NEWS
Sunday, November 30, 2003
Is the donut growth model already here in Detroit?Posted by Rob at 8:11 PM The Ann Arbor News files a lengthy story today on the ongoing Borders strike: "Stakes high for Borders, strikers as talks resume"
"... The first two weeks of the strike, sales at Shaman Drum Bookshop, around the corner from Borders' East Liberty Street store, increased 50 percent. Owner Karl Pohrt sells both popular and scholarly books, some of which are sold at Borders as well.
Pohrt himself feels squeezed between profit margins and a desire to pay employees more. Starting wages for hourly workers at his store are $7.50 an hour, and average hourly wages are about $8.50, he says. He acknowledges that raising wages significantly would be difficult, given that the retail industry, particularly independent bookselling, continues to struggle.
"The book business may be a business model that doesn't work for anybody very well because the profits are so slim," said Pohrt, a director of the American Booksellers Association, a trade group for independent bookstores nationwide." ..."
Posted by Rob at 3:09 PM
Saturday, November 29, 2003
Here's a juicy conspiracy theory for you: the late Senator Paul Wellstone was assassinated.Posted by Rob at 10:20 PM A Detroit businessman has been selected by President Bush to serve on a six-member group charged with raising over $350 million for a National Museum of African American History and Culture to be built on the mall in Washington D.C. as part of the Smithsonian Institution:
" ... The museum will offer Americans that total experience of both history past and present, of what we've done and what we've contributed," he said. "The scope and depth of the museum coupled with the marquee of the Smithsonian will help raise funds for this project."
The museum will be built on one of four sites on or near the National Mall, home of the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. The site will be selected within 12 months, according to the legislation. The legislation calls for the museum to be part of the Smithsonian and for the appointment of an advisory committee to work with the Smithsonian on the plans.
The museum will tell the African-American story from slavery through Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, the civil rights movement and the present. It will outline African-American contributions in sports, the performing arts and other areas.
Detroit has the largest among similar museums with its Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History at 120,000 square feet.
But the Smithsonian museum is expected to be much larger. ... "
> Freep: "Detroiter gets black museum on track"
Posted by Rob at 4:43 PM From the Ann Arbor News police beat:
"Scuffle with robber leaves man injured
A 21-year-old man suffered a broken jaw and other injuries after he refused to give money to a robber during an attack in downtown Ann Arbor Wednesday night, city police reported.
The Hartland Township resident said he parked on Washington Street and was walking toward the Blind Pig at 10:30 p.m. when he was confronted by a stranger, reports said. He said the man demanded money, and when he refused was punched in the face. He suffered a broken jaw and was knocked unconscious, reports said.
While the victim was lying on the sidewalk, the attacker rifled his pockets and removed his keys and a cell phone, reports said. The victim regained consciousness before the attacker got to his wallet and was able to kick him away, reports said. He was last seen walking away on Washington Street, and was not found in the area by officers, police said.
And this Break-in:
900 block of South State Street, Thursday. Digital camera, value undetermined, taken. Method of entry unknown.
Finally, from now until December 20, the downtown circulator bus "The Link" will be free on Fridays and Saturdays.
Posted by Rob at 4:01 PM United Students Against Sweatshops has started an e-mail campaign in support of the striking Border's workers.
Posted by Rob at 3:58 PM
Thursday, November 27, 2003
"Take off your riot gear, there ain't no riot here."What really happened in Miami last week? Aside from the brutal repression of protesters with over $8 million in taxpayer dollars, what happened inside the meeting was more important: FTAA, as envisioned by the Bush administration, failed.
"... And yet, despite the Bush brothers' best efforts, the dream of a hemisphere united into a single free-market economy died last week. It was killed not by demonstrators in Miami, but by the populations of Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia, which have let their politicians know that if they sign away any more power to foreign multinationals, they may as well not come home.
The Brazilians brokered a compromise that makes the agreement a pick-and-choose affair, allowing governments to sign on to the parts they like and refuse the ones they don't. Washington will, of course, continue to try to bully individual countries and groups of nations into sweeping trade contracts on the model of the North American free-trade agreement, but there will be no single, unified deal.
...
Our goal was to drown you out," one Miami-Dade police officer explained to me, and that's exactly what they did. Small, peaceful demonstrations were attacked with extreme force; organizations were infiltrated by undercover officers who then used stun guns on activists; busses filled with union members were prevented from joining permitted marches; dozens of young faces were smashed into concrete and beaten bloody with batons; human rights activists had guns pointed at their heads at military-style checkpoints."
> From Naomi Klein in the Globe and Mail: "The War on Dissent"
> Also see Common Dreams Viewpoint on the police tactics: "The Miami Model"
Posted by Rob at 3:09 PM Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted by Rob at 12:06 AM
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
No week would be complete without a few break-ins:"200 block of South Fifth Avenue, 12:28 p.m. Monday. Lock on door manipulated to gain entry; laptop computer valued at $2,000 taken.
800 block of Arch Street, 12:11 p.m. Monday. Front door forced open; CDs, CD holder, DVDs and wine taken. Total value: $1,610.
1300 block of Northbrook Drive, 5:45 p.m. Tuesday. Entry through a rear patio door; a Nintendo game system, LCD monitor and electronic games taken.
2700 block of Alhambra Drive, 7:32 p.m. Tuesday. Entry gained to garage; a bicycle valued at $250 taken.
600 block of Brooks Street, 2:50 p.m. Tuesday. Basement window broken; jewelry, a jewelry box and CDs taken. Total value: $1,600. "
Posted by Rob at 11:58 PM Yet another person has been hit on Ann Arbor streets recently, this time an unidentified 23-year-old who has been hospitalized after a hit-and-run accident on Packard Ave. near East University, according to the Ann Arbor News. Like Plymouth Road, this is another area of town where the interests of cars have trumped the interests of pedestrians in the eyes of the city: there are no crosswalks in the area, despite heavy pedestrian traffic.
"Ann Arbor Police are seeking witnesses to a hit-and-run crash that seriously injured a 23-year-old Ann Arbor woman last weekend.
The woman remains hospitalized at the University of Michigan Medical Center for injuries she suffered when she was struck on Packard Street early Saturday. The woman was in the roadway, near the intersection of East University Avenue, when she was hit by a vehicle that failed to stop around 3:30 a.m. Sunday.
A few people were in the area when police arrived, but were unable to give a good description of the vehicle, Sgt. Brad Hill said. The woman was intoxicated at the time and was unable to recall the crash, police said.
Washtenaw County Sheriff's deputies pursued a vehicle shortly after the hit and run, but authorities have determined that the chase was unrelated, Hill said.
Anyone with information is asked to call (734) 994-2865."
Posted by Rob at 11:55 PM "... Gov. Jennifer Granholm symbolically cut her own salary in order to ease Michigan’s own financial troubles, showing that if you’re going to cut corners to fit budget constraints, you obviously cut the biggest ones first. And, President Coleman, I do believe that what is good enough the Michigan state government is good enough for the University. Sure you gave $500,000 in internal donations, but you have yet to address the systemic problems of internal overspending.
There is no reason why you, as the University president and an accomplished scholar, should not rake in some serious cash, but if your salary were reduced by even 10 percent, you would still rank wealthy among the nation’s university administrators, and that would leave the University with much more financial resources.
As of right now, there are 50 University employees who make more than a quarter of a million dollars a year. If they all took even a 5 percent salary cut, that would make a remarkable dent in our fiscal woes, and GSIs, who technically are paid poverty wages, wouldn’t have to be thrown to the wolves of the national health care crisis. ... "
> From Ari Paul's column: "Mary Sue, can you live up to your own rhetoric?", also see "GEO votes to settle with 'U' over heath care"
Wondering where Ari got the data on the University's highest-paid employees? Try this website.
Other articles of note:
> Daily: State's breathalyzer tactics ruled illegal
> AANews: "Housing units near downtown get nod"
> AANews: "Police: U-M's Curry driving on a suspended license"
Posted by Rob at 11:47 PM
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
A story asking for a National Borders Strike has been posted on Infoshop news.Posted by Rob at 5:08 PM "For years, police officers throughout Michigan have violated the rights of countless college students and others under age 21 by forcing them to submit Breathalyzers without a warrant," Kary Moss, executive director of the ACLU of Michigan, said in a news release Monday. "This is a tremendous victory for the civil liberties of young adults."
> From AP: "Federal judge: City can't force pedestrian booze tests"
Posted by Rob at 4:51 PM I've created another RSS feed. Let me know if it's better than the first.
Posted by Rob at 3:39 PM USE OF BREATHALYZER TEST ON PEDESTRIANS STRUCK DOWN
The ACLU of Michigan has won their lawsuit challenging Michigan's MIP law. The police will no longer be able to force minors who are not driving a car to take a Breathalyzer test without a search warrent.
> ACLU-MI Press Release: Federal Court Strikes Down Breathalyzer Tests for Pedestrians as Unconstitutional
Here's the text of the Ann Arbor MIP law, taken from the city code:
"9:81. Possession or consumption by minors.
No person under 21 years of age shall consume or attempt to consume liquor, or possess or attempt to possess liquor except as permitted by the Michigan Liquor Control Act.
(Ord. No. 60-87, § 2, 9-21-87; Ord. No. 27-97, § 2, 6-16-97)
9:82. Penalties for liquor violations.
(1) Any person who violates any of the provisions of this chapter shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
(2) Any person who violates subsections 9:74 or 9:81 shall be punishable as follows:
(a) For the first violation a fine of not more than $100.00 and may be ordered to participate in substance abuse prevention or substance abuse treatment and rehabilitation services, perform community service and to undergo substance abuse screening and assessment at his or her own expense.
(b) For a second violation a fine of not more than $200.00 and may be ordered to participate in substance abuse prevention or substance abuse treatment and rehabilitation services, to perform community service, and to undergo substance abuse screening and assessment at his or her own expense.
(c) For a third or subsequent violation a fine of not more than $500.00 and may be ordered to participate in substance abuse prevention or substance abuse treatment and rehabilitation service, to perform community service, and to undergo substance abuse screening and assessment at his or her own expense.
(Ord. No. 60-87, § 2, 9-21-87; Ord. No. 70-91, § 1, 1-6-92; Ord. No. 27-97, § 3, 6-16-97)"
Posted by Rob at 11:06 AM "About 46 percent of American adults attend church at least once a week, not counting weddings, funerals and christenings, compared with 14 percent of adults in Great Britain, 8 percent in France, 7 percent in Sweden and 4 percent in Japan."
> UMPR: "U-M study: U.S. among the most religious nations in the world"
Posted by Rob at 2:59 AM Psst, want a projector?
The LCD projectors continue to disappear:
"DPS and officials at Washtenaw Community College (WCC) are offering rewards for information leading to the recovery of recently stolen LCD projectors and the arrest of individuals responsible for the thefts. Ten projectors valued at $50,000 have been stolen from U-M buildings since April, while WCC has experienced 11 thefts valued at $35,000 since July.
Anyone with information is asked to contact DPS at (734) 763-1131, the University's Anonymous Tip Line at (800) 863-1355, WCC's tip line at (734) 677-5343 or the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Confidential Tip Line at (734) 973-7711."
Posted by Rob at 2:44 AM The Daily put their coverage of yesterday's fundraiser for the arrested FTAA protestors and release party for the second issue of MOMENT on the front page, online at least.
Also, the editorial page is full of letters praising the University for allowing students to rush the field Saturday. Apparently brutal repression didn't go over so well in 1997.
Posted by Rob at 2:35 AM
Monday, November 24, 2003
I've added a few books to my books page, including this book Murph posted about called "City Comforts: How to Build an Urban Village".Posted by Rob at 4:43 PM Somebody was paying attention when the greenbelt passed: developers are gobbling up land in Washtenaw County in what could be a "feeding frenzy" in the hundreds of millions of dollars:
"In the last three weeks, I've delivered about $70 million in letters of intent (to purchase), and we're still in the preliminary stages," said Gary Lillie of Gary Lillie & Associates in Ann Arbor.
Lillie is working with one builder who seeks 2,500 acres in western Washtenaw and a second builder seeking 1,000 acres. Lillie would not identify the builders but said they are making the same offer to everyone.
In one case, that was just over three times the listed price on a 40-acre parcel.
The companies' goals, said Lillie, is to amass enough property for the next 20 years worth of development in the area."
I wonder if they'll be anything left for the city to preserve with their modest budget? In a sense, it's ironic: all that sound and fury, where new urbanist white male developers debated sprawl-obsessed white male developers, and Ann Arbor will turn out just as ugly and segregated as so much of the rest of the state. And they come whining to me to help figure out why Michigan just isn't "cool" enough.
Posted by Rob at 4:24 PM Susan Wineberg pens a very interesting op-ed submission to the Ann Arbor News, blaming Ann Arbor's affordable housing crisis on the University. While I'm not sure that the University is entirely to blame, I think her point is well taken: the University has indeed destroyed much more housing than it has replaced in the last 30 years. Her historical analysis is intriguing:
"... Consider this. When the university constructed the School of Business on Monroe St. in the late 1940s, it relocated many of the houses on that site to other parts of town. When it built the Food Services Building (later Neuroscience and just recently demolished for the Bio-Med Building going up right now) the houses on these lots were moved elsewhere. When they built the Law School and Martha Cook Dorm, houses on the site were moved to other locations. We know this from a house-moving permit book at the Bentley Library.
By the 1950s, however, the ethic of demolition had replaced that of recycling and it continues unabated to this day. In 1953 the Wines Field buildings and Geddes House were demolished and in 1959, 820 E. Washington was as well. In 1964, the Jefferson Apartments were demolished as were the Cutting Apartments on State Street. In the 1990s the university began tearing down historic houses on Wall Street to provide parking for the medical center. These houses were connected with some of the earliest settlers of Ann Arbor and deserved a better fate. In 1996, the University Terrace Apartments for married students were demolished.
The university has also been systematically buying and demolishing historic houses on South Division and intends to demolish the entire east side of Division, from Blimpie Burger (Krazy Jim's) on Madison to East William Street. This is stated in the 1987 Update of the 1963 Campus Master Plan by Johnson, Johnson and Roy (which recently won an award from the Society for College and University Planning/American Institute of Architects) as a way "to complete the western edge of the campus by extending development to the major north and south arterial, Division Street, to provide a strong visual boundary and identity from the west. The Thompson Street parking deck will be expanded to the edge of Division and softened with landscape appropriate with the quality of the street." This plan envisions Jefferson Street as a new entry into campus and involves the demolition of a lot of affordable and historic residential housing. ... "
To me, this is what the issue comes down to: When you are a large and powerful institution with lots of money at your disposal, it is easy to destroy and built monster one-use buildings and projects. It's extremely difficult to build complex, successful urban communities. In fact, I would argue the development of successful urban communities necessarily defies the logic of "planners" sitting in an office. Expanding the University is easy: expanding the University in a way that is successful for both the University community and city is difficult, and this is what the University should be preoccupied with - not merely where and what to build next, or where the "boundary" "should be". Here I will propose a few principals that the University and city should embrace:
1) Wherever possible, preserve historic buildings, fascades, and architectural elements. After all, it is this built history which makes all the parents croon about how "quaint" the city is, and drop lots of money in local businesses, which gives me a job and helps make Ann Arbor a pleasant place to pay $30,000 a year to live. It also helps makes us "cool," or something like that - whatever makes Ann Arbor a place where young people will actually live, instead of running from this sprawl-obsessed state to a place with a touch of real urbanity.
2) Remain committed to a multi-use street. I'm not sure where we got the idea that a street is simply a strip of tar for cars. A street is a space for trucks, cars, bicycles, pedestrians, motorcycles, segways, etc, and should be designed with all of these uses in mind. The city should be place priority on building many more crosswalks, medians (to make crossing easier and slow traffic) and bike lanes (sorely needed, particularly "downtown" where the few that exist don't really connect to anything or each other). Some of the most successful cities, (New York, Washington D.C., and Paris, in my experience) do this in a variety of ways - a wide street can have "express" lanes in the center, local lanes for slower traffic and delivery trucks, a median with benches, and even bike lanes. A bicycle and pedestrian has every much a "right" to be on the street as the auto, since all participate equally in the social and economic life of the city. However, I suspect many in the city harbor the prejudice that all students are somehow undesirable, and hence the city shouldn't serve their needs - but nothing could be more wrong.
3) Both the University and the city should remember the essence of urbanism: fine-grained, multi-use development. This means the city should loosen or abolish large parts of the zoning codes for much of "downtown," and encourage new developers to take into consideration the needs of the city. To be clear, I think this is something the city's planning department understands, as the Lower Town project, Corner House Lofts and the Collegian will combine uses in excellent ways.
4) Related to the last principal, the University should seek to craft innovative, creative solutions to their growth needs, instead of just exercising their hegemony of power to impose their will unilaterally. The University must recognize their role in destroying street life. Parking garages, massive office and laboratory buildings all enforce a uniformity of use on the surrounding streets: meaning they will only be used at certain times of the day, and there will never be businesses, no matter how many pedestrians pass buy hungry for a cup of coffee or a bagel. There is no rational or economic reason why all new University buildings must be single-use, only a cultural one. In their obsession with constructing a "campus" with buildings in a green grid, they view using office space in University Towers and 611 Church (as examples) as temporary. Why not include ground-level retail space, or upper-classmen apartments into new buildings, like what many other colleges do? Also, while I certainly understand why campuses are nice, why not locate small offices and units of the University that don't need to be on campus in smaller buildings in Ann Arbor? I see this being mutually beneficial: the pedestrian traffic on Ann Arbor streets would be an economic boon to downtown business, and the city could fully utilize some of its vacant lots and office space. Indeed, this is a pattern that I see occurring now, but generally because of a lack of on-campus space, not part of a general strategy. If the University wants to build their suburban paradise, they can do it on North Campus, but if its lifeless and sterile and nobody wants to go there, don't be suprised. Ann Arbor is a city, and insisting otherwise is not only counterproductive and destructive, but downright banal.
Posted by Rob at 4:16 PM Two Ohio State fans were taken to the U-M hospital after being assaulted outside the Brown Jug on South University 1 AM Sunday morning. Welcome to Ann Arbor, home of the Leaders and the Best(TM)!
Also, a busy weekend for theft. I wonder where all these hot laptops end up?
"800 block of East University Avenue, 7:13 p.m. Sunday. No signs of forced entry; laptop computer, Xbox and electronic games taken. Total value: $3,250.
1100 block of Willard Street, 3:23 p.m. Sunday. Entry through basement window or front door; laptop computer valued at $1,600 taken.
1100 block of Willard Street, 2:44 p.m. Sunday. Entry through bathroom window or front door; laptop computer, MP3 player, cash and a purse taken. Total value: $1,530.
500 block of Packard Street, 6 a.m. Sunday. Entry through unlocked screen door; laptop computer, cell phone, leather coat, backpack, game bag, PDA, camera, boots and soccer cleats taken. Total value: $2,270.
1200 block of South State Street, 3:48 p.m. Saturday. Entry through unlocked door; laptop computer valued at $2,000 taken.
1000 block of Broadway Street, 7 a.m. Saturday. Glass window broken out at business; cash register and contents and cash box taken. Total value: $586.
700 block of Arch Street, 4 a.m. Saturday. Entry through unlocked apartment door; residence ransacked and a door wall and Sony PlayStation destroyed.
800 block of Arch Street, 3 a.m. Saturday. Entry gained during house party; laptop computer valued at $2,000 taken.
700 block of South State Street, 12:14 a.m. Saturday. Apartment door kicked in; recording mixer, video games, 60 DVDs and a TV taken. Total value: $1,750. "
Posted by Rob at 3:32 PM A 21-year-old Ann Arbor woman came home from the bar, took a shower, and passed out in the bedroom. The only problem? The resident of the Tappan St. apartment was quite suprised - she was in the wrong apartment.
Posted by Rob at 3:28 PM Thank God for California
They're going to require all voting precincts equip electronic voting machines with a printer to produce a written record of the votes. Too bad the rule doesn't take effect until 2006.
Posted by Rob at 3:12 PM Attention Honors Freshman
My Winter 2004 course "Student Activism and Social Change at the University of Michigan" now has a website. The course is open to first year honors students only.
Posted by Rob at 2:36 AM
Sunday, November 23, 2003
We might pay her more than any other president of an American public university, but Mary Sue Coleman and her husband certainly give back, planning a $500,000 donation over five years to fund work at the Trotter House, a life sciences lecture fund, the expansion of the U-M art museum, among other projects.Posted by Rob at 9:42 PM Planada Parking Garage Announced
"... $13 million, 500-car parking structure in the 1100 block of East Ann Street to provide parking for the growing demand for parking facilities in the medical campus area. ... The project costs will be paid using parking revenues. The design work is scheduled to begin next month. The location until recently was the site of the old Planada apartments, which U-M bought with the intention of razing. ... " (AANews)
Perhaps the garage will include rentable retail space on the ground floor so that the small businesses can serve the needs of all the Hill Dorm students and the employees of the new medical buildings under construction, in addition to supplying some part-time jobs I'm sure students would love to have. Or maybe they'll be expected to drive somewhere for lunch, creating the "need" to construct more parking structures over historic buildings ...
Posted by Rob at 9:38 PM The University of Michigan goes another year without winning a Rhodes scholarship (See the U-M nominees), although Johns Hopkins University student and West Bloomfield native Wen Shi won one to pursue his dream to cure cancer.
Posted by Rob at 9:32 PM "The dinner was especially memorable for me because of the opportunity it provided to reflect on the phenomenon of which my darling rag is a part: the continuing story of conservative journalism on campus. It is an inspiring story of shoestring budgets, sleepless nights, and perseverance in the face of what is still often fierce student, and occasionally administration, animosity. It is a story that demonstrates one of the founding premises of modern American conservatism. As the famous title of one of Richard Weaver's books puts it, "Ideas have consequences."
I recently viewed at 1988 Frontline documentary called "Racism 101" about the BAM III movement at the University of Michigan, and also included some about the Dartmouth Review. I thought this might be a good time to give some historical context to the whole "Review" movement. In the early 1980s, dozens of conservative publications sprung up across the country to counter what they perceived to be the liberal dogma within both the established student newspapers and also academe more generally. Although the founders may wrap their "grassroots" movement with nostalgia (see source to the above quote), each paper was from the beginning financed to the tune of thousands of dollars a year by various corporations, foundations, and individuals. Today, that aid comes from something called the Collegiate Network, which funnels money to dozens of conservative publications around the country including our beloved Michigan Review. Meanwhile, the people at the Michigan Daily and Moment have to seek advertising revenue and donations to print their newspapers.
In a sense, the Reviews are a well-funded national program to systematically attack diversity, toleration, and the liberal arts tradition more generally on college campuses. Whether it's self-righteously arguing for the ability of standardized testing to measure intelligence, or attacking Black studies programs and women's studies programs, they can always be counted on to provide an intolerant, reactionary, and often flat-out ignorant viewpoints that were "missing" before. As an example, Dartmouth Review staffers were suspended for harassing a professor after three of them aggressively confronted a professor after his class, with tape recorders and cameras rolling, after he had told them he didn't want to talk to them.
The Review is also the recipient of somewhat unusually assigned office space - it's unclear to me how their office in the Michigan League came about, and they only recently were required to re-apply for it: one of the products, ironically, of the "space panel" convened by Bollinger after the Students of Color Coalition forced the University to evict Michigamua, Phoenix, and Vulcan from the Michigan Union Tower.
Meanwhile, why do we have the day off classes on Martin Luther King Day? The MLK Symposium was created as the direct result of the Black Action Movement III, when a multiracial coalition led a one-day boycott of classes on Martin Luther King day, and asked the Regents to create special educational events and give students the day off classes. They won: the MLK Symposium was born, and the University made a strong written commitment to future diversity, although it would go unfufilled in the eyes of many in the following decade. This from the Director of OAMI John Matlock:
"When I came back to the University of Michigan - some 12 years after finishing my doctorate program, the campus was in its second or third year of officially celebrating Dr. King's contributions. Like the national holiday, the University's recognition didn't come easily. Students and others on the campus had been observing the holiday with the "Commemoration of a Dream" march some years before the University agreed to recognize the holiday. The spirit of Dr. King was alive at U-M through its students - the same students who had never had the opportunity to meet Dr. King but who were the beneficiaries of his legacy."
Posted by Rob at 9:04 PM I've heard the U-M students and SOLE members arrested protesting the FTAA meeting in Miami, Mike Medow and Jenny Lee, are being held until Monday on $500 bail. Moment magazine and Rad.art are holding an event to celebrate that magazine's second issue, and to benefit the arrested Michigan activists:
"THIS MONDAY - November 24 - MOMENT* and Rad.art will be hosting an event to celebrate the release of the second edition of MOMENT and to raise money for our Michigan activists arrested during the FTAA protests in Miami. (see below for details on the arrests)
The party will be held at Oneline Studio on Fourth and Huron in Ann Arbor from 8 to 11pm. Donations welcome at the door, sliding scale.
We'll have MUSIC, DRINK, POETRY, & MINGLING... If you are poet, writer, or musician, come prepared to take the stage.
Stay strong on the streets - BRING 'EM DOWN, YALL!!! We'll see you on Monday.
Love and struggle -
Moment Magazine
---------
Two Indy Media journalists and Rad.Art founders were arrested over the weekend - please come and support our efforts to help them and other activists who are being detained and mistreated since the past week. For more information, see www.ftaaimc.org.
*Moment is a new publication of progressive thought; articles, short stories, poetry, and art.
Submissions welcome, - email momentboard@umich.edu for more information.
We stand for Social Justice, Diversity, and Humanity. Against Oppression,
Exploitation, and Exclusion."
Posted by Rob at 2:17 PM
Saturday, November 22, 2003
U-M Football defeated Ohio State today 35-21 in the 100th game in that rivalry. Attendance in Michigan Stadium set a record at 112,118 people.Posted by Rob at 10:57 PM In the MSA election, Students First won 17 seats, the University Party won 4, and DAAP won 2 seats. Here's the full unofficial MSA election results.
In the LSA Student Government race, Students First won 9 of the 10 open seats. Here are the full LSA-SG election results.
Posted by Rob at 2:11 PM According to the IMC U-M students Jenny Lee and Mike Medow were among five independent journalists arrested at the FTAA meeting in Miama, Florida.
Posted by Rob at 2:09 PM Here's some of the student government elections results, I'll post the complete results soon. The numbers following each candidate's name is the total number of votes, and then the weighted score, which determine the ranking. For example, 10 votes in the first position scores higher than 10 votes in lesser ranked positions.
Michigan Student Assembly Elections:
LSA
Jon Anderson (S1) 1409 8594
Paul Spurgeon (S1) 1286 7542
Chris Kang (S1) 1303 7305
Ashley L. Whitfield (S1)1262 7111
Russell Garber (S1) 1239 7037
Paige Revelson (S1) 1255 6979
Sam Woll (S1) 1212 6804
Ashwini Hardikar (S1) 1157 6374
Laban J. King (S1) 1081 5552
Charles Adside, III (UP)910 5116
Business
Jeff Mirmelstein (S1) 68 122
Jessica DeBartolo (UP) 76 114
Dentistry
Deidre Shelton (S1) 8 8
Engineering
Anita Leung (UP) 407 883
Katherine McGee (S1) 347 806
Brian Doughty (S1) 324 665
Medical
Ferdous Barlaskar (S1) 41 41
Music
Jason Amos (DAAP) 63 63
Nursing
Maureen "Mo" Cebula (UP) 110 110
Public Policy
Doreen O'Donovan 13 13
Public Health
Shannon D. Haffey (UP) 8 8
Rackham
Eleanor Gao (S1) 215 478
Dominick Wright (S1) 213 446
Haroon Ullah (S1) 207 379
Social Work
Gerald Funderburg (UP) 62 62
LSA Student Government Results:
Stu Wagner (S1) 1169 7930
Larry Fogel (S1) 1131 7783
Mike Rudin (S1) 1130 7638
Alyssa Miller (S1) 981 6064
Jessica Perkins (S1) 964 5994
Jeremy Oliver (S1) 970 5871
Breeanna Hare (S1) 902 5357
Alexis Bates (UP) 806 5251
Allison Gans (S1) 897 5238
Janu Lakshmanan (S1) 840 4841
Posted by Rob at 3:35 AM
Friday, November 21, 2003
More PartisanshipThe National Students for Bush have decided to kick off their national re-election campaign for President Bush in Ann Arbor tomorrow before the U-M/Ohio State game:
"Come support our President, as we kickoff his campaign for his second term!
The National Students for Bush campaign has selected the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN as the official site of the campaign kickoff. As such, we will be entertaining elected officials, and the SFB national campaign. But we need your help! If you sign up to volunteer to work at the event, we'll give the first 100 volunteers a free SFB Nat'l Kickoff T-Shirt, Hat or Football. All volunteers will get Tubby's for helping, and the opportunity to personally meet our VIP guests. This event is going to be huge, but only if you help make it a success!
WHEN: Saturday 9-11:30AM (Before the OSU football game)
WHERE: Elbel Field (Corner of S. Division & Hill Streets, on the way to the
stadium)
WHO: You and 200 other U of M Republicans
WHY: Because we want the White House for 4 more years!
Contact: Steve MacGuidwin - smacguid@umich.edu - for more details or to sign up to volunteer!
PS - For those hardcore Republicans, we'll be going to gameday at 6AM. Email rraham@umich.edu for more info."
Although the Democrats have caught wind:
"Let's Stop Students For Bush!!
This Saturday, before the OSU game, Students For Bush is having their NATIONAL kick-off. It's time to show them that Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan is NOT Bush country. In order to show our solidarity and strength on campus we do NOT need to protest, nor do we need to stop supporting our personal candidates in the primary. But we DO need to show up, in numbers, as Democrats, wearing shirts and handing out information. Our compassionate and progressive agenda will beat out their money anyday. So if you're interested tomorrow, before the game, in helping show that Ann Arbor is OUR ground, come meet tomorrow at 11 a.m. at the gate near elbel field. This is going to be a great opportunity to stop the Bush offensive at a very early stage, so please come out to have some Dems fun before a Wolverine victory!"
Posted by Rob at 5:21 PM This is from an email sent to the College Republicans email list:
"The Michigan Daily is looking for conservative editorial writers. This could be a wonderful opportunity for the Republicans to balance out the Daily a little. Anyone interested should contact Jason Pesick at jzpesick@umich.edu or Zachary Peskowitz at zpeskowi@umich.edu.The applicant should have some writing experience."
Posted by Rob at 5:18 PM
Thursday, November 20, 2003
A number of organizations are planning an "All-Campus Labor Rally" tomorrow:"The All Campus Labor Council, a coalition of unions on campus, is holding a rally in front of the Fleming Building Thursday at 12:30 PM to urge the regents to stop the erosion of employee health care. Hundreds of U of M workers, students and teachers are gathering at the Cube to protest increased costs and a decrease in the quality of care. The rally will include speeches from Ken Chavez, a representative from the Skilled Trades Union, Dave Dobbie and Bella Muntz, members of the Graduate Employees Organization, Gina Soter from the Lecturer Employees Organization, Molly Haggerty from Students Organizing for Labor and Economic Equality and a representative from the Michigan Nurse’s Association.
The rally is being organized in response to University-wide cuts in employee in health care benefits increasing premiums. Indicative of these changes is the University’s plan to shift the cost of health care onto the shoulders of the graduate student employees by demanding that they pay premiums for the first time in 25 years. On January 1, 2003, University contracted out the graduate employees’ prescription drug benefit to Advance PCS, a change that has resulted in lower quality care and higher costs."
Posted by Rob at 2:05 AM Maybe it's his experiences covering "real" government as the Daily's longtime government beat reporter before becoming editor-in-chief, or maybe because we lived in the same house for a year, but for whatever reason, I think Daily editor Louie Meizlish really hits the nail on the head in his column today about the Michigan Student Assembly:
"Louie Meizlish: The do-little assembly
November 20, 2003
With the mid-term elections for the Michigan Student Assembly approaching completion, perhaps it’s time for a brief history of campus politics and our illustrious student government.
March 2000. Hideki Tsutsumi, a student whose communications skills are otherwise less than stellar, campaigns for an entire year wearing a sandwich board and is elected MSA president. He is unable to control the raucous assembly meetings and frequently turns the gavel over to his vice president.
March 2001. Matt Nolan, a smooth-talking conservative masquerading as a center leftist, leads the Blue Party to a short-lived dominance on MSA and is elected president. As the public face of the student body, he speaks in support of affirmative action and works with the University to post signs at bus stops complete with maps of the various bus routes.
March 2002. Sarah Boot leads an anti-Blue coalition known as the Students First Party, composed of campus leftist as well as right-wingers disgusted with Nolan’s wishy washiness on social issues. As MSA president, Boot helps establish the airBus shuttle to Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
March 2003. Students First continues its dominance of MSA, this year with Angela Galardi as the elected leader. Galardi undergoes media training provided by the University and gives semi-impressive soundbytes to national media on the Diag when the U.S. Supreme Court rules in the affirmative action cases. AirBus continues its service.
Impressive, eh?
OK, maybe not.
Don’t get me wrong, MSA does do some things. One area in which it has performed admirably is the allocation of money to student groups, with virtually no controversy surrounding the $400,000 yearly appropriations to the groups.
Though often criticized or its long debates on “meaningless resolutions,” it’s hard to argue that a student assembly shouldn’t be voicing its sentiments on “non-student” issues, because, yes, even wars affect students.
But it could do more.
MSA’s problem, in fact, is it does small things and then touts them as huge achievements.
When he discovered that several seats were vacant on the Central Student Judiciary, there was the “student general counsel,” Jason Mironov, firing off a press release as if he’d struck oil in the Frieze Building. (Don’t worry, the vacancies have been filled and there’s more than enough “justices” for a quorum. And that means … I don’t know. Fair elections, maybe.)
But when the University decides to raise tuition by 6.5 percent — 3.5 percentage points higher than the inflation rate — do MSA representatives say anything? Nope. Not a peep.
It could establish a committee to analyze Mary Sue Coleman’s budget and look at the tuition increases, maybe invite University to officials testify why program X had to be cut, why the useless program Y saw its budget doubled, etc. Or maybe that’s too difficult.
Or when our oh-so-benevolent University revises the Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities (I still call it “the Code”), saying it has granted students the right to legal representation at Code infraction hearings, just maybe MSA could pass a resolution blasting the University and then organize some sort of protest. At least MSA could do more than leave it to a former chair of the Student Rights Commission to speak up and say, well, it’s just not real legal representation when the lawyer can’t speak at the hearing — and then leave it at that.
Maybe rather than just sitting on search committees for new deans and appearing publicly with University officials to legitimize their actions, maybe MSA officials could make some noise once in a while and, dare I say, complain.
While cheap transportation to the airport is no doubt important to most out-of-state students, it’s hard to believe that running the airBus is all MSA is capable of.
Meizlish can be reached at meizlish@umich.edu
Posted by Rob at 1:58 AM According to Dumi, these are the candidates for student government endorsed by the Black Student Union:
Katherine McGee (S1 MSA-Engin)
Paul Spurgeon (S1 MSA-LSA)
Laban King (S1 MSA-LSA)
Ashley Whitfield (S1 MSA-LSA)
Charles Adside (UP MSA-LSA)
Breeana Hare (S1 LSA-SG)
Jessica Perkins (S1 LSA-SG)
Posted by Rob at 1:33 AM
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Writer, activist, teacher, and scholar Angela Davis will be speaking on campus this Friday. See a bio here, or read about her recent book: "Are Prisons Obsolete?""The Women's Studies Program and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan Present
The Vivian R. Shaw Lecture
Honoring the 30th anniversary of the Women's Studies Program
Angela Davis
How Gender Structures the Prison Industrial Complex
Friday, November 21, 2003
7:30 p.m.
Rackham Auditorium
University of Michigan
915 E. Washington St., Ann Arbor
Angela Davis, Professor in the History of Consciousness Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is internationally known for her efforts to combat all forms of oppression in the U.S. and abroad. Over the years she has been active as a student, teacher, writer, scholar, and activist. She is a living witness to the historic struggles of the contemporary era."
Posted by Rob at 11:37 PM Did you hear many student government candidates discussing tenant issues? It must be because housing in Ann Arbor is reasonably priced, landlords are universally respectful, and everyone is getting their security deposits back without a hassle. Right. At least the Daily's editorial board hasn't forgotten about the AATU:
"On this administration's watch, a number of events have unfolded that should raise concern among students. The first of these was the death of the Ann Arbor Tenants Union. In the past, the AATU would help students resolve disputes with their landlords. It provided students with information about their landlords' legal obligations, encouraging students to understand their rights as tenants. There is no question that the program was valuable to students, but unfortunately, this year the University Board of Regents refused to implement a $1 increase in student fees meant to support the struggling organization. MSA's lack of clout with the administration and regents ultimately doomed the proposal. The University's administration can disregard students' opinions because of MSA's weakness." (From "MSA Missteps")
Posted by Rob at 11:05 PM In case you didn't see today's Daily story on the election: "Candidates get personal"
Posted by Rob at 11:02 PM The University is letting me teach a course next semester. Well, a seven week 1-credit mini-course for honors freshman, but a course nonetheless. It's titled "Student Activism and Social Change at the University of Michigan," and will be offered January 12 through March 8th. The class will meet on Mondays from 4-5 PM. If any visitors to this website know someone who might be interested, please pass the word along! Also, here's the PDF of a flyer I made to advertise the course.
Posted by Rob at 3:54 PM The Students First Engineering candidate Pedro Perez-Cabezas is sending the following email, suggesting he supports a Pizza Hut or Taco Bell in Pierpont Commons:
"Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 13:59:58 -0500
From: pedromp
Reply-To: pedromp
Subject: Hey XXX , vote for me today/tommorrow
Hey XXX, support your fellow Engineer, Pedro Perez-Cabezas, and vote for me and my party members of Student's First as
representatives for MSA. I need your support in order to win. As representive I will support the initiative to pushback lease signing for off campus housing to a date later than December, more cean computer on central campus, more frequent busses with more room and better shelter at bus stops, and more food options at Pierpont Commons (the lease for McDonalds is almost over how does a taco bell/pizza hut sound?).
The voting website is
http://www.umich.edu/~vote
please vote for me, I need your help.
for information on my party visit
www.votefirst.com"
Posted by Rob at 3:33 PM "Land use has been a divisive issue in our state, but good land use decisions are also often good economic decisions for communities and businesses," Granholm said. "In order to make Michigan a magnet state for new business development and jobs, we must make a conscious effort to invest in our already existing infrastructure."
> From "Granholm signs executive order on land use" (via Brandon)
Posted by Rob at 12:12 AM Of all the candidates running for an MSA-LSA seat, I am able to suggest voting for three: Ashwini Hardikar, Sam Woll, and Paul Spurgeon. As a reminder, only LSA students will be able to vote for them, and the polls will be open from now until Thursday midnight at www.umich.edu/~vote.
Ashwini Hardikar (Students first - ashwini)
"My name is Ashwini Hardikar, and I have devoted my life on campus to several progressive and social justice causes on campus. I am an intern at MARAL Pro-Choice Michigan, I am on fundraising exec board for the Vagina Monologues, and am a core member/public events coordinator of Amnesty International. I am also a core member of Students for Kucinich, and extremely involved with Students for Choice. I believe that MSA's purpose and potential is larger than simply funding student organizations, and to tell students that their political concerns don't matter to MSA is NOT an example of representative government. If elected, I would be a strong and forthright voice for the progressive activist community in MSA."
Sam Woll (Students First - swoll)
"Sam Woll hails from beautiful West Bloomfield, Mich., and upon arriving to Ann Arbor, she has immersed herself in various progressive causes. Whether it be volunteering at Detroit public schools or advocating for smart urban planning, Woll has always been conscious of how one can build a better community. While she's dabbled in architecture, philosophy and the social sciences, above all she has dedicated her time and study to the Jewish community.
[...]
Woll is a fan of the Greenbelt proposal and is also anti-sprawl. Her platform includes initiatives to improve Student-City relations and increase student voter registration as well as create shuttles for students to Detroit, MSU and Western on the weekends. She would also like to see additional lighting in off-campus student housing neighborhoods."
Paul Spurgeon (Students First - pspurgeo)
See S1 website
Posted by Rob at 12:03 AM
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
I've just sent a short questionaire to the 26 candidates for 9 open LSA representative seats on the Michigan Student Assembly. I'll post the results at about 11:00 PM tonight. Voting begins at 12 midnight. Here are the candidates:Adam de Angeli: ( adeange ) Defend Affirmative Action Party
Monica R. Smith: ( monistar ) Defend Affirmative Action Party
Jessica Bratus: ( jbratus ) Defend Affirmative Action Party
Sarah Barnard: ( sbarnard ) Defend Affirmative Action Party
Angela Davis: ( davisan ) Defend Affirmative Action Party
Neal Lyons: ( lyonsn ) Defend Affirmative Action Party
Kate Stenvig: ( kstenvig ) Defend Affirmative Action Party
Cyril Cordor: ( ccordor ) Defend Affirmative Action Party
Jon Anderson: ( jonboyd ) Students First
Ashley L. Whitfield: ( ashlelau )Students First
Paul Spurgeon: ( pspurgeo ) Students First
Ashwini Hardikar: ( ashwini ) Students First
Sam Woll: ( swoll ) Students First
Chris Kang: ( chriskan ) Students First
Russell Garber: ( rudaga ) Students First
Laban J. King: ( ljking ) Students First
Paige Revelson: ( paigerev ) Students First
Joy Sheng: ( joysheng ) University Party
Alissa Prater: ( aprater ) University Party
Erica Levine: ( ellevine ) University Party
Cesarina Castellanos: ( castellc ) University Party
Greg Lavigne: ( gregwl ) University Party
Michael J. Moore: ( shibby ) University Party
Paul Teske: ( pteske ) University Party
David Koll: ( dkoll ) University Party
Charles Adside, III: ( adside ) University Party
Posted by Rob at 5:55 PM "Less than a week after workers struck at Borders's downtown Ann Arbor, Mich., store, employees at one of country's major indies also went on strike.
Last Wednesday, more than 300 unionized workers at the seven Powell's Bookstore locations in Portland, Ore., went on strike to protest a slow down in contract negotiations. Powell's workers unionized in 1999 and joined the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 5; the union's first contract, negotiated in 2000, expired on October 1.
Approximately 385 employees are represented by the union out of a total of 494 employees.
...
Ryan Van Winkle, the union rep for Local 5, told PW Daily, "The median income for a Powell's employee is a hair over $11 per hour. But half of the employees are making less than that, and when you're making $9 an hour a 3% annual raise per year isn't a lot of money."
> From Publisher's Weekly: "Strike Two: Unionized Powell's Workers Hold One Day Walk-out"
Posted by Rob at 5:49 PM So, I received this anonymously ...
"I think that it is quite obvious what Mr. Nolan is trying to achieve with his letter to the Daily. This statement of the the post-Nolan/Cash Michigan Student Assembly is as, if not more, tactical than Chelsea Clinton's grounbreaking Oxford-era interview with Talk magazine, which is a passive treatise on her stance on leadership and the future of American democracy. Hint, hint: Matt Nolan is running for President of the United States, or perhaps Muskegon County Commissioner at the least.
Consider this scenario. Mr. Nolan graduates from Michigan Law, with a respectable, but not necessarily superstellar academic record (hell, Michigan is better than Cooley Law School). He moves back to Muskegon in a few years to work at a local law firm. He marries his sweetheart, becomes a member of the local country club and is chair of fundraising committee for Muskegon's historic Victorian-era Hackley House museum. He even coaches his old high school chess club at Reeths Puffer High School on the weekends.
This lays the foundation for community networking and his first successful run for Muskegon County Commissioner at age 26. At the same time, he keeps in touch with his old boss, Rep. Pete Hoekstra and former Lt. Gov. Dick Posthumus. They craft him for a state senate run and like a similar back-country legislative aspirant (i.e. John Engler), Mr. Nolan rises though the ranks in Lansing. He even becomes the Republican chief deputy whip, at age 29!
But Lansing is too small a town for Nolan. He has his sights set on Washington, his rightful place. Keeping in touch with his former MSA vice president Jessica Cash, now a mid-level legislative aide at the Small Business Administration, Cash lays his fundraising foundation for a House run, to take the spot of retiring Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R). Cash leaves the executive branch to go to full-time lobbying at the National Federation of Independent Business (which is actually a step down), so she has more time to work the fundraising avenues of Washington in her spare time, while he works Muskegon, Holland and Ludington for campaign cash.
He wins the race, and rises through the ranks of the House becoming Speaker DeLay's majority whip by the mid-2010s. Around 2025, while, he is in the running for the speakership after DeLay's eventual retirement, Nolan digs down to his inner feelings, and perhaps with a pinch of hubris, runs for Senate, challenging Debbie Stabenow, his old arch-nemesis ( Don't Forget Liberal Debbie!) and because of a nasty campaign plotted by Cash, Stabenow loses because of she has Parkinson's Disease, though it is curable by then. And because Nolan as DeLay's chief associate pushed a measure closing the Canadian border to all U.S. senior citizens, Stabenow couldn't get access to the life-saving Canadian drugs.
By 2035, his Senate career in full swing, Nolan plots a run for the presidency. And while doing a Google search, a reporter finds his letter on the Daily's website from 2003 laying out his frustrations with the Michigan Student Assembly and how his administration's achievements were destroyed by pesky student politicians who don't inhabit the true spirit of Wolverine leadership. He wins the presidency, single handedly stops the Israelis and Palestinians from fighting and world peace is achieved. Nolan's head replaces Roosevelt's in Mt. Rushmore and Pax American rules for the rest of time."
Posted by Rob at 5:13 PM I've been nominated by the mayor to serve on Ann Arbor's "Cool Cities Task Force," according to the "current packet" available on the city's website. The other nominees are Eugene Yue-Hin Chan, an LSA student and a native of Canada who lives in West Quad, Brandt Coultas, who works for SNRE, engineering student Melissa Schulte, and Maureen English, who I couldn't find in the directory. I'm not sure who else is on the task force, or whether the nominations are approved, but membership was supposed to include: "one Pfizer employee, two University students, one artist, two downtown residents or businesspeople and three at-large residents." While I have some ideas how Ann Arbor could be more "cool" (affordable housing, better regional transit, more local businesses, smart growth ... how cool are these?!), I plan on encouraging the task force to hold a series of public meetings to gather ideas from various communities in the city - particularly from students.
Posted by Rob at 3:08 AM The Daily covers the continuing Borders strike:
"The living wage in Ann Arbor is $10.40 without employee benefits and $9.45 with benefits, said Brad Bachelor, Borders bookseller and employee for three years. Currently, starting wages are $6.50 for cashiers and $7 for floor clerks at Borders, he added.
"We do get benefits at the moment but they have been scaled back," Bachelor said. “Since the union was formed about a year ago, (Borders) has put a lot of pressure on us to get us to quit. They tried to target union members and talk them out of joining."
> From "After first week of picketing, Borders strike at standstill"
And also debate at last night's city council meeting over a new, $100,000 traffic light on plymouth Road:
"... According to Kristine Abouzahr, spokeswoman for the Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor, leaders from the mosque have been trying to convince city officials to put in a traffic light at the junction since 1988. The Islamic Center was built in 1985.
"It hurts me deeply that the political capital that got us here had to be this tragic accident," she said. ...
> From "Council debates merit of traffic light at fatal crossing"
Posted by Rob at 3:00 AM If you don't want to miss any of the campus intrigue in today's Daily, you better set aside some extra time: the newspaper is jammed with goodies. Yes, if Matt Nolan's name makes you retch, as it does many, you should be warned: MSA's attempt to patch up an oversight of the assembly to prepare for this week's election has turned personal, with Mr. Nolan weighing in to criticize the move. The Daily doesn't think it's important to note that the current MSA executives went to some effort to contact the existing justices. Why might Nolan have a better chance? That's right - they're his personal friends, some of whom lived in his hall freshman year. After all, Matt was serious about serving as MSA president, and he was sure to pack the court with his buddies to ensure his smooth election. But you're not supposed to know that.
In his lengthy, self-involved letter to the editor today, Matt Nolan demands to know what MSA has "done" since he left it in 2002. Yes, this is the Matt Nolan who consistently voted against resolutions in support of affirmative action, helped ram through a resolution "in support of the U.S.A." after we started bombing Afghanistan in 2001, did nothing to help students trying to encourage the University of use fair trade coffee, and certainly did little to help an energetic student named Neil Greenberg bring his dream of low-cost transportation to the airport for students into reality. Yes, that had to happen under the presidency of Sarah Boot. I also guess sending thousands of U-M students to D.C. was not really "doing" anything for students either.
But whether he was running up a tab of thousands of dollars of our student fees eating at the University Club or failing totally to understand part of his duty as MSA president was to represent a unique student point of view before both the Regents and the city, there can be one thing said about Matt Nolan: he took his job seriously. Yes, he helped push through fall break, improve the CCRB, and finally get the University to put up some bus signs, but under the Nolan administration tuition went up, the AATU was antagonized, and for many students MSA was made irrelevant by an executive who systematically denied the importance of their "political" interests, even though his administration would self-righteously advocate war. Yet despite it all, Matt Nolan did bring a seriousness to government that I couldn't deny. For good or for ill, he made it his life, and that alone seems worth recognizing. Now he should be quiet, and save us all from egoistic accounts of his past glory in the form of long-winded letters.
> See "Critics: Assembly's Actions Prohibited," and the Daily jamming the remainder of their election coverage into one story: "Polls open at midnight"
Posted by Rob at 2:43 AM
Monday, November 17, 2003
Michigamua UpdateI have received anonymously a list of names of of Michigamua members I had not included in my directory of members. Before I add these people to my permanent page, I'm posting them here. I encourage anyone who thinks this data may not be accurate to contact me at rob(at) goodspeedupdate.com. I've also added a photo to the Michigamua page, and am working on a project to post every member in that organization's 101-year history, minus the class selected last spring, or the "Pride of 2004," which I believe to be forthcoming.
PRIDE OF 2003:
Tyler Atkins - Dance Marathon - tatkins
LaVell Blanchard - Men's Basketball - blanchar
Tom Church - Army ROTC - tchurch
Anita Gupta - University Students Against Cancer - apgupta
Petra Juzwishin - Women's Crew - petramj
Rebecca Kramer - President UM Engineering Council - rkramer
Jed Ortmeyer - Men's Ice Hockey -jortmeye
John Spytek - Football - jspytek
PRIDE OF 2002:
Jeff Hopwood - Men's Swimming - jhopwood
Quentin Love - BGA, NSBE - qlove
Joe Young - Baseball -jfyoung
Posted by Rob at 8:46 PM Blogger Nathan Newman has posted about the Borders strike. Also, see this forum on the union's website for a complete list of blog postings and news stories. Also, see my evolving list of solidarity bloggers.
Posted by Rob at 8:01 PM Lots of action in the Ann Arbor News police blotter:
"Man tries to bribe doorman with pot
A man attempted to bribe a doorman at Studio Four over the weekend by offering him marijuana if he allowed him into the nightclub, then fought with employees and police officers when he was told to leave, Ann Arbor Police said.
The doorman at the club in the 300 block of South Fourth Avenue said he refused to let the 39-year-old man enter because he was so intoxicated, reports said. He said the man walked away, then returned with a bag of marijuana and asked if that would help him get inside, police said.
The doorman said he again refused entry, and the suspect tried to push past him and punched him in the chest, reports said. The doorman restrained the man until officers arrived. He also refused to comply with police, and was wrestled to the ground during the arrest, police said.
The man's blood alcohol level was 0.24 - three times the legal limit for drunken driving, police said. He was held until he was sober, and is expected to face charges of resisting arrest, assault and marijuana possession.
Restaurant manager stabbed by customer
The manager of a downtown Ann Arbor restaurant was stabbed in the neck by a customer with a pair of scissors Friday evening, city police said.
Employees of the Heidelburg Restaurant on North Main Street said the 39-year-old customer had been a problem in the business before, and entered for a pack of matches Friday, reports said. They said they gave him the matches, then were escorting him out when he suddenly pulled out the scissors and began stabbing the manager in the neck, reports said.
Witnesses grabbed the suspect and held him until police arrived, reports said. He was taken to the Washtenaw County Jail on felonious assault charges, and has a history of assaultive crimes and mental problems, police said.
The manager was taken to the University of Michigan Medical Center with non life-threatening injuries, police said.
...
Traffic stop yields large wad of cash
A routine traffic stop Saturday netted more than $8,500 cash and about $500 in property, which police seized under forfeiture laws, Ann Arbor Police said.
Four men in a Pontiac Grand Prix were stopped in the 300 block of Thompson Street, reports said. Police then discovered the driver was wanted on several warrants, reports said. ...
Posted by Rob at 7:25 PM You may have noticed the Daily ran a front-page story about the emergency appointment of members to the Central Student Judiciary, so that the election results can be "verified" according to the all campus constitution, that allegedly organizes student government on campus. The Daily didn't seem to think it important to include was a list of the people who had been appointed - the only newly selected person they talk to is Collin McGlashen, who served as election director last spring. Here's a list of the appointments - I've listed their uniquenames, just add @umich.edu to email them:
Monica Dorman, Chief Justice
3rd Year Law Student
monicad
Brandon Carter
4th Year Literature, Science and Arts Student
bwcarter
Collin McGlashen
3rd Year Literature, Science and Arts Student
cmcglash
Harlyn Pacheco
3rd Year College of Engineering Student
hpacheco
Robert Goodspeed
4th Year Literature, Science and the Arts Student
rgoodspe
Spencer Robinson
3rd Year Literature, Science and Arts Student
sbrobins
Steven Pietrangelo
4th Year Engineering Student
spietran
Jeffrey Turner
4th Year Kinesiology Student
turnerjp
Mina Zaki
3rd Year Literature, Science and Arts Student
mzaki
Cassie Walls
3rd Year Engineering
wallsc
Posted by Rob at 3:40 PM The New York Times writes about eco-terrorism, including a group known as the Earth Liberation Front, which is suspected in four fires at new home construction sites in Superior Township and Washtenaw County in the past year.
"Although splinter groups and tiny, self-styled insurgencies abound, the radical fringe has come to be represented by two groups: the Earth Liberation Front, or E.L.F., and the corresponding Animal Liberation Front, or A.L.F., both claiming responsibility for a large number of recent incidents. And while their precise day-to-day links are difficult to trace, experts say both groups tend to organize in small cells, anonymous both to the public and to each another. College campuses are breeding grounds.
...
Rodney Coronado, 37, who was convicted in 1995 of setting fire to a Michigan State University animal research laboratory and spent four years in federal prison, put it this way in a phone interview: "There is a young, disempowered person who might feel alone fighting urban sprawl in their community, but now can do so under E.L.F."
His four years in prison were well worth it, Mr. Coronado insisted. "Sacrifice is something all movements have to be willing to make," he said.
Such attitudes horrify mainstream environmental groups.
"These people aren't environmentalists," said Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club, of the recent torchings of condominiums in San Diego. "They're arsonists." (From "Enabling, and Disabling, Ecoterrorists")
Posted by Rob at 12:18 AM The newly-opened Madras Masala, a South Indian restaurant that opened last June in a small storefront next door to Cafe Ambrosia on Maynard Street across from Nickel's Arcade has been generating some buzz. After posting a brief link to the Ann Arbor News about it in May, my website has recieved dozens of hits from people searching for the name, and it seems to do a brisk business these days. They've even launched a website. Although I've eaten there exactly once, and I'm certainly no expert in Indian food, I found their lunch buffet inexpensive and delicious, but I would suggest getting there before 2pm because some of the items had run out the day I attended. How many hits have I noticed for "FCB House of Flavors," another newly-opened business? You guessed it: none.
Posted by Rob at 12:02 AM
Sunday, November 16, 2003
Let the Partisan Bickering BeginAnti-War Action! has issued a blanket endorsement of the Students First Party for this week's election, also available on their website. I'll be compiling all the endorsement/election emails I receive from various people and organizations on that page in the order I receive them this week, like I did last Winter. If you have anything you think I should include, please send it to me at rob(at)goodspeedupdate.com.
Posted by Rob at 11:44 PM Student Government Elections are November 19th and 20th
As you may know, the elections for student government at Michigan will be held this week, Wednesday 19 and 20th. The voting is conducted online throughout the 48-hour voting period through this website, which appears to be much-improved over previous years. The website now requires you to authenticate with your uniquename and password to review the voter information. Since there always seems to be confusion about who can vote, and for whom, I'll quickly explain how the process works. Also, the Daily has seemed to have dropped the ball: the only coverage of the student government election seems to be this column written by my friend Ari Paul about the University Party, and this story about last week's decision to limit soliciting in the dorms. Student government may seem petty and annoying, but it's an important principal, and MSA alone provides a variety of unique resources to students, whether they know or like it or not, among them student group funding, funding to subsidize student health insurance, AirBus, and Advice Online.
Who will you vote for? Every school or college at the University has at least one representative on the umbrella student government organization, the Michigan Student Assembly (MSA). The number of seats for each school is proportional to the size of the school, with the minimum of one. Students in the following schools will be voting for an MSA representative this Fall: Business, Dentistry, Engineering, LSA, Medical, Music, Nursing, Public Policy, Public Health, Rackham, Social Work. Some of the smaller schools which only have one representative (Such as Architecture) elect their representative in the Winter, since all representatives serve one-year terms.
In addition, three colleges have their own student governments, so students in those colleges will vote for both an MSA representative, and representatives for their college government. These three are LSA Student Government, the U-M Engineering Council, and "Rackham" students, which includes most humanities grad students, vote in the Rackham Student Government election. Finally, Residential College students will vote for people to serve them on the East Quad Governing Assembly, and engineers will elect their class officers.
Who's running for all these offices? Visit the voting website anytime to review a list of candidates and their bios, if they've submitted them.
What's all this business about parties? There are three active student political parties for the elections this fall. As far as I know, only the MSA and LSA-SG elections are "partisan." The only party that can be said to have a consistent ideology is DAAP, however since they are the political wing of BAM-N, they have something of a bad reputation, however there have been some DAAP candidates I have supported in the past. Students First and the University Party both basically lack any political ideology, seeking to do "stuff" for students to make our petty bourgeois lives that much easier. In general, however, Students First has run many more liberals, progressives, and students of color, and the University Party has had more conservatives. However, there are a number of notable exceptions: liberals in the U party, arch conservatives in Students First, so it makes generalizing difficult. To get a better idea of these parties, I suggest perusing a variety of endorsement emails send during the election last spring. Also, if you've been around a couple years, you know these parties have a tendancy to come and go, as a quick review of my page of past election results will show. Here are the party's websites, where you can find platforms, pictures, and bios of most candidates:
> Students First
> The University Party
> The Defend Affirmative Action Party
Why do I know all this? Because I served on MSA for a year an a half as the Student Rights Commission Chair and as an elected representative with the "University Democrats," even running that party's campaign one semester. I've also been notified that I've been appointed to the Central Student Judiciary, a body that exists theoretically as the judicial counterweight to MSA's legislative body. I say theoretically because the organization basically disintegrated in the past year, and does very little aside from settle disputes that arise during MSA elections and occasionally help sort out power struggles within student groups. It's an open secret that there is a fair amount of cheating in every MSA election, and in fact former MSA president Bram Elias's secret Michigamua nickname is "Won it by Computer Bias," since the party he founded (The Blue Party) was caught stealing uniquenames and passwords using a packet sniffer in a university computer lab. Because of the nature of the voting website at the time, the votes couldn't be "undone," and the people who had their data stolen were simply allowed to vote again. I've heard convincing circumstantial evidence that this sort of thing goes on every election, and as a CSJ justice if hear anything about cheating you better bet you'll hear about it.
Posted by Rob at 11:13 PM I suppose it's that time of the year. Yes, when the State Street Area Association (I assume) drags out the Christmas reindeer holiday lights to string across State Street and Liberty Street along with the lighted sign reading "Season's Greetings." (See photo1, slightly blurry photo2)I have a few criticisms, the first being aesthetic. The stylized reindeer remind me of some sort of 1950s kitsch best left in the past. Perhaps they could invest in some new decorations?
Also, in a city widely reputed to be a bastion of "liberalism," secular humanism, and all sorts of other edgy, scary ideologies, you think they'd gotten beyond celebrating the holidays with imagery that means nothing to the city's Muslims, Jews, Wicca, or any Christian or otherwise who doesn't identify with the northern European Christian mythology surrounding St. Nicholas.
When I served on the Michigan Union Board of Representatives, (an advisory holdover from the days when the Michigan Union was actually run by students), there was a heated debate about the Union's annual Christmas decorations, which fill the hallways and common spaces with holly, evergreens, Christmas trees, and lights. I remember we came to the tentative conclusion they should explore a less explicitly Christian motif in the future, perhaps incorporating a variety of religious imagery within a general "winter" theme.
Posted by Rob at 10:37 PM "Ann Arbor is really a suburb masquerading as a city."
Say two professors, Matthew D. Lassiter and Rick M. Hills, in a must-read "other voices" in the Ann Arbor News today titled "Time to Back up Greenbelt." They chastize the city for bowing to the wishes of NIMBY neighborhood associations, suggesting three changes in the city: 1) finally approve accessory apartments (or "granny/grad student flats") 2) change the zoning code to allow for the growth prevented by the greenbelt 3) change zoning laws to allow for increased density throughout the entire region.
" ... Right now, Ann Arbor is really a suburb masquerading as a city. Its overall residential density is about 3 dwelling units per acre, approximately the same ratio as the sprawling suburbs developed in Michigan during the 1980s and well below the state's first wave of post-1945 suburbs. The zoning code should be amended to require a density level of at least 5.5 dwellings per acre, roughly the ratio that existed in Michigan's cities before World War II.
Trying to prevent sprawl on the suburban fringe while maintaining Ann Arbor's low-density residential landscape is incompatible with a sustainable development approach to the metropolitan region. Refusing to accept any changes to the "character of our neighborhoods" is ultimately a short-sighted and self-defeating strategy that will accelerate the quality-of-life decline caused by traffic jams and pollution of the air and water.
The passage of the greenbelt must become the catalyst for a comprehensive reorientation of growth policies inside as well as outside the city limits. ... "
Posted by Rob at 3:52 PM I was sent a link by JJW to a New York Times story about an effort to construct 2,000 condos in downtown Newark, NJ in an effort to "revitalize" the city. Haven't we learned this lesson before: purchasing and razing large areas of a city to construct new housing does little or nothing to help the city as a whole, and in fact only results in gentrification of the worst type, as the only people and businesses that can afford to rent space in brand-new buildings are the rich and corporate chains. Alas. Now, I wonder what would happen if the city of Newark took the city's $550 Million budget for the project and used it to improve city schools, provide low-interest loans for people to improve their houses or start small businesses, and set up a scholarship program for city residents interested in higher education?
"Deeming the project beneficial to a majority of Newark's 275,000 residents, the city began proceedings last winter to condemn the desired properties and turn them over to the developer. However, a grass roots campaign by a group of property owners known as the Mulberry Street Coalition convinced the City Council in May to rescind its condemnation vote. " (From the AP Story)
> NYTimes: "Newark sets out plan for urban village"
> Newsday: "Newark details controversial redevelopment plan"
Posted by Rob at 12:36 PM Here's Ted Rall on the Unbearableness of Being Tom Friedman: "The Tao of Tom: Live it. Be it. Cash in on it."
Posted by Rob at 11:41 AM The city council is ready to approve a new