2024-01-31 by The Michigan Daily

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Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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GOVERNMENT

Whitmer talks education and affordable housing in annual State of the State address

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer gives State of the State address focusing on expanding access to education and combating the Michigan housing crisis

SYDNEY HASTINGS-WILKINS/Daily

Governor Gretchen Whitmer gestures toward someone in the audience during her State of the State address in Lansing Wednesday night.

MARY COREY

Daily News Editor

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer gave the second State of the State address of her second term from the Michigan State Capitol’s House Chamber Wednesday evening. In the address, she discussed her plans to expand access to education across the state and combat Michigan’s worsening housing crisis. Whitmer highlighted what her administration has accomplished since the beginning of her term in 2022, with the governorship and both houses of the Michigan Legislature under Democratic control for the first time since 1984. Among Democrats’ legislative accomplishments in the last two years were the rollback of Michigan’s retirement tax, the increase of the Michigan Earned Income

Credit for Working Families and the passage of Proposal 3 and subsequent implementation of the Reproductive Health Act. Whitmer also discussed the creation of a new free breakfast and lunch program at Michigan public schools and the passage of a clean energy and climate action package. Despite these accomplishments, Whitmer said she is not done yet. “We have a heck of a record and we are starting 2024 fired up,” Whitmer said. “My fellow Michiganders, the state of our state is ready to rock!” Whitmer’s address focused first on the high cost of living across the state. Whitmer said she hopes future legislation will focus on improving existing programs and creating new ones to help Michigan residents save money on their biggest expenses for the upcoming year. “From axing the retirement

tax and free school meals to the Michigan Achievement Scholarship and Reconnect which lowered the cost of college by thousands, to programs like Tri-Share that slash the cost of child care by 66%, we are taking action,” Whitmer said. Whitmer also discussed her plans to address housing shortages across Michigan. She said she plans to invest almost $1.4 billion into building or refurbishing up to 10,000 homes to help ensure working-class Michiganders can afford housing in the state. “Getting this done will support thousands of good-paying, middle-class jobs in the skilled trades — from pipe fitters and carpenters to bricklayers and roofers,” Whitmer said. “Housing is a serious challenge, so we are making a serious investment. … Let’s work together to build more housing so every Michigander has

an affordable place to call home.” Whitmer also discussed her administration’s efforts to bring teachers to Michigan amid a nationwide teacher shortage. “We fund scholarships for future educators, pay student teachers and help full-time teachers with their student loans so they stay in Michigan,” Whitmer said. “We accept outof-state certificates, so if you have experience, you can enter the classroom without jumping through bureaucratic hoops. As a result, enrollment rates in Michigan’s teacher-prep programs are beating other states. A message to America’s teachers: if you want to teach, we want you here.” Whitmer urged the Michigan legislature to help her provide Michigan students with free education from pre-K through two years of community college or trade school. This is part of

Whitmer’s Sixty by 30 plan, which aims to increase the percentage of Michigan adults with a skill certificate or a college degree to 60% by 2030. “In our next budget, let’s make the first two years of community college in Michigan tuition-free for every high school graduate,” Whitmer said. “This is a transformational opportunity for graduating seniors and will help us achieve our Sixty by 30 goal to have 60% of adults earn a post-secondary degree or skills training by 2030.” In a statement following the State of the State address, House Speaker Joe Tate, D-Detroit, said Democrat legislators plan to work with Whitmer to accomplish these goals and support Michigan residents. “This is our moment as lawmakers to make a positive impact on individuals and families for the better and for generations

to come,” Tate wrote. “Democrats are investing in what matters the most — the people of Michigan.” Following the address, House Minority Leader Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, expressed his concerns in a statement, saying he believes Whitmer lacks long-term plans to achieve her goals for the coming year. “(Whitmer) loves to highlight one-off project announcements and ear-pleasing policy statements that will raise her national profile,” Hall wrote. “But as Michiganders’ incomes fall to 39th in the nation and people move out of our state, we need a real strategy. Gov. Whitmer hasn’t led on this urgent need.” In the conclusion of her remarks, Whitmer said she hopes to provide support to Michigan residents in the next year through her outlined policies.

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to improve their physical wellbeing. “You look around this campus and you see all these buildings. They are all teaching the mind.” Hadley said. “There are very few buildings on this campus that are taking care of the body and the mind is useless without a healthy body.” Harmon told The Daily he believes the construction of the Hadley Center will not only help student wellness, but also strengthen community building at the University and in Ann Arbor. “I really believe strongly that not only is this an opportunity to enhance well-being for students — we position it that way — but it’s also an opportunity for community building,” Harmon said. “Any type of recreational facility brings students together. You make friends, you meet people, you go with friends. So it’s not only your physical wellbeing, but it’s also your social, your psychological (and your) well-being in general.” Following the opening remarks, the ceremony continued with a visit to the construction site of the Hadley Center, where the Hadley family and speakers signed the final concrete beam. Engineering senior Lillian Schnieder, president of Building a Better Michigan, a student organization focused

on involving students in the development process for University unions and recreation centers, attended the event. She told The Daily she sees g yms like the upcoming Hadley Center as a vital place where students can take time away from schoolwork and relax with friends. “It’s just kind of a place for people to work out physically,” Schneider said. “But mentally, I think, students need a spot where they can take a break from the daily rigor of just going and being a student here and then they can just relax and do whatever with their friends in this building.” In her closing statement to ceremony attendees, Schneider said she believes the new recreational center will be a place for everyone, regardless of what equipment or programming they engage with. “I know the Hadley Family Center for Recreation & Wellbeing will be an amazing and welcoming place for everyone,” Schneider said. “Whether students come to work out, play IM sports, de-stress with a yoga class, take a dip at the pool … There really is something for everyone. I’m excited to have students come together and benefit physically and emotionally in this space and just take a break from their daily lives.”

DPSS responds to bomb threat at hospital construction site The Kahn Health Care Pavilion received a bomb threat at its construction site Thursday Daily News Editor & Daily Staff Reporter

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available. A bomb threat was reported at the construction site for the Kahn Health Care Pavilion located on East Ann Street on Thursday. Melissa Overton, Deputy Chief of Police of the Division of Public Safety and Security, wrote in a statement to The Michigan Daily that DPSS responded to the threat early Thursday morning by evacuating the area and inspecting it for suspicious devices. “On January 25, 2024, at approximately 6:10 a.m., the University of Michigan Division of Public Safety and Security

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(DPSS) received a bomb threat for the Michigan Medicine Clinical Inpatient Tower construction site,” Overton wrote. “The area was evacuated and U-M officers and K-9s certified in explosives detection were immediately deployed to the scene.” Despite an ongoing investigation, Overton wrote that there is no threat to the Ann Arbor community. “No devices or suspicious circumstances were identified at the time and it was determined that there was no threat to the community,” Overton wrote. “The incident remains under investigation by DPSS in partnership with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.” Overton stated that no arrests have been made, and the construction site was reopened yesterday.

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The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is publishing weekly on Wednesdays for the Winter 2024 semester by students at the University of Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. If you would like a current copy of the paper mailed to you, please visit store.pub.umich.edu/michigan-daily-buy-this-edition to place your order.

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Wednesday, January 31, 2024 — 3

CAMPUS LIFE

A Michigan student holds up a sign at a protest against Defense companies at the Michigan Engineering Career Fair Wednesday afternoonLUCAS CHEN/Daily

Students protest for Palestine during Winter Engineering Career Fair More than 30 U-M students protested defense companies in the Duderstadt Center and Pierpont Commons SNEHA DHANDAPANI & NOOR KHANAFER

Daily News Editor & Daily Staff Reporter

More than 30 University of Michigan students protested defense companies recruiting at the Winter Engineering Career Fair on North Campus Wednesday afternoon. Students marched through the Duderstadt Center, the Electric Engineering and Computer Science Building and then remained at the career fair in Pierpont Commons for the entirety of the event. The protest was organized by the TAHRIR Coalition, a multicultural coalition of more than 60 U-M student organizations, and Students Allied for Freedom and Equality. Protesters carried model babies covered in towels and fake blood to represent Palestinians killed in

Gaza. While students marched, they chanted slogans including “Shame on you” and “Fund our education, not the occupation.” Students also carried signs with pictures of victims in Gaza that read, “30,000+ slaughtered by American weapons, how many more?” and “War profiteers off our campus.” The event organizers handed out flyers that claimed General Dynamics, HP and Hyundai actively contributed to genocide in Palestine by manufacturing weapons for Israel. In an interview with The Michigan Daily after the protest, Zainab Hakim, SAFE education committee member, said the goal of the organization’s protest was to push the companies to stop aiding Israel in committing mass violence against Palestinians and protest the University’s financial connections to these companies. “(At) the Engineering Career

Fair, they invite certain companies, we were talking about HP, Hyundai and then obviously the U.S. Army that are profiting off of the genocide of the Palestinians,” Hakim said. “The idea for us is to apply pressure to the University to stop inviting companies like these to campus and also to get these companies to stop propping up war, violence, genocide (and) apartheid.” Alex Sepulveda, activism chair of the U-M chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, told The Daily in an interview that defense companies at the fair moved locations for the remainder of the career fair after learning about the student protest. According to Sepulveda, the University also heightened security measures for the career fair. “(They) also added increased security measures even though we were in no way a threat to security,” Sepulveda said. “This school has cultivated an environment which routinely performs security

theater, where they can feel emotional security by adding police officers to all the protests that we do.” In an email to The Daily, University spokesperson Kim Broekhuizen confirmed that the University was aware of the protests in advance and made arrangements accordingly. “In regard to student protests, the University is keenly aware that some companies and industries raise concerns with members of our community,” Broekhuizen said. “The protests over the past two days have been vocal, but peaceful, and have allowed for members of our community to be heard. Arrangements were made with organizers yesterday to move select booths to locations better suited for interactions between students and employers.” Hakim said SAFE’s actions are intentional and serve to remind students that they have a say in

decisions made by the University and their potential employers. “For the students out there, a) don’t work for these companies until they change their practices, but b) as a student, and as a person who’s entering the job market, you also have agency and power to make certain demands of the University, of maybe your future employers, of the engineering department,” Hakim said. “We’re paying the University, we’re the University’s customers — the University should listen to us.” Broekhuizen also wrote that the University will continue hosting events to provide students with the opportunity to connect with companies. “The University of Michigan is proud to have some of the topranked engineering programs in the nation, and the Winter Engineering Career Fair is intended to connect our talented and knowledgeable students with top companies and

industry leaders,” Broekhuizen said. “The University will continue to host similar events that provide our students the chance to explore career opportunities and connect with employers across industries.” Rackham student Zachary Eichenberger, who attended the career fair, told The Daily he believed the protest encouraged some students to think about the ethics of working for a defense company. “When I was there, I saw that, each time (protesters arrived), they were protesting around HP,” Eichenberger said. “I also saw a couple of their companies leaving early because of being heckled by these protesters. And I think for the students who were standing in line, they started conversations … I ended up having a couple conversations with the people before me (and) behind me and around me about what it meant to work at one of those corporations.”

ANN ARBOR

Ann Arbor community members enjoy dining and deals during 2024 Restaurant Week

This year’s Restaurant Week aimed to spotlight the variety of cuisines offered in Ann Arbor and honor the history of these restaurants A’MYA SAFFORE & JAQUELINE AMBROSE Daily Staff Reporters

Last week, the Main Street Area Association hosted the annual Ann Arbor Restaurant Week from Jan. 21-26. Sponsored by five local businesses, this year’s Restaurant Week aimed to spotlight the wide variety of cuisine offered by Ann Arbor restaurants and honor the history of many of these eateries. More than 30 local restaurants participated in different categories of Restaurant Week: “Menus For 2,” “Course Menus/ Chef Highlights,” “Vegetarian & Vegan,” “Lunch Offers,” “Family Meals To Go” and “Other Restaurant Week Happenings.” These categories made it easier for restaurants to promote their deals and for customers to find deals that aligned with their dietary preferences. Before 2021, eateries that were not sit-down restaurants, like Zingerman’s Delicatessen,

were unable to participate in Restaurant Week because of limitations in the categories. New categories like “Family Meals To Go” and “Other Restaurant Week Happenings” allowed other types of restaurants to participate in the promotion. Jennifer Santi, marketing and communications manager for Zingerman’s, told The Michigan Daily how the addition of these new categories allowed for a wider range of restaurants to be involved. “Restaurant Week promotion has expanded to include a variety of different restaurantfocused promotions that are not just about a sit-down restaurant menu,” Santi said. “We really didn’t have a business style that made sense for Restaurant Week in the past. (So now) we’re excited to be able to be part of Restaurant Week.” Mani Osteria and Bar also participated in this year’s Restaurant Week. On Thursday night, Mani was at capacity as University of Michigan students

ELLIE VICE/Daily and Ann Arbor community members gathered with friends and family to take advantage of the deals before the week concluded. LSA senior Sanjana Mallavarapu told The Daily that Restaurant Week is a great opportunity to try new restaurants and menu options. “I really love (Restaurant Week) because I think it gives people the chance to explore menu options that they wouldn’t

have really chosen had it not been for the Restaurant Week events,” Mallavarapu said. “As someone who is from an area that is a little bit different from Ann Arbor, I think (Restaurant Week) gives us a way to interact with the local community without having it seem transactional.” In an interview with The Daily, LSA senior Ana Najar also expressed her appreciation for how Restaurant Week brings the community together.

“I feel like with classes picking up, I usually forget to hang out with friends,” Najar said. “But because there’s so many good deals with restaurants, it’s a great time to just enjoy a meal with your group of friends.” Ashley’s restaurant, located on State Street, offered a Woodford Reserve Distillery Bourbon Dinner for attendees who reserved a spot on Wednesday night. The menu featured several courses accompanied by bourbon samples. During the dinner, Allison Rutkwskoi, Woodford Reserves Bourbon Expert, led the guests through the tasting. During the bourbon dinner, Business senior Jessica Hirschmann said her pleasant experience was formed not only by the lower prices but also by the knowledge she gained about the different bourbon courses served. “I think a lot of the restaurants are having lunch and dinner deals, which is obviously so much fun,” Hirschmann said. “But I think that Ashely’s bourbon night is honestly really

special because they’re bringing someone in who’s knowledgeable about bourbon to teach people about it and also paring all the different bourbon with these small plates that Ashley’s doesn’t usually have.” Ashley’s owner Jeffrey More said the bourbon tasting was something memorable to do during Restaurant Week. “I think experiences are really valuable to people … ” More said “So we’ve always done different beer tastings (and) whiskey tastings, so I started creating those. And tried to make one a part of (Restaurant Week).” LSA sophomore Alec Yueh told The Daily that he enjoyed the opportunity to explore new foods during Restaurant Week. “I really like it,” Yueh said. “It’s my first time participating in eating at the restaurants that are having these special menus. I think it’s just really interesting to get to try courses that I wouldn’t otherwise have tried. It was like a good way to diversify what I’m eating during the week.”

Arts

4 — Wednesday, January 31, 2024

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

‘Dear Dad: Love, Nelson’ offers a glimpse into the reality of parental incarceration AVA BURZYCKI Daily Arts Writer

In late 2023, the Minneapolisbased independent publishing house Free Spirit accomplished an impressive feat: a widely available children’s book that covers the impact of incarceration on children and the family unit as a whole. Even more impressive, the author Margarett McBride and illustrator David Wilkerson cover the topic with compassion, emotional intelligence and a plot line that is entirely age-appropriate for its young audience. In a country where the incarceration rate has risen more than 500% since the ’70s, telling the stories of children impacted by a parent’s incarceration is both incredibly relevant and completely necessary; this book goes above and beyond to empathize with children impacted by parental incarceration. The book is written through a series of letters from Nelson, an elementary school-aged son, to his incarcerated father. The letters span from writing to his father while he is detained and awaiting his trial through to the beginning of

his incarceration. Small, mundane moments like family cookouts, sibling bickering and car renovations ground the narrative in the absence that incarceration creates in a family. To his father, Nelson writes: “I missed when I used to sneak out of bed to listen to music with you and Uncle Rodney” and “nobody hollered at each other over cards or dominos like when you’re here.” It is heart-wrenching and incredibly understated, which diverts from the dehumanizing approach media often takes regarding incarceration. Instead, it focuses on the subtle, often forgotten parts of how incarceration impacts the family. For children impacted by incarceration, this story provides shelter and understanding. The author herself was impacted by parental incarceration, and this familiarity makes Nelson encapsulate experiences that these readers can likely relate to. It’s an understatement to say incarceration is stigmatized, so seeing this reality represented realistically and compassionately in the media is paradigm-shifting for young readers. Beyond this, children with no experience of the carceral system can gain exposure in a childfriendly and honest way, and adults

can gain more empathy for children impacted by parental incarceration from this book. Once the story is complete, the end of the book contains supplementary information for both the child reader and the adult reader. First, there’s a three-page spread on how to write a letter to an incarcerated individual, family or not. This is useful in and of itself but has extra touches of compassion for the child reader, like including that “when your loved one gets your letter, they will instantly smile.” Following this, there is a reading guide for thinking and talking about the story and then a final resource guide for adults. To quote the resource guide itself, “More than 5 million other children in the US have experienced parental incarceration at some point in their lives” — the importance of this topic and the holistic approach of including additional resources cannot be better explained. Despite the trauma caused by both the violence of the American prison system and the harrowing absence in families that it creates, McBride showcases the endless, complicated love that persists despite forced separation. In addition to showcasing a child

Cover art for “Dear Dad: Love, Nelson” owned by Free Spirit Publishing.

who misses his father and the complicated emotions felt by other family members, she showcases the community that is built to support the family and offers readers the chance to bring this into the real world through the resources she provides after the story. In 2022, nearly half of the 1.25 million incarcerated people in U.S. state

prisons were parents to children under the age of 18. Of these children, 1 in 5 are under the age of 4. These are precisely the children that deserve to be understood, loved and represented with compassion in stories like “Dear Dad: Love, Nelson.” The story McBride tells here belongs in all libraries and schools,

if for no other reason than because it’s nearly impossible to be an American and not also be touched by the horrors of the prison system. Sharing the story outlined in “Dear Dad: Love, Nelson” is only the beginning of the long, necessary journey of destigmatizing and offering transformative justice to those impacted by incarceration.

Sundance 2024: Amy Liprot and ‘The Outrun’ MAYA RUDER Daily Arts Writer

“Bloody grateful and lucky” is how author Amy Liptrot feels about her life at the moment. “The Outrun,” a film adaptation of Liptrot’s biographical novel by the same name, premiered this weekend at the 40th Sundance

International Film Festival. Liptrot, director Nora Fingscheidt (“The Unforgivable”) and leading lady Saoirse Ronan (“Foe”) sat down on Friday morning at the Chase Sapphire Lounge at the festival to discuss their highly personal film that tackles alcoholism, recovery and homecoming. With rave reviews from critic attendees and premature but reliable Oscar buzz

already attached to Ronan’s name, “The Outrun” team has much to celebrate. The film focuses on Ronan’s character Rona, a woman tormented by her past who returns to her hometown of Orkney, Scotland seeking recovery from addiction. Liptrot, Fingscheidt and Ronan made note of how the film is less about de-stigmatizing addiction

and more about developing empathy for the life of an addict and its complexities — which too often does not entail recovery. One such complexity is the paradox of an alcoholic’s personality, which can oscillate between charming and vicious when drunk and between bright-eyed and moody when sober. Liptrot and Fingscheidt gave Ronan high praise for her ability to excel

Photo courtesy of Lola D’Onofrio

in this role of conflicting behaviors — praise that has reverberated through the theaters of Sundance. Ronan spoke on why she wanted to tell Rona’s story, citing the universal applicability of addiction in all of our lives, whether we have experienced it ourselves or seen it up close. The script came to her during the thick of lockdown — a time, she said, when she became more “in tune with what (she) wants from life.” Ronan reflected on why she loves to be alone in a scene — which she often is in this film — referencing one scene in which she had to shout profanities at a door, where she found catharsis through accessing aggression and ugliness within herself. It was a welcome challenge for Ronan to enter Rona’s headspace and a difficult one for the writing and production team to bring the audience into. The women used the term “nerd layer” to explain how narration operates within the film to provide both scientific information about addiction and access into Rona’s interior life — a perspective that made the original story sing on paper but harder to realize on film. While this “nerd layer” retains some mystery, the women credit it as integral to achieving an honest and correct version of Liptrot’s story. The Michigan Daily had the

opportunity to ask Liptrot how it felt to watch her written story translated to film and how much access she had to its production. Liptrot was shown every single edit of every scene shot in a day, a rarity in book-to-movie adaptations and an assurance that this film has as much of Liptrot’s heart as Ronan’s interpretation and Fingscheidt’s vision. But as in any creative endeavor, with so much oversight comes fatigue. Liptrot confessed it was a “relief” when filming wrapped, knowing she would no longer have to put herself through the intense selfreflection and self-consciousness that inevitably comes from watching another human imitate your darkest moments. She jokingly added that watching Ronan “do an impression of (her)” began to make her feel like she was “doing an impression of Saoirse doing an impression of (her).” When asked by Ronan if she would ever endeavor to adapt another of her books to film, she said, with a wide smile and certitude, “No.” According to Liptrot, she did not become an artist because she experienced hardship, but that storytelling has been in her bones since childhood. She calls herself “a writer, not a filmmaker” and does not seem to believe in pain for the sake of artistry.

How to (mindfully) dress for winter 2024 CECILIA DORE Daily Arts Writer

This winter has brought ’90s minimalism and muted grays back to mainstream popularity. Though this may be disappointing to lovers of maximalism and glam, the resurgence of simplicity makes it easy to dress on trend. While brands like H&M, Zara and SHEIN constantly crank out designs to match whatever is in style, clothing from these stores is constructed poorly and made from fabrics like polyester, which are relatively cheap and don’t breathe well. Their styles are made to be quickly cycled through; SHEIN releases as many as 10,000 new designs every day and H&M’s ironically-named “French Minimalism” section has 873 new items. The poor quality doesn’t always mean a lower price, either — simple pieces can go for close to $90 at Zara. Avoiding purchases from companies like these can save you from both spending money and the wastefulness of low-quality fast fashion. Past trends, such as summer 2023’s mermaid-inspired sequins and pearls, were difficult to participate in without buying new clothes. Luckily, looks that resemble fall 2023 and winter 2024 runway styles can be achieved with simple pieces that can be found in your closet or any thrift store. Recent trends are all about looking like you just got to the

office. A progression from flashier McBling styles, “The Devil Wears Prada” — inspired look draws from romcom worthy, Y2K, businesscasual outfits. Looking put together while maintaining a hint of grunge is ideal, and the perfect top for this is a long-sleeved, white buttondown. Crisp, professional and perfect for layering, button-down shirts fit the corporate look while maintaining comfort. They’re pretty easy to find, too: Dozens of button-downs, priced at a few dollars each, crowd the racks of any thrift store I have been to. This piece can also be tailored to personal preferences. You can choose a looser men’s button-down or a more fitted style, with extra points for cropping it to get a boxy fit reminiscent of Miu Miu. If you’re now looking for something to layer over your button-down, plain cardigans are also popular this winter and are easy to pair with many different pieces as a way to dress an outfit up and give it more warmth (a necessity for this brutal winter). They’re easy to find secondhand, and with the simplicity of a gray, white, black or any neutral-colored cardigan, there’s plenty of room for accessorizing to get your outfit looking office chic. Almost any accessories you can find work for this, whether it’s your favorite necklace, small tortoise-shell glasses or a really big purse. All you need to finish your officegrunge wardrobe are bottoms, and “midi” has become the perfect

skirt length due to its versatility — more manageable than maxi and at least theoretically warmer than mini. It also pairs well with the business-casual chic looks that have been popping up, just like its equally trendy relative, the pencil skirt. Both midi and pencil skirts are abundant at second-hand stores (source: the gorgeous pleated midi

skirt I just thrifted for $4) and can be worn with a variety of tops, from button-downs to wool sweaters to comfy hoodies and corsets. Because no skirt is truly warm enough for the winter, no matter how long, add a pair of sheer black tights underneath to keep warm. Tights are an easy accessory that can make outfits look more put

together, if for no other reason than because you’re not violently shivering. When thrifting or searching through your closet, ideal pieces are clothes that you can pair with several different items, and that you can wear and rewear even as trends shift. Simple basics that pair well together with pieces you

already own is an easy formula to remember when making decisions while shopping for clothing. This year’s winter styles are perfect for experimenting with this simplicity, which can help reduce the amount of clothes being bought and thrown away, a significant step in minimizing clothing waste and excessive overconsumption.

Design by Evelyn Mousigan

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wednesday, January 31, 2024 — 5

Is ‘outsider music’ obsolete? AMINA CATTAUI Daily Arts Writer

A boy consults his mother for a palm reading. He learns of three prophecies: 1. He will marry a strawberry blonde. 2. He will have two sons after his mother dies. 3. His daughters will go on to form a successful band. The boy becomes a father; the first two prophecies come true. Desperate to fulfill the third, Austin Wiggin pulls his three daughters out of school, thrusts instruments into their hands and orders the trio to produce an album. They call themselves The Shaggs. The rest, they say, is history; after years of ridicule from local radio hosts, The Shaggs’s only studio album — 1969’s Philosophy of the World — is pulled from the slush, put in circulation and championed by the likes of Lester Bangs and Kurt Cobain. What was once derided as the “world’s worst rock album” is now heralded as a product of “accidental genius.”

Now, The Shaggs are the poster children for a whole pseudo-genre of legendary flops, that loose assortment of acts we now call “outsider music.” Like “outsider” art before it, many argue, outsider music is removed from the institutions, training and tools from which most records are cut. It’s backed by no label, and no chance of it; it might be sold on the street or slipped in with your Happy Meal. You can make outsider music without ever setting foot in a recording booth. But it’s not the ’90s anymore. With modern advances in music production and distribution, a home studio is hardly a barrier to quality; it can spawn a Billie Eilish as soon as it does a Farrah Abraham. With a pirated copy of Logic and some elbow grease, your track can be on Soundcloud in 30 minutes. In the ’80s, if someone dropped an album while holed up in their room, we might call it outsider music — today, we call this bedroom pop. If technological constraints don’t define outsider-dom, maybe it’s better understood as a skill

issue: that an artist’s unfamiliarity with genre conventions (and even their own instruments) marks their music as “outside” the mainstream. But unless you listen exclusively to free jazz, amateur musicianship doesn’t stop artists from earning popularity and respect. Some genres, like punk and country, even valorize scrappy authenticity over skillful artifice. When you’re writing in “Three Chords and the Truth,”

The Michigan Daily Crossword Puzzle Sunday, January 28, 2024 - Puzzle by Mae Marshall

truth: The moment that Syd Barrett makes ‘outsider music’ is the moment we decide that Syd Barrett is an outsider. More often than not, this distinction comes down to mental illness — but just the illnesses that neurotypical society associates with detachment from reality. Because of an artist’s schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or what-haveyou, their music is tagged as “real, pure, (and) unaffected by outside influences.” But who decides this value? Apparently Austin Wiggin does — the “real, pure” definition of outsider music is exactly what he wrote in the liner notes of Design by Evelyn Mousigian “Philosophy of the World.” it’s no wonder why the label of After subjecting his children to “outsider music” loses its sting. decades of abuse, it is Wiggin — Under the wrong circumstances, this fame-hungry, superstitious, even musical virtuosos can authoritarian father — who wins become ‘outsiders.’ Facing this final act of control over his deteriorating mental health, Syd children. Long after The Shaggs Barrett famously broke off from disbanded, Wiggin’s words Pink Floyd to create ‘outsider’ hang over the art of outsiders solo work; so did Brian Wilson of everywhere. Beach Boys fame, who suffered a This is the curse of outsider psychotic break in his mid-career. music: to be made at the margins, Peel all the pretenses away, and then digested, defined and you’re left with an uncomfortable exploited by “insiders.” It calls

to mind the parallel rise of world music, another pseudo-genre of the late 20th century. As American cultural exports reached a fever pitch, those artists “free” from our globalized influence were met with a newer, hungrier market, creating a new “genre” comprised of international folk artists. In the mainstream cultural imagination, their removal from “modern comforts” made them all the more authentic; they may as well have been prehistoric. The same paradox presents itself: What separates Europop from Zamrock? Why is one of these “world music” and the other just music? It’s the same answer. Almost all nations’ “world music” shares nothing in common — except, of course, being from the “rest of the world;” a primitive, often racialized, other. Today, we recognize it’s ludicrous to equate Bulgarian choirs with Mongolian throatsingers. For that reason, I think it’s time to retire the “outsider music” label, applied so liberally as to tag both Brian Wilson and Wesley Willis. They’ve got nothing in common but an entry in the DSM-5.

Taylor Tomlinson deserves more than ‘After Midnight’ ANNABEL CURRAN Daily Arts Writer

Last November, funny people everywhere rejoiced when CBS announced that comedian Taylor Tomlinson was slated to take over the late-night TV slot previously held by James Corden’s “The Late Late Show.” Finally, a reason to stay up past 9 p.m. This takeover was touted as the shakeup that late-night television needed: Tomlinson would finally be bringing some youthful energy to a TV genre that has suffered record-low ratings and viewership, especially among younger generations, all while breaking into the boys club that is late-night television.

comedians that spoof them rather than on Tomlinson, the supposed star of the show. While “After Midnight” currently boasts only a handful of episodes, the show has yet to feature a meme, tweet or guest star that is as charming or funny as Tomlinson herself, leaving the audience starved of satisfying comedy, instead hanging around solely for the hope of hearing an offhand Tomlinson ad-lib that might satiate their hunger for a good laugh. After so much buzz around “After Midnight,” audiences are unsurprisingly tuning in to see Tomlinson, not her less funny yet more heavily featured guests. If something doesn’t shift, audiences might not tune in at all. While the decision to reboot a

This image was taken from “After Midnight,” distributed by CBS Studios.

Apparently, it just wasn’t meant to be. Despite the undeniable talent and promise Tomlinson brings, “After Midnight” is not the groundbreaking success we were promised — but it’s not Tomlinson’s fault. Unlike various other latenight segments hosted mostly by white men with J names, “After Midnight” is a divergence from the typical talk show format — there are neither famous guest stars nor large wooden desks. Instead, the show puts a spin on the bygone comedy competition “At Midnight,” a Comedy Central show that presented the most absurd stories from daily news, pop culture and media to a panel of well-known comedians, challenging them to turn news, social media and sports into stand-up comedy. “After Midnight” shares much with the original in terms of style and structure, making it, by all means, an adequate reboot of a well-liked show. Unfortunately, an adequate reboot is not what late-night TV — or Taylor Tomlinson — deserves. There are a few things wrong with “After Midnight,” and none of them have anything to do with Tomlinson. The fault lies instead with CBS, the show’s chosen format and its comedian guest stars. Here, the format is “After Midnight’s” most egregious offense. While the news headlines and social media posts the show digs up are somewhat worthy for comedy fodder, the game-show format shines the comedic spotlight on these bits of internet humor and the featured

social media-focused game show speaks to the network’s need for millennial and Gen Z streams, there is still an unnatural, forced element to “After Midnight” that counteracts the show’s intended purpose of garnering new viewership. With late-night TV so obviously floundering, the heavy focus on “trending” topics and popular platforms can be seen for what it is: a desperate grab for views and approval from the under-40 crowd. As the show’s focus constantly shifts from tweets to TikToks to uncomfortable games of “smash or pass,” “After Midnight” begins to take on a stilted flow not found in the more casual and free-flowing late-night shows a la Stephen Colbert’s iteration of “The Late Show” or the now-defunct “Late Night” with Conan O’Brien. In saddling Tomlinson with the task of reading out tweets and funnyish news headlines, CBS has done her a serious disservice. With years of comedy and two Netflix specials under her belt, Tomlinson has the comedic chops and charisma necessary to host her very own traditional late-night segment — one with A-list guests, her own script and a desk — with absolutely no problem. So why didn’t she get one? Perhaps because with streaming as the primary vehicle for TV consumption and an oversaturated late-night market, there’s simply no longer a place for traditional late-night talk shows in American television. Read more at MichiganDaily.com

MiC

6 — Wednesday, January 31, 2024

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What Spotify taught me about letting go KENNETH SUN MiC Columnist

1 — What Spotify taught me about letting go My Spotify Wrapped came out, and as I feared, one of my top songs this year was “Amsterdam” by Nothing But Thieves. I feared it in the same way that you fear coming face-to-face with your childhood best friend, and the constriction of your chest that follows when you can think of nothing at all to say. It represents to me an entire class of music that spanned my life from January to April — upbeat, alt-ish rock with lots of drums and an angsty tang. Whatever genre you call that. Part of me is embarrassed because I think the songs someone likes are reflective of who they are as a person. For a while, I was really into the angsty-indierock vibe, sort of angry and numb at the same time. I liked them because I was angsty, because I wanted to feel subliminally angry, to yearn, or maybe I wanted to be more outgoing, or hopeless, or more uniquely sad — and listening to those songs helped me feel exactly that. So that’s one selfish reason I sometimes feel embarrassed to be reminded of the people songs I used to love. To borrow from Paul Graham, just as there is nothing so unfashionable as the last, discarded fashion, there is nothing so cringeworthy as the preferences of your most recently deceased self. I remember when I first

realized that I didn’t like this song anymore. I knew there was something off about it, but I didn’t know why and I struggled at first with deleting it from my playlists. I spent so much time with that song. You know that feeling, a few days after you meet someone and you click, that it’s as if you’ve known them for as long as you can remember? You begin sharing straws and stories from your separate pasts, fascinating each other with time and attention, and it’s not always clear whether this spark will turn into a flame or a dumpster fire. You see yourself in the song, and that is why you like it. That is why it burns. What is a dumpster fire? I think it could be a song who knows a distant version of you such that whenever you interact, you are invariably dragged into the past. It could also be a song with whom you’re never quite sure how you feel, never quite natural. Dumpster fires make me uneasy. I knew my song had become a dumpster fire, so the correct thing to do was to remove it, right? But I was stressing out. What if I started liking this song again? I didn’t want to just throw it into the void… and had it really gone sour in the first place? What if this was just a phase? When I look through my top songs from this year, the feeling I find in each song is the result of what happened to that initial spark. Some songs burned hotly and then fizzled out. Some extinguished without reason. Some unlucky sparks became scalding dumpster fires. Yet there

are others who continue to be steady flames, radiating warmly as they had always done. And the thing about the steady flames is that they never used to be dumpster fires. None. Not one. For some, there may have been a flicker or two, but that’s a far cry from the instability of a dumpster fire. I think dumpster fires are the hardest to let go of because, in contrast to dead sparks, they are still burning. It’s tempting to hope that they would simmer down to something calmer, but that almost never happens. And it’s why even when you do cut them from your playlist, you can’t help but wonder how they’re doing, whether they’ve eaten today and so on. The satisfying solution came from my friend who watched me struggle with removing this song. She told me that first, if I do start liking it again, then that would mean I get to rediscover my love for it, which is pretty great. And second, it was more important to consider how the song made me feel at the present moment, instead of leaning on the sentiments of my memories from before. Yes, there used to be a spark, maybe even a flame, but now I didn’t want to hear it. It wasn’t doing me any good, and it was tainting the entire playlist to boot— so there was nothing to be missed, really. Since then, I’ve forced myself to be vigilant about pruning songs that have gone bad. It’s hard, but I think the difficulty of deciding whether or not to keep a questionable song speaks volumes compared to how easy and natural

it is to make the same decision on a song that I unequivocally adore. There are always so many things that are a better use of my time, and it’s really freeing to not ever have to worry about whether song X is mad at me or guess at song Y’s intentions. Of course, people can change and it can be worth the energy to try to improve the relationship, so I decided that a good rule of thumb for deciding whether a situation is good for me is to ask whether or not it feels like high school. If it does, then chances are that someone isn’t making a good-faith effort to make the situation better. In high school, I got tangled up in several “dumpsterfireships” where I was stuck constantly ruminating about the state of our relationship. If I had a time machine, I’d tell my younger self: No. Stop. Why are you fighting for something that is so easily given, and that is so freely abundant elsewhere in your life? And when he protests, saying that he’s already invested so much time into this person, I would again ask — then why waste more? High school kids are not always mature enough to give you clarity, compassion or kindness, but everyone should know better now, so there’s no reason to put up with any of this. 2 — Dolce, a piacere There will be snow soon. Would you see it too? & think softly of me? 3 — Refrain

After my first relationship ended, I spent a long time (I won’t admit how long) still glued to its grip. I thought that after some time, the dust would settle and we’d be in each other’s orbits again. I kept some of his songs in my playlist and heard them from time to time. They were good — a good mix of despair and yearning that I wanted to feel back then. We spent a lot of time together, and certainly, there was a flame. I kept wondering how they were doing, whether they’d eaten today and so on, thinking that maybe it would die down to something calmer. What if this was just a phase? Over, and over, and over again. I think I’ve seen this movie before (the ending is a bit of a dumpster fire). Sometime around the sevenmonths mark, it occurred to me to question whether there was a stable relationship to start with. We’d met and started dating pretty much the week after. “Love at first sight” is one way to put it, but in hindsight, I would opt to call it “rushing into things.” I realized that even early in the relationship, there were red flags that I should have seen, would have seen if I took the time to look. In a playlist and with acquaintances, it’s relatively easy to add and remove whenever you want. The difficulty is only in recognizing that something is dead and should be removed. But in a committed relationship, it’s not so easy. To really know a person, you have to set aside some

time and listen intentionally. It was important to look, and to resist the temptation to run in without looking. I have a playlist called “Inbox,” where I put songs that I think I like so that they get a second listen before being sorted into one of my many playlists. I treasure these listens a lot. It’s a rare feeling to set aside some time, perhaps an evening, for only listening. Not the sort of half-assed attention like putting on Netflix while doing homework. It’s during these listens that I really get to know a song intimately. Some nights, when I’m propped up with a good album, I feel that I would be content to spend the rest of my life doing this. And I’ve learned to look for the same feeling in people, as well. Obviously I can’t put people into playlists, but I guess the point is that it would be good quality control to give my attention completely if I actually want to know someone. This way, if I’m more strict about what kind of songs I let in, I don’t have to remove them as much. Because no matter how much I might consciously recognize a song to be bad, it still hurts to remove it and kill the hope. So it was equally important to remind myself that I can’t control dumpster fires, and to stop myself from trying because I get burned every time. It wasn’t worth the energy that I would rather spend tending to the many other warm, peaceful flames. Love (of anything) doesn’t have to be dramatic or difficult.

SARA WONG/MiC.

A Bookworm’s Requiem Just the sound of it made me shudder. ISABELLE FERNANDES MiC Columnist

Each time I lend out a book I am saying: Here is a piece of my soul– I do not mind if you stain the edges with your coffee fingerprints, dog-ear a corner, accidentally tear the paper as you turn a page. I used to harbor anger Meticulously inspecting the covers upon a book’s return, Searching always for the carelessness I knew was hidden there. Creases telling me half a story, A crumpled cover horrifically filling in the gaps. I did not understand, while I tucked my book in every night careful to slide it into place on the shelf, never shove, They cracked its spine, dragged its broken body across the floor: a violent end for a pampered prince.

One day I realized– the ripples on the pages mark where teardrops fell, A friend’s now-immortalized sorrow. A smudge means the book made its way to breakfast sat next to the pancakes and the chocolate sauce, was devoured ferociously while a stomach rumbled. And of course the crime of all crimes–a torn edge– indicating a desire so strong to race to the end wildly flipping page after page after page, the thin paper could barely be expected to keep up. Knowing this, I now say: Weave yourself into my story Do not be afraid to splash some water, to trickle in reminders of your existence. I want to to know the source of your joy, of your grief, of your fears. I invite you to press your sticky hands into the words. Tell your story in the echoes of mine– I will smile when I read it. ISABELLE FERNANDES/MiC.

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STATEMENT

Wednesday, January 31, 2024 — 7

My salon away from home

Kitty Aunty threads Ananya Gera’s eyebrows at Mansha’s Salon and Day Spa Tuesday, Jan. 23. Arushi Sanghi/DAILY

ANANYA GERA

Statement Columnist It takes about two-to-three weeks for the signs to return. I stare in the mirror, my eyes catching on wayward hairs that have suddenly sprouted, their growth pushing the boundaries of my natural brow shape. It is time to return to Mansha’s Salon and Day Spa to get my eyebrows done. I have gotten my eyebrows done since I was 12 years old. I’d been ridiculed in grade school due to the natural thickness of my eyebrows and the prominence of my body hair. I was an Indian girl from a small, predominantlywhite Midwestern town, and my features, which were characteristics inherent to South Asian people, were alien to my white peers. I begged my mother to help me find a reprieve to the humiliation I felt, and so she took me to get my eyebrows done by Sonal Aunty — a short, serious woman who did the eyebrows of all the aunties in town. (She is not related to me, but it is an Indian custom and tradition to call the women elder to you “aunty” as a sign of respect.) I remember sitting in a dining room chair, my neck angled awkwardly as I gripped my mother’s hand until my knuckles turned white. When Sonal Aunty began her task of cleaning up years of unruly growth around and in between my eyebrows, I squeezed my eyes tight and felt tears stream down my face, aware of every tug, every extraction as the thin white thread pinched the hairs out of their follicles. It was almost too much to bear. Almost. After she was done, I opened

my eyes to the bright light, blinking my excess tears away, and gazed in the mirror. I almost didn’t recognize my reflection; Sonal Aunty took a feature that I was embarrassed of and turned them into something unrecognizable: beautiful black arches that held the world — my world — in their shape. I was not unruly or dirty; instead, I was beautiful and majestic. I was a homage to all the women who came before me and all the women who will come after. It was as if I had reclaimed a part of myself that I was once ashamed of, finally empowering me to be proud of the qualities that made me me, including the pantheon of South Asian women I belonged to. At 12 years old, I had experienced a transformative moment that forever changed my life. Visiting Sonal Aunty from then on became routine, but I didn’t necessarily like getting my eyebrows done. In fact, it is truly one of the most painful sensations I have ever experienced; it is as if time slows down and every second I sit in the chair, my fingers pulling the skin around my eyes taut as the thread unrelentingly assails my hairs, feels like eternity. No, I hate getting my eyebrows done. The moment when she releases me from peril is salvation: respite after an excruciating 10 minutes. My favorite part of the experience is when I get to sit up and look at myself in the mirror. I relish my newfound confidence in my face, my features, my beauty as I observe her handiwork. It never fails to take my breath away how in 10 minutes, I am transformed. When my eyebrows are done,

the skin around them void of any stray hairs, I find that I can finally fully appreciate myself. Their clean and concise shape ties all of my facial features together, creating a cohesive map of the country I belong to. I feel whole again, a congruous summation of the lineages I have come from. Sonal Aunty and I have a connection that is intimate, sacred even. I trust her to take care of my most defining feature and she has never once failed me in the eight years I’ve known her. I was with her when she began doing eyebrows in her house, then a corner in the pharmacy and finally, when she opened her own brow salon in our local hair salon. Sonal Aunty knows me more intimately than many of my actual family members, most of whom — grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins — live an ocean away on another continent. Instead of feeling a connection to my history, my lineage, my ancestry — something grander than myself — I feel like an island, alone with only the blue sky to keep me company. I have my mother, whom I love and treasure very much, but aside from her and my sister, I am not tethered to anyone. That loss never fails to take my breath away, never fails to make me feel like I’m going to fall through this country. I have had to build an extended family through the people in my community and Sonal Aunty has been a vital part of that. I visited Sonal Aunty for the last time the day before I left for college. As she worked the thread, meticulously plucking every wayward hair, she asked me about school. Was I excited? Had I met my roommate? When were

Ananya Gera poses in front of a sign at Mansha’s Salon and Day Spa Tuesday, January 23. Arushi Sanghi /DAILY

my classes going to start? It felt like a normal session answering questions while trying to ignore my growing discomfort, a routine that has become comforting to me. But I was troubled by unease as she continued to work, adding novelty to something once familiar; I wondered where, or, more importantly, how would I get my eyebrows done in Ann Arbor? It is common to feel anxious about leaving our families and making a new life for ourselves when we first arrive at college. We worry about making new friends, finding our way around campus and figuring out how to best operate by ourselves for maybe the first time in our lives. The weeks before my move-in date were plagued by constant butterflies in my stomach and knots in my chest as I grappled with my nervousness and excitement. So, in all my worries, I was too preoccupied to find new place to get my eyebrows done. Sonal Aunty and I had formed a relationship built on my trust in her to handle my eyebrows with care; it is hard to gain that trust with other people because the fear of a possible mistake on such a crucial aspect of my appearance hindered any risk I might take in finding another person to execute the task I find so important. As a result, I would only get my eyebrows done when I came home for break during my freshman year of college. My eyebrow hairs would grow at an alarmingly fast rate in between, getting the longest and unruliest they’ve been in years. I hated looking at my eyebrows in the mirror, frustrated by their growth and desperate to get back to Sonal Aunty. Vowing to myself that my

second year of school would not be like the first, I had my mom take me to Mansha’s Salon and Day Spa when she came to visit me in September. I had heard through the grapevine that Mansha’s was the best eyebrow place in Ann Arbor, but I was still nervous to try out a new stylist. My biggest fear was that Mansha’s would thin my naturally thick eyebrows. But when I aired this concern to Kitty Aunty, the lady who would be doing my eyebrows, she immediately comforted me and said that they don’t thin eyebrows at this salon. Relieved, I sank back into the chair, gripping my mother’s hand, ready for Kitty Aunty to begin. When you share a cultural connection, you tend to skip the novelty of first meetings and introductions. Instead, it felt like being back with Sonal Aunty. Kitty Aunty asked how my classes were going, what year of school I was in and why I hadn’t visited her until my sophomore year. I answered her questions as she worked the harsh thread, making my chest ache a little as its discomfort reminded me of my routine with Sonal Aunty. I felt like I had known Kitty Aunty for ages, despite it being my first time meeting her. I feel a kinship between Indian people, one that lies in a shared culture and country. I feel like I know an aunty in the ways that matter, even if I may not know them in the true sense of the word. I see my own essence in the hues of their irises. This kinship is underscored by the languages we all share and speak. My second language is Hindi, and I consider it my

mother tongue, even though I am not fully fluent, because it is my mother’s tongue. Hindi captures my essence, a half to my whole, making it quintessential to my identity. When I arrived in Ann Arbor, I found my grasp on the language slipping through my fingers. Without my home environment to practice it, words and phrases began to escape my head and soon, speaking a sentence that I would normally not give a second thought took me ages to figure out; the grammar, the vocabulary and my confidence all eluded me when I attempted to converse in Hindi. But when I visit Mansha’s, they speak to me in Hindi and give me the opportunity to connect me to my family, my culture, my roots. Speaking in Hindi reminds me of my other half, the one I so readily forget as I immerse myself in other aspects of American college life. Even when I hear the South Asian languages I may not understand, they comfort me because their tone, sounds and accents remind me of home. This shared identity allows those of us an ocean away from our roots a chance to experience that feeling of family that many of us so acutely lack. Mansha’s Salon and Day Spa has not only increased my confidence but also allowed me to find community in a place where I hadn’t expected. Being there makes me feel connected to something bigger than myself. Just as Sonal Aunty is a part of the family I’ve built back home, Mansha’s Salon and Day Spa, with all the wonderful women that work there, is a part of the family that I am beginning to build in Ann Arbor.

Kitty Aunty threads Ananya Gera’s eyebrows at Mansha’s Salon and Day Spa Tuesday, Jan. 23. Arushi Sanghi /DAILY

8 — Wednesday, January 31, 2024

STATEMENT

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Monumental pain: How an adult playground became a tragic reminder OLIVIA KANE

Statement Correspondent Content warning: mentions of suicide When you live in a city like New York, there is a tendency to proudly deny any interest in the activities that bring droves of tourists to the place you live. My parents were among these people — fast walkers who taught me to lament the slow trudging of tired tourists and regular subway-takers, even on days when rain beat down on the city making the slick, deserted underground tunnels feel like a waterlogged wasteland. So, it was surprising to me, even as a child, that our family would regularly embark on a weekend walk along the High Line to Chelsea Market. If you are at all familiar with New York, you perhaps already understand the strangeness of ardent New Yorkers taking a young family to these places as a coveted ritual. If you are less familiar with New York, all you really need to know is that crowded places like those require a steady, unwavering patience — something not often found in young children or Manhattanites. The crowds walking the High Line and shopping in Chelsea Market have starkly increased since the days when my family would wander through the dimlylit, cacophonous halls of the indoor covered market to buy books and eat grilled cheeses. Still, the High Line and Chelsea Market remain the only tourist attractions I can really bear to visit. Surrounded by sightseers and New Yorkers alike, I ponder the time that has passed since I was a few feet shorter and these places, although busy, were not yet flooded with the large, blocky shopping bags distinct to hordes of tourists. I recognized how easily beloved local places could become global phenomena, and this realization led me to avidly follow the construction of Hudson Yards and the building of the Vessel. The High Line starts in the West Village and extends about one-anda-half miles to 34th Street along Manhattan’s West Side. By the end of this walk, you enter the newlybuilt, commercial neighborhood of Hudson Yards. It is like something out of a dystopian movie with

a message about the imminent extinction of life as we know it: Tall glass buildings, where sun glints off the endless windows, blind you in the morning, midafternoon and somehow even the evening. Designer shops and expensive restaurants speak to the opulence of the place. Although Hudson Yards is advertised as a cultural center for New York and a model for how future cities might be built, the reality of the space suggests that only a certain demographic is welcome: New Yorkers willing to spend millions of dollars on residences and tourists willing to buy deconstructed desserts. It is perhaps this exclusivity that led the Hudson Yards developers to pair the creation of the neighborhood with the creation of the Vessel. If anything, the Vessel is more of a structure than a building. It features criss-crossing staircases that climb into the sky, offering those who visit and scale the structure the chance to look out over the gray water of the Hudson River and contemplate the New Jersey skyline. The Vessel was imagined as an interactive space and artwork; placed at the end of the High Line, it beckons people into Hudson Yards. Instead, tourists and New Yorkers might first climb up the 154 winding, interconnected flights of stairs within the structure and then, with wind-whipped faces and drunk on the feeling of towering above toy-like cars, descend into Hudson Yards with an increased willingness to buy a $7 latte. This is a cynical view of the Vessel. But I am not a fan of the structure, and many others in New York are not either. When I pitched the idea for this piece in a warm and cramped room of The Michigan Daily newsroom, the other New Yorker in the group turned to me and with a knowing look said how much she despised the building. I followed the construction of the Vessel so closely because I knew that it would make the High Line an even busier place. No longer would the High Line be a destination in and of itself. Instead, it seemed likely that it would become merely a means to reach the Vessel, with 16 stories of polished steel glimmering at the end — beckoning visitors like a futuristic pot of gold. When the construction of the Vessel finished in 2019 and the structure opened to the public, I went with a friend and climbed

the winding stairs. I wanted to see the building that I believed would change the part of Manhattan I knew so intimately. I remember feeling dizzy. Looking down at the staircases below, I realized we were in a machine pushing people toward the top. Forward movement felt necessary. You could stop on a landing if you wanted, but others impatiently signaled they wanted a turn. And really, how long could I look at the New Jersey skyline, a landscape I have seen all my life, pretending to be fascinated? The structure’s name — the Vessel — suggests that those who climb its stairs are precious cargo, but as I progressed upwards, never have I felt so inconsequential. We were all the same — moving in the same direction, taking the same pictures and uttering the same appreciative phrases. In the years following the construction of the Vessel, it is this feeling of a loss of concrete identity that I felt when I climbed its stairs that have led me to try and understand the events that ultimately occurred at the structure’s pinnacle. Shortly after opening to the public, three individuals committed suicide from atop the Vessel. Following these three suicides, the Vessel temporarily closed, but ultimately reopened with new safety measures in place. However, after a 14-year-old boy killed himself in the summer of 2021, the Vessel once again closed itself to the public and it is unclear if another opening date is in sight. I would appreciate the building never being reopened, and I think I share this opinion with many other New Yorkers. Even if the structure remains shuttered, questions remain: How does a community move forward when a building meant to function as an adult playground becomes a monument to pain and grief? Driving or walking down the West Side of Manhattan, upon reaching Hudson Yards, the building is unavoidable. It is gargantuan in stature, and I turn my head away as I pass — but not before I see hordes of tourists standing at the base of the structure holding up peace signs, taking selfies. This is not an indictment of the tourists who visit the Vessel and snap a picture in front of it; I believe they don’t know the reason why the building is closed. The Vessel’s website makes no direct mention of

the suicides. Yet it’s always striking to watch people pose with their loved ones in front of a building that, to so many New Yorkers, is a symbol of tragedy. It does not seem likely that the building will be torn down — and I do not necessarily advocate for this — but it also seems untenable that it should remain as it is. This landscape on the West Side of Manhattan has become transfigured by this building, which now functions as a monument to grief. The events at Hudson Yards and the Vessel are not unique. It is not an uncommon fate for a skyline to be marred by a building or structure that evokes tragedy. Consider the Golden Gate Bridge. The iconic bridge, while known for its views of the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean, is also considered one of the deadliest suicide locations in the world. From the time of its completion in 1937, about 1,700 people have used the bridge to take their lives. Many of the families of these individuals have long advocated for a steel net to be placed under the bridge as a preventative measure. The construction of such a net began in 2018 and was completed in early January of this year. While this net will prevent a significant number of suicides, it does not erase the history of those that have already occurred. When I first visited the Golden Gate Bridge, I knew nothing of this history. I was 6 years old, protected by the dreaminess of a happy childhood where such things as suicide do not exist. I experienced the bridge solely through a lens of unbounded joy. I did not mind the wind blowing my rain jacket hood over my eyes and laughed as I tried to see past the dense mist rushing over the water. I think this sense of wonder must be similar to what the tourists at the Vessel feel as they crane their necks to look up at a structure that towers over them, and whose mirror-like material reflects back their own astonished faces. It is unlikely that older tourists who visit the Golden Gate Bridge are unfamiliar with its history, and even if they are, the steel nets under the bridge make it apparent. It is only children who might remain the blissful, unaware tourists. I always examine the tourists in front of the Vessel, and I wonder what those who understand the gravity of the Golden Gate Bridge

make of the children laughing while a light mist curls through their young, soft hair. I don’t think they feel bitterness; I don’t feel bitterness when I look at the tourists in front of the Vessel. But I wonder if they feel the same heaviness that I do when I pass by Hudson Yards’ failed play structure. If they knew the history, would they still be smiling? No longer would the structures evoke the same joy, for they now have to be considered alongside the sadness of their history. Such a structure then makes its surrounding landscape a more complex space. It’s a space where one is pushed to think — to think about the fragility of life. When we embark on outings as tourists, I don’t think this is usually what we are searching for. We are looking to experience something — a view, a work of art — that many have seen before. We are looking to be part of something bigger than ourselves. We are not seeking to isolate ourselves by thinking of life in contrast with death, which is so fundamentally solitary. People will always visit monuments like the Vessel and the Golden Gate Bridge, whether they are aware of their history of suicide or not. I am not arguing that in order to honor those who have died and escape the grief now native to these places, we should stop going to them all together. I simply want to point out that the landscapes where these monuments stand have been changed in such a profound and overwhelming way that we never anticipated. There are physical precautions that can be taken to prevent the occurrence of more suicides like the nets implemented at the Golden Gate Bridge. The Vessel has signaled that they are looking into how to make the structure more secure. These are direct actions that can prevent further tragedy, but the fact remains that these monuments will continue to stand. As long as they continue to stand, they remain partially defined by their tragedies. That is why these buildings feel so consequential to me. They remain destined to haunt the thoughts of the individuals who know their stories. They become places where baffled communities grieve the loss of life. If these places were not influenced by tragedy, the sharing of the space would look different. Joy is easily externalized and transferred to those who surround you. A laugh

floats across the wind and reaches the ears of a stranger. You might ask someone to take a picture of you and your friends and, in this interaction, learn what brought this unknown person to the same place as you. Sharing a space when we are joyful is more visible, and a connection to others might come more easily. But engaging with monuments that are accompanied by the sadness of their histories brings us together in a different way. Through the silence of contemplation we can acknowledge that we are allowed to feel sadness about the deaths of people we did not know, and we are reminded of our own mortality and personal hardships. These monuments become a place where a public consideration of grief is acceptable. As a society we so often try to hide and conceal grief: Crying in public is frowned upon and immense discomfort arises when the death of a person is mentioned in a conversation. These monuments become places where it is okay to pause with a group of strangers and consider the gravity of the space. We understand each other’s silence because we are thinking about the same things. The Vessel’s website now contains a sentence that reads “Each of you matter to us, and to so many others.” I don’t know if those words were there before the four suicides, but it seems plausible that they were added only in the aftermath. They are words that speak to the importance of understanding that you are loved, which is a sentiment often encouraged in the wake of suicide. If monuments where tragedy has occurred remain central to the landscapes that we love, these words might suggest that the way to find solace is through connecting with others in these spaces. Through communal grief, we are forced to reconcile with the scale of sorrow that occurs after suicide. Yet, because so many people are similarly engulfed by sadness, perhaps this is also how we find the hope necessary to move forward. In knowing that many others shoulder the weight of a tragedy, it becomes easier to look back up at a building that has taken far more than it has given. By recognizing that others matter to us and we matter to others, we are encouraged to embrace the grief these monuments have left behind as a community.

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Opinion

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Wednesday, January 31, 2024 — 9

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Schools should teach media literacy HAYDEN BUCKFIRE Opinion Columnist

t has never been easier to spread misinformation, either deliberately or by accident, than it is right now. The digital age has amplified a diverse set of voices on social media, for better or worse. While many users are well-intentioned and act as online educators, they have the capacity to spread fake news, which can irreparably harm the public good. And spread it does: An often-cited study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that fake news reaches people about six times faster than the truth. Even outside of deliberately fake news, it is easy for information to be taken out of context in a short-form social media post. More than three quarters of Generation Z relies on social media for news. Although X, formerly known as Twitter, is the most commonly used social media website by journalists, the general public decidedly prefers Facebook, YouTube and Instagram for their news. Younger generations increasingly rely on social media inf luencers rather than journalists to interpret and report the news. This dependence on social media for news can skew public opinion on important issues and erode trust in important institutions. Conspiracy theories ran rampant during the COVID-19 pandemic. Baseless claims of voter fraud online in recent elections, both domestically and internationally, has perhaps sowed irreparable mistrust

in democratic processes. Social media poses a new challenge in its lack of factchecking mechanisms and its platforming of users without journalistic backgrounds. To combat these problems, we must equip future generations with the skills needed to succeed in interpreting today’s everevolving media landscape; it is in our best interest to have a population that can discern fact from fiction. This can be done in part by requiring media literacy education for high school students.

How can we think critically about the media that we consume? Where are potential sources of bias in coverage? What information might be doctored or created entirely by artificial intelligence? How do we ascertain what is most important from what is least important? These are all important questions that can, should and need to be taught to students. Although this subject may lie outside the traditional topics of math, science, English and social studies, these skills are still widely applicable.

The need for increased media literacy has made itself abundantly clear. A 2019 report from Stanford University found that high school students had a neartotal inability to accurately analyze and evaluate media sources. For example, twothirds of students could not tell the difference between content and advertisements. Additionally, 96.8% of students could not explain why ties between a climate change website and the fossil fuel industry might raise concerns as to the website’s credibility.

Many states have already been proactive in requiring media literacy programs for students. California recently joined Delaware, New Jersey and Texas as the only states requiring media literacy instruction for K-12 students. The bill, signed into law in 2023, required core subjects to incorporate media literacy into the curriculum framework. Such initiatives have been proven to be effective in promoting critical skills in media engagement. A separate 2019 study by researchers at Stanford University found

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that students who received just six 50-minute lessons in media literacy were twice as likely to identify questionable sources as students who did not participate in the lessons. Of course, there are some problems posed by legislation such as those passed by California, Delaware, New Jersey and Texas. There is only so much time in the school day, much of which is critical for teaching other valuable skills. “Curriculum overload” can cause significant problems, such as stress for teachers and students and under-coverage of content. However, as demonstrated by the aforementioned laws, standards can be integrated with other subject areas. Additionally, the Stanford study illustrates that media literacy lessons do not need to be time-intensive to be effective. The state of Michigan should join these other states in requiring media literacy programs for K-12 students. Such an action is not entirely without precedent; in 2022, Michigan enacted a law requiring high school students to earn at least half a credit in “financial literacy” before graduation. Michigan, along with other states, should pass legislation requiring media literacy education for all students to ensure that future generations have the skills to navigate today’s media landscape. By instituting media literacy education in schools, we can nurture an informed future electorate, capable of discerning fact from fiction, fostering thoughtful discourse and contributing positively to the complex media landscape of the 21st century.

The New Year’s resolution dilemma ANGEL AKOURI Opinion Columnist

s people f lip their calendars to Jan. 1 after the ball drops, one of the oldest traditions of setting goals and aspirations for the new year begins yet again. Since I was a kid, I pledged that the new year would call for a new and improved me, that it would be the year I turned my life around for the better. Though the first few weeks of January

consisted of eating right, working out more and even dream journaling (from that one particularly peculiar year), time and time again, February came around and snapped me back into last year’s misery. But as I have gotten older, I have realized that this inability to hold on to my month-old promises is not my fault. The idea of a New Year’s resolution dates back to the times of the ancient Bablyonians, serving as a way for people to pay off debts to their gods and to make promises

of good behavior in the new year. People used the marking of a new calendar year as a way to turn over a new leaf out of fear, rather than in pursuit of personal success. Though this analysis of ancient mindsets has been inf luenced by a modern point of view, it is something to embrace. Yes, the word “resolution” itself may set a positive precedence when marking a new period in life, but it is important to recognize the restraints that accompany this annual ritual. It is

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crucial to leave all unrealistic expectations back in 2023 and shift our mindsets toward the idea of perpetual self improvement — unencumbered by a countdown to midnight. The problem is not the fact that people are taking steps toward bettering themselves, but the timeline in which people choose to make that initiative. People often hold off on achieving their goals, waiting for a clean slate in the new year. This sort of arbitrary timing promotes procrastination, enforcing the idea that a person needs to wait for the perfect time to create change. Not only does this form of thinking delay action and waste valuable time that could have been put toward the cause, but it also fosters missed opportunities for growth. It is also essential to view sparks of inspiration to change as a f leeting thing. That is, inspiration needs to be acted on as soon as it strikes or that same enthusiasm may be gone the next day, lost within the endless pit of information in our brains. If a person is aware of the change they would like to see in themselves, not only is it counterproductive to set a specific start date, it is almost comical that the motto for such revelations would ultimately read, “The time for change doesn’t start now.”

Though it is crucial to act on inspiration right as it strikes, it is also important to understand how setting unrealistic goals, or merely too many at once, also plays a role in perpetuating a cycle of failure. The habit of making and breaking resolutions is a common pattern. Even with the deep dedication to a challenge at the beginning of the year, giving up seems closer than the finish line as the months drag along. This, more often than not, is because a single person can only make so many monumental changes at once. Specific goals are achievable on their own; however, simultaneously juggling a multitude of new objectives can make a person feel overworked and question why they challenged themselves in the first place. This supposed failure leaves people with feelings of inadequacy, even though the expectations were set at an unrealistic standard to begin with. Placing value on the journey toward improvement is a key component that is oftentimes forgotten. The tendency to prioritize an overall outcome rather than the time and effort it takes getting there is a common pitfall in the new year. When a person fixates on a desired outcome, this tends to be accompanied by frustration

when they fail to consider the true hardships that come before reaching a finish line. It is important to first contemplate the work it will take to receive an expected goal, especially when the process may not be easy. The valuable lessons and experiences that occur along the way are small victories themselves. This way, the journey of self improvement embraces mistakes and adaptability, even if the finish line is still out of arm’s reach. The move toward personal growth should not be constrained by the model of a calendar year. Rather, one should recognize the value of time when it comes to bettering yourself; not a second should go to waste. The key to such growth also lies in taking one step at a time. It is crucial to learn to adapt to a singular task before taking on a lot of differing responsibilities. Once consistency is established, only then is it acceptable to move on to the next. This way, sustainability within habits is created, unwavering in the face of a new burst of inspiration. Resolutions are important and shouldn’t be confined to a countdown ending in “Happy New Year.” Unless, of course, the resolution is dream journaling, then it shouldn’t be made at all.

10 — Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Opinion

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Lululemon and legacy admissions: How universities build a better consumer RACHELLE EVANS Opinion Columnist

s we enter into the new year, certain topics become more relevant in public discourse. In these early weeks of 2024, I have viewed more than 50 TikToks delving into and debating a seemingly simple yet layered phenomenon: the growing amount of 10 year olds shopping in Sephora today. Brands such as Drunk Elephant, Glow Recipe and Rare Beauty have been at the center of these conversations. These pricey makeup and skincare brands have their childlike designs in common. Drunk Elephant offers an array of products with intricate pumps and interesting shapes. Marketing certain products to children — specifically those typically used by older age groups — is nothing new. This process aims to turn impressionable young individuals into loyal customers as they age into becoming the target audience themselves. A 9 year old’s growing obsession with Glow Recipe because of TikTok will likely end up with feelings of immense nostalgia toward the brand as an adult, and thus lead them to purchase their products. Curating brand loyalty is a key component of any healthy business,

and this strategy has been utilized frequently in recent years. In 2009, more than 10 years after the founding of their parent company, Lululemon, Ivivva opened its doors. This store was a replica of Lululemon, with minor tweaks in sizing and color options meant to attract children. Executives hoped to increase profits by targeting the daughters of mothers who loved — and could afford — Lululemon. By leveraging familial ties and nostalgia, Lululemon curated a pipeline from younger girls who love and shop at Ivivva to older women who love and shop at Lululemon. This process is evident in most retail, beauty and even food corporations that pander to multiple generations. Less evident is strangely one of the most profitable and unethical uses of this strategy — collegiate institutions. When we take a step back and understand that a higherlevel institution’s primary purpose is not just to educate its students, this becomes clear. American universities are businesses, riddled with directors, shareholders and other stakeholders alike. The legacy admission system is a prime example of securing brand loyalty, and the methodology is basic. Students attend a university and are encouraged by the institution to make this a large part of their personality. These students become

parents and raise their children in a household that values not only higher education itself, but higher education at that specific university. Oftentimes, the child grows up and aspires to attend that same university. By pushing a collegiate brand onto its students through merchandise, accolades and social capital, the perfect lineage of consumers is created. Here, familial values are the backbone of generating profit. With its deceptive and exploitative nature, utilizing this branding strategy in higher education is ethically wrong and enhances barriers for minorities. Priming a college graduate to raise their family with love and respect for their alma mater is not inherently negative, but moves focus away from potential applicants who grew up in different environments. A child of a college graduate likely lives in a financially stable and safe household. These children have access to the resources to pursue their educational dreams and thrive in the college environment. Compared to only 26% of first-generation students, 82% of students with two parents who earned college degrees will graduate with a bachelor’s as well. Investing in marketing strategies that target the same white, wealthy demographic limits students with different backgrounds who also have incredible potential. In Harvard University’s class of 2023, 14.6%

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were high-paying legacy students, so you can assume the payout was large. Not only does curating and implementing brand loyalty strategies in education perpetuate oppressive positions in society for disadvantaged socioeconomic groups, but it also is extremely exploitative to the students themselves. Leaning on brand loyalty to maintain a profit minimizes a living, breathing

person to their potential earnings for a business. Therefore, an elite university cares less about how an individual’s personal and educational experiences contribute to campus culture and more about their position in a legacy building and profit-earning machine. Preying on innocence and vulnerability to curate an ideal consumer is a common strategy big businesses use to maintain their big earnings. Yet, widening the

scope can show that it is not just typical corporations that employ this technique. Higher educational institutions ensure future earnings by turning the positive feelings associated with attendees’ experiences into a brand that can be further consumed by their children. Applying this marketing strategy to education systems that were created to help educate and thus benefit the masses, is convoluted and must be removed from education.

UMich butterfly effect: The Donald Trump should lose the right way collective influence of every student on the University LUCAS FELLER Opinion Columnist

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MAX FELDMAN Opinion Columnist

icture a monarch butterfly soaring over the still, blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. It flaps its orange and black wings in a sweet, simple and modest way. Yet, the consequences are dire. As this monarch somersaults through the air, it causes the current to shift. The winds change and, soon enough, a tornado forms over the dusty plains of Iowa. A twirling tower of dust and air begins rampaging through towns, lifting debris off the ground and tearing homes to shreds — all thanks to the graceful fluttering of a four-inch insect thousands of miles away. When put that way, this situation feels absurd or, at the very least, farfetched. But the butterfly effect is all too real; it is the mathematical idea that small changes in one part of a chaotic system can have largescale, unpredictable consequences. While we might not realize it, this phenomenon is prevalent in any aspect of life that can be characterized as unpredictable or chaotic — two words I’m guessing every college student has used to describe the college experience at one time or another. Simply put, college can be an extremely hectic place. On any given day in Ann Arbor, thousands of students are rushing from class to class, attending club meetings, hanging out with friends, going to parties and doing essentially any other activity imaginable. Some might call this environment chaotic — I prefer to say that it’s vibrant. This commotion is ultimately what keeps the University of Michigan connected and what makes the butterfly effect possible. Last year, I wrote a column in which I penned the term “Michigan’s two degrees of separation.” That is, any two people at the University are likely two or fewer social connections

away from each other without even realizing it. This occurs due to the variety of ways students interact with each other, creating a complex web of social interactions. The butterfly effect rests on the notion that a complex system is deeply interconnected. Therefore, the interconnectivity of a college campus ensures that a small and seemingly insignificant event can trigger a cascade of unpredictable and profound consequences. So, any action you take in college has the potential to influence the school as a whole. Due to its metaphorical undertones, it’s easy to think of the butterfly effect as something destructive or negative. But that doesn’t have to be the case. In the bustling tapestry of college life where students must navigate through social, academic and personal experiences, seemingly inconsequential actions can set in motion a chain of events that vitalizes community and brings richness to the college experience. For example, a chance encounter in a lecture hall or an impulsive decision to attend a club meeting don’t seem like very important events. But they can serve as the starting point for a cascading series of transformative experiences, shaping the college landscape in profound and unforeseen ways. Small social interactions and individual decisions wield a remarkable influence on the larger social dynamics within a college campus. Think about how you met your closest friends or the formation of your friend group: Chances are, seemingly insignificant decisions, like where you chose to sit in the dining hall or the classes you enrolled in, played pivotal roles in these connections. In this sense, the University’s broader social identity emerges from the collective actions taken by each student. The interplay among our social circles, daily activities and the places we frequent intricately shapes the social fabric of

our University. The University’s academic reputation and scholastic framework are also a testament to the collective decisions and contributions of its student body. The University’s prestige is not merely a consequence of institutional policies and faculty functions. Rather, the University’s academic prowess is influenced by the individual choices of students. Each student probably isn’t thinking about the University as a whole when selecting certain majors, engaging in research and studying for specific classes. Yet these decisions, aspirations and endeavors are the building blocks of our history of academic excellence. Without the butterfly effect, without the aggregate of our seemingly minuscule actions, our college would not have the reputation it does today. Still, it can be worrying to think that thousands of college students are running around Ann Arbor making random decisions with potentially profound consequences. It’s easy to picture this scenario deteriorating into chaos quickly, especially in contrast to the strength and structure of the U-M administration. However, the unpredictability associated with the butterfly effect can prove useful, working to counteract the University’s decisions that students find unsatisfactory or in opposition to their interests. In this sense, we should think of the butterfly effect as a demonstration of the agency we have on campus to foster change and impart our influence. Even though the butterfly effect causes our actions to have potentially profound implications, that doesn’t mean we should obsess over all our decisions. Of course, we should exercise caution and consider the consequences of our actions, but the whole basis of the butterfly effect is the fact that we live in an unpredictable world made up of an infinite number of actions. So regardless of what you are doing, even when you might not think that it is enough, you make an impact.

ollowing a groundbreaking decision by the Colorado Supreme Court, former President Donald Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, was declared ineligible to appear on the state’s ballot. The court upheld a lower ruling classifying the events of Jan. 6, 2021, as an insurrection, while also finding Trump ineligible for office under Section Three of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. The court proceeded to stay its own holding until the United States Supreme Court weighed in. The decision was deemed antidemocratic by both supporters and opponents of the embattled former president, while others have lauded the court’s action for subduing a threat to American democracy. While both of these camps raise important arguments, neither examines the relevant issue correctly: The determination to remove Trump from statewide ballots is not a political matter, but a question of constitutional law — one significant to all eligible voters. Even among legal experts, there is stark disagreement on whether Trump can be disqualified. Writing for The Atlantic, constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe and conservative appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig fall into the antiTrump category. The two experts analyzed the Colorado Supreme Court decision on a legal basis and found that Trump is constitutionally ineligible to serve as president. Specifically, Tribe and Luttig cite conservative legal scholars William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen to claim that Section Three is “selfexecuting” — meaning that neither legislation nor a criminal conviction is required to bar Trump from the ballot. However, a concerning flaw is apparent in Baude and Paulsen’s theory. Without a criminal conviction, there is no objective basis for determining that the former president aided insurrection. Within their paper, “The Sweep and Force of Section Three,” the two scholars use the Constitution’s age limit for serving presidents as an example of a selfexecuting clause. Nonetheless, the presidential age requirement relies upon an objective standard, with a clear delineation between eligible and prohibited candidates. Thirtyfour year olds with presidential aspirations must wait until the next election before running. The terms “insurrection” and “rebellion,” however, are by no means objective terms. While many (including myself) consider Trump’s actions a form of

insurrection, this is only a subjective assessment of Jan. 6. There are many who can, and do, disagree. The only way to determine whether Trump engaged in insurrection, as a matter of fact rather than opinion, is for a court or Congress to criminally convict him. The lower court in Colorado found that Trump engaged in insurrection, but did not actually convict him of a crime. Congress has even provided a specific statute, 18 U.S. Code 2383, that criminalizes the incitement of, or engagement in, “any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof.” Considering that Section Five of the 14th amendment endows Congress with exclusive authority to enforce the amendment’s other provisions, excluding Trump from holding public office should be predicated upon a conviction under this statute. To date, the Department of Justice has prosecuted hundreds of individuals for their involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Yet the DOJ has not charged anyone, including Trump, with insurrection under this or any other statute. It is somewhat perverse that partisan officials in courtrooms and state governments, some without specific constitutional authorization or checks and balances, should apply their personal definitions to determine who is capable of running for office when officials with statutory authority have not done so. It remains important to acknowledge the district court ruling which determined that Trump engaged in insurrection. For many of Trump’s opponents, the trial provides the basis for an objective determination of insurrection. This, however, is a red herring. The trial did not ensure due process for the former president. There was no basic discovery, and Trump was denied the ability to subpoena documents, compel witnesses or demand a jury of his peers. Perhaps most importantly, Trump was not criminally convicted under 18 U.S. Code 2383, the very statute provided by Congress to properly punish insurrectionists. Ultimately, the crux of the Trump ballot case is about the power of unelected judges to interpret the Constitution in the context of federal elections. Removing a candidate, especially a popular candidate, from the ballot entirely is the most extreme form of judicial intervention and should only be undertaken when a constitutional violation is clear. As noted by Michael McConnell, Stanford Law School Professor and former federal judge, a loose interpretation of Section Three

could empower partisan judges and Secretaries of State to disqualify their political opponents while also “depriving voters of the ability to elect candidates of their choice.” Such an Orwellian world is a dangerous possibility and is certainly not the form of Democratic plurality the Constitution’s framers envisioned. In Maine, where the secretary of state removed Trump from the ballot, the danger is already becoming apparent — this single act of overreach is the sign of a future democratic downslide. Tribe and Luttig acknowledge these concerns, but believe that the solution lies in “the wisdom of judicial decisions as to what constitutes ‘insurrection,’ ‘rebellion’ or ‘aid or comfort to the enemies’ of the Constitution under Section 3.” Essentially, if a Secretary of State inappropriately removes a candidate from a ballot, the appellate process can be relied upon to reach the proper conclusion. In light of the United States’ judicial history, I cannot share the optimism for granting judges expansive authority to interpret the Constitution. Throughout the early 20th century, the Supreme Court held that an employer’s right to contract was inherent in the due process clause, meaning that worker protection and minimum wage laws must be struck down. In 1896, the court notoriously held in Plessy v. Ferguson that the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause was consistent with stateimposed racial segregation. One other expansive interpretation of the equal protection clause arrived in 2000’s Bush v. Gore, another significant election case, where the court held that Florida’s recount of election votes was unconstitutional due to inconsistent counting measures across counties. While courts often play a valuable role in safeguarding liberty, expansive interpretations of the Constitution present the possibility of disaster for the electoral process. American democracy is built on the voters, not judges, deciding whom they wish to represent them. My view is that Donald Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 were antithetical to the democratic process and the peaceful transition of power. However, until he is convicted of a criminal offense, judicial overreach is not the proper way to prevent him from holding office. Absent such a conviction, the former president’s fitness for office is a matter for the electorate to decide. The U.S. Supreme Court should reject the approach pursued by the Colorado Supreme Court, holding that a criminal conviction is necessary to demonstrate engagement in an insurrection.

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Sports

Wednesday, January 31, 2024 — 11

ICE HOCKEY

Michigan falls to Wisconsin in overtime, 6-5, splitting yet another series LYS GOLDMAN

Daily Sports Editor

The No. 14 Michigan hockey team was right there. Right on the cusp of its first Big Ten sweep, right on the verge of a defining moment in its season, right on the brink of finally proving it could play winning hockey against quality opponents for two straight nights. But once again, the Wolverines couldn’t get over the hump. In a back-and-forth matchup, Michigan (13-8-3 overall, 6-6-2 Big Ten) fell at the hands of No. 3 Wisconsin (19-6-1, 10-4-0) in overtime, 6-5. The loss split the series, continuing the Wolverines’ season-long quest for a conference sweep. “They’re a good team,” Michigan coach Brandon Naurato said. “We believe we are too. It stings that we didn’t get it done, but I thought it was a good effort overall.” Heading into Saturday’s game with a series-opening win under its belt, the Wolverines were in a familiar position. Just look at last

weekend against Michigan State, mid-November against Penn State, late October against Ohio State. And they couldn’t break the pattern, no matter how hard they fought. In a first period filled with fireworks, that fight was on full display. Through 20 minutes, both teams combined for a total of seven goals and seven penalties. Michigan struck first on an early power play, as junior forward Dylan Duke positioned himself perfectly at the net front to bury a rebound. The Wolverines’ celebration was cut short, though, as the Badgers responded within 30 seconds. From there, both teams traded leads — and penalties — as they battled for an advantage. Wisconsin took a quick onegoal lead before the Wolverines came storming back midway through the period. Off an intercepted attempt to clear the puck, freshman forward Nick Moldenhauer converted on another Michigan power play. Thirty seconds later, sophomore forward Josh Eernisse scored from the left

circle to put the Wolverines up 3-2. The Badgers tied it up again, but Duke closed out the period just how he started it — with a power play goal from the net front to give Michigan a one-score advantage. “Dylan’s a beast in front of the net,” sophomore defenseman Seamus Casey said. “When you have that out there, things will go well for you.” Not only did the Wolverines

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MEN’S BASKETBALL

Michigan fails to maintain pace in second half, falling 88-78 to Iowa JONATHAN WUCHTER

Daily Sports Writer

It’s hard to beat a team twice. It’s even harder to do it the exact same way. Trying to replicate the dominant post play that drove the Michigan men’s basketball team to its win over the Hawkeyes earlier this season, the Wolverines proved unable to maintain pace this time around. Stumbling over its early lead, Michigan (7-13 overall, 2-7 Big Ten) got outraced by Iowa (12-8, 4-5), 88-78. From the beginning, the Wolverines looked to replicate the offensive success from the previous bout. For the game’s opening basket, sophomore forward Tarris Reed Jr. — who had 19 points the first time the two teams played — spun through two defenders to create a layup for himself inside. “He’s a huge part of our team’s success with his presence as a big, his athleticism, his shot blocking capability,” Michigan coach Juwan Howard said Friday. “And then his ability to be able to guard one through five. We’re going to need any and everything out of him.” Understanding Reed’s size advantage on the interior, Michi-

gan continued to play through him. Scoring in transition for a fast-break dunk then just a few possessions later dunking over a mismatched defender, Reed accounted for six of the Wolverines’ first eight points, spurring a track race in the making. Both teams ran their offense at a high tempo, each attempting unsuccessful full-court presses. Iowa had no answer for Reed on the interior, but Michigan similarly struggled to slow down the Hawkeyes. Each team ran up and down the court trading consistent blows. And even as Reed’s output mellowed, the post was still the Wolverines’ primary scoring medium. His counterpart graduate forward Olivier Nkamhoua’s 10-point half, from consistent work along the baseline, delivered Michigan a slight 44-42 edge at halftime. But as the Wolverines’ interior play degraded to start the second half, the lead went with it. Iowa was prepared for the offense to run through Reed, blocking his first shot attempt of the half and soon after calling for a successful double team to force a bad-pass turnover. With a 10-0 run just over three minutes into the second half, the Hawkeyes took control, 52-44. Michigan was forced to maintain

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convert on three power plays during the first frame — their top-ranked power play unit overpowering Wisconsin’s top-ranked penalty kill unit — but they also killed all three of their own penalties, taking a 4-3 lead into the locker room. Early in the second period, however, the Badgers broke through on their fourth power play. Wisconsin forward Quinn

pace elsewhere, with senior forward Terrance Williams II hitting a couple of shots to break the scoring drought. But without the ability to score inside with ease, the Wolverines were always a few steps behind. “(Iowa was) simply doubling, doubling the post and forcing rotations on the backside and moving the ball,” graduate guard Nimari Burnett said postgame. “I felt like we had great offense off the doubles. Some shots didn’t go in, but some shots were going in.” Even as the Wolverines found open looks off the double teams in the post, too many misses and quick offensive possessions were enough of a misstep. As they stumbled, the Hawkeyes’ lead continued to grow. After scoring 22 points in the paint in the first half, Michigan was held to just 4 in the second. Forced away from the basket, they turned to lower-percentage looks, with Reed and Nkamhoua combining for 3 points on a 0-for-5 clip from the field. And in a matchup that challenged each team to race to 90 points, the Wolverines’ offense failed to operate at that level over the final 20 minutes. “It was some well contested shots with Iowa’s defense,” Howard said. “Some of the post double that was coming their way in the second half by Perkins maybe caused some disruption as well.” As Michigan failed to score a field goal over a nine-minute period, a few paces turned into a few laps. Iowa’s lead ballooned to double digits in the waning minutes. And when the Hawkeyes finally crossed the finish line, the Wolverines were left watching from behind.

Finley potted his second of the night to knot the score once again. The ensuing 18 minutes shaped up to be an antithesis to the chaotic opening frame. Both teams looked more levelheaded and more keyed in on defense. Wisconsin killed its one and only penalty while Michigan barely missed a handful of quality chances, leaving the game tied at 4-4. With the outcome hinging on the final 20 minutes of play, the winner of the third period would take the game — and, in the Wolverines’ case, the series. Following up on his three-point performance in Michigan’s seriesopening win, who else but Frank Nazar III to give the Wolverines an edge? The sophomore forward finished off a pass from linemate Rutger McGroarty to put Michigan up 5-4, just about five minutes into the period. As had become a trend throughout the game, though, that lead was short-lived. The Badgers kept their composure, and with forward Owen Mehlenbacher’s first career goal, they knotted the score right back up with roughly eight minutes left to play.

The waning minutes swelled with desperation, but neither team could net a game winner, sending the matchup to overtime. And just 57 seconds in, Wisconsin spoiled the Wolverines’ hopes of finally clawing their way over the hump. Badgers forward Christian Fitzgerald streaked down the right wing before firing a shot past graduate goaltender Jake Barczewski, securing the 6-5 suddendeath victory. “There’s no magic pill (to get a sweep),” Naurato said. “That urgency, like when we had the puck in their zone for the last seven minutes of the game, and their goalie made three big saves. And they went in on our side. It doesn’t mean that our goalie didn’t make big saves tonight, but they got one more bounce than us.” Michigan was right there. A highly sought after and muchneeded conference sweep was well within its grasp. But one more bounce can define a game — and sometimes, even a weekend. And once again, the Wolverines couldn’t get that bounce to go their way.

ICE HOCKEY

Rekha Leonard: Michigan is running out of “next times”

Time is running out for the No. 14 Michigan hockey team. After a rough start to the year, the Wolverines used REKHA their DecemLEONARD ber break to rest and retool, believing that they were primed for a strong second half. It’s true that lately Michigan is playing the best hockey it has played all year. But that’s not nearly enough if wins don’t follow. The Wolverines have been swept, split series and blown countless leads in winnable games. They can’t sweep a Big Ten team — or any team for that matter, besides significantly weaker opponents in Stonehill and Lindenwood. And because of it, their postseason aspirations dwindle away week by week. In December, Michigan’s mantra was that the second half of the season was its time and that the sweeps were imminent. But so far, the brooms are still gathering dust in the closet. The Wolverines have gotten so close as to peer in, but each time, they slam the door right back in their own face. Starting out the second half of the Big Ten season playing conference front-runners No. 8 Michigan State and No. 3 Wisconsin was a challenge, but one Michigan showed it was thoroughly capable of overcoming. In the Friday game of both series, the Wolverines obliterated their high-ranking opponents, beating the Spartans, 7-1,

and the Badgers, 5-1. In both Saturday games, Michigan’s sweep was right there for the taking. And both times, the Wolverines gave it up. They took the lead but lost it. They sought to learn from their mistakes, but continued to make the same ones. And in making those same mistakes, Michigan exemplified its inconsistency in nearly every facet of the game — except its ability to blow leads in crunch time. “I think that’s a few times now where we’ve been in the mix in the third period like that against a good team and just didn’t close it out in the end,” sophomore forward Seamus Casey said. “It’s obviously really painful, but a lot of good things to take away. We’ve been getting better and better as the second half has gone along. Sweeps are just hard to come by.” Sweeps might be hard to come by, but that’s exactly why the Wolverines need them. The very fact that winning two games in a row is a hard feat to accomplish is why doing so would elevate Michigan’s season. It’s certainly painful to come as close as the Wolverines have the last two weekends, but painful losses can only be slanted as a learning experience for so long. Soon enough, they become just another missed opportunity, and more importantly, another addition to the loss column. And Michigan’s frustrating inability to close out tight contests is not a reflection of any one player, but rather the struggles of the team as a whole.

Each time a player commits a turnover or fails to check his man, which leads to a goal against, it tends to be an isolated incident. That’s why the Wolverines’ problems are so hard to diagnose. “Individual mistakes is why they score, but they’re not trends for those individual players,” Michigan coach Brandon Naurato said. “They’re young kids, and they’re working their butts off, and they’re giving everything they have. We just gotta keep fighting the fight and believing in ourselves. We got a really good team, and we just got to put it together at the right time.” After every loss, that “right time” becomes next time. It’s the next series that will be the Wolverines’ turning point, where everything finally clicks and they win the elusive two games in a row. But “next time” can only be pushed back so many weeks until there is no more time. Michigan has five weekends left in the regular season. If the Wolverines split every series, they will likely sit right on the cusp of making the NCAA Tournament. And if they are swept even once without returning the favor to a different opponent, they are almost certainly out of contention. Michigan is running out of opportunities to turn its season around. It’s running out of opportunities to prove its assertion that the sweeps are coming. Because soon enough, there will be no next time.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Michigan’s rivalry win streak snapped in loss to Michigan State, 82-61 TAYLOR DANIELS

Daily Sports Writer

EAST LANSING — The Michigan women’s basketball team typically succeeds when its defense succeeds, holding its opponents to a Big Ten-leading 58.8 points per game. Often, that means staying disciplined on the defensive end and limiting opponents’ trips to the free throw line. But against Michigan State — and facing the second-best scoring offense in the conference — that same defense couldn’t keep up. The Wolverines (14-7 overall, 5-4 Big Ten) fell behind early and faced significant foul trouble against the Spartans (15-5, 5-4), surrendering 29-of-34 shooting on free throws alone, losing 82-61. Rolling to a 27-point first quarter on a 64.3% shooting clip, Michigan State shot the ball effectively from beyond the arc and worked through the interior and in transition. While Michigan initially seemed to keep up, pacing itself for 23 points, the Spartans

pulled out to a four-point lead to close out the first quarter thanks to 6-of-6 free throw shooting. “The game plan was try to keep them off the free throw line, contain the paint, and we obviously weren’t able to do that,” Wolverines coach Kim Barnes Arico said. Those early opportunities at the charity stripe resulted from fouls on junior guard Laila Phelia and graduate guard Elissa Brett, who each picked up two fouls and were relegated to the bench — where they remained to start the second quarter. The absence of Michigan’s two top defenders and some of its top attackers was felt to begin the second frame. Surrendering a 9-0 run in the first five minutes of the quarter, the Wolverines’ fourpoint deficit quickly snowballed into a 13-point lead for Michigan State. “It was tough without our best players in the game,” Barnes Arico said. “Laila Phelia had three fouls in the first half. It’s tough to play without her.” Even with Phelia and Brett subbed back into the game, Mich-

igan stalled out offensively. Forcing shots at the buzzer and failing to move the ball effectively, their offense seemed constrained and confused by the Spartans’ defense, throwing the ball out of bounds and into the hands of defenders. Meanwhile, the Wolverines’ defense continued to foul Michigan State. Scoring eight of their 21 second quarter points from the free throw line, the Spartans outpaced Michigan’s seven points to set up an 18-point halftime deficit. While halftime provided an opportunity for the Wolverines to adjust their defensive tactics, the second half was just more of the same as Phelia picked up her fourth foul just 24 seconds into the second half. “We talked a lot about crowding the paint, limiting their touches down low and limiting fouls down low,” senior forward Elise Stuck said. “Obviously sometimes, it does have to do with the refs, but you have to be able to adjust as a team. And I think we really fell short, obviously, in that area today.”

With Michigan unable to adjust, for the third consecutive quarter, the Spartans entered the bonus, making five more free throws and placing five Michigan players in trouble with at least three fouls. A five-minute scoring drought for the Wolverines ballooned that lead up to 21 points entering the fourth quarter.

Even as Michigan was able to attack the Spartans, forcing guard Jocelyn Tate and forward Julia Ayrault to foul out and saddling guard Tory Ozment with four, it was too little, too late. By that point, the damage was done and the trio had already combined for 37 points. And those fouls didn’t result in nearly enough

free throws to offset the 29 shots from the stripe that separated Michigan State, as the Wolverines shot just 12-of-17 in comparison, despite drawing 21 fouls. With its players managing their foul loads, Michigan struggled to initiate its offense throughout the contest, dropping the rivalry game and with it, its win streak.

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SportsMonday: By not flinching in promoting Sherrone Moore, Michigan did it right PAUL NASR

Daily Sports Writer

ichigan got it right. That much is obvious. When the Los Angeles Chargers temporarily changed their Twitter profile picture to a goofy flick of Jim Harbaugh, edited a video of him jumping off a diving board to have the Chargers logo on the pool he splashed into and posted over and over again that they got their guy, it meant the Michigan football team had to find a new figurehead of its program. Even in replacing an icon like Harbaugh, the choice was obvious to many — so obvious that it often went without saying. “After I met with all the student athletes and staff on Thursday, one student athlete was walking out with me,” Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel said at Saturday’s press conference. “He pulled me to the side, and he said these words: ‘You know who we want.’ And I said, ‘I do.’ We actually never exchanged a name, so I hope I got it right.”

Not only did Michigan get it right in naming new head football coach Sherrone Moore, but the Wolverines did it the right way. When Harbaugh left, it suddenly created the hottest vacancy in college football: the head coach of the defending national champions at the winningest program in college football history. Plenty of coaches would leave top posts at well-performing programs to take it. With such a high-profile opening, the Wolverines could have easily taken their time. They could have lumped Moore in with a pool of candidates from around the college football and NFL landscapes, interviewing multiple coaches multiple times. Maybe they still would have ended up with Moore at the end of the day, but engaging in such a drawn-out process discredits the very reason you want Moore to begin with: to keep things seamlessly moving forward after a stellar stretch of football that capped the Harbaugh era. Moving quickly to get Moore epitomizes who he is and why he’s the right fit too. Because he’s a guy

that doesn’t flinch. Because he’s a guy who embodies the smashmouth, run-first, line-oriented football that brought Michigan back from the ashes. Because he serves as the perfect transition to keep the Wolverines riding national title momentum despite losing their head coach of nine years. Because of all of that, it would have been

In hiring Sherrone Moore, the Wolverines not only recognized that they already had the perfect successor to Harbaugh in their building, but they also acted on that notion by moving fast. Now, they have a coach who’s in a perfect position to keep things moving without delay. Moore’s proven he knows how

W The Wolverines got it right, and did it right. detrimental to seriously consider anyone else. And Michigan didn’t seriously consider anyone else. It didn’t flinch, and got a coach who doesn’t either. It didn’t go around looking for big-name coaches like Brian Kelly and Lance Leipold to come interview for the job. It didn’t drag the process out for weeks to evaluate a handful of candidates.

to win, going 4-0 as Michigan’s interim head coach and beating No. 10 Penn State and No. 2 Ohio State in the process. Manuel called it an audition that Moore “aced.” He recognized that Moore “didn’t flinch” when he was officially named acting head coach, not long before kickoff against the Nittany Lions. Moore stepping in with such ease

puts the Wolverines in a position not to flinch. This isn’t a time to slow down and reevaluate the program. Things are working, and you can’t flinch at the top. At the end of the day, Michigan and its fans wanted Harbaugh to stay. They wanted it so badly that “10 more years” chants rang around Crisler Center when Harbaugh prepared to speak at the championship celebration. Since he left, the Wolverines needed to find a new head coach, not a new identity — the one they have is working just fine. Moore’s quick, internal promotion ensured that would remain the case. “And lastly, from the words of the great Jack Harbaugh, we will continue to attack every day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind,” Moore said in his introductory press conference. “And I promise you, we will smash.” There it is in a nutshell. Moore is someone who will continue building on the Wolverines’ recent winning ways, referencing a Harbaugh quote and showing that the groundwork Harbaugh laid will continue.

But Moore isn’t Jim or Jack Harbaugh. He’s Sherrone Moore. He’s been at Michigan for six years and helped lay part of the foundation himself, mainly with his signature “smash” tagline that harkens to dominance on the trenches and ground game. His statement’s closing words are a reminder of what Michigan got and why. He builds on the best that the Wolverines have to offer, and is the perfect person to build on recent success. He embodies the mindset that’s made Michigan what it is. At such a pivotal moment for the Wolverines, fresh off a natty, picking the next head coach was only part of it. Drag the search out and cast a net far and wide, and you send a message that jeopardizes an energy the program hasn’t had since 1997. Now, even after losing its head coach, Michigan is in as strong a place as ever. Because it didn’t flinch when it came time to pick a successor. The Wolverines got it right, and did it right.

M OORE TO COME

TOP PHOTO: JULIANNE YOON/Daily BOTTOM PHOTO: SARAH BOEKE/Daily

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