2023-02-01

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Michigan Court of Appeals blocks minimum wage increase

The Michigan Court of Appeals rules the Adopt and Amend policy constitutional, unanimously blocks minimum wage increase

The Michigan Court of Appeals unanimously ruled Thursday the state’s minimum wage will remain at $10.10 instead of increasing to $13.03 as intended by the One Fair Wage petition, which was adopted by the state legislature in 2018. Under Michigan’s Adopt and Amend policy, the legislature is allowed to adopt and pass citizenled petitions before the proposed policies are placed on the ballot. Michigan’s Republican-majority legislature adopted the One Fair Wage proposal in 2018, amending it to raise the minimum wage to just $12.05 by 2030. The original proposal called for a statewide increase to $13.03 per hour and tipped worker wages to $11.73 per hour this year.

Court of Claims Judge Douglas Shapiro ruled the Adopt and

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Amend policy unconstitutional in July 2022, replacing the plan for a $12.05 minimum wage with a Jan. 1 increase from $9.87 to $10.10. The 2022 ruling also created an opportunity for a second increase to $13.03, which was prohibited by Thursday’s decision.

Court of Appeals Judge Michael Kelly delivered the opinion in Thursday’s ruling. Kelly said the court found that the 2022 decision violated the state’s constitutional right to petition the government.

“(The ruling) is a direct assault on one of the rights of our founding fathers and the drafters of our state constitution held dear: the right of citizens to petition their government,” Kelly wrote in his opinion. Following Thursday’s ruling, Michigan’s minimum wage will remain at $10.10 per hour and the tipped wage will stay at $3.84, though an appeal to the state Supreme Court is expected.

UMich students and Ann Arbor residents have snowball fight on Diag

A winter storm bringing six inches of snow to Ann Arbor incites a massive snowball fight

RACHEL MINTZ & MADISON HAMMOND Daily News Editor & Daily Staff Reporter

Hundreds of University of Michigan students and Ann Arbor community members gathered on the snow-covered Diag Wednesday evening as snow continued to fall, turning the city into a winter wonderland. The city of Ann Arbor received about six inches of snow throughout the day, with students across campus fighting to stay warm and dry. The winter storm incited a massive snowball fight, similar to last year’s icy free-for-all. Students also constructed snowmen all across the Diag, with some of them reaching 10 feet in height. Meanwhile, dogs ran amuck with snowballs in their mouths and a couple of brave souls risked building a snow fortress around the block ‘M.’

The snowball fight was organized early Wednesday morning after a post on the U-M Reddit page urged students to make the most of the winter storm by gathering for a snowball fight at 5 p.m. The event was then further publicized on UMich Affirmations, a popular Instagram account among U-M students. The snowball fight also encouraged Ann Arbor residents of all ages to attend after it was posted on The Official Ann Arbor Townie Page on Facebook.

Even University President Santa Ono joined in on the fun and traded in his iconic suit and bowtie for a winter coat and a pair of gloves. He tweeted about his experience, which included being hit by a rogue snowball.

“Thanks to our students for inviting me to the snowball fight on the Diag,” Ono tweeted. “Stay safe everyone.”

LSA sophomore Sophia Papadopoulos was waiting on the Diag before the fight began. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Papadopoulos said she was excited to get her hands dirty — or snowy, in this case — after she learned about the event through the UMich Affirmations post.

“I’m hoping it’s all chaos and craziness because that’s what we’ve seen in the past,” Papadopoulos said.

It wasn’t just students participating though. As the fight started, Ann Arbor residents like Doug Henderson came to both watch and take advantage of the winter weather. Henderson brought his two golden retrievers, Lucy and Penny, with him to observe the snowball fight.

“We take the dogs down on campus a lot, and (I) heard about the snowball fights,” Henderson said. “I actually saw it on Facebook.”

Corie Pauling, U-M Alumni Association president and a 1993 U-M graduate, was in attendance and said she was excited to see so many students finding joy in the first big snow of the year.

“It still is great to see that (the Diag) is still the center of this type of moment for students,” Pauling said. “I like to call these Michigan moments, because when these students graduate, they’re always going to remember this — the winter, the first big snow of 2023 and being out on the Diag, and with (hundreds) of other students, just doing all kinds of crazy things.”

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer gave the first State of the State Address of her second term from the House Chamber of the Michigan Capitol Wednesday evening. The speech marked the first in-person State of the State Address since 2020, following virtual speeches in 2021 and 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In her opening remarks, Whitmer highlighted the achievements of her last term, including investing in public education, creating jobs and funding public safety initiatives in Michigan. She also outlined her priorities for her second term. She announced Lower MI Cost, a three-part plan repealing the retirement tax. She also said she would work to expand the Working Families Tax Credit and implement Pre-K For All, which would provide free, public pre-K education for all four-year-old children.

Whitmer said the Working Families Tax Credit will not only reduce costs by lowering retirement taxes for Michigan families but will also increase the standard of living for children, providing them more opportunities long-term.

“The Working Families Tax Credit benefits all kinds of families, and it directly impacts nearly one million children — almost half the kids in Michigan,” Whitmer said. “Data shows boosting the Working Families Tax Credit also closes health and wealth gaps. Children who grow up with this support have better test scores, graduation rates and earnings as adults.”

As part of Lower MI Cost, Whitmer said she plans to expand the Great Start Readiness Program — the state’s existing state-funded preschool program — to achieve her goal of providing universal public pre-K. She said this expansion is estimated to save Michigan families an average of $10,000 in childcare costs annually.

“Unfortunately, affordable preschool is hard to find right now,” Whitmer said. “Twenty years ago, it was invaluable for me. Without it, I could not have raised my girls and continued my career. Most in this room could say the same. We were fortunate because we had access to and could afford preschool. Every parent and every

child in Michigan deserves the same because we all want what’s best for our kids.”

Whitmer also announced her “Make it in Michigan” plan, which is intended to encourage local high school and college students to stay and work in Michigan after graduation by increasing economic opportunities in the state.

“Ambitious young people have a lot of options when they graduate,” Whitmer said. “As they decide where to live, we must make sure Michigan is the answer — not just for a few years, but for the rest of their lives — by creating opportunity that lasts for decades.”

Whitmer also highlighted her Sixty by 30 goal, which aims to have 60% of Michiganders possess a degree or skills certificate by 2030. She specifically encouraged increasing funding for apprenticeships and technical education programs through initiatives such as Michigan Reconnect, which offers tuitionfree associate degrees and skills training. While the current age of eligibility for Reconnect is 25, Whitmer proposed lowering it to 21 in her address on Wednesday.

“Over 113,000 Reconnectors have been accepted, and we want that number to grow,” Whitmer said. “Let’s unleash opportunity for young people while offering companies the skilled, hardworking talent they need to succeed in Michigan.”

To achieve the Sixty by 30 goal, Whitmer also said she plans to increase financial support for Michigan residents looking to pursue public, private or trade education through financial aid and scholarships.

“Let’s keep funding the bipartisan Michigan Achievement Scholarship, which lowers the cost of higher education — community college, private or public university — by thousands of dollars for most students and makes college tuition free for 65% of graduating seniors,” Whitmer said.

After Whitmer’s speech, state Rep. Jason Morgan, D-Ann Arbor, told The Michigan Daily in an interview at the Capitol that he looks forward to working with his colleagues in the House and Senate to retain recent graduates in the state. Morgan’s district encompasses the entire University of Michigan campus.

“The biggest thing I heard tonight was that the governor, and hopefully us in the House and Senate, want to make Michigan a

place that U of M graduates want to live and work, and stay here and raise families,” Morgan said.

“That’s what’s really exciting to me.”

Whitmer mentioned that retaining talent in the state of Michigan includes ensuring protections for civil rights. She called for the repeal of the state’s 1931 abortion ban that, although nullified by the passage of Proposal 3 in November, is still on the books. Whitmer also encouraged lawmakers to increase protections against discrimination under the state’s Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act, an act that attempts to prevent discrimination in the workplace.

“Protecting these freedoms is the right thing to do and it’s just good economics,” Whitmer said. “States with extreme laws are losing talent and investment because bigotry is bad for business. We should build on our reputation as a welcoming beacon of opportunity where anyone can succeed.”

Whitmer emphasized the importance of reducing crime in the state and improving community safety, highlighting her historic investments in law enforcement since she was elected governor.

“As a former prosecutor, public safety is a top priority for me,” Whitmer said. “Since I’ve been governor, we’ve invested $1 billion in public safety. Let’s continue funding law enforcement with better training, oversight and access to mental health resources.”

With a Democratic trifecta giving the party control of the House, the Senate and the governorship in Michigan for the first time since 1984, Whitmer and Democratic lawmakers in the state have pledged to reduce gun violence across the state by tightening gun control. At her address, Whitmer reaffirmed her commitment to secure storage, universal background checks and a red flag law. Whitmer said these measures are necessary to prevent mass shootings like the November 2021 shooting at Oxford High School.

“Despite pleas from Oxford families, these issues never even got a hearing in the legislature,” Whitmer said. “This year, let’s change that and work together to stop the violence and save lives

… And I want to be very clear — I’m not talking about law-abiding citizens. Hunters and responsible gun owners from both sides of the aisle know that we need to get

these common-sense gun safety proposals across the finish line.”

Whitmer concluded her policy proposals with a call to address climate change in the state. She encouraged bipartisan action on the issue, noting that mitigating climate change can also lead to job creation and further investments in clean energy.

“It is our shared duty to face climate change head-on and protect our land and water,” Whitmer said. “We must pursue climate action while creating jobs, lowering costs and becoming a hub of clean energy production. Last year, we unveiled the MI Healthy Climate Plan, and this year, we should make bold investments in climate action to deliver on its targets.”

In a press release following Whitmer’s speech, House Minority Leader Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, criticized her lack of focus on one of her central campaign promises: fixing infrastructure across the state, including roads and bridges.

“After four years in office, Gov. Whitmer barely mentioned what used to be her signature issue,” Hall said. “She still has no real plan to fix the roads. Michigan has a multibillion-dollar surplus, and we should be using those resources to provide people relief and make one-time investments — including to repair and expand crumbling infrastructure to meet the needs of the people of Michigan and make economic development possible.”

In the release, Hall said he hopes to see Whitmer reach across the aisle in her second term to achieve policy solutions that will benefit all Michiganders.

“I hope she’ll turn the page and get to work with Republicans — so we can secure immediate relief for the people, repair our roads and keep our communities safe,” Hall said.

At the end of her remarks, Whitmer addressed political polarization in the state government. She affirmed her commitment to accomplishing her policy goals in her final term with the support of her fellow Michigan lawmakers and citizens.

“Over the last four years, we’ve faced historic challenges and seen the visceral consequences of political division,” Whitmer said. “As the world grapples with big challenges and asks itself tough questions, our responsibility as Michiganders is to roll up our sleeves and do the work.”

Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II speaks at the State of the State address in Lansing Wednesday night.Hill Auditorium Sunday morning.

JENNA HICKEY/Daily

Ann Arbor food truck series in Old West Side neighborhood

that I could join their email group.”

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, residents of Ann Arbor’s Old West Side neighborhood say their community was closeknit, characterized by neighbors laughing with each other on streets and porches. But pandemic lockdowns put a pause on all that. On one hot summer day in 2020, Nadine Hubbs, a Women’s and Gender Studies professor at the University of Michigan, was staying in her house in the Old West Side. All of a sudden, Hubbs heard the sound of mariachi music slipping through her open window, leading her to discover what would become one of historic neighborhood’s new charms: its local food trucks.

“I knew it was mariachi music because I studied Mexican American country music bands,” Hubbs said. “I came down here and I saw the (food) truck. And then my neighbor, John Carson, who is in the (U-M) History Department, was walking by with food. I must have been sitting on my porch and I asked what’s up and they explained to me, and then John gave me the email so

Hubbs had stumbled across one of the trucks in her neighborhood’s “food truck series,” where local vendors whip up different food options in the back of their trucks along Murray Avenue to serve to residents. The event was first organized by Art & Design professor Rebekah Modrak and real estate broker Marygrace Liparoto. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Modrak said she was inspired to start the food truck series after witnessing the challenges so many local food businesses experienced during the pandemic.

“My husband and I used to like going to Ray’s Red Hots,” Modrak said. “During the pandemic, we went over to get a hot dog, and they told us that they were really struggling. They mentioned that they have this food cart and that it can go out into neighborhoods, so we invited them to come to Murray Avenue on a Tuesday and sell hotdogs. It was hugely successful. Everyone came out because we (had) all been in our homes and were just so excited to have something happening on the street.”

Modrak said the list of food trucks that come to the

neighborhood has now expanded to include 14 different vendors, including cuisines such as Latin American, Asian and Soul food. Throughout the year, Modrak said, the trucks cycled through a rotation with a different one coming to the neighborhood every Tuesday — even in the winter. Modrak said they are also working to increase vegetarian options.

“We kind of lean towards having more trucks that have vegetarian options, so they have kind of like slightly healthier food,” Modrak said. “There is a completely vegan comfort food truck that now comes … To be honest, it’s gotten to the point where we almost have more trucks than we can handle.”

Among the vendors who frequent the neighborhood is El Mariachi Loco, a local food truck selling traditional Mexican food which is often accompanied by live mariachi music. Gabriel Hernandez Maya, the owner of the truck, has been living in Ann Arbor and working in the food industry for more than 26 years. Hernandez Maya has established a regular presence both on Murray Avenue and at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market in Kerrytown.

“It was fun doing business (on Murray Avenue),” Hernandez Maya said. “During the summertime, they sometimes invite mariachi bands to play music. You know, Mexican food plus Mexican music.”

Liparoto told The Daily that Hernandez Maya’s dedication to serving the neighborhood exemplifies the relationship the residents have built with Ann Arbor food vendors over the years. She said residents know that they can always rely on El Mariachi Loco to provide them with a warm taco, even on a cold winter night.

“There was once when we had a power outage overnight in winter,” Liparoto said. “That might not even (have been) a Tuesday. I called (Hernandez Maya) and he came so everyone could have a meal at their doorsteps.”

Despite Murray Avenue being more than 10 blocks away from Central Campus, U-M students have also made the trek to visit the food trucks on occasion, Hubbs said. She said she enjoyed the crosscultural relationships she has built with students over diverse cuisine options thanks to the food trucks.

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UPDATE 1/25: This article has been updated to include a statement from a Sweetgreen spokesperson.

Dozens of University of Michigan students and community members lined up along State Street Tuesday morning in anticipation of the grand opening of Sweetgreen, a fast-casual salad chain focused on seasonal ingredients and local partnerships.

Kinesiology senior Brooke Harrison and Kate Kikilo, U-M alum and Ann Arbor resident, got in line around 9:30 a.m. — an hour before the restaurant’s scheduled opening. Harrison is from Boston, which has 86 Sweetgreen locations. Harrison said she is excited to see Sweetgreen expanding into Ann Arbor, and expects to be a regular customer.

“Sweetgreen’s kind of a household name, especially with the East Coast and slowly in the Midwest,” Harrison said. “It’s nice to have a place (in Ann Arbor) that you know (you can) come in and get good food.”

In an email to The Michigan Daily, Sweetgreen spokesperson Grace Demeritt wrote about why the company chose to open a location in Ann Arbor.

“The Ann Arbor restaurant is in the heart of the University of Michigan’s campus, offering a healthy and convenient option for busy students,” Demeritt wrote.

“Beyond opening a new location,

sweetgreen is looking to be an active member of the Ann Arbor community. Commissioning art from a University of Michigan graduate for the restaurant and lifting up student athletes in the area are just a couple of examples of what’s to come from the restaurant.”

According to Demeritt, the State St. location employs 15 U-M students and sources ingredients from a number of local suppliers such as Zingerman’s Bakehouse, Rosewood Products and Planted Detroit.

In advance of opening day, Sweetgreen hosted two tasting events on Jan. 21 and Jan. 22 in the State St. location where a select number of students could sign

up to receive free salads from the Ann Arbor store. LSA sophomore Mariya Jahan attended the Jan. 21 event, which was her first time trying Sweetgreen.

“I didn’t know it was that popular because I personally have never heard of Sweetgreen before,” Jahan said. “Then all of a sudden, I see that all my East-Coaster friends are super excited about it, and I have high expectations because it seems like so many people want it.”

The Ann Arbor location is Sweetgreen’s third restaurant in the state of Michigan. The other two locations, in Birmingham and Troy, opened in August and December 2022, respectively.

A second Ann Arbor location is

expected to open later this year at Arbor Hills Mall.

The opening day featured collaborations with local and student vendors, including UMich Apparel, an online resale company for vintage U-M gear.

LSA senior Abby Miars, owner of UMich Apparel, said one of Sweetgreen’s student ambassadors approached her in advance of the opening in hopes of collaborating. As part of this partnership, the first 50 customers on Tuesday received a free clothing item from UMich Apparel, and could also enter a raffle for one of five jackets, which Miars said were her five favorite items in her inventory.

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I think almost everyone can agree that love is a beautiful thing. Love is more than just a feeling: It’s an all-consuming force, a powerful, driving intensity and the

golden thread that binds humanity together. Our love for each other and the world we inhabit together unites each of us, allowing us to bask in its warm light. It’s our shared loves that connect us — our mutual appreciation for great art, literature, music, films and culture. Our undying loyalty for fictional

“Nearly everything I know about love, I’ve learned from my longterm friendships with women.” This quote may sound familiar to you because of a recent TikTok trend circling around the app. Picture and video compilations of people being themselves with their friends have crowded my For You page, and I must confess that I have a carefully-crafted TikTok of the same nature sitting in my drafts. The quote, however, was not originally made known to me through the trend.

“Nearly everything I know about love,” I learned from Dolly Alderton’s strikingly vulnerable memoir. “Everything I Know About Love” talks all things adulthood: love, loss, life, friends. Alderton finds a job, gets dumped and makes mistakes, all with her female friends by her side. Nearly everything Alderton knows about love, she claims to have learned from her female friendships. Above anything, that was my most valuable takeaway from her memoir.

“Nearly everything I know about love” is tainted. The modern-day perception of love has been twisted to mean so many different things and mean so little all at the same time. The effects of hookup culture and dating apps

have led us to forget the genuine beauty and profound emotionality that characterizes true love. In a world where expressing feelings has become embarrassing and “Hi, how are you”s have turned into “WYD”s, raw, real connections are scarce. The image of romantic love I have created in my mind as a result of compulsively romanticizing media has effectively been tarnished by the modern devaluation of authentic connection.

“Nearly everything I know about love,” I’ve learned listening

characters, our unreciprocated reverence for celebrities and our cultish devotion to popular culture — by sharing in our loves for the same people, places and things, we unwittingly craft connections and intimate communities that defy barriers of distance and language, brought together by the

magnificence of modern devices. But love is not always a thing of beauty. Love can be twisted, dark and terrible, bordering on obsession and colored by cruelty. Our admiration for performers and their art can be warped into infatuation over Instagram, and our perception of what true

even the way we feel. Love is hard to put into words, even more so when one doesn’t know which behind-the-scenes experiences and technologies are pulling its strings. Nevertheless, with this B-Side, our writers will try and pin down what it means to love in a modern world.

to Olivia Rodrigo and Gracie Abrams, reading romance novels and watching inhuman amounts of romcoms. I long tortured myself to believe that love is pain, and that the type of love I see in the media is unattainable. The resulting constant yearning for a true soulmate leave me, and many others, disappointed in romance time and again, making sad girl playlists. I’ve tried to convince myself that I want the type of romantic connection I read about and see on the screen too much, which is why it has

been so reluctant to enter my life. To fill that void, I unconsciously devoted my attention to nurturing my female and platonic friendships. I thus resorted to understanding love from the lens of my platonic relationships. This piece accordingly features lessons on love that I’ve learned from those relationships, attributing a specifically obscure color to each friend, reflecting the hue with which they have forever tinged my life.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy’s relationship is one that has gone down in literary (and cinematic) history. (It is also a truth universally acknowledged that whenever you’re discussing the masterpiece that is “Pride and Prejudice,” you have to start with some version of the iconic first line. I don’t make the rules.) Originally released in 1813 and written by Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice” is a beloved romance novel. It begins with Elizabeth and Darcy getting off on the wrong foot — their first impressions of each other could not be more incorrect. She’s prideful, he’s prejudiced … things are bound to go wrong. Whatever it is that happens between them, it is certainly not love at first sight. But through a series of miscommunications relating to Lizzie’s sister, Jane, and Darcy’s best friend, Charles, and a more sinister plot line on Darcy’s history with a man named George Wickham, Lizzie and Darcy eventually find their way to each other.

Puzzle

There are so many reasons why “Pride and Prejudice” is so beloved — Lizzie stands on her own two feet and is a refreshing feminist character for her time. Darcy learns from his mistakes and tries to become a better man for Elizabeth. Jane and Charles’s relationship is so wholesome and so pure. “Pride and Prejudice” is flawless. It’s no wonder that many modern authors have used the plot as inspiration.

Retellings are nothing new — you can find books and movies retelling nearly every classic story at this point. Do you like

“10 Things I Hate About You?”

It’s based on a Shakespeare play, “The Taming of the Shrew.” Is “Clueless” your favorite movie? Then read Jane Austen’s “Emma,” because that’s what it’s inspired by.

And if, like me, “Pride and Prejudice” is one of your favorite novels, take a look at some of these extremely successful modern retellings.

“Pies & Prejudice” by Heather Vogel Frederick

This was my first exposure to “Pride and Prejudice.” In fact, I read it years before I ever picked up Austen’s novel.

The fourth book in Frederick’s “Mother-Daughter Book Club” series, “Pies & Prejudice” sees the titular book club reading “Pride and Prejudice” as they enter high school. In a lot of ways, I wasn’t aware that this story was a retelling (albeit, a loose one). The story revolves primarily around plot points unrelated to “Pride and

Prejudice” — one of the main characters, Emma, and her family move to England for a year, and the story recounts Emma and her friends struggling to get through the year while separated. What brings in the retelling aspect is that, while Emma and her family are away, they swap houses with a British family; the family (the Berkleys) have two sons, Simon and Tristan, who are adaptations of Bingley and Darcy. Simon, the nice, sweet guy sweeps one of the girls off her feet, while Tristan, the angstier, brusquer brother, finds himself in a sort of enemies-to-lovers relationship with another character, in the vein of Lizzie and Darcy. There’s also a Mr. Collins-esque figure who pursues Emma in London — and just as Lizzie was uninterested in Collins’s marriage proposal, Emma is equally uninterested in Rupert Loomis.

It’s a looser retelling than some of the others on this list, to be sure, but remains one of the best ways to dip your toe into Austen’s work. It’s high school, and it’s cheesy … but it works to present some aspects of the original story to readers.

“Prom & Prejudice” by Elizabeth Eulberg

I read “Prom & Prejudice” immediately before and immediately after reading “Pride and Prejudice” for the first time. The modernity of this retelling makes it largely easier to take in and understand than Austen’s original novel. There’s no flowery, older-English language — it’s cut and dry but still extremely entertaining.

In this high school retelling of “Pride and Prejudice,” Eulberg swaps marriage for something much more relatable to her YA readers: prom. Elizabeth Bennet is a scholarship student at Longbourn Academy and is much more worried about perfecting her piano playing than finding a date for prom like the other Longbourn students. When her roommate Jane drags her to a party in the hopes of getting closer to Charles Bingley, Lizzie meets none other than Will Darcy — a total snob.

It’s the story we know rearranged for a younger audience.

What makes “Prom & Prejudice” a really successful modern retelling is its version of the Wickham and Lydia story. In the original book, Wickham (or, as I like to call him, The Worst Man Ever) runs away with Lydia to elope — which was scandalous in Austen’s time and could have seriously damaged the Bennet family reputation. In “Prom & Prejudice,” Wickham is a cad, using Lydia’s interest in him as an opening to try to take advantage of her.

Wednesday, February 1, 2023 — 3 Arts puzzle by sudokusnydictation.com By Wendy L. Brandes ©2023 Tribune Content Agency, LLC 02/01/23 Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword

The year is 1998. My diaperclad sister waddles through the fuzzy, VCR-striped living room and clumsily picks up the bulky battery pack of the camera my grandpa is filming her on. She turns, looks innocently at my grandpa and puts the cord in her mouth.

My whole family laughs. It’s nearly 25 years later and we’re sitting on the couch. Our home videos have been digitized through a complicated technical process that none of us really care to understand. What matters is that the old VHS tapes that collected dust in our basement have been dug up from the grave of obsolescence and can now be viewed on the 13-inch screen of a MacBook.

Watching these videos — watching my parents watch these videos — something in my head clicks. No, it isn’t the realization that my parents were once young people just like I am, figuring it out just like I am. I’ve had that one before. It’s something else, something newer — the notion that maybe, the world might have felt just as unstable to them then as it does to me now. In 1994, the famous O.J. Simpson car chase took place a few blocks down from where my newlywed parents were living in Los Angeles. In 1997, my mom was schlepping a newborn pair of twins across town on a public bus when,

talking about Princess Diana’s death, a woman said loudly, “Oh, the Queen had her knocked off.” In 1998, Bill Clinton was impeached. And in the midst of this, my parents were falling in love, getting married and having babies. Despite the deafening roar of the modern world, despite the unsustainable push of technological progress, two people started a family. And that fundamental human experience, perhaps the most human experience of all, remained untarnished.

In one of my favorite books, “Beautiful World, Where Are You” by Sally Rooney, two long-distance Irish best friends named Alice and Eileen navigate their new adulthood as they approach 30. While half the chapters narrate the humdrum of their lives and the ebb and flow of their relationships, in the chapters in between, the women write each other long, cerebral emails fretting about environmental destruction, the monotony and consumption of late-stage capitalism, and what they perceive as a general death of culture and beauty unique to the 21st century. While Rooney’s previous novels often used politics as an accessory, “Beautiful World” shines a light on a new kind of psyche: the built-in millennial angst of entering adulthood during the climate crisis and what feels like the political apocalypse, all the while watching it unfold rapidly on the internet.

However, the book offers Alice

and Eileen an out. By the end, both women are in happy heterosexual relationships and Eileen is pregnant. As is her contemplative nature, she worries whether it’s right to bring a child into the world at a time like this, and concludes that if children are the future, she wants to be on their side.

I never understood the ending of “Beautiful World.” It felt like the drama of the story was wrapped up too nicely, like a superficial ribbon that Rooney pinned on hastily at the end to assure her angsty millennial readership that yes, there is hope after all. But watching my toddler sister play with the camera battery, it begins to make more sense to me. I wonder now if Eileen’s predicament resembles what my parents felt when my sisters and I were born — knowing that the world is kind of like an ever-accelerating hamster wheel where everyone dies at the end, but deciding to have kids anyway because isn’t that what humans have always done? As Eileen writes in one of her emails to Alice, “Maybe we’re just born to love and worry about the people we know, and to go on loving and worrying even when there are more important things we should be doing.”

It’s a nice idea — being in love in a way that makes you feel okay about the world. It’s what Taylor Swift has been trying to put into words ever since she met Joe Alwyn. It’s the escape Maggie Rogers longs for on her 2022 album Surrender.

It’s all over The 1975’s Being Funny in a Foreign Language, an album that combines a chaotic onslaught of cultural criticism with a slew of sappy, unironic love songs, and concludes at the end that “The only time I feel I might get better / is when we are together.”

But is it the best we’re going to get? Is the wealth gap so hopelessly large, the environment so irreversibly damaged, the social fabric really so threadbare that the most we can hope for is to fall in love and forget about it? It’s a privilege to be able to forget about the world’s problems — namely a white, middle-class, Global North

privilege. That’s not to say that each of us alone should shoulder the burden of every demoralizing headline that crosses our social media feeds, because we couldn’t if we tried, and we shouldn’t have to. But the apathy that this idea allows for makes me uneasy, and it’s underlined by a concealed sense of individualism. What the “Beautiful World” argument reeks of is positive psychology: a movement that rose to popularity in the early 2000s and has probably trickled down into all our lives one way or another since (raise your hand if you have been personally victimized by positive

psychology — if your eighth-grade teacher forced you to write down three things you were grateful for every day, for instance, like mine did, you may be entitled to financial compensation). Positive psychology’s whole schtick is selfhelp — the pursuit of happiness through unbridled optimism, and the value of personal fulfillment above all. And it’s not a new idea. In a 2008 study, professors Dana Becker and Jeanne Marecek link positive psychology to that prized, quintessentially American individualism, arguing that, in the view of positive psychologists, “The greater good is no more than what

How the found family trope in ‘Six of Crows’ taught me to love

Found family is the best trope, and that is a hill I will die on.

Occasionally, my sister and I play this game where we go back and forth discussing different metaphorical hills we would die on, things that we would defend against anyone to the absolute end. We talk about singers, items of clothing, movies, TV shows and seasons of certain TV shows until finally, we reach books, which upon one occasion prompted me to give perhaps the coldest take possible by declaring that I would take a bullet to the heart for the “Six of Crows” duology. Maybe that’s a little dramatic, but the love I felt for those books when I read them for the first time makes that declaration feel reasonable.

I’m almost 20. How could a young adult fantasy book series written for an audience much younger than myself still be my favorite? According to Goodreads, I’ve read 72 books in the past year,

“Nice guys finish last.”

The phrase, coined in 1946 by Dodgers manager Leo Durocher to slam the New York Giants, has become the motto of millions of manipulative, pseudo-feminist “incels” all over the world, and I, for one, am ready to talk about it.

If you haven’t been online in the last few years, or haven’t had the pleasure of speaking to one in person, let me fill you in on exactly who I’m talking about. “Incels” (short for “involuntary celibates”) is defined by the ever-trustworthy Urban Dictionary as “a community online who seem to have large issues with the world around them, unable to cope with the rejection they receive… They blame women, other men and pretty much anyone for their unsuccessful attempts at finding love or sex.” While the term “incel” has only been recently

so it’s not that I have nothing to compare it to. There is something about the “Six of Crows” series that makes it so special. For those who haven’t had the life-altering experience of reading the “Six of Crows” duology (first of all, I envy you — I wish I could read it again for the first time), it is one of three separate series in Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse. Set in an East Asian/European-inspired world, both books (“Six of Crows” and “Crooked Kingdom”) in the duology feature a high-risk heist and a band of teenage criminals, aka the Crows, hungry for money and revenge. While incredibly plot-driven, what really makes the series beloved by so many is the character development. Each chapter switches to a different one of the six “crow’s” points of view, giving readers glimpses into each character’s thoughts. Doing so allows Bardugo to create six distinct characters with thoroughly fleshed-out backstories, motivations and purposes. Readers get to uncover

and understand each of the main characters at a very intimate level as they are exposed to their innermost thoughts. There is so much more to each character than Bardugo lets on with her brief descriptions of each in the back-cover blurb of “Six of Crows,” and it is the reader’s discovery of each character that makes the book so impactful. In our cast of six, we have “a convict with a thirst for revenge” (who also has to unlearn the hateful brainwashing bestowed on him from his home country), “a sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager” (but is also one of the most loving, loyal and witty people you will ever meet), “a runaway with a privileged past” (but who also had a verbally abusive father who attempted to murder him), “a spy known as the Wraith” (who was sold into indentured servitude and separated from her family), “a Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums” (who will be killed if she falls into the wrong crowd) and “a thief with a gift for unlikely escapes” (and a deeply

popularized, their ideology has been around far longer than the online mediums they use in the form of “nice guys.” The “incel” may still be a fresh idea, but the “nice guy” has been around since the dawn of time. And the most prominent thing about him? His title is entirely self-proclaimed. Perhaps the best example of a “nice guy” I can give you is everyone’s least favorite Central Perk regular, Doctor Ross Gellar (David Schwimmer, “Intelligence”).

I think a big part of how characters should be perceived is the tone with which they’re written. But what baffles me about Gellar is the fact that he’s written from a completely unironic perspective — we are genuinely supposed to like him and be on his side. The audience is supposed to see Gellar as a good guy and feel sympathetic when bad things happen to him, despite him showing up at Rachel’s (Jennifer Aniston, “We’re the Millers”) job just to check if she was cheating

on him, deleting her voicemails to prevent other guys from calling (when they weren’t even dating), claiming that “not all men are like that” (despite literally being the “men” in question) and a multitude of other strange, manipulative decisions that should have gotten him voted out of his beloved friend group. Truth be told, if you identify with Gellar, you’re probably more of a Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley, “Gossip Girl”) from “You” — overly weird, uncomfortable to be around and super fucking creepy.

In the spirit of the recent “The Hunger Games” (Josh Hutcherson, “Bridge to Terabithia”) renaissance, I want to take this opportunity to talk about one of my favorite love triangles of all time: one that features the “nice guy” trope in a starring role. At first glance, “The Hunger Games” seems to feature a simple nice guy, Peeta (Josh Hutcherson, “Bridge to Terabithia”), and a deeper, more complex character, Gale (Liam Hemsworth, “The Last Song”). But this isn’t the case at all. Whenever I argue over this love triangle with anyone (which I have to say occurs embarrassingly often), I constantly hear the argument that Gale took care of Katniss’s (Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook”) family while she was in the Games. I admit that this was a kind thing to do for Katniss and her family. But I don’t think Gale’s actions are what’s important here — it’s his motive. It’s no secret that Gale had been in love with Katniss for a long time.

traumatic past and an impossibly difficult childhood). Each character was crafted so intentionally and with so much purpose that it is impossible not to fall in love with them as they fall in love with each other.

The relationships between characters are so nuanced: the platonic sibling love between Inej and Jesper, the respect and understanding and longing between Kaz and Inej, the sisterhood between Nina and Inej as two women stripped away from their homelands, the bind to a certain code of honor felt by both Mattias and Kaz, the hatred for a world that abandoned them shared by Kaz and Wylan. At their lowest, their realest and their rawest, they connect, and they love each other. This love between the characters radiates off the page, and that is what makes “Six of Crows” so incredible. Feeling that love is what had me slapping my hand over my mouth and chucking my book across the room (“Crooked Kingdom,” Chapter 31), had tears

streaming down my face (“Crooked Kingdom,” Chapter 40) and had me wanting to turn away from the sheer intimacy of two characters who were barely even touching (“Crooked Kingdom,” Chapter 27). The love the characters have for each other that they were not given, the love they had to find and the love they had to build is are what make the characters and the series so special.

If we want to label it, that is the found family trope. Classifying these books as merely a trope feels reductive given what they actually are, but for simplicity’s sake, the series is an outstanding example of the found family trope. However, as far as tropes go, it seems like one of the least talked about. It’s always “enemies to lovers” this and “fake dating” that. Don’t get me wrong, the “Folk of the Air” series is also one of my favorites, and “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” remains a comfort movie of mine, but what about found family? Why doesn’t it get the same appreciation as these other tropes? To me, the

answer is obvious. Found family is about platonic love, while nearly everything else is about romantic love.

We’re taught by the media to crave romantic love. The endless void of cheesy romcoms, Netflix dating shows, romance books and love songs will all tell you the goal: find romantic love. We’re reminded by our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and family friends during the holidays: find romantic love. In middle school: Who do you have a crush on? In high school: Who are you dating? In college: How does marriage sound? Love, romantic love, is everywhere. We are obsessed. Romantic love and its marketability is what are what keep these messages around and make them so apparent. The crux is that we view romantic love as something so untouchable that we almost ruin the mystique if we examine it too closely and realize that it is susceptible to influence by media, too.

Romantic comedies: you know them, you love them. The genre has been around forever and has resulted in all kinds of stories that have warmed millions of hearts. Just as with all forms of art, there was an easily identifiable “golden age” of romcoms: Dynamic duos like Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan or Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, the iconic teen movie/ classic lit retelling subgenre and too many people living in fancy New York apartments while working for newspapers or magazines are just a few trademarks of the late ’80s-early 2000s era. Whether you come for the love stories, the humor or the soundtracks, there’s something for everyone in romcoms. Unfortunately, nowadays, good romcoms are few and far between. Some have even gone so far as to declare the genre dead, but I disagree — here are five of my favorite romantic comedies that were made in the last decade.

“Love, Rosie” (2014) I have been in love with this movie ever since I first watched it. Rosie (Lily Collins, “Emily in Paris”) and Alex (Sam Claflin, “Me Before You”) have been best friends since childhood, but could they be something more? The film, based on Cecelia Ahern’s novel “Where Rainbows End,” follows Rosie and Alex from their high school days well into adulthood, the paths they

take and the many, many times they almost end up together. It’s a “will they/won’t they” of epic proportions. The friends-to-lovers trope is one of my favorites to read, and though I will admit that, in this particular story, the slow burn drives me insane. But of course, it is worth it in the end. But because it takes the pair so long to confess their true feelings, we see them develop as unique individuals outside of their relationship. Plus, it’s a decent book-to-screen adaptation, if that appeals to you. If anyone can find me a DVD copy of this movie, I will love you forever.

“Set It Up” (2018)

This Netflix flick is the perfect example of a modern romcom. Harper (Zoey Deutch, “Not Okay”) works for sports journalist Kirsten (Lucy Liu, “Kill Bill: Vol. 1”), while Charlie (Glen Powell, “Top Gun: Maverick”) is the assistant to Rick (Taye Diggs, “Rent”), a venture capitalist. Both Harper and Charlie are overworked, so they hatch a plan to make their demanding bosses fall in love and get themselves some well-deserved free time. It works, perhaps better than they expected. Part of what makes “Set It Up” so enjoyable is its realistic feel. Maybe the “‘Parent Trap’-ing your bosses to get them laid” aspect isn’t too real, but the characters are real, and far from perfect. Deutch and Powell have a very casual chemistry; it’s easy to believe that their characters are genuinely falling for each other. The growth that they both show in their

careers and their relationships, is entertaining as well. This movie feels very reminiscent of many iconic romcoms that have come before it, and I hope that it continues to get the attention it deserves.

“Crazy Rich Asians” (2018)

Based on Kevin Kwan’s novel of the same name, “Crazy Rich Asians” follows Rachel Chu (Constance Wu, “Hustlers”) as she travels to Singapore with her longtime boyfriend Nick Young (Henry Golding, “Last Christmas”). What she doesn’t know, however, is that Nick comes from a rich family, and his mother (Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All At Once”) is hard to win over.

Everything about this movie is gorgeous: the cast, the location and the glamour of the “crazy rich” lifestyle. But behind that facade, there is so much modernity and vulnerability in the characters. Rachel is the epitome of a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need a man (even though she has one), and is graceful, even towards those going out of their way to exclude her. Nick remains in her corner, even when doing so conflicts with his family. The film is a landmark for Asian American representation as well, an upward trend that will hopefully continue. Every day that passes without an update on the sequel I die a little inside, but I’m still holding out hope.

Design by Abby Schreck

The true god of rock ‘n’ roll in ‘Little Richard: I Am Everything’

ZACH LOVEALL

Film Beat Editor

Elvis Presley’s appropriation of Black artists’ work has long felt like a fact everyone knows. Few, however, know the history, details and names behind the work — it might be mentioned during conversations on the history of rock ‘n’ roll with no further discussion about the personal effects this had on Black creators. “Little Richard: I Am Everything” seeks to change this narrative.

Learning about rock ‘n’ roll musician Little Richard’s life was like riding a roller coaster — hit repeatedly with ups, downs, twists and turns. The documentary keeps an energetic pace, informing the viewer about Richard’s life while staying colorful and fast-moving. Richard Wayne Penniman was born in 1932 in Macon, Georgia with a limp. He was mocked for dressing in his mother’s clothing and hated by his own father, a pastor at the local church. He started singing in his church choir, inspired by Sister Rosetta Tharpe, whom he saw perform at a young age. After his father kicked him out of the house, Richard traveled the Chitlin Circuit during the late 1940s, meeting performers like Billy Wright, an openly gay musician, and Esquerita, an energetic piano player. These artists inspired Richard, and he synthesized their work into his own flamboyant style of open queerness, a flashy stage presence and erotic topics for his songs; around these artists, he was comfortable accepting his queerness.

Richard started seeing success in the ’50s when DJs played his music on radio stations. Then he was hit with a major music industry roadblock: white musicians like Elvis and Pat Boone were outselling his music as their own. The

documentary is quick to draw attention to the racist reality of a black man having his work stolen by white performers for their profit. Despite this, his Richard’s genderqueer act continued to draw attention, leading to financial success which, in turn, led to drug use and a love of orgies. Then, in 1957, he turned to Christianity, declaring his music and gayness sinful. From then on, Richard flipped between his music career and Christianity, trying to balance both with years of trauma incurred as a Black, Queer artist in the segregated south. There are many things we can learn from Richard’s life, many of which aren’t inherently wrong. He was a man of contradictions: a religious zealot that constantly sinned, a gay icon that turned his back on the community and an originator of an entire music genre that wasn’t properly recognized for nearly half a century.

However, the documentary’s editing feels uncomfortable, letting Richard’s story tell

itself. Instead of giving each person who knew or was influenced by Richard time to contribute to a cohesive story, sentence fragments from different speakers are cut together to form a new phrase on multiple occasions. The pacing of these moments is jarring and distracts from the story. A barrage of stock photo images occurs not once, but twice, in a misguided attempt to elevate the story by showing how deeply in love Richard was with life. This attempt utterly fails, making them acutely aware of the documentary’s presence in the story, instead forcing a disconnect between Richard and the viewer and making them acutely aware of the documentary’s presence in the story. Deep emotions would rise up from my stomach while watching a recorded speech of Richard chastising the music industry, only for the poorly timed editorializing to squash those emotions.

This is not to say that the commentary from modern-day Black and Queer artists was bad

throughout the documentary. Spotlights on performers who Richard inspired, like Billy Porter, were moving. Interviews with Richard’s bandmates were funny. When Black historians presented testimonials, they were eye-opening. The documentary presents such a depth of knowledge and admiration for Richard that by the end of the film, my annoyance at the editing felt less like a stab wound to the film and more like a mosquito bite.

“Little Richard” ends not by focusing on the dark parts of Richard’s life, but on the beautiful. We see only a fraction of the artists inspired by Richard, from David Bowie to Prince, all the way to Harry Styles. While we are told in no uncertain terms that the appropriation of his work by non-Black, non-Queer performers can be tantamount to the erasure of his work, Richard’s influence will be felt for generations to come. We just have to not forget the man himself, Richard Wayne Penniman, along the way.

At the beginning of Erica Tremblay’s (“Little Chief”) “Fancy Dance,” Jax (Lily Gladstone, “Certain Women”) and her niece Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson, “Three Pines”) steal a car. It is the calmest auto theft I have ever seen. Roki takes the keys while their owner fishes and Jax distracts him by washing her shoulders across the river. The water sparkles. The sun is bright and lazy.

But with this sunny, low-effort theft, Tremblay begins a masterful escalation of tension. Jax’s sister (Roki’s mother) has been missing for several weeks; if they don’t find her, child protective services will permanently take Roki away from Jax and their home at the Seneca-Cayuga reservation to stay with her semiestranged grandparents. For a film centering on the injustice of the so-called “justice system” and a search that takes aunt and niece into dangerous places with hostile people, it remains relatively calm and quiet, even when the characters’ worlds are breaking.

Rather than diminish the film’s power, this quietness allows the film to be personal.

The character dynamics are prioritized over shocking the audience — while danger and injustice are ever present, violence is only implied. When a character is found dead, we don’t see her body, only witness the phone calls to her family. Without the distraction of horrifying images, the viewer notices what they otherwise wouldn’t: the development of Jax and Roki’s relationship, Roki’s coming of age and Jax’s internal wrestling with her role as a caretaker.

Gladstone’s performance is stunning, internal and personal.

With few words, we see her love for Roki, sadness and buried anger when the people meant to help her — the police and child protective services — don’t care about finding her sister and want to take Roki away. With Tremblay’s gentle touch, the film steps back and lets Jax’s actions speak for themselves, pulling the viewer close to her until we tap into the film’s emotion. That’s when the film grabs them, takes control and wraps them in its arms so it can break their heart. The film ends on a note of joy shrouded with imminent destruction and heartbreak. Once again, Tremblay avoids showing us something truly violent and terrible, instead only implying what is to come; the camera focuses on a scene of the family and happiness that Jax and Roki have fought for. The colorful lighting, reminiscent of lighting under a street lamp, and movement as they dance in this final scene convey the film’s heart, the bond between them. For a moment, we turn our eyes away from themes of injustice and toward those of family.

“Fancy Dance” doesn’t let you return to reality and leave it behind. That final scene doesn’t stay in the theater. It works its way like a thorn into your heart. When the characters’ world is in peril, it is heartbreaking. I cried in the theater and walked out in a daze. As I walked across the parking lot, I reflexively put in my AirPods, ready to move on with my day. I walked for five minutes in silence, unable to choose a song. There was nothing I could listen to. I tried to convince myself to pick one, maybe a happy song so I could pull myself out of the heartbreak. But the film remained with me, and I didn’t want to stop feeling it, to stop thinking about it, to let this movie go. I took out my AirPods and put them away.

Brandon Cronenberg begs no pardon in sci-fi nightmare ‘Infinity Pool’

MAYA RUDER Daily Arts Writer

“Infinity Pool” is the stuff of nightmares — a totally bizarre, completely whacked-out fever dream that somehow manages to be a horrific achievement despite its directionless premise.

Brandon Cronenberg (“Possessor”), the son of “Crash” director, is known for his affinity with body horror. Like father, like son. “Infinity Pool” does not deviate from the expectations of his graphic and disturbing filmography, but it is easily one of Cronenberg’s most unusual and inventive films to date. He forsakes any restraint and allows himself to swim in the seemingly limitless depths of his imagination to transform an idyllic vacation spot into pure hell.

Despite what you might expect from Cronenberg, “Infinity Pool” is not the head-spinning, nauseating two hours of senseless chaos it was marketed as. It frequently

took on a sedative storytelling rhythm. Cronenberg attempts to isolate his main character from the outside world, causing the film to feel bleak and sterile, even during scenes that aim to thrill or shock the audience. Save for a psychedelic, erotic montage and semi-frequent sequences of bloody violence, this film does not rely on grotesque visuals as much as Cronenberg’s other films to tell its story. While, in Cronenberg fashion, this film goes heavy on gore, “Infinity Pool” is less sickening than it claims to be. Cronenberg lets his characters take more of the wheel, focusing less on the horror-sci-fi and more on the feral behavior of his human subjects. That’s not to say this isn’t a depraved film. At a resort on the fictional island of La Tolqa, James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård, “The Northman”) and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman, “A Lot of Nothing”) enjoy a slowpaced vacation meant to cure James’s writer’s block. When the Fosters meet mysterious couple Gabi (Mia Goth, “Pearl”)

and Alban (Jalil Lespert, “Dreamchild”), things take a devastating turn after a joyride ends in a fatal hit-and-run. To his horror, James discovers the sci-fi consequences of La Tolqa island: murder is punishable by execution unless a clone stands in your place — only the rich survive. After James is initiated into this mindbending secret, he joins Gabi and Alban on a bender that descends into sadistic violence and hedonism. Hidden beneath the horror are conversations

on privilege, morality and overindulgence, though Cronenberg’s point is largely lost among the chaos. Cronenberg wastes no time revealing La Tolqa law enforcement’s futuristic operations, leaving little time for the viewer to bond with James. We root for him and hope he finds his way back home, but we don’t actually feel much for this bland man with no personality. Skarsgård, who is known to excel in dark roles, is able to

switch dexterously between vulnerable victim and deviant barbarian, responsible for any sympathy we feel for James, while the story itself does not allow this character much.

All the backstory we’re given about James is that he’s a tall, handsome freeloader who once wrote an unsuccessful novel — contents unknown. James is rarely caught in emotionally vulnerable moments, his only states of being limited to fear, misery and euphoria. Near indifference for James must be an intentional choice by Cronenberg, as it is hinted that the James we see for most of the film is not the man to whom we were first introduced. This potential plot twist is quickly dropped, and rather than caring for James or being interested in the implications of this possibility, we are left feeling nothing but terror and occasional disgust.

This film is not difficult to follow, but simply aimless and shallow. Cronenberg misses an opportunity to create a compelling science fiction tale by prematurely dropping the

“cloning” bomb and letting it fade into background noise. What should be the central plot point is lost to the exposition, and “Infinity Pool” is simplified to a “for a bad time, call…” film.

Though “Infinity Pool” lacks weight and purpose, this doesn’t feel like a particularly bad thing. Beyond privilege and morality, there’s nothing more profound to understand about this film — it is an experience meant to probe and invade the viewer’s mind. And it does. Cronenberg colors outside of the lines and rejects the idea that his films have to be anything but the ride he wishes to take us on. Goth and Skarsgård — both commanders of the horror genre — deliver unsurprisingly epic performances and shoulder Cronenberg’s creative freedom unapologetically.

“Infinity Pool” is an uncut, unforgiving peek into the extraordinary, preternatural mind of Cronenberg. Like it or not, love it or hate it, such wild imagination is a rare sight to behold.

The Michigan Daily film writers love to watch and discuss films at the cutting edge of storytelling and there is no place better to do so than the Sundance Film Festival. After two years attending the festival only online, writers and editors for the Film Beat have trudged through snow and taken planes, trains and automobiles to arrive at Park City, Utah. Our coverage will include the premieres of dramas, romances, documentaries and everything in between. Welcome to our discussion on films made with Oscar winners and first-time filmmakers alike.

ERIN EVANS Senior Arts Writer

Watch ‘Fancy Dance’ and have your heart quietly broken

Photo Courtesy of the Sundance Institute

Photo Courtesy of the Sundance Institute

Design by Phoebe Unwin

How to make a omelette

Sitting Knee to Knee: My Punjabi Roots

Better not read this. Or, alternatively: Are you sure you want to read this?

See, this could go one of two ways. Actually, now that I think about it, this can only go one way. You’ll read this, but you’ll forget it, at some point. Don’t get me wrong, that’s natural. I’ll probably forget writing this, at some point. There is no comfort greater and more reliable than the impermanence of memory.

(On the other hand, I wonder if I’ll look back on this years down the line? This article, forever attached to my name? There’s a publication rule here — you can’t come back and take down your writing, even years down the line. To write in an attempt not to disappoint your audience, when your audience is all unknown iterations of your future self, is quite the undertaking.)

Okay, I’ll cut to the chase: here’s how to make an omelette.

1. Gather your ingredients. A single egg could suffice. The beauty of an omelette is its inherent minimalism.

2. Turn on the burner. Put your pan on the burner.

3. Crack your egg(s, depending) into the pan. Did you coat the pan in butter?

Sorry, I forgot to add that in. You might have to start over. Unless you’ve got one of those non-stick pans. If so, I’m happy to be the bearer of good news: you’re in luck. I commend you for your ability to think ahead.

4. Now, this part is crucial. Listen. I don’t want to be a doctor. Okay, that’s not true. I do. Or, at least, it’s the thing I don’t want the least. Or actually, I’ve never wanted anything more. Is this making sense to you?

5. Mix the eggs in the pan, before they start to solidify. I could’ve done that before cooking everything. At least I know for next time now, right?

6. That was another lie. The doctor part, that is. There is one thing I’ve wanted more.

7. Recently I was talking to a friend about my tendency to cry at art museums. Paintings can easily bring me to tears. It’s not really the painting that makes me cry, though.

8. Plato says art is nothing more than an imitation. I’d tell him that if nothing else, it’s an intimate imitation. To paint is to know your subject thoroughly, to love something fleeting enough to sanctify it into the permanent. Art is an expression of love. You can tell a lot about someone by looking at what they create. Maybe that’s what moves me to tears.

The inherent vulnerability in a piece of art. The shameless showing of the self. This is my way of telling you the one thing I’ve wanted more.

9. I’ve always envied the devotion people have toward what they love. I’ve never loved something so much that it hurts. I’m not sure if I want to. Maybe that’s why I’m not an artist.

10. That’s another lie. I’m not sure which part, though.

11. Funnily enough, I’ve never wanted to be a writer. I say that, but here I am now, shamelessly showing myself to you.

12. The last thing left is for you to take your eggs off the pan. At this point, they’re probably burned. You probably already know that, though. The inevitable result of getting sidetracked. Nothing is worse than an overcooked omelette. Even though you got this far, it’s better to cut your losses than to soldier through trying to enjoy it. You can’t rewind time either. Time doesn’t really stop for anything, burnt omelettes and unfulfilled dreams notwithstanding. You can’t really try to ignore it, either. Not when you’re currently surrounded by the remains of everything that went wrong and the disappointing smell of burnt eggs. I would know.

When I walk along the newly renovated State Street in Ann Arbor, I feel contradictory emotions. Sometimes I see the curbless road, the string lights and benches, and think: how nice. When I’m driving, however, it feels like the worst idea ever conceived. It’s irritating, sitting there stalling. I hear honking. I witness, invariably, the stress of drivers going nowhere. I can’t help but wonder: was that $9 million dollars, the trouble for businesses and the line of cars stretching down to South University, really worth it?

Prior to the renovation, State Street had three lanes along East William Street and North University Avenue — one designated turning lane, and another lane for non-turning cars. The sidewalks were narrower, and had a curb.

LSA senior James Utley remembers driving down the street without an issue. “The difference between then and now,” Utley said, “is that now I try to avoid State Street whenever possible.”

According to Maura Thomson, Communications Manager for the Downtown Development Authority, the goal was to prioritize pedestrians’ comfort and safety. “And also to maintain an acceptable level of service for vehicles,” Thomson said.

“The State Street project has been on the DDA’s radar as a project that needed to be done for years,” Thomson said. “That corridor is a critical, iconic corridor in our downtown. It’s sort of the nexus of our downtown and campus, where they meet.”

According to a presentation by

the Transportation Commission, there are approximately 8,000 pedestrians and 6,600 vehicles traveling these two intersections during peak hours (between 8:009:00 a.m. and 4:45 - 5:45 p.m.).

With State Street’s rebranding as a pedestrian zone, however, it struggles to function as, well, a street — for the thousands of vehicles that use it. When I look at pictures of the old State Street, my mind goes: this almost looks like a highway. That’s not nearly the case anymore. Perhaps the traffic is the shock of that transformation.

For walkers, State Street’s new design bears two changes. First, and most noticeably, is the addition of a pedestrian-exclusive signal, whereby all the walk signs are turned on, and all drivers receive the red light.

“It took me some time to figure out what was happening when no one was moving,” Utley said.

When it switches to this pedestrian-exclusive mode, I enjoy walking across the intersection diagonally. It’s a blast. The new signal’s fun-factor is undeniable, as is the added safety. The aesthetic appeal is especially welcomed among myself and others.

“I do like it a lot more. I appreciate the wider streets,” LSA sophomore Riha Hagalwadi said.

“It looks a lot better,” chimed her friend, LSA sophomore Riya Chakravarty.

Both Hagalwadi and Chakravarty use State Street primarily for walking, as they don’t own a car on campus.

I spoke with Taubman sophomore Matthew Daines, who drives in Ann Arbor, along with Utley.

“With the trees and benches, it looks more inviting and functional. Especially now with the 15-minute parking,” Daines said. As for his thoughts on driving, he pointed to

the cars behind us.

“It’s very stop and start. We could follow a car from here and see it stop two times. It’s frustrating,” Daines said.

I talked to Ann Arbor resident Amelia Barnard and LSA sophomore Josh Moss, who each drew attention to the obstacles that already exist for cars around Ann Arbor.

“The bike lanes I appreciate. But what I think might be unnecessary are the pylons,” Barnard said.

“In the case of an emergency there’s no place to pull over. Cars are already limited.”

Moss has been driving on State Street since high school. When I spoke with him, he had been riding his bike.

“They started making the lights super short, then having it stop, and having all the pedestrian sidewalks going at the same time,” Moss said. “There’s traffic from Nakamura (co-op) all the way here, just a straight line of cars, and you have to turn around and drive up Division. It’s horrible.”

“I have a friend that lives just up there,” Moss continued, motioning up the street to Kerrytown. “Before it would take probably a six, seven minute drive. Now it’s like 40.” Maybe the ability to turn left at the intersection will be removed. Maybe the signals will go back to normal. Or it could be that State Street is simply not a place meant for cars anymore.

***

There are new intervals when pedestrians are not supposed to cross, period. This is the second big change for walkers. Pedestrians can still walk when the light turns green, but only for a few seconds. When the walk sign displays a red hand, the flow of traffic depends on pedestrians not crossing.

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middle moments

there’s something special about those middle moments. like sitting in the passenger seat, on a sunny day, bollywood melodies sung by the radio, the wind whistling its harmony as I turn the pages of a book where the protagonist falls to his knees in the drizzling streets of new york city. and for a brief moment in time, you shift your gaze from its words only, you haven’t quite realized the raindrops collecting on your window. or in a bustling café, your eyes meet with a friendly face, but in that fraction of a second, you don’t recognize each other. and in that middle moment, you’re just two strangers, locked into a staring contest.

SHANIA BAWEJA MiC Columnist

Design by Agniva Bhaumik

AYA SHARABI MiC Columnist

Design by Aya Sharabi

YASH APRAMEYA MiC Digital Media Chair

STATEMENT

The anti-woke hoax

James Webb and the direction of the human gaze

appearing in popular media as the “Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement” documentary and the book “Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter.”

Several years ago in an Advanced Placement Language and Composition class, I read “Language in Thought and Action” by S.I. Hayakawa. Most of the book’s contents have admittedly slipped my mind, but one topic that has stuck with me is the difference between denotation and connotation. While a dictionary may denote the meaning of a word, our own connotations can lead to miscommunication. I think about this theory more today than I ever did in high school, especially when it comes to political buzzwords.

Such a thought struck me as of late when scrolling through Twitter. On Monday, Jan. 23, the M&M’s brand released a statement claiming that after unintentionally “polarizing” the country, they have decided to pause the spokescandies advertising campaign and have actress Maya Rudolph take over brand representation in place of the candies. This decision was prompted after outrage centering on the campaign’s redesign — one consisting of minimal changes such as swapping the footwear of the brown and green female M&Ms. Whether for genuine anger or a bizarre cash grab, Fox News’ political commentator Tucker Carlson, argued that “M&M’s will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous.”

While there was some confusion over whether this announcement was genuine when it was first released, M&Ms has evidently made the retirement into a gag.

M&Ms Twitter now says Ma&Ya’s, with Rudolph’s face plastered across a yellow M&M.

But, what sparked the M&M brand into such controversy in the first place? It wasn’t just Tucker Carlson’s comments that led to this animosity. It was one, magic word: woke.

The word originates from African American Vernacular English, one of many English dialects recognized by both linguists and social justice advocates. Merriam-Webster defines woke as “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues, especially issues of racial and social justice.” The term gained particular significance in our current social context as a key slogan for Black Lives Matter,

Words change naturally over time, and recent adoptions of the term “woke” have resulted in new connotations of the word. As recognition of the term increased, “woke” was subjected to criticism on mainstream platforms. Hulu’s aptly-named original comedy, “Woke,” follows an activist “in a world where ‘woke’ has become big business.” One “Saturday Night Live” skit, Levi’s Wokes, parodied the term with “sizeless, styleneutral, gender non-conforming denim for a generation that defies labels.” Hulu and “SNL’s” intended targets were brands capitalizing on social justice movements, but their representations put wokeness as a whole in a negative light; instead of just blaming business, woke became synonymous with performative activism. This connotation of performative activism, coupled with rising conversations over the role of cancel culture in our current socio-political climate, opened a window for a complete takeover of the term.

Fox News released their own definition of the term, adding that “in addition to meaning aware and progressive, many people now interpret ‘woke’ to be a way to describe people who would rather silence their critics than listen to them.” To me, the word interpret is key.

In reality, Fox News’ definition of the term is inconsistent with the current political climate. Aside from the M&M’s controversy, other “woke” media includes the “Game of Thrones” prequel, “House of the Dragon” for discussing gender roles, Victoria’s Secret for expanding their body inclusivity and James Bond’s finale “No Time To Die” for portraying 007 and Q as Black and queer, respectively. The anti-woke crowd also tries to link these examples to a failure in the market, in order to justify their ridicule and prove that diversity is unappealing.

The disconnect between the new connotations of wokeness and the efforts to quell progressive — or simply diverse — content is not irony, but rather a misinformation campaign that goes beyond the absurditiesofM&M’ssexualization.

Online culture wars and ragebaiting can be easily dismissed

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There’s an image of space that they call “Pillars of Creation.” It looks like the hand of a god. Your eye traces the forearm of gas coagulating into amorphous peaks of cotton candy space dust. Spectral, gargantuan, ghostly, divine. Solid as rock, but with the opacity of dissipating fog. It stands in your mind’s eye, perpetually reaching, fingers poised with a cold disposition and ready to wrap themselves around an unseen victim. What is it creating? Fear? Awe?

This entity is formally known as the Eagle nebula, so by definition, it’s creating stars, though it’s hard to imagine how any additional stars could possibly fit into the already-supersaturated sky. Like veins under skin, the nebula can’t obscure the light of thousands upon thousands of glowing bulbs from pinpricks to spotlights, specks of glitter to chunks of diamond. They call it outer space, but the population of stars in this view looking out from Earth makes the space between feel full. Surely the sheer mass of more would collapse into a black hole.

*** When I was in fourth grade, I went to a park to watch Venus upstage the sun.

A local astronomy club had set up telescopes at the top of a dune on the coast of Lake Michigan to watch the transit of Venus, an event that happens twice, eight years apart, and then waits about 121 years to cycle again. The transit of a planet occurs when its orbit falls between the Earth and the Sun. If, during a transit, we dare to gaze up from our mossy rock at the star we’re told never to make eye contact with, this celestial event lets us see the journey of a dark speck against a backdrop of blazing fire. From where I was peering through the telescope, it looked like a lame shadow puppet but, in that moment, my 11-year-old self felt like it was the coolest thing I would ever see.

My fascination with celestial events began on the top of this little midwestern hill. My formative years were speckled with meteor showers on beaches, shooting stars in the dead of night and the smudge of comets lighting up the vast upper peninsula sky. Meteor showers, shooting

stars, solar eclipses, constellations, nebulas, planets, stars, general cosmic anomalies. Why look up at these things?

Thinking back on all my memories forces me, once again, into the mystique of the night sky that once swept me off my feet. Space has a way of captivating us in a way that feels irresistible. And I barely even know what it looks like. Our imaginations have to work overtime to make the idea of the spectacle match the reality of what can be seen.

In fact, if it weren’t for the Hubble Space Telescope, I’d be left with only imagination to visualize the exceptional images hidden within the darkness of space. When Hubble launched in the ‘90s, it became a household name as the first optical telescope of such caliber in space and collected images fully unobscured by the Earth’s atmosphere.

Hubble was only expected to have a lifespan of 15 years but, with the help of some upgrades, the telescope is still collecting data today. While it’s been truly invaluable to our understanding of the universe, what if I told you that a new telescope was launched into operation in the past year — the successor to Hubble and a device even more capable than this revolutionary spyglass?

“Liftoff. From a tropical rainforest to the edge of time itself, James Webb begins a voyage back to the birth of the universe.” These are the words that were spoken by Rob Navias, Spokesman for the Johnson Space Center, as the James Webb Space Telescope was hurled into the largest void known to humankind to rest about one million miles away from Earth. Within the last year, the JWST has allowed us to peer into the universe in a way that hasn’t been possible before. And let me tell you, when he says “the edge of time itself,” he really means it.

The speed at which light travels is not a concept we really think about in our everyday lives. The light we perceive on the regular is so instantaneous, we don’t imagine it as something that moves. Light reaches, say, an apple. Some of the light is absorbed by that apple, and some of the light is reflected off of that apple. The reflected light of the red apple is what reaches our eyes. We look at the fruit, and we essentially see it as an apple in

the present moment.

Conversely, the light of stars that we observe in the sky is reaching us from thousands of light years away. When we look up, we don’t see stars as they are right now, we see them as they were thousands of years ago. There could be stars that have died out, that no longer shine in the present moment, but their light takes so long to get to Earth that we can still see it as if nothing has happened. The stars I saw in middle school from atop an eroding dune — millions of them could have been dead. The farther away an object is from Earth, and the further the light of the object is required to travel, the further back in time we are able to see. The JWST was designed in part to detect the farthest and faintest of light and allow us to see as far into the past as we dare to go.

One of the first images taken in 2022 by the JWST, shown below, was a deep field image pointed at a galaxy cluster. Every speck of light in this image that lacks a six-point lens flare is a galaxy, experts say. While the sheer amount of galaxies observable from one angle is certainly jaw dropping, the most exciting part of this image is where the light appears to be warping in the middle. That’s a particular galaxy cluster that the JWST is concerned with focusing on with this image, and this cluster is bending the light of galaxies behind them in a naturally occurring phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. These galaxies in the cluster have a gravitational field that’s powerful enough to basically act as celestial binoculars. Webb is a human-made telescope pointed at a universemade telescope pointed at the earliest known visible galaxies, existing in a time when the universe was at its beginnings.

While I hate to devalue the awe-factor of these photos, I have a duty to clarify some things: Not everything about the telescope pictures are real. Even the NASA photos are an exercise in imagination. While it’s most definitely not an amateur art project, the photos we receive from the telescopes are black and white. Then, they’re systematically colorcoded by scientists in a way that is entirely based on the data in the photo. The colorfilled wonderland that we think of when we imagine space, popularized by Hubble and now

being enhanced by the JWST, is just an interpretation of very real scientific information. Until we can leave the planet and travel light years away in our own sci-fi spacecraft to see galaxies with our own eyes, humanity may never know the truth of what sights there are to behold.

As I sit in a crowded coffee shop here on Earth, scrolling through the Webb’s images, the figures of sparkling nebulas and galaxies are so beautiful I think to myself, this can’t be real. I’m struck by a feeling I can’t quite put into words, as I try to put it into words anyway. Awe, maybe. My breath feels thoroughly taken. An image from this telescope is like an uppercut to the brain. It makes me feel small, but in a good way, if that makes sense. We are the bacteria culture on an agar plate sitting on the universe’s counter.

While these images demonstrate the significance and beauty of space exploration, I wonder if looking up is a privilege humanity can’t afford right now. NASA has made promises to get humans to Mars by 2033, nearly 10 years from the time I write this. Billionaires spend chump change on space missions and talk about their plans to reach Mars like it’s their summer vacation idea.

Elon Musk thinks he’s getting a crew to Mars in 2029. It’s a cool idea, but our Earth is dying. Should we be looking at another planet before we really take a long and hard look at our own? Sometimes looking at outer space feels like escapism — a way to cope when looking directly at Earth and humanity feels a bit unbearable.

I want to look up at space and be filled with hope, awe, wonder and mystery. The JWST is giving that feeling to the world. It’s already providing incredible data for astronomers to help figure out the extraterrestrial piece of life’s greatest puzzle: Why are we here? I just hope we continue to look at our own planet with the same reverence. I hope we don’t get so swept up in the world beyond that we forget where our own two feet are planted.

But maybe I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. No one is traveling to Mars yet. Light travel still isn’t possible. For now, I sit at the edge of my seat as history unfolds with every spectacular new image released from the greatest telescope humanity has ever seen.

ELIZABETH WOLFE Statement Columnist

Design by Sara Fang

DANI CANAN Statement Correspondent

Design by Francie Ahrens

How legalized betting has changed the way we watch sports

CHARLIE PAPPALARDO Statement Columnist

Five years ago, in a 6-3 split decision, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act’s (PASPA) prohibition on “state authorization of sports gambling schemes” was a violation of the 10th Amendment. Almost instantly, a multi-billion dollar industry was reinvigorated, and gambling — both casual and competitive — became just a few clicks away from being accessible to the masses.

I, however, was unimpacted at the time. I had already been gambling with my Grandpa for years.

*** I was about 6 or 7 when my Grandpa first taught me how to gamble, and I was about 8 or 9 when he first told me about the Woman in Red.

We were eating at a dining table in the den of a racetrack at 2 p.m. on a weekday, cracking pistachios and watching $5,000 maiden claimers races (the lowest classification) when he pulled out a $20 bill and started rambling.

“No I swear, $100,000 every time.”

“There’s no way that’s true. In 1930’s money?”

“I don’t know what to tell you kid, I’m not lying.”

“Wearing red every time? Why?

Where’d she get the money?”

“Lord knows, but I always thought she was a front for some big mobster. She’d show up by herself, dressed to the nines in a gorgeous red dress, place a sure-thing bet, collect the winnings and then leave for a few months.”

I was gobsmacked imagining the opulent lifestyle this woman must have lived. Then, I did my best to mimic her by throwing two dollars (the lowest legal amount) on a lowgrade, randomly picked horse. There was something so thrilling about the whole process — reading horse backgrounds, comparing furlong times, scouring records on dirt tracks and who beat who at Santa Anita — all to lose two dollars in a room packed with people who, let’s not kid ourselves here, may or may not have had gambling problems. But I never imagined myself as just a 9 year old betting with my Grandpa’s money — it felt so much more glamorous than that. There was always something that felt so illicit about it, and at the same time, so exhilarating. Every year on Kentucky Derby Saturday, I still call my Grandpa to deliver my

picks, and we technically make a bet, but neither of us ever pays the other when we lose.

*** Now, following the Supreme Court’s decision, sports betting is no longer illegal in 35 states, nor is it reserved for fringe sports like horse racing and Jai Alai. It’s a widespread, legal, multi-billion dollar industry and it’s one which is advertised incessantly. If you watch sports, you are inundated by ads encouraging you to gamble. They tell you how to make money, where to make money and how easy it is to make that money — so much so that you start to believe it.

In 2022, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Advisory Services estimated that $1.8 billion would be spent in advertisements by sportsbook companies. In the past year, popular sportsbook FanDuel spent a billion dollars on an advertising blitz, and in week one of the 2022 NFL football season, 4.8% of all ad impressions ($24 million worth) were for some form of gambling.

Saying that the advertisements are prevalent shouldn’t come as a shock, but what should be noted is that the advertisements are working, and they’re working very, very well. According to the Pew Research Center, 19% of Americans have bet money on sports in the past year. According to the American Gaming Association, 18% of Americans planned to bet on the 2022 NFL season alone, a 40% increase from 2020, and according to NPR, the National Problem Gambling Helpline Network saw a 45% increase in calls in 2021 over the year prior.

The constant advertisements on television have at least one redeeming quality: They’re being upfront about what they’re trying to do. They’re telling you to gamble, and they’re not hiding it. But in recent years, in a very subtle and increasingly insidious way, gambling companies have co-opted sports culture so that it has become fully synonymous with betting culture, and they’ve done so without many people even realizing it.

On TikTok, Twitter and Instagram, the algorithms deliver posts about gambling to individuals interested in sports. Some of these posts are light-hearted and funny. Unashamedly, one of my favorite content creators is bookitwithtrent, a TikTok betting guru who shot to fame after publicly betting on every single game in the 2021 World Series and losing each time. Trent’s

videos are self-deprecating and centered on the idea that he is more than just slightly degenerate, and somehow even more incompetent.

But most of the accounts that advertise gambling aren’t spearheaded by reckless young gamblers, they’re reputable outlets that, in an engaging and unassuming way, constantly remind you that there’s a gold rush, and you’re missing out on it. Bleacher Report is generally seen as a reputable news outlet, yet even it in many respects has become a shill for gambling companies. In 2021, Bleacher Report announced a partnership with DraftKings, aimed at engaging the 59% of Bleacher Report’s readership that gambled and adding to it. Subsequently, a subsidiary account on TikTok and Instagram with the username “brbetting” has gained over 600,000 and 900,000 followers respectively, solely devoted to advertising betting.

One of my favorite campaigns, and one of the most telling advertisements they ran, was telling the story of the World Cup through Danny, a gambler one leg away from cashing a $26, six-leg parlay for half a million dollars if France won. In the end, Danny cashed out for $280,000 before the final. But to DraftKings, I’m certain it didn’t matter. Because even if he took $280,000 from them, they won. He was the best advertising they could’ve asked for. They posted about Danny more than 50 times, and every time I saw him on the precipice

of fortune, I, and millions of other combined followers, imagined ourselves there too.

It isn’t just the sheer quantity or placement of advertisements that I find insidious, it’s also how desperate these companies are to get you to spend. The major companies can’t differentiate themselves with their product. They can, however, differentiate themselves with their incentives.

Today, DraftKings markets a “$5 bet to win $200 in bonus bets” if you sign up. FanDuel will return up to “$1000 back if you’re down after your first day,” and in Michigan, Caesars offers a one-time $1,250 bet credit backup “if you don’t win.” They want you to believe you’ll strike it rich, because, with $1,000 dollars to blow, how couldn’t you?

I know it sounds ridiculous, and I know I should act as some authority above the idea of gambling, but if I’m being honest, I can’t imagine how I would lose. That’s the craziest part about the proliferation of sports betting: Almost everyone knows it’s a losing proposition, but we delight in betting anyway.

Last year on a flight home, I had a four-hour layover in Vegas, and distinctly remember sitting on the tarmac, just waiting to lose money in the airport (I was devastated when I found out I had to be 21). At the Sports desk inside The Michigan Daily’s newsroom, my fellow underage friends and I routinely cooked up 10-leg college football parlays with companies based in

Nassau that we knew would never win. My friend John and I always joke as he opens FanDuel, “How on earth could we lose?”

I genuinely think that the day I turn 21, I will start occasionally betting, because it looks fun, and even though I know better, I still imagine that I’ll be the one to beat the odds. That isn’t a rare sentiment though, especially amongst the younger generation. According to Pew, an eye-popping 60-80% of high school students reported “gambling for money” in the past year. High schoolers.

Gambling is in its Wild West phase. Suddenly, the market is open, the rules are vague and there’s an entire country to profit from. ***

I think back to being eight at the horse track with my Grandpa and winning my first bet, imagining myself as the glamorous Woman in Red. The experience was thrilling, but it was also casual in a way that I don’t think gambling is anymore. Horse racing used to be unique in that it was the only sport that mainly only existed for gambling. Don’t get me wrong — I love the sport, but the thrill doesn’t come from watching a favorite horse — it comes from winning.

Today, you don’t need a horse to win, because you can gamble on anything from your phone: coin tosses, first receptions, first touchdown scorers, whether the final score is odd or even, ping pong and even the color of the Gatorade thrown at the Super Bowl are all fair game. And this changes the

way we interact with sports. Many people don’t watch for outcomes anymore, they watch for statistics.

Two weeks ago I put 5,000 in fake currency coins on an app called Fliff on Ezekiel Elliot to get two receptions. I didn’t watch the game. I did, however, watch the statline. It was ridiculous. It was imaginary money being gambled on a game I didn’t want to watch, and I still got mad when I lost.

I can talk about the predatory nature of sports betting advertising, and I can condemn the manufactured obsession of sports culture with gambling — but there’s no going back. Gambling is accessible, constantly advertised and here to stay. Now, every sport has turned into a form of horse racing, and every athlete has become a horse in the eyes of many — merely a vessel for a bet.

Everyone gains the capacity — like the bettor, Danny — to be the Woman in Red, and as that happens, gambling companies gain a spokesperson.

Because if the Woman in Red convinced me to gamble with my Grandpa at age eight, there’s no reason why that exact same story in a different format can’t convince millions of people scrolling on TikTok to do the same.

The legalization, and spread of sports betting, has given us all the capacity to become the Woman in Red, but at the same time, we’ve been fooled by her story.

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Nature is (almost) free: Inclusivity in outdoor communities

Statement Correspondent

At the start of each semester, the University of Michigan deposits $500 into my bank account for “textbooks.” Inevitably, I end up spending this sum on something decidedly non-academic: clothes, knitting supplies, overpriced candles.

This year it was an Osprey 50L backpacking pack for my upcoming spring break trip to Zion National Park. Osprey is the brand of choice for many backpacking enthusiasts because their products are lightweight, durable and come with a lifetime warranty; the model I had purchased was one of the cheapest options available and still came out to over $180 dollars. Initially, I wanted to buy a sleeping bag, but changed my mind when I saw the $300+ price tag.

Before I hit purchase, I paused to question how I had gotten to this point. Nine months ago, I went on what hiking enthusiasts would consider to be my first “real” hike, a designation that was mostly to do with the nature of the terrain. I would be covering 4,000 feet of elevation gain and 15 miles of trail in Yosemite National Park. It was miserable. I had cheaped out on hiking boots and purchased a heavily discounted pair with poor ankle support. By the time I reached the last four miles of the hike, I was in so much pain that I started walking backwards to relieve the strain on my knees. I vowed to never do a hike like that again.

As soon as my legs recovered, however, I began romanticizing the experience. It was by far the most

difficult physical experience I had ever had, but it was also beautiful, and made me feel connected with nature in a way I never had before.

When I looked at the photos I had taken, I could hardly remember the sweltering heat, the smoke-filled air from nearby wildfires or the acute sense of exhaustion I felt at the end.

Just four months later, I signed up to go on a fall break trip with the U-M Backpacking Club.

***

In the University of Michigan’s backpacking club, newcomers are induced into the idiosyncratic world of backcountry camping permits, gore-tex and wilderness etiquette through backpacking 101, an hourlong presentation put on by the club that consists of a lengthy slide deck covering everything from sleeping bag materials to the principles of “leave no trace.”

On my trip to Yosemite, I had relied heavily on my boyfriend, who was an experienced hiker, to plan our route and make sure we had the proper supplies. I wouldn’t exactly be alone on the fall break trip — I had been placed in a group with four other strangers — but I would be responsible for myself. Backpacking 101 was both incredibly informative and (predictably) woefully insufficient: backpacking is, in some ways, a skill that most experienced hikers have built up over a lifetime. I knew I wouldn’t be able to pick up that knowledge in 60 minutes, no matter how diligently I took notes.

LSA junior Moshay Turner had never been backpacking when she joined the club last year, but felt well prepared after receiving a crash

course. “They gave us information about what gear to get, what food to pack, all those things,” she explained.

“Then I bought a book about backpacking. I don’t know if it was really that helpful, it was kind of the same information the club gave me.”

As LSA senior Christian Mulville, U-M backpacking club communications director, explained to me, “the educational aspect is definitely the biggest part of what the club does...it’s really all about preparing our members, especially those who perhaps come in with little to no experience, and making sure they’re comfortable and have the information and level of education they need to have fun.”

In addition to educating members, the club also places prospective hikers in groups based on their experience level and preferred trip destination. I was familiar with this approach — for fall break, I was grouped with four other students with no backpacking experience for a trip to Shenandoah National Park. The club offers a matching service akin to a travel agent. They helped my group rent a van through the University to drive to Shenandoah, VA. but after that it was up to us.

The club also provides groups with optional assistance in planning their itinerary, but each group ultimately decides what trails they hike and what supplies they bring.

Two groups may go to the same fall break destination but go on vastly different trips, depending on their skills and preference.

In the club, experience levels are “generally split pretty 50/50,” Mulville clarified. “A lot of our

members will come in and maybe have day hiking experience, but nothing where they’re camping overnight or gone backpacking in a national park.”

The most valuable services the backpacking club offers, in a sense, have very little to do with actually backpacking. New member education and the matching process all take place before hikers ever step foot in the forest. It’s an intentional choice, I’ve come to learn — many of the biggest barriers to getting outside have more to do with culture and institutional knowledge than with the outdoors itself.

A 2021 study conducted by Scotland’s Ministry of Environment and Land Reform identified social norms, access to information and lack of social connections who partake in outdoor activities as key barriers to outdoor recreation. However, the researchers noted that “having a friend, friendship group or family member to do something with was mentioned as an important factor in starting or maintaining a particular activity, providing people with information, confidence and support that they might not otherwise have had. This was particularly helpful for participation in new or niche activities when familiarity and confidence were lower.”

While there’s a wealth of information online about how to get into backpacking, these resources are often difficult to navigate. Recreation.gov and the National Park Service’s website are meant to be the go-to source for information about recreation on public lands, but these websites are

plagued with inconsistencies and technical issues that make them relatively inaccessible to novices. More fluent, technically functional online communities dedicated to outdoor recreation are typically geared towards experienced members and have been criticized for “gatekeeping” and being unwelcome to newcomers.

The backpacking club eliminates members’s need for these online resources. Students can connect with other backpackers during fall break and spring break trips and

Design

the club’s executive board can help inexperienced hikers plan their first trips in a safe, judgment-free environment.

“We like to say (backpacking) is a very college thing to do,” Mulville explained. “A lot of people who join the club are trying to get into it, trying to explore and trying to make friends in the club.”

Going into my fall break trip, I wasn’t sure if backpacking would be for me.

by Grace Filbin Read more

MichiganDaily.com

HALEY JOHNSON

Design by Grace Filbin

Without the cost to limit student laundry use, crowding in laundry rooms would increase as well as the amount of wasted water and detergent.

On Dec. 7, 2022, Central Student Government unanimously passed a resolution encouraging the University of Michigan to include the cost of laundry in room and board. Though well intentioned, there are significant climate, capacity and efficiency issues posed by this proposal. By untethering laundry from market forces, students are incentivized to use laundry for, say, a single shirt, which would both be extremely wasteful of water while simultaneously blocking other students from using the laundry machines. While CSG raises important points about the inability of students to offset the cost of laundry with financial aid, their proposed system is not the way to achieve equity. We, instead, suggest that the University could include a certain number of additional Blue Bucks in room and board, and ensure those Blue Bucks can be used for laundry. Alternatively, they could adopt a policy in the framework of the printing stipend, wherein every freshman is given some quantity of free laundry.

CSG’s plan calls to increase student housing costs by $100 (to a number seemingly chosen based on, among other sources, a 2014 article in The University Daily Kansan) at a flat fee for every student — allowing financial aid to cover the cost of laundry for eligible students. In return, the University would make laundry machines available free of charge to all M-Housing residents. Both this Editorial Board and CSG acknowledge that laundry reform is necessary; there exists compelling reasons for eligible students to be able to use financial aid to cover the cost of laundry, alleviating some of the hidden costs associated with college.

CSG’s proposed system would create a laundry system similar to the dining halls: Students pay a large up-front cost at the beginning of the year and are free to use unlimited swipes through the term. Yet the prospect of giving students unlimited laundry swipes raises several concerns.

Modern romance is dead, and Tinder killed it

From FaceTime and instant messaging to the plethora of social media platforms on the internet, “interconnected” has perhaps become the most fitting term to describe contemporary society. And indeed, with our ability to communicate with anyone at the click of a button, we now have more opportunities to connect than ever before. All of this considered, one question remains: Why do so many Americans feel more lonely now than ever?

The answer may be rooted in the decline of genuine and authentic relationships, particularly romantic relationships. A study conducted at the University of California, Berkeley revealed that the number of Americans who do not have a “steady romantic partner” has increased by 50% since 1986.

experience of choice overload has become a frequent occurrence. In the emergence of what some are calling “serial swipers,” many users can be seen displaying strong hesitations to commit to a singular option due to fears of missing out on a potentially better one.

The infiltration of the choice paradox into the realm of relationships is especially dangerous. Unlike the case of online shopping, users aren’t choosing between products, they’re choosing between people. The resulting world of online dating has become a breeding ground for objectification, sexual harassment and insecurity, as choices are increasingly influenced by abundance and appearances rather than genuine compatibility.

The other driving factor behind the addictive quality of these dating apps is gamification.

world of romantic relationships are appalling. As users continue to endlessly swipe through apps like Tinder and Hinge, the reward that they’re seeking isn’t simply monetary: It is a real person with a real life that they are interacting with.

The instant gratification offered by each ‘match’ causes the idea of exclusivity to appear unsettling, with many individuals remaining addicted to these apps even in committed relationships. Specifically, 30% of Tinder users are married, and another 12% are in relationships. Because of this, the online dating world has become a hotbed for cheating and noncommittal sex. Users find themselves immersed in an endless, twisted game, where matches and hookups function as points to keep score.

I was raised to be a firm believer in passion-fueled education and bold aspirations. Coming from a family full of dreamers, I was never told who I could or could not be.

My passions have certainly evolved as the years have gone by, but I have been tied to passiondriven endeavors for as long as I can remember. My young mind was convinced that, no matter the field of study, I would pursue a college education rooted in my passions. Unexpectedly, my view in favor of spirited education leading to a passionate career was challenged when I recently stumbled upon information regarding the HarperCollins union strike. The more I read about the strike, the more I was driven to reevaluate my fervent opinions regarding the

Luckily, there are multiple solutions to this problem that allow students to: A) use financial aid on laundry costs to utilize market forces to prevent overuse, and B) not be penalized for frequenting the laundry rooms less often. It’s a system we are all familiar with: Blue Bucks — but with an increased allowance to account for laundry.

Raising the Blue Bucks limit to be inclusive of laundry fees supports the variability with which students do laundry, and is already used by other universities. An additional, say, $50 raise in the allotted Blue Bucks per semester places more autonomy in students’ hands. Students would have the power to delegate a portion of Blue Bucks to spend on cleaning their wardrobe and use the remaining balance on other University amenities. In this instance, students wouldn’t feel compelled to compensate for the flat fee they already spent on laundry to “get their money’s worth.” The Blue Bucks alternative also teaches freshmen important skills about budgeting for what they need and spending on what they want.

Because Blue Bucks is already a campus-wide currency loaded onto one’s Mcard, there would be little-to-no extra transition costs to add $50 to every student living in campus housing’s accounts. The financial and software systems are already in place to support laundry subsidization, and it is clear that this alternative can be easily adopted and trackable as early as next semester.

Despite the merits of a Blue Bucks increase, this solution is, in part, fraught. By tying laundry to meal plans via Blue Bucks, you run the risk of a freshman — completely new to the world of budgeting — unloading their entire laundry allotment on Panda Express and Sweetwaters within the first week of the semester. Fortunately, another option, an independent stipend solution, could be to create a separate fund for laundry, similar to the student printing budget.

indispensable nature of passion.

When following one’s passion for books and publishing results in hungry nights, unfair wages and a blatant disregard for basic human needs, it becomes time to recognize that, for most, passion isn’t enough. Not only are underpaid employees working overtime, many within the publishing industry face overt racism. This is a highly prejudiced workplace for people who are just as skilled as their more privileged peers, but suffer as a result of factors that lie outside of their control.

The American publishing industry is largely dominated by a set of publishing houses commonly referred to as the “Big Five.”

Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group and Macmillan have a chokehold on the publishing industry. Their domination of the industry has led it to become an oligopoly of sorts and, even if this

U-M students currently receive a $24 printing budget per term that can be utilized on any University printer. Students are also able to add more funds to their printing budget if they reach their $24 limit. If the University determined that each student could receive a $50 laundry budget per semester, for example, market forces would still limit laundry room use and congestion, and frequent washers would still have the option to add more funds to their laundry budget throughout the semester. Students would have fewer options to use excess laundry funds, but by implementing a stipend exclusively for laundry, we eliminate the risk of spending laundry money for other costs, such as eating out.

The new CSG proposal does not address the cost of additional resources needed on the periphery of just one washing and drying cycle, including dryer sheets, detergent, bleach, fabric softener and more. An increased Blue Bucks allowance accounts for these additional costs because of its premise that students will ultimately buy what they need — including cleaning supplies. If CSG hoped to minimize laundry inequality on campus, they could use some of their substantial budget to subsidize detergent costs.

There may be better solutions to this issue than the stipend or Blue Bucks alternatives; however, the CSG proposal for complete laundry subsidization lacks a deeper consideration of student habits, transition costs and sustainability. To promote a more inclusive and cost-effective mechanism for facilitating dorm living, the University needs to reconsider, in some way, the rising cost of laundry services. And with an endowment of over $10 billion more than neighboring, freelaundry institutions like Michigan State University and the Ohio State University, the University’s time to come up with a solution is up. As cleaner habits lead to improved academic performance, an effective plan to diminish barriers to laundry would proliferate the success of students in the classroom going forward.

isn’t unique to publishing, these giants have perpetuated a systemic lack of diversity and employment opportunities. Instead of lifting up new and marginalized voices, the industry remains in a vicious, albeit comfortable, cycle. Publishing companies avoid the risk of betting their money on books they’re not convinced will become bestsellers and, in their place, invest in new releases by established authors and publications, leaving close to no space for up-and-coming writers and editors to find their place within the industry.

It is not an unknown fact that the publishing industry is predominantly white. In a study conducted by Lee & Low Books in 2015, it was revealed that 79% of the industry identified as white. Thus, it is undeniable that specific groups of people in publishing get an upper hand. Perhaps for some, it’s easy to claim that following one’s

Many experts are attributing this statistic to the rise of social media and casual dating apps, with nearly half of young adults in the U.S. reporting having used an online dating platform. Apps such as Tinder, Hinge, Bumble and OkCupid are all marketed with the promise to increase your chances of finding love. However, the numbers don’t seem to add up: Despite the high volume of individuals who use these dating sites (about 53 million in 2022), only 12% of these individuals reported eventually forming a committed relationship.

So, why is this the case? The ultimate goal of online dating apps should be to function as a conduit in creating committed relationships, right? Wrong. The realm of online dating has become a multi-billion dollar industry — an industry that profits primarily off of user addiction, especially by keeping its users single. The way that the industry accomplishes this is twofold, relying on qualities of gamification and what psychologist Barry Schwartz refers to as the “paradox of choice.”

The presence of the choice paradox in online dating is perhaps best understood through the analogy of online shopping. Studies have shown that as shoppers are exposed to more options for potential purchases, they are paradoxically less likely to be satisfied with their ultimate decision. As our brains become inundated with a variety of choices, we often experience choice paralysis: An anxietyinduced state that prevents us from making a resounding decision.

On Tinder, the user’s

Natasha Dow Schüll, author of “Addiction by Design,” defines gamification as when “developers loosely apply game elements to other aspects of life, to capture attention, motivate engagement and drive revenue.” Schüll explains that these dating apps are indifferent to positive user outcomes, such as committed relationships or marriage.

Rather, they are driven by the ultimate goal of increasing revenue, and ensuring that their users remain on these dating apps is one of the best ways to do so. Accordingly, these platforms are engineered to be addictive, utilizing the same game-like qualities found in gambling and slot machines to keep audiences engaged. The most tangible example of this can be found in the concept of the “infinite scroll.”

The “infinite scroll” is a feature used on most social media networks and dating apps that allows users to scroll continuously between posts and profiles, rather than clicking through various pages. Hinging upon what psychologists have termed as “unit bias,” the ability to endlessly scroll exploits the natural desire of humans to complete a defined unit of something.

When the unit becomes undefined (or in this case, infinite), the brain exhibits an addictive response, urging us to keep scrolling in hopes of reaching a nonexistent point of completion. It functions similarly to a slot machine: The point at which a user will receive their theoretical reward is undefined, so they continue to buy into the system in the hopes that they’ll hit the jackpot on their next term. The ethical ramifications of introducing this concept into the

All of these conditions have combined to create an online dating environment that is less than ideal. And unfortunately, these negative impacts have been shown to disproportionately affect women. Studies have shown that women are significantly more likely to experience online abuse and harassment on these platforms than men. Specifically, in a study of women who had used some type of dating platform in the last 15 years, over one-third of them reported that they were sexually assaulted by someone they met on one of these apps. Reports of lowered self-esteem and feelings of objectification are also not uncommon. The ability of users to create an idealized, “filtered” version of themselves online can promote unhealthy thinking: Users are increasingly being conditioned to think that this “filtered” version of themselves is the only one that is reasonable to present to the outside world.

So, do these claims that the “dating apocalypse” is upon us actually hold any validity? The answer is complicated. While the rise of social media and online dating apps have perpetuated a strong hook-up culture, a growing awareness of the toxicity of these platforms has also created an equally strong counter-movement. Mounting pressure as a result of sexual harassment and lack of corporate oversight has spread awareness about the issue, fostering further research into how to correct the faulty nature of these apps. For the foreseeable future, however, it seems as though these apps are here to stay. Accordingly, users have a choice to make: In a world that is becoming increasingly digitized, it is up to each of us to decide whether we want our love lives to fall into that category as well.

passions is the career path to follow. Opportunities are made available to them as a result of their inherent privilege, and their reluctance to admit this worsens the issue.

Best-selling American thriller author James Patterson, for one, once claimed that white men face a form of racism within publishing, making it hard for them to find work. Claims like these seem almost laughable when expressed by a white man who has had more than 200 novels published since 1976. His claims were rebutted by other white male authors like John Scalzi and Jeff VanderMeer, who both admitted to facing minimal difficulty when searching for book deals. Roseanne A. Brown, a young adult and science fiction author, also opined on the situation, tweeting in a sarcastic manner about how she “(wishes) to struggle” as James Patterson does.

Evidently, when it seems like

the industrial giants that dominate the career path you desire to follow will never give you the time of day, working in writing and publishing becomes a different story. The aforementioned author Brown, for instance, is a best-selling HarperCollins author, but to get to where she is now, she had to start writing without the security of having an agent or a book deal, as she mentions in an interview with WNDB. She had to believe that her innate passion and talent were enough. Luckily, she was able to work her way up, but rags to riches stories are extremely hard to come by and, honestly, kind of disturbing due to the conflicting values that often accompany them.

Seeking to quantify the unequal demographic distribution in publishing, McGill University professor Richard Jean So and Gus Wezerek, a New York Times graphics editor, published an opinion

column for the Times on “just how white” the book industry is. After compiling a data set of around 8,000 fiction books published by Big Five American publishing houses and identifying the race of the authors of 7,124 books, it was revealed that only 5% were written by non-white people. To worsen the situation, only two out of the five big publishing houses have ever released author diversity statistics, those being Penguin Random House and Hachette Book Group.

Jobs in publishing are frequently cited as highly enjoyable, both by personal testament and public claims. If you don’t want to or can’t be an author but have a love for words, editing is promoted as the next best thing. What is hidden behind this wall of seemingly perfect employment is a shocking, unknown truth for most.

Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109

AUDRA WOEHLE Opinion Columnist

In recent months, George R.R. Martin’s fictional world has returned to the silver screen and cultural zeitgeist with “House of the Dragon.” The new series has risen from the ashes of the eighth season of “Game of Thrones,” and with it has come a returned love for actor Matt Smith and his role as Daemon Targaryen in the show. Arrogant and skilled in combat, Daemon Targaryen is a far cry from the quirky doctor that Smith was known for during his time in “Doctor Who.” Now, the attention for his new, darker character has sparked various edits and fancams that plague my For You page. Take a look at these comments, and, beyond the heart-eye and drooling emojis for Daemon or Smith, you might find a similar phrase again

Why the female gaze loves “ugly” men

and again along the lines of: “He’s not handsome, but attractive.”

Smith’s face is not likely to be deemed something classically handsome. Though teased for a lack of eyebrows, he often takes the jokes aimed at him in stride and instead lets his persona and acting abilities speak for themselves. Beauty is ultimately in the eye of the beholder, something subjective and varying from person to person, and for many, his kindness and charisma are a stronger magnet than any sharp jawline or piercing eyes could ever be. And this isn’t the first time women have prioritized a man’s personality over his physical appearance: There’s a distinguishable pattern of women being attracted to so-called “ugly” men, Smith being one of them.

Shortly following the end of the first season of “House of the Dragon,” TikTok’s attention was

drawn to Strange Kevin, a man considered perhaps unhandsome but attractive in the eyes of many female viewers. Participating in a trend where a man smolders at the camera to demonstrate how they might attract a woman, Kevin’s short video captivated the attention of many women on the app, who often commented that this was the female gaze that’s rarely captured in the media — which is largely preoccupied with satisfying the male gaze. Coming from feminist film theory, the term “male gaze” describes the way women are often viewed in film and media as objects of desire from a male point of view. The “female gaze,” on the other hand, serves as a gender-swapped counterpart in which men are instead viewed through a female point of view and, as we see it gaining traction now, perhaps stands to counteract the long-

established male gaze. Larger criticism also accompanied the fawning over Kevin’s video: Beyond condemnation for past misogynistic content, the true lack of female gaze in his original TikTok was additionally pointed out. Criticism for the misogyny is much more easily understood and agreed with, while omission of the female perspective has sparked conversation that further distills the meaning of the “female gaze.” While true that some women consider Kevin to be attractive or say that Kevin is shown through a female point of view, the viral TikTok was created through Kevin’s own perspective of what he supposes women find attractive — which is still a product of the male gaze. While female audiences of Smith and Strange Kevin have similarly swooned over these two conventionally unattractive men,

it’s at the level of creation where the female gaze — or lack thereof — lies. Whereas Kevin creates a supposition of the female gaze, it’s the often female fans creating edits, fancams and the like that position Smith as an attractive man. Though Kevin’s aim at the female gaze was perhaps more accurate for some women, frustration or even just confusion has long circulated over why women find certain men attractive. Similar to Smith, men like Pete Davidson or Jack Harlow have been considered unattractive by some and attractive to others. For one reason or another, these men continue to get attention seemingly out of nowhere when all “attractive” men across film and television are tall, muscled men like Chris Evans’ Captain America or Henry Cavill’s Superman. But when it comes down to it, these

net

From its inception in 1917, the debt ceiling has been a major point of contention for lawmakers. Since then, the figure has been raised 78 times since 1960, each occasion serving as a flashpoint for debates over government spending. After much anticipation, we’ve once again reached the debt ceiling, now a whopping $31.4 trillion. This past week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced her department would have to take extraordinary measures to prevent the country from defaulting on its debts beyond Jan. 19, with an estimated default

date in July. If the U.S. were to hit that point without a deal in place to raise the debt ceiling, the results would be catastrophic. With the American credit rating downgraded, interest rates would spike, likely sending the country into a recession.

Though we’ve been in this situation many times before, this round of negotiations poses unique threats. While both parties have historically reached a consensus to avoid a default, many Republicans in the House seem loath to raise the debt ceiling without significant Democratic concessions. In particular, a primary commitment that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy made to hold out Republicans in order to win the speakership was to

prevent the increase of the debt ceiling without corresponding spending cuts. Because President Joe Biden has insisted that such a deal is off the table, we’ve entered a danger zone where neither side is willing to budge on negotiations. While the short-term ramifications of this situation are certainly worrisome, even more concerning is the current trajectory of U.S. finances. With a bottom 15 debt-to-GDP ratio worldwide, the American government has accumulated high debt relative to the size of its economy, bringing it close to a point of no return. Without systemic changes in government spending, the country risks saddling the next generation

with insurmountable debt that cripples growth.

Though the current debate over this issue is highly partisan, as recently as the 1990s, permanently reducing the deficit was a primary Democratic priority. When President Bill Clinton ran his first campaign, one of his major proposals was “Welfare to Work,” which was guided by his philosophy that “welfare is a second chance, not a way of life.” These programs limited cash benefits from welfare to two years and tied benefits to strong work requirements. Their objective was meaningfully different from most welfare programs today: to support people looking for work, not extend them an indefinite lifeline.

While certainly controversial in the modern political climate, readopting this mentality is key to allowing the federal government to permanently lower the deficit and preserve programs such as Social Security, all while reforming the social safety net to support workers.

Perhaps the most logical way to start such reform would be by increasing SNAP work requirements from 80 hours a month and decreasing the length of unemployment benefits from 26 weeks. With a low unemployment rate and excess of available jobs, the natural unemployment rate in America is structurally lower than it has been for most of the country’s history. Because of this, individuals choose not

characters were not crafted in consideration of the female gaze, but instead with a male ideal for the male body in mind. As explained by actor Richard Madden, these standards are hard to achieve through “a kind of barely eating, working-out-twice-a-day, no-carbing thing,” and are often unreflective of what heterosexual women generally look for. From these men considered perhaps “ugly” or those that have a “dad bod,” we can see a growing appreciation for a charming personality and are expanding our ideas of what’s considered to be attractive. Although the heterosexual female gaze is not singularly supplemental to the male gaze we’ve seen so much of, it provides just one of many gazes that diversifies media created now and into the future.

to return to work because of reasons independent of a lack of opportunities. By tightening the welfare and unemployment requirements through an increase in hours required to be eligible for SNAP, the government could drive people back to work and free up cash to address the root causes of a heightened reluctance to enter the job market. In particular, by providing tax credits for government-subsidized child care and offering universal pre-K, the federal government could take steps to permanently increase the size of the labor force and help families get back to work.

Stirring the Pot with Giselle is one of The Daily’s biweekly advice columns.

One of my housemates ran away with the circus, and now I can’t afford rent. How can I convince him to come back? He said it’s his passion. -J

Dear J, I am so deeply sorry to hear about your unique circumstances — it must be difficult to be so significantly less cool than your housemate. At this point, I would recommend that you pick up a skill and master it, and then get out of your lease. Your housemate could perhaps put in a good word for you with the circus and then you could have the adventure of a lifetime together.

If you are lacking the necessary time or skill to commit yourself to a life of “circus-ry,” I think maybe you should start to seek out

a new housemate. I know it’s hard to find a stranger that will be both cool and tolerable to live with, but it’s in your best interest to start fielding early-semester prospects. I would also recommend that you reject any applicants that have particularly entertaining interests or extreme athleticism so that you don’t risk reliving your devastating past. Either way, I wish you every ounce of luck, skill and charisma in the world to ensure your success. Your song recommendations are: Come On Home by Lijadu Sisters and Homesickness, Pt. 2 by Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou.

I am about to move in with my boyfriend (together for over a year), and I am feeling nervous about it. Do you have any general advice? I’m worried that he’s going to be messier than me and I will end up cleaning up after him. -L

Dear L, Did you intentionally ask me this question? I will try to give some genuine advice: do

not assume the worst before it even happens. I also find that there is a difference between “messy” and “dirty” (yes, I do leave my trinkets and personal possessions everywhere), but I understand the hesitation. Remember that this is not just your roommate but also your long-term boyfriend. Intentional and caring communication is the most important consideration when experiencing a big life change together. Do not clean up after him for months and let your resentment simmer — tell him how the mess makes you feel. This is not a “you versus him” situation, but instead a problem that you must approach together as a team because you want one another to feel comfortable and at home in your new place. Try to set a cleaning schedule in the first few weeks. You can also wait to see how messy he is when he lives with you — his habits could have been built from the environment he is currently in and he may try harder to be clean in order to impress you. Whether he is messy or

the mess is never a problem, remember that he is probably a little nervous too. It’s okay to be nervous about moving in together, but it doesn’t mean that you are doomed before you begin. Anticipate the best and speak up for yourself, without putting him down or getting defensive — prioritize kind communication and expect that he tries just as hard to meet you in the middle. If all else fails and you have been cleaning for months with zero communication or acknowledgment from him, start wearing really filthy shoes to bed. That will surely assert your alpha status.

Your song recommendation is: Optimism by Jana Horn.

Went to rick’s last Thursday, was asked if I would wanna hookup with a random girl and her boyfriend. I was so inebriated that I don’t remember what either of them look like? Guess I gave the girl my number and she has texted me since which I responded to pretty politely. I’m in a really happy relationship and don’t actually want to hookup with

these people – nervous I might run into them again and not know that it is them. Please advise: should I pretend it isn’t me if they see me again and talk to me or should I text something now that I’m not interested. Or should I just forget about the whole thing? -E

Dear E,

This is a tough one. I can see why you’re a little scared and why seeing them could be potentially awkward, especially as you are in a relationship. Yes, you could text now and say, “Hi, I am sorry that my intentions were unclear before, but I am in a relationship and I do not want to meet up. I am really flattered by you and your boyfriend’s interest, and it was nice talking to you!”

If that is not satisfying enough, I think it would be best that you start wearing disguises in public spaces or make a drastic change to your appearance. As a sort of parallel example, I am severely farsighted and need to wear glasses to read

anything within two feet of my eyes. The eye doctor said to wear them as much as possible, which has destroyed my ability to see faces more than 10 feet away. If you are afraid of seeing them in public and not recognizing them, wear a pair of reading glasses. I cannot identify anyone or anything with my glasses on, and Ann Arbor finally seems to have a population of more than 200 people. Sometimes, the blurriness feels like freedom. I hope that helps.

Your song recommendation is: Can You Get To That by Funkadelic.

*redacted*

-L

Dear L (No. 2),

Please do not send questions like this to The Michigan Daily. It shows a certain confidence that scares me. You know what you did.

Your song recommendation is: It Takes Two by Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock. X-ing and O-ing in a “Gossip Girl” way, Gilly

Design by Edith Hanlon

No. 3 Michigan dominates longtime rival No. 11 Ohio State in home meet

MEGAN SMITH

For The Daily

Sierra Brooks, Naomi Morrison and Natalie Wojcik led the charge on Saturday for a No. 3 Michigan women’s gymnastics team that was ready to rebound. With the support of 8,515 fans, the Wolverines (3-1 overall, 1-1 Big Ten) fed off the energy of the second-largest home crowd in history, ending the Buckeyes’ (7-1, 1-1) undefeated season and securing its first Big Ten win of the year, 197.975-196.350.

Michigan started strong on the vault, earning a 49.575 and four scores of 9.900 or better. Junior Reyna Guggino began the night with a 9.850, replacing junior Jenna Mulligan compared to last week’s lineup. Graduate student Natalie Wojcik followed with an uncharacteristic 9.800 after stepping out of bounds on the dismount, but senior Gabby Wilson re-centered the team with a 9.900. However, it was junior Naomi Morrison who took home the event title with a score of 9.975 after a clean, high-ampli-

MEN’S BASKETBALL

tude rotation and a stuck landing. Senior Sierra Brooks scored a 9.950 after sticking the landing as well, and graduate student Abby Heiskell anchored the event with a solid 9.900.

After a dominant vault performance, it was clear that last week’s loss would serve as a learning experience for Michigan, not a setback.

“Last week just wasn’t our day,” Michigan coach Bev Plocki said. “We could make a lot of excuses for why we didn’t have the energy but the reality is it’s our job to manufacture the energy. If it doesn’t come naturally, then we have to get it together.

“…I think sometimes that’s the best thing that can happen to you when you’re a team that has aspirations to win a national championship, because you learn that lesson that you have to be very intentional and not take anything for granted.”

Michigan proved it had learned from its mistakes on uneven bars. Heiskell and Morrison led off with a 9.875 and 9.850 respectively, setting the stage for junior Carly Bauman to tie a career-best

9.900. Brooks followed with an additional 9.900 after a blind to piked jaeger and a stuck landing. Wojcik collected another event title, earning a 9.950 after finishing her routine with a double

layout and flawless dismount. Michigan scored a 49.475 on the uneven bars, leading the Buckeyes 99.050-98.500 going into the third rotation. The Wolverines’ struggles

continued on the beam, but some much-needed improvements by Brooks allowed the team to stay on pace. In doing so, she bounced back from recent struggles in her back handspring layout.

“My coaches were very transparent,” Brooks said. “They said, ‘We have so much confidence in you doing this routine, regardless of your one layout or two layouts, but we want you to raise your confidence and get a good beam hit under your belt because we know you can hit it.’ So I did that.”

Brooks’ confidence remained steady, earning a 9.950 in the fourth slot, improving her score from the previous meet by over half a point. Bauman began the rotation with a 9.850, showcasing a new pike gainer dismount. Wilson wobbled a bit during her routine, but compensated with a perfectly stuck double tuck dismount, earning a 9.800. Heiskell notched a 9.125 after falling off the beam, receiving her thirdlowest career score that would be scratched. 2019 beam national champion Wojcik anchored the event with a near-flawless rou-

Michigan dominated by Penn State’s knockdown shooting and scoring depth, 83-61

LINDSAY BUDIN Daily Sports Writer

STATE COLLEGE — As Penn State wing Seth Lundy released the ball from 3-point range with four minutes remaining in the first half, the ball clinked against the rim, ricocheting straight up in the air. And as the ball descended, hitting the rim once again, time seemed to stand still. Every player on the court fixated on one thing — whether the Nittany Lions would get the favorable bounce.

And as the ball fatefully passed through the net after multiple bounces, it was the dagger that pushed the momentum completely out of reach for Michigan and in Penn State’s favor with under four minutes in the half.

With momentum swinging the wrong way, the Wolverines (11-10 overall, 5-5 Big Ten) imploded, getting trounced by the Nittany Lions (14-7, 5-5), 83-61. After failing to amass defensive authority and contain Penn State’s strong shooting early, Michigan fell into a hole too deep to climb out of.

“I was like ‘ok please, please bounce out, let’s get the rebound,’ ” Michigan coach Juwan Howard said. “And it stayed up there for like three-and-a-half seconds — I was counting — and then it bounced in.

… After that, they just went on a spiral where they just were able to feed from the energy from the crowd.”

Even before the spiral though, the Nittany Lions came out as the aggressor, knocking down shot after shot as the Wolverines lacked energy to offset the charge. Led by guard Jalen Pickett, Penn State displayed the dominance that Michigan lacked, exploiting the Wolverines’ defensive miscues to maintain a lead.

As Pickett dominated, freshman wing Jett Howard followed his lead, going 7-for-8 in the first half to rack up 18 points. Early on, the two served as the overwhelming source of production for both teams. But towards the end of the half, after the Jett-led Wolverines cut their deficit to a single point, that source waned. In the final five minutes of play, Jett’s preeminence disappeared, attempting just one shot in that timespan. On the other side, Pickett — who tallied 17 points in the half en route to a team-high 25 point performance — had a similar occurrence, going scoreless in the final eight minutes of the half.

However, the difference between Michigan and Penn State was how other players stepped up after Jett and Pickett’s surges settled. While the Wolverines remained stagnant and unable to score without Jett’s production as a crutch, the Nittany Lions found their groove, capitalizing on other sources of scoring and their knockdown 3-point shooting.

“They were raining three’s,” Jett said. “I feel like they got in rhythm and it’s hard to stop a team that’s in rhythm already … so it was tough.”

Following a 1-for-4 shooting line from three to start the game, Penn State went 8-for-13 to finish the first half. After

that swing, it drastically grew its lead to a 17-point chokehold at the half, quickly shifting Michigan’s deficit from manageable to out of hand.

The Wolverines immediately countered by attempting to neutralize the 3-point blows with triples of their own, but found little success, going just 6-for-22 from behind the arc and all but one coming from Jett. Even in the face of their struggles, Michigan continued to take that approach instead of adapting, which proved detrimental. Without junior center Hunter Dickinson’s usual prowess in the paint, the Wolverines relied heavily on their shots — which weren’t falling. Despite that ineffectiveness, coming out of the break, Michigan maintained that same strategy.

And just like in the first half, it didn’t work.

“With the threes that were being made and then also getting points in the paint, we just didn’t do a good job of stopping them,” Juwan said. “… But I will also go back and look in the mirror and say it starts with me, that I can do better.”

Without any effective defensive adjustments and with Penn State continuing its 3-point shooting clinic, the game fell completely out of reach for the Wolverines just five minutes into the second half. As Lundy knocked down a dagger three — his third of the second half — to balloon the lead to 28 with the closest Michigan defender nowhere in the vicinity from him, everything came full circle.

Lundy’s multi-bounce 3-pointer late in the first half steered all the momentum in Penn State’s direction, and his uncontested three early in the second half pushed the Wolverines out of its sight line.

And with that, Michigan never re-emerged.

tine, earning a season-high 9.975 and the event title. The Wolverines held a solid 148.40-147.65 lead over the Buckeyes after three events.

Michigan was composed heading into the final rotation. Backed by a meet-best 9.950 by Morrison, the Wolverines proved why they are first in the nation in the floor exercise.

Senior Nicoletta Koulos led the event with a dance-inspired routine, earning a 9.875. Heiskell performed her fan-favorite ABBA mashup that scored a 9.925. Morrison received her second event title of the night after a solid performance in the third slot, followed by Brooks who secured the all-around title with a 9.925 after sticking the landing on a fulltwisting double back. Wilson earned the fourth score of 9.900 on floor, capping off a successful night for the Wolverines.

Through the support of Morrison and Brooks, Michigan found the rebound it needed. Not only did it correct the issues that led to prior losses, but it also used that success to pace a convincing win.

Michigan blows out Minnesota, 77-41, in bounce-back win

LYS GOLDMAN

Sports Writer

The No. 13 Michigan women’s basketball team trailed for just 52 seconds against Minnesota.

After the Golden Gophers scored first, the Wolverines responded with two points of their own — taking charge from there and never looking back. Following back-to-back conference losses, Michigan (16-5 overall, 7-4 Big Ten) controlled the game for almost all 40 minutes on Sunday to get back in the win column, dominating Minnesota (9-12, 2-8) by a score of 77-41.

“I’m excited for our team to be able to bounce back after a really tough week, to be able to finish it off here,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said.

Bouncing back didn’t take much against a young and floundering Golden Gophers squad. Through the first 20 minutes, they couldn’t keep up with the Wolverines. Entering the locker room at halftime with a 34-23 lead, Michigan looked to continue its 16-game undefeated streak when leading at the break — and it did just that.

With a 23-2 run in the second half — highlighted by three triples combined from sophomore guards Jordan Hobbs, Laila Phelia and Greta Kampschroeder, along with a crafty reverse layup from graduate forward Emily Kiser — Michigan furthered the dominant performance that was on display all day, putting the game away for good in the third quarter.

Throughout the matchup, Michigan was energetic on offense, moving off the ball more effectively after falling stagnant in Thursday’s loss to No. 10 Maryland. The Wolverines also successfully attacked the basket all day — dominating the battle in the paint with 46 points to Minnesota’s 26.

“Something that we were really trying to emphasize these last couple days at practice is moving off

the ball,” fifth-year wing Leigha Brown said. “I think a lot of times, especially these last few games, we’ve been kind of just standing around on offense.”

With just over a minute left in the first quarter, Brown hit an and-1 to tally her 1000th point in maize and blue. Brown went on to score 11 of Michigan’s first 19 points along with 20 total points throughout the game, leading the team’s offensive charge.

After hitting her signature pullup jumper in the first half, Brown celebrated with an aura of ‘you can’t guard me’ directed at the Gophers defense. In fact, Minnesota failed to contain Brown — or Phelia, who scored a team-high 22 points — throughout the matchup. Phelia’s 3-pointer during the Wolverines’ third-quarter run forced another Gophers timeout, extending Michigan’s lead to 46-28.

Despite standout performances from Brown and Phelia, the Wolverines didn’t shoot very well — below-average 25% from behind the arc and 43% from the field. However, Michigan’s staunch defense forced the Gophers to shoot even worse at 20% and 31%, respectively.

“(I) definitely was happy with our ability to hold them,” Barnes Arico said. “This was (Minneso-

ta’s) lowest output of the season, and that’s something that we really take pride in.”

In the process of holding the Gophers to a season-low point total, the Wolverines grabbed 11 total steals, forcing 21 turnovers and scoring a matching 21 points off of them.

Early in the second quarter, a pass intercepted by junior forward Cameron Williams led to a drained mid-range jumper from Brown, putting Michigan up by 10 and forcing a Minnesota timeout — a series that exemplified Michigan’s strengths throughout the game. On both ends of the court, the Wolverines’ success kept rolling.

They also played disciplined, keeping the Gophers’ free throw opportunities few and far between. Michigan only allowed Minnesota six shots from the charity stripe, further reiterating the control that the Wolverines held throughout the entire matchup.

After suffering its first backto-back loss series of the season, Michigan dominated the Gophers to right themselves again. And in order to do so, the Wolverines controlled the contest from opening whistle to final buzzer.

Michigan earns first Big Ten win against Ohio State

The Michigan men’s gymnastics team pulled off a hard-fought victory over its archrival, Ohio State, this Saturday for its first Big Ten win of the season.

Across six events, the Wolverines (2-0 overall, 1-0 Big Ten) outscored the Buckeyes (0-1, 0-1) 409.200 – 404.000. After a demanding meet on the road the previous weekend, Michigan coach Yuan Xiao spoke to the Wolverines recovery process.

“We had a rough meet last week,” Xiao said. “We competed at (the) Rocky Mountain Open. It’s a tough schedule … when we came back we knew where we needed to prepare physically and mentally.”

If the Wolverines were feel-

ing some fatigue after going on the road, they didn’t show it.

Sophomore Lais Najjar got the meet started with a strong performance on the floor, earning a 5.2 difficulty score and a 9.0 in execution for a combined score of 14.2.

Freshman Landen Blixt took first place in the event with 14.65. Michigan maintained its overall lead on the pommel and rings but Ohio State kept it close, taking first place in both events. Following the vault, the running score was 272.400 – 269.400

in Michigan’s favor. Sophomore David Wolma helped keep the Wolverines in front with a firstplace score of 14.75 — his career-

best.

From there it was all about freshman Fred Richard. On the parallel bars, Richard took first

place with an impressive score of 14.85, and on the high bar the freshman once again secured the top spot, scoring 5.9 in difficulty and 8.75 in execution.

Senior Adam Wooten competed for the Wolverines on the floor and the high bar, helping them outscore the Buckeyes in both events and finishing with 27.8 points. Spirits were high in the Cliff Keen Arena after the final scores were announced, but Michigan said it isn’t satisfied yet.

“I’m happy

for our performance today, I think we have a lot more to give though,” Wooten said. “I think we have a lot more difficulty that we can put into our routines and I also think we have a lot more execution. We can hit more sets, we can do more flawless gymnastics.”

Xiao echoed the sentiment that his team has lofty goals.

“As usual we’re gonna take the Big Ten championship seriously … We are definitely a good team to challenge (for) it.” Xiao said.

There is still plenty of time before Michigan heads to Columbus to contend for the Big Ten Championship in March, but if Saturday was any indication, this team is hungry for opportunities to prove itself. Judging by their performance Saturday, the Wolverines have plenty of talent to do that.

KATE HUA/Daily

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

MEN’S GYMNASTICS

CONNOR O’LEARY HERRERAS For The Daily

SARAH BOEKE/Daily

ANNA FUDER/Daily

Penn State’s electric 3-point shooting affair sunk Michigan on Sunday.

Michigan women’s basketball achieved a rebound victory against Minnesota Sunday.

LILA TURNER/Daily

No. 5 Michigan men’s gymnastics team recovered from a tough road trip against No. 3 Ohio State.

COOL

Luke Hughes scores four, leads Michigan past Penn State

Skating along the ice in front of Penn State’s bench, Luke Hughes dragged his glove across the ice before jumping into the arms of his teammates. Moments after scoring the go-ahead, 5-4 goal, the sophomore defenseman celebrated as crowd noise threatened to blow the roof off of Yost Ice Arena.

Because in front of them, Hughes had just added to one of the greatest performances in college hockey history.

Hughes’ four-goal outing turned what could’ve been a blowout loss into a monumental win. Hughes led the No. 7 Michigan hockey team (16-9-1 overall, 8-8 Big Ten) to a 5-4 win over No. 6 Penn State (18-9-1, 8-91) with a Herculean effort at both ends of the ice.

“It was unbelievable — it’s got to be probably the greatest single player effort in college hockey history here,” sophomore forward Dylan Duke said. “I mean, I don’t know if anyone will ever do that again.”

But in order for things to get historic, they first had to get dismal. Before Hughes even touched the ice Saturday night, the Nittany Lions scored two goals in the first 44 seconds of the game. Staring at a 2-0 hole on the scoreboard, the Wolverines faced an uphill climb. Soon it grew to 3-0 midway through the second period, and Michigan looked thoroughly outmatched. In a Sisyphean effort, Hughes marched up the hill with the weight of that deficit strapped across shoulders. After that third goal against, he ripped a wrister off the post that opened his team’s scoring. Then a few minutes later, his second goal — a power play one-timer — cut the deficit to one goal. Already, confidence permeated Michigan’s bench as it celebrated the goal.

Penn State didn’t go away, however, and scored early in the third period to lead 4-2. Yet two minutes later, Hughes kept climbing.

He cashed in on first career hat trick by firing a hard shot from the point that slipped through the goaltender’s pads. As hats littered the ice and Hughes celebrated with teammates,

HAND

the Wolverines’ energy was suddenly the complete opposite of what it had been in the game’s opening minute.

“We have a really good team and you know, we didn’t have a good minute of the game,” Hughes said. “There’s still 59 left. I mean, if they score two (goals) in one minute, we could definitely score as many as we want in 59.”

Soon, Duke tied the game with a breakaway tally, one that seemed to break the Nittany Lions’ spirits on the bench. Players sullenly looked down at their skates as the Yost Ice Arena crowd reached a fever pitch.

By the time Hughes snapped the game-winning goal into the net, the noise turned deafening as he celebrated. It was the crescendo of one of the single best performances in college hockey history.

Unlike Sisyphus, Hughes actually got his team over the hill.

“He just put the team on his back,” Michigan coach Brandon Naurato said. “He had four goals but it wasn’t just offensively. It was away from the puck as well, and just being a leader on the

bench. (He was) super positive when we were down and just building these guys up.” Away from the puck, Hughes silently had one of the best performances of his season too. Against a Penn State team that clogged the neutral zone and flipped pucks deep to zoom past converging forecheckers, Hughes found a way to dissect that structure. All of that led to the opportunities that paced his monumental performance. And it mattered, because for much of the first period, Michigan appeared destined for another deflating series split and another wasted opportunity to climb the Big Ten standings. Instead, the Wolverines walked away with the kind of rousing and raucous win that can revamp seasons — and their first Big Ten sweep of the year. All of that came about behind the sheer willpower of Hughes and his monumental night. So much so that even his often level-headed coach didn’t withhold historic praise. As Naurato called it: “Probably the best individual performance by a defenseman in Michigan history.”

LUKE

EMMA MATI/Daily

CONNOR EAREGOOD Managing Sports Editor

Design by Lys Goldman