Archive for April, 2010

Joel Goldberg

It’s all over except for the lawsuits.

A court in southern France has convicted a dozen wine producers and merchants in what Agence France-Presse called “one of the biggest scams ever to rattle the world of wine.”

Their crime? Duping U.S. wine behemoth E&J Gallo by substituting cheaper grapes for Pinot Noir in 1.5 million cases of wine they sold to Gallo for its moderate-priced “Red Bicyclette” label, in the process pocketing nearly $10 million in illicit profits.

Did Gallo ever tumble to the scam? Au contraire.

The French and British press, which require scant encouragement to paint Americans as loutish arrivistes on matters of the grape, pointed out with barely-restrained glee that no one at Gallo detected the counterfeit juice, either by tasting or testing. And no whistle-blowing American wine critic ever raised the cry, “This can’t be Pinot Noir.”

One defense lawyer even had the gall to plead for acquittal of his client by dryly noting to the court, “Not a single American consumer complained,” while The Times (U.K.) went so far as to tweak Washington Post wine critic Dave McIntyre’s lavish praise of wines from the region.

But it was a French police fraud squad, in the role of a real-life Inspector Clouseau, that brought the scheme to light. [Full Story]

At its Feb. 2, 2009 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council authorized funding for an environmental assessment of a proposed 800-foot lengthening of the runway at Ann Arbor’s municipal airport. The assessment began on May 4, 2009.

Jon Von Duinen, of the consulting firm URS, points to the "run up" area which would be located at the spot where the existing runway ends. Under the recommended option in the environmental assessment, this would put the "run up" area 950 feet from the end of the extended runway. The "run up" area is where aircraft bring their engines up to full power to test that everything is in working order. (Photos by the writer.)

And on Wednesday evening, from 4-7 p.m. at Cobblestone Farm, a combination of a dozen government officials and consultants held an open-house style public hearing on the draft report of that environmental assessment.

At any given time, during the hour The Chronicle spent at the public hearing, the hosts outnumbered visitors. In a phone interview the following day, Molly Lamrouex – with the aeronautics division of the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) – told The Chronicle that around 20 people had filtered through Cobblestone Farm over the three-hour period.

The time for submission of written comments on the environmental assessment has been extended from April 12 to April 19 at 5 p.m. Emails can be sent to lamrouexm@michigan.gov.

In the context of the controversy about the runway extension – which has played out at Ann Arbor city council meetings over the course of the last year – the public hearing was somewhat subdued. [Full Story]

The Detroit Free Press reports that Saturday’s Hash Bash could draw record crowds, according to its organizer. From the report: “The record was about 10,000 pot smokers, who jammed ‘almost shoulder to shoulder’ on a fine spring day a decade or so ago, but perhaps 12,000 or more will squeeze in on Saturday, from noon to 1 p.m., thanks to the good weather that’s expected combined with widespread enthusiasm for Michigan’s 15-month-old medical-marijuana law, Brook, 42, of Royal Oak said.” [Source]

Editor’s Note: The monthly milestone column, which appears on the second day of each month – the anniversary of The Ann Arbor Chronicle’s launch – is an opportunity for either the publisher or the editor of The Chronicle to touch base with readers on topics related to this publication.

Even though Mary Morgan and I usually alternate writing The Chronicle’s Monthly Milestone column, April marks the third month in a row that I’m providing the update. I’d like to say right up front there’s no scandal in this. It does not reflect an internal struggle for power here at The Chronicle. Although if it did, it’s worth noting that my three-month streak would mean that I am winning. And I’d also like to say right up front: If there were to be an internal struggle for power here at The Chronicle, I would totally win. [No, there will not be a poll at the conclusion of this column, asking readers to weigh in on that.]

More seriously, the alternating authorship of the Monthly Milestone column reflects The Chronicle’s commitment to shared work – internal to our organization. But externally, our strategy for providing coverage of the Ann Arbor community is also partly rooted in sharing the work load.

So this month, I’d like to take a look at how that plays out on The Ann Arbor Chronicle’s website – in the form of reader comments – as well as among The Chronicle and other local media. [Full Story]

John U. Bacon

From the outside, it looked like a typically dominant Michigan State basketball team. By the end of January, the Spartans were undefeated in the Big Ten, and ranked fifth in the nation. That record hid some problems the public couldn’t see, but Coach Tom Izzo could.

It wasn’t talent. The Spartans returned four starters, including Big Ten player of the year Kalin Lucas, from a team that had already reached the NCAA finals the previous year. The problem was simpler, but more serious: the players just didn’t care enough about each other.

The coaches did. In January, Izzo, his trainer, his video guy and Dave Pruder, his long-time equipment manager, all lost close relatives. And every time, they were there for each other. In the middle of the season, Izzo drove down with his trainer to South Bend for his father’s funeral. Pruder told me, “We knew we could rely on each other. But the players didn’t.” [Full Story]

The city of Ann Arbor made a recent decision to convert to a single-stream curbside recycling system, plus implement an incentive coupon reward system to encourage people to participate in the program.

Orange (left) and apple (right). The orange is larger than the apple. Its skin is bumpy in contrast to the apple's smooth covering. Also, the apple has a stem. (Photo by the writer.)

The decision came under some criticism for its initial capital costs, the possible reduction in quality of the resulting recycled material, as well as for its emphasis on coupon rewards for recycling more – which some people feared could feed back into a loop causing more consumption.

I think there are fair questions that can be asked about cost and quality.  What I missed, however, was a convincing sales pitch – one that included options within the basic idea of a single-stream system with an incentive program. In this column, I take a look at what I’d have found to be a more convincing sales pitch. [Full Story]

An article in The Michigan Messenger charges that Detroit Free Press reporting about the Hutaree Christian militia included some inaccuracies, including characterizing the group as akin to other militias. The Messenger interviews Amy Cooter, a UM grad student doing research on the militia movement: “She told me that she had intentionally not spent any time with Hutaree because members of the other militias that she had established contact with had warned her that they were too extreme and too reckless and it would not be safe to be with them.” [Source]