Hello and welcome to NewsClick. This is our science show when we discuss what we select as one interesting development in science and talk about it. This week we are going to look at something which has been of recurring interest to NewsClick, which is looking at archaeogenetics and what could be a major instrument of further discoveries. One of the problems in archaeogenetics which is really means that looking at your genetic material but from essentially archaeological finds, old bones in other words is what we have been looking at and then to find some material, genetic material which can be amplified and which can then be understood to give you who were these people, what were the lineages, where did they come from, who were their forefathers and what are the further descendants of this population. A kind of ancient population genetics seem to win. Of course in current times in India that also becomes political because the minute you start talking about that this the Indian subcontinent had people coming from outside immediately causes an uproar particularly by certain sections who believe that we the current stock of people have been always here. Now as we know the modern scientific knowledge makes it very clear that all human population the descendant of an ancient African population that we are in fact non-resident Indians. So that's not open to question. Nobody who has any smattering of scientific knowledge to do with question. The question is that if we look at population migration, population shifting from one place to another that we have been dependent for this and we have had, we have presented the steps, migrations, we have presented the Neolithic migrations in our discussions in science news click. So this all has been taken from very small samples. The number of such samples are really sparse and therefore though we have built from the samples we have, we have built a fairly interesting history of how previous migrations have taken place but they have been punctuated with large gaps. Now one particular approach which seems to be much more likely to bear fruit in terms of giving us much larger number of samples is looking at not at the what would be the genetic material in our bones, ancient bones but actually looking at the sediment that means on the cave floor what is deposited. Now why would that leave us or give us genetic material? After all we can understand if there is genetic material still left over from the bones which are 100,000 years old, we can understand that yes okay some genetic material may be left over particularly there is a bone in the year which seems to have a very thick, it seems to be a very thick enclosed, more mitigate encloses some genetic material and that has been used widely to take out samples and then amplify it and then see what it is. Now why should the cave floor give us genetic material and that of course is obvious if you think of how we live if you have babies in the house as one of the researchers said the poop and if the poop there is some genetic material which is there and that that is something which in the cave floor would accumulate over a period of time. Then of course you also are cutting up things you are also hammering things you might also bleed. So a certain amount of material deposits over time and if you have this large number of people spanning maybe hundreds thousands of years staying on caves then the sediment layers that form that can actually give you if we can amplify it if we can isolate the human DNA from it then it gives you a much richer information than we can get from the bones. So while earlier we have had mitochondrial DNA which is basically what we get from our mother's side some amount of mitochondrial DNA from sediments of this kind we have not been able to get what is called the nuclear genetic material which is something which is the nucleus of the human cell and that has much richer genetic material than the mitochondrial DNA has. So that of course that genetic material we get both from the mother and the father so don't start thinking the mother's only give us mitochondrial DNA so this is from both the parents. So when you look at this genetic material the nuclear genetic material then the history that it unfolds is much richer we can check the lineages and we can see where they came from what is the variability if we have a larger set of nuclear genetic material from the floor sediments and therefore you can probably have a much richer history then we would get from the few samples that we have been able to get from the bones. Till now we have got genetic material from 18 Neanderthal population if you look at the Neanderthal population that of course is researched a little more mainly because it's Europe there's more archaeological work going on over there and plus colder climate so the chances of preserving the genetic material in the bones is a little better if we take for instance the Indus Valley which is hot then the genetic material tends to disintegrate much faster in hot climates hot temperatures therefore that has been relatively less likely to produce genetic material. In this particular case though this 18 individuals the genetic material we did get from the bones the nuclear DNA the current research and that's been done by again as all this it happens in modern research not by one of two people by a large team I think it's about 35 or 36 from different countries who've come together and done this research to see how you can take traces of this genetic material separated from animals others that might be there and then also amplified see what is really there. So this is a complex work and obviously it needs a variety of skills but the breakthrough here and that's why we are discussing it not what specific results have come through because of this they're interesting but that is by itself not the major issue it's at a huge new avenue of research has opened up for archaeogenetics population research in archaeogenetics and migration of people. So we have now an alternate to finding only genetic material from bones and being able to look at perhaps a much richer picture in the future because we would then look at the caves where human habitation has been there and you know there are very large number of caves from South Africa to South Asia to anywhere in the world caves where the national habitat of ancient humans because that's where they would hide at night in order not to be attacked by big animals. So therefore the caves is where the initial habitat of a lot of the ancient human population was. So given that there is the floor sediments now which we can perhaps look at and see which of them leaders generating material. Very quickly the research on this particular set of materials and this has been done in three sites we'll show you the picture just to be second. The three sites are really one is in Spain and two are in Altai mountains. So what we find is that initially there were more lineages of Neanderthals and after a certain time one lineage becomes much more dominant and other traces other simply disappear that is in the small segment of DNA that we have found that has been looked at. So it does seem to also bear out what is also what we see in Africa for instance that after a certain variety which is available in Asia it's some some lineages become dominant and others seem to disappear. So it seems to bear out what we see in other places as well. Some of it could be simply to do with the fact that there is a climatic change and therefore certain groups survive certain groups don't and the groups that survive because they're essentially there is what will be called smaller number of people who survive and therefore it becomes more homogeneous than the earlier population that we saw. So these are some things we'll have to tease out as we go. What is most exciting about this and that's why we're discussing it is the fact that this is something which is giving us opening out for us a completely new terrain that is looking at sediments on cave floors getting genetic material from it and from that to construct the archaeological history of populations and their migrations. This is all the time we have for NewsClick today. Do keep watching NewsClick and do visit our website.


It is my great honor to welcome you here this afternoon. On behalf of the entire Ford School community, as we honor and celebrate the 186 students who graduate today. Graduates, you did it! Through your hard work and perseverance, you earned a degree in public policy from the University of Michigan. We made it to this moment together. Should we take a group picture? Should we do a selfie? Okay. I brought my phone. We are. We would be remiss if we did not take advantage of this moment. Okay. Let me start with some introductions. First, our wonderful keynote speaker, our friend, the Lieutenant Governor of the State of Michigan, Mr. Garland Gilchrist. Garland, we are so grateful to have you here and look forward to your address. Also, here on stage are members of the Ford School faculty. Colleagues, my heartfelt thanks to you for your brilliance and for your dedication to our students and the mission of our school. Please join me in thanking the amazing faculty of the Ford School. Now, a special note is a longtime Ford School professor who is here celebrating his last commencement ceremony as an active member of the faculty. Barry Rabe is one of the world's foremost experts in the field of environmental policy. Barry, let me say a little bit about Professor Rabe. We've been fortunate to have him here at Michigan for what has been a monumental career of nearly 40-plus years and counting. He's known as one of the Ford School's very best teachers, respected and loved by generations of students. Let please join me in congratulating again Professor Barry Rabe. I also want to sing the praises of our terrific team of staff who serve and deliver on our mission. Many are here today having organized our celebration with true Ford School collaboration. Please join me in thanking our staff for their hard work and creativity and for all that they do for our community. So next, I want to introduce a few folks on stage by name. First of all, our outstanding associate deans are here. First, Jenna Bednar, who also leads our work on resilient democracies. And Jeff Morinoff, who directs our Detroit Metro Area Community Study. Jenna and Jeff, what can I say? It has been an honor and joy serving alongside you this year. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So leading our academic programs, our economist, Katherine Dominguez, who is director of our PhD program, political scientist, John Hansen, who directs our Masters of Public Policy and Masters of Public Affairs programs, and social demographer, Paula Lance, who directs our BA program. And public finance expert, Stephanie Leiser, will read the names of the graduates as they cross the stage. Macro economist, Alan Dierdorf is also in the house to proudly hood our PhD graduate today. Welcome. And our colleague, social demographer, Natasha Pylkowskis, was elected by the graduates to speak on behalf of our faculty. And finally, I present the graduates who are elected by their classmates to speak today, soon to be Ford School MPP graduate, Romero Garcia, and BA graduate, Zainab Ahashemi, graduates and friends and families of the Ford School. I have the honor of opening our remarks today. And I am here to deliver a praise song in the midst of a storm. In May of 2001, famed author and Nobel Prize winner, Toni Morrison, and I'm going to invite our platform party to take a seat and get comfortable. Thank you so much, colleagues. In May of 2001, famed author and Nobel Prize winner, Toni Morrison participated in a conversation at the Connecticut Forum, an outlet for unscripted conversations among experts and thought leaders. Morrison was asked by the moderator, journalist Juan Williams, the following question, how do you survive whole when we are all victims of something? Now while I quibble with Williams' use of the word victim, I do not quibble with Morrison's answer. She replied, quote, it's a nice, big, fat, eastern, western philosophical question. How do you get through? You don't survive whole. You just survive in part. But the grandeur of life is the attempt. It's not about the solution. It's about being as fearless as one can and behaving as beautifully as one can under completely impossible circumstances. It's that that makes it elegant. Good is just more interesting, more complex, more demanding. Evil is silly. It may be horrible, but at the same time, it's not a compelling idea. It's not a new idea. It's predictable. It needs a tuxedo. It needs a headline. It needs blood. It needs fingernails. It needs all that costume in order to get anybody's attention. But the opposite, which is survival, blossoming, endurance, those things are just more compelling intellectually, if not spiritually. This is a more fascinating job. We are already born. We are going to die. So you have to do something interesting that you respect in between. What you have done, class of 2024, is that you have blossomed under completely impossible circumstances. You have come of age as students during a global health crisis At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, you went through moments in which your survival, or the survival of your most vulnerable loved ones, was something that had to be pursued with painstaking care. In fact, the members of our BA class were seniors in high school in May of 2020, marking the graduates' right of passage in a moment in which to gather, to celebrate, was understood to be risky.  When countries, communities, and even taken for granted bedrocks like democracy are feeling precarious and under siege, you are tuned into the climate crisis more than any other generation, and you have a deep sense of justice after witnessing events both at home and abroad that have outraged you. You are bracing now for an election season, both here and abroad, when the only certainty is uncertainty. And many of you have dealt with impossible circumstances right on your doorsteps, with personal, family, intergenerational, and community trauma taking up residents and threatening to derail you. You have been called to grow up, to mature, to compartmentalize enough to achieve under completely impossible circumstances. And in that context, what did you decide to do with the in-between, that moment between birth and death that Morrison invokes when we each have our opportunity to do something interesting? You have chosen to serve. You chose to pursue a Ford School education.  But some of your loved ones might still be a little curious, a little uncertain, about exactly what you've been learning here at a school of public policy.  A Ford School education is about policy analysis, policy communication, and policy leadership. Policy analysis is the use of evidence, quantitative and qualitative data to call balls and strikes, to understand what is working and what is not as we seek desperately needed policy solutions to our most pressing challenges. Policy communication is the use of oral and written expression to explain, elucidate, and to open the door for more people to be informed about the issues that affect their lives. And policy leadership is the integration of our analyses, our values, and our voices to offer a constructive way forward and to bring people along through inclusive, servant leadership. Forties, you have puzzled your way through economics and statistics, through values and ethics and policy writing, all while adding tools for your mission of influence. You've been so compelling to engage and so compelling to teach. And now this Ford School education is the stool on which you stand. You've prepared yourselves for the careers that you believe you want and for the careers that you have not imagined yet, but that the times demand. You've carried the hopes and dreams of your forefathers and foremothers, your ancestors, and your angels, and you have represented them admirably. You have broken bread with your classmates in that space that we affectionately call the Becky, and you have made Wild Hall your home. And you have done it while the days brought unbridled joy and broken hearts. Great clarity and deep confusion, unwavering commitment and unsettling ambivalence. And you have grappled with all those tensions and contradictions and nuances because you knew that after the storm lives the praise song. The praise song. After the clash, after the thunder, after the lightning eventually lives the break. Lives the moment when the clouds part and sun streams through and we bask, we bask, we bask in that light. We celebrate and we congratulate each other. But beloved 40s, we know that despite the beauty of today, so many storms we face are not over. So I ask you, can you find joy in the midst of a storm? When we do not know the time and place when the storm will break. Can you sing a praise song when the tempest is raging and the billows are tossing high? Can you sing a praise song despite your struggle and in your moments of pain? Can you sing a praise song in the midst of completely impossible circumstances? To be clear, while a praise song might have religious or spiritual connotations for some, hear me when I say that I mean praise song in a deeply secular way. It means a job well done, a moment of celebration. It points to a conviction about how we will confront our challenges, that we will celebrate ourselves and each other, our opportunities and our journeys. When we praise, we do not forget. When we praise, we do not paper over. When we praise, we affirm. When we praise, we are seen. When we praise, we see each other. Beloved 40s, today we sing a praise song for you. We lift up your curiosity. We lift up your brilliance. We lift up your humor. We lift up your questioning. We lift up your support of each other. We lift up your service to the Ford School community. We lift up the ways you represent yourselves when you engage with employers, with community stakeholders, with policy leaders and said proudly, I am a student at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. We lift you up, class of 2024, and we praise the way you have shown up and have contributed so much to the story of this school. Graduates, be as fearless as you can, but in the words of Toni Morrison, behave as beautifully as you can under completely impossible circumstances. It is that that makes it elegant. Good is just more interesting, more complex, more demanding. Good requires us to sing a praise song for ourselves and for our neighbors, even when we disagree. God, good asks us to sing a praise song in the midst of a storm. Good, actually great, is the Ford School way.  Because the grandeur of life is the attempt. Thank you. And now, I am honored to introduce our keynote speaker, the Lieutenant Governor of Michigan, Mr. Garland Gilchrist. Born in Detroit and raised in Farmington, Mr. Gilchrist earned a degree from the University of Michigan in Computer Science and Computer Engineering. He went on to success at Microsoft with community organizing and in city government. Governor Gretchen Whitmer selected him as her running mate in 2018, and since taking office, Mr. Gilchrist has applied his engineering talents to solving key policy problems. He co-chaired a successful bipartisan task force on Michigan's jails, for example, that resulted in a set of 20 reform bills passed in 2021. Mr. Gilchrist also led the state's successful effort to reduce racial disparities in COVID cases and mortality. Please join me in welcoming to the podium Lieutenant Governor Garland Gilchrist. Thank you, Dean. How y'all doing? Ford graduates, which one of y'all is ready to go change the world? After many years spent diving into policy, you are ready to go out into this world. Apply your principles to the issues that matter. Solve real problems and make a choice to make a difference. Today, I wanna talk to you about that choice, about how you can continue the Ford School's mission and what it means to be in a community that is dedicated to the public good. But first, on behalf of my partner in public service, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, I want to acknowledge a few people. First and foremost, my good friend and the Ford School Dean, Dr. Celeste Watkins-Hayes. Congratulations on your first year. She acknowledged the faculty and the staff of the Ford School. I do wanna give a special shout out to my friend, Dr. Luke Schaefer in Poverty Solutions. Thank him for helping and all of your colleagues for helping challenge and shape the graduates here today.  I wanna acknowledge and ask that the graduates give them a round of applause because it took a whole lot of work to get you all here. Nobody graduates alone. But I do want all of our graduates to hear directly from me. Congratulations. This is amazing. Now, as Dr. Celeste Watkins-Hayes let you know, I am a Wolverine, a double engineering major who graduated 19 years ago. That sounds so much longer when I say it like that, 19 years ago. But the years I spent here, they shaped and sharpened me and made me the person in public servant that I'm here today. It was here on this campus that I learned to ask better questions. I was challenged to push the limit to my understanding.  I know that the Forest School has played a very similar role in your journeys for many of you. And I heard a couple of the stories. I heard about Professor P's fan club, Monday motivational emails with fake jail forequotes. This is college, so I know about all the free food that can make almost a full diet if you can subsist on collagen. Grad students who took over the student lounge from the undergrads and undergrads who pressed on to use the microwave anyway. Simulations where you played real life policy makers during the most demanding events you will face in your careers. You had to deal with stats and policy analysis, values, ethics courses, and the class that bubbled up to me to most complaints was Econ 330. I thought that might get a reaction. But you made it, and you made it off the strength of your minds and your work ethics. Your ability to face challenging questions with rigor, vigor, and care. Students here engage in these intense and intellectually challenging disagreements, but y'all still came together at the end of every day. You push each other to be better, to think deeply about ideas and values, and consider the impacts of every policy on communities and people. You stoke curiosity, ask these hard questions, and you shared your dreams and lives with each other. But there's something I wanna explore with you today just for a few minutes. See, I think the core tension of every public policy choice is pretty basic. It's who gets to say yes, versus who gets told no. Now, it may feel more complicated than that sometimes, or maybe even most of the time, but I would argue that no matter how esoteric, or technical, or nuanced a policy choice is, that's basically what it boils down to. Now, the most important word in this construction is who. So we wanna break that down, but I wanna tell you a little bit about who I am to start. Now, we talked about that I'm a software engineer by training and at heart. I started as this skinny kid on the east side of Detroit. Anybody here from Detroit? Thank you, I appreciate that. This skinny kid on the east side of Detroit, whose grandma bought me a computer when I was five years old to use him between basketball games. And I took that love of technology to be a developer at Microsoft for four years and helped to grow the SharePoint business of the fastest growing business in that company's history. But what y'all may not know about my story is I actually left Microsoft, I quit Microsoft a week before I got married. And it'll be 15 years, this year I'm still married. I worked out. And I spent the next five years of my career as a community organizer. I worked with people across the country on campaigns at the local, state and national level for social, economic, racial and environmental justice. Protecting and strengthening voting rights across the South. Expanding healthcare access to low income people here in the state of Michigan. Fighting for immigrant rights in Arizona and Alabama. Now this work and the work throughout my career as a public servant has taught me at least two important lessons. The first is that decisions made by people are the ink that flows into the pages describing our past and present. The status quo is the result of decisions made by a group of previously empowered people. Now that group of people's biases and privileges and circumstances and imagination or lack thereof shaped those decisions. This set of people, the set of people who get to say yes, stands in contrast to those who were not empowered. The people who are in a fewer in many ways, very different from those who made those decisions and shaped that reality. These were the who that got told no. But who do we tell no? People we're scared of, uncomfortable with, disagree with, don't know, are angry with, what are the labels that we put on these feelings? Racism, sexism, prejudice, xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, classism. What do all these terms have in common? They give empowered people a personal excuse to say no, to exclude another person or a group of people and to slam the door on their rights and their future. Now on both sides of that slam door stand two visions for the future, set apart by how an unwilling vision from one group and how unwilling they are to share what's possible, juxtaposed against the other's hunger for safety, access, and the opportunity to realize their dreams and ambitions. The latter seeks to walk through an open door. They seek a fair game to play and a real chance to win. But the results of that door being shut are the policy failures that plague us right now. Not enough livable, affordable homes. Families struggling to transcend a cycle of poverty that they did not create. Dismantled systems of mental health that have left people unsupported and ground down into jail sales and addiction. These are all situations where those who had the power to say yes, instead said no to people ready to be their best. But urgently and importantly, this is where all of you come in as a new class of public policy professionals. Y'all are different and you're ready and you can and must make a different choice. Now that leads to the second lesson. Despite those previous decisions, you, a different set of people, can make a different set of choices. That can make a different set of outcomes more possible for more people. So you can understand that the people who are closest to the problems are the ones who best understand the possibilities. When we position these people as the ones who get to say yes, we shrink the set of people who are told no. We open the door to more people. And opening that door means listening to each other's voices. It means recognizing the precursors to policy change, which at times include peaceful protests, peaceful agitation, peaceful activism. In fact, there are many students across the country right now making their voices heard. Now we have an obligation to stomp out hate when we see it, sustain an open environment that protects people's right to excess their beliefs and ensures the safety of our fellow citizens and students, especially those who have been marginalized. When we channel our voices in good faith, productive and constructive ways, the table is set for change to occur. This is true at the national level, the state level, and yes, even at the campus level. Peaceful demonstration and principal negotiation have preceded women securing the right to vote, reproductive rights being enshrined into the Michigan Constitution, the legal recognition of same-sex marriage across America, explicit civil rights protections for Michigan's LGBTQ plus community, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Clean Air Act of 1970, the Clean Water Act of 1972, the Affordable Care Act of 2010, and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Now, as a student here, I participated in, helped organize and lead peaceful demonstrations. In my case, it was in 2004 when our undergraduate admissions policies were challenged all the way up to the United States Supreme Court alongside our law school. We organized actions from the Ambatana Lounge in South Quad. We chartered buses to D.C. alongside the United States Student Association for our day in court, which was the first time I ever saw the Supreme Court steps. We stood tall and strong against everything from so-called affirmative action bake sales in Angel Hall to racist cartoons in the Michigan Daily. Now, my experience on this campus, and then as a community organizer, however, led me to where I am today, to serve as the first Black Lieutenant Governor in the history of the state of Michigan, fighting to open the door, fighting to open the door to access and possibility for more people across this state. My experience has taught me how to make positive change from where I sit right now, addressing our state's biggest challenges. Governor Whitmer and I announced, for example, the largest investment to build housing in the history of the state of Michigan. We've secured almost 40,000 new jobs in a re-imaginado sector and made Michigan a national leader in the clean energy race. And we have increased access to mental health services by retaining or recruiting hundreds more mental health workers to support our people in Michigan. Now, over my career, I learned something that I hope you'll discover in yourselves. You can be a leader who stays true to your principles. You can demonstrate how to make a difference. As professionals graduating from what I would like to believe is the best public policy program in the country, you have a responsibility to make a choice. To stand by as unsolved problems create inequity or to step forward and to do something about it. You took that first step forward by completing your journey through the Ford School. But this is not just a choice you make once and forget about. This is something you have to recommit to every single day. You know more than most that public policy can be hard. The pull of cynicism at times feels easier and more attractive than that of earnest sincerity. But the side of sincerity is the side that makes a difference, even when it feels impossible. So let me tell you another story. This time for my time as lieutenant governor. In the early stages of the pandemic, in part thanks to our partnership with the Ford School and the School of Information and our School of Public Health, we saw unsettling data that indicated that COVID-19 was disproportionately impacting the black community and all communities of color in the state of Michigan. And I knew this and saw it personally. 28 people in my life died of COVID. Friends, mentors, my AU basketball coach, associate minister of my church, the oldest person in my family on my father's side. And I knew that was true for so many people. We knew that we didn't have time to waste for more people to get sick and more people to pass away, just because of their identity. We had to address these racial disparities directly and intentionally. We had to bring together the best minds in Michigan to solve this problem and save lives. Michigan was the first and only state in the country to make that explicit choice. And over the course of the pandemic, the racial disparities task force that I chaired got to work immediately, distributing millions of tests and masks, held thousands of vaccination events, developed mobile health clinics to bring care directly to neighborhoods that needed it most. And this task force achieved its mission. Michigan outperformed the nation in tackling racial disparities. In 2020, Black Michiganders were dying at a rate of almost 23 people per 10,000, significantly above the national rate. In 2021, we went from 23 to 16. And in 2022, we went from that to nearly 8.6. Our choice, that decision to address racial disparities rather than turn our backs on them, saved lives and made a difference and helped make our response strong. This is one of my proudest achievements as Lieutenant Governor because it positioned people to be successful post pandemic. Now you, the Ford School Class of 2024, you are what we need and who we need right now. You are that new, different, more inclusive, more representative, more imaginative, more courageous, more connected, more grounded and more responsive group of leaders who can see and elevate those who have been previously ignored and shut out so that they realize the truth about their power, the fact that despite the barriers in their way, despite the boundaries that may surround them, they were never actually not powerful. You can remind them that they have the power and they must use it and that you can use your expertise and energy to channel this collective power in the direction of progress and potential. You are leaving this ceremony to begin the next chapter of your life and career, defined by the Michigan difference as the planet's best equipped prospective public policy professionals. Your charge is to live up to the Ford School's mission of dedication to the public good. Every tool you have, it can either break or build, it can either hinder or help, it can either empty or embrace. So at every decision point you encounter, position the most inclusive version of who gets to say yes to the biggest possible future. Now is the time to prove that policy does matter, that we can get things done, that we are able to realize our greatness and that everyone can have the brightest possible future available to them. Thank you so much for having me, congratulations. God bless you. I welcome the future we enter together. Thank you, Garland, appreciate that. Appreciate that. What you are hearing and what we heard so beautifully are the ways in which policy leaders have challenged those completely impossible circumstances and found ways to create the possible. Thank you. So now we've got a musical treat up for you next. Our music this afternoon is being provided by the talented Ann Arbor Community Jazz Band. Please join me in welcoming them back to the stage to perform a Michigan classic. Thank you so much, let's give them another hand. Thank you so much, community high band. Each year the Ford School's graduating students elect people to play key roles at commencement. One faculty member is chosen to speak to the class and our BAs and masters graduating classes choose their representative student speakers. As the faculty speaker, the class of 2024 elected professor Natasha Pilkowskis. Natasha is an associate professor of public policy here at the Ford School. Her research considers how demographic, social safety net and economic shifts in the US affect families and children with low incomes. At the Ford School, Natasha teaches courses on poverty, inequality, and anti-poverty policy. Natasha received her masters of public policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and her MA and PhD in social welfare policy from Columbia University. I'm delighted to welcome her now to speak on behalf of our faculty. Natasha. And now we're in a class of 24. Congratulations, class of 24. First, a quick shout out to the students who organized to get me selected as commencement speaker.  But in all seriousness, on behalf of the faculty and staff, I want to congratulate you all on this important day of transition. And in particular, I want to recognize and thank your friends and family for helping get you here today. I have had the distinct pleasure of teaching many of our graduate and all of our undergraduate students over the last two years. You've been subjected to my many jokes and my glittery gifts, my attempts to keep you awake in class, but beyond all the silliness, I hope that you have learned a lot while you have been here at Ford. And I want you to know that you have also taught me many things about how you view the world and your place in it, the importance of engaging in broader debates even when we might not want to, staying connected with world events and the university more broadly. And perhaps, most importantly, you taught me the meaning of quote, your outfit eight and left no crumbs. For those of you over the age of 30, this means that your outfit looks good. Okay, I just want to do a quick shout out to the undergrads. You finished high school in 2020, started college during a global pandemic. We all faced many challenges adapting to online settings and our fears of getting sick, but you also had to navigate starting college entirely online, trying to make new friends, while also finding ways to engage in the college experience. And you did it all from your dorm rooms or your rooms at home. And you did it, you succeeded. You should feel proud of your persistence and resilience. I know I am proud of you. We're proud of you and I'm sure your parents and friends are too. So most of the graduate students and the undergraduate students all arrived at Ford two years ago, right when the COVID restrictions were being lifted. We got to start taking off our masks, interacting in person again, having events. And I think that many of you likely formed closer bonds with each other and even perhaps with me, because we all got here, you were getting here just as the COVID constraints were being released. And boy did some of you let go. Me too, me too, me too.  Teaching you all allowed me to find the joy in teaching again. And so I thank you all. As I was preparing this speech, I was trying to think about what deep wisdom I might want to impart on this important day. And I was struck by three things. First, when I was sitting where you are now, both when I was graduating from undergrad and when I was graduating from my MPP, there is no way I would have predicted that I'd be standing here years later. It's very hard to predict where life will take you. Some of you figured out your next path. Many of you haven't. And I promise you, it will all work out, just maybe not in the ways that you expected. When I was finishing undergrad, I'd never even heard of public policy. And now I'm a professor at the best policy school ever. Go blue. My point is it's okay not to know what you want to be when you grow up. You have a lot of time to figure this out.  I saw a meme the other day that said, people often mistake me for an adult because of my age. And I thought, yep, I'm still figuring this stuff out and you'll figure out your stuff too. Life will likely take you in many unexpected directions and it will be a beautiful thing for all of us, your friends, your family, your teachers to witness. One of you may be a state senator, or perhaps you will be a Supreme Court Justice. Or if you're really lucky, you'll get to teach future cohorts of policy school students. Second, when I was graduating from college, there was a song making the rounds called Wear Sunscreen. Google it later, it's totally worth it. It's a graduation speech set to some music. Okay, but the song is just a series of small tidbits of advice like wear sunscreen, floss, stretch. So I was thinking about what sage advice I might want to give you that you can promptly go on to ignore, just like my teaching. I had some really obvious thoughts, like exercise, drink water, travel, wear grippy socks on hardwood floors. That's a lesson I learned while falling down the stairs, but you probably know these things already. But because I have reached that time in my life, when it is time for me to go to my year school reunions, I want to implore you to do a better job of keeping in touch with your fellow 40s than I have done with my former policy school friends. You're sitting in a room right now with what are probably some of the most interesting individuals you will ever meet.  Your friends in this auditorium will go on to do incredible things. Keep track of them and follow their progress with amazement. I recently lost a friend of mine from my MPP program. And in her celebration of life, I discovered even more awesome things she'd done that I didn't know about because I hadn't done a very good job of keeping in touch. So go connect on LinkedIn and Instagram or whatever, but also reach out to each other once in a while. Come back for those reunions. You'll be so impressed by everyone's careers. That said, watch your 40 friends move on with their lives and watch their many achievements. But remember, you never see the full story. My resume only shows my successes and there have been many failures along the way. And I know it seems hard to believe, given how awesome I am. But I too had a hard time finding a job. I'm a professor at the best policy school in the world, but first I had to get rejected from something like 50 jobs. So while all your friends will impress you with their very impressive feats, don't feel disheartened, don't compare yourself in where they are and don't let it stop you from realizing all the incredible things that you two are doing. Success will look different for each of you and will be on different scales.  Okay, my final piece of advice is inspired by talks we saw a few weeks ago at the Dean Symposium. Cecilia Munoz and Stacy Abrams both touched on two important aspects of leadership in life that I thought were pertinent to our policy school students. So I'm just gonna steal them, but with attribution please don't forget your citations. You are mostly Type A overachievers who will likely go out to be leaders in this world. Munoz and Abrams both spoke about how as leaders you will need to make decisions that are not always well liked. I was particularly struck by something that Munoz said, a note. She said this as the former director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House. She said, not to derive your sense of self or get your love from work, but get your love at home. And she said this in the context of how to make tough decisions, but I think there's an important lesson here that ties in with something that Stacy Abrams said about losing. Abrams talked about how losing provides you with a deep learning experience and doing things and not winning doesn't mean that progress isn't being made. Both were essentially saying that as leaders, you'll go out in the world and you will lose and you will make unpopular decisions, but the support that you need will come from your friends and family, many of the folks who are sitting here today with you. So this all ties back to my last point, which is keep these people. They will support you through your trials and tribulations as they will likely be going through many similar things themselves. It has been my genuine pleasure to get to teach so many of you. And as I speak on behalf of the Ford faculty and staff, I remind you to also keep in touch with us. We get to shape just a small part of your journey, but don't forget us when you've moved on to bigger and better things. Part of what makes Fordy so special is your desire to make the world a better place. And we like to hear about how you were doing just that.  Work hard, remember to have some fun, and most importantly, go blue. Thank you, Natasha. That was wonderful. Our next speaker was elected by the undergraduate class of 2024. Zainab Alhashimi was raised in Dearborn, Michigan. She earned a B.A. in public policy and graduates with honors. She is a first generation college student and a daughter of immigrants. She's been very involved in local politics and policy from a young age, including managing and winning city council and state legislature races working for the Wayne County and Michigan Attorney General's Office and serving as a city of Dearborn Library Commissioner. Most recently, Zainab interned at Guide House Consulting and she started a full-time position at Guide House this summer. We're very excited. During her time at the Ford School, Zainab has left a lasting positive mark on our community and on so many around her. I'm so pleased to welcome to the podium Zainab Alhashimi. Dean, thank you so much, truly. Sorry, I'm gonna adjust this for a second. Can you hear me all right? Wow, big crowd. Okay. As-salamu alaikum warahmatullahi wa barakatuh. May the peace, mercy and blessings of God be upon you. Faculty, friends, family, friends turned family. I wanna thank you so much for being here tonight.  I know it's not obvious, but I'm talking about my cohort. I kid, I kid. But seriously, I've been reflecting a lot on commencement and I keep asking myself what it means to be a graduate. What it means to possess a paper which says you, we, I am a graduate of the University of Michigan, the Ford School of Public Policy, no less. And I think at its core, a public policy education is supposed to equip us to be agents of change, to advocate for those who cannot, to safeguard the future and the wellbeing of others and to protect and uplift the communities in which we live, work and serve. This degree specifically is a mantle of responsibility. It extends to us a level of credibility and authority and in return asks us to meet the challenges of our generation. Since we matriculated in 2020, a mere six months after the onset of a pandemic, we've been thrust into a world where it seems that every deteriorating crack and crevice, every disparity in every single sector has been illuminated. And we find that this, in fact, is the world our education was meant to prepare us for. To train us to deal with racial injustice, to deal with the criminalization, to deal with the brutality and the violence that led to the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. A degree that is supposed to train us with how to act, how to respond, how to feel when we lose Brian Frazier, Alexandria Verner and Ariel Anderson to gun violence at Michigan State University. A degree that is supposed to prepare us for conversations about unions, about people power and income inequality, both right here on the University of Michigan's campus to nationwide strikes. And now, once again, this public policy degree calls on us. As we get back to back, televised images of some of the most gruesome violence in Gaza, as we witness the death, the destruction of over 33,000 Palestinian souls and the 1,200 Israeli lives who were taken too soon, this degree calls on us and it asks us to choose. To choose to speak up thoughtfully and intentionally. To choose to act, to choose to look and not turn away. To choose to humanize, to choose to work beyond our dissonance, work beyond our pain because there are lives at stake.  What a task we're charged with.  For better or for worse, whether earned or not, this degree grants us a level of credibility and authority, one that should not be taken for granted or taken lightly. Going into college, I'll be honest. I don't think that I understood the sheer weight of this degree. In my formative years, I saw the world through a lens of stark certainty. Everything was either right or wrong. You were either with us or against us. But life has a way of humbling and of teaching. As I've matured, I've come to understand that the world is infinitely complex. There are no easy fixes or quick solutions, no band aid to make all the hurt go away, change takes time, and requires us to meet the world where it's at, to meet people halfway, to embrace compromise, and yes, to engage in genuine dialogue. I know, crazy, right? And that was a hard understanding to come to. It took a lot of mental and emotional and intellectual work to be comfortable saying I think there are ways to move the needle forward and progress even incrementally by working across fault lines because there is no inherent honor or righteousness in simply being obstinate. And just as I thought I was coming into my own on that, you, Michael Hort, once again, showed me my capacity to go. Because although I still hold these convictions true, there's a challenge, a contradiction. There's a hard thing. Now, today, more than ever, it is evident that there are some differences and some truths that are just too important to paper over in the name of working across difference and in the name of dialogue. Because, yes, working across difference may help quell dissent. It might even achieve a level of peace, but it is also, at times, a coercive form of peace. A coercive peace that looks over the asymmetry of power and the asymmetry of pain. And that imposition of coercive peace is far more violent than sitting with tension or discomfort. True peace and harm repair demand more than superficial dialogue or surface level acts of unity. So I ask myself, and I ask you, what is a better and truer way of working across difference look like? I don't yet claim to know the answer. But some inclination in me says perhaps it's about starting smaller and more locally.  The capacity to wield the credibility and the authority of our degrees is not reserved for some far off place. The potential to make change and to be stewards of the public good does not end when we turn off MSNBC, when we flip out of the New York Times app or clock out of our nine to five. Graduates, if we are to achieve beautiful, brilliant, brave, and extraordinary things, if we wanna solve poverty, eliminate drug addiction, reform healthcare, if we wanna protect people, uplift people, empower people, if we wanna make a difference in the world, we need to start with our own. With our families, our friends, our neighbors, we need to find ways to exhibit empathy and compassion in the day to day, in the mundane, because all politics are local, all policies people and all people start at home. For myself, I know I will keep working to do what I can to make my hometown of Dearborn, Michigan, continue to be the most beautiful city in America. That's right. Dearborn, this is all a love letter to you. It is from you I learned loyalty, resilience, grit, hard work. It is from you I learned what it means to be an American, to be an Arab, to be a Muslim. It is from you I learned to love. It is from you I learned to be human. Ladies and gentlemen, class of 2024, my fellow graduates, the leaders and the best, thank you so much. Congratulations and go blue. Thank you, Zainab. The MPP class of 2024 elected Romero Garcia to speak on their behalf. Romero has earned a masters of public policy with a concentration in international policy. He completed his required summer internship with the Aspen Institute's financial security program where he conducted analysis of the American insurance market and brought together insurance industry leaders for discussions about financial inclusivity. Romero has been a leader during his time at the Ford School. He was the graduate student representative for the university's government relations advisory committee and served as co-chair of the Graduate Student Governance Committee. Before entering the Ford School, he was director of constituent relations with the Michigan House of Representatives. Romero holds a bachelor of science in psychology from Central Michigan University. Romero, it's an honor to welcome you to the podium. I'm still processing Zainab's speech. That was really amazing, wasn't it? That was really powerful. Wow. Buenos tardes, bienvenidos. Y gracias a todos por estar aquí. Good afternoon, respected faculty, proud family, loved ones, esteemed alumni, my fellow graduates in policy. Today marks both an endpoint, but also a beginning, a moment to celebrate our achievements and anticipate our future challenges with rightful optimism. I stand here before you deeply honored to speak on behalf of the 2024 MPP graduates of the Ford School. To earn my master's degree, it's a first in my family. A milestone that just a few generations ago was unimaginable. This speech, my degree in the pursuit of the better good is dedicated to my grandfather. He was a brave man who journeyed to this country in pursuit of a better life. A story much familiar to many of us and a testament to the power of resilience. He came to this great nation, seeking escape from the depths of poverty and the harsh conditions of a Mexico, steel healing from civil war and colonial impacts. He endured gunfights and the relentless sun beaming down on his back as he picked onions and melons from your sense of bag. He found himself inside of a broken system, a policy failures that led to immense hardship. He believed with just a little bit more hard work and a great risk he could lift our family out of the cycle of only making enough to follow the next crop. Two months after I started at the Ford School, my grandfather passed away. My sister, she called me with news just before we were about to take our first microeconomics exam. I remember walking into that classroom. My mind so clouded with grief that the exam was suddenly more than just a grade. It was a small test of my ability to persevere through life's unexpected and often painful challenges. I have no idea what that grade was, but you guys know sometimes persistence can mean a B minus. Throughout my time at the Ford School, like so many in our cohort, I've encountered numerous challenges. And to be honest with you all, to share something that I've kept a secret for most of my cohort, during that first semester, I failed 510. And Professor Shobita Parasarathi can attest to that. But each setback, it taught me valuable lessons about persistence and working through adversity. What sustained me through these times was not just academic resources, but the profound sense of community within our cohort. This community, it wasn't just a group of peers. It was a family that uplifted each other through a lot of challenges. Many of us have come from distant places, taking on the risk of grad school and moving to a small Midwestern town, not knowing anyone. We tried to look out for each other in a very, very Ford School way. And that's with food. No, but seriously, think of all the times that we have spent eating together. The Shabbats with endless flowing wine, breaking fast with fresh dates at Iftar, lasenas latinas con toda la gente, global forties, potlucks, with endless food from around the world, Jerusalem Garden from Career Services. You see, like the Dean said, it's an old, old tradition to break bread with others, to get to know them. And that's what we've tried to do, countless times over the past two years. You see, because food, like policy, is something that we try to embody at Ford. It's a sense of belonging, knowing that there are people who care deeply, not just about the issues we study, but about each other. It has been fundamental to our growth within the policy space itself. In this community, we are reminded daily that we are not alone. Our shared belief that we can make a difference has been a grounding force, transforming each challenge from a personal struggle and risk into a collective journey. See, I began my journey here with uncertainties about my place at such a prestigious institution, yet what I have found was not exclusion, but an inclusive community that embraces diversity, not in identity, but in thought, perspective, and experience, true values of effective policy makers. And yet, as we step into this world, we carry forward this sense of collective responsibility and commitment to support each other, a trait that is ever more necessary now in a world waiting for us just outside this auditorium, a world that sees many daunting challenges, inequality, inaccessibility, market failures, exploitation, corruptions, systems of oppression, threats to democracy itself. All with different interpretations, yet somehow the most humbling thing about being a policy graduate is we know not to see these things in black and white, but to ask the hard questions and continuously challenge our own thoughts that lead us to understand its complexities. They force us to confront uncomfortable truths, and yet this is something we do not shy away from, but rather we embrace it. When we came to the Ford School, we thought we would get the answers to many of the hard questions. Instead, well, we may have gotten some of the answers. We were given the tools to better ask new and sometimes even harder questions, pushing the boundaries to what generations previously thought unimaginable. Aside from challenging our own thoughts and confronting uncomfortable truth, one of the biggest responsibilities we hold as policy students and alumni is calling out the systems of violence and harm that we are witnessing globally, including the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Our unique positions as policy graduates allow us not only to identify these systemic issues, but to change the policies that perpetuate global impacts. We have the knowledge and determination to reshape these systems. And as we move forward, let us take the lessons of resilience, of risk, of community, of thoughtful analysis and the responsibility that we have learned here and let's apply them wherever we go, because after today we are forever students of policy. Let's continue to support each other to challenge the status quo and to make our mark on the world. You see, the path ahead is by no means easy, but together as 40s, we are undoubtedly ready for the challenges ahead. Gracias and thank you. Thank you so much, Vermeerro. We are now at the moment that families and friends have been looking forward to all afternoon. Our graduates are ready to come to the stage to receive official congratulations on a job well done. Please try to hold your applause to the end and families, please do remain seated to keep the aisles open for our graduates and staff. You'll be able to order a professional photo of your graduate after the ceremony. This year, the names will be read by Professor Stephanie Leiser. Stephanie's expertise is in public finance, budgeting and financial management. And she has a particular interest in tax policy, business taxation and incentives and local government fiscal health. Stephanie teaches courses in public budgeting and financial management, nonprofit financial management and microeconomics. She earned her PhD from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington. And back in 2005, she herself earned a Ford School MPP. I am now pleased to introduce Stephanie to call the names of our graduating students. First, I invite our doctoral student to stand and move toward the stage. And I invite my colleagues, Alan Deardorf and Catherine Dominguez to assist with the first, putting the first graduate. Diane Vaught is earning the Doctor of Philosophy, Public Policy and Economics. Her dissertation title is Essays in International Economics. Her dissertation committee includes chairs, Matthew Shapiro and Kyle Hanley and additional members, Sebastian Sotelo, Andre Lechenco and Alan Deardorf. She will be taking a job as an economist in the Office of Economic Policy in the Treasury Department. I'll now introduce our Masters of Public Affairs and Master of Public Policy graduates and invite my colleague, John Hansen, to come up across the stage from me to present our graduates with their class photo.  I'll now introduce our BA graduates, and I invite my colleague Paula Lance to come up across the stage for me to present the graduates with their class photo.  Thank you, Stephanie, and thank you all for coming today. We'll close with a song in a minute. Please stay in your seats until all of the graduates have processed out of the auditorium, and then I hope you'll join us outside on the plaza to continue the celebration of our graduates over dessert. And now, graduates, please stand and turn to face the crowd. We all have achieved something wonderful, but as we can see, you didn't get to this moment by yourself. Will everyone rise if you are able?  Graduates, please show your people some love. BA students, at this time, please move your tassel on your mortarboard from the right to the left. And now, I am so very proud to present to you the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy Class of 2024.


So we're gonna go with that, okay? I have read so many books. I kind of forgot the beginning of the month already.  No! Welcome to my June wrap up. I have way too many books to hold them all up. I'm about to lose them all. So I think it's 22 and a DNF at my last count. So we're gonna go with that, okay? Welcome. No! Yeah, I read a lot of books in June. I read pretty much everything on my TBR. I still haven't finished Jade War. But I'm gonna read Jade War very, very, very soon. Hopefully with Jess Owens if she's still down. Because she is in the midst of a reread, I believe, of Jade War and has not yet braved Jade Legacy. So we're gonna do Jade War and Jade Legacy together. Emotional support. But I did read a bunch of other books. So let's go through them. The first book I read was Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie. I have read so many books that I kind of forgot the beginning of the month already. I have seen all of the adaptations of it. I think I have seen literally all of the adaptations. Almost there's like maybe some foreign language ones that I haven't seen. So I was very, very familiar with the story before reading it. But I wanted to read it anyway. I was familiar with and then there were none before about it and I still really, really loved it. I also really wanted to give Poirot a second chance because I read Murder on the Orient Express and I really didn't care for it. But I love all the adaptations. Well, I love all the David Sushi adaptations of Poirot. So like I like Poirot when it's adapted. The only Poirot that I had read until now was Orient Express and I was not a fan. So I was hoping that it wasn't just that I don't like Poirot but that maybe just that one doesn't work for me. And I did like this better. I still don't know if I like Poirot books. We'll see. I'll try a few more. Cause like I have been liking Agatha Christie like other Agatha Christie books. Poirot was just like not doing it for me. But that's on the Nile. I did, I did enjoy it. I did like it definitely better than Orient Express. But not as much as I have like some other Agatha Christie. It's definitely miles away better than the new adaptation by Kenneth Branagh. Yikes on bikes to that movie. I do really like the David Sushi adaptation as usual. He's just, he is Poirot. And I did listen to this on audio, the audio book narrated by David Sushi. Not the audio book narrated by Kenneth Branagh because of course he also did an audio book. Kenneth Branagh needs to stop trying to be David Sushi. It's like it's not going to happen. We've got our Poirot. We don't need to go away. I do recommend the audio book and this was, this was good. I don't know how it would have felt about it. If I didn't already know the who of the who done it. But that being said, it was still interesting to see knowing what already, how it ends and then who did the doing of the done it, when and how clues for that were being placed or if they were not placed or how the reader was being tricked. So I enjoyed it. Not my favorite Christie. This cover is my favorite Christie cover, I think. Although the Book of the Month edition of and then there were not is also really, really cool. Book of the Month is doing a good job with covers for Agatha Christie. I'll give them that. So anyway, yeah, it was, it was good. I, I'm glad I read it. Next was a reread and that was The Heroes by Joe Evercrombie because as you well know by this point, Bethany and I are hosting a read along on the podcast. The episode for this went up earlier in June. So I'll leave a link for that down below. If you want to check it out, we were joined by Hilary from Book Born to Chat about the Heroes. And she in a surprising turn of events, this is if not her favorite, now one of her favorite First Law books. So it was really fun hearing her perspective on it. So yeah, like I said, if you want to hear us chat about it, leave that link down below. But as you know, I love First Law. So one more needs to be said. Next up is a book that I've also chatted with Hilary about quite recently and that is Darling Girl by Liz Michaelske. She and I ranted about this, vented about this maybe. Either, either is accurate. I sort of commenced her to read it with the understanding that neither was expected this to be great because Peter Pan retellings of a bad habit of being terrible. We were like hoping for the best but expecting the worst. And even though we were expecting the worst, it way overshot our expectations. I could not have imagined a book being this bad. So she and I talked about it for like an hour and a half. It's completely spoilery, but also we don't think you should read it. So go ahead and check out our chat if you missed it. Next up, I didn't read them all back to back like this, but I put them all in my TBR stack or my wrap-up stack all together because I didn't put them in my wrap-up stack until I had finished the last one and then I just put them all in the wrap-up stack because I wasn't going to talk about them in my wrap-up unless I had finished them all. These are all the books that I read for my books that inspired music vlog. So I don't really want to talk about them too much in this wrap-up because I talked about them at length in that vlog. But I'll just go through them really quickly. Hang on, but before I do that, I was going to do this first because I was like, before I forget, and then I forgot. I did read some books that I don't have physical copies of, so I wanted to get through those since they're not in my stack. Books that I did not have physical copies of include The Psychopath Test, which someone on a live stream I was watching, like a legal live stream recommended it. It was a lot more narrative than I was expecting, but from how they talked about it, I thought it would be more, I don't know, I mean it is nonfiction, but I thought it would be more technical. It's more narrative. It was interesting and it was kind of about how psychopathy, is that the word, came about like how the word for that came about and how it is applied and like we think of these things as relatively cut and dry, like if you have this diagnosis as well then they know, but like it's actually kind of nebulous and the way that the history of its treatment and its labeling and that kind of thing is a little concerning. But it was, it was an interesting read so I would recommend it. It's not very long. And then I also read The Forever War which was a reread by Joe Haldeman. I reread that because my friend Michael asked me to participate in a project that I don't think is up yet related to sci-fi books and I hadn't read The Forever War in a while so I wanted to refresh myself so that's why I read it again. It's not a favorite, it wasn't a favorite when I read it the first time and it didn't really change I think it got worse in this reread. But it is an interesting book that is a classic for a reason but it's kind of hard to read it. It's like sociopulturalness is pretty dated and kind of offensive but the science ideas in it are pretty interesting. Okay, yeah, those are the only books that I don't have physical copies of that I read in June. Okay, off we go. So back to the books that inspired music. There were six. They were in Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brodigan. I mean The Devil by Nick Toshies. 1984 by George Orwell. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. East of Eden by John Steinbeck and Billy Lyre by Keith Waterhouse. Like I said, I talked about them at length in that vlog. If you want to see that, I'll leave that linked down below. But I really enjoyed doing this project and I definitely got to read some books that I normally wouldn't read. So overall, this was pretty successful. I liked the majority of what I read. Next up is The Wall of Storms by Ken Leue. My patrons and I are doing a read-along of The Dandelion Dynasty. So we read The Wall of Storms in June. And we haven't chatted about it yet, like our official, you know, live chat to discuss it. But I think nearly everybody, like my patrons, but also outside of my patrons, like in the general reading sphere on booktube, et cetera, I think the consensus is that The Wall of Storms is better than Grace of Kings and because I'm me, I liked Grace of Kings better than The Wall of Storms. I liked The Wall of Storms, don't get me wrong. I definitely liked The Wall of Storms and I'm liking The Dandelion Dynasty. But I did like Grace of Kings, a smidge better, because of course I did. These books are kind of hard to talk about in any kind of brevity because they're really dense and meaty and expansive and there's a lot to them. This being a sequel makes it doubly difficult to talk about. The things that made me like it a little bit less were that there's a lot more tech talk in this than in the first one. Ken Liu likes to have a lot of that in when he describes inventions that are in his world, devices, things like that. He goes into a large amount of detail into how they work and I appreciate it insofar as he's put a lot of thought into this actually functioning and I believe my understanding from my friend Kyle is that he actually does, for the most part, if not always, create prototypes of the stuff that is in his books to confirm that it would function which is like, that's really cool and if you're going to have a lot of lengthy explanations of how stuff in your world works better that than just stuff you're pulling out of your ass that is just magic and there's no way to confirm that that works and you're just making stuff up then I'm really irritated. So here, I have an appreciation for it but it was still a lot. There was a lot of times where that was going on and it would just go on for so long that it would ruin the flow of the story. So I respected a great deal but I can't claim to enjoy those parts of the book that much and then also without spoilers I felt like the conflict, the setup of the conflict and who's involved in it was a little bit more interesting and nuanced and complicated and gray in Grays of Kings here it was a much more traditional conflict villain setup and still very, very well done but there was just a delicious messiness to it in Grays of Kings that I just personally found much more fascinating than Wall of Storms. Wall of Storms, like I said, well done, very well done it has layers and complexity don't get me wrong but just as compared to the conflict in Grays of Kings is a little more on the traditional cliche side and I don't want to say cliche because it really isn't it's well done it's just more of a traditional kind of conflict narrative than what you get in Grays of Kings so those are my reasons I still think it's really good but I like Grays a little better next is The Golden Fool by Robin Hobb I did a poster review of this kind of in combination with Fool's Arendt which I did read two months ago because Fool's Arendt I did not like that much and I didn't really want to post a review for it for that reason and this was so much better and I really feel like Fool's Arendt is a prologue to this which is mainly why I did the video together with the both of them Golden Fool, we're back this is so good five stars yes I still think I like Farseer trilogy better than Tawny Man Trilogy but I have not finished the Tawny Man Trilogy so my opinion might be swayed by the final installment but Golden Fool is really good is really emotional is Hobb at her best absolutely wrecks you and yeah I'm really looking forward to reading Fool's Fate next up is a book that I DNF'd I think it might be my it might be my first DNF of the year maybe my second I can't remember what the second oh yes it is definitely at least my second Night Breaks by General Angelus and like it's not because this is like I have read much worse books this year that I have read in their entirety but those books like the reason that I finished them for the most part would be because it was in some way like an obligation book I had agreed to read it with somebody or something like that there was no reason to read this other than to want to it was not on my TBR it was not a buddy read it was not anything the main reason I picked it up now was this is a sequel to where dreams descend I didn't really like where dreams descend that much like I probably wouldn't have even considered going on to read the second one not because it was the worst thing ever just because I thought it was like extremely forgettable and very mediocre and just like not my kind of thing these are like YA romance centric fantasy books the first one is influenced or inspired by Mulan Rouge and Phantom of the Opera I like Phantom of the Opera I don't really like Mulan Rouge and I don't really feel like those influences were anyway yeah I didn't really plan to read on but then I was informed that the sequel where the first one took inspiration from those other two musicals this one it was my understanding takes its inspiration from Hades Town which I am obsessed with and I have seen Hades Town on stage now three times and I might very possibly see it a fourth time so like I knew I had tickets to see Hades Town when I found that out and I was like well after I go see Hades Town so after seeing Hades Town three times I started reading this and immediately it irritated me to the high heavens like from the beginning I was like I am already so annoyed with the writing style with the types of characters that these are with the type of thing that this is going to be and I was just like I don't want this I don't want to read this I'm not going to have fun with this there's no reason to read this I'm not going to do a review for it I'm not buddy reading it with anybody nah I'm nah there's no reason so I just it's still in its wrapping as you may have noticed because I was listening to I got the audiobook from the library so this is all still in its perfect condition and I can pass it on to somebody who will like it more next up is the sort of truth book that we read for the month and that was Faith of the Fallen by Terry Goodkind the live show for this was on my channel this was formerly my favorite sort of truth book I mean I never had lists and favorites and official anything like that when I read these books originally but back when I read them I was being asked and now in my right collection being asked I was like I remember that being probably my favorite this time around it was not my favorite but it was really interesting to me to read it now and to understand what it is about it that really hit so hard for me because it was definitely a situation of being the right book for the right reader at the right time like when I read this the first time it was the exact book that I needed for where I was like mentally and now I am not there anymore so now reading it I was like it's quite flawed I still had a good time reading it I still think it's a pretty good book but yeah it was giving me something that I desperately needed at the time and I don't need that anymore so now I can just sort of assess it on its own actual merits and I was like okay it's pretty good but like it's not the life-changing experience that it was for me back when I read it the first time so now if you want to hear me and Bethany chat about it the live show was on my channel but I'll leave a link down below anyway so check it out the next step is a backless book of the month book because I like to get through those when I can to clear those out that is Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sopeties I had been meaning to read Ruta Sopeties for a long long time and I do own a couple of other books from her nothing but incredible things about Ruta Sopeties books and I mean I own two others so I'll probably read them in particular between Shades of Grey because of my own ethnicity and family background briefly if you don't know between Shades of Grey is about a Lithuanian girl who was sent to Siberia during Soviet occupation and I'm Latvian and I have many great many members of my family my ancestors also went through that so that's something that I feel closely tied to so I would like to read that book for that reason because it's not something that there's a lot of books about Fountains of Silence is about the Franco era of Spain Franco dictatorship in Spain and this is a thing in history that I did not know about so I like you know in historical fiction authors find out a thing that is lesser known and they're like people don't know about this why don't people know about this and write a book about it so I appreciate that this gave me new information and new knowledge that yeah I feel like it is kind of surprising people don't know about it or that it isn't talked about more but I don't think this was that good a book like I don't think it was very well written the characters felt very two dimensional I did not care about any of the characters like literally at all and I also couldn't really tell them apart for a lot of the time like by the middle of the book I had enough like facts about them and I was like okay when a name would pop up you're the one that does this saw this went to here it has this job but it still wasn't like a person to me with a personality it was just like oh under the title of your name falls these facts under the title of your name falls these facts I know which one you are but they didn't have like distinct voices distinct personalities distinct anything so the thing that I most enjoyed about this book was learning about this thing of history because I don't think it was very atmospheric either I didn't really feel transported to a different era of Spain or Spain at all it felt very flat and lackluster and kind of going through the motions to me if you love this you know I'm happy for you so I appreciate the project and I do appreciate learning something from it like I like that I've learned something but I don't think it was that good a book so I'm a little nervous about reading particularly between shades of grey I will feel like personally let down by it if I don't think it's a good book just because of my personal connection to that history so I'll be like you did a sturdy by not doing this better if in fact I don't like it that much I'm hoping that I really really like it but anyway it wasn't bad but it was very meh in my opinion next up is a book that is quite popular and I've been looking forward to it for years and that is Dark Matter by Blake Grouch and this book the only points I can give it and this is not nothing are that it is very readable it is compulsively compellingly bingeable but it's really stupid it's really really stupid so reading this book is like not dissimilar from watching like you know bad TV shows we were like this isn't good this doesn't make sense but you know it's kind of addicting to watch this so Dark Matter is the I gave it a one sentence review on Goodreads not dissimilar from the one sentence review that I gave to a ladies guide to Mischief and Mayhem which was it's a wonderful life meets primer but make it stupid because I don't want to spoil anything because this is a popular book and if you want to read it then you know be my guest I don't want to spoil it for you but the like science because it's like a science thriller or a sci-fi thriller or something I guess that's how you call it because it like takes a sci-fi concept and then basically the book itself is a thriller instead of being you know a murder mystery or something like that it's to do with like a sci-fi thing and the sci-fi thing is so poorly executed it is it is laughably bad the execution like I am not a scientist I am merely a person who has consumed some sci-fi and occasionally watched a PBS documentary about this that or other science concept like I am not an expert but I know that this is not how this works and would never work it was it was really really really stupid so yeah if you're going to be irritated by that kind of thing then don't read this but if you can find entertainment from things that don't make a lick of sense then maybe read it because it's a quick one and you'll get through it fast because it is a thriller so you'll most likely find yourself wanting to turn the page wanting to know what's next and what the mystery is etc but it's not a phone bell next up is the book my patrons chose for me to read and vlog for them and that was Hyperion by Dan Simmons and I really really enjoyed this and I already started and have almost finished the fall of Hyperion I was I thought I might finish it before the end of June but you'll soon see why that didn't happen because I got a little sidetracked by something else anyway I did really really enjoy this I could see why it's so widely talked about and yeah I mean I talked about it at length and level I did for my patrons it's um yeah I am impressed by this I am there are specific things about it that date it for me like you can tell that it is a little bit older and not just because of like writing style but like certain things in it I have a little bit of trepidation about where I think that might be going and what that might mean but I have an open mind and the journey is still excellent so if it does go more in a direction that I would not think that favorably of I will still I think will think that this is um a quite staggering project even if like the end point is one that I'm like I would have preferred not that but anyway I was very very very impressed with this and as I said I am already almost done with fall off Hyperion and I will in all likelihood continue on to read the next I think there's four books um so yeah I'm very glad they picked this for me next up is a book that it pains me to say I really really really hate it that was Daughter of Red Winter by Ed McDonald I better read this with Alan and he and I are going to chat about it soon date to TBD as of the filming of this video maybe we've already chatted by the time this goes up I don't know I received an ARC an EARC as well as a physical ARC this was one of my most anticipated releases for the year and Ed McDonald is the author of the Ravens Mark trilogy which is um on my list of top 10 fantasy of all time so like I am a fan I am a fan of Ed McDonald he did write Daughter of Red Winter my understanding is before he published and before he wrote and then published Ravens Mark um and so he went back to this old manuscript polished it edited it down it's also my understanding this was like three times longer and that he had to like chop it down a lot fix it up a bit and it's now being this series is now being this is the only thing that makes this make sense for me because this feels like it was written like it's a very amateurish writing style like there's things about it that I'm like you can see kind of like the Ed McDonald that I know and love and things that like clearly where his interests lie the types of things that he likes to do and his stories like you can see it in there but I can't be like there's utterly nothing of Ed McDonald in here there obviously is but it's like the really really crappy like store brand version yeah like the story concept itself is a pretty good one and I could see if I someone told me of this this pitch for an idea and who would I like to see write it I'd be like Ed McDonald would be great to write that but I feel like yeah I feel like if he started from scratch nowadays with this story concept he could write something great but I think this just has too many leftovers from when he was a less competent less experienced writer it's I mean I'll talk about it more with Alan when we have our chat because I have a lot of thoughts but I give this one star and I would have liked it if I wasn't for the fact that this is an arc that I agreed to review that I would agree to talk about it with Alan and that this was by Ed McDonald and I kept holding out hope that something would change my mind and I it didn't this was awful next up was I think the only other Sally Rooney book that I had left to read she might have one other the only Sally Rooney book that I owned anyway that I still had to read and that was conversations with friends this was the earliest book at least again an earlier book of hers than normal people or obviously the newest beautiful world where are you and this does feel it's not as bad as the Ed McDonald situation by reading this I was like okay this is not as good as normal people or beautiful world where are you but this is still the quintessentially the same kind of thing that you get and you expect from Sally Rooney so I did really really enjoy this it just felt like a less good version of what I had seen her do in normal people and beautiful world where are you because I think those two are better books but I definitely enjoyed this and I don't regret she's clearly grown as a writer which is always nice to see and now we come to the reason why I did not finish Fall of Hyperion and that's because I got swallowed up into the Simon snow hole now I don't like that phrasing I absolutely do not no I can't say that okay let's try that again I got sucked into the Simon snowverse that's better I didn't want to read Carry On pretty much since it came out but I either knew this like when it came out or learned it shortly that this was a spin-off of fangirl and for years I was like well I can't read this until I read fangirl even though everyone in their mother was like you can read it you don't have to read fangirl I was like I must read fangirl but I don't want to read fangirl so earlier this year my wanting to read Carry On won out over my not wanting to read fangirl and I did read fangirl and I actually really really liked fangirl way more not just like more than I expected to which I did like more than I expected to do since I expected not to like it but I like I loved fangirl reading Carry On and um was immediately obsessed with Carry On and within two days I read Carry On Wayward Sun and Anyway the Wind Blows and um that's it no more I've run out of Simon's notebooks because I would have kept going if there was more I would have just kept going I would not be filming this right now I'd be in the middle of reading whatever came after that I am a fan and also I'm kind of sad this has nothing to do with anything well it kind of you can see this is a hard cover of Carry On with this dust jacket but originally this was not the cover for Carry On um it was this like I'll put a picture of it and that's the that's this edition that I have um and then as a when they started releasing these covers instead they did a promotion where like they were sending out just a dust jacket to cover your old carry on hard cover so a friend of mine because I missed that promotion a friend of mine she got she got one of those and she didn't really care about it so she was like so I put the new dust jacket on the old carry on book but now they've released them in hard cover with these covers and a different um hard cover book inside different end papers different color like this is the old carry on book like this is like the old this goes with the old cover and the old font of carry on yeah so I wish I had kept the dust jacket I did for a while but then Kaz sat on it so it got kind of squished and I was like oh am I keeping this for um so I got rid of it and now they're they're doing these in hard cover which I've ordered because it is a different book underneath as well and it's not um you can see this is kind of flat like it's not embossed like the the word like the title is for the others like it's not shiny you know you know so anyway I've ordered it but like I could have just had the old edition of carry on complete now this is like a weird Frankenstein carry on in addition to these editions I do have the Barnes and Noble editions and I will shortly have the Indigo editions because I'm obsessed and I'm gonna film a review I think for the whole series so that's to come but basically I really really love these books and we'll probably just re-read them because there aren't anymore and I'm currently looking at options for merch because I don't have any and I need some yeah those are all the books that I read in June let me know in the comments down below your thoughts and feelings about my thoughts and feelings I know I post videos on Saturdays other random times I upload them on Saturdays so like and subscribe join my Patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you bye