By Mark | December 20, 2008
The journalists at the Ann Arbor Chronicle, in a pathetic attempt to unseat me as the most powerful man in Washtenaw County, have set out on a shameless campaign of lies and innuendo. On their website today, they’re running the following photo of me.
Do you see it?
Do you see what they’ve done?
And, no, it’s not that they said I had claws. I don’t care about that. I know I have bony, little hands that look like rat feet. It doesn’t bother me.
It’s that they’ve altered the photo so as to give you the false impression that the young woman sitting next to me isn’t totally engrossed in what I’m telling her… It’s simply not true… I was there. I should know. She didn’t take her eyes off me for the whole five minutes that I was telling her my story about the inexplicably lukewarm doorknob at my grandmother’s apartment. (No matter how hot or cold it is, this doorknob remains a consistent temperature. It’s really the damndest thing.)
Anyway, before I retain an attorney so that I can go after a few of those big sacks of Chronicle advertising money that Dave and Mary have squirreled away, I wanted to get the word out to people who may have attended this event that I am looking for other photos showing the conversation between myself and this young woman, and the half dozen other women who you can’t see from this angle, who were looking dreamily at me as though I were Shaun Cassidy, or whoever it is that the young girls are going crazy for these days.
By Mark | December 20, 2008
In a comment left yesterday in a thread about a new, local initiative to organize communities of faith around the subject of public transportation, a reader calling himself j7uy5 made mention of an organization of planners and policy types known as America 2050. Well, I’ve just spent the last few minutes, checking out their site, and what I’ve seen thus far is interesting… Right now, I’m downloading audio of an event recently held by the group in Chicago entitled Rebuilding and Renewing America: Infrastructure Choices in the Great Lakes Megaregion. It’s somewhat Chicago-centric, but what I’ve heard thus far is interesting.
Our “megaregion” as they see it, is about one of eleven that is taking shape as the U.S. population grows. (According to their projections, the nation will add about 130 million people by 2050.) For what it’s worth, I like “Great Lakes Megaregion” as a name, but it’s not quite as catchy as “New Africa.” Whatever you cal it, though, we’ve got all the water. If you think it’s bad now that the oil is running out, just wait until it’s water. All the sons of bitches making fun of Detroit now will be just begging for a visa to get into New Africa.
[If spending your Saturday night listening to policy wonks talk about water policy and energy isn’t your thing, here’s a Hee Haw highlight reel.”]
By Mark | December 20, 2008
[If it’s too small to read, you can see a bigger version here.]
By Mark | December 19, 2008
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned here on the site that some folks were setting out to build a grassroots coalition of regional public transportation users. Well, since then, the group has met once in Ypsi, and, while I wasn’t able to attend the meeting, I know someone who was. A Township resident by the name of Tad Wysor was there, and he just sent me the following report to share with you:
The Dec 2 Community Tranisit Forum, held at Ekklesia Fellowship Ministries in downtown Ypsi, was an important step in the formation of a new community organizing project in the Ypsi/Belleville/Ann Arbor area. A very diverse group of pastors and lay leaders from several area congregations have been working in recent months with SE Michigan’s MOSES organization – an affiliate of the national Gamaliel Foundation – to create a powerful vehicle for local people of faith and others to organize around issues that reflect our common values and to win policy changes that will affect thousands of residents.
This new grassroots effort has involved research, trainings, and one-on-one relationship-building, and these conversations have pointed to, among other things, the sorry state of transit in our area as a concern many feel passionate about. The Transit Forum was our first major public event on this issue, which was a chance to move toward a focused campaign on transit. In good community organizing fashion, the event also provided an opportunity for our clergy and lay leaders to practice hosting an educational, effective, and enjoyable community event. Eighty people from congregations, unions, and others found time during a busy season to show our concerns to local transit leaders and to learn more about the issue. Guests were Terri Blackmore, Director of the Washtenaw Area Transit Study and Jim Fetzer, Director of Service Development for the SMART transit system in Wayne County. Dawn Gabay, Interim Director of AATA, was scheduled to attend but was unable to at the last minute.
The key clergy and lay leaders did a great job of sending the message that – when we’re together, we can do big things. And they helped setup the issue for those attending. They walked through several questions for the transit experts, and they sent us out to do more research and prepare for a January 8 strategy meeting (at 6:30 at First Congregational United Church of Christ on N. Adams @ Emmett in Ypsi). Key questions are whether we can be a catalyst for pulling together other potential institutional supporters and grassroots organizations to launch permanent county-wide solution to AATA’s unstable financing of transit outside of Ann Arbor proper (including a vote on a small millage, possibly in August) as well as a bus connection to Belleville/Wayne County and commuter rail.
And here are the primary issues that were discussed during the meeting.
WAYNE TRANSIT ISSUES UNDER CONSIDERATION
Washtenaw County Bus Service
By Mark | December 19, 2008
I haven’t been watching it so closely these past few days, but my sense is that Bush is backtracking on his offer to help the Big Three. Earlier this week I believe he was suggesting that a bailout was imminent, but now it seems as though he’s more in the “let them fail” camp. According to the most recent reports, all he’s saying now is that he wants to avoid a “disorderly” collapse. Instead of helping them stay afloat, it sounds as if he’s saying that he’ll try to make their deaths as painless as possible… For what it’s worth, I think at this point it’s pretty clear that this is all about destroying the unions.
