Opinion
JENNIFER CALFAS
EDITOR IN CHIEF
AARICA MARSH
and DEREK WOLFE
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS
LEV FACHER
MANAGING EDITOR
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Wednesday, October 28, 2015
“S
ports are stupid.”
Michigan’s loss that day to
Michigan State
was already enough, but
as I sat in that bar watch-
ing the Mets score another
run against my beloved
Cubs in the first game of the
National League Champi-
onship Series, “sports are
stupid” was the only logical
conclusion and the only set
of words I could conjure.
In retrospect, trying to
get over that crazy loss by
watching the most pitiful
professional sports team in
the past century was probably a poor decision.
I was with a Spartan friend of mine from
childhood who was visiting and is also a Cubs
fan, so we figured going out to watch the Cubs
would hopefully be a more enjoyable end to
the day for both of us.
“Remember a couple years ago where you
came to East Lansing for the game with me
and just walked out after Gardner threw a
pick at the end?” he asked me.
Of course I remem-
bered. I had snuck into
MSU’s student section
with him, and in the
wind and freezing rain,
watched as the Spartans
absolutely
demolished
the Wolverines. At some
point in the fourth quar-
ter, with Michigan’s com-
puter-calculated chance
of winning the game
probably somewhere in
the negatives, the interception happened, and
I just got up and left. I had no idea where I
was going.
“I thought I’d never see you more dejected
at a sports game then you were then. Guess I
was wrong.”
Yeah, guess you were wrong, I told him.
I’d rather watch that game in East Lansing
a thousand times than what we had just wit-
nessed.
At this point, Matt Harvey was dominating
the Cubs and sports were only getting more
stupid.
“At least I’ve got the Lions to look forward
to tomorrow,” I said. It’s a joke. It’s the Lions
— of course it’s a joke.
My dad texted me that night, “I was at the
Kordell game when we lost,” he said, refer-
ring to when quarterback Kordell Stewart
threw a 64-yard Hail Mary as time expired to
lift Colorado to a win in the Big House. “This
game was way worse.”
It’s a common thing, sports heartbreak.
I guess when you’re a fan of the Lions and
your dad raises you to be a Cubs fan like he
was growing up, you’ve kind of signed up for
the anguish. When my dad was at the Univer-
sity in 1984, the Cubs, who had a phenomenal
team that year, choked against the Padres in
the National League Championship Series. So
to poke fun at his sports grief, his friends in
Mary Markley Hall decided to take all of his
Cubs gear and dress up as a ghost. “The Ghost
of the Cubs,” they called it. Sports were stu-
pid then, too.
No matter how many times it happens,
no matter how many different times and
different ways the team loses, you still come
back for some reason.
The year after that time I walked out of
Spartan Stadium I showed up there again.
One hundred thousand-plus will still show
up in a couple weeks at the Big House. It’s
not Stockholm Syndrome or that we haven’t
learned the pitfalls of being emotionally
invested in a game. It’s not just the inevi-
table hope of winning that may or may not
come that draws fans back. People show up to
sports games not just to feel the happiness or
sadness but instead just
to feel anything at all.
There
was
a
commercial a few years
back, in which the Cubs
win the World Series
and fans celebrate in the
streets. It’s the dream
of every Cubs fan. And
then slowly the camera
zooms out from the
TV screen, and a guy
holding his PlayStation
3 controller, a tear rolling down his cheek as
he witnesses the video game World Series
champions. Sports aren’t real; from the
perspective of a fan, they’re nothing more
than entertainment. Yet in every form, real
or not, there’s something enthralling that has
made sports the integral part of society it is.
There’s something hauntingly beautiful
about that football game on Saturday. In the
same place, there were one hundred thou-
sand fans standing in stunned silence, and
thousands more erupting in cheers. There
were tears of all kinds, smiles, hugs and
dejected exits. It’s not the image of the game
that will stick with me forever, but the image
of the reactions of 110,000 fans each feeling
something.
Something in response to nothing more
than a stupid game of sports.
— David Harris can be reached
at daharr@umich.edu.
There’s something
enthralling that
has made sports
the integral part of
society it is.
Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Ben Keller, Payton Luokkala, Aarica Marsh,
Adam Morton, Victoria Noble, Anna Polumbo-Levy, Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm,
Stephanie Trierweiler, Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
The stupidity of sports
DAVID
HARRIS
Normalizing racism
Monday
night,
#AssaultatSpringValleyHigh
began trending on Twitter when a video
surfaced that depicted Deputy Ben Fields
of Richland County, S.C., dragging a Black
female student from her desk, throwing her
to the gournd and subsequently arresting her.
This
sequence
of
shocking
events
prompted the usual rhetoric from both sides:
Many people were outraged by the officer’s
aggression, while others questioned his
motives, as if something this student had done
or said could somehow justify the excessive
use of force. I’m outraged by the video. I’m
horrified and saddened and speechless —
but what sickens me most is how used to it I
have become.
In the last few years in particular, I
have watched so many similar incidents
draw national attention before gradually
subsiding in the face of a newer, more
gripping tragedy. Names, faces and stories
have grown increasingly muddled and vague
over time. A man, woman, child, student,
veteran, disabled person, homeless man was
shot, stabbed, assaulted, ambushed, belittled
by a police officer, store owner, teacher,
neighbor, sociopath.
National headlines have become a disturb-
ing game of fill in the blank.
We have become accustomed to the tearful
speeches delivered by the victims’ families,
the old photographs, the funeral scenes. Our
reality has become a segment on the evening
news, a Facebook post, a hashtag, a brief and
ardent discussion at the dinner table. People
are suffering and we are so accustomed to it
now. The spectacle of adversity is the New
American Normal.
But how many times can we go through
the motions — astonishment, rage, sadness,
hopelessness — before it becomes clear to us
that stories like this one are not just another
mundane cycle of news? That they are not
trends? That they are people who were here
one day and gone the next because someone
in a position of power refused to deem them
worthy of respect, or because a prejudiced
murderer carried out a twisted plan of racial
vengeance or because we took no preventative
measures whatsoever to ensure their safety?
Our outrage should be consistent. We
should remember the names of those we
have lost and take active steps to obstruct
the emergence of future victims. We
shouldn’t treat this national predicament
like we treat other publicized disasters, only
becoming invested when the story is relevant
and allowing ourselves to forget after the
conversation is over. We need to keep the
dialogue going; we cannot let ourselves
become desensitized to blatant injustice, to
prejudice, to murder.
This is my call to action: Do not allow your-
self to forget, because even as the relevance
of the story wanes in the media, its impact is
still very real and profound.
These are people we are talking about,
after all.
Lauren Schandevel is an LSA freshman.
LAUREN SCHANDEVEL | VIEWPOINT
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I
t’s never fun being the third
wheel, as Democratic can-
didate Martin O’Malley will
soon learn. Dem-
ocratic presiden-
tial
candidates
have been drop-
ping
like
flies
in the month of
October, as for-
mer
senators
Jim Webb and
Lincoln Chafee
bowed out with-
in days of one
another.
Vice
President
Joe
Biden has ruled
out the possibility of running and
so the field is set: a huge group that
is ready for Hillary, a sizable con-
tingent feeling the Bern, and a gui-
tar-playing former governor with
relatively low name recognition.
This past Friday, I had the
pleasure of attending an event
sponsored by the Arab American
Institute at the University of Mich-
igan-Dearborn, which provided a
platform for discussion about the
Syrian refugee crisis and culmi-
nated with a speech by O’Malley.
About halfway through his speech,
a familiar iPhone ringtone rang out
on one side of the auditorium. As its
owner hurried quickly out the door,
the governor joked, “I told Hillary
never to call me here!”
Laughter filled the room, but all I
could think of was how sadly unre-
alistic the premise was. Why would
Clinton pay any attention at all to a
candidate who is polling at nearly
one-fiftieth her support?
On paper, O’Malley should be
a dream candidate for liberal pri-
mary voters: As governor, he led a
campaign to legalize same-sex mar-
riage in Maryland. On immigra-
tion, he implemented the DREAM
Act before it was even passed on
the federal level. During his ten-
ure, Maryland repealed the death
penalty, passed one of the toughest
firearm laws in the nation, raised
the minimum wage to $10.10 and
decriminalized possession of small
amounts of marijuana. As he spoke
about foreign policy, welcoming
the promised 65,000 refugees and
the current situation in the Middle
East, I — as a liberal — did not dis-
agree with him at any point.
So why can I not get excited
about O’Malley?
Based on the attendance in Dear-
born, I know that I’m not alone in
this respect. The auditorium was
not that large to start with, and
there were plenty of empty seats —
not exactly the attendance numbers
you want if you’re running for pres-
ident. As his speech progressed,
the silences were littered with
awkward applause and there never
seemed to be a crescendo. Hav-
ing heard Clinton speak in person,
I could feel the electricity and the
magnitude of her words, her name
and her office. Listening to Sand-
ers call for a political revolution
in his thick Brooklyn accent and
watching his upper body gesticu-
late wildly, it’s difficult not to be the
least bit enthused at the prospect
of an indepen-
dent senator as
president. Yet,
with O’Malley,
no one seems
to be on the
other end of
that
enthusi-
asm.
His situation
looks even less
favorable when
you
consider
how
many
opportunities have come and gone
for him to stand out. In the first
Democratic debate, his performance
was the least memorable, paling in
comparison to Chafee’s bungled
answer on Glass-Steagall, Webb
whining for more speaking time and
the now-famous Sanders quote about
Clinton’s “damn e-mails.” Reports
from the all-important Jefferson
Jackson dinner in Iowa — a huge
gathering of Democratic supporters
and fundraisers — have O’Malley
garnering mild support but lacking
the roaring ovations that welcomed
the two frontrunners.
What begins now for O’Malley is
a long test for his staff and his wal-
let. There’s an old saying in politics
that there are only three tickets out
of the Iowa primary. Based on how
the Democratic field looks now, one
of those belongs to O’Malley — if
his fundraising efforts stay steady
(or at least afloat, unlike the Perry
campaign). Why, though, would he
carry on like this?
Many pundits have posited that
the goal is to be Clinton’s vice presi-
dential nominee, and not without
reason. Another explanation may
be that if Clinton’s troubling num-
bers in terms of trust, warmth and
overall favorability or Sanders’
uncompromising defense of demo-
cratic socialism are enough to sink
them, O’Malley will be the logical
life vest of the Democrats’ hopes
for 2016.
The true nature of this campaign
will be clarified, and potentially
decided, next Friday night at the
second Democratic debate. Presi-
dential campaigns have had late
starts in the past. Bill Clinton did
not announce his candidacy until
October 1991, and at this point in
1976, Jimmy Carter was one of 13
candidates
in
a
Democratic
field
without
a
frontrun-
ner. But this
would be about
as late a rise
into relevance
as
histori-
cal
precedent
would allow.
One
quote
stood out dur-
ing the gov-
ernor’s speech at Dearborn: “The
difference between a dream and a
goal is a deadline.”
On behalf of the liberal base,
going into 2016, I would like to put
forth a deadline to the O’Malley
campaign: Nov. 6, the day of the
second debate. There needs to be
a moment, like Clinton on Arsenio
Hall or the introduction of “Yes We
Can” in 2008. Voters need to see
the X-factor, the liberal qualifica-
tions, the demographic that can be
reached that separates O’Malley
from the pack. Show me why I
should look past Bernie and Hillary.
Look for that moment (because
I think the O’Malley campaign
knows this to be true), or look for
the Democratic race to be a one-on-
one footrace in Iowa starting in the
new year.
— Brett Graham can be reached
at btgraham@umich.edu.
BRETT
GRAHAM
Why would Clinton
pay any attention to
a candidate who is
polling at nearly one-
fiftieth her support?
O’Slim chance
W
hen I was in elementary
school, I would get the
most terrible nosebleeds.
Not the kind that
went away quick-
ly, but the kind
that would put
me in the nurse’s
office with my
head tipped back,
pinching
my
nose for an hour.
While I would sit
there, my neck
getting sore from
looking up for
so long, I would
look at the food pyramid poster that
was just above and to the right of her
desk across the room. It had a black
background with the classic cartoon
images of bread, rice and grains on
the bottom and ice cream and snack
food on the top. To the left of her desk
was a door with another poster on it;
bottles of soda were lined up with
mounds of refined sugar in front
of them, designed to scare viewers
away from the beverages. I was in
second grade, and a mound of sugar
didn’t look half bad.
These images are just two of the
many pieces of propaganda that
detail the government-approved
answer to an impossible question:
“What should we eat?”
Every five years, the U.S. Depart-
ment of Health and Human Services
and the U.S. Department of Agricul-
ture publish the Dietary Guidelines
for Americans, which are based
on the latest and greatest scientific
research. These guidelines not only
promote specific dietary habits for
individuals, but also serve as the
foundations of nutrition programs
ranging from national policies to the
posters in a small nurse’s office in
Shelburne, Vt.
The problem is that nutritional
guidelines tend to act a little more
like the game of “telephone” than
an instruction manual. Every once
in a while, a guideline is blown
out of proportion and causes
unintended outcomes.
One
example
is
cholesterol.
People nearly stopped eating eggs
and red meat due to the impression
that consuming dietary cholesterol
directly caused an increase in blood
cholesterol levels. Cholesterol in
the body is infinitely more compli-
cated than such a linear pathway,
and this myth has been (thankful-
ly) debunked, so put an egg on your
burger and dig in.
More problematic is how the
concept
of
a
“low-fat
diet”
continues to be
lost in transla-
tion. For years,
the
guidelines
have instructed
Americans
to
choose
lean
meats
and
reduce
con-
sumption
of
fats. But just
as the game of
telephone goes, this innocent advice
has turned into a different beast all
together. The concept of “low-fat”
has become nearly synonymous with
“all-carb,” and people can’t seem to
let it go. It seems to be common sense
that eating fat will make you fat.
Even Regina George says, “I
can’t go to Taco Bell. I’m on an all-
carb diet,” and when has “Mean
Girls” ever steered us wrong?
The words “fat free” are every-
where, plastered on billboards and
menus alike.
What isn’t spelled out as clearly,
however, is what is taking the place
of these fats. By avoiding fats, peo-
ple instead turn to what Jane Brody
of The New York Times calls “two
kinds of carbohydrates, refined
starches and sugars.”
Brody goes on to claim that these
carbohydrates “have helped to spawn
the current epidemic of obesity and
Type 2 diabetes.” In her article,
Brody identifies that like cholesterol,
not all fats and carbohydrates are
created equal. The saturated animal-
based fats can be harmful if eaten in
great quantity, but unsaturated fats
such as olive oil actually benefit car-
diovascular health.
As Frank B. Hu, a professor at the
Harvard T. H. Chan School of Pub-
lic Health, said in Brody’s article,
“We have to get out of the fat phobia
mind-set.”
Similarly, simple and complex
carbs can be good for you, with
the main exception being refined
carbohydrates.
Refined carbs
are
“rapidly
digested
and
absorbed” due
to the absence
of
fiber.
According
to
Brody, excess
consumption
of these carbs
“can
result
in
insulin
resistance and
contribute to fatty liver disease.”
The importance of reducing rates
of cardiovascular disease in the
United States cannot be overstat-
ed. In 2006, the estimated health
care cost of cardiovascular disease
amounted to $403 billion and 26.6
million adults are currently diag-
nosed with heart disease, making
it the No. 1 cause of death in the
United States. Dietary choices are
one factor, but when other factors
such as sedentary lifestyle are con-
sidered, the effects become much
more prominent. In regard to the fat
versus carbohydrate discussion, as
Brody puts it, past guidelines “have
caused the pendulum to swing too
far in the wrong direction.”
All-carb diets are a bust. Not that
I’m advocating for Taco Bell as a
healthy option, but maybe Regina
George wasn’t right after all.
— Grace Carey can be reached
at gecarey@umich.edu.
GRACE
CAREY
Fats or fiction?
The importance of
reducing rates of
cardiovascular disease
in the United States
cannot be overstated.