Murder music, community demands, venue changes

The Majestic Theater, in the face of community pressure, canceled a Buju Banton concert that was to held tomorrow. The Zainea family (owners of the Majestic complex) claimed to not have known that Banton has used his music to advocate violence against gay people. They reported trying to get out of the contract for a month and finally deciding to break it and accept the financial consequences.

Instead Wednesday, September 30th, Affirmations, Transgender Detroit, and Triangle Foundationan are hosting an LGBT Awareness concert at the Magic Stick (part of the Majestic: 4120-4140 Woodward Avenue in Detroit) at 8pm. Confirmed performers volunteering for the event include Ami Mattison, Andrea Wilson, The Big Pink Black, Chantel & Youth Montage, Cheryl Strebel, Coup Detroit, Jocelyn B “B----” of the Blues, Leslie Thompson, Steffie & the Dirty Virgins.

Meanwhile, an Ann Arbor venue has decided to hold a Banton concert. Protesting outside the Blind Pig at 208 S. First Street is an option if you happen to be in Ann Arbor Wednesday night.

It's the end of the blog as we know it...

Hey Beautiful People (and aren't we all???),

I don't think I'll be adding to this blog that frequently anymore. I have really enjoyed blogging, but I can't keep it up at the current time. The change in season brought my summer vacation to an end and I had a bit of a health setback last week. While I'm fine and hopefully there are no ramifications to it...well, I've gotten behind on quite a few fronts. So I definitely won't be making regular posts, though I may have something to say every now and then.

Thanks for reading. Peace and love!

DDOT Bus Changes to Go into Effect 9/26/09

Thursday the city announced the changes to the bus lines. According to an article in the Detroit News, when the ridership data from the fareboxes shows less than 15 riders per hour, the route is considered to be "failing." Two routes (the Grandbelt and Holbrook) are being eliminated completely. Other routes are having weekend services cut or overall time between buses increased. See the official list of changes on the DDOT website. Changes are expected to reduce expenses by $5million.

Given how quickly these changes were decided upon and how soon they will go into effect, I am even more convinced that the earlier bluster about ending all service at 6pm Saturday and ending it totally on Sunday was in fact just a distraction to make the intended cuts more palatable to residents. What I find amazing is Bing implying that huge changes to weekend service were never really on the table and simply blown out of proportion by the drivers union. I am currently looking at the "Proposed Service Changes" document handed out at the DDOT public hearings and definitely that proposal is there--on page 12, under a bold and underlined heading which reads: "Proposed changes for Sunday's[sic] include the discontinuance of all service on all routes." Hmm.

Still frustrated about bus service cuts

The city is expected to announce what changes are to be made to the bus system on Thursday. Bing has now backed away from the idea of ceasing all service from 6pm Saturday until Monday morning. An article in Workers World claims this as victory of the masses (Mass outrage stops Detroit bus cuts). I am cynical. I wonder if the plan all along was to rile people up about impossible to survive cuts and then offer us less severe cuts that we will more easily accept.

While Bing demands that Council stop "playing politics" and support the cuts to the system, he has yet to provide them with the ridership data used to determine which routes will be reduced. Further his bolstering about the DDOT not receiving complaints when 50 drivers called out (the Saturday after 113 layoffs were supposed to take effect) was the most ridiculous political braying. If I called DDOT every time a bus was late or did not show up, they would certainly use up all my day-time cell phone minutes. I have OFTEN waited 40 minutes for a Hamilton bus to arrive in the afternoon. The only time I have called to complain about waiting for a bus was when I waited over two hours in below freezing temperatures at night for one bus that may have come early and a second bus definitely never showed up. I think I got home at 1am that time. So, yeah, I'm probably not calling if a bus is late on a Saturday when the whether is good. DDOT riders have very low expectations at this point.

The article Dread builds for Detroiters as decision looms on bus cuts lays out why the bus system is a core service of the city. It lists such statistics as an estimated 20% of Detroit households without vehicles and the city's unemployment and poverty rates. It also gives voice to some individuals who use the bus service and need it to go about their daily lives. Ironically enough, the picture used with the story is taken at the brand new Rosa Parks Transit Center.

Once more, alternatives to cutting bus service:
1. use smaller coaches on less used routes
2. increase fares
3. take advantage of stimulus money
* update the fleet to be more efficient, to create less pollution, and use less fuel
4. partner with SMART to effectively handle the region's transportation needs
5. increase rates on parking meters
6. increase cost of parking tickets

Bill Cosby knocking on door for DPS

Yesterday Bill Cosby knocked on doors, trying to get parents to bring their children to Detroit Public Schools. He then led a rally Henry Ford High School. He went with Robert Bob, the school district's installed emergency manager. Cosby was drawn when he heard Bobb say that he would put his own mother in jail if she stole from the district.

Um...yeah...if there are legitimate reasons I don't send my child to DPS, is having a celebrity tell me to really going to change my mind?

"It would be kind of scary to me for my daughter to go somewhere else," said Aljamaalah Moore, the mother of three children.

Moore said her 10-year-old daughter attends a free charter school.Moore, who is taking college courses, said her daughter is learning a higher level of math at the charter school than she is at community college. from a story on ClickOn Detroit

And people wonder why I don't like dating...

I've said for years that if I could find a reputable matchmaker to arrange me a marriage, I'd go for it. Yeah, I dislike dating that much and yet very much like the idea of marriage (a friend thinks that I'm just lazy). Still, as much as I don't like dating, I have never had as bad an experience as the woman whose date stole her car:



From Fiddler on the Roof...

Disturbing

I just was reading a few news items before getting ready for work and I came across a Reuters article entitled " Obama more successful on terrorism-security adviser." The blurb accompanying the link was:

WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (Reuters) - The United States is having more success fighting terrorism under President Barack Obama partly because of his "radically different" approach to foreign policy, National security adviser Jim Jones said on Monday."

How disturbing I found the article goes beyond from how wrong I find it for a "reporter" to lead with a quote from a government instead of giving us facts. Instead of engaging in fact-finding and analysis, the mainstream media has become accustomed to telling us "X said this" and "Y said that," giving the impression that each have equal weight. That is not objectivity, that is laziness. So we have what National Security Advisor Jim Jones thinks and what Cheney thinks. One particularly surreal paragraph:

Jones did not, however, counter Cheney's argument that Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to investigate suspected CIA prisoner abuses could have a chilling effect on the work of the intelligence agency.

WHAT???

1. This is not a debate between the administration and Cheney. The man, who had more power than a vp should have in the first place, is now out of office--how is it that what he thinks still makes news?
   
2. There needs to be a chilling effect on the "work" of an intelligence agency that tortures human beings. Credible intelligence does not come from torture; we should not strive to be people who value life so little; and abusing people does nothing to convince them we are human as they are and really gives terrorists an excellent bit of propaganda.

Jones's definition of "success" in "fighting terrorism" is captured by "We are seeing results that indicate more captures, more deaths of radical leaders." Given our history, I'm wondering what kind of evidence and what kind of judicial process is in place before we carry out these executions.

On a related note, Mohammed Jawad--an Afghani teenager who had been held in Guantanamo for seven years without any evidence to make a case against him--was released last week. His confession was thrown out by a military judge who ruled that he confessed because interrogators threatened to kill him and his family if he did not. Definitely there needs to be a "chilling effect."