This is not a joke. I really want one of our local theater companies to act out season five of The Walking Dead for me. I don’t currently have the funds to commission such a production, but I would happily contribute a case of beer to anyone who could pull of a credible interpretation.
[warning: If no one steps up and accepts my challenge, I will be starting a series of $1.99 Kickstarter campaigns so that I can watch each episode on Google Play.]
The Saturday Six Pack is back on the air this Saturday… Among other things, we’re going to be discussing access to mental health resources in Washtenaw County, where it’s rumored that as many as 90 mental health care workers could be losing their jobs over the next several days. While County administrator Verna McDaniel has gone on record saying that they will be “cutting nonclinical services first,” there’s no doubt that these layoffs will adversely affect those in Washtenaw County who, without significant mental health services, could likely find themselves in great jeopardy. I’ve had the occasion over the past few days to talk with several people who work in the mental health field, and I think it’s safe to say that they’re terrified. Not only are they afraid that they might lose their jobs, but they’re concerned, I think rightfully so, about their clients, and what will happen to them as programs are either eliminated or privatized. While a number of people said that they could not appear on Saturday’s show, for fear of angering their axe-wielding administrators, I’ve lined up a great panel to talk about the current situation, what it will mean to those who are now receiving services, and what we might be able to do about it. Our guests will include County Commissioner Yousef Rabhi, Greg Pratt of MISSION (Michigan Itinerant Shelter System, Interdependent Out of Necessity), and AFSCME Local 3052 President Nancy Heine. [Heine is also VP of the Huron Valley Central Labor Council.]
For what it’s worth, this is not just a Washtenaw County problem. As I understand it, mental health agencies around the state are going through the same thing, as funds from DC and Lansing are drying up for what were once considered essential services. Here in Ypsi-Arbor, according to the Ann Arbor News, our local mental health agency “will receive $2.5 million less in Medicaid funding than what was budgeted for the 2015 fiscal year and a decrease in $2.7 million from the State General Funds.” Over the past year, as I understand it, a number of efforts have been made to offset these decreases, but it hasn’t been enough. In spite of the lay-offs that have happened to date, and the consolidation of services within the newly formed Washtenaw County Community Mental Health Agency, we’re still running at a deficit… This new entity, before it even gets of the ground, already has a $4.7 million deficit for the coming fiscal year, which stars on October 1. And that’s why we’re hearing that 60 to 90 Community Support and Treatment Services (CSTS) workers may be losing their jobs, forcing the most vulnerable among us to suffer even more. [But maybe that’s the objective… to make things so miserable that they leave the state.]
If you would like to call in and join our conversation, the studio number is 734.217.8624. [Be sure to disguise your voice if you’re a County employee.] Or, if you want to suggest a question, you can leave a comment here.
And, after that, we’ll be joined by Michelle Lietz of EMU’s Native American Student Organization (NASO), who will tell us how it came to pass that the EMU administration, a few days ago, finally gave up the fight and agreed to get rid of their controversial “Huron” logo once and for all. Lietz will be joined in the studio by local historian Matt Siegfried, who will be sharing the history of the Wendat, who they were, and who they are now. [It’s the Wendat that the French incorrectly referred to as the Huron.] Speaking of the EMU mascot, have you seen the original version? I suppose it’s good that it became less overtly racist over time, but it’s hard to se it and take people seriously when they say that the mascot now comes from a place of honor. [If you’d like to hear our first interview with Lietz, back when fight between NASO and EMU was first coming to a head, you can find Episode 15 here.]
Then, toward the end of the show, local musician Craig Johnson will be dropping by to chat and play a few tunes for us.
But wait, there’s more! At some point during the evening, we’ll be joined by Rob Hess from Go Ice Cream, who will be stopping in to talk about his plans for expansion in downtown Ypsi.
AND, HERE, FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE NEVER TUNED IN TO THE SIX PACK BEFORE, ARE THE DETAILS ON HOW TO LISTEN:
Unless you live inside the AM 1700 studio, right next our antenna, I’d recommend streaming the show online, which you can do either on the AM1700 website or by way of TuneIn.com.
And for those of you who aren’t yet familiar with the show, and need to get caught up, you can listen to the entire archive on iTunes. If you start now, you might be caught all the way up by show time.
One last thing… If you’d like to tell your friends and neighbors about the program, feel free to share the Facebook event listing. Or, if you’re not on Facebook, you could always rent a plane to pull a banner across the sky.
And do call us if you have a chance. We love phone calls. So please scratch this number into the cinder block wall of the recreation room of whichever facility you’ve been assigned to… 734.217.8624… and call us between 6:00 and 8:00 this Saturday evening. The show is nothing without you. And I mean that.
My never-ending search for our region’s most enigmatic super villain, the Ypsi Tooth, led me a few nights ago to a long-closed-up building in downtown Ypsilanti. [You can enter said building by way of a manhole downtown.] While I don’t want to get into specifics concerning what clues I may have found, I did want to pass along a few photos of an old Ypsi artifact that I thought you might find of interest. At the back of the building, in a space that once housed a small manufacturing facility where fake teeth were produced, I found several boxes of matches from Haab’s, the Ypsilanti steakhouse that first opened its doors on Michigan Avenue back in 1933, just after the repeal of prohibition. My guess, given the design of the packaging and the matches inside, is that these boxes date back to the late ’70s, but I’d love to hear from folks who might have firsthand knowledge of when these were handed out. Am I off by a decade? If so, let me know… Also below are a few images taken in what I think may have been the lair of the Ypsi Tooth.
A few months ago, when I talked with representatives from Eastern Michigan University’s Native American Student Organization (NASO) on The Saturday Six Pack, it didn’t sound as though negotiations with the administration were going well. University leadership, from their perspective, had made up their mind to bring back the “Huron” mascot after over 20 years, and they weren’t willing to reconsider.
As NASO’s Michelle Lietz told to us at the time, EMU President Susan Martin, when asked to remove the mascot from band uniforms, where it had recently sprung up behind a secret flap, had been “very dismissive.” While Martin showed some initial interest in working with NASO to better educate the EMU community about Native American issues, that didn’t last long, according to Lietz and fellow NASO member Chris Sutton. They apparently told Martin, “We can’t educate the public until the logo is removed,” at which point her demeanor changed. She, it would seem, didn’t want to talk about how, since the mascot had come back, there had been reports of drunken EMU students in “redface” taunting a local Native American man, or how it wasn’t, in their opinion, an “honor” to have their sports teams take the name of tribe that never actually existed. [Huron, according to Sutton and Lietz, if I recall our conversation correctly, means something like “bristly pig” in French, and was a name assigned to the Wyandot people by early fur traders in the area.] President Martin, they said, responded by telling them how much money had been invested in the new uniforms. [Rumor has it that an alumnus of the University demanded that the mascot be brought back, and refused to make a donation until such time that it had.] Native American elder Nathan Phillips, who also joined us on this episode, summed it up this way… “Money’s more important than a person’s dignity,” he said.
But that was a few months ago, though, and things have apparently taken a turn at EMU since President Martin announced that she’d be leaving office. Earlier today, Lietz posted the following to Facebook.
According to the Detroit Free Press, EMU Interim President Kim Schatzel shortly thereafter made it official, sending a note to members of the EMU community. “This morning I notified members of the Native American Student Organization and their faculty advisor, Dr. Lori Burlingame, that I am initiating a process to remove the Huron logo from the jackets of the EMU Marching Band,” she said. “The university will be purchasing new uniform jackets with no logos nor symbols other than the block E, which will continue to be on the outside of the jacket.” Schatzel, according to the Free Press, went on to say that this would happen “as expeditiously as possible” and that the associated costs would be paid for by the EMU Foundation, using donated funds.
This is very good news, and I’m very happy for Lietz, Sutton and the other young people of NASCO who made this happen. They were tenacious as hell, and I couldn’t be more impressed by them… Here’s hoping they never stop.
[LISTEN TO LIETZ AND SUTTON ON EPISODE 15 OF THE SATURDAY SIX PACK.]
I don’t know much about Melissa Gilbert’s politics, but, as she’s the only candidate running for Congress in Michigan who has called me “a prince,” I suspect I’ll be supporting her…
[For those of you who weren’t around during those exciting days in 2013 when Gilbert was leaving comments on this site, just click here to experience the celebrity appearance for yourself.]
As for why she’s running, Gilbert, who’s best known for playing the young Laura Ingalls Wilder on NBC’s “Little House on the Prairie” 30-some years ago, had the following to say… “I’m running for Congress to make life a little easier for all the families who feel they have fallen through the cracks in today’s economy.”
The Republicans, for what it’s worth, seem to be taking the threat of Congresswoman Half-pint seriously, in spite of the fact that the incumbent, Republican Mike Bishop, beat his Democratic opponent by a whopping 12 percentage points in 2014. [Bishop beat Democrat Eric Schertzing 54%-42%, when both faced-off to win the seat vacated by Republican Mike Rogers.] Here’s their first shot at Gilbert, who they’re clearly trying to paint as an out-of-touch Hollywood type.
Given how conservative Howell is… who can forget the racist tweets from members of their all-white high school basketball team… I don’t imagine she has much of a shot, especially once the mud starts flying, but I think she’s got a better shot than most, and my hope is that, at the very least, she’ll cause the Michigan Republican Party to spend a lot more of their money in the 8th Congressional District than they would have normally, perhaps making other races around the state a bit more competitive.
For what it’s worth, Gilbert isn’t a political lightweight. Among other things, she has served as President of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and Vice-President of the AFL-CIO. [She currently serves as Chair of the Screen Actors Guild’s President’s Task Force on Affirmative Action.] And, as if that weren’t enough, her grandfather, Harry Crane, was also the creator and writer of The Honeymooners. Oh, and she dated Billy Idol.
As for her financial difficulties, which were alluded to in the Republican message above, Gilbert’s husband, actor Timothy Busfield, recently shared the following with the Detroit News. “(The debt) has more to do with the housing crash and divorce in the past,” He said. “It’s a product of what happened with the economy. It’s unfortunate and it’s been happening a lot. It’s not a big deal.” Gilbert added, “I’ve set up an installment plan to fully pay off my debt and will continue to work as hard as I can to erase this debt and dig myself out of this hole. I am absolutely positive that I can do it.” No word yet from the Gilbert camp about the dog stylist.
