Good News out of Detroit
Good local news is hard to come by. Well produced local news is nearly impossible to find.
We’re lucky here in Anchorage to have some great local journalists at the ADN, KTUU, The Alaska Dispatch, and AlaskaCommons.com.
In Detroit they’ve got Pulitzer Prize winning Charlie LeDuff. He’s the classic local TV news investigative reporter – just funnier.
I have to admit am completely addicted to Charlie LeDuff’s journalism. It’s sensationalist, it’s absurd – but in a real way it does what top notch local journalism does – speaks truth to power.
Please check out this story on police wait times in Detroit. It’s amazing on every level – he knows how to make what would be a boring numbers story on budget cutbacks into a hilarious and kinda dark news piece.
Also, for those of us in Anchorage, we might want to think about this a bit more the next time Dan Sullivan talks about cuts in Anchorage.
Here’s more of his work.
He’s also has a book out that has been listed on nearly everyone’s ‘must read’s’ of 2013. It’s called Detroit: An American Autopsy
An Aside: Matthew McConaughey could SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO play Charlie LeDuff! That is all. beth.
PS – Wonderful, wonderful post, Sebastian Reuter. Thank you for sharing. b.
Everyone loves to criticize. I challenge all those who are angry with the police, the city and the lack of response to get involved. Instead of sitting on the porch, ordering drinks and making fun, get up and help. The police departments accept volunteers, they hire police officers and many other opportunities exist. Before a person says, “I don’t live there,” then volunteer in your area or get involved. Make your own community worth living in. Everyone thinks it’s up to someone else, thus, the problems. A million people can’t depend on 35 or even 350 (or however many) to make their crime-ridden area safe. Obviously, not enough people are pitching in. Does this even need to be pointed out? “Where are the police?” Teach your children and your community to be part of the solution instead of disliking limited resources. I wonder how many porch sitters have children that are volunteering with their local police departments. No sympathy.
Many thanks for sharing, Sebastian.
Charlie LeDuff is something else, and I like it.
* adding Detroit: An American Autopsy to library wish list*
My dear old daddy lived in Detroit growing up;
taught swim lessons at the YMCA to help pay for his college and his own new little family.
I could swim before I could walk,
and I still groove on the blues and that Motown Music, eh?
Bit of a union agitator, er, activist, I’ve turned out to be, also, too.
Detroit is an enduring blessing in my life.
Down but not out.
Boogie Chillen’ by John Lee Hooker (1948)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a3pBrYKSbs
Inner City Blues (Makes Me Wanna Holler) – Marvin Gaye
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Ykv1D0qEE
Thunderboomers. Gotta scoot.
to better days ahead,
thatcrowwoman
I know nothing about the bridge dealie nor the billionaire- need to go read up.
I did love the waiting-for-the-police story. Ms Mary is the face of all the everyday people who are let down by the failure of a government to do the job we designed it to do which we DO pay for. It is so dang serious . If we can’t laugh we can’t keep working to fix it.
What’s up with the purse lipped prune faced tv anchor dude? Some barely concealed disdain? Some teeth clenching routine to keep something nasty from popping out? An invisible clothespin on his nose? Some inordinately tight elastic on his underpants? Sheesh.
Mn Pi.I am headed to the garden with a garden hose and a bug beater. Biting flies are terrible. They draw blood right through socks and pants. Ground is so hard potatoes didn’t get very big. Rilly disappointed considering all the rain we had in May and early June.S…p…r…i…n..k…l…e…d…almost enough this morning to get the sidewalk wet….almost. Around 85 today and supposed to get close to 100 tomorrow,then cool back into the mid 80s for the week. Little chance of rain. Onions are sure good,not huge,but decent size and still growing.
Am so sorry your weather has been so non cooperative for growing food this year. What happens to main crops like soybeans if this no-rain dealie keeps up?
Yuck on biting flies- we have em too. Mostly I’m too ornery for bugs to bite but the dang biting flies always have to try a few snibs before they give up too. Lil jerks!
My garden is all mixed up- some stuff is way ahead of itself with all of our unusual sun in last few weeks, other things are in an I-don’t-think-so-honey mode because of the heat.
Spinach all bolted and 3 plantings of lettuces all came on at once.
Good news is spuds are blooming ( a bit early), peas are loaded, squash actually has squashes, rhubarb has been prolific, and currant and gooseberry bushes are in best shape in years.
Whether the cabbage will actually make heads is up in the air… like it is every year… sigh.
http://detroitagriculture.net/
Does anyone who knows Detroit know some about this ?
I’m fascinated by what people in urban areas are doing to grow food.
I don’t think that there is anything funny about Detroit. Having lived in the Detroit area for over thirty years, I think that the city’s predicament is tragic. I worked in downtown Detroit for over 13 years and always found the people to be very nice, just stuck in a no-win situation. For the first three years I commuted by train, loved it but was all too aware, every day, of the huge swaths of the city, once nice residential streets, that had become overgrown weed fields with the odd street sign and street light left among the weeds and overgrown pavements. Pheasants trotted along the train tracks. This was the result of the 1967 riots. And then the commuter train was eliminated; no new bus routes were added. Of course that meant that made it even more difficult for people to commute to the city.
The latest news, the city’s bankruptcy, is not going to help anyone. Detroit’s plight is a searing example of how racism does its dirtiest work – keeping people down and then punishing them. (Look at how so many people now think that Trayvon Martin was responsible for having been killed by George Zimmerman.)
And, by the way, Matty Moroun is a billionaire creep and thug. One of these days his antiquated bridge to Canada is going to fall down and then we’ll all be in a pretty pickle. He poured billions of dollars into electing enough teabaggers to the state legislature to keep the new bridge, largely funded by Canada, from being built.) The bridge has always been a major connector between the auto industry in southwestern Ontario and the Detroit area.
Ford Motor Co. has been vocal about losing money because of only one bridge crossing to Canada. Tolls and time wasted waiting for trucks to cross has cost them millions of bucks.If Matty Maroun is the American flag,it is lily white with greedy dollar signs all over it. Leduff is funny. Hope to see/hear more of his stuff in the future.Send rain,please.
Still no rain, mikey?
I keep sending this rain your way,
but I can’t guarantee delivery,
more’s the pity.
Hydrotherapy this week when there is no thunder,
so I’ll add this chant to my workouts:
“Rain, rain, go away
Go to mike in ioway”
*huffing
and puffing
and blowing these rainclouds
from the Gulf of Mexico on up to mike in ioway*
thatcrowwoman
We’re finally getting a lil bit too. After a week of very UN SE Alaska heat and sun and dry . Only squeezing a drizzle out of the clouds here in hopes some will come your way mikey.
Is this a normal thing there? Flood all spring and cook all summer?
In a near normal year we have a wet spring and then in late June/early July we have steady rains to water the corn and soybeans. Then during harvest we have some monsoon like weather to replenish water table for next year’s crops. Last couple years have been hot and dry when we need moisture. It is cyclical,I hope. TCW-we had two thubderstorms in the last five days and received a tenth of an inch of rain each time. So you have helped some and I am eternally grapefruit. Field corn is starting to tassel so rain is substantial rain is critical for pollination. As for the Detroit police story,I’m waiting for rwnj to start their incessant union-bashing . Long live Motown and graet music!!
PS-send spell check,also too still yet.
Native Detroiter here, left there in 1978. I think LeDuff’s video is okay but it’s aired on a FOX News affiliate, so it gets a thumbs down from me. I’m not sure if he’s just making a buck mocking Detroit, or if he’s actually trying to help. Can anything help after all these years of neglect? I can see my parents’ former house on Google maps Street View, the house I grew up in. It’s an empty shell, abandoned, a wreck. It makes me sad, all of it.