W
hen my parents started
feeding me music, they
treated love songs like
alcohol. Little tastes from their cups
— sips of wine, accosting them if they
guzzle down more beer than they’re
allowed. And never any hard alcohol,
because who gives a 10-year-old a
shot of vodka?
They played love songs that
were fluffy and light, interspersed
on mixed CDs that rotated in the car
stereos on rides lasting no more than
10 or 15 minutes. One of the first was
Bobby Vinton’s version of “Sealed
With a Kiss,” a beachy tune about
counting down summer’s end with
letters between two lovers, each one
“sealed with a kiss.” I can picture
my mom driving the car and smiling
warmly — her eyes closing for a
tender moment at the red light as she
sang along with Vinton.
Like a small kid’s tongue dipping
into red wine, the song contained
enough flavor of love to keep me
wondering about the vast sweetness
I could only experience when I was
older, with the bitter aftertaste —
the “cold, lonely summer” Vinton
alludes to.
Through the succeeding years,
my iPod was mostly pop songs and
Broadway show tunes. The playlists
on my iPod Nano were a flurry of
jittery mid-2000s Britney Spears and
Lady Gaga — easy enough to dance to,
so the lyrical content was rendered as
meaningless syllables.
When I was 13, however, my
piano teacher gave me the shot of
musical vodka. As I struggled to write
my own songs, she suggested seeking
inspiration in Joni Mitchell’s records.
Her recommendation was “A Case of
You,” a song about the determination
Joni had to stay standing while taking
swigs of her lover — like a case of
wine — until she finished the bottle.
It was too strong for this 13-year-old,
being so potent with a longing that
went deeper than any Bobby Vinton
rendition. The song’s parent album,
Blue, ran 10 songs long and sifted
through every strain of heartbreak,
insecurity and loneliness. If “A Case
of You” was a shot, then Blue was a
handle of liquor.
Yet, as though my taste buds
weren’t ready, the meaning of each
song was clear, but the heart of her
words still proved illusory. Love
was something that a 13-year-old
was bound to feel only for his family,
and even so, that kind of love was an
entirely different beast. Still, I went
through artists known to inspire
and who have been inspired (which
could include almost every singer-
songwriter of the years following
Blue) by Mitchell. I found Laura Nyro
and dusted off her strongest bottle,
the album New York Tendaberry.
Like Mitchell’s voice, Nyro’s was
acrobatic, yet struck by the emotional
paralysis of heartbreak. Her mood
shifted from yearning anxiety to
resigned fate. In the opening track,
“You Don’t Love Me When I Cry,”
she confronts her lover for only
distancing himself when she is at her
weakest. I couldn’t understand why
her voice was pulling at me so hard.
As I grew older, I felt disingenuous
every time I let the words diffuse into
my blood.
I had never been in love. For
years, I had feigned attraction to the
opposite gender, fabricating love
more than most people my age did,
even with their seventh or eighth-
grade “boyfriend.” After I came out,
love songs only distilled attraction
and emotion more than before.
Love songs increasingly bog
down my playlists, with heavy-hitters
like D’Angelo’s ostensibly gentle
profession of desire, “Really Love.”
I thought I could transcribe the
emotion into the bedroom of some
guy I was hooking up with, putting
on music in the background to
make what D’Angelo was singing
more palpable.
Instead, it feels like every time
I accompany a Grindr hookup with
one of my playlists, I just sully the
meaning rather than connect with it.
I’ve never been in a relationship — let
alone felt love — and haven’t seen the
prospects line up on the horizon.
Suddenly, the notes of each love
song have unraveled into questions
of my own inability to find love.
They choke my capacity to connect
by acting as reminders that I deceive
myself when I try to feel, when I try
to connect. I’ve failed in trying, and
what was once a connection built on
curiosity and longing is now just a
sad, sputtering attempt at knowing
what it means to be lovelorn.
As I’ve expanded my taste, I can
connect with artists on different
levels. I listen to Princess Nokia’s
“Bart Simpson” and empathize
with her experience as an outsider
in school while still comprehending
the vast contrasts in our lives. But,
love songs continue to hinder the
way I internalize music. The more
my sex life becomes a smattering of
empty kisses with strangers, the less
I feel permitted to listen to songs that
used to intoxicate my senses. Maybe
the dizzying effect it once had on me
is now too vertiginous, provoking a
sense of guilt and self-pity for reasons
I can’t fully grasp. I’ve become woozy
— chugging like the college kid I am
— lapping up the music as a substitute
for the real thing and letting it pool
up in the bowels of my mind. In the
process, I think I’ve frustrated my
sense for natural, real love.
I started shifting toward sinking
myself into songs about being
alone, like Mitski’s “Nobody,”
a
swelling
indie-rock
song
about asking for nothing but
meaningful, loving company.
But, as indulgent as works like
that are, they just lead me in the
direction of wanting the same thing
the artist wants. And then I listen
to another love song, knowing I
shouldn’t be allowed.
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Emma Chang
Ben Charlson
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram
Jeremy Kaplan
Lucas Maiman
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland
Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger
DAYTON HARE
Managing Editor
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.
ALEXA ST. JOHN
Editor in Chief
ANU ROY-CHAUDHURY AND
ASHLEY ZHANG
Editorial Page Editors
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
ANAMARIA CUZA | COLUMN
What might mess up midterm elections
T
here
was
something
inherently
cringeworthy
in reading about 11-year-
olds hacking into the database
of Florida’s election website, not
because the midterm elections are
suddenly under the threat of middle-
schoolers, and not because hacking
the 2018 midterm seems to be child’s
play. Rather, it was the feeling that
following the coverage of DefCon
Voting Machine Hacking Village,
a workshop at an annual security
conference, the public was left with
nothing more than the knowledge
that democracy is literally in the
hands of Russian hackers, and that
there are some very brilliant 11-year-
old kids out there.
Add some smart hackers, dilute
an issue until left only with its
sensationalist side, skip all the boring
parts in the process of solving it, and
you get technology coverage. Tech
coverage seems to resemble an ad
infinitum repetition of these steps,
with tech companies, non-profits
and hackathons following suit and
framing their problems and solutions
emphasizing the new and shiny. The
organizers of DefCon described
the environment the kids used for
election websites as “exact clones.”
The press decided to use the same
language: “Exact clones.” After the
conference, the organizers cut down
on their claims, changing the
term to simply “clones.” When the
National Association of Secretaries
of State issued a press release
complaining that the “environment
in no way replicates state election
systems,” Jake Braun, one of the
organizers, replied that they were
“fucking idiots” for not seeing that “a
nation-state is literally hacking our
democracy.”
Later on, a report revealed
students were only working with
look-alikes of election websites,
with specific vulnerabilities added
for the event and the participants
coached on finding them. Still,
Braun’s
aggressive
response
is
understandable: He wasn’t actually
fighting for the legitimacy of his
voting machines. He was fighting
for getting the necessary media
coverage to make the public aware
of election cybersecurity issues.
Instead, in the process, the core
of these issues and their possible
solutions got lost in hundreds of
words on terrifying Russian hackers
and brilliant middle-school hackers.
In response, ProPublica released
an article on a completely overlooked
key piece in election security: email
system vulnerability. The two-
factor verification process is a way
of logging in that not only requires a
username and a password, but also
something only the user has (i.e. a
unique code on their phone). This
type of logging in is so widely used
that even we, as college students,
can use it to log into our university
accounts. But, it is also one of the
things that one-third of the counties
overseeing toss-up congressional
elections don’t have access to.
Internet-connected
systems
are
just as vulnerable to hacking as
voting machines, but email is such
a mundane thing that it would be
hard to find its place in an article
talking about hackers undermining
or saving democracy.
Throwing around the words
“cybersecurity”
and
“hackers”
instinctively brings to mind coders
trying to solve an encryption.
Cybersecurity, though, should not
be regarded as solely a technology
challenge. Harvard University’s
Belfer Center for Science and
International Affairs developed
a checklist for managing cyber
risks during political campaigns,
but you probably won’t see that
too often in the news. Having a
report released on cyber risk mostly
dealing with the “human element”
in cybersecurity doesn’t seem to
add anything new or shiny to tech
coverage. Still, cyber risks mostly
show up because we are human.
Because some of the most common
passwords people use are “123456”
and “password.” Because we put
our passwords into spear-phishing
emails. Because we will sometimes
share our passwords with the
people we work with.
The way these conferences
and journalists frame election
cybersecurity and tech in general
affects the perception graduates
will have on their future tech jobs.
We want jobs where we can work
on these supposedly “new” issues
and solve them with “shiny” codes
and brilliant hackers. That’s why
so many of us will want to work
for Google, Facebook and all the
other companies that dominate the
press coverage of technology. In
the meantime, political campaigns
are getting hacked because there
was no training in identifying a
phishing email. In the meantime,
counties are struggling to hire
the people capable of dealing
with all the emerging cyber risks,
and people are probably hanging
around DefCon, hacking supposed
“election websites.”
Am I allowed to listen to love songs anymore?
JOEL DANILEWITZ | OP-ED
Anamaria Cuza can be reached at
anacuza@umich.edu.
JILLIAN LI | CONTACT JILLIAN AT LIJILLI@UMICH.EDU
ALI SAFAWI | COLUMN
Let’s talk about pot
T
his
November,
Michiganders
will
be
able to vote on Proposal
1,
which
would
legalize
the
possession,
consumption
and
sale of marijuana for recreational
purposes. In a recent survey from
The Detroit News, 56 percent of
likely voters supported Proposal
1 and 36 percent opposed it, with
only 6 percent undecided. Even
opponents of legalization expect
it to pass by a wide margin as
voters, especially young voters,
will be motivated to the polls by
the spectacle of legalization. This
is probably why the Republican
Party in Lansing tried (and failed)
to legalize marijuana in an effort
to keep Proposal 1 off the ballot
and tamp down on voter turnout
in an election year that is looking
increasingly bad for the GOP.
Recreational use of marijuana
has been legalized in nine states
and Washington, D.C. Thirteen
other states and many of Michigan’s
largest cities — including Ann
Arbor, Detroit, Grand Rapids and
Lansing — have decriminalized,
but not legalized, recreational
marijuana.
Decriminalization
means that someone caught with
small amounts of marijuana will
face a civil penalty, such as a
fine, instead of criminal charges.
Medical marijuana is also legal in
Michigan, provided a person has
one of 22 health conditions the
state government has approved to
qualify for treatment with medical
marijuana,
including
autism,
chronic pain and cancer. People
with one of these conditions can
apply for a state medical marijuana
ID card.
While
legalization
and/or
decriminalization of marijuana is a
step forward in undoing the tangled
mess that was the war on drugs,
the hysteric anti-drug mindset of
former Presidents Richard Nixon
and Ronald Reagan still influences
drug policy at the federal level.
When Michigan votes to legalize
recreational marijuana on Nov. 6,
pot will still sit alongside heroin as
a Schedule 1 controlled substance
in the Drug Enforcement Agency’s
eyes. In states like Colorado, where
recreational marijuana is already
legal, the mismatch between state
and federal statutes means that
while a person may be able to sell
marijuana freely, they cannot open
a bank account for their business.
Comedian John Oliver does a
great segment on this topic that I
encourage everyone to watch.
But,
I
am
not
a
legal
columnist. With the legalization
of recreational marijuana use in
Michigan
seeming
inevitable,
it’s high time we have a real
discussion
about
the
public
health solutions and challenges
posed by marijuana.
The properties of marijuana
come from naturally-occurring
chemicals
in
the
plant
that
interact with the endocannabinoid
system. The ECS is a system of
cellular receptors in the nervous
system that normally bind the
neurotransmitters AEA and 2-AG.
The chemicals in marijuana are
similar enough in structure to
AEA and 2-AG to bind to the ECS
receptors and activate the system
which plays a role in appetite,
pain, memory and mood. The
two most well-known chemicals
in
marijuana
are
THC,
the
psychoactive ingredient, and CBD
though there are many more.
Marijuana has been touted to
possess all sorts of health benefits,
chief among them as a non-opioid
treatment
for
chronic
pain.
Michigan is in the jaws of a massive
opioid epidemic and marijuana
is often mentioned in discourses
about
solutions.
Theoretically,
opioids and cannabinoids (the class
of chemicals in marijuana) treat
chronic pain in much the same
way. While cannabinoids stimulate
the ECS, opioids stimulate the
body’s mu-opioid receptors. Both
lead to changes in perception of
the chronic pain. They do not
treat the underlying cause of
the pain (e.g. inflammation or
damaged nerves). The key appeal
of cannabinoids over opioids is that
no one has died of an overdose on
marijuana while thousands have
overdosed on Oxycontin and
other opioids. Despite this benefit
and fairly solid evidence that
cannabinoids can treat chronic
pain, U.S. health care providers
still prefer to prescribe opioids —
a barrier that must be addressed
if marijuana is to ever be widely
used as an opioid alternative.
Marijuana has been shown to
have other concrete health benefits,
such as reducing vomiting in cancer
patients and improving food intake
in HIV-positive patients. However,
there are also a fair number of
fantastical claims out there about
what pot can cure. Marijuana
and its non-psychoactive cousin,
hemp, have been shrouded in
an aura of mysticism that leads
some people to believe it can cure
complex diseases such as cancer.
The unfortunate truth is there is
no evidence that marijuana cures
or slows the course of cancer.
Health care providers, hospital
and public health organizations in
Michigan would do well to educate
people about the reality of what
marijuana can and cannot do,
otherwise, we could see patients
forgoing proper medical treatment
and instead trying to smoke
themselves, or their kids, healthy.
Speaking of smoking, let me
bust one of the most common
marijuana
myths
out
there:
Smoking pot is not harmless.
While not as addictive as opioids,
about 10 percent of chronic
marijuana smokers will develop
a dependence, with a higher
likelihood
of
dependence
the
younger you are. Just like other
substances, stopping marijuana
can cause withdrawal that while
not deadly, can make it hard for
someone to quit if they want to.
Smoking any burning plant matter,
be it marijuana, tobacco or even
lettuce, exposes a person to nasty
chemicals produced by the burning
process. Regular marijuana use
is also linked to heart and lung
problems as well as at least one
type of cancer.
None of this is to say that
recreational
marijuana
should
remain illegal, just that there is
a need for widespread education
about the risks of use when
Michiganders gain far greater
access to marijuana. Like alcohol
and tobacco, marijuana will be
tightly regulated under Proposal 1
which should put minds at ease.
Proposal 1 is by no means
perfect. It does not erase marijuana
convictions of people, especially
people
of
color,
who
have
predominantly been incarcerated
under the old war on drugs
policies. That is the next step.
When Proposal 1 passes by a hefty
margin, which I think it will, it will
also send a message to Congress to
act to end the federal prohibition
on marijuana.
The war on drugs was based
on hysteria and racism, not public
health concerns. Now that we are
crawling out of this failed era, it is
time we treat marijuana the way
it should be: as a drug with real
potential to benefit people’s lives,
but also with some real risks that
need to be properly mitigated.
Ali Safawi can be reached at
asafawi@umich.edu.
— Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in an interview with
Fox News in response to allegations of sexual assault
“
NOTABLE QUOTABLE
The vast majority of the time I
spent in high school was studying or
focused on sports and being a good
friend to the boys and the girls that I
was friends with. ”
Joel Danilewitz is a Seniot Opinion
Editor and can be reached at joeldan@
umich.edu.