Archive for July, 2010

On the MSUE Spotlight blog, Tom Coon writes about the recent Breakfast on the Farm event at the Horning family dairy farm in southern Washtenaw County: “… we were served breakfast pizza. Apparently, a prominent Washtenaw County company (Domino’s Pizza) is exploring this as a new product and we had a chance to sample it. Just so you know, this was pretty nutritious pizza: wheat-based dough with egg and ham topping and of course a blend of cheeses on top … the pizza provided an effective way of carrying the message that the largest buyer of dairy products in the country is the pizza business, given its size and the importance of cheese to any kind of pizza.” [Source]

In the Toledo Blade, columnist Jack Lessenberry writes about the efforts of Phil Power – who founded the Ann Arbor-based Center for Michigan – to fight the proposed Eagle Prospect Mine, which Kennecott Minerals Corp. is about excavate beneath the Salmon Trout River in the Upper Peninsula. Power fears the potential environmental impact could be similar to what’s happening with the BP oil spill in the Gulf: “I told my wife, Kathy, that I’d be damned if I go to Florida and lie on the beach while my state goes to hell. I’m in it for my grandchildren’s Michigan.” [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.

This is an example of a future Chronicle "house ad." The drawing was done by former Ann Arbor News artist Tammie Graves, and the ad itself was designed by Laura Fisher.

In last month’s milestone message, I focused on the idea that part of The Chronicle’s aspiration is to establish a valuable archive of our community’s civic history. The corpus of The Chronicle comprises an independent record of the events of our public bodies, the words spoken at their meetings and their actions taken.

This month I’d like to focus on a different aspect of the accumulating Chronicle archive. One is advertisements – different ads are inserted “on the fly” every time a new page is loaded. So will they be archived in any meaningful sense?

Another angle on The Chronicle archive are the bylines that appear in the publication. Our publication was launched by two people, who reported, wrote, and edited all of the articles.

The collection of bylines now includes a fairly robust collection of freelance writers. And this month I want to tell you about a byline that you won’t be seeing here for the next long while, perhaps ever again – but it’s for all the right reasons. [Full Story]

John U. Bacon

The 2010 World Cup is in full swing – even if the U.S. was eliminated in the second round. I’ve played soccer, coached it and covered it, and there’s a lot to like about the sport.

First, soccer players are great athletes. The pros run about six miles a game. They can settle the ball down from any direction in a split second, play keep-away with it for days, and then blast it right on target, with either foot.

For TV viewers, it’s a pleasure to see the great expanse of green on your screen, with no TV timeouts interrupting play. And, unlike baseball’s World Series, the world is actually invited to play in the World Cup. It’s almost every nation’s favorite sport. And you can play it anywhere, with anything. [Full Story]

Writing on his blog MarkMaynard.com, Mark Maynard issues a general invitation to watch and to help pedal-power a movie [Saturday, July 3]: “This Saturday night, at about 9:30, or whenever it starts to get dark, some friends and I are going to get together on the banks of the Huron, behind the new VG Kids building, and test out the Cycle Powered Cinema concept. And, you’re invited.” The movie selected for this test run is “Night of the Hunter.”  [Source]