Mark Maynard | 2014 | April

As it’s become impossible to pass laws in Congress due to Republican obstructionism, the fight for the minimum wage has moved aggressively to the states… Here’s what’s happening

By Mark | April 7, 2014

Last night, Zingerman’s co-founder Paul Saginaw and I met up for a late dinner at Dalat to discuss the various campaigns being waged across the country right now to raise the minimum wage, and how it came to pass that he’s become a spokesman for the movement. My hope is to share my notes later in the week, once I’ve had a chance to transcribe everything. In the meantime, though, I wanted to share a little background on the minimum wage, in hopes that it might better inform our conversations between now and November, when it’s likely to be on the Michigan ballot.

HERE ARE THE PRESENT FACTS AS I UNDERSTAND THEM:

• $7.25: The present hourly minimum wage as set by federal law.

• $10.74: How much the federal minimum wage would be if it had kept up with inflation over the past 40 years. [note: This does not take into account the significant gains in productivity made by American workers over the last several decades.]

• $15,080: The annual income for a full-time employee working the entire year at the federal minimum wage.

• $7.40: The Michigan minimum wage.

• 50%: Percentage of workers making minimum wage, or less, who are over 25 years of age. [note: There are instances where workers can be paid below the minimum wage. The federal minimum for tipped labor, for instance, is $2.13 per hour, as long as the hourly wage and tip income, when taken together, equal at least minimum wage. Also, employers are allowed to pay workers below the age of 20 $4.25 an hour for their first 90 days of employment.]

• 34%: Minimum wage workers with an associates degree or some college experience.

• 3.3 million: The number of people working for wages at, or below minimum wage in the United States. [note: In 2013, 1.5 million were reported as earning exactly minimum wage. During that same time, approximately 1.8 million were reported as earning wages below the minimum wage. Together, this 3.3 million represents 1.0% of the population, 1.6% of the labor force, 2.5% of all workers, and 4.3% of hourly workers respectively.]

CURRENT INITIATIVES UNDERWAY TO RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE:

While organized labor has been working on the issue for some time – most recently helping fast food workers in several U.S. cities to launch campaigns – the issue of raising the minimum wage really began to gain national traction in January of last year, when Barack Obama noted in his annual State of the Union address his desire to see the federal rate raised from $7.25 to $10.10. “To every mayor, governor, and state legislator in America, I say, you don’t have to wait for Congress to act; Americans will support you if you take this on,” said the President. “And as a chief executive, I intend to lead by example. Profitable corporations like Costco see higher wages as the smart way to boost productivity and reduce turnover. We should too. In the coming weeks, I will issue an Executive Order requiring federal contractors to pay their federally-funded employees a fair wage of at least $10.10 an hour – because if you cook our troops’ meals or wash their dishes, you shouldn’t have to live in poverty.” [The White House press release on the President’s statement can be found here.]

As Obama mentioned elsewhere in the speech, there is presently a bill in the Senate that would, if enacted, raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 for all workers, and not just the employees of federal contractors. Most folks who watch Congress seem to agree that, given the current state of affairs in Washington, it doesn’t have a chance of passing, but the legislation – Tom Harkin’s Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013 – is scheduled to come up for a vote this week. As the President noted, though, no one is holding their breath, waiting for Congress to do the right thing. No, the battle is shifting to the states, where the odds of making a positive change are significantly better. The following summary of the current situation comes by way of the New York Times.

…But the (federal) stalemate matters less and less. In the last 14 months, since Mr. Obama first called for the wage increase in his 2013 State of the Union address, seven states and the District of Columbia have raised their own minimum wages, and 34 states have begun legislative debates on the matter. Activists in an additional eight states are pursuing ballot referendums this year to demand an increase in wages for their lowest-paid workers.

The result is an outside-the-Beltway variation on Mr. Obama’s pledge to use his executive powers to bypass an obstructionist Republican Party in Congress. In this case, White House aides said they believed that Mr. Obama’s feverish rhetorical push for a higher minimum federal wage, to $10.10 per hour from $7.25, has helped generate political pressure on states to act…

The state minimum-wage actions, which have created a patchwork of minimum wages across the country, are not the uniform step that Mr. Obama and his allies would prefer. Some states have minimum wages on the books that are below the current federal level of $7.25 an hour, meaning that the federal level automatically applies to them. Other states already require wages to start at $8, $8.25 or higher. The District of Columbia, which already has an $8.25 per hour minimum wage, could have the highest in the nation on July 1, 2016, when it rises to $11.25.

But Mr. Obama’s advisers have embraced the legislative flurry across the country as a second-best alternative that can work politically and substantively. Local increases in the minimum wage will help workers and pump money into those economies, they say…

THE MICHIGAN INITIATIVES:

Here in Michigan, there are two such efforts underway. In the Michigan House of Representatives, Adam Zemke and Jeff Irwin have co-sponsored Michigan House Bill 4386, which would increase the state minimum wage from $7.40 to $9 this year. And, at the same time, a coalition of various civil rights, faith, labor and community organizations is trying to get the issue on the November ballot, so that the voters of Michigan can weigh in. The group, called Raise Michigan, needs to collect 258,088 valid signatures from registered voters by May 28. If passed, the Raise Michigan legislation would 1) raise the minimum wage from $7.40 to $10.10 an hour by January of 2017, 2) Ensure the minimum wage keeps up with the cost of living, based on the Consumer Price Index, and 3) Guarantee that eventually tipped workers, like waiters and waitresses, earn the full minimum wage. (Tipped workers in Michigan, who are currently paid $2.65 an hour, would receive an $.85 an hour increase each year until they’re paid the full minimum wage.)

While I expect that Republicans in Lansing will kill the legislation being put forward by Irwin and Zemke, I suspect that the Raise Michigan ballot initiative has a better than 50% chance of passing… I’d like to say that it would be a slam dunk, given that the idea seems to have widespread support from voters right now, but you can be sure, if it does make it on the ballot, that the Koch brothers and their fellow Plutocrats will be pouring an ungodly amount of money into the state, in hopes of convincing Michiganders to once again vote against their own best interests. And, as we know from experience, they’re damn good at what they do.

ENERGIZING THE BASE IN A NON-PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION YEAR:

It’s also worth noting that this isn’t just about the minimum wage. This is also about motivating the Democratic base to get out and vote in a non-Presidential election. And that, to a large extent, explains why we’re seeing so many progressives across the country looking to get the minimum wage on the November ballot in their states. It’s just like, a few years back, when a lot of conservative groups were coming together to get anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives in place… This isn’t to say that Obama and the Republicans don’t care about the minimum wage. I think they recognize that it’s an important thing to do, if for no other reason that to temporarily stabilize our society, which is in danger of losing the middle class altogether, as the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow. I do think, however, that this is a godsend for the likes of Mark Schauer, who hasn’t exactly been lighting a fire under Michigan Democrats. And we’re not alone in that regard. All over the country, there are state-wide races where the minimum wage could really make a difference by bringing people to the polls, where they might also vote out Republican governors and legislators.

As I mentioned above, everyone knows that, at least for the time being, nothing is going to happen in Washington. No, if we want to make progress on issues like education, the environment, and civil rights, it’s going to have to be at the state level. And, in order to do that, we need to start winning races closer to home… Hopefully, the minimum wage will help us do that.

$10.10 AN HOUR WILL RAISE FAMILIES OUT OF POVERTY AND PUT MORE MONEY INTO THE ECONOMY:

Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would give more than 27 million workers a raise, which, in turn, will put more money into the economy. Here, with more on those 27 million people, are a few facts from Senator Tom Harkin.

• 88% are adults over the age of twenty, 55% are women, and nearly half are workers of color.

• More than 14 million children have a parent who would get a raise.

• The average affected worker brings home approximately 50% of her household’s income.

• 71% of tipped workers getting raises would be women – a key step for women’s pay equity.

If you still want more, I’d encourage you to check out this report from the Economic Policy Institute, which lays out the benefits to the economy which would be realized with a minimum wage of $10.10. Here’s a clip.

…(R)aising the minimum wage would provide immediate benefits not only to affected workers (whose incomes would rise), but to the broader economy as well. Research over the past two decades has shown that, despite skeptics’ claims, modest increases in the minimum wage have little to no negative impact on jobs (Schmitt 2013). In fact, under current labor market conditions, where tepid consumer demand is a major factor holding businesses back from expanding their payrolls, raising the minimum wage can provide a catalyst for new hiring.

Economists generally agree that low-wage workers are more likely than any other income group to spend any additional earnings they receive, largely because they must in order to meet their basic needs. Higher-income individuals, corporations, and beneficiaries of corporate profits are more likely to save at least a portion of any additional income. Thus, in a period of depressed consumer demand, raising the minimum wage can provide a modest boost to overall economic activity because it shifts income to workers who are very likely to spend it immediately. Indeed, recent research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago finds that raising the federal minimum wage to $10 could increase U.S. GDP by up to 0.3 percentage points in the near term (Aaronson and French 2013).

Our research shows that raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016 would provide an additional $35 billion in wages over the phase-in period to directly and indirectly affected workers, who are likely to then spend that additional income. This projected rise in consumer spending would provide a modest boost to U.S. GDP, even after accounting for the increased labor cost to businesses and the potential for small price increases for consumers. Using standard fiscal multipliers, we would expect that increasing the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 would generate a net increase in economic activity of $22.1 billion over the phase-in period. This additional GDP would support roughly 85,000 new jobs…

Also, to those who would say that prices would rise as a result, I’d encourage you to read this recent report by a Bloomberg analyst which showed that raising the minimum wage at Walmart to $10.10 would translate to the addition of just one cent to the price of a $16 item, assuming all additional costs were passed on to consumers.

OK, that’s everything that I know… What do you know?

[And stay tuned for that interview with Paul Saginaw. I think you’ll like it.]

Posted in Civil Liberties, Economics, Local Business, Locally Owned Business, Michigan, Uncategorized | Tagged Adam Zemke, ballot initiatives, Barack Obama, cheap labor, Congressional Budget Office, Costco, Economic Policy Institute, executive orders, Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, GDP, inflation, Jeff Irwin, jobs, Koch brothers, lobbying, Mark Schauer, Michigan House Bill 4386, minimum wage, Paul Saginaw, Plutocracy, Plutocrats, political strategy, poverty, Raise Michigan, Republican obstructionism, Tom Harkin, Zingerman's | 23 Comments

Charter schools are putting both our children and our democracy at risk, says former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch

By Mark | April 6, 2014

A few days ago, education historian Diane Ravitch, a former Assistant Secretary of Education under the first President Bush, was interviewed by Bill Moyers on the subject of school privatization. In the interview, Ravitch, who was once a staunch supporter of No Child Left Behind, talks of her ongoing research into the $500 billion K-12 education sector in America, the aggressive push currently being made by hedge funds into the space, and her ultimate realization that charter schools are putting both our children and our democracy at risk.

Here are a few of my favorite exchanges, followed by video of the interview. (Note the references to Michigan.)

MOYERS: You have said that within ten years, there’ll be cities in this country without public education.

RAVITCH: I think at the rate we’re moving now, we will see places like Detroit, New Orleans, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Indianapolis, and many, many other cities where public schools become, if they still exist, they will be a dumping ground for the kids that the charter schools don’t want. We will see the privatization of public education run rampant…

MOYERS: We’re talking about big money, aren’t we?

RAVITCH: Absolutely. Minimum, at least, from the estimates I’ve seen it’s a market of $500 billion.

MOYERS: A year?

RAVITCH: Yes. An annual market of $500 billion. So the entrepreneurs do see it as huge opportunities to make money. There are now frequently conferences, at least annually, conferences on how to profit from the public education industry. Now I never thought of public education as an industry. But the entrepreneurs do see it as an industry.

They see it as a national marketplace for hardware, for software, for textbook publishing, for selling whatever it is they’re selling, and for actually taking over all of the roles of running a school. This is what the charter movement is. It’s an effort to privatize public education, because there’s so much money there that enough of it can be extracted to pay off the investors. But I think what’s at stake is the future of American public education. I’m a graduate of public schools in Houston, Texas, and I don’t want to see us lose public education. I believe it is the foundation stone, one of the foundation stones, of our democracy. So an attack on public education is an attack on democracy.

MOYERS: The people behind privatization, you say they’re flush with cash. Where is it coming from? Where does this money trail start?

RAVITCH: You have to understand that firstly we do have a significant number of for-profit charter schools. They’re not the majority, by any means. But they’re driving a lot of the legislative changes. There is also the power of the federal government.

Our Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, put out $4.3 billion called Race to the Top. And he said to the states, you can’t be eligible for any part of this money unless you lift your cap on charter schools. So suddenly the lure of getting that federal money made many states change their laws to open the door to many, many more charter schools.

So that’s really what driven the increase in charters. But what — the other thing that’s driven them is that there is a tremendous political force of very wealthy hedge-fund managers who are investing in the charter-school industry and seeing it grow. And so they have fought for these laws. There’s also a lot of charter school money going as political contributions to legislators in many of the states where the charters are booming…

MOYERS: Charter schools are not all bad, are they?

RAVITCH: They’re not all bad. The worst thing about the charters is the profit motive. And I want to reiterate that most charters are not for-profit. Although many of the non-profits are run by for-profit organizations. For instance, in Ohio, where they’re overrun with for-profit operations, they’re actually not for-profit charters. It’s just they’re run by a company, in one case, called the White Hat company. Which has extracted about a billion dollars in taxpayer funds since 1999.

In Florida where there are some nearly 600 charter schools, they’re overrun with for-profit schools. There’s a charter empire in Southern Florida where the brother-in-law of the guy who runs the charter empire, which is worth more than $100 million, is in the state legislature and is in charge of education appropriations. And he never recuses himself. And the charter industry has basically taken over the legislature of Florida.

In Michigan, more than 80 percent of the charter schools operate for-profit. They don’t get good academic results, by the way, but they make a lot of money. And the worst of the charters, frankly, are the virtual charters. This is a moneymaking machine.

MOYERS: Virtual charters?

RAVITCH: Yes, these are charter schools that have no, actually, no physical school. And they advertise very heavily. And they’re in many states. The biggest of the companies is called K12. It was funded by Michael Milken and his brother.

MOYERS: Michael Milken of junk bond fame.

RAVITCH: Right. And they’re very profitable because they get full state tuition signing up kids to learn online… So the kids are basically home-schooled, they get a computer and textbooks and then they learn online.

MOYERS: So they make their money from the state funding?

RAVITCH: Right. So they get full tuition money and all they give out is a computer and they may have one teacher monitoring fifty or a hundred screens, in some cases, more than a hundred screens. The teachers are low paid. They don’t have any physical building to take care of, no custodians, no social workers, none of the regular expenses of a school. They’re very profitable. K12, by the way, is listed on the New York Stock Exchange…

MOYERS: If the for-profit motive were taken out of charter schools, do you think they have potential?

RAVITCH: No, because I think that what charter schools should be is what they were originally supposed to be. They were originally supposed to be a collaborative, cooperating with public schools, trying to solve problems that public schools couldn’t solve. The original idea was that they would go out and find their dropouts and bring them back.

They would help the kids who lacked all motivation and bring these lessons back to public schools to help them. What they have become is competitors. And they’re cutthroat competitors. And in fact, because of No Child Left Behind and because of Race to the Top, there is so much emphasis on test scores, that the charters are incentivized to try to get the highest possible scores.

And now that there are so many hedge-fund people involved, they want to win. They want to say to these guys who are on another school board, my charter got higher scores than yours. So if you’re going to make scores the be all and the end all of education, you don’t want the kids with disabilities. You don’t want the kids who don’t speak English. You don’t want the troublemakers. You don’t want the kids with low scores. You want to keep those kids out. And the charters have gotten very good at finding out how to do that…

MOYERS: On your blog, there’s a speech by the CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings. He seems to be saying that 20 years from now, 90 percent of our schoolchildren will be in charter schools. And that we have to get rid of school boards, because all this democracy is very messy. And everything should be should be managed by charter-like boards. Is that the endgame, is the charterization of American public education?

RAVITCH: I think for many people in the charter movement, that is the end game. They want to see an end to public education. They continue to say that charter schools are public schools. They are not public schools because they say in court, whenever asked, we’re private corporations with a contract with the government.

In fact just recently there was a decision in New York that charter schools can’t be audited by the state controller because they are not a unit of the government. In California there was a decision in the federal court saying, charter schools are not public schools. They’re private corporations.

MOYERS: So this puts their accountability off limits, right?

RAVITCH: Right. And in fact, in many states, the charter schools don’t have to hire certified teachers. So we’re moving in a direction that is harmful to democracy. That is not good for kids. And that will not improve education. And so when you say how do I feel about the charter movement, I’d say that it should return to its original purposes, which is to help the neediest kids. To seek out the kids with the lowest test scores, not the highest ones, and to do, to collaborate with public education to make it better.

But what it has turned into, and I think that Reed Hastings’ speech puts that very well, is an attack on democracy and an effort to replace public education. That if 90 percent of all the kids are in charters, the other 10 percent that’s left, that’s called public schools, will be the dumping grounds for the kids that the charters don’t want. That’s a direct attack on our democracy.

MOYERS: When you were on the money trail, looking at how this money influences the movement, you ran into the American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC. What did you learn about ALEC?

RAVITCH: ALEC is an organization, as I discovered, that’s been around since 1973. It has something like 2,000 or more state legislators who belong to it. And ALEC is very, very interested in eliminating public education.

It has model legislation, which has been copied in state after state, in some cases verbatim. ALEC wants to eliminate collective bargaining, and it’s done a good job on that. It wants to eliminate any due process for teachers, so that teachers can be fired for any reason. It wants teachers to be judged by test scores. It’s done a really good job of that. It wants charter schools, it has a charter legislation, it has voucher legislation, it has legislation to promote online charter schools. So the whole package of what’s called reform is being pushed very hard by ALEC. It’s being pushed very hard by a group called Democrats for Education Reform.

That’s actually the hedge-fund managers’ organization. So you get the combination of ALEC with its state level, very far-right-wing legislators, who have taken over some legislatures. For example, North Carolina is now completely ALEC-governed. And they have enacted everything in the ALEC package.

MOYERS: Where does ALEC’s money come from, as you’ve found it?

RAVITCH: ALEC has major, major corporate funding. It’s hard to find a major corporate group that is not part of the corporate sponsorship of ALEC.

MOYERS: What’s their motive?

RAVITCH: ALEC wants money to flow freely throughout the economy. They do not want any restraints on how they spend and where they spend. They don’t even want to be audited if they could avoid that. That’s why the charter schools, for example, have fought in court to prevent public audits, because they share this philosophy that what they do is their business…

I’d love to see Ravitch debate Michelle Rhee… Can one of you at the College Education at either UM or EMU make that happen, please?

In the meantime, check out Ravitch’s new book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools, and start sharpening your pitchforks.

Posted in Detroit, Education, Michigan, Uncategorized | Tagged ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Arne Duncan, Bill Moyers, charter schools, Democrats for Education Reform, Diane Ravitch, dismantling of public education, EAA, education reform, for-profit charter schools, hedge funds, no child left behind, privatization, public education, Race to the Top, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools, threats to public education, virtual charters | 12 Comments

Could the Prospect Park “mystery pooper” being doing more than pooping? And, regardless, how can we work together to apprehend him?

By Mark | April 6, 2014

Last summer, as Arlo was running around Ypsilanti’s Prospect Park, Linette noticed what she thought was adult feces on a sliding board. She called the Parks Department and reported it, and we thought that was the end of it. Apparently, though, it wasn’t an isolated incident. According to a story in yesterday’s Ann Arbor News, there have been several reports of feces being found on Prospect Park sliding boards over the past half year or so.

Given the current state of the American news media, the story, as you might expect, is getting traction nationally. So far, I’ve seen it picked up by about half a dozen or so media outlets, including the NBC affiliate in Chicago and the NY Daily News. And folks are having a lot of fun with it… “‘Poops!’ they did it again,” declares the headline in the Daily News.

According to what I’m hearing from folks in the Prospect Park neighborhood, though, we might want to cut the lighthearted nonsense and take this a little more seriously. Not only are we clearly dealing with a disturbed individual, but, as I understand it, there also may be a sexual component that isn’t being discussed in the press. In addition to finding feces on the sliding boards, it would seem there’s also evidence of someone having relations with the same play structure.

According to my source, he reported to the City a few years ago that what looked like lube and semen was dripping from a hole in the same play structure where Linette, last summer, found the feces. According to him, the City eventually sent out a crew to plug the hole, but it’s since been removed. (He believes that the hole in question has been plugged and unplugged several times over the past few years.)

Here are two images that were taken and sent to me today. According to the person that sent them, the once-again-unplugged hole looks “active,” and the goo coming from it looks “fresh.” (These are font and back images of the same hole.)

I know, with our ever dwindling number of police officers, we don’t have the resources to put someone full-time on play structure watch, but surely there’s something that came be done. And, yeah, maybe I’m overreacting, but I can’t help but think that, if someone is actively defecating on, and having sex with, children’s playground equipment, that he might be inclined to perform other, perhaps even more serious acts that would be unwelcome in our community. And, even if he weren’t inclined to escalate his activity, there’s a very real health risk as is.

According to the article in the Ann Arbor News, the police have attempted to catch the man on video, using a hidden camera. Clearly, however, it hasn’t worked. I’m thinking that it’s probably time for some technology-minded members of the local community to get involved, perhaps deploying a few wireless sensors and the like… If you should happen to have any ideas, send me a note.

I should note that I’d wanted to write about this in the past, but I held back, as I knew that the police were involved, and I didn’t want to let the perpetrator know that efforts were being made to apprehend him. As this is now in the national news, though, I didn’t see any reason not to post something. The Ann Arbor News, after all, has already reported that video surveillance has been attempted.

So, let’s move beyond all of the hilarious jokes about the “mystery pooper” and figure out a way to apprehend this person and get him the help that he needs before this becomes an even more serious issue.

[note: I’m assuming, of course, that the “mystery pooper” and the person ejaculating on the play structure are one in the same, but I suppose it could just be an unfortunate coincidence.]

Posted in Uncategorized, Ypsilanti | Tagged feces, mystery ejaculator, mystery pooper, NY Daily News, parks, play structure fetish, poop, Prospect park, sex with playground equipment, shit, sliding board, stories about shit and vomit, vandalism | 80 Comments

You know those religious fanatics who fled England for America in 1630 with John Winthrop? Well, I’m apparently descended from one of them.

By Mark | April 3, 2014

It had never crossed my mind that I might be descended from Puritans. I mean, I knew it was a possibility, as I was aware that members of my family had come over from England, but I didn’t think it was likely. Maybe it’s because I spend so much of my life railing against religious fundamentalists here on the website, but I just don’t feel like there’s any Puritan blood pumping through my veins. (Except when I’m looking down my nose at the likes of Justin Bieber.) So I was somewhat shocked a few days ago when I started tracking my mother’s family back through the centuries, and discovered that our roots in this nation go back to its very “fire and brimstone” origins. Not only does my family date back to 1630, it would seem, but my Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather, Charles Avery, may very well have sailed to America on The Arbella with John Winthrop, the man who first articulated the vision of America as the shining “city on the hill.” It’s all a little too much for me to process at the moment.

Here are my rough notes, starting with what I know of the Avery side of my family, and then going back in time from there.

My mother’s father was Arthur Robert Avery. He passed in 1980, at the age of 57, at right around the time that John Lennon passed. I knew him about as well, I guess, as a 12 year old could know a grandparent. I have vivid memories of him showing me photos he’d taken while serving in World War II, and telling me about his friends that had fallen dead around him. When he went away to war, leaving behind his family in Beardstown, Illinois, he literally looked like a child. I can’t find it at the moment, but, somewhere around here, I have a photo of him in his uniform, as he prepared to ship out for battle. I’m not exaggerating when I say that it would shock you.

I also knew his father, Arthur Lee Avery, who everyone called Pickle. I believe I heard, somewhere along the line, that he’d gotten the nickname because he always brought a pickle with him to work, in his lunch box, but I can’t be certain of it. He was a funny, sweet man, as I recall. He passed when I was about nine. He’d been born in Schuyler County, Illinois, in 1901, where the Avery clan had, as I understand it, established something of a foothold over more than a century of prodigious breeding. I’m not certain where in the county he was born, but, when I knew him, he lived in Beardstown, where he’d worked for 43 years on the CB&Q line (Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad). (In 1870, with the completion of the bridge over the Illinois River, Beardstown established itself as an important hub for midwest rail traffic, and thousands worked for the CB&Q.)

While I have very fond memories of my grandfather and my great grand father, both unfortunately passed before I started developing a true appreciation for family history. So, pretty much everything I know about the Avery side of my family comes by way of online research… Following, at a very high level, is some of what I’ve found to date… I should note that, as of right now, I’ve done very little primary research of my own, and, for the most part, everything I’m presenting is the work of others. (All I did was connect the pieces.) My hope is to one day travel up to Boston and Salem to study the original documents for myself, but, until then, I’ll have to make due with the online resources that are available to me.

Christopher Avery, as I mentioned, came over in 1630, as a member of the mass Puritan exodus led by John Winthrop. He was the first Avery in America – the one responsible for all of us to come afterward. Here, working backward, are the Avery men, starting with me, and ending with him, a dozen generations later. (I’ve begun looking into the women of the Avery line, but, as of right now, my research in that area is still relatively rudimentary.)

Mark Maynard
Arthur Robert Avery (1923-1980) Grandfather
Arthur Lee “Pickle” Avery (1901-1977) Great Grandfather
William Dudly Avery (1875-1949) Great Great Grandfather
William Clark Avery (1837-1902) Great Great Great Grandfather
William Chitteson Avery (1803-1870) Great^4 Grandfather
Daniel Avery (1768-1830) Great^5 Grandfather
David Avery (1737-1790) Great^6 Grandfather
Robert Avery, Jr. (1700-1756) Great^7 Grandfather
Robert Avery (1663-1734) Great^8 Grandfather
Thomas Avery (1632-1686) Great^9 Grandfather
Dr. William Avery (1622-1686) Great^10 Grandfather
Christopher Avery (1590-1679) Great^11 Grandfather

I could keep going from there, as it’s relatively easy to track the Avery line once you make it back to Warwickshire, from whence we came, but, to be honest, I don’t have much interest in going all the way back to the beginning of recorded time. I’m much more interested in what my ancestors did in America. And, the way I see it, there’s still quite a bit of research that needs to be done in that area before I could even consider spending time looking into what my ancestors may have done in the 1300s.

Here’s The Arbella, the boat that likely brought my Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather to America. I say “likely” because it’s a difficult thing to prove.

Multiple sources confirm that Christopher Avery, a weaver by trade, came to America in 1630, as part of the initial influx of Puritan emigrants who helped establish the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and found the city of Boston. Of these, though, I’ve only found three thus far that put him with Governor Winthrop aboard the flagship of the fleet, The Arbella. (There were 11 ships total that came over in the spring of 1630 as part of the Winthrop fleet, carrying approximately 800 colonists, some 200 of whom died the first year.) I don’t know how I’d prove definitively that he was on The Arbella, but I feel compelled to at least try to determine whether Christopher Avery and his ten your old son James were with John Winthrop on that first ship to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

There are other things I’m interested in, like the elected positions Christopher is said to have held, the plot of land he owned in Boston, and the fact that he apparently left his wife behind in England, but my real interest is in whether or not he traveled as part of Winthrop’s inner circle. As a fan of American history, this would be of great interest to me, as it was aboard The Arbella that Winthrop delivered his famous sermon, A Model of Christian Charity, making the first recorded case for American exceptionalism, and essentially setting the American experiment in motion… To think that my relative was one of fewer than 100 people to have actually been there as the sermon was being delivered, is absolutely mind-blowing to me.

And, no, before you ask, I don’t believe that my Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather was involved in the Salem witch trials, which began in February 1692. As he died in 1679, I think it’s unlikely. I did, however, find one reference to him having taken the “freeman’s oath” in Salem, on June 29 of 1692, where he was “chosen clerk of the band, constable, and clerk of the market.” Having not seen the document in question, I can’t say for certain, but my guess that he actually took the oath in 1632, when such public oaths not to overthrow the Commonwealth were becoming commonplace, and not in 1692, years after his death. (It’s probably also worth noting that he’s said to have served as a “selectman” in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1646, 1652 and 1654.)

As for his land in Boston, apparently he purchased a small plot on March 16, 1658, after selling his property in Gloucester and moving back into town. The property, which was only twenty-six by forty-six feet, was, according to records, located in what was, at one time, “the centre of the post-office building, facing on Devonshire street.”

Here’s more about the location of the Charles Avery house: “The famous old spring, which gave the name to Spring Lane and which is now preserved under the post-office, was near. This Avery plot was a part of, or at least adjoined, the site of two notable resorts of later days – the well known restaurant whence first came the famous ‘Julien soup,’ and the ‘Stackpole House,’ not much less famous. The Winthrop estate was not far away, and nearby, in years after, Benjamin Franklin was born.” (Charles eventually sold this property and moved to Connecticut to be near his son James. He died March 12, 1670.)

There’s also evidence, as I alluded to above, that Charles left behind a wife in England. And, while he brought his oldest son with him, it would seem he left my Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather, his son William, in England with his mother. In 1650, at the age of 28, William would eventually come to Boston and set up shop as a doctor, but it’s unclear as to whether his father assisted in any way. I have learned, however, that Charles was arrested and fined in 1654 for living apart from his wife, who had never been brought to join him from England. (Puritans took so-called “family values” really seriously.) According to one report, “He had his fine remitted on the ground that ‘he was aged and poore’ and that ‘he had used his endeavor to have his wife brought over’.” I guess we’ll never know what really happened. My sense, though, is that he way lying about trying to raise the money, after 24 years, to bring her over.

As for why Christopher Avery may have been on The Arbella, along with Winthrop’s most valued collaborators, I don’t imagine there’s anyway to find out for certain, but I suppose it’s possible that Winthrop wanted him there because of the relatively rare bible he had in his possession. Referred to as the “Breeches Bible,” the Avery family bible is now in the collection of Houston Baptist University’s Dunham Bible Museum. Following is a clip from their site about the significance of the bible.

…Puritan Christopher Avery brought the Bible from England when he immigrated to America with his 10-year-old son James. As an adult, James founded Groton, Connecticut, and served as a military commander and a legislator.

The father and son sailed to the New World in 1630 on the Arbella, the flagship of the Great Migration to Massachusetts organized by John Winthrop. They were onboard when Winthrop delivered his famous sermon The Model of Christian Charity, which includes the lines, “We must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us,” as drawn from Matthew chapter five of the Bible. Those words have been interpreted by many, including presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, as a description of the beacon light to the world that America has been and ought to be.

The 1581 Avery family Bible is a Geneva translation, the first English Bible translated directly from the Greek and Hebrew. The Geneva Bible was designed for individual use and is considered the first English study Bible because it includes book introductions and explanatory notes and references. It is sometimes called the “Breeches Bible” because of its translation of Genesis 3:7; when Adam and Eve realized they were naked “they sewed fig tree leaves together, and made themselves breeches.” The early Jamestown settlers, the pilgrims, the Puritans, and William Shakespeare all used the Geneva translation…

I have other questions about the ancestors of Christopher Avery, but, as of right now, I’m just starting to scratch the surface.

For instance, I’d like to see if I can find out more about my Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather David Avery’s role in the Revolutionary War.

According to records kept by the Church of Christ in Pepperell, Massachusetts between 1742 between 1822, David Avery was among those in 1775 “who willingly & promply forsook hous friends & property to obey ye Call of their Country” and fight the British at “ye Battle of Bunker Hill.” This, by the way, isn’t really all that surprising, given that William Prescott, a fellow resident of the small town of Pepperell, was in command of the 1,200 colonial troops who fought that campaign. At present, all I know is that he’s on a list of men who fought at Bunker Hill, and not on the list of those who died there. And I’d like to know more, if possible. (It would appear that David Avery also fought at the battles of Lexington and Concord.)

And, in the whole scheme of things, it’s a relatively little thing, but I’d like to figure out how it came to be that my Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather Thomas Avery was thought to have been born to an 8 year old mother and a 10 year old father.

I suppose it’s inevitable, when doing research like this, that one finds anomalies. I mentioned before, for instance, the fact that several sources show Charles Avery in Salem during the infamous witch trials, long after his death had been recorded. Well, I suspect the same thing happened here. Someone probably just entered a date incorrectly from an old and faded document somewhere. I know it wouldn’t be that significant of a contribution, but I’m thinking that perhaps this could be my contribution to the Avery legacy, trying to hunt down these two anomalies and set them straight, so that people, from here forward, don’t get the wrong idea about us being warlocks born by children.

I need to sleep now.

And, yeah, I know that this isn’t likely going to be a post that many people like, but sometimes I just need to post for myself… and my kids. (Now, instead of talking with them about their ancestors, I can just point them toward the blog.)

Posted in History, Mark's Life, Uncategorized | Tagged 1630, Arthur Lee Avery, Arthur Robert Avery, Avery, Beardstown, bibles, Breeches Bible, Bunker Hill, Christopher Avery, Dunham Bible Museum, family history, family values, geneology, Gloucester, Great Migration, Houston Baptist University, Illinois, John Winthrop, Madona, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Miley Cyrus, Pepperell, Pickle, Puritan, Revolutionary War, Schuyler County, Stackpole House, Thomas Avery, William Prescott, WWII | 21 Comments

Totally Awesome Fest 10: an epic eight days of egg hunts, pajama parties and genre defying works of musical expression

By Mark | April 2, 2014

Every year, at about this time, Patrick Elkins, the director of Ypsilanti’s Totally Awesome Fest (TAF), calls a big press conference to formally kick-off the festivities. And, every year, invariably, I’m the only member of the professional press to show up. This year’s press conference, which took place yesterday evening on an outbound #4 bus, was no different. Once again, while reporters from several local news outlets were invited, I was the only one to actually pony up the cash and take the ride. Here’s the interview, followed by a rough schedule of this month’s Totally Awesome Fest events.

TAF PRESS CONFERENCE 2014 from dirty bros. quality productions on Vimeo.

[Previous TAF press conferences: 2012, 2013]

If you want to know what bands are playing, watch the video. (Patrick rattles their names off toward the end.) Here are the venues, though… And, yes, I realize that you probably don’t know where a good number of them are, as the names of several are in code. Don’t worry, though. If you want to find a venue, all you have to do is find a bearded drunk and follow him. Nine times out of ten, you’ll find yourself at Totally Awesome Fest.

Sunday, April 20
7:00 AM – 7:00 PM: City-wide egg hunt
12:01 PM: Secret brunch in the woods
6:00 PM: Performance showcase with acts TBA @ The Water Street Commons

Monday, April 21
9:00 PM: Ypsilanti walking tour w/ host Mark Maynard @ The Downtown Ypsi Library

Tuesday, April 22
10:00 PM – 11:00 PM: Taco Tuesday Noize Nite @ The Electric Waterfall Castle (one hour of simultaneous performances in each room of the venue with acts and snacks TBA)

Wednesday, April 23
9:00 PM: Outdoor Film and Pizza Pajama Party @ Voss Acres

Thursday, April 24
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM: Patio Performance Showcase with acts TBA @ The Ugly Mug Cafe

Friday, April 25
5:00 PM – 9:00 PM: Performance, Fashion, and Live Art @ VG Kids
10:00 PM – 2:00 AM: Music, DJs, and more @ The Dreamland Theater

Saturday, April 26
12:01 PM: Pancake Parade
1:00 PM – 7:00 PM: Performance, Fashion, and Live Art @ The Little Weasel House
9:00 PM – 2:00 AM: Music, DJs, and more @ The Dreamland Theater

Sunday, April 27
8:00 AM: Croquet Tournament @ Riverside Park
12:01 PM – 7:00 PM: Performance, Fashion, and Live Art @ The House of Mole

note: I know it may seem scripted, but the guys who sit down next to Patrick in the above video were completely unknown to us. It was a total coincidence that that they got on the bus when the did, chose to sit down next to us, and just happened to be familiar with Totally Awesome Fest. I don’t know how to explain it, other than to say that magical things happen around Totally Awesome Fest… If not for the fact that they’d chosen to hide their beer in a wine bottle, I’d say they were angels.

For those of you who have never been to TAL before, here are a few videos that should give you some sense as to what’s in store: Rebel Kind at TAL 9, Animal Magic at TAL 7, Lord of the Yum Yum at TAL 6, This Must Be The Place at TAL 5, The Detroit Party Marching Band at TAL 5.

Oh, in case you don’t watch the interview, I wanted to mention that the location of the secret brunch in the woods, to be held on April 20, is only going to be shared with one person, by way of one of the Easter eggs left around town. Whoever finds that egg will know exactly where the event is to be held, and it will be up to him or her to either keep the information secret, or share it with others… I think that’s kind of beautiful.

ABOUT TOTALLY AWESOME FEST: Totally Awesome Fest is a magical event that has been happening since April 2005, when a celebration was declared to mark the end of Tuesday Night Supper Club and the closing of the Totally Awesome House in Ann Arbor. In 2006, the festival (as all cool things eventually must) moved to Ypsilanti, where it has remained here ever since. Typically the event is held during the last full weekend of April, but this year, as we discussed above, TAL will run for lever one week. According to organizers, “Totally Awesome Fest is an opportunity for people meet and celebrate each other’s company, ideas and creative expression in a variety of open, all-ages environments.” All events are free of charge; however, donations are appreciated, as they’ll be used to buy gas for out of town acts and pancake-making supplies.