people. So, I mean, they’re here anyways. Why not?”

Holden said squirrels might often be fed the wrong foods, but she is careful to feed them healthy nuts that the animals can digest.

“I’m sure they get enough not good food,” Holden said. “I have organic, unsalted walnuts. So, I think if you’re feeding them the right thing, it’s probably okay.” Farnum echoed Holden’s emphasis on feeding squirrels nutritional foods.

UMich students, faculty lead support efforts on campus following Hurricane Fiona Fundraisers,

The Ann Arbor City Council approved a feasibility study on renewable energy options for the city on Sept. 7, energizing the Ann Arbor for Public Power (A2P2) movement as they ramp up efforts to garner public support. The feasibility study will examine three pathways toward renewable energy: tax credits and other economic incentives, a full municipal energy utility and a partial municipal energy utility.

A2P2 is a coalition of local organizations advocating for the city to take control of its energy utility, currently owned and operated by the Detroit-based energy company DTE, and transfer the city to 100% renewable energy.

A2P2 President Greg Woodring said the organization knew they would need to start with a feasibility study, but now that the study has been approved, they are shifting their efforts to canvassing for public support.

“We pretty quickly identified

the first step was to get a feasibility study,” Woodring said. “We advocated over the next year for the city to conduct such a feasibility study, we collected 1300 signatures, we attended several Energy Commission meetings and city council meetings (and) did a lot of research. … So now we’re at the point of needing to advocate to the general public to continue to educate them about the benefits of equalization and public power generally.”

U-M alum Zackariah Farah, spokesperson for A2P2, said the organization has been engaged in various forms of public outreach to raise support for a publicly-owned energy utility.

“Right now, we’re trying to build overwhelming public support in our community for this idea, for taking control of the utility and making it a public one,” Farah said.

“That involves knocking doors (and) holding educational events.

We have meet and greets as well where anybody can come and ask us any question they want.”

In the wake of Hurricane Fiona, a Category 4 storm that hit the U.S. island territory of Puerto Rico on Sept. 18, approximately 233,000 individuals have been without power, dozens of communities were flooded and thousands of homes have been destroyed.

Puerto Rico is over 1,900 miles away from Ann Arbor, but for many members of the University of Michigan community, the catastrophe is personal.

Rackham student Daniela Crespo-Miró, who is studying contemporary Puerto Rican literature, spearheaded support efforts on campus to help provide relief to Puerto Ricans. They worked to develop multiple fundraising initiatives in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, including a Sept. 26 fundraiser at the Detroit Street Filling Station that succeeded in raising $750.

“The Detroit Street Filling

Station volunteered to offer 10% of their proceeds to four different (relief) organizations: Proyecto Matria, Taller Salud, Brigada Solidaria del Oeste, and ENLACE,” Crespo-Miró said. “It was a fantastic, very effective fundraiser.”

Crespo-Miró orchestrated another fundraiser that will take place on Oct. 7 at the Bridge Community Café in Ypsilanti. According to Crespo-Miró, the café is volunteering to host live poetry readings and raffles, with all proceeds going towards financial assistance for the affected communities.

According to Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and Women’s and Gender Studies, Crespo-Miró’s efforts this year are reminiscent of what students did in response to Hurricane Maria, which struck Puerto Rico and other areas in the northeastern Caribbean in 2017.

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Literary cures for end-of-summer melancholy

the evening darkness comes earlier and earlier, the natural grief of another earthly rotation is difficult to miss.

A Michigan summer is difficult to hold in your hands.

It is a season that slips into temperature extremes, turning increasingly novel each year — July and August heat are just almost unbearable at times — but more than that, summer is a season of universal renewal. Warmth is restored from the ground up in every living being, and the beating heart of summer forces a fresh pulse within every sun-kissed soul. It is undeniably obvious why summer has a reputation for blossoming love and brief romances: the ephemeral nature of its passions are boundless.

Despite this, it is impossible for me to truly love summer. The official calendar length of summer is three months, ranging from June to September — but this length rarely holds true in feeling.

A Michigan summer is the very definition of brevity, a brief lapse of light sandwiched between the nine-month heartbreak that is Michigan’s grip of winter. The Arb’s bloom never lasts long enough, and the Diag’s trees lose their color faster than I can enjoy it. The loving warmth born in April settles into a casket by September. I can’t love summer, but I also can’t love the transition into winter, spring or autumn — each seasonal death is a funeral of sorts, and the reminder of life passing is almost universally mortifying. When summer’s scorching sun settles into the gloomy mornings of autumn, and

Unfortunately, there are no cures for the endless melancholy the end of September and the start of October brings, but I offer you my literary mode of relief and escape nonetheless.

“Breasts and Eggs” by Meiko Kawakami

As the epitome of a somber summer afternoon, “Breasts and Eggs” by Meiko Kawakami hangs heavily onto the empty feeling of staring into endless summer sunsets. Set in Japan, the novel is propelled by the intertwined narratives of three characters: Natsuko, a single, struggling writer grappling with her age and the pressures of loneliness, success and motherhood; Midoriko, her silent niece laboring through the aches and pains of puberty; and Makiko, Natsuko’s older sister on the hunt for affordable breast implants to feel like the ideal woman. With each ebb and flow of the novel, Kawakami paints the deeply bittersweet scope of women’s lives from birth, through puberty and ultimately to death.

As the central idea of the novel, the brief glow of women’s youth holds the same ephemeral nature as the blink of summer. Kawakami explores this with ease: Natusko spends her portion of the novel in a fight against her window of fertility. She is unpartnered and not financially well-off, but her deepest desire is to be a mother. Her summer is ending, and the

grief she feels over her childlessness turns into a feverish desperation to have a baby. She begins to spend more time than not researching sperm donation in Japan. Her sense of true womanhood relies upon fleeting biological ability, in the same way Makiko’s conception of womanhood is dependent on the perfect body. This body is dependent upon mimicking its previous window of youthfulness, despite Makiko’s ascendance into mother- and adulthood. This focus on recreating Makiko’s teenage and young adult life only fuels the confusion of Midoriko, who is entering her teenage years at the same time her mother tries to return to them. In this novel, the body is a weapon used against the woman who is inside it. There is a warm window of use for their bodies, and then a lifelong grief over losing the physical validation young women receive in a patriarchal society.

“Giovanni’s Room” by James Baldwin

As the paragon of tragic love stories, “Giovanni’s Room” ushers in the hauntingly melancholic experience of a summer love abruptly cut short, and uniquely ends in both literal and spiritual death. Set in ’50s Paris, the novel explores the seedy underbelly of the gay scene that David, the central character, falls into upon beginning a lengthy affair with an Italian bartender. David finds himself unable to repress his desires; despite his absolute determination to ultimately live the conventional heterosexual life with his fiancée, he is fully drawn by the hypnotic

Relive your worst friendship breakup with ‘Heartbreak High’

Giovanni. This internal torture and grief from David’s sexual identity ultimately drives the tragedy and grief of the novel, as he oscillates between reality and his dream.

For Giovanni, his love for David is greater than life itself. This is partially because his life is defined by pain — his titular room is full of wine stains, rotting food and notably lacks windows — and partially because David and Giovanni share a true love that Giovanni cannot bear to lose. In the all-consuming romance they share, every character knows that tragedy is lurking around the corner. Melancholy is the central setting of the novel — where Giovanni loves,

there is a pit of sadness, and where David explores, there is a web of selfdenial and pain. But David loses the war between his desire for love and his desire for his good American life, and this ruins everything for him.

Giovanni spirals into self-loathing, murder and, finally, his death upon David’s abandonment; David’s fiancée smashes her and David’s picture-perfect life by leaving him. All that remains of his life is homelessness and an irreversible emptiness. This is the final grief of the novel: David and Giovanni both experience death, and both are inconsolably lost, but David is haunted by the past that resides tumultuously inside him and by

the past love and freedom that has escaped him. Giovanni’s Room is an ambush of the rawest and most wounding portraits of Queer love and the perpetual melancholy that stains everything of love and value when it is denied.

This time of year is famously liminal — every day follows a course of seasonal change. Mornings are cold and bitter, but the afternoon heat swelters on the skin. The evenings, worst of all, invite reflections of moonlight and a once-forgotten cold. In this return of winter’s predecessor, tucking myself into the warm embrace of novels like these is often the only refuge I find.

‘Hocus Pocus 2’ is a disappointing sequel

ZACH LOVEALL Daily Arts Writer

“Hocus Pocus 2” is Disney’s latest attempt to squeeze extra profits from their many classic movies, trying to recapture the original’s magic in an updated form. The modern reimagining of the ’90s classic replicates the corny hilarity of the original while falling victim to the same lack of direction.

I’ll be straight up: I am unfamiliar with Australian TV. Apart from breaking out the “naur” when things don’t go my way, I have little to no knowledge about those from Down Under. But one thing’s for certain: Australians can make a damn good show.

Netflix’s “Heartbreak High” is a reboot of an Aussie teen series of the same name that was popular in the ’90s. Reboots are often a hit-or-miss situation, but if done right, they can open the door for a fresh take on a classic, with new and interesting stories and characters. Having never seen the original, I don’t have much of an opinion on the success of the show as a reboot, but on its own, “Heartbreak High” stole my heart.

Our main character, Amerie (Ayesha Madon, “The Moth Effect”) returns to Hartley High to find her world turned upside down. Her longtime best friend Harper (Asher Yasbincek, “The Heights”) wants absolutely nothing to do with her anymore. The reason for Harper’s ire is a mysterious trauma from a summer music festival — one that Amerie can’t seem to remember. To make matters worse, all of Amerie’s popular friends take Harper’s side, and, the icing on the cake, the entire school finds out about her and Harper’s secret “sex map.” That’s right. The two besties have secretly documented every sexual escapade between any two (or more) students at Hartley High, drawn as an elaborate map with colorful lines and an extremely in-depth legend. Amerie

quickly goes from it-girl to outcast after her map breaks up couples and outs people, and everyone takes to calling her “Map Bitch” (no points for creativity there). Her map lands a handful of students, endearingly called “sluts,” in a mandatory sex education class. Now, Amerie must navigate her new social status, the confusion and anger surrounding her situation with Harper and the unexpected attention of certain boys at school.

“Heartbreak High” performs an incredible balancing act between genuine humor and heavier topics. This is one of the first shows with “Gen-Z” humor that actually made me laugh. When Amerie is crying in a bathroom stall after the sex map exposé, Quinni (Chloé Hayden, “Jeremy the Dud”) peeks over the neighboring stall to promptly ask, “Is this your 13th reason?” When some of the characters are getting ready for a party, Darren (James Majoos, debut) asks Malakai (Thomas Weatherall, “RFDS”) if he wants something *limp wrist* “gay to wear.” I apologize to my roommates for cackling at 3 a.m. The show also brings in nonbinary actor James Majoos and Australia’s first mainstream autistic actress Chloé Hayden to play a nonbinary character and autistic character, respectively. “Heartbreak High” realistically explores the struggles these characters must face, dedicating episodes to Darren’s tough relationship with their dad and to Quinni navigating her complicated romance with Sasha (Gemma Chua-Tran, “Diary of an Uber Driver”).

I would describe this show as “Euphoria” meets “Sex Education,”

meaning there are a lot of complicated feelings, messy flings and broken hearts. Despite all of this, “Heartbreak High” features the strong platonic relationship between Amerie and Harper as its primary love story, sending the message that at the end of the day, manipulative boys, sex and drama don’t matter nearly as much as your chosen family. Madon and Yasbincek acted their hearts out in these eight episodes. The girls’ initial pettiness was entertaining to watch at first, but as the storyline grew deeper and the show began to unpack exactly what went down between the two, my heart ached for their friendship and I was nearly brought to tears once I finally heard the whole story.

I never thought that eight episodes could make me feel so much. Our main characters, especially Amerie and Harper, are charismatic, somewhat mysterious and, above all, extremely messy. Many questionable decisions were made between the two, but then again, what is high school without questionable decisions? Behind every destructive choice the two girls make to hurt each other — intentionally or otherwise — is a desperate desire to get their best friend back. It’s this particular brand of pain that “Heartbreak High” depicts extremely well, and one that plenty of teenage girls are familiar with.

I’m clearly not the only one raving about this show — “Heartbreak High” currently has an 89% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Those Australians may be chewing on their vowels, but they sure know how to make us laugh and self-reflect while doing it.

The Sanderson Sisters return in all their humorous, bewitching glory, played by Bette Midler (“The Addams Family”), Sarah Jessica Parker (“New Year’s Eve”) and Kathy Najimy (“Dumplin”). Besides a flashback to the Sanderson Sisters’ youth to introduce the all-powerful Magicae Maxima spell, the film follows much the same premise as its prequel. We are introduced to Becca (Whitney Peak, “Gossip Girl”) and Izzy (Belissa Escobedo, “The Baker and the Beauty”), two teenagers who are obsessed with witches and magic and inadvertently bring the Sisters back to life. The Sisters have moved on from gaining immortality and instead want to take revenge on all of Salem. The most important thing this movie had to get right was the humor. Luckily, the comedic timing of Midler, Parker and Najimy has not waned. They make their characters just the right level of over-the-top. The Sanderson Sisters feel absurd and out of place in the modern

world, leading to countless jokes at their expense. They’re convinced by Becca that lotion is a modern form of potions, leading to an incredibly gross scene of all three Sisters eating beauty products. But, outside of these jokes, the movie struggles to generate laughs. It attempts to solve this issue by reusing gags from the original movie but with a slightly more modern twist, such as when the Sanderson Sisters used Roombas as brooms, copying the moment where they used vacuums for brooms in the original movie, beat for beat. I still laughed at these moments, but not quite as hard as when I saw them the first time.

The film does, however, excel by adding a message about female empowerment and sisterhood. It’s an organic addition that improves the movie overall, as Becca is a likable character and an intelligent adversary for the Sanderson Sisters. The teenage characters don’t resort to screaming, instead working in creative ways to stop the ancient witches — the audience can hopefully see themselves in these characters and is spared yet another bumbling fool to cringe at.

There’s one scene in particular that I feel obligated to address. It flashes on the screen for only a couple of seconds, but about two-thirds of the way through the movie, we are shown a couple watching an unchanged scene from the original “Hocus

Pocus.” It is never explained. I exclaimed when this happened, as it completely broke the continuity of the film. It brings up an endless array of questions about what exactly the nature of the first film is. I questioned the scene but stopped myself. I realized the audience is not meant to think about this scene that deeply because the film itself doesn’t. It’s a one-off joke that’s meant to make the audience laugh and move on. This realization made me realize that as much as I wished to be enchanted by this movie, there was a question in the back of my brain stopping me from fully enjoying it: What was the reason for making this sequel? The generous answer is to create a lovable homage to the original. But every choice this film made screamed the contrary: This film is a blatant cash grab. Every joke stolen in its entirety from the original, every copied plot point and every illogical decision point to this film as another soulless attempt by Disney to turn a profit.

Despite my painful awareness of the reason this movie was made, I still enjoyed it. The jokes made me laugh, if less so than the originals, and the film aesthetically embraces the Halloween spirit. I would encourage audiences to watch the original film instead, but “Hocus Pocus 2” is still a movie all about Halloween that anyone can appreciate near the holiday.

Design by Leah Hoogterp

SWARA

This image is from the teaser art for “Heartbreak High,” distributed by Netflix.

Colombo, 1990, the capital of Sri Lanka. Maali Almeida — intrepid war photographer, obsessive gambler, closeted gay man and atheist — wakes up in a government office, a bureaucratic nightmare of long lines and procedural formalities. Initially, Maali assumes he’s dreaming or suffering from the after effects of the “silly pills” he and his best friend enjoy taking from time to time. Soon, our protagonist wishes he were simply dreaming, as he realizes he’s moved on from the land of the living. He’s dead — with an unnerving inkling that his death was no accident. After his stellar debut

novel, “The Legend of Pradeep Mathew,” Shehan Karunatilaka returns with his second novel, “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida,” which is shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize. Set amid the ruthless butchery of Sri Lanka’s civil war, “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” delivers a mordantly funny satire concerning love, obligation and conflict. With its sardonic humor and magical realism, the novel unfolds as a deliciously thoughtful take on a classic whodunit murder mystery.

As our protagonist is confronted with a less exciting afterlife than most would hope for, he learns that before he can go into “the Light” he has to wander through seven moons (or seven nights) in the “In Between,” a world that lies

on top of our mortal reality, a blanket for misery and despair, traversed by ghosts but ruled by demons. In the In Between, Maali recalls his past life by stalking his loved ones, still amid their grief, from behind a screen, unable to manipulate the living world yet still able to feel its pain.

But the thing is, Maali wasn’t ready to move on. He dreamed of his photos changing the world, unveiling the truest horrors of war to bring attention to the immeasurable — yet unbelievably tangible — suffering spread across his country. His obsession with his work — to bring something good out of utter despair and destruction — ruined relationships with his family and left him harboring secret emotions in a life of scant intimacy. Yet Maali had recently developed new friends, better friends — people that cared for him and people he found himself caring for in ways he’d never encountered. But he’s dead now, regretting the things he left unsaid and the work he was never able to finish.

“My pictures. They need to be seen. And I have five more moons. Enough time … if you step into The Light, it is not the forgetting that you fear, but the things that will step in there with you.”

While Maali lived his life bearing witness to the continuous cycle of violence plaguing Sri Lanka, he maintained no power to influence it. Before his death, he was still waiting for a chance for his photos to make a difference. Now, as a ghost, he desperately tries to sway

events in a last-ditch effort before his seven moons run out. As Maali will confess himself, although he’s had many failures in life, photography is not one of them. He lived a dangerous lifestyle — fearing death or the unwanted attention of the state, he hid his best work, the most incriminating and pertinent shots of the war.

Shots of covered-up statesponsored pogroms, secret meetings between leaders of warring factions, tortuous deaths in custody, war crimes and countless shots of pure, unfiltered violence capturing the darkest side of humanity. All sitting, awaiting publication and a chance to change the world. And as his hidden treasure, in many ways his life’s work, comes under threat of confiscation or worse, being forgotten, Maali scrambles to prevent his legacy from withering away while simultaneously solving the mystery of his murder — how it happened and whodunit.

Karunatilaka delivers his story fizzing with energy and creative imagery. Rich with irony and vexed comedy, what emerges is a blunt, honest and scathing commentary on conflict — its origins, implications and the way we confront it. “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” sets you in front of a mirror to inspect the choices you’ve made, the excuses you’ve told yourself and the direction you’re going. Yet Karunatilaka doesn’t leave you in a state of dejected existential crisis. Instead, just like Maali, you’re guided on a path to acceptance, hope and perspective.

Happy Christian Girl Autumn to those who celebrate

When I walked into my kitchen on the first day of September, I wished my roommate a Happy Christian Girl Autumn. It’s a holiday, folks. A holiday to celebrate the turning of the seasons and the return of the white woman’s fall aesthetic. My roommate and I are intimately familiar with the style that constitutes a Christian Girl Autumn: bouncy curls, skinny jeans, scarves larger than the girls rocking them, knee-high boots and, inevitably, a pumpkin spice latte. It’s the aesthetic that dominated the early 2010s and turned fall into a veritable cultural phenomenon. But how did we get here? How can I wish my roommate a Happy Christian Girl Autumn with the enthusiasm of an actual holiday, and how do we both know precisely what the other is talking about? Well, it’s more than a holiday — it’s a meme.

In August 2019, then-college student Natasha tweeted this photo with the caption “Hot Girl Summer is coming to an end, get ready for Christian Girl Autumn.” Both Natasha’s Twitter account and the original tweet have been lost to the sands of time, but its aftershocks have not. The women in the photo are Caitlin Covington and Emily Gemma, friends and influencers from WinstonSalem, North Carolina and Tulsa, Oklahoma, respectively. Both became the subject of online vitriol in response to Natasha’s tweet. The original meme was retweeted over 12,000 times with many responses labeling the women as homophobic, racist and Republican based on their appearances. Other jokes were tamer — riffing on white name memes and assigning “Christian Girl Autumn energy” to pop culture characters. The meme’s use and meaning have certainly softened today, but it exploded at its inception and unexpectedly raised questions about internet feminism and the virality of being basic.

that Southern, wealthy, churchgoing women have been copypasting for years now. Since these identities have generally negative connotations and their associated aesthetics are so distinctive, frustrations with these identities were aired at the expense of two strangers. They became the punchline of sexist, politicallycharged jokes, and were memed to hell and back based solely on appearance. In reality, they were wearing, in my opinion, cute, cozy, practical outfits that happened to fit a “basic” stereotype and were popular at the time. They went viral for being women that fit a mold the internet had deemed as bad, and while some points made about homophobia, racism and religion among the upper classes were fair and accurate, they had not found fair or accurate targets.

Covington and Gemma, however, were more than capable of getting the targets off of their backs. In a 2019 interview with Buzzfeed News, Gemma remarked that she’s “white and Christian but none of the tweets were accurate” and that people “assumed we were anti-LGBT, but we’re not at all.” Covington took to the replies on the original Christian Girl Autumn tweet to tell commenters that she is in fact not a Republican, and she told Insider that she is “a gay rights and Black Lives Matter supporter, and I think all people should be accepted for who they are.”

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

When I was in my early teens, I avoided pumpkin spice lattes, One Direction and makeup like the plague for fear of being labeled a “basic bitch” — that is, liking things that are stereotypically popular among young women. I was like that until I had my feminist awakening as a sophomore in high school, and decided that being “basic” was a concept and not a valid marker of any kind of societal value. Still, the basic bitch phenomenon dominated the early 2010s whether I rejected it or not. Basic was a “useful insult” that did not make its user “stoop to calling someone a slut or a halfwit or anything truly cruel.”

Calling someone — almost always a woman — a basic bitch started like any other trend, which is to say virtually out of nowhere. Things like reality television, Uggs and pumpkin spice lattes had a veritable heyday among young women in the early 2010s, and with this came a lazy, casually misogynistic way of shaming women for not being unique or cool enough.

Luckily the basic bitch insult has since faded considerably, but it would be ignorant to say that the internet doesn’t still spend a lot of time dunking on women for conforming to things they enjoy and the communities they’re a part of. Caitlin Covington and Emily Gemma donned fall styles

Both women were quick to say that they thought the meme was funny, but Gemma hit the proverbial nail on the head when she said “I think people realized that not all white girls who love fall fashion and pumpkin spice are what we’re all categorized to look like,” because just as quickly as the jokes had come rolling in, they were replaced with praise over the women’s responses. Suddenly they were allies and icons worthy of the highest accolades simply because they did not fit the stereotypes assigned to them. As recently as 2020, Covington continued to prove her mettle by donating $500 to Natasha, the creator of the original Christian Girl Autumn tweet, to help cover the costs of beginning her transition.

I love fall. It’s my favorite season — I can’t stand the heat of summer, and the gray of winter is demoralizing. I love spicy drinks and big sweaters and the smell of my heater in the morning. And, call me basic, but I love the Christian Girl Autumn meme. I love what it’s become, and in recent years I’ve come to view it in a warm, loving light. Still, when I get philosophical at night, it makes me wonder what women have to do to prove that they’re not who you assume they are. Why did an innocent meme have to turn into Covington and Gemma jumping through hoops to prove that they’re not bigots when their only crime was wearing big scarves and drinking pumpkin spice lattes? Their efforts in defending themselves, however, are a huge step forward in dismantling “basic” feminine stereotypes and their weaponization. As the internet progresses in its treatment and celebration of women and past its “basic bitch” phase, I too might be inclined to call Covington and Gemma “queens.” Because of them, I feel a little better about my cozy sweaters and my pumpkin spice lattes. Because of them, I feel a little better about wishing a happy Christian Girl Autumn to all who celebrate.

This

It’s great to be a Michigan voter; students’ path to the polls

Chris Parks explained students’ motivations for wanting to vote in Ann Arbor.

In 1969, you could be denied voter registration at the Ann Arbor Clerk’s Office if you weren’t “conservatively dressed.” Or if your answer to “Where did you spend your last vacation?” implied any sort of family connection or financial dependency. Or if you told the clerk that you would call your parents if you were seriously ill or had some sort of emergency.

For the majority of the University of Michigan’s history, students who attempted to register to vote in Ann Arbor faced arbitrary obstacles, like the above, aimed at their disenfranchisement. Though students resided in Ann Arbor exactly as we do today, Michigan state law was not keeping up with the development of the modern university.

Until 1971, the Michigan Constitution said that “No elector shall be deemed to have gained or lost a residence by reason of his being ... a student at any institution of learning.” This meant students were not counted as residents of their college towns and therefore were not granted the right to vote in the cities they were studying and living in.

The University’s mission went far beyond vocational skills and practical training; it was, and continues to be, an immersive community aimed at “developing leaders and citizens who will challenge the present and enrich the future.” Yet these future leaders and citizens had no say, no formally-observed political voice, to influence policies that would directly impact their lives.

Despite the ridiculous hurdles, students were nevertheless still determined to cast their vote here, in this maize-and-blue territory.

In a 1971 Michigan Daily article, former news reporter

“Many students point out that they, at present, have no control over local governments which make decisions directly affecting them,” Parks wrote. “Voting in their hometowns, they say, is meaningless as what is done there has little effect on them.”

With the modern ability to choose between voting in either your home or college state, these students’ sentiments can feel limited. Being able to vote in your home state, particularly for students who live in swing states, like Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, is just as much a privilege as is having the option to vote in Ann Arbor. But it is precisely that choice — the right to strategically ensure your voice is heard at the loudest decibel possible — that makes college voting such a powerful opportunity.

Throughout the late 1960s and early ’70s, students expressed frustration and continued to resist prohibitions from the oftenrestrictive clerk’s office. For the 1969 city elections, the locallybased Human Rights-Radical Independent Party handed out leaflets instructing students on how to answer the clerk’s questions to most easily obtain a ballot. Answering questions in a way that communicated independence from one’s parents and intentions to permanently stay in Ann Arbor would often help students’ chances at getting registered.

But these efforts were not always successful. A 1969 Student Government campaign to increase voter turnout “resulted in more bewildered students than registered voters,” wrote former Daily reporter Robert Kraftowitz. The campaign, which intended to bring students to City Hall to get registered, was wholly ineffective due to the inconsistent and irrelevant questions posed by city clerks.

These included, but were not limited to:

Are you self-supporting?

Do you live in private housing?

Where did you spend your last vacation?

If students were not more than 50% self-supporting, or spent their vacations outside of their Ann Arbor residence, they would be denied registration.

However, students who were able to register made a substantial impact: 75% of former Ann Arbor Mayor Robert Harris’s new voters were U-M students in the spring of 1969. Harris’s victory hinted at the capabilities of a mobilized student body, fueling student advocates and bitter Republican candidates alike.

In the 1970 census, students were counted as residents of their college towns for the first time in National Census history. These figures were then used to draw congressional districts on both the federal and state levels, informing the amount of financial aid the city and state receive from the federal government.

Essentially, students were being counted as citizens in conjunction with a law that made it difficult for them to exercise their basic constitutional rights.

Until 1971, a student had to meet the following criteria to register, in addition to subjective judgements from the clerk’s office:

A student must be at least 21 years old by the date of the election.

A student must have lived in Michigan for six months and in Ann Arbor at least 30 days before election day.

A student must have no intention of returning home, but is uncertain of their future place of residence.

A student must be free from parental control, regard the college town as their home and have no other home to return to in case of sickness or other

affliction.

In April of 1971, the state of Michigan changed the first criterion to ‘at least 18 years old.’

A month later, the Michigan Supreme Court deemed the other rules unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, which prohibits governments from depriving citizens of “life, liberty, or property” without fair cause.

This case, Wilkins v. Ann Arbor City Clerk, asserted what students had been advocating for years: Students cannot be denied the right to vote in their college towns.

“For voting purposes, there is no rational basis for distinguishing between students who reside at a given locality for nine months of the year and non-students who reside in the same locality for nine months of the year,” the opinion reads. “Requiring additional qualifications to vote which affect different groups unequally,

whether by income, occupation, or employer, is a denial of equal protection.”

In the November 1972 election, student voices were put to the test for what was truly the first time. And they delivered.

In heavily-populated student districts in Ann Arbor, voters under 21 years old sealed victories for sheriff, circuit court judge and 22nd district state representative. The sheriff and representative winners were Democrats, and the nonpartisan circuit court judge, Shirley Burgoyne, was known for her women’s and LGBTQ+ rights advocacy. On a campus entangled with ’60s counterculture, student voters successfully advocated for progressive politics in their college town.

The voters and best had hit the polls, and from then on, student electoral action was full steam ahead.

At the first annual “Hash

On the right to be forgotten

CHARLIE PAPPALARDO Statement Columnist

When I was a freshman in high school, I read some book that I can’t quite remember the title of, knowing only that it started with the words “You’ll never be remembered like Caesar.”

I hated that thought. Or more accurately, I hated how accurate it was.

I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of being forgotten, in any capacity, really. To me, it always seemed that being lost to time was equivalent to “true death.” And I saw remembrance as the only form of immortality that could be guaranteed. A faux-afterlife unlike any religious teaching that can also be crafted through acts and deeds. Most importantly, though, the memory of others seemed equivalent to proof that an individual meant something when they were alive and afterward.

It’s funny to me now, because the author who wrote that book was right. I’ve completely forgotten his name, his work and why he wrote it, but I still know Caesar. I know how he was born, how he took power and how he died after a brilliantly short burst of life. And somehow, 1900 years on, he survives in my memory while the author (who could still be physically alive) is lost to time in my mind. My great-great-grandparents are also lost to time. And one day, you and I, and everyone who reads this will be as well.

When I first encountered the concept known as the “Right To Be Forgotten” years later, I think I was stuck in that ‘Caesar’ mindset that being remembered could only be a positive thing. The “Right To Be Forgotten,” much like the “Right To Die,” is a term coated in shocking nature. Both run counter to what we’re supposed to want. We’re supposed to want to live, and we’re supposed to want to be remembered, so the two come off as contrarian.

But the right to be forgotten is not an abstract concept or some nihilistic ideal. It’s the right to have

data that pertains to you, that you no longer desire to have stored, deleted. And in many places like the European Union and Argentina, parts of the right to be forgotten have been codified into law. This can look like many different things.

By some definitions, it only gives you the right to demand the deletion of photos, posts and data about yourself, even if you’ve forgotten the passwords to your accounts. That part is relatively uncontroversial where it is implemented, but still is incompatible with the First Amendment in many cases. Its definition, however, can be extended to points that force us to answer uncomfortable questions about our conception of truth.

The genesis for the right to be forgotten, though, is the practical reality that we’ve gotten too good at remembering ourselves. And in many ways, I think that’s scarier than being forgotten.

The truth is, we don’t have to — or, rather, we can’t — be forgotten now, because our devices won’t let us. The digital landscape has made it so that every moment of your life can be remembered, tracked and acted upon. Every purchase you’ve made, photo you’ve taken and post you’ve uploaded is swirling around in a collection of data that only people much smarter than most can comprehend. But it’s there, and it’ll stay there forever. Because battery lives are longer than our mortal ones.

In many respects this is a good thing: We can remember who we were and who our friends were and who our family was. But the flip side is that when we can remember exactly who we were and exactly what we did for nearly every hour of every day, we often don’t like what that transparent image reveals, or more specifically, we don’t like how narrow the scope of our life’s image becomes.

Thus, the principal consequence of the digital age is that we no longer completely control our selfimage, and that singular moments don’t get lost to time. People have their lives ruined by images they’ve taken at inopportune times or posts

they made 12 years ago, and most worryingly, by articles written about the lowest moment in a person’s life. Because now these moments don’t go away. Pictures don’t fade and digital archives don’t wither, and this causes people’s futures to get trapped by moments from their past. Moments that 50 years ago would have been a blip; Moments that “The Right to Be Forgotten” offers a solution to.

But where the right gets intriguing is when it’s expanded. By some definitions, the right to be forgotten demands that your image and data be removed when you remove your consent from its broadcast, even if it’s in the hands of others. This is the law in the European Union, and it runs through search engines. In the EU, sites like Google now must offset a request form where people can ask that a search for an individual’s name does not yield the photos or websites that they wish to be forgotten. The pages and photos still exist, but aside from some exceptions, they no longer will be associated with the name; they will be exterminated from “Search Results” pages.

The final iteration of the right extends these practices of

alteration to the media. It requires publications and media companies to acknowledge the right to be forgotten, removing names and specific requested references to individuals that are either embarrassing or detrimental to their image if there is practical purpose for that information to be stored.

Originally, in the EU, media outlets were exempt from the “Right to Be Forgotten” and didn’t have to offer any removal options. But in Hurbain v. Belgium (2021), a case in the European Court of Human Rights, this understanding changed. The court found that a Belgian paper had to remove the name of a man who was both responsible for and convicted of killing another in a car crash. More or less, it found that the right to be forgotten could trump the media’s right to report on objective truth.

And while that sounds reprehensible, there is practical value in giving people the right to escape shame. In the case of that man who killed another in a car crash, it could have been purely accidental, and he’d already been punished by the courts. He served whatever social punishment the

courts deemed to be fair retribution. But it’s likely that the punishment extended far past any jail time.

Because for decades, every new person he met and every job he applied for that looked him up saw him as defined by one singular moment. His lowest moment.

Thus, we arrive at a tug-of-water between the ethics of objectivity and the ethics of forgetting for the sake of preserving one’s integrity. Is having your entire existence defined for eternity by the one horrible thing more true than simply letting yourself be forgotten?

The right to be forgotten has often been referred to as “the right to be forgiven,” and I think that’s a more accurate name. There is immense benefit to a faithful recollection of the past. I believe that truth must be objective and stored. But by not letting people’s image change, by holding it hostage in one moment and freezing it there, the truth gets diluted. Because people do change despite it being hard to see.

When I was younger, I used to play this game in the shower where I would close my eyes and imagine the person I had been just a few years earlier. And inevitably, I’d get embarrassed. I’d remember all the

Festival” in ’72, the Diag was filled with political rallies, guerilla theater, rock and roll music and political speeches. In an article from The Daily, former Arts Editor Paul Travis noted the shift of students’ political focus to their newfound voting abilities.

“This past weekend Ann Arbor saw a variation on the old theme — the mixing of youth culture and traditional, electoral politics in an attempt to keep voters keyed up for yesterday’s city elections,” Travis wrote.

As the ability to act on political interest expanded, students translated their idealist worldviews into practical electoral action.

Former Daily News Reporter Ralph Vartabedian examined this shift in students working with thenpresidential candidate George McGovern (D-S.D.).

shortcomings, idiosyncrasies and moronic attempts to be cool, and I’d be mortified. But then I’d imagine myself at present and try to guess what the things I’d be embarrassed of in the future were. I’d think about the popular phrases I’d parrot and fashions I touted and recognize that I’d strongly dislike those aspects of who I presently was in the future. But the thing is, only I have to remember those things about myself. The version of me that I’d look back at with shame and disappointment was given the ability to sunset and fade away. I couldn’t imagine what it’d be like to have that past version of myself be the one that defined my image for the rest of my future, but I know it’d be awful. I’d feel trapped, because if every improvement I made to myself was erased by a now inaccurate image of who I was, why would I have incentive to try to become better?

I think the “Right to Be Forgotten” raises the genuine question of why we desire the truth. Do we value objectivity because it leads us to better understanding our human condition? Or do we desire the truth because we feel we need to record shame? I honestly don’t know.

I don’t think that the right to be forgotten can — or should — be legal precedent in the United States, as it is in the EU. But I think there needs to be honest and thoughtful conversation on how we use and preserve media.

Since 2018, Cleveland.com, a northeastern Ohio journal, has been experimenting with the right to be forgotten because they believe it’s an ethical practice.

They’re no longer posting mugshots with stories and they’re allowing individuals to request their names be removed from stories about minor offenses or those that have since been expunged. And with it, people are being freed from their pasts. Former addicts, vandals and petty criminals are no longer defined by their mugshot. They can get jobs again. They can move on.

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Bentley Historical

Ethnic businesses transformed Ann Arbor strip malls into cultural meccas

In late August, I learned that an old friend with whom I had lost contact was coming to visit the University of Michigan. When thinking of a place to meet, a common friend and I blurted out the same answer simultaneously: “the Northside Plymouth Road Mall!” The area, which houses a host of Chinese businesses, from grocery stores and restaurants to entertainment, has long been colloquially referred to as “A2 Chinatown” among some of my Chinese classmates. For me, meeting there is not just an excursion, but a homecoming.

As an international student, I am intrinsically fascinated by ethnic businesses that provide a window for cultural exchange.

I was even

more excited when I learned that these businesses have been integrated into their neighborhoods, creating a pocket of quaintness unlike other suburban strip malls that are dominated by national chains. Think the Lululemon, Madewell, Anthropologie combo nestled in Arbor Hills Shopping Center.

In an effort to uncover the business and community stories, I set out to interview some of the business owners and neighbors who generously invited me into their time machines.

Packard/Platt: The second generations who carry on the family heritages

In a small section at Packard/ Platt intersection, there is a strip

mall hosting Korean, Indian, Middle Eastern and East European grocery stores, tightly packed within a line-up of other ethnic businesses — a place that was once dubbed “The United Nations at the intersection of Packard Street and Platt Road.”

When I first entered the Korean Grocery Galleria Market on a Saturday afternoon, Jason Bang, the manager, had already been standing behind the counter for six hours. For years, Jason and his mom have been the fixture of this mid-sized market and assume the full responsibility of stocking the market, organizing the carts and greeting the customers.

However, long hours didn’t wear down Bang’s energy; he engaged with each customer checking out, conversing about topics ranging from recipe recommendation to politics.

“I do enjoy working — every day is a different challenge,” Bang said. “Every day you get to meet different people who are either a very interesting person or kind of weird.”

Bang’s past work experience doesn’t always feature this rigid schedule. When his father, Hyun Bang, was first operating this store, Jason was working in South

Korea. Gradually, he found himself straddled between two countries, helping out the family business here while maintaining freelance jobs in South Korea. Jason ended up taking over the store. He was transparent in expressing what needs to change, namely more active food culture education here in Ann Arbor.

“There are social media feeds and YouTube videos that tell us different interesting things that people can try,” Jason said. “But one thing that is continuously recurring is that there isn’t enough education ... I always tried to introduce a little history behind things and explain why certain recipes might work better with these things.”

In Jason’s store, there are popular Korean items like kimchi and bulgogi as well as new items announced through the store’s social media feeds. The store also features a significant selection of Japanese cooking ingredients and snacks, like mochi and Yakult. Jason attributed this to the strong crossover between the two cuisine cultures.

“There are many popular Korean snacks that have their Japanese counterparts, and vice versa,” Jason said. “Cooking-wise there’s a lot of overlap between Korea and Japan. Even in Ann Arbor, some successful Japanese restaurants are also managed by Koreans.”

Across the street sits a familyowned Mexican eatery, TMAZ Taqueria. Similar to restaurants found in southwest Detroit, TMAZ takes the name from the owners’ city of origin, bringing their hometown culture to Ann Arbor.

Kevin Hervert-Trinidad, who took over the restaurant’s operations (together with his brother Josue Hervert-Trinidad) from his parents so that they could focus on their new Westside branch. Kevin explained how his hometown culture guided TMAZ’s restaurant practices in order to distinguish themselves from fastfood chains downtown.

“We are from the Temascalcingo region of Mexico, so we abbreviate it to TMAZ,” Kevin said. “Our food is different because it’s mainly just from our local area.”

Kevin acknowledged how this strip at Packard and Platt attracted a portfolio of diverse immigrantowned businesses over time. The caring nature of the late owner of the property became an anchor for immigrant businesses strained by financial challenges and fastgrowing rent elsewhere.

“We were first introduced here by an associate we were working with at Taco King, and we later sold it because at that time the rent was super high,” Kevin said. “The owners of this strip were phenomenal people who would take care of us, and the rent was nice.”

Multiple residents have pointed me to the connection between neighborhood demographics and business profiles. The high concentration of housing voucher programs has introduced socioeconomic diversity to the area. The diversity of the businesses in turn provides ethnic minority groups a sense of connection and belonging.

Speaking about Aladdin’s Market, a Middle Eastern grocery store, long-term resident Mojdeh Meghnot, who is of Persian

Rediscovering Ann Arbor

HALEY JOHNSON Statement Correspondent

I fell back in love with Ann Arbor, unintentionally, on a run. I was training for an upcoming half-marathon, and I ventured farther and farther away from campus to get in my miles, seeing my endurance improve gradually. As the seconds on my stopwatch clicked upward, the familiar sights of the Diag, Nichols Arboretum and Kerrytown slowly morphed into quiet residential streets and shaded trails along the banks of the Huron River.

I never expected Ann Arbor, or rather, the 3,000-some acres that make up the University campus, to feel dull. My mother and sister are alumnae; growing up, they’d tell me how they missed the campus’s indescribable energy. I was entering my senior year of high school, and despite having told everyone I wanted to go to Michigan for years, I had never been to campus. I lived five hours north in a quiet tourist town on the shore of Lake Michigan and thought every day about how excited I was to leave. Ann Arbor was the antithesis of my hometown: It was young, vibrant and alive. But at some point after I had matriculated, the magic began to fade. I can’t exactly pinpoint when, but I think it happened while I was living in the Bay Area over the summer for an internship. Coming to California, I felt my whole world open up again. Everything about Ann Arbor that invigorated me — the natural beauty, the liveliness, the local charm — was amplified by a thousand in San Francisco. Returning to Michigan in some ways felt regressive, like there wasn’t anything new waiting for me here. I was entering my senior year and resigned myself to biding my time until I could move on to the next thing.

***

The University’s Central Campus is only 85 acres, but it casts an outsized shadow on the rest of the town. Residents of Ann Arbor have long complained about the “towngown” divide, and the University’s blatant disregard for the city’s

political authority. Students who grew up in Ann Arbor have described the University as being a completely different side of the city, with its own distinct culture and feel. Despite this separation, students still manage to encroach on townie life. It only occasionally bubbles to the surface in public ways, like at city council meetings, but if you look closely, you’ll see plenty of complaints and jokes about students on social media.

The town-gown relationship isn’t completely adversarial. The University does work with the city; both have a vested interest in maintaining Ann Arbor’s status as one of the best college towns in the country and one of the best places to live. Still, these goals seem at odds.

College students are, by nature, transient. A good place to live for four years in your 20s is different from a good place to put down roots and raise a family. I always understood why Ann Arbor was a great college town, that was obvious enough. But I sometimes wondered what made this city different from the other upscale, mid-sized cities across the country.

***

I started running farther and farther away from campus out of necessity. I had to increase the length of my long run each week. Eight miles became 10 and then 12.

I slowly edged deeper and deeper into the neighborhoods surrounding campus, like Bach, Water Hill and Barton Pond, before I found myself in wholly unfamiliar territory. I like to think that, even before I dove into marathon training, I got off campus more than the average student, albeit mostly because I had a car. I was a regular at a bagel place down on Washtenaw Avenue, often ventured out to the city’s parks and trails and would occasionally drive to Ypsilanti so I could go out for dinner without seeing everyone I knew. This certainly wasn’t all there was to Ann Arbor and its surrounding areas, but I thought I had seen a fair amount.

Now, I’m convinced the best way to discover Ann Arbor is on foot.

My main running route circled through Kerrytown before getting on the border-to-border trail, a

35-mile pathway that connects one end of Washtenaw County to the another. I’d make a loop around Gallup Park and continue on the trail before turning around near Washtenaw Community College.

Other times I’d head through the Old West Side neighborhood or east on Geddes Avenue, far past the Arb or frat row.

On these runs, I began to see Ann Arbor with fresh eyes again.

Intuitively, I knew there was more to campus; I wasn’t so self-absorbed as to think that people didn’t actually live in town. For the most part, however, my existence in Ann Arbor has been constricted to the one-mile radius around wherever I was living at the time. I’d drive to Meijer and Trader Joe’s and Briarwood every now and then like most students do, but I never took the scenic route or made any detours.

Running allowed a certain level of serendipity that driving didn’t. I was free to jog down any side street that caught my eye or circle around the block to catch a second look at one of the gorgeous old homes in the Old West Side. I could stop to pet a dog or read a sign tacked to a street post or get out my phone to figure out where on earth I was. I had lived in Ann Arbor for 3 years, but every run taught me something new about this place.

Despite my commitment to exploring beyond the cushy areas of campus, many of my favorite places to run were in the Old West Side and Burns Park, two of the most affluent neighborhoods in the area. While most students don’t regularly venture out to these areas, they were still within walking (or in my case, running) distance to campus.

If you don’t look closely, campus can feel homogenous, only displaying the particular kind of lifestyle maintained by wealthy students: M Den merchandise, SoulCycle classes, Aventura tapas and riverside dinners at the Gandy Dancer. I wondered if I had inadvertently replicated the same phenomenon during my training — was I focusing on the shiny, wealthy surface of the city and missing a much realer and more nuanced picture of what Ann Arbor was like?

When I eventually returned to

my apartment in Kerrytown at the end of each run, I updated my mental map of the city. I began to see how my small corner of campus was connected to the rest of Washtenaw County through trails and elementary schools and yard signs and fliers and all sorts of subtle markers.

***

Recent U-M alum Justin Yuan moved to Pittsfield Township, located south of Ann Arbor in Washtenaw County, during his third year at U-M and has continued living there post-graduation.

“It’s honestly super nice,” Yuan said of Pittsfield township. “It’s a new area, there’s a lot of stuff nearby, and I can spend more time in Ypsilanti, which is just beautiful. It’s less crowded but there’s still tons of people and it’s less expensive.”

Yuan admitted that he’d come to appreciate Ann Arbor proper and the downtown area more since moving farther away.

But it’s not so easy to disentangle my idyllic vision of

Ann Arbor from its wealth. Many of the features that make the city such a great place to live are supported by its affluent taxpayer base, like its well-kept parks and accessible public transportation. It’s the hidden subtext to every Ann Arbor ranks among best places to live headline.

The award-winning public schools, fantastic library system, gorgeous parks and beautiful neighborhoods can be yours, but only if you can afford it.

When it comes to building community and organizing for a better Ann Arbor, the city’s ultraaffluence can be a challenge.

“A lot of organizing is seeing the invisible people,” said Yuan. “And not invisible by their own design, but just by the reality of how people are forced to live, especially in a more expensive area, like in Ann Arbor.”

Yuan, who now works full-time

heritage, is full of gratitude. It is here that she found a community of Iranian regulars and a caring store owner who is willing to go out of his way to help people.

“I go there often to buy Persian herbs and cookies and things like that, and also I really really like their Bulgarian cheese,” Meghnot said. “(The owner) has pretty much any kind of flavor I need, and every time I ask him for a new product that he doesn’t have in the store, he tries to get it for me … He treats us like family.”

Plymouth Road Mall: The Asian culture melting pot created by U-M graduates

At Plymouth Mall, a two-story strip that stands at the northeast corner of Plymouth Road, six Chinese businesses, two Indian and one Korean bakery pack the perimeter. The mall carries deep ties with the University as well. Many founders or owners of these businesses — including Way 1 Chinese Market, Curry Up, Songbird Cafe and Midnight Karaoke — had either worked or studied at the University before owning their businesses.

Jenny Song, the owner of Songbird Cafe, is a “super townie.” She grew up in a Korean immigrant family on the Northside of Ann Arbor, attended Huron High School and moved on to study at the University. The experiential knowledge made Song believe this area on the Northside was ripe for a community cafe.

“We are a locally-owned business that has a focus on community,” Song said. “When you walk in, you can tell from your seating or dining experience that it’s not too formal. I just knew that this type of environment would do really well on the Northside, because before we started, which was 11 years ago, there were mostly big chains and corporate types of food service.”

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as an organizer with the Huron Valley Workers Organizing and Research Center, cited how many low-wage workers are pushed out of Ann Arbor by high rent prices. This geographic dispersion, combined with long commutes on top of work, can make it difficult for residents to see their common struggles or organize.

Building real community and making Ann Arbor a great place to live for everyone — not just for wealthy townies and students — takes work. Recognizing that there are communities beyond the University and that Ann Arbor is home to diverse people, many of whom are invisible to us, is the first step.

On a romantic level, I do think there is something special about Ann Arbor. It’s some combination of Midwestern friendliness, thriving cultural institutions, walkability and beautiful scenery. Ann Arbor will never be able to compete with a major city, but it doesn’t need to.

There’s so much more waiting to be discovered if you’re just willing to step off campus.

(ABOVE) Aladdin’s Market sits on a corner of the Packard/Platt mall.

KEITH MELONG/Daily

RILEY NIEBOER/Daily (ABOVE) The Songbird Cafe at the Plymouth Road Mall.

(ABOVE) The Golam Meat Market nestled in the Packard/Platt strip mall.

KEITH MELONG/Daily

(ABOVE) Patrons eat and relax at the Big City Small World Bakery at the corner of Miller Avenue and Spring Street.

JEREMY WEINE/Daily

Statement Correspondent Haley Johnson can be reached at haleyej@ umich.edu.

Me and my mother tongue

I don’t speak my mother tongue. I used to be regretful, upset and honestly a little bit ashamed that I never tried very hard to learn it.

My parents first tried to teach me when I was a baby. Appar ently, I used to flip flop between Tamil and English, which con fused my white preschool teachers. And I guess my teach ers were concerned enough that they told my parents to only teach me English at home.

I like to think that my teach ers had good intentions, but deep down, I still hold a lit tle bit of resentment towards their inflexibility in teaching

a bilingual child. In a world of “what-ifs,” I sometimes imagine a universe in which speaking solely Tamil from birth would have made me feel more secure in my Tamil identity. I wish that I had learned earlier that my American and Tamil identities aren’t mutually exclusive. I wish that society didn’t pressure my parents and other immigrants to assimilate and sacrifice their culture to survive in America. I wish that my teacher didn’t tell my parents to only speak to me in English.

In late elementary school, my parents tried teaching me my mother tongue again by sending me to a Tamil school on Sundays. We would wake up at 5:30 in the morning and drive an hour and a half to Ann

Arbor to attend religious and language classes. Since I was starting with very little prior background, I attended a baby

scolding of our teacher and the whispers of students. We sat on the floor, crisscrossing our legs, studying off of yellowed, torn

culture alive, it almost feels more sacrilegious that I don’t know how to speak it due to its vast history and continued efforts at preservation.

As an adult, I reckon with this loss. My experience is not dis similar to other first-generation children, who must also now redefine their cultural heritage in the absence of their mother tongues.

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class with 4- and 5-year-olds. There, the classrooms were bare, with no furniture and empty white walls, but I never felt isolated among the sharp

workbooks from India. After a few months, I went from learn ing how to count to three to introducing myself, and before I knew it, I was piecing together sentences. Eventually, I was good enough that when I went

In college, without my par ents, I’ve interrogated my relationship with the Tamil language. I even signed up for a Tamil class during fresh man year but quickly dropped out when I realized that I was much further behind my class mates. Despite these experi ences, by meeting other Desi peers that don’t speak their native tongue, I have rediscov ered ways to exchange cultures.

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In the process of mourning my mother tongue, I have redefined what being diasporic Tamil means to me.

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The fight for water

ISABEL SCHINDLER Opinion Columnist

Access to clean and reliable water is something that we often take for granted. However, for the approximately 150,000 residents of Jackson, Mississippi, clean water is not a guarantee. This summer, the city’s long-struggling water system broke down, leaving the city without safe running water for even basic services to this day. The crisis in this overwhelmingly African American city serves as a stark reminder of the disproportionate impact of infrastructure issues on communities of Color and how governments often fail to provide basic services to their most vulnerable residents. The situation in Jackson also reminds us of Michigan’s water issues, where communities like Flint and Benton Harbor have had to continually fight for the fundamental right to clean water, a fight they have still yet to win.

The current water crisis in Jackson started in August when torrential rains caused major flooding of the Pearl River, which runs through the city. The flooding decreased the water quality going into the city’s main water treatment plant, which put a major strain on the plant. Soon there were concerns about low water pressure and the possible growth of harmful bacteria.

Backup water treatment plants and secondary pumps also failed across the city. This catastrophic failure of the system led to many residents having no running water for several days, and a warning from the governor that they would not have water for even basic services like fighting fires and plumbing.

Eventually, water services were restored, but the water quality was severely diminished. For months, residents were told they had to boil water before using it, even for basic actions like brushing their teeth.

Long lines formed at National Guard water bottle giveaway sites

as Jackson residents struggled to obtain clean water. Eventually, water service was restored and the boil water notice was lifted, but many residents are still understandably extremely wary about drinking the water. The city still recommends that young children and pregnant women not drink the water because of possible lead exposure, showing that the larger issues about water quality are ongoing. Many residents have also reported water quality issues, with images of foul-colored water going viral on social media.

The issues plaguing Jackson’s water supply are not new. The city’s entire municipal water system has long been plagued with issues, including over 300 boil water notices over the past two years because of concerns of E. coli and other bacteria in the water. The water system has been deteriorating for years due to mismanagement, underinvestment and the shrinking of the city’s population. Like many other urban cities, such as Detroit and Flint, Jackson has faced continued population decreases.

The decreasing population has led to a shrinking tax base, making it hard to maintain a water system that includes pipes that are over 100 years old.

It is impossible to look at the situation in Jackson and not recognize the clear issue of racial inequities. Jackson is an overwhelmingly majority-minority city where 80% of the residents are Black. It is also a city that experiences poverty at a higher rate than the rest of the nation. The median household income is about $40,000, which is $25,000 less than the median income nationwide, and 25% of the residents of the city live in poverty.

Communities of Color are often most impacted by structural inequities in our nation’s infrastructure. A recent investigation of Chicago’s tap water found that the majority of Black and Hispanic neighborhoods had higher levels of lead in their water than white neighborhoods. In the

predominantly white suburbs of Jackson there are no water access issues, as these residents have newer water treatment plants.

Jackson also faces the unfortunate reality of being in the deep red state of Mississippi. For years, Republican administrations in Mississippi have promoted the idea of small government by turning down federal dollars and voting for low taxes and low public investment. In 2022, the state legislature did not approve a bill that would have authorized $4 million in bonds for Jackson water and sewer improvements. A separate proposal that sought to increase the sales tax by 1% in order to fund infrastructure improvements also died in the state legislature. It is worth noting that there have been many issues under the Democratic leadership of the city for decades with regard to the water system; however, the problem of infrastructure spending is something that is dealt with primarily on the state level.

This situation also demonstrates the impact of climate change on our nation’s infrastructure. As was seen in Jackson, climate change caused- issues such as intense flooding can have a major impact on already struggling infrastructure and disproportionately impact communities of Color. With more and more “historic and unprecedented” weather events happening, we will see more of our infrastructure unable to survive our changing climate. If we do not take meaningful steps to address the climate crisis, we will continue to have these dangerous and disruptive infrastructure issues.

The situation in Jackon hits close to home here in Michigan, where we have seen major lead issues in the water supplies of both Flint and Benton Harbor. The story of these cities is so similar, where communities are left behind and denied access to clean water. It is critical that people continue to shine a light on the situation in Jackson so that this vulnerable community is not left behind.

New Michigan Medicine contract reveals a nursing system in critical condition

On Oct. 1, with the ratifica tion of a new agreement by the University of Michigan Profes sional Nurses Council, a monthslong period in which nurses at Michigan Medicine had been working without a contract came to an end. The extended negotiation period was due to hospital administration and Michigan Medicine nurses’s fail ure to reach a new contractual agreement that would properly resolve the workplace problems that had permeated throughout the hospital.

The new contract was hailed as an achievement by both staff and administration alike; a major ity of nurses voted in favor of the new contract, and Michigan Medicine spokesperson Mary Masson called it “a fair agree ment that recognizes the value our nurses bring to our patients and the organization.” While this is a cause for hope, it goes with out saying that the current chal lenges and hardships that nurses face are not few and far between.

The union strike vote was spurred by a combination of fac tors, including staffing difficul ties, wage issues and scheduling complications. Many nurses within Michigan Medicine have faced unfair labor practices such as mandatory overtime, which was detrimental to the work-life balance of Ann Arbor nurses.

Also notable are the conditions in which nurses and other health care professionals work. Many health care professionals have had to face various pathogens running rampant while fight ing on the front-lines to keep our communities safe.

Despite the importance of the work they do, nurses, both at the University and nationally, still lack the payment and wages they deserve. The strike vote by Michigan Medicine nurses aimed to fight back against these unfair practices, and, while many of these problems have been resolved on a local level with the recent contractual agreement reached, these issues extend far beyond Michigan Medicine.

Additionally, due to the gruel ing nature and financial burden of nursing school, it is important to note the challenges and sacri fices many nurses have to make to go through the proper educa tion and licensing to practice in general.

The discontent nurses have had with Michigan Medicine is reflected nationally within the healthcare industry. Vari ous other strikes and protests are taking place throughout the United States because of this national shortage. The effects and reverberations of COVID-19 still resonate within the nursing profession, and it has caused a

shortage of available nurses will ing to work under these unfair conditions and insufficient wages.

These problems are all indica tive of a greater, systemic issue within the healthcare industry in the U.S. With nursing being a predominantly female occupa tion, issues of systemic sexism and other forms of workplace abuse should be considered.

Despite the severity of the sit uation, there are still manageable action steps toward an improved working environment for nurses. Certain pragmatic solutions, such as paying nurses more, are still Band-Aid solutions over a gaping wound. A structural prob lem requires structural solutions, and, with hospitals at the root of this problem, we should look to them for the solution.

The first step is to stop treat ing nurses as interchangeable. Nurses can have very specialized roles. It’s commonplace for the criticality of the patient to exceed the expertise of a nurse in a unit. This issue is compounded when the nurse has multiple patients.

Having a non-ICU nurse oversee ing the care of ICU patients is an example of this kind of misallo cation of resources. This leads to burnout, which can take a toll on their performance at work.

Hospitals must start prioritiz ing measures for infection con trol. For instance, more money should be allocated toward per sonal protective equipment, or “PPE,” for some of the most frontline workers: nurses. Employ ers also have a responsibility of ensuring the proper use of PPE, which requires the implementa tion of a PPE program.

While workplace changes within hospitals are necessary, part of the problem also lies in the education system. As older and more experienced nurses move on to other roles or retire, a large educational apparatus is necessary to keep a steady flow of replacements entering the system. Colleges and universi ties, however, lack the teaching staff and resources to accept all of the large number of qualified people applying, with nearly 80,000 prospective nursing stu dents being refused admission to schools in 2012.

For a field with a turnover rate

TESS CROWLEY/Daily

as high as 27.1%, these educa tional limitations spell disaster. Without new nurses, jobs cannot be filled and patients will suffer. In 2021, the number of registered nurses in the U.S. shrank by 3%.

After the COVID-19 pan demic and more recent monkey pox scare, we cannot afford to be caught this understaffed and unprepared. To keep supply in line with skyrocketing demand, state and federal funding is nec essary to shore up our nursing education infrastructure. A key first step was taken this year in Michigan when Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the legislature pushed through $56 million of funding for nursing education. This is an excellent start that needs to be built upon in the future.

With more than half a million nurses projected to leave the field by 2024, the problem will only get worse the longer we wait. In the meantime, while new nurses are educated and trained, we must focus on retention of the current labor force.

As nurse unions here at the University of Michigan and across the country push for bet ter contracts, hospital adminis tration must be receptive. Better working conditions will help relieve much of the burnout and stress these health care workers often suffer from. But monetary compensation and reduced over time are not the only changes that must be made.

Despite their important role in health care, nurses often complain they feel disrespected at work. A job in nursing must also come with the dignity and gratitude it deserves. An atmo sphere of support and apprecia tion would keep nurses on the job for longer and boost floundering ranks at hospitals nationwide.

Many deep-rooted problems must be addressed, both within the hospital system and the nurs ing education system. However, Michigan Medicine’s new con tract marks a significant first step toward better serving and appreciating our valuable nurs es. Laying the groundwork for future progress, the contract is a beacon of hope — not only for nurses within Michigan Medi cine but for nurses across the nation.

Kyrsten cinema continues to be astoundinly terrible

DEVON HESANO Opinion

This week, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., paid a trip to the McConnell Center, named after Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. The move sparked righteous anger from many on the left, given the Republican senator’s legislative history that spans decades.

Though it’s fair to take exception to any visit to the center from Democrats, the larger problem with this trip was the timing of the visit and the comments she decided to make. Take the fact that nowPresident Joe Biden visited the center as vice president, or that Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s, D-Minn., visited just this year. Those moves sparked little backlash at the time.

For starters, Sinema took the trip in the heart of the midterm elections. That sort of timing does not look good.

The upcoming midterms are extremely competitive, and Sinema’s Arizona partner in the senate, Mark Kelly, is in a critical re-election battle. Sinema

somehow managed to find time to visit the man orchestrating the Republican takeover of the Senate, while at the same time failing to appropriately campaign for Democratic candidates in her home state. Business Insider pointed to a tweet by U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who is seen as a potential primary challenger to Sinema come 2024.

“Now that I think of it. I have been traveling the state and country. Donating, raising funds and encouraging people to come out and vote and I have seen you nowhere @SenatorSinema,” said the Democratic representative from Arizona.

When it comes to the comments made by Sinema herself, one is not hard-pressed to come up with a litany of complaints. First, she heaped delusional praise on the Kentucky senator, outright claiming that “we do share the same values.” These values could be numerous, but perhaps some are their mutual support for a starvation wage, tax loopholes for the richest Americans or minority rule.

She also claimed that McConnell shared her “pragmatic approach to legislating.” It’s one thing to say that Sinema

herself is a pragmatic senator. But McConnell? In what ways did voting against convicting a man who fomented an insurrection against the United States government as president, recklessly holding open a Supreme Court seat for over a year for nothing but partisan gain (only to be hypocritical about the matter years later when a Republican had the opportunity to appoint a justice) and claiming that “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” effuse sensibility and realism?

Beyond gross miscalculations of character, Sinema also made sure to roll out an awful legislative proposal as well. A staunch supporter of the filibuster, an arcane Senate rule that enables minority rule and Capitol gridlock and disproportionately benefits Republicans who seek the status quo, Sinema made a proposal to actually expand the 60-vote threshold, an idea she herself admitted is incredibly unpopular. Apparently, the senator is in favor of partisan nonsense that would keep crucial judicial seats open, starve future presidents of cabinets of their

preference and increase Capitol Hill political games and delays.

Lastly, the senator found it wise to opine negatively on Democrats’ chances in the upcoming midterms, when she suggested that Democrats are likely to lose control of the House and Senate. While losing the House is likely, Democrats are actually favored to win the Senate, according to FiveThirtyEight. Moreover, it simply does not make sense to be pessimistic on your party’s chances as a major political figure of that party. There is a reason that Rick Scott has predicted 52 or more Republican senators post-2024 and that he was 100% certain they will take the Senate. It is the same reason that Nancy Pelosi insisted that Democrats would gain House seats. While both are unlikely, projecting confidence is key to base enthusiasm and donor interest.

Unfortunately for Democrats, Sinema’s fiasco this week is just another page in her disappointing and confusing recent political career. She sides with Republicans not only when her party takes extreme positions, but also when Democrats are on the side of public opinion. She

has, with no moral explanation, insisted on awful policies that gutted progressive proposals on excise taxes and the carried interest loophole. She has chopped up Democrats’ plans on drug pricing, gone against immigrants’ rights in political show votes and cozied up to dangerous special interests. And of course, she has not been willing to do what it will take to protect women’s reproductive freedom, voting rights and democracy itself by siding with Mitch McConnell and Republicans on the filibuster.

In all of this, Sinema has failed to adhere to any sane logic for her actions. It certainly can’t be that she is catering to her constituents. Vote after vote, Sinema has gone against what the majority of Arizonans have wanted. As a result, she has also positioned herself as an incredibly unpopular politician for whom re-election would be of great difficulty. She has done what is often impossible in politics: united a state… against her.

She is 17 points underwater among likely voters, 20 points underwater among Democrats, 10 points underwater among

Independents and 18 points underwater among Republicans. In fact, Sinema has double-digit unfavorable percentages in every single major demographic. What makes Sinema problematic is not simply that she is a fan of bipartisanship at large. The issue with Sinema is her insistence on associating with bad-faith Republicans over the goals of the Democratic Party and its base, often doing so in a way so overt she seems to merely be seeking status as an influential kingmaker with favorable standing among the Republican Party. More often than not, her focus on appealing to the opposite side of the aisle goes beyond crafting effective policy, and instead props up Republicans who are at fault for much of the dysfunction and political rhetoric she claims to be so concerned about.

Kyrsten Sinema is in office until at least January 2025. And while her presence in Arizona is infinitely better than any Republican who may replace her, Democrats can expect her dumbfounding and infuriating hijinks as we saw at the McConnell Center to continue, all the way until a primary opponent finds success against her.

Stanford

Reflections on antisemitism and intersectionality during the High Holy Days

Preserve federal health funds, now more than ever

Conversations

around antisemitism on campus often flare up in conjunction with reports of increased violence in Israel and Palestine. The discourse that arises typically positions Palestinians and their allies against the Zionist Jewish community. As a Jewish student who doesn’t identify as a Zionist and routinely criticizes the Israeli government, I often feel that conversations about antisemitism on campus have more to do with silencing Palestinians than protecting Jews.

On parents weekend, when my dad picked up a Ziploc bag filled with flyers that blamed Jews for COVID and accused them of child grooming and controlling the media, I was incredibly surprised and disturbed. This was the most blatant and upsetting act of antisemitism I have personally witnessed, and the distribution of these flyers on Erev Rosh Hashanah was particularly hurtful.

While I have been struggling with the incident because it was jarring to see such hateful messaging, my anger and sadness extends beyond the flyers. I’m upset that the majority of conversations about antisemitism are obscured by fights over whether or not it is acceptable to criticize the Israeli government — taking attention away from the severity of these

harmful and violent acts. I have witnessed Zionist students heckle and boo Palestinian students at the Apartheid Wall on the Diag and deface the Palestinian flag on the Michigan Rock. I believe these actions undermine the fight against true antisemitism.

I think the most important consideration when assessing whether or not something is antisemitic is the impact it has on Jewish safety. Organizations like AIPAC have blurred the lines between Jewish safety and the existence of a Jewish state by positioning unequivocal support for Israel as the sole qualifier for the safety of the Jewish people. Their methods of “preserving” the U.S.-Israel relationship have imperiled American democracy through their endorsement of dozens of insurrectionist Republicans who refused to certify the results of the 2020 election.

In Democratic primaries this election cycle, they poured more than $21 million to elect “proIsrael” candidates, most notably intervening in Michigan’s 11th-district race between incumbents Andy Levin and Haley Stevens.

AIPAC began targeting Levin and his re-election campaign after his sponsorship of H.R. 5344, a bill that would prevent American military aid to Israel from being used in human rights violations. In an email endorsing Stevens, former AIPAC president David Victor called Levin (who is Jewish) the “most corrosive member of Congress to the

US-Israel relationship” and “more damaging than Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.” This statement, in addition to being deeply Islamophobic, highlights right-wing pro-Israel advocates’ fundamental misunderstanding of how the relationship between the U.S. and Israel connects to antisemitism. Jews in America are not safer simply because the American government writes Israel a blank check. Jews in America are safer when the fight against antisemitism is intersectional and encompasses other forms of oppression, including Islamophobia and violence towards Palestinians.

Jewish safety extends beyond establishing a singular geographical space for our community to call home. It requires a broader understanding of safety for all marginalized groups and a commitment to making places other than Israel safe for Jews as well. My hope is that conversations around antisemitism are focused on insidious acts like the flyers my parents and I received last weekend, and that — when conversations critiquing the Israeli government arise — Jewish students on campus are able to listen empathetically to Palestinian students. As I’ve reflected during the 10 days of repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I am reminded both of the scary and imminent danger presented by antisemitism and the importance of confronting all forms of bigotry and oppression to build a safer world for everyone.

The University of Michigan’s faltering promises of minority representation

SAM FOGEL Opinion Columnist

The University of Michigan is an incredibly selective university and prestigious enough to land on many high school students’ “reach lists.” Our endowment is massive, standing at $17 billion as of 2021, the highest of any public university in the country. We are constantly rated in the top five public universities in the country, by the U.S. News & World Report and beyond. There are many reasons the University is so successful as an institution, but the amount of wealth that researchers and administrators have access to cannot be understated.

I come from a very privileged background. I grew up in Birmingham, Mich., one of the wealthiest suburbs in Metro Detroit. The fact that my father could send two kids to college is a testament to the inherent advantages I received by proxy of merit that isn’t mine. In contrast, one of my roommates is currently receiving financial aid from the University. He’s one of the few Hawaiians on campus, and he has been involved in multiple organizations working towards increased visibility for Asian-American/Pacific Islander (emphasis on the PI) people on campus. He’s from Jackson, Mich., a less affluent area than where I come from. He sometimes mentions that he feels out of place among his affluent peers at Michigan.

The statistics back my roommate’s anecdotal account.

In 2017, The New York Times compiled data that analyzed the demographics of America’s higher education institutions. The data revealed that the country’s top schools admitted way more students from elite families than they realized. The median family income of a student from the University is $154,000, and 66% of students come from the top 20% of income. The average income of U-M students is in the 80th percentile, with only 3.6% of kids coming from the lowest 20% of family incomes.

Income inequality is an issue closely related to race in this country, and this extends to the University’s disparity in family wealth among students.

According to the University of

Michigan’s Center for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the student population is made up of 65% White/Caucasian people, 15% Asian-American people, 10% Other/Unknown, 5% Black/ African American people, 6% Hispanic/Latino American people and 1% Native American people.

Asian Americans are the most represented minority group on campus, with the group even being overrepresented compared to the state of Michigan’s racial demographic. White people are slightly underrepresented, and Native-Americans are close to accurately represented, alongside Latinx people. Black people, however, are grievously underrepresented on campus.

The percentage is less than a third of where it should be: 14% according to the 2020 U.S. Census. With places like Jackson, Ypsilanti and Metro Detroit so close by, it should be relatively easy to encourage more outreach programs like the U-M Detroit program to reach these communities underserved and underrepresented by the University.

Admittedly, I cannot find a good figure for the budget of the University’s Center for Educational Outreach, so I cannot confidently say anything surrounding its level of funding. It looks like the people there do good work and are skilled at this kind of outreach, advertising things like campus visits and college advising programs. However, looking at the University’s own published demographics from the 2008-2009 academic year, the year the CEO was founded, the number of enrolled students from underrepresented groups has not significantly improved.

As colleges become more and more competitive, it’s imperative that the University works to make sure students who come from underprivileged backgrounds aren’t left behind by their wealthier counterparts.

According to the NYT study on higher education, poorer students do about as well as their wealthier counterparts post-graduation, making the “poor students wouldn’t be as successful even if admitted” excuse invalid. Even if that were true, it should still be the responsibility of the University to prepare disadvantaged students without access to things like

SAT tutors or AP classes for the college environment.

The University of Michigan, alongside the University of California system, was forced to stop affirmative action in 2007. Gratz v. Bollinger (2003) was a U.S. Supreme Court case that ruled the University of Michigan’s affirmative action policies unconstitutional in violating the 14th Amendment.

The University’s system added points to the applications of minority students to make up for the presumed gap in educational opportunities between minority groups and white people.

In order to make things equitable, a system like the “Adversity Index,” which considers potential applicants’ backgrounds to account for socioeconomic background, among other things. Affirmative action can be used in an entirely race-neutral manner and still benefit many of the underrepresented groups on campus due to the correlation of race and poverty. In addition, minority groups are not homogenous and often have wealth gaps of their own.

Though many Asian American ethnicities have high average incomes, Asian Americans have the highest intra-group wealth gaps out of any group in America. It wouldn’t be fair to the less fortunate members of that community to deny applicants because the community as a whole is overrepresented on campus. Of course, raceneutral affirmative action isn’t as effective at increasing racial diversity than explicitly racebased programs, but it’s better than nothing.

The University of Michigan needs to make more of an effort to admit and accommodate less privileged students and minority students. Broadly, affirmative action programs should be reinstated, even if they judge solely by economic factors. The Michigan constitution would have to be amended, which makes this implausible in the short term, but that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be any efforts to address this problem. Perhaps the University could reinvest a tiny fraction of its assets into outreach programs. Less fortunate applicants deserve a fair and equal chance to attend the University of Michigan.

LYDIA STORELLA Opinion Columnist

OnSept. 18, President Joe Biden declared on “60 Minutes” that the COVID19 pandemic is over, saying, “We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lot of work on it … but the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape.

Biden’s comments caught many people in the public health community off guard, including the president’s own health officials. Based on the formal epidemiological definition, a pandemic is “an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people.”

The United States and world have largely returned to normal, with people going to school and work maskless and attending crowded sports games and concerts. However, based on the data, the COVID-19 pandemic is not over. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Chief Medical Advisor to the president, said Tuesday that the world is not done with the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only was Biden’s statement blatantly false, but it was exceptionally poorly timed considering that COVID-19 situation is worsening in the United State. As we transition from summer into winter, when COVID-19 has historically been most destructive, the president should have been more tactful.

In addition to the fact that the COVID-19 virus is still a pandemic, there are several political reasons why Biden should not have stated that the pandemic is over. One reason that Biden’s announcement was politically unwise is that the Biden administration is currently working on securing $22.4 billion in COVID-19 funding to stockpile tests and vaccines, support research into the virus, and study the global vaccine response.

Republicans already pushed back against the request in March, asking how the previous trillions of dollars in COVID-19 funding were spent, which forced the

White House to pause a program that would distribute tests to many American homes. The U.S. also had to reduce the importation and production of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, which could seriously harm the country’s ability to distribute those goods. The lack of funding also delays further research into new COVID19 vaccines, which could lead to a weakened ability to respond to a new variant.

Biden’s announcement led even more Republicans to question the necessity of further funding, with one outright saying that such a statement makes it “eminently harder for sure” to secure the funding and “If it’s over, then I wouldn’t suspect they need any more money.”

Vaccination rates are another reason why Biden should not have announced that the COVID-19 pandemic is over. Public health officials around the country are encouraging Americans to get a second booster shot, and their ability to be persuasive may be hindered by the president’s comments. In September, public health officials rolled out a new vaccine aimed at combating the threat of sub variants, the Omicron variant in particular, that have made up the majority of cases in the U.S. over the past few months. The CDC recommends that everyone 12 and older get a second booster shot in order to restore the protection that has waned since the first booster, which can help to prevent serious illness from COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent vaccination campaign have been politicized since 2020, and Biden’s comments could lead to even fewer Americans getting vaccinated. Only 68% of Americans received the original COVID-19 vaccines, and less than half of them got a booster shot. It seems likely that even fewer people will receive a second shot. With this data in mind, along with the reality of the COVID-19 threat, one has to wonder why Biden announced that the pandemic is over. It goes against any public health guidance, and will likely lead to lower vaccination rates and more cases of the virus. If the pandemic is over, why does the virus still pose a threat worthy of

vaccination?

The day after Biden’s interview, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services tweeted that the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency remains in effect. This announcement triggered backlash from Republicans, who used Biden’s declaration of the end of the pandemic to call into question many existing COVID-19 restrictions.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., wanted to know when Biden would end the vaccine requirements for federal employees, while Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., questioned the necessity of the pause on student loan repayments.

In the days after Biden’s interview, his public health officials scrambled to clarify what he meant. Dr. Anthony Fauci said that while the country is in a better place, “we are not where we need to be if we are going to ‘live with the virus.’” The lack of clear guidance from federal authorities will lead to confusion about what the actual public health recommendations are.

While Biden was likely trying to convey that we are in a better place in our response to the pandemic, defining a pandemic is not a matter of semantics. What the president, his staff and his public health officials say about the state of the pandemic will determine how people act and what measures are taken by the federal government to prevent further spread.

The funding that Congress provides for research of the virus and investment in testing and vaccination infrastructure will help the country’s COVID-19 response into the winter season, preventing illness and allowing scientists to have a better understanding of the virus. The president’s comments will likely lead to a reduction in the amount of money allocated for these essential goods and services, which could make the COVID-19 situation worse this winter and even cost lives.

Biden’s comments are grossly irresponsible. He should walk them back in the strongest possible terms in order to be in line with recommendations from his own officials and to ensure that public health funding remains available in the future.

SREELAKSHMI PANICKER Opinion Columnist

As college students, we’ve all been in those situations where we’ve pulled desperate all-nighters before exams or had to work well past when we wanted to. If you’re a student at the University of Michigan, chances are that you’ve experienced at least one of these scenarios. More often than not, we take the practice of sleep and its necessity for granted. After all, roughly one-third of our lives seems like more than enough time to sacrifice for this one task. We don’t really need eight hours of sleep every night, do we?

The practice of sleep hygiene actually impacts our biological well-being more deeply than we recognize on an everyday basis. Strong sleep hygiene involves shaping your life choices and bedroom to suit “consistent, uninterrupted sleep.” Benefits, ranging from cognitive to physical to psychological health and ability, can derive a substantial boost from sleep. The list of benefits can be endless when it comes to the body’s reliance on sleep. The body uses it

to consolidate memories, regulate emotions and ultimately organize the framework for our cognition while we are awake. Essentially, the literal length of our life span and the quality of life we will live throughout that time holds direct ties to our sleep habits.

This can be an understandably intimidating lens to view a habit we’re inherently programmed to do. But ultimately, it’s a necessary practice. Studies have shown that over 70% of college students get insufficient sleep, which can have consequences that go past lifelong damage to our physical well-being. Certain types of memory are actually known to correspond with certain types of sleep stages, with our procedural memory being dependent on the quality of our rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep and declarative memory depending on non-REM sleep. In short, our very efforts of sacrificing sleep in order to get ahead in school are actually undermining our ability to achieve this goal in the first place.

Unfortunately, as nice as it would be, merely recognizing the importance of sleep is not enough. Any student can tell you that they need more sleep, but cultivating

good sleep habits in college can be difficult for most. When trying to balance it on top of assignments, exams, a social life, exercise, self-care, extracurriculars and whatever other commitments that life demands of us, it seems even more daunting. On top of that, common habits of college students like alcohol consumption, technology use and caffeine consumption directly inhibit our sleep quality. So rather than trading in the very joys of life that we seek to lengthen with the practice of sleep, we can instead make an effort to construct a healthy balance that allows us to better attune to our body’s needs.

In order to comprehensively formulate an optimal sleep schedule, the fundamental factors that induce sleep and determine its quality need to be understood. A lot of different components go into developing this toolkit. That’s why the most realistic way to integrate a healthy sleep routine into our lives is to simply become aware of those components and make a concerted effort to fit an attainable amount of these practices into your daily life.

How we can best optimize our sleep schedules as college students

Design by Sara Fang

Wolverines learn lesson in adversity in loss to Huskers

JAMES DOYLE For The Daily

Going into their matchup with perennial powerhouse No. 3 Nebraska, the No. 24 Michigan volleyball team knew it was being thrown into the frying pan. But, after both of the Wolverines’ mid dle blockers — senior Jess Robin son and sophomore Jacques Boney — were blocked in the Cornhusk ers’ 11-3 opening run, they realized they were fully in the fire.

Nebraska is such a tough oppo nent, in part, because of its strength from the service line. The Corn huskers recorded six service aces to Michigan’s zero, but the pressure they put on the Wolverines’ passers was apparent throughout the entire game. Suboptimal passes took away some of junior setter Scottee John son’s options and speed. Michigan had to rely on junior outside hitters Jess Mruzik and Kendall Mur ray scoring against a fully formed Nebraska block.

“I thought our team stayed really aggressive, which was really important,” Michigan coach Mark Rosen said. “(Nebraska’s) a team

that, when they’re blocking really well and they’re playing great defense, they can kind of make you want to back off a little bit.”

Indeed, playing aggressive is just what Michigan did. Mruzik and Murray didn’t hit timidly against the Nebraska block, but the Corn huskers’ defense allows the lowest opponent hitting percentage in the nation. Playing aggressively against them is bound to yield good, bad and ugly results. Mruzik hit .025, her lowest percentage of the sea son. There were times when she and Murray committed errors or were blocked. There were times when Nebraska libero Lexi Rodri guez turned sure-fire Michigan kills into Nebraska points. Still, Murray stressed the value of an aggressive mindset:

“Being able to stay aggressive is what kind of drives our team,” Murray said. “When we’re scoring out of system, it’s not only ener getic, but it also gives our setters confidence, it gives our liberos confidence, like it just feeds off throughout the entire team.”

The Wolverines demonstrated their ability to stay confident in the second set. Following a disheart

ening 25-14 first set loss, Michigan bounced back in the second set.

Notably, with the set tied 20-20, Mruzik ended a long rally with a kill. In a high pressure situation, Mruzik and the Wolverines reaped the benefits of their maintained confidence and took back the momentum. While they went on

to lose 26-24, they took the Corn huskers to their brink.

“They executed a little bit better that time, but I don’t think we did anything wrong,” Rosen said. “I was really proud of how we played that set.”

In the second set, Michigan proved they could hang with the

best of the best in the NCAA. While the box score shows a definitive loss, there were lessons learned for the Wolverines.

“I thought we saw a lot of good things tonight,” Mruzik said. “When things aren’t necessarily going our way, keeping connected and keeping that eye contact and

I thought tonight we did a really good job.”

Despite their ability to come together as a team, the Wolver ines would lose the third set, 25-19.

Nebraska looked more polished, and it showed in the box score. As a team, the Cornhuskers had a .330 hitting percentage compared to the Wolverines’ .184. They were able to turn quality passing into kills, registering a sideout percentage 20 points higher than Michigan throughout the match.

“We weren’t as clean as they were and that’s where we need to get better,” Rosen said. “(We) played the way we wanted to play, even though we didn’t get the result we wanted.”

While Michigan may have felt the heat, they have already proven they can beat the best of the best, upsetting No. 9 Penn State on Sept. 24. However, ranked No. 24, the Wolverines have yet to stake their claim as a member of that upper echelon. While the result against Nebraska may not bolster its case, the lessons learned from the game may help Michigan as it continues conference play in a difficult Big Ten conference.

Attack errors foil Michigan in loss to Minnesota

JOSHUA BROWN For The Daily

Beating a perennial contender is a difficult feat. It is even harder to do when attempting to over come self-inflicted wounds.

For the No. 24 Michigan vol leyball team (12-3 overall, 3-2 Big Ten), Friday’s matchup against No. 11 Minnesota (9-5, 4-2) was a litmus test. Ultimately, the Wol verines were overwhelmed by the Golden Gophers’ stout defense, 3-0, and committed numerous attacking errors in the loss.

Michigan came into the match with momentum off a 3-1 win at Northwestern on Oct. 1, and it looked to carry that into this anticipated matchup after finally cracking into the AVCA Coaches top 25. But right away, Minnesota stole the energy by going on a 9-0 run to capture a 15-5 lead in the first set.

“I just thought we were really streaky tonight,” Michigan coach Mark Rosen said. “A lot of times when you get into the streaks, it’s your first contact. Our passing was great tonight and we passed the ball really well, and they’re a tough-serving team. … We just didn’t have very good rhythm between our setting and our hit

ting.”

The Gophers rode their own stout play to a dominant 25-12 first set win, with no attack errors compared to the Wolverines’ nine. Michigan junior outside hitter Kendall Murray contributed four of those early errors without pro viding a single kill. The Wolver ines also significantly trailed in hit percentage in the set, just getting out of the negative at .034, while Minnesota finished the set at .500.

Despite the lopsided first set score, senior middle blocker May Pertofsky began to emerge as a bright spot with four early kills, ending the match with eight total.

Rosen noted some tweaks from the week’s practices that raised Pertofsky’s game.

“(Pertofsky) was really good and they’ve been working all week to get a different look or rhythm to their offense,” Rosen said. “May hits a quicker ball better, so we tried to spin speed it up. … Her numbers today reflect how hard she’s worked all week.”

But even with Pertofsky’s improved performance, Michigan got backed into a corner after the first set. It needed to rally to put up a more competitive showing in the second set without pressing in a reckless fashion.

“When you are playing a team

where we’re not playing our best game, you have to stay pretty even with your attitude and even when you’re playing,” Pertofsky said. “So you can’t just go out and rip as many balls as you can. You just have to play smart.”

In the second set, Michigan found better rhythm but the end result did not change. Play between the teams went back and forth, but Minnesota nudged ahead with a 21-16 lead and held on for the set win. Gophers outside hitter Taylor Landfair recorded the set-winning kill and racked up a remarkable 18 kills in the match to complement a .452 hit percentage.

The third set was more analo gous to the first set, with Michi gan’s self-inflicted attacking errors continuing to stack upon each other as they dropped the set 25-13. The gap between the teams’ total attacking errors proved decisive: 25 for the Wol verines and a mere eight for Minnesota.

Moving forward in confer ence play, Michigan knows it has to continue to work on its com munication and collective team effort if it wants to diminish its errors. On Friday, it made too many mistakes, and that ulti mately cost it the game.

Michigan loses focus in loss against Wisconsin

ISABELLA VILLACORTA For The Daily

Games can change in a matter of minutes.

That’s what happened on Fri day night in the Michigan men’s soccer team’s (3-6-3 overall, 1-3-1 Big Ten) bout with Wisconsin (4-5-1, 1-3-0), where it fell, 2-1.

Beginning the first half, the Badgers applied consistent pres sure to the Wolverines. With eight shots to Michigan’s zero, Wisconsin quickly took the upper hand. But sophomore goalkeeper Hayden Evans kept the Wolver ines in the game with five incred ible saves, ending the game with eight saves — the most he’s had in a game this season.

“We kind of weathered the storm in the whole first half,” Michigan coach Chaka Daley said. “We weren’t on it, but Hayden made a couple of good saves to keep us zero-zero at halftime.”

When the half ended in a scoreless draw, it remained to be seen what changes each team would make. Coming back onto

the field, it was clear the Wol verines had made the necessary adjustments. Right away they maintained possession, played quicker on the ball and took more shots on goal.

“We made some adjustments at halftime that gave us…that shot in the arm,” Daley said.

“That shot in the arm changed the momentum of the game. We were on it and created chances and kind of were on the front foot.”

This led to a corner kick for Michigan, which it successfully capitalized on.

Senior forward Inaki Rodri guez, kicking the corner, placed the ball into the box where senior defender Brennan Callow took a header shot. Though Badgers midfielder Tim Bielic blocked it, freshman defender Nolan Miller was quick to rebound with a header, scoring the first goal of the game in the 66th minute.

Soon after, tides shifted.

The Badgers quickly regained momentum and in the 72nd minute scored their first goal.

With a cross in from the left by a Wisconsin defender, Badgers

forward Jack Finnegan one touched the ball into the top of the net.

“Once they got the equal izer, that’s when the games get hard,” Daley said. “We just lost our focus for a minute.”

After Wisconsin scored the equalizer, Michigan was unable to regain focus, giving the Bad gers the upper hand once again.

Within minutes of their first goal Wisconsin scored another, taking the lead, 2-1. With a pass from the midfield, Wisconsin defender Max Keenan was able to take a shot from the right, evading the Wolverine’s defen sive line.

“I think we just relaxed maybe a little bit thinking we were on top of it,” Daley said.

Michigan earned three more corner kick opportunities in the second half, but could not finish them. The Badgers con tinued to take more shots, dou bling the Wolverines. These fewer and missed scoring opportunities were crucial, and they ultimately led to Wiscon sin taking home its first Big Ten win.

Michigan suffers second back-to-back loss against Nebraska

0.113 in 14 matches.

After falling to No. 11 Minne sota in straight sets on Friday, the Michigan volleyball team (12-4 overall, 3-3 Big Ten) looked to bounce back with an upset win against No. 3 Nebraska on Satur day. The Cornhuskers (14-1, 6-0) entered the match undefeated in Big Ten games, including a huge five-set win over No. 6 Ohio State.

Ultimately, the Wolverines couldn’t handle the more expe rienced and fast-paced Nebras ka, losing in straight sets, 14-25, 24-26, 19-25. The Cornhuskers beat Michigan defensively at the net, totaling 11 blocks to the Wol verines’ two. There’s a reason Nebraska’s defense is ranked No. 1 in the country, holding opponents to a hitting percentage of just

However, Michigan didn’t back down. It was led offensively by junior outside hitters Kendall Murray, who notched 13 kills, and Jess Mzurik, who recorded her fourth double-double of the sea son with 10 kills and 10 blocks.

“I thought our team stayed really aggressive,” Michigan coach Mark Rosen said “When they’re [Nebraska] blocking really well, they’re playing great defense, they can kinda make you wanna back off a little bit, be a little more timid… but I thought our hitters kept coming right back after them.”

The Cornhuskers set the tone from the get-go with a wellplaced serve and a strong block.

From there, they never looked back, winning the first set 25-14.

It seemed that for every point Michigan won, it had to work lon

ger and harder than its opponent.

Murray saved one set point down 13-24, but another kill by the Cornhuskers sealed the first set after her hard-fought effort.

After losing the first set, the Wolverines regained a sense of

confidence they possessed all season, starting the second set out with newfound aggression. Michigan came out guns blaz ing, taking the first point—their first lead of the night. The first 10 points saw the teams trade blows

back-and-forth with kill after kill.

Finally, four straight kills by Murray and sophomore middle blocker Jacque Boney saw the Wolverines take a 4-0 run and a 9-6 lead. The Cornhuskers called their first timeout of the night after digging themselves an early hole.

“Being able to stay aggressive out of system is what drives our team,” Murray said. “When we’re scoring out of system, it’s not only energetic, but it also gives our set ters confidence, it gives our libe ros confidence, it just kinda feeds off throughout the entire team.”

Michigan continued its momentum, taking a 15-12 lead with a deceptive soft kill by senior opposite hitter May Pertofsky. However, Nebraska wasn’t giving up easily.

The Cornhuskers fought back to take set point at 23-24. As

Nebraska’s libero Lexi Rodriguez looked to serve for the set, homecourt advantage finally turned the Wolverines’ way.

Momentum shifted to Michi gan and roars filled Crisler Cen ter when senior middle blocker Jess Robinson hit a crushing spike to save set point. Despite Robinson’s best efforts, it was too little too late, as two successive Nebraska kills saw Michigan lose the second set 24-26.

“I don’t second guess any of it,” Rosen said. ”They had a little better execution, but I was really proud of how we played that set.” Michigan couldn’t hold on to its second set momentum, losing the third set. Nebraska displayed more poise, experience and domi nance on the defensive end in their sweep of the Wolverines.

MEN’S

SYDNEY

Michigan struggles early, ultimately pulls away against Indiana

a rhythm in the second half, it was over.”

and tying the game up at 10 early in the second quarter.

The remainder of the first half turned ugly, punctuated by an exchange of blocked field goals.

B

LOOMINGTON — Trap game is a term that gets tossed around a lot in college football. In a sport where one or two losses define the season for the upper echelon of teams, it can be detrimental to overlook certain opponents for more tantalizing matchups that loom beyond.

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what defines a matchup as a trap game. But for the No. 4 Michigan football team, a bout with a middling Indiana squad — sandwiched between its resounding win at Kinnick stadium and its upcoming top10 showdown against Penn State — had the chance to fit that billing.

The Wolverines (6-0 overall, 3-0 Big Ten) struggled in the first half, but ultimately used a strong final 30 minutes to escape a sound effort from the Hoosiers (3-3, 1-2) with a win, 31-10.

“We felt like we could move the ball on them the whole game, especially the first half, but it just wasn’t clicking,” sophomore quarterback J.J. McCarthy said. “We weren’t in a rhythm. And once we got into

On the opening drive, Michigan appeared poised to keep the trap door sealed shut, marching right down for a touchdown punctuated by a 50-yard zigzagging scamper from junior running back Blake Corum.

But as trap games go, it was never going to remain that simple.

Adversity first struck off the field, when Michigan running backs coach Mike Hart suffered a seizure on the sidelines and had to be taken to the hospital. Fortunately, at halftime Hart was reported to be in good spirits; after the game, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh confirmed that Hart is stable.

On the field, the Wolverines looked rattled — and costly penalties and a stagnating

The Wolverines, a team that has preached a blue collar work ethic and operated with machine-like efficiency all year, appeared to have a few screws loose. Fitting the overall discombobulated nature of the half, the usually reliable Corum was stuffed for a turnover on downs on fourth-and-inches in Indiana territory with less than a minute remaining.

tale was immediately put to the test: The Hoosiers pinned the Wolverines on their own 2-yard-line to open the second half.

Then, the resolve Michigan had hopelessly searched for in the first half finally shined through. McCarthy dissected the Indiana defense, dotting the ball up the field and culminating an 11-play, 98-yard drive with a touchdown to junior wide receiver Cornelius Johnson.

“That was probably the most exciting drive of the game,” Bell said. “We communicated that this was a chance to make

but Michigan’s own ineptitude — including a McCarthy interception, offensive penalties and uninspiring play calling — kept the chances for an upset in play.

It wasn’t until senior tight end Luke Schoonmaker found the end zone with under 10 minutes remaining to extend the lead to 14 that all doubt clouding the game could be removed.

Much of the success was attributed to the defense, which played arguably its most complete half of the season.

The unit displayed a suffocating fortitude, pitching a shutout and piling up four sacks.

“In the first half they hit a couple of big plays,” junior edge rusher Jaylen Harrell said. “We just changed a couple things, made some halftime adjustments, listened to our coaches and did what we had to do in the second half.”

The Wolverines looked out of sorts much of the day, making routine plays look difficult and letting a mediocre opponent hang around. But in the second half, Michigan toughened up and pulled out a win.

offense kept the Hoosiers afloat. Indiana began to take the fight to Michigan, exploiting its soft secondary with outside throws

Michigan jogged off the field still tied, a situation that seemed improbable after a dominant opening drive. But inside the locker room, there was no panic about the sluggish start.

“There wasn’t (any) ‘deer in the headlights’ or concern,” graduate wide receiver Ronnie Bell said. “It was just like, ‘Alright, this is what’s happened. This is what we gotta do.’ And I feel like the offense did a good job of just attacking it like that.”

a statement.

We knew we could move the ball, we knew we could score. And I think everybody answered the bell just right. We drove right down the field and scored.”

The offense answered the bell a couple more times in the second half, stringing together two more touchdown drives. With the Hoosiers successfully plugging up the run, McCarthy flaunted his abilities through the air — finishing 28-36 for 304 yards and three touchdowns.

And regardless of what elements define a trap game, getting a win is ultimately what matters most.

Whether the second half would tell a similarly chagrined

But a stellar passing day didn’t remove all concern about the Wolverines’ offense. As the game ebbed into the fourth quarter, they only clung to a meager seven-point lead. Indiana didn’t look threatening,

LATE BLOOMER

Regardless of what elements define a trap game, getting a win is ultimately what matters most.

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