Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

Clubbing turns to fighting in Ann Arbor over last 3 weeks

Posted by dilleym on 1. August 2004

via Detroit Free Scab Press

“Police plan to beef up patrols in downtown Ann Arbor this weekend after three major brawls this month involving hundreds of people caused several injuries and tarnished the city’s reputation for carefree nightlife.”

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John Kerry Coming to Michigan

Posted by Rob Goodspeed on 30. July 2004

CONGRESSMAN JOHN DINGELL
CORDIALLY INVITES YOU TO A FAMILY-STYLE PICNIC
AND SOFTBALL GAME IN THE PARK WITH
SENATOR JOHN KERRY

WHERE: Heritage Park, Taylor, MI
WHEN: 5:00pm, Sunday, August 1

Tickets can be reserved by calling:
Congressman Dingell’s Campaign Office:
(313) 791-2707 or Taylor Democratic Club: (313) 291-8060

Ron Reagan Speaks Out

Posted by Rob Goodspeed on 30. July 2004

This week’s Democratic convention included at least one nonpolitical speaker – Ron Reagan, son of the late President Ronald Reagan, who spoke eloquently on the pressing need to legalize stem cell research, which might have eased his father’s sickness. He made clear his talk would have nothing to do with “partisanship,” leaving many to wonder what, precisely, Mr. Reagan thought of George W. Bush and the Republican party.

Wonder no longer. In a scathing polemic to run in September’s Esquire, titled “The Case Against George W. Bush”, Mr. Reagan outlines what he calls “the honest guy’s critique of George W. Bush”:

Right-wing talking heads continue painting anyone who fails to genuflect deeply enough as a “hater,” and therefore a nut job, probably a crypto-Islamist car bomber. But these protestations have taken on a hysterical, almost comically desperate tone. It’s one thing to get trashed by Michael Moore. But when Nobel laureates, a vast majority of the scientific community, and a host of current and former diplomats, intelligence operatives, and military officials line up against you, it becomes increasingly difficult to characterize the opposition as fringe wackos.

Does anyone really favor an administration that so shamelessly lies? One that so tenaciously clings to secrecy, not to protect the American people, but to protect itself? That so willfully misrepresents its true aims and so knowingly misleads the people from whom it derives its power? I simply cannot think so. And to come to the same conclusion does not make you guilty of swallowing some liberal critique of the Bush presidency, because that’s not what this is. This is the critique of a person who thinks that lying at the top levels of his government is abhorrent. Call it the honest guy’s critique of George W. Bush.

> Read the article in Esquire magazine online, or a plain copy

Local Business Update

Posted by Ari Paul on 30. July 2004

What was once the Crow Bar will be Improv Inferno and Shalimar’s old location right next to it on the corner of Main and Liberty will be Ritter’s Frozen Custard.

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AAPD to up Presence at City's Bars

Posted by Ari Paul on 30. July 2004

The Ann Arbor News reports:

Ann Arbor Police will increase patrols downtown this weekend in response to large after-hours brawls in recent weeks outside nightclubs, but officials say the city remains a safe place for nightlife.

One of the managers at Oz (Fifth Ave. between Washington and Liberty) told A.U. reporters that the club had police intervention with one unruly patron at last night’s infamous ‘Reggae Night’. While such a move, combined with the Ann Arbor Police’s already heated conflict with party goers in the Student Ghetto, could be seen as an unprecedented heighting of police presence in city nightlife, it is all too true that violence in area nightspots is on the rise.

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Kerry Pushes Fuel-Efficiency, a Mixed Bag for Michigan Workers?

Posted by Ari Paul on 29. July 2004

Kerry wants to reward automakers who build fuel-efficient cars, in a move to sway both Michigan vote into his favor. The Detroit Free Press reports from the DNC in Boston:

Framing it as a national security and foreign-policy concern rather than an environmental one, Sen. John Kerry in his much-anticipated speech tonight is expected to call on the nation and auto industry to support a $10-billion plan to dramatically reduce America’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

As Kerry made a triumphant arrival in Boston and his running mate, John Edwards, accepted the party’s nomination, Democrats said Kerry is likely to avoid mention of increasing mandatory fuel-efficiency standards for the auto industry—a topic that typically angers automakers and the UAW alike. Instead, he will focus on offering automakers billions of dollars over 10 years to alter their auto plants to build more fuel-efficient vehicles.

The Bush campaign has been known to lie to Michigan’s workers, telling fibs and tall tales about how fuel-efficient cars will reduce jobs.

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Countywide Bicycle Trail Makes Progress

Posted by Brandon on 28. July 2004

In what is surely welcome news to both recreational cyclists and commuters, the Ann Arbor News reports that the planned countywide bicycle trail along the Huron River is making steady progress, with a large section connecting Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti set to open within the next month:

The two-mile segment, which runs from the Dixboro Road bridge along Huron River Drive past Washtenaw Community College and St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, will be the first major section of the planned 35-mile trail to be completed outside of Ann Arbor or Ypsilanti.

If a few links are completed through Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, the trail may run uninterrupted from Ann Arbor’s west side through much of Ypsilanti within a few years.

Michigan Beachcombing Ban

Posted by Ari Paul on 28. July 2004

Michigan environmentalists have joined property rights activists in fight over control of the state’s coasts. Jess Piskor, former columnist and editor at the Michigan Daily, reports:

Like a boulder crashing into a quiet pond, the recent Michigan Court of Appeals ruling against Great Lakes beachcombing is making big waves across the Great Lakes Basin. The Appellate Court decision, Glass v. Goeckel, has delighted property rights activists in the state, motivated property rights groups in other Great Lakes states to bring the new doctrine to their own beaches, and even attracted support from some Michigan environmentalists.

Toledo Film Series

Posted by on 28. July 2004

Media Decompression Collective presents these films over the next couple of weeks:

“Unprecedented: The 2000 Election” 48 min. This is a riveting account of the 2000 election in Florida.

“AfterMath: Unanswered Questions from 9/11” 35min.

“Ammo For The Info Warrior” 40 min.

“A Night of Ferocious Joy” 60 min

“Let My Country Awake” 50 min.

Dodos, Dinosaurs, and the Middle Class

Posted by Ari Paul on 28. July 2004

Unemployment and underemployment is unyielding. Heathcare costs are rising. Even conservative magazines like Business Week lament the rising difficulty of class mobility. And to top it all off, “The CEO’s at the nation’s largest companies saw their raises more than doubled in 2003 as the median raise handed out by S&P 500 companies to their top executives was 22.18 percent, according to a study by The Corporate Library,” CNN reports.

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