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Motown's Greatest Hit...From the Detroit Era

Posted by Darrell Dawsey
November 20, 2009 at 11:07 pm
1 Comment

The weekend's here, and I'm tired of reading -- and writing -- about corruption, high unemployment, political strife, the deaths of our babies and just about every other malady that's been kicking us in the butt lately. (Plus, even the Wife has been on my case about grousing about so many problems; this from a woman who reports about the public schools.)

So I figured I'd take a break from anything contentious. Set out to find a nice, positive story about the city. Flipped on the TV. Scanned the newspapers. Surfed the 'Net. Eventually, I ran across news of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Motown Records. Just what I wanted, I figured. Something iconic about Detroit that most of us can agree we dig.

But not so fast...

I happened to be talking to a friend of mine at the time I was thinking of the idea. I mentioned it to him -- and this led to a conversation about the history of the label...and that led to conversation about the Motown songs we grew up listening to our parents listen to...

...and that led to an argument...

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Holy Day: The Life of a Michigan Fan

Posted by Kristy Erdodi
November 20, 2009 at 10:41 pm
1 Comment

For many people here, today will be sacred: the match between two of college football's biggest rivals, the University of Michigan, and Ohio State University. There will be moments of anger and bliss. I'll watch it all in Ann Arbor, Mich., at what those of us who love the Wolverines call the Big House.

My distaste for Ohio State began during my sophomore year at Michigan. I'd just transferred from Oakland University, in the Detroit suburbs. Oakland didn't have a football team – which made life at the school boring. I got sick of hearing people there say, “But we have a great basketball team.” I even wrote a midterm paper about why Oakland needed football. The central argument: Football is one of the best ways to build school pride. Shortly thereafter, I packed my futon and mini-fridge and left for Ann Arbor.

As a transfer student who ended up in one of the farthest dorms from campus and was uninterested in joining a sorority, I found it difficult to make good friends during my first year at the U. of M.

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Related Topics: Essay, Michigan, society, sports, , , , ,

Ring-a them bells

Posted by Karen Dybis
November 20, 2009 at 12:34 pm
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It's that time again. The bell ringers are here.

The Salvation Army of Metro Detroit hopes to raise $7.8 million with its annual Red Kettle Campaign. The campaign goal is slightly lower than previous years in recognition of the area's economic distress, said Major John Turner, general secretary for The Salvation Army of Metro Detroit.

This year, there are several innovative ways to donate. You can go online at The Salvation Army's web site. You can set up an online kettle and then email donation requests to everyone you know. And for the first time you can attach your online kettle to your Facebook page – create a contest among your pals and use those status updates wisely!

The Facebook application will allow your goal, progress and Online Red Kettle link to appear on your Facebook profile. Once someone makes a donation via Facebook, a notification will show in your newsfeed. As a Facebook addict, I'm all in. My goal is to raise $150 to help fund meals on the Bed and Bread trucks.

“With an increased need of 60 percent (in Salvation Army services), we wanted to pull out all the stops to make it as easy as possible for people of all ages to donate to the Red Kettle Campaign,” Turner said.

The coolest 2009 innovation may be the credit-card pilot program for The Salvation Army of Washtenaw County. Yup, the Kettle is going high tech.

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Related Topics: NonprofitsThe economy, , , ,

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Political Games at the Pontiac Silverdome?

Posted by Darrell Dawsey
November 19, 2009 at 8:34 pm
3 Comments

The woes in the Michigan real-estate market were dramatically underscored yesterday when the Pontiac Silverdome, once home to the Detroit Lions football team, was sold at auction for $583,000. The stadium, which opened in 1975 and was home to the Lions until they returned to Detroit proper in 2002, cost $55.7 million to build.

Now, the situation has been complicated further because an Oakland County judge halted the sale shortly after an injunction was filed by a development company that claimed it wanted to buy the Silverdome for $17.5 million last year. The company, Silver Stallion Development Corp., also says it was also shut out of  yesterday's bidding and that its purchase agreement to buy the dome is still valid. The city, though, says the contract has expired and that the company failed to pony up $250,000 to join yesterday's bidding.

Looking at it now, I don't see how the city can't take the 583 grand.

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Related Topics: Michigan, The economy, Urban Affairs, business, politics, , , , , , ,

Consuming Kids event at Detroit Waldorf

Posted by Karen Dybis
November 19, 2009 at 1:00 pm
2 Comments

Interesting event tonight if you're in or around Detroit...The Detroit Waldorf School is hosting a film screening and panel discussion of Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood at 6:30 p.m.

The film highlights the predatory marketing practices used on children. Afterward, the panel will talk about the film and answer questions.

The panelists include:

  • Dr. Elizabeth Goodenough, a scholar and activist in the emerging field of children's studies.
  • Dr. Linda Williams, an Assistant Professor of Teacher Education at Eastern Michigan University and former Detroit Waldorf class teacher.
  • Lottie Spady, the Education Director of the East Michigan Environmental Action Council.
  • Dr. Joan Lessen-Firestone, the Director of Early Childhood at Oakland Intermediate School District in Oakland County

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Related Topics: Detroit, Education, , ,

A creative look at Detroit

Posted by Karen Dybis
November 19, 2009 at 11:43 am
1 Comment

Ain't no puffy paint at a Detroit craft fair.

On Saturday, some 50 independent artists and alternative crafters will gather at the Majestic Theater near downtown. No, you are not bad-ass enough to attend one of their knitting circles. But you can buy the products they make.

The Detroit Urban Craft Fair is an annual event for the state's alt craft scene. Some 4,000 people attended last year's happening, organized by Handmade Detroit, a DIY craft collective for the area's independent makers.

More than 200 people applied to show their wares at the fair, so its popularity and success are worth noting.

Stephanie Tardy, Lish Dorset, Carey Gustafson, Bethany Nixon and Amy Cronkite organize the event. Tardy graciously agreed in the midst of planning said event to tell us more.

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Related Topics: Art and artists, Detroit, business, , , , , , , , ,

Don't call him a Detroiter

Posted by Karen Dybis
November 18, 2009 at 3:08 pm
39 Comments

Interesting exchange today on the "Detroit Yes" forum. The top-notch discussion on one thread centers around a letter to the editor published in the Livingston Daily's online newspaper.

Time and again, this blog and others have debated what it means to be a Detroiter. Some say you have to live and work in the city. Others believe if you are of the metropolitan area, you can call yourself a Detroiter. (I personally believe the latter).

Robert Lagana of Howell has his own opinion -- but he definitely does not want to be a Detroiter.

His comments are related to a story that ran Nov. 11 in the Daily Press. The article focused on comments from George W. Jackson Jr., head of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. He spoke last week at the Good Morning Livingston program at Cleary University's Johnson Center in Genoa Township.

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The "Irredeemable" Children

Posted by Darrell Dawsey
November 18, 2009 at 12:30 pm
24 Comments

At what point does any young man or woman become "beyond saving?" At what point does a society decide to give up? And at what point, if ever, can you possibly decide that that child deserves to die -- by your hand?

If early reports can be believed, a 37-year-old Highland Park man apparently came to this tragic conclusion about his own 15-year-old son Monday afternoon, when he walked the boy naked into a vacant lot and shot him execution-style in the back of the head.

When I first read the news, I shuddered and turned from my computer. Then I began railing to the Wife about the depths that people in this town are sinking to. Then, long hours later, I began to realize that, in Detroit and many other big cities and small towns, this isn't really new or rare. Yes, a father turning a gun on his child is unspeakable and, thankfully, still uncommon. But not unlike that Highland Park man, we declare children unsalvageable all the time. We may not kill them, but we certainly do walk them out of our schools, out of our homes, out of our lives, and we cut them loose, declaring them no longer fit to be focal points of our social resources or human effort or societal concern. "We can't save them all," we declare. And these days, that seems truer, and sadder, than ever.

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Related Topics: Detroit, Michigan, Urban Affairs, crime, , ,

Spreading the wealth

Posted by Karen Dybis
November 18, 2009 at 11:47 am
3 Comments

It started as a simple promotion for a small credit union. The plan: Hand out crisp $100 bills to random strangers.

Cold, hard cash. Who in Michigan couldn't use a little of that right now?

The idea -- created by Co-op Services Credit Union in Livonia -- was to hand out $100 to 100 people in 100 days. There were no requirements and no strings attached. Each recipient was asked one thing: Do something to back in any way they can, to make the community a better place.

Over the past three months, Project 100 has become a lot more than promotion. It is a sign of just how generous Michigan residents are –despite everything this state is going through.

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Related Topics: NonprofitsThe economy, , , , ,

Still Getting It Wrong On Affirmative Action

Posted by Darrell Dawsey
November 17, 2009 at 10:01 pm
22 Comments

Saw this short news item earlier. And even though I read it all the way through, it was the story's first sentence that I kept returning to:

A federal appeals court is about to consider a lawsuit challenging Michigan's ban against racial preferences in public university admissions and government hiring.

Yes, I think affirmative action is a palatable, if mild, remedy to the ongoing discrimination that women and people of color face in Michigan and around the country. But this take isn't about cheering the court's decision to hear the challenge to race preferences or even affirmative action itself, for that matter. Rather, it's about the implications of the persistent, narrow belief that affirmative action is just a set of "racial preferences" -- when the truth is that the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action have been white women.

No, I'm not saying that  blacks, Latinos, Arab-Americans and Asian-Americans haven't also benefited. (The University of Michigan, for instance, has 11 percent fewer minorities than in 2006, in part because affirmative action was outlawed.) But it's the idea that these minorities, not white women, are disproportionately helped by affirmative action that inflames much of the opposition that we saw here three years ago.

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Related Topics: Education, Working, business, politics, society, , , ,