January 2012
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Watch
too heart breaking to watch again, but a great piece of video journalism from the NYTimes - it paints a haunting, post-apocalyptic picture of a city rotting at the core, full of ‘hookers and drug dealers’ and scrappers willing to sell our steel to China for 11 cents a pound. the video fails to report that this activity is occurring on the fringes of our city, in the southern, more...
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dead silence in the operating room
dead silence in the OR today
one of the attendings was waiting on an instrument
everyone is standing around, twiddling thumbs
he says
“anyone know a joke”
i says
“a man walks into a bar with a giraffe
they both get hammered
the giraffe passes out
the man gets up to leave
the bartender says ‘hey man, you can’t leave that lyin’ here!’
the man says ‘it’s not a lion, it’s a giraffe!’
dead...
November 2010
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WatchFrom Fox 2 News in Detroit :
“I wonder if Andrew Shirvell is gay. Is he trying to fight some latent homosexual tendancies?”
-Huel Perkins, anchor
October 2010
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WatchFirst Governor of Michigan, Stevens T. Mason, buried in Capitol Park - a newly renovated public space west of Woodward. Video from the Detroit News.
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BIKE LANES ON MICHIGAN AVENUE!!!!!!! →
Bike lanes in Detroit? At first, I thought this was a prank, but then I realized that it wasn’t April 1st. Wow. Hopefully this will be the first of many to come:
Bike lanes on this portion of Michigan Avenue will also play into the Corktown-Mexicantown Greenlink that will be built in Spring 2011. The series of bike and pedestrian pathways and bike lanes, which is funded primarily by MDOT...
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Nice shots from the D →
A Dutch photographer, living in Detroit, Corine Vermeulen showcases her work on her website - some really nice shots - these are the ones used in the NYTimes article posted previously. Enjoy:
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The NYTimes reppin' the D and Mies van der Rohe →
Lafayette Park is a beautiful place to live, from the high rises to the town homes - I love the greenery and the scenery, close to downtown, Eastern Market, trails, and the river. Brings back good memories of soccer practice with the Downtown-Lafayette Park team…
From the NYTimes:
These photographs of residents of Lafayette Park, a residential community in Detroit designed by the...
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WatchMessage to the next Governor of Michigan: protect the Great Lakes, our most precious asset.
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WatchThis is the Spirit of Detroit - the hope that springs forth when something comes out of nothing. An excellent short story with a great music selection to compliment the piece. Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus.
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September 2010
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Uniroyal site cleanup to go forward in Detroit →
Uniroyal cleanup is coming! This has been such a long time coming and much needed. The Uniroyal site on Detroit’s east riverfront has been abandoned and vacant for years - the only remnants from the original factory are the toxic elements deposited into the environment. The environmental damage and potential harm the chemical pollutants could cause for people in the area has prevented...
Watch“Ruins Porn” addressed in a sensitive manner by Newsweek.
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WatchJohnny Knoxville in the D, dabbling in Ruins Porn and small businesses - enjoy the “cool” outsider’s perspective.
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WatchEnjoyable graffiti mini documentary on taking back public space from illegal corporate advertisers. Get out your wheat paste!
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Whiskey from Diabetic's Urine →
Sugar heavy urine excreted by diabetic patients is now being utilized for the fermentation of high-end single malt whisky for export. The Whisky market is growing faster then any other alcoholic beverage worldwide. With a prevalent genetic weakness being exposed in the northern hemisphere leading to a sharp rise in type two diabetes, economists have found a new exportable commodity to exploit and...
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Watch“Tradition is important to us. We’ve realised that we do what we do in a narrow, niche market very well, and have therefore chosen to stay with what we do well. It’s a long-term committment, from us to our customer that is a part of our appeal.”
-Bristol Cars
Perhaps a lesson that Detroit’s big three can re-learn.
August 2010
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WatchInvincible and Waajeed produce this at-times-cheesy but endearingly vulnerable video of Detroit Summer. A great piece in its juxtaposition of decay and vibrancy, which is an everyday reality in Detroit. And in my opinion, hip-hop tends to be more enjoyable when the focus isn’t permanently fixed on bling, promiscuity, and the ego.
July 2010
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A shift in priorities: from tobacco to obesity →
State governments have used tobacco’s billions to balance their budgets while cutting $150 million from antitobacco programs over the last two years. On the airways, obesity public service announcements are lining up while a “Truth” campaign about tobacco languishes for lack of money.
“Don’t forget tobacco,” pleaded a commentary this month in The New England Journal of Medicine.
One in five...
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Shifting Priorities: from tobacco to obesity →
State governments have used tobacco’s billions to balance their budgets while cutting $150 million from antitobacco programs over the last two years. On the airways, obesity public service announcements are lining up while a “Truth” campaign about tobacco languishes for lack of money.
“Don’t forget tobacco,” pleaded a commentary this month in The New England Journal of Medicine.
One in five...
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WatchDetroit City Futbol League vid from Model D Media. It’s yet another piece of media covering the sweetest soccer league in Michigan. Players, bars, chants, and fun on and off the pitch - enjoy.
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We are perpetually quoting Shakespeare →
If you cannot understand my argument, and declare “It’s Greek to me”, you are quoting Shakespeare…
…if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into...
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Foods for Lookin' GOOD! - their top 10 list →
From its well documented health benefits to its undeniable impact on physical beauty, good nutrition is the pillar of every kind of healthy lifestyle. That doesn’t mean you need to swear off bacon and beer or anything. The trick is finding the right balance.
6. Dark leafy greens.Yes, they can be bitter and less than exciting at first, but they are loaded with vitamins and iron and ...
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Uneducated, Unfit, or a Criminal →
According to Mission: Readiness, a nonprofit, bipartisan organization led by retired senior military leaders, 75 percent of 17 to 24 year olds cannot enlist in the military because they fail to graduate high school, have a criminal record, or are physically unfit.
America’s obesity epidemic not only limits the military’s recruiting base, but is a growing drain on the Department of Defense...
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WatchDetroit Futbol League gets mad press from the Detroit News - I think this is the 4th or 5th major media coverage of the league. There’s been a few from the Free Press, a few from the Detroit News, and at least one from the local NPR affiliate (WDET). A good piece, but a wierd music selection. Enjoy!
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This is Where You're Fat →
An update on our collective waistline: The Trust for America’s Health has a new report out, with the blunt title “F as in Fat,” and the news isn’t good. The map above shows America’s obesity rates state by state. They hover in the 25 to 30 percent range. To put that in perspective, in 1991, no state had an obesity rate higher than 20 percent.
The report also...
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Infographic on Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans charged... →
In 2008, The New York Times published a stunning report on veterans who had come home from Iraq and Afghanistan and then were charged with murder. At that point, the paper found 121 instances of homicide, many of them related to post-traumatic stress disorder. Now, two years later, an episode of Current TV’s documentary series Vanguard explores the link between post-traumatic stress...
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Population loss, residential vacancy, and hope →
For the sixth decade in a row, this year’s census will bring bad news: the population, already sparsely distributed over a vast 139 square miles, has declined again, to an estimated 790,000 residents, down from 951,000 people in 2000 and a high of almost 2 million in 1950. Population loss was hastened in the last few years, experts said, by the twin blows of the foreclosure crisis and jobs...
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Pragmatic Artwork in Detroit →
I’ve never spent time in Detroit, but I’ve seen an awful lot of images of the city in the last several years. And those images have been pretty awful, offering a version of the place defined by abandonment and decline. “Ruins porn,” as it’s been called, undermines even hopeful tales of creative renewal. The idea that artists can treat the city like a canvas ends up suggesting that it is a...
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The Educated Elites flock to Teach for America? →
Teach for America has become an elite brand that will help build a résumé, whether or not the person stays in teaching. And in a bad economy, it’s a two-year job guarantee with a good paycheck; members earn a beginning teacher’s salary in the districts where they’re placed. For Mr. Cullen, who will teach at a Dallas middle school, that’s $45,000 — the same he’d make if he’d taken a job offer...
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Michigan Ranks Tenth Most Obese State in the... →
The report highlights troubling racial and ethnic disparities in obesity rates. For instance, adult obesity rates for Blacks and Latinos were higher than for Whites in at least 40 states and the District of Columbia. In Michigan, the adult obesity rate was 38.2 percent among Blacks and 33.4 percent among Latinos, compared with 28.1 percent among Whites.
More than a third (35.3 percent) of adults...
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US Social Forum adds chutzpah to Detroit's... →
Detroit is a city reinventing itself. After a generation of abandonment by business and capital, the residents who have stayed are fully engaged in a process of rethinking what their city should look like, who should have the power to make decisions about it, what kinds of work should be done, and so on. The bicycle is making a comeback too, and though it’s still at the beginning of a...
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Better days ahead for Detroit? →
A writer/editor for the Free Press expresses his point of view:
As a newspaper editor, as someone who has spent years in Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, my brow tenses at the thought of Detroit’s uncountable problems. The reasons people leave. The budget mess at City Hall. The city’s beleaguered children.
But as a dad, I get to see this city through much more optimistic eyes, to...