Petroleum coke, or “petcoke,” if you aren’t familiar with the term, is the byproduct one is left with after processing oil sands, like those which are to be found in abundant supply in Canada. In this particular case, the oil sands have been brought from Alberta to be processed along the Detroit River, at a refinery owned by Marathon Petroleum. (The refinery has been active since 1930, but just began processing Canadian oil sands in November.) The Koch brothers, it would appear, have been purchasing the waste product, and stockpiling it in Detroit these past few weeks, right alongside the river from which we all drink, with the intention of eventually exporting it to a libertarian paradise like China, where, practically speaking, there don’t appear to be emissions standards. (On the open market, the material costs 25% less than coal, and generates up to 10% more CO2.)

To make matters worse, the waterside property just east of the Ambassador Bridge, where the coke is being stored, is owned by the most hated man in Detroit – billionaire slumlord Manuel (Matty) Moroun. (The Koch brothers, from what I’m told, also have a second site in Detroit, on the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority property, near the intersection of Clark and Fort.) I don’t know that I agree, as I think it has more to do with money than anything else, but some are speculating that this is Moroun’s way of getting even with the voters of Michigan, who recently decided that his Ambassador Bridge should have a publicly-owned competitor.

Here, by way of background, is a clip from the New York Times:

…An initial refining process known as coking, which releases the oil from the tarlike bitumen in the oil sands, also leaves the petroleum coke, of which Canada has 79.8 million tons stockpiled. Some is dumped in open-pit oil sands mines and tailing ponds in Alberta. Much is just piled up there.

Detroit’s pile will not be the only one. Canada’s efforts to sell more products derived from oil sands to the United States, which include transporting it through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, have pulled more coking south to American refineries, creating more waste product here.

Marathon Petroleum’s plant in Detroit processes 28,000 barrels a day of the oil sands bitumen…

Coke, which is mainly carbon, is an essential ingredient in steelmaking as well as producing the electrical anodes used to make aluminum.

While there is high demand from both those industries, the small grains and high sulfur content of this petroleum coke make it largely unusable for those purposes, said Kerry Satterthwaite, a petroleum coke analyst at Roskill Information Services, a commodities analysis company based in London.

“It is worse than a byproduct,” Ms. Satterthwaite said. “It’s a waste byproduct that is costly and inconvenient to store, but effectively costs nothing to produce.”

Murray Gray, the scientific director for the Center for Oil Sands Innovation at the University of Alberta, said that about two years ago, Alberta backed away from plans to use the petroleum coke as a fuel source, partly over concerns about greenhouse-gas emissions. Some of it is burned there, however, to power coking plants.

The Keystone XL pipeline will provide Gulf Coast refineries with a steady supply of diluted bitumen from the oil sands. The plants on the coast, like the coking refineries concentrated in California to deal with that state’s heavy crude oil, are positioned to ship the waste to China or Mexico, where it is burned as a fuel. California exports about 128,000 barrels of petroleum coke a day, mainly to China…

So, the Koch brothers, who are among the most ardent global warming deniers in the country, are using Detroit as their temporary dumping ground for this filthy fuel, the use of which, according to experts, could make our current climate problem “unsolvable.” And, what’s more, according to Rashida Tlaib, the member of the Michigan House representing that part of Detroit where this coke is being stockpiled, “Nobody knew (it) was going to happen.” The Koch brothers, it would seem, began dumping the material in the City without so much as a word to those who live in the area… And apparently that’s OK. According to Andy Hartz, the southeast Michigan district supervisor with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the substance seems to fall into a regulatory gray area. Hartz told Michigan Radio yesterday that, “The DEQ does not have any kind of specific regulations that regulates this type of land use.” According to Hartz, “The product is a commodity. And because of that, it’s not a waste material.” (Hartz also said that the DEQ has been informed that the coke would be shipped out of Detroit once the ice on the Detroit River melts… which seems odd to me, given that we’ve had temperatures in the 70s these past few weeks. But who am I to question the climate science of the Koch brothers?)

It’s unknown what the environmental impact might be, but, according to the Detroit Free Press, Representatives Gary Peters and John Conyers have written to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, asking the agency to look into the coke’s potential impact on the river and residents. “We fear the storage of petroleum coke along the river poses a potential threat to water and air quality. The material may contain trace amounts of metal and could have damaging health impacts if fugitive dust enters the air. Petroleum coke that enters the water may continue to frustrate efforts to prevent contamination from runoff,” the Congressmen said in their letter.

According to the safety data sheet for petroleum coke, the material should not be allowed to contaminate ground water, and the U.S. Coast Guard and others should be notified immediately if runoff into waterways should occur. I suppose it’s possible that the Koch brothers and Matty Moroun have taken every precaution to ensure that such leakages don’t occur, but, given their histories, I don’t know that it’s likely, and, with a thunderstorm expected later tonight, I’m concerned that we may well see runoff into the Detroit River… But, on the plus side, it’s only Detroit, right? I mean, who really gives a fuck? It’s not like Koch brothers and their fellow 1-percenters are vacationing in the shadow of the Ambassador Bridge, inhaling the fine carbon particulate over caviar finger sandwiches.

Having this stuff in Detroit, while disgusting, isn’t really what bothers me. What bothers me more is that wealthy American industrialists, knowing full well the ramifications in terms of human health and the environment, would be willing to ship this filthy fuel to the likes of China and Mexico, driving yet another nail into the coffin of humanity. But, really, I wouldn’t expect anything less from the Koch brothers. When have they ever demonstrated anything but the unfettered shock and awe of slash and burn capitalism in its purest form?

What’s worse, I’m sure this isn’t the end of it. I’m certain, if they had their way, they’d be able to burn petroleum coke without oversight here in the United States. (Some is burned in the U.S., but it’s use is policed to some extent.) And, given their success getting anti-union right-to-work legislation passed here in Michigan, I wouldn’t be surprised if they started here… Who wants to bet that we see something to that effect during the next lame duck session?

[note: The above image was created by our friend Ken Boyd in response to a comment left by Demetrius, suggesting that we take the opportunity to tie this story to our satirical Pure Michigan campaign.]

For those fortunate few who have yet to make the acquaintance of Scottsdale, Arizona restaurant owners Amy “You people are all shit” and Samy “Get out” Bouzaglo, here’s the episode of chef Gordon Ramsay’s reality series Kitchen Nightmares that brought the irate, delusional and paranoid couple to the forefront of America’s collective consciousness.

For what it’s worth, I don’t generally watch so-called “reality” television, as I don’t believe that those suffering from serious personality disorders should be manipulated and exploited for our entertainment. For some reason, though, I can’t seem to pull away from this. I keep telling myself that, fro the good of my soul, I need to move on to something better, but yet I continue to sit here, following links, mouth agape, reading up on the stealing of tips, the selling of packaged food items as homemade, and the history of fraud. From Amy’s epic social media melt-down that followed the show’s airing earlier this week, to the inevitable claims on behalf of the Bouzaglos that it had been the work of hackers, the story just doesn’t seem to want to quit… offering one lesson after another on how not to run a business in today’s highly-connected world. Today, a former Amy’s Baking Company waitress even took to Reddit, answering questions. And the “Crazy Amy” memes, as you might expect, have begun to propagate across the internet like mad. I want desperately to sleep, but I can’t make myself log out. Maybe it’s that I dream of opening a restaurant of my own one day, and fear that I might meet a similar fate, but I find all of this incredibly fascinating, and don’t want to miss a single detail… I just hope the internet lynch mob, which has been gathering on Reddit the past few days, knows when to let up. I’d hate to see this end in tragedy, and, as of right now, I’d say that’s a distinct possibility.

I think it’s also worth noting that I’m not taking any pleasure in the destruction of this couple, even though, on the surface, it would appear as though they’re deserving of everything that’s happening. For reasons unknown to me, I just enjoy watching how businesses operate. Other folks like watching football. I like watching entrepreneurs navigate difficult situations. It’s weird, I know. I just find it fascinating. And this a goldmine.

This time, my accuser is a man in Texas, who as taken offense with my having used the phrase “Slime Gravel Academy.”

That, of course, isn’t really the phrase in question, but it’s as close as I’m willing to get, seeing as how I’ve been threatened not only with a DCMA shutdown, but a full-blown FBI investigation.

Here’s how the story begins…

Two years ago this week, I posted something about a poorly done, subscription-based, animated web series being launched by Mike Huckabee, in which a team of patriotic young protagonists travel through time, witnessing historic events firsthand, and saying things like, “Reagan believes we can do anything… We just have to get the government out of the way!” It was clearly a money grab on the part of the painfully sanctimonious presidential hopeful, who saw an opportunity to share in the ever-growing “Oh My God, our kids are learning something other than ‘God loves our country best, and we can do no wrong’… and we have to do something about it” economy. And, as Huckabee called this animated truth squad of his The Slime Gravel Academy, that’s what I referred to it as in my post. But, it would seem that phrase was already “owned” by a litigious science fiction writer in Texas, who, for the purposes of this post, we’ll call Smeginald Smilliams. Mr. Smilliams successfully prosecuted Huckabee, and then he set out to obliterate any mention of the politician’s ridiculous enterprise online, contacting every news outlet that had made mention of the Slime Gravel Academy, and threatening legal action.

While I could certainly see how Huckabee might be in the wrong, if he did in fact launch a product without first doing a copyright search, I didn’t see how I could possibly be held accountable, as I’d just reported the story in good faith, referring to the educational series in question by the name that it was then being marketed under. I didn’t think it was even remotely possible that larger players, like the New York Times, for instance, would be coerced into edit their coverage, years after it had first appeared, and I decided to join them by fighting back on the grounds that, rightly or wrongly, this was the name that the series was being marketed under at the time.

Then I remembered, however, that I don’t have an attorney on staff, and I decided to give in to every unreasonable demand. I wasn’t afraid of the threat to get the FBI involved, as I figured they had bigger things to worry about than a guy who used the phrase “time travel” on his blog, but I didn’t want to have my site taken down yet again, and I knew, based on past experience, that the company hosting my site would do just that in the face of legal action. (They seem like good folks, but they clearly didn’t want to fight for me if it meant jeopardizing their entire enterprise.)

Unfortunately, this is how the system works. The burden of proof is all on the blogger. All someone has to do is demand something be changed and threaten legal action… if the changes aren’t made immediately, the site will be pulled from the internet.

Oh, and this man didn’t want me to just remove certain phrases from my posts, but also the tags that I’d used to categorize these articles that I’d written, so that people could find them more easily. So, now, as a result, anyone searching the web for mention of Huckabee’s contribution to American online education, won’t find anything if they search under the name that the product was officially offered under, at least on my site.

One last thing, I’m not the only one that uses meta tags on my site. It would seem that Mr. Smilliams does too. Here’s a screen capture of the source code from his site. As you’ll notice, he mentions a great many things, which, I’m quite certain, he does not own the rights to… So, tonight, I’m staying up late and writing to Brad Pitt, Will Smith, the new CEO of Apple, and the producer of Iron Man, suggesting that they call Washington immediately, and “file a complaint with the FBI”. My hope is that justice is swift and merciless.

It’s also worth nothing that I did offer to add an addendum at the end of the post in question, explaining that Huckabee had infringed on the copyright of Mr. Smilliams. Apparently, though, that wasn’t good enough. Nothing short of removing the phrase in question, I was told, would be acceptable.

Now, I’m going to see if I can find Mr. Smilliams’ book to review. Wish me luck.

MARK: So, tell us about yourself.

ERIKA: I’m originally from Ohio. After I graduated from college I went to Boston for grad school to study painting. I worked with some fantastic artists, made huge oil paintings and when I graduated didn’t know where to go or what to do so I decided to move to New York. I ended up living in Brooklyn for two years where I worked as an artist assistant for some amazing artists. (I still can’t believe how lucky I was to work with the women I did.) Life was pretty great except I was broke and stressed out about making ends meet. I felt like I needed a change so I decided to leave the city for the summer to go to an artist residency outside Asheville, North Carolina to work on a comic book. It was literally in the middle of nowhere on an organic farm. Due to a chain of events involving rivers that flow backwards, a greyhound bus, a funeral, and painting a mural, I was offered a job at University of Michigan in the School of Art & Design. They were looking for someone to travel around the country to talk to students about their portfolios. Perfect. As you can probably tell, travel and location is something really important to me. There is a book called, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, by Rebecca Solnit. It addresses the idea of travel and wandering, and it’s a great read. So, yeah, traveling, art, community, dancing, comic books/books, these are the things that are important to me. I’m also attempting to be a bicyclist and I make a mean pasta salad.

MARK: What can you tell me about your artwork, other than the fact that it tends to be huge and oily?

ERIKA: My work is very involved in color and investigating space. Right now I’m interested in how shapes overlap to create a shallow space like what you see when you have multiple windows open in your computer. My paintings changed a lot when I moved to Michigan. I think a large part of that is because I started making sketches in photoshop. Before I had always made collages or small gouache studies. Being on the road half the year it is easier to work on an ipad rather than having a watercolor set with you.

MARK: Did the residency in North Carolina yield a publicly available comic? If so, how might we see it? And what’s it about?

ERIKA: Yes it did. I wanted to make a comic book to teach people how they could easily grow their own food in recycled containers. Organic produce is expensive and a lot of people can’t afford it so I wrote and illustrated “Contain This: Adventures in Urban Container Gardening”. It basically outlines how anyone can easily start growing their own food on a rooftop, window sill, anywhere you can fit a planter. I was awarded a grant from FEASTMass, an art funding project based in Boston, that helped me pay for the printing of the comic and to travel to a few cities to disperse it at farmers markets. You can find images of the comic on my website, and, if you would like one, you can email me.

MARK: So, why Ypsilanti?

ERIKA: I literally drove a moving truck from New York straight to Ann Arbor to an apartment I had only seen in really bad jpgs. I had only been to Ann Arbor once for the job interview and that was a fly in and out scenario. I didn’t know Ypsilanti existed. I started my job and a guy I worked with invited me out to Corner Brewery so I went to meet him. Well, he gave me the wrong date and ended up being busy, so I sat at the bar in a state where I didn’t know anyone and drank a beer. I’m glad the guy didn’t make it bc it gave me a chance to take it all in. The bartender was really nice, the people seemed cool, there were board games and all I could think is, “I should be living here and not in Ann Arbor!!” There is a vibe in Ypsi I love. The people, the community, the local businesses, the grit, I feel at home. I ended up officially moving to Ypsi in August and am here to stay.

MARK: Can we trust you?

ERIKA: I don’t know if you believe in horoscopes but I kind of do. I’m a Leo, so I’m one of those people that if you are my friend I will go through hell or high water for you. Basically, if we were in “The Warriors,” I would make sure you made it to home base, and even give you my sweet bandanna.

MARK: If it’s not asking too much, could you please draw a picture of me wearing this sweet bandanna? I’ve having a hard time visualizing it, having not read The Warriors. (My daughter and I were going to begin reading the cat version of The Warriors together this winter, but got sidetracked by The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.)

ERIKA: Ha! Of course!

MARK: Just a few weeks ago, I interviewed a guy by the name of Rob Hess, who intends to peddle his homemade ice cream from a bike in Ypsi. You wouldn’t happen to be related, would you?

ERIKA: I heard about that guy! Great idea, and I can’t wait to order some ice cream. Unfortunately we are not related, so I guess I won’t get the family discount.

MARK: I wonder if there’s a market for a business that sells pasta salad from the back of a bike.

ERIKA: Maybe Rob and I can go in on a picnic business. We’ll show up with ice cream and pasta salad, and we’ll bbq for you.

MARK: Do you have any questions that my audience might be able to help you with? Is there perhaps something that you’ve encountered in Ypsi that just doesn’t make sense to you, like how low the Tap Room’s door handle is?

ERIKA: My coworker told me the Tap Room door handle story! I love it! Someone needs to make a comic about that. Questions… hmmm, yeah, so are there Roller Derby events in Ypsi? I saw a mural by ACE, and went to a fundraiser for the Ann Arbor Derby Dimes, but is there an Ypsi team?

MARK: I think the Dimes rented that space. I’m not sure if they still do. I know people in Ypsi who do roller derby, but I’m terrible when it comes to keeping track of team names. I have, however, gone to see matches at the park behind Cobblestone Farm in Ann Arbor. I believe it may be the closest venue. As for local teams, I know there’s a team called The Ypsilanti Vigilantes, but I’m not sure if folks consider them our “home” team, as I believe that Ypsi women skate for a number of different teams. I’m sure someone more knowledgeable than me will respond, though… In the meantime, if you could bring one thing from Brooklyn to Ypsi, what would it be, and why?

ERIKA: Maybe Brooklyn Bowl, it was a bar and bowling alley that had great live shows. So basically if you added a bowling alley to Corner Brewery. Why? Because who doesn’t love beer, bowling and music?

MARK: You first introduced yourself to me a few weeks ago, when you were looking for studio space in Ypsi… Were you able to find something?

ERIKA: Unfortunately nothing has turned up yet. So maybe that is what I would bring from Brooklyn, lots of studio space.

MARK: It’s beautiful outside today, isn’t it?

ERIKA: Yes, I am loving this weather! I think I’m going to go hang out at Riverside Park with some pasta salad.

[note: For more Ypsilanti Immigration Interviews, just click here.]

Here’s Kardon’s editorial in its entirety.

Vouchers for students, under the deceptive guise of education reform are all but a done deal given the behind-the-scenes machinations of Gov. Rick Snyder and his staff.

The impetus for vouchers is coming from the Oxford Foundation, a private group that is run by two of Snyder’s top aides, Rod Davenport and David Behen.

Other Snyder appointees have been involved in a secret group calling themselves a “skunk works” group which supports the educational ideology of the Oxford Foundation, which is the ability for students to take their state funding to other communities and private vendors.

The group’s been using public funds to advance their corporate agenda in the form of using the state employee e-mail system during work hours, a minor blip in the overarching conversion of public tax dollars to corporate coffers. After the presence of the group became public via The Detroit News, State Superintendent of Education Mike Flanagan scrambled to quickly announce the formation of a public group to assess and improve Michigan’s public education system.

Snyder, in acknowledging the existence of a shadow government, stated that the group’s work has “no specific objective.”

But Snyder’s penchant for lying is well known. Right up to the final moments prior to passage of anti-union right-to-work legislation, he had ensured union leaders that he would not sign the bill into law. Earlier in his tenure he had publicly proclaimed that he had no interest in right to work, as he felt it was unnecessary and divisive. Snyder is lying again. Slowly dismantling public education for private gain is part and parcel of the Republican Party’s self-serving corporate agenda.

The voucher program works by cheapening the quality of education in profit-making charters by the use of video conferences to teach students. This means the charter can hire fewer teachers since students would learn via long distance video conferences. The excess money produced will be ‘given’ to students to spend in any educational venue of their choice which would include vendors such as corporate cyber schools. K12, a prominent corporate cyber school is hugely profitable and hugely irresponsible to its students.

Private corporations serve stockholders, not students.

Michigan is no longer functioning as a democracy. It is a corporate oligarchy in which aides and friends of the governor create policy in secretive groups.

The Republican Legislature is always happy to advance the corporate agenda, to the detriment of our students, public schools, and communities.

How long will Michiganians tolerate the assault on community schools to turn a profit? Snyder and his cabal of aides do not care about our kids, our communities, or our democracy. They only care about their profits. Phrases like “education reform” and the assault on unions were only stepping stones to the real right wing objective: Ensuring that you and your kids are profitable to companies.

And one last thing, as long as we’re talking about transparency… a little something humorous, to cheer you up in the face of corporate oligarchy.

Unfortunately, Linette has the parental controls set in such a way that it’s impossible me for me to do that, though.

So, instead, here’s video of me on the stage at Woodruff’s a few days ago, interviewing Annette “Bad Fairy” Weathers (Bona Sera Cafe), Eli Morrissey (The Rocket), Jesse Kranyak (Wurst Bar), and Darryl Daniels (Jacobsen Daniels Associates) about what it was that compelled them to start businesses in Ypsilanti, what advice they’d offer to other budding entrepreneurs, and where they see opportunities in the future. (I wouldn’t exactly call it titillating, but those of you who stick around until the end will be rewarded with a robust, multi-person defense of a certain local strip club.)

[Special thanks to Jeff Meyers and Paul Schutt at Concentrate Media for making this event happen, Roger Rayle for videotaping everything, Hasan Mihyar and the staff of Woodruff's for being such good hosts, and everyone who chose to spend their afternoon in the audience, instead of outside in the sunshine.]

Thank you to each and every one of you who played a part; Jeff Clark, Jason Tallant, Linette Lao, all the children and adults who came out in the snow a few days ago to help prepare the site, the kids of Summers-Knoll and Yspi Middle School who really took ownership of the project and helped immeasurably, everyone who contributed toward the making of the 2,745 seed bombs that were produced over the past two weeks, all my neighbors who came to the site this evening with delicious food to share, the 27 individuals who pledged money toward making the whole thing happen, the incredibly motivated men and women of the Ypsi Free Skool, and everyone who stood happily packed together on the sidewalk, hurling seed bombs onto our burgeoning native meadow this evening.

We live in an awesome little community, and our possibilities are endless. When we work together, as we demonstrated today, we can really make things happen… beautiful things. And, if you don’t believe me, just keep an eye on this little piece of property along Michigan Avenue, as the native plants come back to life, and people begin to spend more time there.

My sense is that a true community commons is evolving.

[All photos, except for the last one, which I took, come courtesy of our friend, the world-famous Doug Coombe.]

I know it’s a long shot, but what have we got too lose, right?

[Download the PDF]

Here’s a little video of those band members – Autumn Wetli, Shelley Salant, Jules Nehring and Amber Fellows – making beautiful music in what appears to be a cozy, wall-less living room in the middle of a darkening forrest.

It struck me as a kind of K Records – David Lynch mash-up, and what could be better than that?

[The above drawing of Rebel Kind comes courtesy of Jim Cherewick.]

Those who would like more information about Ypsilanti’s May 1 seed bombing event are encouraged to check out our Facebook page. Also, the audio quality is pretty terrible, due to the gusting winds we experienced a few days ago, but there’s now video on Youtube of native plants expert Jason Tallant and me, shot on Water Street, discussing the project with a school group… And, it’s not required, but, if you’re planning to join us on May Day, and would like to either RSVP, or share the event with your friends, you can do so here.

[note: The photo with the beer can was taken at Totally Awesome Fest, not at the school.]