Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

MSA presidential debate last night: Affirmatively Coked up

Posted by David Boyle on 21. March 2006

Since it was the (Christian) Sabbath and I had no excuse of busyness, I attended… (more below)

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Second Baptist Church Vans Vandalized: Hate Crime or Hip Hop?

Posted by Dumi Lewis on 21. March 2006

A small note from the Sunday Police Beat mentions that church buses parked at the Second Baptist Church of Ann Arbor were vandalized during the weekend. The A2 news blurb reads:

Vandals spray painted black swastikas and other markings on three buses at the Second Baptist Church in Ann Arbor, police said. The vandals also painted a cross on the buses and hit them with individual artwork markings and their names, an activity called tagging…

Of course I’m left wondering about the intentions of the vandals considering Second Baptist is a predominantly Black congregation with a long history of activism in Ann Arbor.

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Students' Night at City Council

Posted by Dale Winling on 20. March 2006

Tonight at City Council’s bi-weekly meeting, the city’s elected representatives will deal with two well-publicized issues with particular relevance to students. The first is a second public hearing of the lease signing ordinance. The second is a resolution beginning implementation of the Calthorpe recommendations, postponed from the February 21 meeting.

UPDATE: The lease ordinance passed unanimously, with a 90-day no show/lease clause.

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Third anniversary, start of Iraq War

Posted by David Boyle on 20. March 2006

See, e.g., CNN, Protests mark Iraq war’s third anniversary: Demonstators take to streets in cities around world . There were some protests in Ann Arbor, I believe.
R.I.P. to all the war dead. Peace to everyone else.

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"More MSA March Madness™"

Posted by David Boyle on 19. March 2006

—There have been calls from various quarters for an AU endorsement of various contestants in the MSA elections; but sorry, no endorsement of any person or party by this author. Prayer may work, though. (“Oh Lord, please give me an MSA seat…AND a Mercedes-Benz”)
—There is “chatter”, as the NSA might say, that some conservative elements of S4M are not happy that SCP may take away some conservative votes from them. This could be worse than Bush vs. McCain! Oh well.
One also hears rumorage that SCP is changing (or briefly changed?) its name to Student Choice Party? If so, that change has not registered on their own website at http://scparty.org/ ; so they are conserving “Conservative” rather than choosing “Choice”. Maybe they’re just trying to “take votes away from S4M”—those SCP troublemakers!! (heh)
—As for bloggery: SCP strikes again, with http://www.insidethemsa.com/ . I do not know if insidethemsa is accurate, but it is entertaining, e.g., some of the bullet points, ”* Ludicrous things MSA is doing with your money …* Random examples of absurdness in MSA”.
One of the MPP blog entries has heated up very much comment-wise (still ongoing!), see Travis Radina, Stuart Wagner, and others, on MSA finances, at http://trformsa.blog.com/615179/ .
The S4M blog is at http://votes4m.com/blog/ .
(There is a DAAP link too, but it hasn’t been updated recently, I hear, so…)

All this MSA March Madness “™” is almost as fun as UM Regents’ meetings, including the one yesterday where one Regent was shouting and pointing her/his finger at a pro-divestment-from-Israel activist after the meeting, and I got to talk to Mary Sue Coleman (and the whole audience) about Free Press reporter John Bebow’s allegation that she slandered him .
I have always maintained that Regents’ meetings Public Comments time is the best hour of free entertainment available in Ann Arbor.

“Jesus! How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?”—Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (RIP), in “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72”

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North Quad preliminary drawings out

Posted by Dale Winling on 16. March 2006

The University of Michigan has released preliminary drawings of Einhorn Yaffee Prescott’s design for the new residential/retail/instructional/administrative building on the site of the current Frieze Building. The Michigan Daily runs the images in a cover story on the project.

UPDATE: The Michigan Daily reports that the item has been pulled from the Regents’ agenda due to design and cost issues by university CFO Timothy Slottow.

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Free films tonight and Wednesdays for Women's History Month

Posted by David Boyle on 16. March 2006

Tonight at 7 p.m. in 218 Hutchins Hall at the UM Law School, WLSA (Women Law Students Association) will offer a free screening of “Osama”; and there will be screenings for the next two Wednesdays as well, “Whale Rider” on March 22 and “The Accused” on March 29.

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MI Civil Rights Commission Meeting in A2

Posted by Dumi Lewis on 16. March 2006

The next meeting of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission will take place in Ann Arbor. The meeting is open to the public and happens on Monday, March 20th at 4pm in 100 Hutchins Hall at the Law School.
From the email I was sent:

The Michigan Civil Rights Commission was created by the Michigan Constitution of 1963 to carry out the guarantees against discrimination articulated in Article I, Section 2. As further stated in Article V, Section 29, the state constitution directs the Commission to investigate alleged discrimination against any person because of religion, race, color or national origin and to “secure the equal protection of such civil rights without such discrimination”. Public Acts 453 and 220 of 1976 and subsequent amendments have added sex, age, marital status, height, weight, arrest record, and physical and mental disabilities to the original four protected categories.

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Arianna Huffington: "blogosphere is now the most vital news source in America"

Posted by David Boyle on 15. March 2006

A. Huff, Now the little guy is the true pit bull of journalism… ,

“Blogging [is] levelling the playing field between the media haves and the media have-only-a-laptop-and-an-internet connection.
...That’s another great thing about bloggers: when they decide that something matters, they refuse to let go. They’re the true pit bulls of reporting.
That kind of relentlessness was never available to me as a newspaper columnist.
...Bloggers share their work, argue with each other and add to a story dialectically. It’s why the blogosphere is now the most vital news source in America.”
(in today’s Guardian)

(See also today’s Doonesbury on blogging and Krispy Kremes.)

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Yale pledges non-investment in Sudan; as does Brown; but UM...

Posted by David Boyle on 15. March 2006

See, e.g., February’s press release Yale Acts to Divest in Response to Darfur Genocide , mentioning the Yale Corporation commitment not to have Yale University invest in Sudanese government obligations, or in seven oil companies which operate in Sudan. So has the Brown Corporation at Brown, too, in February similarly pledged (specific companies are not mentioned); see, e.g., Divestiture Vote: Brown Votes to Divest from Sudan in Response to Genocide .
...whereas at UM, the equivalent body, the Regents, has for months on end refused to make a similar pledge, despite the MSA request for such . (The UM financial office claims to be divested—what was the timeline?—, and says it “has no plans to invest in Sudan”; but what if one of its holdings invests in Sudan tomorrow?) It is sad how UM officially poses as a university friendly to blacks, but re Sudan and the African-American UM graduate students’ complaint noted here and here on AU, reality may be otherwise.

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