Archive for December, 2008

Jeff Gaynor gives a light to Majida R.'s candle from his own.

A young man who’d just purchased a copy of an old Life magazine from the Dawn Treader Book Shop asked The Chronicle, “What are they protesting?” So we clarified for him that the group holding candles and signs at the corner of Liberty and Main streets in downtown Ann Arbor were there to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor is considered a regional hub for food system entrepreneurship. Along with an incredible diversity of grocery and restaurant businesses, Ann Arbor attracts a large collection of emerging ventures. As an agricultural innovation counselor with the Michigan State University Product Center, I help entrepreneurs get their products to market, and I’d like to highlight some of these ventures to provide insights into both entrepreneurship and the potential of developing our local food system. [Full Story]

A cart full of gift-quality books at the Friends of the Library bookshop.

The Friends of the Ann Arbor District Library receives over 200,000 books every year, but they found out on Dec. 4 that the area they use for sorting them will soon be shrinking by half. The other half of the space that they use currently will be needed to accommodate equipment and materials from the Washtenaw Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled, which the AADL recently assimilated. Part of the strategy to ease the space crunch is to suspend acceptance of donations effective immediately. Expect to see signage in the library to that effect soon. [Full Story]

We typically write Media Watch items for publications that Chronicle readers might be less familiar with than The Ann Arbor News. Today we make an exception to note that Josie Parker, director of the Ann Arbor District Library is tough.  as.  nails. Holy Cow. [Source]

Editor’s note: We’ve retooled our Meeting Watch headline format. The previous template was “Meeting Watch: Public Body Name (Date).” Headlines for these articles will now follow common headline conventions. To make up for whatever was lost, we’ve created a category called Meeting Watch. Clicking on the Meeting Watch category label at the bottom of an article or in the footer of the page will give a chronological sorting of all Meeting Watch articles. We’ll begin applying this category to previous Meeting Watch articles as resources permit.

Public Art Commission (Dec. 9, 2008) Tuesday’s meeting of the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission was the last one for two of the members. John Hieftje, the city’s mayor, dropped by for a brief visit, and the group discussed the recently hired administrator and got updates on several ongoing projects. [Full Story]

A National Research Council committee report finds the government isn’t doing enough to ensure the safety of nanotech products, according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle. Martin Philbert, a UM toxicology professor and vice chair of the committee, says more safety research is needed: “It’s not always the most exciting science. But it may be the most necessary science to ensure stability and health of the environment and the public.” [Source]

On The Huffington Post, Kelly Caldwell writes about the Congressional bailout of the auto industry, taking a look at GM’s decision in the early 1990s to close its Willow Run assembly plant: “If Congressional leaders are serious about this $15 billion bailout saving the economy, and not becoming yet another fat gift of corporate welfare, I have three words for them: Remember Willow Run.” [Source]

Writing on Next Left Notes Alan Haber alerts readers to the candlelight vigil to be held tonight (Dec. 10) at 5 p.m. at the intersection of Liberty and Main in Ann Arbor. The vigil commemorates the 60th anniversary of the ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [Source]

The distinctive carillon tower at Kerrytown Market & Shops.

This month, The Chronicle is highlighting Ann Arbor area businesses where you might find just what you need for people on your holiday gift-giving list. Our reports are a sampling – we welcome readers and business owners to add their own suggestions in the comments section. We’ve previously looked at local shops selling used/rare books, and made some suggestions for the political junkies in your life. Today, we’ll look at a few of the shops in Ann Arbor’s Kerrytown district.

For the kids: On the second floor of Kerrytown Market & Shops, two adjacent stores cater to kids. Elephant Ears sells clothing for children up to 12 years old, plus items like umbrellas and bedding. Next door, Mudpuddles Toys carries games, books, puppets, Thomas the Train and all manner of kits for wintry-day projects.

Kids can also meet Santa at Kerrytown on Saturdays this month from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. The shops will have carolers singing holiday songs as well, similar to the festivities reported in a recent Stopped. Watched. item. [Full Story]

The Detroit News reports on a decision by the University Musical Society to cancel a spring performance of Sulayman Al-Bassam Theatre’s “Richard III – An Arab Tragedy.” Citing the economy, UMS president Ken Fischer says: “This is an unprecedented decision for UMS, and one that was not taken lightly. In my 22 years at UMS, we have never initiated the cancellation of a performance. The context in which we put our 2008-09 season together was markedly different from the one that we’re in today, and extraordinary times require difficult decisions.” [Source]

Mark Maynard posts an extensive exchange with Susan Lackey, head of the Washtenaw Land Trust. The back-and-forth covers available farmland and open space, Victory Gardens, the land trust’s role, local food production and more. [Source]

The “Fat Freddy Says…” blog posts a review of Bagger Dave’s restaurant in Ann Arbor. The food gets high marks. Service? Not so much. “With the exception of our waitress (she was a gem), the service was simply unacceptable. We watched from our table others walk into the restaurant and be ignored. Some stayed until our waitress attended to them (even putting them in another section) while others simply walked out.” [Source]

Keith Orr's tables don't wobble thanks to shims with the brand name Shove-it. It means patrons don't have to get creative with sugar packets to level out their eating and drinking surface.

People keep throwing snowballs at Keith Orr. But not in real life. They only do it on Facebook, which is a social networking website. Or at least The Chronicle witnessed no snowballs thrown in his direction at the aut BAR on Tuesday morning for the hour before it opened for lunch at 11 a.m. The Chronicle spent that hour talking to Orr about his recent appointment to the board of the Downtown Development Authority. His first board meeting was Dec. 3.

By way of background, the DDA board needs to meet certain objective criteria as a group: 1 seat for the mayor or city administrator; 1 seat for a resident of the DDA District; 7 seats for downtown property owners, downtown employees or individuals with an interest in downtown real estate, 3 seats for citizens-at-large. [Full Story]

The second mailing of the National Research Center's city of Ann Arbor 2008 Citizen Survey.

The Chronicle was among 3,000 Ann Arbor households that have received three pieces of mail over the last couple of weeks sent on behalf of the city of Ann Arbor by the National Research Center in Boulder, Colorado. First to arrive was a post card alerting us to the fact that our household had been “selected at random to participate in an anonymous citizen survey about the city of Ann Arbor,” and that we should watch the following week’s mail for the survey and instructions. [Full Story]

Of course Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling, not da Vinci, as we incorrectly stated in an article about the “Step Right Up!” show at the Gallery Project. We note the error here, and have corrected it in the original article.

Artist Rick Ruiner and Nina Friday in Ruiner's installation, "Please Wake Me Up from the American Dream."

Photographing artists setting up their installations for the next Gallery Project show seemed like exactly the right thing to do, given that the exhibit is all about places where you can pose and be photographed. On Monday, Myra Klarman was the photographer and The Chronicle tagged along to hear a bit more about “Step Right Up!” – a fundraiser for the nonprofit gallery with an opening reception on Friday, Dec. 12.

Several artists were working in the gallery when The Chronicle arrived. … [Full Story]

A Boston Globe article looks at how Barack Obama is keeping his grassroots organization active even after the campaign. The article features local activist Chris Savage: “Last Thursday evening, for example, Savage and nearly 30 other Obama supporters from the Ann Arbor area hashed out ideas at a pub in Dexter, Mich. Savage said he hopes to see the creation of a local network that could organize around anything from watershed issues to taxes.” [Source]

Detroit News columnist Neal Rubin writes about a family that has tried, unsuccessfully, to convince UM officials that they are residents of Michigan. “So instead of paying $20,000 per kid to send their children, Francesco and Bianca, to school in Ann Arbor, they’re paying the out-of-state rate, $47,000. That’s $94,000 a year that they don’t really have instead of $40,000 that wouldn’t be easy in the first place.” [Source]

The Freep profiles Sakti3, an Ann Arbor startup founded by UM engineering professor Ann Marie Sastry. The firm is developing lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. Says Sastry: “This is the moment to make radical change. The auto industry needs to change radically.” [Source]

A posting on Make zine announces the Dec. 9 meeting of GO Tech, for Ann Arbor area “readers of Make Magazine, Circuit Cellar, Home Shop Machinist, Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools, slashdot, etc. That is, people who are interested in and make things using technology, whether that’s a metal-cutting lathe or a Python script… We have machinists, electrical engineers, software folks, industrial control types, and so on. We share projects, information about tools and ideas, and connect with like-minded people.” It starts at 7 p.m. at 240 Parkland Plaza in Ann Arbor. [Source]

Shannon Brines, owner of Brines Farm, is profiled in The University Record, a publication of the UM News Service. He is also an environmental spatial analysis lab manager at UM’s School of Natural Resources & Environment. Says Brines: ”Know your farmer is my motto, and the biggest advantage of buying locally is you can ask the person you are buying from questions about how the food was grown.” [Source]

In a report on the Dec. 3 Washtenaw County Commission board meeting, we misstated the role of Mike Score, who works with the local unit of the Michigan State University Extension. Score was a lead founder of the Food System Economic Partnership, for which he was honored on Dec. 3. He does not lead the local MSU Extension program. We note the error here, and have corrected it in the original article.

The Christian Science Monitor looks at options the federal government is considering to address growing unemployment. The article quotes UM economist Don Grimes, who says that job retraining programs typically don’t work: “I know some [programs] were running in Michigan for laid-off auto workers. But as soon as the auto industry turned around, they went back to their jobs, short-circuiting their training.” [Source]

The Chicago Daily Herald runs an Associated Press article about a switch in the inhalers used for asthma medication. The change, which eliminates the use of chlorofluorocarbons, is mandated and takes effect Dec. 31. Says Dr. Harvey Leo of UM’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital: ”There’s still significant confusion. Patients will tell you, ‘I don’t feel the puff anymore.”‘ [Source]

Newsday provides some excerpts from Olympian Michael Phelps’ new book, “No Limits: The Will to Succeed,” including this description of living in his first apartment in Ann Arbor: ”At first I had no dishes. Having gone to the grocery store for milk and cereal, I did have something to eat. What to eat in? A Gatorade container would have to do…. Soon enough, I had dishes. I put them in the dishwasher, then poured liquid hand soap in the soap tray.” [Source]