Terry Foster: Hypertension and Health

It's important to keep in mind how fragile and precious your health and life really is.
No one knows the day that he or she will leave this world or how he or she will depart. But sometimes life gives us little reminders that nothing is guaranteed. Local writer, sports radio talk show host, and former Detroit News journalist Terry Foster was reminded of that recently when he had a mild stroke that was apparently brought on by hypertension. Foster was already dealing with Type 2 diabetes. Hypertension and Type 2 diabetes often occur together. Although it appears that Foster had his blood glucose within safe levels he did not have his hypertension under control. So what happened, happened. This is just another reminder of how important it is for people, particularly African-Americans, to avoid these conditions in the first place or stringently deal with the conditions if they are unfortunate enough to have them. Proper diet and exercise are not only what we owe to ourselves and our loved ones as joyful payment for being alive but good food and vigorous movement are also some of the most effective tools we have to fight hypertension and Type 2 diabetes. Some people still consider it a sign of virility to avoid seeing a doctor. I think that the wiser move is to treat going to the doctor the same way you would maintenance on a car or home-- a routine if occasionally unpleasant task that must be done in order to avoid larger costs down the line. The scary thing about hypertension is that you may have it for quite some time and feel no ill effects. You'll feel fine right up until the moment when you have a stroke, go blind or undergo even worse experiences.

Highly engaged listeners and video stream viewers could have noticed a few weeks ago that Foster seemed to be having difficulty with some words. He says now that he was in denial.
“I was struggling with my speech and my fine motor skills in my right hand were off,” Foster said. “I was typing slower, I had slower reaction times and I thought it was the effect of a bad cold that I had, but obviously it wasn’t and I was on the air for a couple of days and I was struggling with my speech. At some point, I was kind of getting scared and said ‘I need to go in and see what’s going on’ and that’s what that was.”
What was the last straw?

“It was slurred, I couldn’t say ‘971 The Ticket,’ I was like saying ‘nine-one the Ticket, like that. There were certain words that I could not say or they were child-like when I said that,” Foster said. “And so, I think, to compensate I started talking louder and slower and that was the big symptom right there.”

Now, he has a message for his listeners, the men, especially. Don’t skip doctor’s visits. And no matter how strong you feel, no one is invincible. Foster said he hadn’t been to the doctor and didn’t know he had high blood pressure, which was 220 over something he can’t remember when he showed up at Henry Ford Hospital in West Bloomfield suspecting something was wrong. Like most, he was eating inconsistently, high-fat foods sometimes and healthy meals other times.

Below Foster talks about the literal bullet he dodged and some of the warning signs he ignored. I thought this talk was worth sharing. Each of us may have inherited some weaknesses from our parents. We can't do anything about that. But we can control what we do with our body and how we treat it. There's a wealth of information available on how to eat better and exercise more often. Doing those things just might save your life.



Blood Pressure
Dash Diet
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Detroit Water Bills Redux

Another day, another bad story out of Detroit concerning payment of bills. We've discussed this before. Not much has changed. There is still a big mess. It's a perfect storm of massive unemployment and underemployment, poverty, bad consumer decision making, poor record keeping and accounting by the Water Department and malicious gamesmanship by landlords and speculators. All of this has meant that there are some people who simply won't pay their water bills because they have had the accurate perception that they can get away with not doing so mixed with a population of people who simply don't have the resources to regularly pay their water bills. Poverty is real and limits people's ability to enjoy life. Perhaps some of the people in this latest story should not be shamed but rather all of us should be ashamed for having built a society in which large numbers of people have no opportunity to get ahead. It doesn't matter how much moral opprobrium you vent at someone for their life choices. If they don't have the money, they don't have the money. But public utility bills must be paid. I have little sympathy for someone who makes sure that their cable bill is paid but the water bill isn't. When someone does that they're telling you loud and clear what is most important to them. And it's not the water bill. If you use a service you should pay for it. Without everyone agreeing to that basic deal, society doesn't work. Things fall apart. People at the higher end of the income and wealth spectrum start to resent paying for those they see as deadbeats and freeloaders and become more receptive to the idea of starving the public sector of funds (except for military and police and fire). And people at the lower end of the income and wealth spectrum become more receptive to the idea that virtually every "need" should be provided for by the government free of charge. Throw in some racial resentments around gentrification and the idea that the Water Department has devious reasons for shutoffs and demanding payment and you get  this situation. How do you survive without running water for more than two years? First, get a trash can. Put it under the roof to collect water to flush the toilet. Then, get a bucket and remember what your grandparents taught you in the early 1950s, before indoor plumbing reached all of rural America. “You use your brain. You scramble. You survive because you’re used to dealing with nothing,” said Fayette Coleman, 66, who grew up fetching water from wells in Belleville. She hasn’t had running water in her Brightmoor house since May 2013. The crumbling home is one of at least 4,000 in Detroit — and perhaps many more — whose water was never turned back on after massive shutoffs attracted international attention last year. 

The outcry faded, but the situation hasn’t. Within a block of Coleman’s house on Fielding near Lyndon, at least three neighbors have endured shutoffs, including one who spent months walking up the street, twice a day, to fill buckets at a friend’s before service resumed in mid-November. Citywide, a third of all residential accounts in Detroit— 68,000 of 200,000 — are at least 60 days past due, city records show.
The water issue is coming to light as a special panel studying water affordability is expected to present its plan to the Detroit City Council in January. The group expects to consider recommendations — including lower prices for low-income residents — when it meets for the last time Tuesday. Help is available, said Gary Brown, director of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. Some 39,000 residents are on payment plans, and the city has nearly $1 million available in payment assistance. “If you come in and say you are having an issue, we can find ways to help people,” Brown said. “But you have to come in.” Coleman gets by using bottled water for drinking, much of which she gets from charity. She heats water for sponge baths and flushes the toilet only after bowel movements. Otherwise, she does without.
             

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Mel Farr and Old Commercials

Mel Farr recently passed away. He was a former Detroit Lions football player who was a little before my time. I never saw him play football. He also sang backup on Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On". Returning the favor to his friend, Farr helped to arrange a Detroit Lions tryout for Gaye.  
After the recording, Gaye, 31, told Barney and Farr that he wanted to try out for the Lions. The article quotes Gaye from "Marvin Gaye, My Brother, a book by his brother Frankie: "You know what? I'd rather catch a pass and score a touchdown in Tiger Stadium than rack up another gold record." Gaye started working out with his buddies and Lions great Charlie Sanders, and bulked up by 30 pounds. Then-Lions coach Joe Schmidt, also a fan, agreed to take a meeting with Gaye. But when he found out he had never played football, even in high school, he said no to a tryout. But he changed his mind before training camp and agreed to give Gaye a look during a LIons workout at Michigan.  Gaye looked "decent," but Tinsley writes: "Privately, Schmidt imagined the wood-layers of their day — Deacon Jones, Chuck Howley or Dick Butkus — violently greeting one of America's foremost musicians running across the middle. Marvin would've been a moving target. That was too much burden for any coach's conscience."

But it was only in later years that I learned that Farr was a former Lion great. My primary memory of Farr was as the owner of an auto dealership group who tried to ensure that he and other black dealers got fair treatment from the auto companies. He was one of the first if not the first black auto dealers for Ford. He also tried his hand in other business ventures, some of which worked and some of which didn't. I also remembered Farr as the star of some cheesy hard sell commercials. Later on I also learned that he had a reputation as something of a sharp dealer who didn't mind taking advantage of unwary or low credit/impoverished buyers. But that's normal among auto dealers and scarcely bears mentioning. It's not a business which encourages leaving money on the table. I don't think such a business exists. No it's the commercials which are the first thing that came to my mind. And I could not remember the Mel Farr commercials without also recalling some of the other local commercials of note from back in the day, especially the Highland Appliance and WRIF remarkable mouth ads. Those were good times. It's funny how some commercials can instantly transfer you back across decades. I don't watch a lot of television any more and in particular not a lot of local television. But these local television and radio ads bring back fun memories. I also enjoyed the Angels With Dirty Faces Highland Appliance parody and obviously the Faygo commercial. If anyone should ever ask you the best Faygo flavor is Moon Mist.

Mel Farr Superstar

Mel Farr Flying with Billy Sims

Highland Appliance Rocky Sullivan

You have a remarkable mouth

Faygo (Remember When)

Highland Appliance Bully (Radio)

Detroit Zoo

Highland Appliance Fur Elise

Highland Appliance Fifty Watts Per Channel

Colonial Merchandise Mart

Highland Appliance Rumors (Radio)

You gotta have art

Michigan State Senator Virgil Smith and Domestic Violence

The Bible tells us that only the person without sin should throw stones. It also informs us that we should judge not lest we be judged. That might be good moral advice but of course a working society requires that we do judge certain sins and crimes and punish those who engage in them. That's just the way it is. Although I think everyone has dealt with lust, jealousy and anger at some point in their life not everyone lets these sins get the better of them. You have to maintain control over your actions. The result of losing your temper could be disastrous for you and those around you. Michigan State Senator Virgil Smith (D-Detroit) is finding this out the hard way as new details and conflicting stories are emerging about a confrontation between Smith and his ex-wife that turned physical.  Two sides emerged Monday in the story of a lurid domestic shooting involving a state senator with longtime family connections to the the halls of power in Detroit and Lansing. State Sen. Virgil Smith told police that opening fire at his ex-wife’s Mercedes-Benz with a rifle early Sunday morning was “the most stupid thing” in his life. In a statement Smith gave to investigators, he said his ex-wife, whose name is being withheld by The Detroit News, “was banging on (the) bedroom window,” at about 1 a.m., a Detroit Police report said. Smith said he opened the front door, and his ex-wife, “kicked the door open and pushed (past) him. 

“(The ex-wife) went into (Smith’s) bedroom and observed a female ... in (Smith’s) bed. (Smith) stated that (the ex-wife) attempted to attack (the girlfriend),” the police report obtained by The News said. “(Smith) grabbed (his ex-wife), they fell backwards, knocking over the television. (Smith) stated that (his ex-wife) attempted to attack (his girlfriend) again.” Smith told police “he grabbed (his ex-wife) and forced her out of his house,” the police report said. Smith then told investigators he went back into the bedroom to check on his girlfriend, and then returned to the front door, “and observed (his ex-wife) throwing a chair at his house windows.  “(Smith) then stated he did the most stupid thing in his life, he shot (the ex-wife’s) vehicle,” the report said.  

A second police report, containing the ex-wife’s side of the story, was taken by police at 4:41 a.m. Sunday. She said Smith had invited her to stay the night at his house, and, when she arrived, “she was met by a naked (Smith) and an (unknown) female,” the report said. “At this time she became angry and upset, and both started verbally arguing. “At some point during the argument (Smith) grabbed her by the back of her head and shoved her face first into the carpet. Victim stood up and was struck by (Smith) 4-5 (times) in the face with closed fist causing cheeks on both sides of her face to swell.” Smith’s ex-wife told police she ran out the front door, and he chased her with “an (unknown) type long gun and followed behind. She observed muzzle flash (three times) as suspect began firing at her,” the report said. The ex-wife said she ran into a nearby alley as Smith fired the rifle. She said she went into the nearby home of a friend, “who allowed her to call 911 and clean her wounds.” 

The friend later tried to retrieve the ex-wife’s 2015 Mercedes Benz GLA250, but that it was “unable to start due to gunshot damage,” the report said. Evidence technicians later found three suspected bullet holes in the vehicle’s hood; two in the driver’s side headlight; two in the driver’s side front fender; and one each in the driver’s side door, windshield, and rear driver’s door pillar, the report said.

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My thinking is that if Smith did not want his ex-wife at his home he never should have opened the door. Nothing good came from that decision. Perhaps he thought he could calm her down. Or perhaps he and the ex-wife were indeed planning to have some adult fun but the ex-wife did not know another woman would be there or didn't know that that particular woman would be there. Who can really say what's going on in someone else's private life. I have always thought that if someone is an ex there is likely a good reason for that status. Why change it? The problem for Smith is that although the differing stories around the confrontation inside the house may be unverifiable, the ten bullet holes in the car and his own alleged admission of firing the gun would seem to make this a pretty simple case of assault. The only reason to use a gun is if you're defending yourself from another person's deadly force. Even if Smith's crazy ex was throwing chairs at his home windows I don't see how that would legally or otherwise justify shooting at her or her car. But once some people lose their temper and HULK out so to speak, there is no reasoning with them. Still, as far as I'm concerned it's a fair expectation that a State Senator should be able to avoid situations that are more likely to show up on Worldstar than C-Span. I wonder why the other woman in this tale has not sought to press charges for assault? 

Should Smith's fellow Senators expel him from the State Senate?

Detroit Arrest: Police Brutality or Street Justice?

I am not overly fond of police. Usually when they are talking to you something has gone wrong with your day. But I must admit that they are necessary for society. Although I can honestly say they've never directly helped me much, we are all made safer when alleged or actual criminals are removed from the street. That's a police department's primary job responsibility: to apprehend such people. A local police task force apprehended and arrested a carjacker and felon named Andrew Jackson. The police may or may not have used excessive force in arresting the man. This story is attracting attention locally. I briefly read about it in the Detroit papers. But I didn't really start paying attention until driving home a few days ago when I listened to a rather heated discussion on the Mitch Albom radio show. Albom and his co-host Ken Brown (who is black) were mostly supporting the police, pointing out that the alleged criminal was armed and wasn't completely restrained during most of the use of force. Brown, who is a comedian with a penchant for hyperbole, exclaimed that he "wasn't marching for no criminal!". Numerous people called in to state that Albom and especially Brown were missing the point. The story discussion also lit up my Facebook feed and email accounts. Various friends and relatives, few of whom would ever be caught dead donating to policeman charity funds, took different sides on this issue. We don't and can't expect perfection from police. However, if you let things slide eventually you may wind up with infamous jails or prisons like LA County or Riker's Island where police and prison guards have felt free to abuse, beat, rape and even kill inmates, some of whom haven't even been found guilty yet. It's not the police officer's job to punish someone accused of a crime. Attacking someone after they are restrained is cowardly and evil. No good. 

But the accused apparently did have a gun on him before he was taken into custody. And police are most definitely trained and allowed to use appropriate force to protect themselves and complete the arrest. Force during the arrest can be ok; force after the arrest generally isn't. Unlike other cases we've discussed this situation apparently does not involve mistaken identity. A police officer did not decide to bully, harass or insult someone just because s/he can. Some people found karmic justice in watching a grown man who was a big bad wolf while allegedly terrorizing an unarmed grandmother, turn into a little sheep crying for Jesus when the police catch him. But everyone, even vicious criminals, deserves legal protection. Otherwise all we have is might makes right. Below the fold watch what happened during part of the arrest and read the thoughts of Mr. Jackson's (alleged) victim.

Grosse Pointe Park — Protesters Wednesday outside the headquarters of the Department of Public Safety questioned "whether excessive force was used" by area police officers videotaped hitting and kicking a carjacking suspect in Detroit.

"We are on a peace mission ... this is the kind of thing that can incite something," said Ron Scott, director of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, who was joined by a dozen other protesters.

The coalition called for criminal and civil charges plus the suspension of the officers from a multi-jurisdictional task force involved in the incident, which occurred Monday morning on Plainview, near McNichols and Evergreen.

The video of the arrest, which was recorded by Detroit resident Emma Craig on Monday on the city's northwest side and posted on Facebook, shows two officers beating the suspect identified as Andrew Jackson Jr. while apparently trying to handcuff him, and administering more blows after his hands were secured behind his back. According to Hiller, task force officers were tracking a vehicle that had been carjacked two hours earlier.

"This subject was a parole absconder wanted for an armed robbery in Detroit. He was armed with a handgun," Hiller said.

"The subject resisted arrest and in an attempt to restrain him an officer deployed a Taser," according to a police statement. "However, it failed to take effect due to the subject's heavy clothing. The subject continue(d) to reach for the area of his waist band and refused all orders to show his hands.

"He curled up in a ball and his right hand again went under his clothing. Fearing for their safety and those in the immediate area, an officer delivered a kick to the thigh area of the subject thus allowing the other officers the ability to arrest the subject. Located in his waist band was a loaded semi-automatic handgun."

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The victim in Monday's carjacking is telling what happened before any camera started rolling - and any cops started hitting and kicking an armed and dangerous man. The 55-year-old woman says her grand kids were in the car. She was standing just outside around 7:40 Monday morning near Greenfield and Fenkell.

"This is a dangerous felon who had a semi-automatic gun which was loaded, that he had put in my face and my children's face," the woman said. 
The victim had a broom to brush the heavy snow off her car, that's when she said a man came up to her with a gun and pointed it at her.
"He puts the gun in my face and says '(blank) give me your car and your purse, I'm robbing you,'" she said.

She told him she had no money and her grandsons were in the car.
"I'm screaming and yelling, 'Help help I'm being robbed,'" she said. "And he's telling me to shut the hell up and then he pointed the gun at my two grand kids." Boys, just 9 and 12 years old with the older child having special needs, were inside the car. "'Get your ass out of the car,' he just kept yelling and screaming," she said. Jackson fled in her car and GPS tracking led the police's Auto Theft Task Force to the suspect. 

But Jackson wasn't ready to give up. Armed and dangerous, he ran and police gave chase for a quarter mile before catching their suspect. Their officers' actions - kicking, hitting, the victim believes were totally justified based on what Jackson had just done to her family.

"I think they did a good job, maybe the officer's emotion got the best of him," she said. During the arrest as he was being struck, the suspect called out "Jesus." One of the officers said "Don't you dare" as he hit him.
The victim referred to the suspect's apparent cry for help from above.
"I'm like the officer," she said. "How dare you call on Jesus when you robbed somebody by gunpoint. Was he thinking of Jesus when he put a gun to my face and my grand kids' faces?"

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What's your take on this incident?

Detroit Squatters

Another squatter tried to take over a home in Detroit. I strongly suspect these events happen everywhere but they seem to happen more often in Detroit. All's well that ended well in this story but the fact remains that were it not for the local Fox station embarrassing the police department into doing its job this woman could have lost her home to the aggressive transsexual hoodlum. We talked about this squatters problem before in this post two years prior. I love the memory of my city. There are even today a lot of good people who live therein. Most people are good. Or rather most people don't have the audacity to think that they can just move into someone else's home without permission. But there are also a lot of people who view any sort of niceness as weakness and who are constantly on the lookout for weakness. Such people are the human equivalent of white sharks. Once they detect "blood in the water" so to speak, they attack. There have always been people like this and there always will be. That's not Detroit's problem. Detroit's problem is that people who behave like this are ever so slightly more numerous as a percentage of the population, perhaps because the authorities are overwhelmed with more serious crimes like rape, murder, assault, child abuse, and drug trafficking. So the authorities don't take crimes like this as seriously as they should. I mean we must set priorities, no?

But even though I would agree that a squatter is not the highest priority in a bankrupt city that's awash in violence, I would also say that the city, state, and county need to make sure that squatters do not get the idea that their crime is victimless or that they somehow are not committing a crime. Because if an investor or homeowner doesn't have the belief that they will still have access to their home if they temporarily leave it or try to sell it, they may decide that the risks of owning property in Detroit are not worth the costs. And that will prevent any sort of widespread renaissance in Detroit, no matter how much money is sunk into downtown or midtown projects.

Watch the two videos and let us know what you would have done were you the homeowner. Because I would have woke up this morning and got myself a gun but I've been accused of being hotheaded...

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Child Support Gone Wrong: Michigan Man Paying For Child That's Not His

Apart from extreme purist libertarians and anarchists, I think most people would concede that a certain level of government is necessary. However I also think that many people outside of devoted statists would also admit that government has become in some cases too large, too powerful and far too dismissive of individual rights. There have been some recent incidents which do remind me of the fact that a government which has too much power will inevitably seek to exercise that power in ways that harm all of us. Now we all may have our pet peeves and biases. That's part of being human. I may be more concerned about police brutality than you. You might be worried about arrogant and bullying EPA workers when they are not even on my radar screen. Someone else might have good reason to really dislike ICE workers. And so on. Government is made up of flawed men and women, like every other institution. It makes mistakes just like we do. That's ok. But what's not ok, is when government, which has the right and the power to put you in prison and take money from you, makes a mistake, admits it made a mistake but continues to treat you as if it didn't. Do you have an extra $30,000 lying around? Because if you don't you have something in common with one Mr. Carnell Alexander of Detroit, Michigan. He doesn't have that money either. But even he did he wouldn't pay it to the State of Michigan. The state claims he owes them that money for something he did not do. Read more and see the video below the fold.
DETROIT (WXYZ) - The State of Michigan is ordering a Detroit man to pay tens of thousands of dollars, or go to prison. The reason? He owes back child support for a child that everyone agrees is not his.  "I feel like I’m standing in front of a brick wall with nowhere to go," said Carnell Alexander. He says he learned about the paternity case against him during a traffic stop in Detroit in the early 90s. The officer told him he is a deadbeat dad, there was a warrant out for his arrest. 

“I knew I didn’t have a child, so I was kind of blown back,” said Alexander. The state said he fathered a child in 1987, and ignored a court order to pay up. It was the first Carnell had heard of the court order. He'd never even met the child. Eventually he, by chance, ran into someone he knew would know where the woman was, and got a DNA test. It proved what he had been saying all along: the child he had never met was not his.

The mother had realized that, and the real father was in the child's life. Alexander took this information to court. The judge was unmoved. Carnell's ex had a baby, and didn't know who the father was. She was struggling to care for the child. When she applied for state assistance, the case worker told her she had to name the father....

Now although I think that the entire alimony/palimony/child support/divorce industry needs an overhaul this really is beyond what I thought the worst could be. The man has irrefutable proof that he's not the father and the judge really doesn't give a ****. This is precisely the sort of thing that could make people explode. Yes you should take care of your kids. And if need be the state should be able to "help" you do that. The flip side of that though is if the kid in question isn't yours then the child isn't your responsibility. For the state to try to make that child your responsibility goes beyond corruption and slides into tyranny. It's exactly like being convicted and sent to prison for a crime you didn't commit because the prosecutor and judge want to send a message to other criminals about the cost of defying the law. They aren't interested in the fact that you are not a criminal. This sort of thing really bothers me. If the so-called justice system is treating the innocent and the guilty exactly the same, something that I'll be discussing more in a future post, then what incentive does anyone have to pay attention to the system or as Peter Tosh referred to it, the s***stem. Absolutely no incentive at all. A system that behaves like this loses legitimacy in the eyes of the citizens. Ultimately it relies on pure power, little different than the Mafia hoodlum shaking down construction companies for the weekly payoff. But when people start to withhold their consent and stop obeying the system, the results will be unknowable. When there are more cases like that of Mr. Alexander more people will start to do just that.  And I'm sorry but if, absent rape, a woman doesn't know who the father of her child is, she should be shamed and criticized just as much as the lazy lothario with multiple children by multiple women and no way of supporting his women or children.

What are your thoughts?

If you were this man what would your next move be?

Jayru Campbell Felony Charges Dismissed

We talked previously about former Cass Tech QB Jayru Campbell and his run-ins with the law. Now I don't know about you but if I had just gotten out of jail for assaulting someone I would make sure that at least for a while I would lay low and you know, try not to assault anyone. However Jayru Campbell apparently has a brain that doesn't work normally. Just hours after getting out of jail for body slamming a school security guard, Campbell assaulted his girlfriend, allegedly because he was concerned about text or other messages on her phone which hadn't come from him. While I can certainly understand a man or in this case a boy being deeply concerned that his girlfriend has concluded that his best just wasn't good enough, the fact remains that putting your hands on people in violence is usually a bad idea. It's a horrible idea when you were just released for doing the same thing. This shows everyone that whatever you experienced in jail, the experience apparently wasn't bad enough or long enough to make you realize that you never wanted to go back. Campbell did manage to dodge a bullet so to speak when the judge decided to dismiss the most serious felony charges that Campbell faced. It's quite possible that the prosecutors overcharged. I can't say yes or no to that. I'm no attorney. It's also possible that the judge bent over backwards to give the benefit of the doubt to someone who doesn't deserve it. It's true that there are far too many people, particularly black men and boys, who are wrongly caught up in the criminal justice system. It's also true that there are some individuals of all races and both genders who do need to spend some time away from the rest of us until they know how to act. Check out the video below and let us know what you think.


Detroit Cass Tech football star Jayru Campbell received a surprise in court today.
Campbell, who has had previous run-ins with the law, had his most serious charges dismissed for assaulting his girlfriend.
In 36th District Court Judge Ruth Carter dismissed charges of intent to do great bodily harm, unarmed robbery and fraudulent use of a computer Monday.

The 17-year-old is still facing a domestic violence charge, a 93-day misdemeanor. He remains in jail for a circuit court probation violation hearing. Some have questions wondering what kind of message today's decision in court is sending.
Beth Morrison, the head of Haven, a metro Detroit organization for victims of domestic violence was disappointed but not surprised by the dropped felony charges.
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Delinquent Water Bills, Detroit and The United Nations

I do my best to pay my bills on time. I expect the same from others. If I use a service I pay for it. If I loan money I want the money returned. I don't think that's too much to ask from other adults. Things can get a little tricky with relatives or other intimates because the relationship warps our understanding of money. So I avoid loaning money to people in those categories. If they need assistance I will give it to them, if I can. But people close to me know that I like my money very much and don't like giving it away. So that preserves the balance.
But where there's no personal relationship there is no misunderstanding of what money means. With people who lack a personal relationship with me there is never any expectation on my part that money loaned won't have to be repaid, regardless of who is the creditor and who is the debtor. My bank expects monthly mortgage payments. The bank is entirely uninterested in my problems making that payment. All they want is their money. I work for pay at my company, not because I enjoy the witty repartee. So, as is incredibly obvious to most adults, when you make a deal or purchase goods or services, you are supposed to live by the deal or pay for the goods or services you bought. Unfortunately in my home town of Detroit, the Water Department is running into some pushback as it seeks to either obtain payment from delinquent customers or shut their water service off. 

The reason for the Water Department's new aggressiveness in going after delinquents is probably related to the city's bankruptcy. Not only has the Emergency Manager made it clear that business as usual can't continue but of course the Detroit Water Department can't be privatized or merged into a regional service provider unless it shows that it can actually get customers to pay their bills.  I mean would you invest in or purchase a business where customers used the product but refused to pay for it? No you wouldn't. These decisions make sense for the entire organization but inevitably there are going to be some people that get hurt and may not even be deadbeats.


On July 1, the department is planning to relaunch its dormant financial assistance program with the help of the Heat and Warmth Fund, also known as THAW. The program is funded by 50-cent donations from paying water customers. More than $800,000 is available.THAW will help determine how much customers who qualify for assistance must pay. DWSD officials stressed that all customers will have to pay something toward their bill. Water service to 7,556 Detroit customers was cut off in April and May, according to the department. Now, the department officials said enough shutoff crews are in place to halt service to 3,000 delinquent accounts per week.

The overall effort to collect on more than 90,000 active accounts owing $90.3 million past due has drawn criticism from activists and a coalition of welfare rights groups. On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, called the shutoffs inhumane and “economically short-sighted.” The department’s shutoff campaign is targeting customers — residential and commercial — who are more than 60 days late on their bills and who owe at least $150. The average monthly bill for water and sewer service in Detroit is $65, according to the department. An 8.7% increase effective next month is expected to increase bills by $5 a month. The rate hike was partially blamed on delinquent bills. City Councilman Gabe Leland, who supported the rate increase, said the financial assistance program’s availability next month — about three months after the shutoffs began — reveals how the DWSD sets its priorities. “It seems like right now the department is taking no prisoners,” Leland said, adding that people should pay their bills. “To shut people off, that’s one thing. Let’s do it with some more preparation.”

LINK

Of course this being Detroit, a welfare rights organization even attempted to get the United Nations involved on the theory that water is a universal human right or that disparate impact theory showed that the people harmed by shutoff notices would be mostly black and thus therefore the shutoff policies were racially discriminatory. This kind of logic makes my head hurt. I'll leave that to lawyers who are actually qualified to discuss it. Bottom line as I see it is if you use a service you pay for the service. All else is folly and laziness on an individual level. If you want to collect water in your backyard from the rain and use that water to brush your teeth, go to the toilet, clean your body and for your drinking needs you go right ahead and do that. But if you want to have clean safe treated water that runs the gamut of your preferred temperature range delivered instantaneously to your home, well you need to pay for that, just like everyone else does. Now, all of that individual responsibility stuff out of the way there are at least three systemic issues here:

1) What happens when an economy simply doesn't need as many people as it used to? Unemployment in Detroit is chronic. This is in large part because the high-wage, relatively low skill auto jobs that built and sustained the middle class in Detroit have vanished thanks in part to automation, globalization and departure for the suburbs or southern states. This didn't happen overnight but honestly there is nothing the current President or either political party is doing to change employment patterns in the "inner city". You can have all the individual responsibility you want to but if you lack money, some bills get dropped. It's a related issue that I haven't touched on for a minute but this is also why I am opposed to "immigration reform". There are too many American citizens that are falling by the wayside. We can't provide jobs for our own and we want to bring in more people? But seriously, what if late model capitalism simply doesn't require the workers that its predecessor model used to? How do we handle that as a society?

2) Isn't there some residual pride left in people? Is it really a human rights violation to have your water shutoff? Again, we may decide that it is. But in that case we will all have to pay additional taxes to provide water "free" of charge to all. I have no issue doing that for seniors or people of extremely low means. But for your run of the mill American, poor or not, I would balk at doing that until I had more information on their circumstances. Housing in Detroit is not exactly expensive. 

3) Related to number one, a black man with an associates degree has roughly the same economic chances as a white man with a high school diploma. Education pays for everyone but it pays better for some people than for others. Again, if we (that is the US) have through history and current practice shut large out numbers of people from the employment market then we're going to end up with some unknown proportion of them not being able to pay water bills. So again, we need to provide jobs for people, even those who do not have a college degree. And the highest need for jobs is in the black community.

I don't have all the answers on this. I think that we have to distinguish between the truly destitute, for whom we can find assistance, and the person who simply doesn't think his or her water bill is something they have to pay. Unfortunately the only way to make that distinction is to shut off service to delinquents. If they want the service, they'll pay their bill. If they can't step forward and let's have a discussion about what happens next. I am sympathetic, especially as the Detroit bureaucracy has a well deserved reputation for notoriously bad record keeping and organization. There will definitely be a high number of false positives caught up. But there will be many more folks who just got used to paying late and are screaming because the free ride is up.

What's your call on this situation?

Detroit Teacher Fired For Using Broom To Break Up Fighting Students

"She ain't wait. That's who she deserve."

I didn't go to Detroit Public Schools until high school. It was private school/parochial school until then. And the high school I attended was something akin to a charter school. You had to pass an entrance exam. This cut down on the knuckleheads and riff raff. The violence was minimal, almost non-existent. Kids will be kids but I can't even remember fights in school. Sure you had a few smart wannabe hoodlums but once you got to know them they were nice people. I'm told my old school has changed since then. But I still don't think it's anything like Pershing. Pershing has always been a school for dummies and real hoodlums. So that there was a fight in a Pershing classroom didn't surprise me. A fight at Pershing is like shooting at a gun range. It's what you expect. The small female teacher tried to break up the fight by smacking one of the assailants with a broom. This didn't work. The brawl continued until other male students decided to end the fracas. But the teacher, who was not supposed to leave the room and didn't have any way to call for help, was fired for hitting one of the combatants. Her case allegedly could also be referred for child abuse investigation.

Yes, that makes sense. NOT. Her termination surprised me. I respect the heck out of teachers. But I could never be a teacher. They have too many stupid rules. They deal with too many stupid people. And if a classroom fight occurs, God forbid they try to stop it lest they lose their jobs. Years ago a relative told me there was very little learning going on in some Detroit schools. And he was right. A football star who body slams a security guard gets a plea deal and goes back to school in apparent violation of state law while a teacher trying to restore order to a classroom is fired. Gee, that must do wonders for employee morale, huh? Words don't really do justice to this scene so check out the video below. And folks wonder why people are leaving DPS...



Fox 2 News Headlines

Detroit mob beats driver who hits child

I was going to write about a foreign policy situation that was on my mind but that can wait as some news a bit closer to home is getting national attention. A suburban man named Steven Utash (pictured above with family) driving a pickup truck accidentally hit a young Detroit boy who ran out into the street. The man got out to help/see what happened and was attacked by a group of teens and men who beat him into a coma.

One of two teens is charged with assault with intent to murder after their arrest on suspicion in the brutal beating of a driver who hit a Detroit boy last week, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced Monday. Bruce Edward Wimbush Jr., 17, faces charges of assault with intent to murder and assault with intent to do great bodily harm. Wimbush is to be arraigned at 2:30 p.m. today in 36th District Court before Magistrate Millicent Sherman. The 16-year-old hasn’t been charged yet and remains in Wayne County Juvenile Detention Center, with a court hearing scheduled for 1:30 p.m. at the Juvenile Detention Center. The two are believed to have been among a crowd that attacked Steven Utash, 54, of Clinton Township on April 2 after his truck struck a 10-year-old boy who ran into the street. When Utash got out to check on the boy, he was severely beaten by people “with their fists and feet,” according to a news release from Worthy.

LINK
I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. There are many reasons I live outside the city but a major one certainly has to be crime. The city has a high number of crimes of violence and theft. The city has a new police chief who has overseen many high profile arrests and raids as well as an increasing number of Detroit citizens who, faced with home invasions, have fought back with deadly force. But an incident like the one shown in the video below the jump can lead to increased fear and loathing between city and non-city residents. It also may lead to a man dying. Accusations of racial animus and bias are over local radio stations and newspaper comment sections. I don't really know about that. I suspect that the mob may well have attacked the driver regardless of his race. But that's small comfort to the driver who is currently clinging to his life or to the young boy with a broken leg. If some or all of the mob can be shown to have acted out of racial animus then they should be charged under the relevant hate crimes laws. I have no problem with that. I do find it sadly ironic that locally some mostly white people are immediately certain that race was an issue in this case but did not see race in the George Zimmerman case.

We can't take the law into our own hands without giving everyone else the same ability and thus devolving into a Max Max society. Some cynics would likely claim that some areas of Detroit are already like that. This incident brought up questions of when if ever it is appropriate to hit someone and not stop. My understanding is that you're supposed to stop or go to the nearest police station. It also raised the question of who is at fault when a pedestrian is hit. When I learned to drive it was drilled into me that the pedestrian almost always has the right of way, even if they do something stupid. I do a lot of driving in Ann Arbor, where pedestrians and bicyclists routinely ignore the most basic traffic laws. However here the initial police investigation has determined that the driver was not at fault. So there was no reason for anyone to have attacked Utash. Now if this man dies, would his family or friends then be justified in finding the people who did it and removing them from the planet. Because that is what would be on my mind. But where does it stop. There has to be one law for everyone. And that means that no matter how much you might want to deal out some street justice, you can't do that. Many of us have been in or will be in an auto accident at some point in our life. Should we really expect that even in tragic situations like this one, that we should prepare for a mob attack? There is another local case where evidently white or Arabic men beat a white Army vet because he said or did something nice for a black person. UPDATE: Prosecutor declines to file charges against men who beat Army vet. She says vet started the confrontation. LINK



Fox 2 News Headlines

Detroit Superland Market

One of the worst things about racism is that black people tend to internalize it. This is true of classism, sexism and all of the other "ism's" which still plague humanity. If you subconsciously think and accept that you are less than someone else then you will start to behave in ways that support that line of thinking. I have seen black people that would literally shoot another black person just for looking at them the wrong way meekly accept bigoted language or actions from white people. There are some black people who would raise a fuss over poor service from a black owned business who don't say a mumbling word when they're the last party seated at a bad table in a white owned restaurant and so on. One of the things that my parents tried to teach me and my siblings is that as a consumer, as a citizen, as a black person, you should never ever ever accept mistreatment, poor goods or poor service from anyone, no matter their race. Demand and insist upon respect. And if someone is unable or unwilling to do that don't be an idiot and give them your money, work or time anyway. Shop or work elsewhere. I have tried to live up to those teachings.

I was reminded of those long ago lessons when a local news station had a short story on a particularly unsanitary local grocery on the west side of Detroit. I've written before on how the majority of grocery stores and convenience stores or "party" stores in Detroit, and for that matter likely in the entirety of Wayne County are owned and operated by people of Middle Eastern descent. This has led to regular static because of allegations of disrespect, poor store conditions, sexual harassment, violence and refusal to hire local (read "Black") employees aimed at the ownership and allegations or incidents of theft and violence caused by the clientele. From time to time, a case where one side or the other does something really egregious makes the news.




Fox 2 News Headlines

Now there are some people who might wonder if this entire intervention with Malik Shabazz and the store owner was already preplanned. Certainly the owner Steven Najor seems a bit calm for someone who supposedly just had his business exposed as a filthy place to buy food. I couldn't say one way or the other. And boycotts have a long history as part of black empowerment activism. But it's also 2014. We need to ask ourselves as Black Americans and/or other supportive folks, are boycotts really the best way to get where we need to go? Rather than boycott, which judging by the comments of some of the putative shoppers, might not be too effective anyway, why not work on pooling resources to open up more of our own businesses? How is it that entire lines of business that make money in the black community are rarely owned by blacks? That's one question. The other question is how do we convince people that they are important enough to refuse to accept bad treatment. Because frankly what durned difference would it make if the store owner was Black, White, Middle Eastern, Asian, Hispanic, whatever if s/he runs a dirty store? The limiting factor is not only lax state and city enforcement of appropriate regulations but a clientele that is convinced that filthy stores and post dated perishables are the best they can hope for. 

I go back to the parents. I will never forget that when I was a young boy and had not gotten the proper change from a store clerk, my father sent me right back out again with an admonition to get his money and not take any stuff. Now it was only $0.10 but it was the principle of the thing. Ultimately the citizens of Detroit need to make it clear to business owners that they demand clean stores and will accept nothing less. This requires a change in how people perceive themselves. This takes time.

Thoughts?

Self-Defense In Detroit Home Invasion

A Detroit mother opened fire Monday night when three suspects broke into her home. Surveillance cameras caught it all.The mother tells 7 Action News she "didn't have time to get scared." When she heard the door to her home on Woodrow Wilson being kicked in, she immediately warned the three teenage intruders and then opened fire. One of the teens dropped a handgun on his way out the door. He then tried to get back inside the house a second time, but was again met with gunfire. Once again, he took off and all three were arrested shortly after the incident by Detroit Police.  These young criminals were indeed fortunate that they were not killed as they tried to break into this woman's home. Although incidents like this may indeed be statistically rare if you are the person confronted with this behavior that's small comfort indeed. Notice that the woman defended herself and her children with a scary looking "assault rifle". Unfortunately there are people in this world who are "bad", "warped", "bent", "evil" or whatever other pejorative word you wish to use. Ultimately I suppose you could pity such people but in my view such pity can only be doled out once they're safely behind bars or six feet under the ground. If one happens to be unfortunate enough to run into such miscreants bent on taking something that is yours, immediate and massive counter force is the only thing which they will respect. Incidents like this are why I am unsympathetic to people who tell us we don't "need" guns to protect ourselves or that no one "needs" a magazine capacity with more than an arbitrary number of rounds. As far as I am concerned the only bad thing about this incident was that the mother didn't light up all of the home invaders. Please note that although the police arrived quickly after the fact and arrested the criminals it was impossible for the police to be there at the moment that the thugs decided to break down the door. We are ultimately responsible for protecting ourselves and those we love. Watch video here.

Corporate Welfare or Good Business Sense???

I'll take any mother*****'s money if he giving it away!!!!
-Clay Davis
Regardless of race, gender, political affiliation or geography, when you say "welfare", many people probably still think of a person who looks and sounds like this. Such a wretched individual makes an easy target for people who are tired of other people putting hands in their pocket while having the nerve, the audacity to claim that they are somehow entitled to do so.

However it has never ceased to amaze me that the more you need money the less likely people are to give it to you while the less you need it, the more people break their neck trying to give it to you. I was reminded of that by two separate recent events, one national and one local. If we take our focus off "welfare" as money given to "underclass" mothers and/or other loud obese moochers and expand the term to include well off people, we might be surprised by how much government assistance the rich get, even for doing things they would already do. There have been books written on this. This is a tremendously inefficient use of government resources. And it's unfair. I don't mind paying taxes if those taxes can prevent someone from starving to death or being homeless. I do mind paying taxes when those taxes are given to individuals or companies that are not so troubled.

Michigan billionaires, Mike and Marian Illitch (net worth around $3 billion), owners of Little Caesars, The Detroit Tigers, The Detroit Red Wings, various land development companies and Motor City Casino (under Marian's name for business reasons) have decided that they want a new arena for the Red Wings. The current one, Joe Louis Arena is not quite decrepit but is definitely outdated.

Well in a so-called free market when you want to take a risk and build/buy something new you pony up the dollars and either get the rewards or take the losses. But that's not how things work for billionaires, especially in sports. Despite the fact that tons of evidence exists that public financing of sports arenas rarely brings the ROI that supporters claim it does, the City of Detroit and the State of Michigan have come together to ensure that the Illitches get public land for essentially nothing in order to build their new stadium/entertainment complex. That's how things work, not just in Detroit, but in many cities. The subsidy is bad enough but what made this deal stand out to me was that the Illitches, or rather their company, will keep ALL revenues from the stadium. There will be no sharing with either the state or the city. Additionally Olympia Entertainment will pay no property taxes on the new stadium. Even the building of the stadium itself will be 60% publicly funded. Now does that sound like a win-win deal for the city? 

In one of the largest land transfers in the city’s history, the Detroit City Council agreed Tuesday to hand over 39 parcels of land along the Cass Corridor to transform what was once a blighted, crime-ridden strip near downtown Detroit into a $650-million entertainment venue that will include a new arena for the Detroit Red Wings. The vote authorizes the city to sell the public land for $1 to the Detroit Downtown Development Authority, which will own the arena and lease it for up to 95 years to Olympia Development of Michigan. The company is owned by the Ilitch family, which owns the Red Wings. The essentially free transfer of public land — with an assessed value of about $2.9 million — is the city’s chief contribution to the development.

As proposed, construction of the arena itself would be 58% publicly funded and 42% privately funded. No Detroit general fund dollars would be spent; the state is contributing the bulk of the public investment. Olympia has agreed to pay $11.5 million annually for about 30 years to help pay off the construction bonds. Olympia will own the arena’s naming rights and will keep all revenues from arena operations, including parking fees and concessions sales. The city will not collect property taxes on the arena.

The second instance of corporate welfare which caught my ire was the agreement over the latest farm bill, which President Obama is going to sign into law today, likely at Michigan State University, that center of agricultural higher learning better known as Moo U. I hear that the President will also be treated to a demonstration of the correct techniques of cow artificial insemination and 101 uses of cowpies. But I digress. The bill, soon to become law, has all sorts of goodies included into it, most of which are going to insurers and agribusiness, not "farmers". Think less Tom Joad and more Monsanto.

The bill stinks. And given that it also cuts food stamps can Democratic partisans stop talking about how the evil Republicans are behind this. If the food stamp cuts really bothered the President he would veto the bill. He's not doing that. Take from that what you will. I learn from people's actions, not their words.

WASHINGTON — No one was happier than Danny Murphy, a Mississippi soybean farmer with 1,500 acres, when the Senate on Tuesday passed a farm bill that expanded crop insurance and other benefits for agribusiness. “It’s a relief,” Mr. Murphy said. Few were as unhappy as Sheena Wright, the president of the United Way in New York, who expects to see a surge of hungry people seeking help because the bill cuts $8 billion in food stamps over a decade. “You are going to have to make a decision on what you are going to do, buy food or pay rent,” Ms. Wright said.

The nearly 1,000-page bill, which President Obama is to sign at Michigan State University on Friday, among other things expanded crop insurance for farmers by $7 billion over a decade and created new subsidies for rice and peanut growers that would kick in when prices drop. But anti-hunger advocates said the bill would harm 850,000 American households, about 1.7 million people spread across 15 states, which would lose an average of $90 per month in benefits because of the cuts in the food stamp program.

Unlike the food stamp program, the federally subsidized crop insurance program was not cut. The program, which is administered by 18 companies that are paid $1.4 billion annually by the government to sell policies to farmers, pays 62 percent of farmers’ premiums.

LINK

So the rich will get richer and piggish private interests will continue to feed from the government trough, only pausing long enough to wipe the crumbs from their snout and mumble "free market" or "individual responsibility" to the rest of us, before continuing their gluttony. Such is life I guess. I would like to know though where is the conservative outrage over such transfers of public monies to private hands? Why are some conservatives silent about this when businesses are the recipients? And flipping the script would liberals be quiet if it were a President Bush cutting food stamps in the economic environment we have now? Somehow I doubt it. But look over there! Chris Christie!!! Benghazi!! Birth Control Pills!!!!!!