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, December 9, 2015
The ungiftable mother
S
ince before I was born, when
it was only my sisters in the
house, my mom has always
asked for peace
and
harmony
every
year
for
Christmas. This
year we got her a
Crock-Pot.
I screw up gifts
for my mom all
the time. It start-
ed in the second
grade, when my
teacher assigned
us each the proj-
ect
of
picking
out gifts for our parents from a box
of festive trinkets. She’d ordered the
box from Oriental Trading. She sent
us home with a worksheet with spac-
es for what our family wanted. On it
were question prompts, in case we
blanked during the interview.
“Mother, what is your favorite
color?” I had to ask.
It seemed silly. I thought I already
knew all there was to know about the
strange people who lived in my house
and enforced my bedtime, which
wasn’t much. I’m not sure it occurred
to me they could have opinions and
desires that were not directly related
to my person and well-being.
“Yellow,” my mother said. “I love
yellow. Now put on your cleats for soc-
cer practice and no crying this time.”
So I brought her home a little
yellow ornament for the tree. And
that was all the getting-to-know-you
I did with my mother for a very long
time, until a Christmas in middle
school when I bought her a yellow
sweater. I had asked her what she
wanted but she’d just said “peace and
harmony,” per usual.
She just loved the sweater, “really,
I do,” she said. Except she didn’t.
One of the many reasons giving and
getting gifts is a terrible and fright-
ening institution is because of the
expressions we have to make while
we open them. Most everyone knows
when someone really loves a gift, or
if they’re just making the face you’re
supposed to make when you unwrap
it. “Oh, I just love it!” they’ll say, tuck-
ing it away in a drawer and quickly
patting the handle.
A few weeks later, my mother
was walking around the house in a
sweater almost exactly like the one
I got her, except it was periwinkle
blue. I figured she’d exchanged it,
which would be fine. But she hadn’t.
She’d kept the sweater I’d gotten her
— she’d never give that away, it was
a gift from her son. She just wanted
one in blue, because after all, “Blue is
just my favorite color,” she said.
It was enough that my parents were
allowed to have ideas and opinions not
directly related to me. But to go about
changing all the time and acting like
real, living people was another matter.
I’d put in the quality time in the second
grade, and from then, my relationship
with the people who lived in my house
and enforced my bedtime should have
been coasting.
That
night,
or
some
night
thereafter, my sisters and I gathered
sub rosa to discuss the matter of our
mother, who was impossible to pick
out gifts for. I quickly suggested she
should be eliminated. “If she were in
a coma,” I said, “we would only have
to visit once a year with flowers, like
they do on TV.”
My sisters and I weighed the rela-
tive emotional cost of having a moth-
er in a coma or admitting to ourselves
that perhaps we didn’t know our
mother as a person the way we
assumed we always had. After some
deliberation, it was decided that
measure was too drastic, but it was
put on the backburner as a last resort.
We decided the easiest way to pick
out gifts was to determine what our
mother liked to do.
“Cooking,”
my
sisters
said,
“and
cleaning.”
“Yes
…
Good,
good.
But
what
about laundry?” I
asked.
It was decided
that, in lieu of rub-
ber gloves and laun-
dry detergent, for the next Mother’s
Day we’d save up the money, go to the
Home Depot and buy all the fixings
for my mom to start her own garden.
It just seemed like the sort of thing
that the sort of person who seemed
to like to cook and clean and wash
dishes and pick up children’s rooms
would like to do — gardening, I
mean. I’d find out years later that my
mom had other interests that didn’t
involve caring for us, that she likes
snowshoeing and tennis and appar-
ently used to work for Microsoft,
whatever that was or meant.
So that May, we plopped a few
stacks of wood and some nails and
seeds in the yard with a bow on all of
it. Then we patted each other on the
back and left our mother to construct
it, because there was a daytime
marathon of Lifetime original movies
on and the weather was just awful.
My mom actually did like that gift.
I think she would have spent a lot of
time in the garden had she any time
to spare, between driving us to and
from sports and doing the cooking
and cleaning and the laundry that
she seemed to love so much.
So the garden never got built,
and I think I felt a pang of grief, or
annoyance. I just really thought
I’d finally gotten her, bought her
off with a garden. It wouldn’t have
mattered what it was. It could have
been a Prada bag, a Lamborghini, a
whole circus in the goddamn back
yard. Just so long as I could say that
I’d done it: I’d bought you out and you
had never really wanted peace and
harmony, you had wanted…
But no. It struck me that the woman
who lived in my house and enforced
my bedtime wanted nothing from me.
She had done all she’d done out of love,
a great insurmountable love that I was
ashamed I couldn’t understand, and
that I could do nothing in my whole
life to repay her.
Anyways, my sisters and I have
changed the gift plans a little bit. In
addition to the Crock-Pot, we got
her some Crock-Pot
cooking lessons. I
think that’s a nice
little
addition,
because we spent a
little more, maybe.
But the idea of
my mother standing
in a cooking class
with a few people
she did not know, being taught to
cook for her family using a Crock-
Pot-brand crock-pot, hit me in the
stomach like a ton of bricks. So if all
13 of my readers can keep a secret,
I’ll tell you that my sisters and I
bought the same lessons my mom
is going to, and my dad is coming,
too, and maybe, after a little more
quality time spent with her, a few
years down the road, I’ll find out
what she’s really wanted all along.
Tom West can be reached
at tkwest@umich.edu.
TOM
WEST
Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Ben Keller,
Minsoo Kim, Payton Luokkala, Aarica Marsh,
Anna Polumbo-Levy, Jason Rowland, Lauren Schandevel,
Melissa Scholke, Rebecca Tarnopol, Ashley Tjhung,
Stephanie Trierweiler, Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
E-mail in Chan at tokg@umiCh.Edu
IN CHAN LEE
The Holy Starbucks
O
n
a
freezing
Sunday
morning, we made our way
up the narrow staircase to
the second floor
of Literati where
The Espresso Bar
is located. We
were
prepared
for an evening of
finals
studying
with some much
needed caffeine
involved.
However,
once
we reached the
top,
we
were
surprised to find
that there were zero tables open. So
with a look and shrug, we trudged
down to the street, looking up more
coffee shops near our location on
our way out.
We then proceeded to travel to
three different coffee shops that
Siri promised were within walking
distance. The first one was full, the
second one had an “off” sort of feeling
and smelled like the music store where
I used to take lessons, and the third
one actually didn’t exist because we
were apparently staring right at the
shop when all we could see was an
empty brick wall. (Potentially there’s a
Diagon Alley sort of thing going on; I’ll
investigate later.)
The point is, we spent the better
part of a half hour looking for a new
coffee shop to study at for a change of
scenery before eventually just settling
on our usual venue — Starbucks. So
can anybody tell me why we wasted
so much time scouring the city, hell-
bent on studying in a coffee shop when
there are dozens of options Ann Arbor
and the University have to offer?
If you asked me on a normal day
why so many college students flock to
coffee shops like they’re Noah’s Ark,
I’d probably tell you it was because of
the caffeine. The revered coffee, or the
“Holy Starbucks” as I have affection-
ately coined it, keeps us running late
at night, promising us that yes, we will
in fact finish this paper before its mid-
night submission deadline.
I have a strange relationship with
coffee. The smell of the fresh grounds
at Meijer always drew my head, but
when my dad let me try my first
coffee during my sophomore year
of high school, I pretended to like it
even though it was probably the most
disgusting thing I had ever tasted.
(Disclaimer: It was probably some
kind of caramel latte that I would find
too sugary today. What can I say? I was
young and innocent.)
So, in preparing to begin my
journey as a college student, I was
suddenly assaulted with birthday,
graduation and “thinking of you”
cards stuffed with Starbucks gift
cards. I was confused — my family and
friends know that I don’t drink coffee,
so why are they sending me these? On
possibly the seventh Starbucks gift
card, I finally spoke up.
“You know I hate coffee. Why are
you giving me a Starbucks card?”
My friend was confused at my
question: “Oh, you know. Because
you’re going to college soon and
you’ll need it.”
At the time, I thought that maybe
this was a good thing. I’d finally like
coffee, which would make me more
mature, right? And thus began my
coffee
journey.
I
started
off
small,
taking on the decked
out frappuccinos first
before moving on to
lattes.
Eventually,
I was drinking a
caramel macchiato,
which makes you feel
more like an adult
rather than a high
school teenager snapping selfies with
her “créme frapp” (fun fact: those
don’t actually have coffee in them even
though they’re delicious; I learned the
hard way).
So I naturally became a bit of a
coffee addict, drinking it as both a
means to drag myself out of bed in the
morning and to stay up on nights that
the work never seemed to end. We’re
all a bit of a mess, though, aren’t we?
Surprisingly enough, most days
that I find myself sitting in the
Michigan Union Starbucks, I stay for
the ambiance: the warm glow of the
chandeliers, the Christmas music
filtering through the speakers and
the smell of freshly brewed coffee. I
go with friends and walk away with
homework assignments completed
— it’s a beautiful cycle that’s backed
up by research.
According to a study led by Ravi
Mehta, a business administration
professor at the University of Illinois,
“Modest background noise creates
enough of a distraction to encourage
people to think more imaginatively.”
So the ambiance in your local coffee
shop isn’t only great for your mind, but
for your work as well. The research
actually suggests that “walking out
of one’s comfort zone and getting into
a relatively noisy environment may
trigger the brain to think abstractly,
and thus generate creative ideas.”
Even though we’re packing coffee
shops for a much-needed caffeine fix,
we’re actually doing our studies some
good in the process.
In an article in The Atlantic, Conor
Friedersdorf suggests that research
shows some people are motivated
to get more done in coffee shops
due to social pressures; we are more
likely to get work done in public in
order to present ourselves as having
a purpose to be there. And I mean,
who hasn’t used that as a motivation
before?
Working
on
research
at
Starbucks
while
watching
other
students becoming
distracted by the
pull
of
Facebook
notifications,
I
have
felt
like
I
was
the
“good”
student
who
was
constantly doing my work without
checking Facebook. Whereas in
my room, I would oftentimes find
myself changing songs on YouTube
or 8Tracks and becoming distracted
finding something to listen to, which
negatively impacted my learning in
the long run. There was no pressure
to keep doing work.
Even if you feel like you’re not
getting much done, I think you’ll be
surprised realizing how much work
you actually accomplished during
your time at the “Holy Starbucks.”
That, and you’ll get a pretty sweet
coffee fix out of it.
So go and enjoy your peppermint
mocha frappuccino, you beautiful
mess, you.
Megan Mitchell can be
reached at umeg@umich.edu.
MEGAN
MITCHELL
A
mericans have a lot of practice
nowadays with mass shootings. On
television, journalists launch into
hours
of
investigative
coverage for a few days
following
a
shooting,
introducing a new graphic
for
each
and
every
development,
regardless
of its relevancy. Moments
of silence at large sporting
events seem to happen
with increasing frequency.
Social media quickly fills
up with prayers for the
family of the victims,
copied, pasted and shared
by thousands.
And then we move on, ready for the
next tragedy.
Unsurprisingly, one group that did not
exactly have its act together in response to the
shootings in San Bernardino last Wednesday
was the usually dysfunctional leadership of
the Republican Party. Republican presidential
candidate Carly Fiorina called for better
enforcement of “the laws that we have”
and criticized President Barack Obama and
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary
Clinton for politicizing the issue. In an
effort to combine the inappropriate with the
asinine, Republican presidential candidate
Ted Cruz unveiled the Second Amendment
Coalition at an Iowa gun range two days after
the shooting.
The
only
commonality
between the positions of
GOP
politicians
was
the
categorical agreement that
guns are not the problem,
but instead mental illness is.
Speaker of the House Paul
Ryan (R–Wis.) took to “CBS
This Morning” to explain
that “people with mental
illness are getting guns and
committing these mass shootings,” and to
announce that Congress is already drafting
legislation dealing with the root cause of
these shootings: mental health.
With 14 dead and 21 injured, with families
still grieving, with an FBI investigation into
whether the shooting was linked to terrorism
ongoing, the GOP’s decision to go on the
offensive by linking mental illness to mass
shootings is insensitive, uninformed and
irresponsible. For starters, the notion that
tragedies like the one in San Bernardino are
direct results of mental illness is tenuous at best.
A 2014 study from the American Psychological
Association showed that of crimes committed
by people with serious mental disorders, just
7.5 percent were directly related to symptoms
of mental illness. Dylann Roof was not mentally
ill in Charleston, nor was Robert Lewis Dear
when he took the lives of three people at a
Planned Parenthood in Colorado.
Dr. Liza Gold, a clinical professor of
psychiatry at Georgetown Medical Center,
has attempted to debunk these myths in her
book released last month, “Gun Violence and
Mental Illness.”
“Most people with serious mental illness
are not violent,” Gold wrote, and “most violent
individuals do not have serious mental illness
and evidence indicates that individuals with
serious mental illness who kill strangers with
a gun is one of the rarest types of gun violence
in the United States.”
A threat assessment team that has been
working in Salem, Ore., for the past 15 years
notes that mental illness is often not to blame
for violence. “It’s easy to want to say they’re
mentally ill, they’re different from us,” said
Allan Rainwater, a mental health investigator
for Marion Country, “and quite often, they
may not be.”
Americans saw this after Sandy Hook, and
with the 1,044 mass shootings (yes, 1,044)
since then. Journalists attempted to explain
the shooter’s behavior, guessing that he
was an undiagnosed schizophrenic. But the
simple fact of the matter is that there’s no
real empirical evidence that suggests mass
shootings stem directly from the mentally ill.
This isn’t to say that such a connection never
exists, simply that Speaker Ryan introducing
this legislation as a solution to the problem
is misguided and furthers an unfounded
narrative among U.S. citizens.
There’s no evidence that the shooters in
San Bernardino were mentally ill. Yet the
knee-jerk reaction of GOP politicians con-
tinues to point to psychological disorders.
It seems the old adage of gun owners in the
United States has been updated to “guns don’t
kill people, crazy people kill people.”
As British comedian Eddie Izzard once
said, though, I think the
gun helps.
Last Wednesday’s tragedy
marks the 355th mass shooting
of the year. Syed Rizwan
Farook and Tashfeen Malik
bought assault rifles and semi-
automatic handguns, loaded
them, dropped their baby off
their with grandma, drove to
a holiday party and, until they
pulled the trigger, had yet to commit a crime.
More than 80 percent of guns used in mass
shootings in the United States are purchased
legally. That’s something Americans have to
confront. And the conversation on mental
health is a distraction.
Even if mental health was found to be a
cause of mass shootings, what then would be
the end goal? Would it be our goal to eradicate
mental illness? At the rate of civilian deaths
in the United States today, I sincerely doubt
we can afford to wait for the years of institu-
tional reforms and mental health counseling
that might not even solve the problem.
Evidence shows that the No. 1 Republican
response to mass shootings is somewhere
between doubtful and blatantly ignorant.
Their goal is to deny any notion that there is
a gun problem in the United States, instead
peddling the idea that somehow Americans
are more prone to mental illness and violence.
This year, 462 people have been killed in mass
shootings, with 1,314 injuries across 47 states.
Decide for yourself.
Brett Graham can be reached
at btgraham@umich.edu.
BRETT
GRAHAM
The easy way out of gun control
The woman who
enforced my
bedtime wanted
nothing from me.
There’s no
evidence that the
shooters were
mentally ill.
I have a strange
relationship
with coffee.