Dear Detroit Free Press: That Water Situation in Flint is Partly Your Doing

Dear Freep: I'll get right to it. I used to be such a fan. Remember how you used to be the blue-collar paper in Detroit and the News--that rag!--was the paper of the Republicans?  Good times.

You were the morning paper and the News--that rag!--came out in the afternoon.  We started our day with you and you never let us down.  On those mornings when we got ready to slog to our jobs or to march in the picket lines or to scan the want ads for employment opportunities, you let us know you were with us.  You were on our side.  You dogged the Big Three and kept them honest, especially during labor negotiations, but you didn't kowtow to the union leaders, either.  We trusted you.

Am I getting this right?  It's the way I remember it.  I loved your paper, from page one through the editorials and Op-Eds, through the style section, through the sports pages (I admit I rushed through those, but I've heard they were very good), through those whopping Want Ad sections (remember those?), and on to the back, where the cartoons lived.  On Sundays your paper was as heavy as a catalog.

Then Reagan came along and brought the hated trickle-down with him. Almost overnight the unions became pariahs--selfish bastards!--and Michigan jobs raced as if on luge sleds to the south and overseas. The days of the high-wage blue-collar worker were over.  Over time you lost your advertising base. Your formerly robust want-ad section dwindled down to a precious few pages, and you partnered with--it's hard to even say it--the dreaded Detroit News.

But you held on to your character, to your ethics, to your championing of the labor class.  For a while.

I repeat all this so you'll understand how hard it is for me to say what I'm about to say:

When you endorsed Rick Snyder for governor the first time, you bought into an image of him that was phony from the start.  You had to know he was not the innocuous "one tough nerd" he and his adorable kids made him out to be.  You knew he was an untested businessman with no political background ("a Republican venture capitalist and former Gateway executive", you wrote), with nothing but promises for a bright Michigan future. 

You knew his opponent, Virg Bernero, was better for us and far more qualified to get us out of the recession sweeping the entire country.  His successes as mayor of Lansing were public knowledge; his vociferous and loyal support for labor, voiced so often and so eloquently on Ed Schultz's show on MSNBC, was necessary in a climate where jobs were being sucked away by the tens of thousands every week, every day.

But you endorsed Snyder because you believed--all evidence to the contrary--he was a true independent.

Photo source: AP

When you endorsed him the second time, in 2014, you did it knowing--even admitting--you were twisting the screws.  You had already written a scathing editorial in 2012, when Snyder went against the voters and declared Michigan (Michigan!) a right-to-work state, yet your endorsement barely scratched the surface on his "failure of leadership", as you called it then:  

Snyder, the Republican incumbent, promised a pragmatic approach to the state's problems and delivered — except when he was caving to radical elements of the GOP-led Legislature or going back on his word about transparency.

You wrote this about his Democratic opponent, Mark Schauer:

 Schauer says he'll shape state government according to the progressive values the Free Press Editorial Board believes are embedded in Michigan's DNA — expansion of civil rights, protections for workers, environmental stewardship, plus investment in schools, roads and the social safety net.

Mark Schauer would have been a fine choice and just what we needed as an antidote. An honest, hard-working pragmatist, he might have been just the person to help us calm down a raging Tea Party legislature.  But we'll never know.

Now you want us to believe you're outraged by Governor Snyder's actions over the water poisoning in Flint--as if you couldn't have seen it coming.  As if you couldn't have known that your endorsement, along with other equally powerful but misguided back-slaps, would be enough to give him permission to do whatever he and his handlers wanted.

You knew in 2014 that Snyder was aligned with ALEC, the Koch brothers, and the Mackinac Center--all well known Right Wing anti-government activists. You knew of the misery Snyder's hand-picked emergency managers were causing all across our state.  And you had to know it was only a matter of time, with Snyder and the Republicans in control, before our Great Lakes state would face an environmental disaster.

Your bizarre editorial, dated October 8, 2015 and titled, "Flint Water Crisis: An Obscene Failure Of Government", only served to highlight your obscene failure in judgment.  In it, you wrote:

This newspaper twice endorsed Snyder for governor, albeit with grave reservations. But because of the relative weakness of his opponents, the leadership he displayed in resolving Detroit’s protracted financial crisis and our hope that he would use his business acumen to ensure that government better served people, he narrowly won our endorsement.

Last year, in a detailed analysis of Snyder's record, this editorial board expressed our dissatisfaction about Snyder's first term: "The governor balanced the budget at the expense of cities and school districts. His disdain for politics is inappropriate in the state's chief politician; his deficiencies as a deal-maker have sometimes resulted in terrible consequences for Michiganders."

This, we wrote, was Snyder's most profound flaw: "He has got to see people, not sums, as the bottom line of the state balance sheet."

We wrote that he rarely exhibited strong, decisive leadership, that he must "grow into a more sure-footed, principled leader." That we were fearful of what Snyder's second term could hold.

To which I call bullshit.  You endorsed a monster.  Twice. And now you're busy trying to undo a tragedy that never had to happen. You want to be heroes? It's too late. The children of Flint have already been poisoned. You can't undo that. You can't undo your endorsements. You had your chance before the elections in 2010 and 2014 and you blew it.

You blew it.

(Cross-posted at Dagblog and Crooks and Liars)

George Will ruminating on Detroit: About like Howdy Doody ruminating on the Moon

So George Will, highly renowned municipal analyst and wicked good judge of character, has once again set his sights on Detroit. Somehow--don't ask me how--I knew this would happen.  I knew it would happen because the decline of Detroit, our allegedly foremost black and poor city, is in the spotlight, and it's beyond George Will's ability to say no to such delicious news .

Behold!  An entire city has fallen to such lows there is nothing left but to declare them bankrupt--financially, morally, culturally, and--sigh--intellectually.  The city is beyond hope, reduced now to gasping its last breath.

As the pack of jackals awaiting nearby begins to close in; begins to circle, no surprise that one George F. Will, tightass extraordinaire, is right up front.  Will is not one to not have an opinion, even when he knows next to nothing about the subject--especially if the subject is one he believes is beneath him.

Will has a snooty gene that tends to surface whenever les miserables are shown to be more miserable than usual.  It is his duty to explain to the miserables just how culpable they are in their own undoing.  Because if he didn't explain it to them, they might not know to feel both miserable and guilty.  Guilt is the twist of the knife.  There is no redemption without the twist of the knife.   

You've been bad, Detroit.  And worse, you've been ordinary. You must repent.  You must take your licks.

In December, 2012, he wrote:

If you seek a monument to Michigan's unions, look, if you can without wincing, at Detroit, where the amount of vacant land is approaching the size of Paris. And where the United Auto Workers, which once had more than 1 million members and now has about 380,000, won contracts that crippled the local industry — and prompted the growth of the non-unionized auto industry that is thriving elsewhere. Detroit's rapacious and oblivious government employees unions are parasitic off a near-corpse of a city that has lost 25 percent of its population just since 2000. The Wall Street Journal reports that because some government workers with defined-benefit pensions can retire in their 40s, "many retirees living into their 80s are drawing benefits for nearly twice as long as they work." 

Union contracts didn't cripple Detroit's auto industry, corporate greed did.  They were bad at sharing, even though without the workers in Detroit that industry would never have grown as it did.  Once they figured out that they could outsource or robotize much of the manufacturing, they were off to the races.  Why give living wages when you can get by on giving slave wages somewhere else?

Will's notion that the city's union employees were "rapacious and oblivious" to the dying Detroit and it was the out-of-control pension funds that dealt the final deathblow is just farcical.

This, according to the Free Press last week:

The battle over the health of the City of Detroit pension funds flared again Friday when the Bond Buyer, a Wall Street publication, reported on a new analysis showing that the pension funds’ optimistic assessments “fall mostly within accepted industry standards.”
Kevyn Orr, the city’s emergency manager, has estimated the underfunding of the city’s two pension funds at $3.5 billion. The pension fund managers disagree, saying the funds are more than 90% funded, meaning that there are adequate resources to pay almost all future liabilities.

H/T for the above to Chris Savage over at Eclectablog, who gives further voice to what a lot of us have been thinking:

Look, I get it that Detroit is in a major crisis. I do. I get that. But there isn’t any reason for Kevyn Orr to jump on the ruin porn train to make things look worse than they are unless he’s afraid that Detroit will be found not to actually be insolvent, which puts his plan to take the city through bankruptcy in peril. There’s also the fact that wealthy, opportunistic vultures waiting in the wings to swoop in and exploit Detroit’s situation for their own financial gain. That means snapping up city assets at bargain basement prices and getting lucrative contracts when anything not nailed down gets privatized to for-profits corporations.

Nobody questions the fact that Detroit has been in a steady decline for decades.  Corruption was rampant there for longer than any of us want to remember.  Dependence on one significant but fleeting industry for almost a century was pure folly.  There are ghettos and drug wars and crime statistics that place Detroit too often at the top of the list.  But the workers in Detroit are tired of taking the blame.  The city may never rise to its former glory, but it can and will survive only if it can feel worthy again.  The George Wills don't help:

"Detroit...has suffered not just economic setbacks but also a cultural collapse that precludes a rapid recovery. Despite some people’s facile talk about “rebooting” Detroit, as though it is a balky gadget, this is a place where dangerous packs of feral dogs roam. No city can succeed without a large middle class, and in spite of cheery talk about a downtown sprinkling of “hipsters and artisans,” a significant minority of Detroit’s residents are functionally illiterate and only 12 percent have college degrees (in Seattle, 56 percent do). Families are the primary transmitters of social capital, and 79 percent of children here are born to unmarried women. What middle-class family would send children into a school system where 3 percent of fourth-graders meet national math standards?"

Will precedes his indictment of an entire city with this cheery shout-out to Rick Snyder, Michigan's Koch-fueled dictator-in-residence (Emphasis mine):

Snyder is neither surprised nor dismayed by the Obama administration’s prompt refusal to consider bailing out the city: “I had made it clear I wasn’t going to ask them” for a bailout. One example of Washington’s previous costly caring is Detroit’s People Mover, the ghost train that circulates mostly empty. Snyder dismisses this slab of someone else’s pork as “part of the 60 years of failure.” He has largely forsworn attracting businesses to the city by offering tax credits, which he calls “the heroin drip of government.” He speaks not of “fixing” but of “reinventing” Detroit, by which he means a new “culture of how to behave and act.”

 Well, isn't that the all-time limit?  Snyder, the nerdy number-cruncher-cum-plantation-boss, now sets his sights on culture and manners.  (Anything else, massa?)  And George Will apparently thinks that's cool. 

So the next time George wants to talk about Detroit I've got a soapbox I'll set up for him. Right here in Grand Circus Park, where the hipsters and artisans and other clueless undesirables can come and hear what he has to say about their city.  (Fear not, George, it's nowhere near where feral dogs might lurk.)

Grand Circus Park, Detroit

Be sure and wear your bow tie, George, and bring your wife.  She might want to talk about her activities in both Rick Perry's and Michele Bachmann's campaigns.  That'll be a real ice-breaker.  A few laughs can't hurt.

But remember where you are and nix the happy talk about Snyder.  I mean, really.  Listen to me.  I know what I'm talking about.

(Featured today on Mike's Blog Roundup at Crooks and Liars.  Welcome, new visitors!   Cross-posted, as always, at dagblog)

FRIDAY FOLLIES: From Orly Taitz to Gabby Giffords: From the Ridiculous to the Sublime

When the whole SOPA/PIPA blackout was going on, most of us, like the sheeple we are, just grabbed something someone else did and closed up shop,  but The Oatmeal, like the creative peeple they are, got creative.  You can see it here.

Carlsberg Beer, like the creative peeple they are, (I didn't know that about Carlsberg, did you?) pulled a stunt involving tattooed bikers in a movie theater.  You can watch it here.

 I'm always looking for writing gigs (paid writing gigs--hint-hint) but this isn't exactly what I had in mind:

 Magazine Editor, Yorkshire - WEC International
Submitted: 10/01/12 ; Closing Date: Open
Editorial of WEC magazine (Worldwide) and other publications. Involves planning, commissioning and editing articles, within Media and Communications team.
A part-time role, perhaps from home, or at Leeds centre with other editorial/journalistic tasks (compare: Journalist/Press Officer vacancy).
Skills required: planning, organisation and gifted with words. An English qualification preferred.
This post is unsalaried as all WEC workers trust God to meet their personal needs. 
www.wec-int.org.uk/magazine
 

 There's a state senator in Oklahoma I think Newt Gingrich might like to meet.  Newt may think he's the king of zany ideas, but this guy Ralph Shortey could just give him a run for the money:

Oklahoma GOP State Senator Ralph Shortey is on a mission to finally put an end to his state’s allegedly rampant cannibalism problem. Alarmed after his own research, which consisted of reading a nameless report stating that companies have used stem cells in the production of food, Shortey introduced a bill that would prohibit the manufacturing and sale of food “which contains aborted human fetuses.”
Shortey explained his reasoning to local radio station News Talk Radio KRMG in Tulsa:

There is a potential that there are companies that are using aborted human babies in their research and development of basically enhancing flavor for artificial flavors.

Shortey was unable to provide any specific examples of the problem he’s trying to curb, and admits that it’s possible there aren’t any human fetuses in Oklahoma’s food.

I don't know what's in the water in Newt's Georgia, but a judge there ordered Barack Obama to court to defend himself against more birther allegations.  He didn't show and neither did his lawyers, but guess who did?  Right!  Orly Taitz!

On Thursday, lawyers raised two arguments for why Obama should not be on the ballot. One contended an 1875 Supreme Court opinion says only a “natural born citizen” -- someone born in the U.S. and whose parents were U.S. citizens -- can be president. (Obama’s father, who was from Kenya, was not a U.S. citizen.) The other alleged Obama’s birth, social security and passport records are forgeries.

California lawyer Orly Taitz, a leading proponent of challenges to Obama’s candidacy, made the latter argument. She turned and faced the gallery -- and the TV cameras -- during her opening statement, prompting Malihi to tell her: “Counsel, please address the court.”

During closing arguments, as Taitz began referring to documents that were not in evidence, Malihi pointedly asked, “Counsel, are you testifying?”

Taitz abruptly halted her arguments, took the witness stand and began testifying. Malihi soon cut her off.

Those Moments Sublime:

 

Free Press photo

Jim Fitzgerald, one of Detroit's best and favorite columnists ever,  died on January 11.  He was the writer I most emulated and tried so hard to imitate when I was writing columns in Detroit area papers in the 1980s. What a foolish nut I was! But I blame Jim for what I did.  He made it look so easy breezy.

Elmore Leonard wrote in an introduction to Jim's book, "If it Fitz":

"The thing that amazes me about Jim Fitzgerald's columns is they can veer off in unexpected directions, appear to be topic-hopping, observe llamas and Lee Iacocca in the same piece, but always manage to get back in time to arrive at a perfectly logical conclusion. Within this sometimes astonishing structure is an essay composed of clear, expository sentences."

Yes, all of that, but he could be screamingly funny, too.  He was quite a guy.  I hope he knew that.

I found an interview where Jim talked about his writing and how he does it.  The interview took place in 1987, when I was writing in Detroit, but I've never seen it before.  I don't know why it surprises me, considering how dutifully I studied his style, but my working methods are very similar to his.  Sort of here and there and everywhere until it all comes together.
Now if I only had his talent. . .


This was the week when Gabrielle Giffords stepped down from her place in the House.  This is what a politician who loves her country more than herself looks like:



And this is how the house expressed to her how we all feel about her:

___________________________________________

Cartoon of the week:

Bruce Plante - Tulsa World

Ernie Harwell -- in Remembrance of You

Baseball is the President tossing out the first ball of the season and a scrubby schoolboy playing catch with his dad on a Mississippi farm. A tall, thin old man waving a scorecard from the corner of his dugout. That's baseball. And so is the big, fat guy with a bulbous nose running home one of his (Babe Ruth's) 714 home runs.


There's a man in Mobile who remembers that Honus Wagner hit a triple in Pittsburgh forty-six years ago. That's baseball. So is the scout reporting that a sixteen year old pitcher in Cheyenne is a coming Walter Johnson. Baseball is a spirited race of man against man, reflex against reflex. A game of inches. Every skill is measured. Every heroic, every failing is seen and cheered, or booed. And then becomes a statistic.


In baseball democracy shines its clearest. The only race that matters is the race to the bag. The creed is the rulebook. Color merely something to distinguish one team's uniform from another.


Baseball is a rookie. His experience no bigger than the lump in his throat as he begins fulfillment of his dream. It's a veteran too, a tired old man of thirty-five hoping that those aching muscles can pull him through another sweltering August and September. Nicknames are baseball, names like Zeke and Pie and Kiki and Home Run and Cracker and Dizzy and Dazzy.

Baseball is the cool, clear eyes of Rogers Hornsby. The flashing spikes of Ty Cobb, an over aged pixie named Rabbit Maranville.

Baseball just a game as simple as a ball and bat. Yet, as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. A sport, a business and sometimes almost even a religion.


Why the fairy tale of Willie Mays making a brilliant World's Series catch. And then dashing off to play stick ball in the street with his teenage pals. That's baseball. So is the husky voice of a doomed Lou Gehrig saying., "I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.”

Baseball is cigar smoke, hot roasted peanuts, The Sporting News, ladies day, "Down in Front", Take Me Out to the Ball Game, and the Star Spangled Banner.

Baseball is a tongue tied kid from Georgia growing up to be an announcer and praising the Lord for showing him the way to Cooperstown. This is a game for America. Still a game for America, this baseball!

Ernie Harwell, Hall of Fame Induction speech,  August 2, 1981

_________________________________________

WASHINGTON – Sen. Carl Levin delivered the following statement on the Senate floor on May 5, 2010:

“For, lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of the singing of birds is come,
And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.”

Mr. President, spring after spring, for four decades, a man named Ernie Harwell would recite those words. He would recite them at the beginning of the first baseball broadcast of spring training. And those are the words that would tell the people of Michigan that the long, cold winter was over.

Ernie was the radio voice of the Detroit Tigers for 42 years, and in that time, there may have been no Michiganian more universally beloved. Our state mourns today at his passing, yesterday evening, after a battle with cancer. He fought that battle with the grace, the good humor, and the wisdom that Michigan had come to expect, and even depend on, from a man we came to know and love.

This gentlemanly Georgian adopted our team, and our state, as his own. And his career would have been worthy had he done nothing more than bring us the sound of summer over the radio, recounting the Tigers' ups and downs with professionalism and wit, as he did.


But without making a show of it, Ernie Harwell taught us. In his work and his life, he taught us the value of kindness and respect. He taught us that, in a city and a world too often divided, we could be united in joy at a great Al Kaline catch, or a Lou Whitaker home run, or a Mark Fidrych strikeout. He taught us not to let life pass us by “like the house by the side of the road.”


In 1981, when he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Ernie told the assembled fans what baseball meant to him. “In baseball democracy shines its clearest,” he said. “The only race that matters is the race to the bag. The creed is the rulebook. Color merely something to distinguish one team's uniform from another.” That was a lesson he taught us so well.


Mr. President, I will miss Ernie Harwell. All of Michigan will miss the sound of his voice telling us that the winter is past, that the Tigers had won a big game, or that they'd get another chance to win one tomorrow. We will miss his Georgia drawl, his humor, his humility, his quiet faith in God and in the goodness of the people he encountered. But we will carry in our hearts always our love for him, our appreciation for his work, and the lessons he gave us and left us and that we will pass on to our children and grandchildren.

Sincerely,
Carl Levin

_______________________________

The Voice of Summer died in the spring, just before the Tigers’ first pitch of the evening. That was fitting. Ernie Harwell never wanted to interrupt the game.

Mr. “Looong Gone” is gone now. Like the home run that lands in the seats, like the final out of the ninth inning, like the thousands of games he closed with his signature sign-offs, his genteel voice telling us he’d see us tomorrow. Gone now. No more tomorrows. At 92, after a battle with bile duct cancer that stretched into extra innings, Ernie let go of this world and moved on to the higher place from which we were certain he was sent.

Gone now. We knew this was coming. Ernie, in his final grace, prepared us for it. He told us not to worry. We still worried. He told us not to cry. We cried anyhow. He told us he had led the life he’d wanted, that he was ready to say good-bye.


Mitch Albom, Gone Now but Never Forgotten, Detroit Free Press, 5/6/10

________________________________

Yes, as Mitch Albom said, we knew it was almost time to let go of Ernie, but none of us wanted to think about it, so when it came, it came as a shock.  We were never going to be ready.

I"ll admit right up front that I don't love the game of baseball.  Even though I had lived in or near Detroit nearly all of my life, I had been to Tiger Stadium only once. I couldn't tell you who won or who played on that day, or even when it was.  What resonated for me was Ernie Harwell's cocky drawl--his "looooong gone", his "sitting like the house by the side of the road", his way of pulling us in, letting us know that at this moment, in this place, baseball is all that matters.

There were enough people in my family who did love baseball, so the Tiger game was on the TV or the radio whenever and wherever they played.  I didn't follow, but I didn't mind--I think mainly because of Ernie's voice.  There was a cadence to his voice that kept a kind of rhythm going.  There was nothing jarring or annoying.  It was almost soothing.  It was Ernie.

I had the honor of spending a couple of hours with Ernie Harwell once.  We were holding a book fair in our town and we invited him to come and sign his book, "Tuned to Baseball".  He showed up right on time only to find a near-empty room.  I don't remember the particulars, but somehow the word didn't get out, or the weather was bad, but for two hours I had Ernie nearly to myself.  After an hour or so, I practically begged him to go home.  I was mortified that he had taken the time to come to our town and so few people had come out to meet him.   He, gracious gentleman that he was, insisted on staying the full two hours.  I got over my mortification and we sat down and talked.

He told stories that I knew he had told dozens of times before, but he had a way of telling them with such enthusiasm I was lulled into believing they were told just for me.  He talked about Lulu, and I loved him even more because he loved Lulu unabashedly.  He asked me about my life and hung on my every word.  He asked questions and apologized because he got the name of one of my children wrong.

During that second hour my grandson came in, excited about meeting one of his baseball heroes.  The photographer from the newspaper happened to be there then and he took a picture of
Ernie with my grandson.  I wrote freelance for the paper at the time, and I asked the photographer if he would get me a copy of the print.  He did, and it's around here somewhere, and I've torn this house apart but I can't find it.  I know it's here because I've seen it within the last year, but it's hiding too darned well.  (When I find it, I'll post it here.)

I emailed my grandson, Mike, and asked him if he remembers meeting Ernie.  This is what he wrote:

"I remember it like it was yesterday. It was the summer of 1987, so I would've been 14. Tigers shortstop Alan Trammell was having the best year of his career that summer and I asked Harwell if he thought Trammell should win the American League Most Valuable Player award or if he thought it should go to George Bell of the Toronto Blue Jays. He said they were both deserving and that it was too close to call. :)

He was exactly like what everyone who has met him says about him: genuinely interested in what I was talking about. He was very nice to me."

During my talk with Ernie I told him that my father-in-law was the ultimate Tiger fan and never missed a game, to the point of carrying his boom-box with him everywhere he went so he wouldn't miss an inning.  I asked Ernie if he would say hello to him on the air, and he said he would be happy to.  He did it, too, during the very next game, and my father-in-law felt as though he had been knighted.

In 1991 the announcement came that Ernie was leaving his job as Tiger broadcaster.  Nobody believed for a minute that it was his choice to say goodbye to the broadcast booth.  Rumors flew that he was being forced out, but, ever the gentleman, Ernie didn't add to them.  But before long word came that Tiger management and WJR were--yes, indeedy--looking for newer, younger blood.

What boneheads! He was Ernie and they were idiots.  The uproar was long and loud and entirely predictable, but Bo Schembechler, former U-M football coach turned Tiger head honcho, stuck with the plan and added fuel to the fire by going around crowing about his decision-making skills.  So Ernie was side-lined during the 1992 season, when newer, younger blood came in--and flopped so pitifully you actually had to feel sorry for them.  Nobody could fill Ernie's shoes--not in Detroit, anyway.

By the spring of 1993, pizza king Mike Ilitch (Little Caesar's) had purchased the Tiger franchise from pizza king Tom Monaghan (Domino's) and BoSchembechler was out and Ernie Harwell was back in.  Life was back to normal in Detroit.

Ernie finally retired for good in 2002, and his fans were still not ready.  He died three days ago and we're still not ready.  We can't stop thinking about him or talking about him or caring about him.  Because every Tiger fan knows that wherever Ernie is, he can't stop talking about or thinking about or caring about them.

Ramona