Archive for September, 2010

The sky was full of fast-moving clouds – disappearing remnants of a morning’s rain – and temperatures were falling from a week of 90-degree weather into the 70s.

A breeze was the final touch to the perfect weather at Kirk Jones’ Good Scents Gardens in Ypsilanti Township.

“Being out here,” said Jones. “I like this.”

Good thing, because the flowers he grows there are his business. Jones uses the yarrow, zinnias, butterfly weed and agastache for bouquets he puts together and personally delivers to regular subscribers.

Jones explains it as a twist on the idea of community supported agriculture, or CSA, in which subscribers pay a set amount for one season of produce from a local farm. Instead of picking up a carton of vegetables once a week, Good Scents’ customers get a floral bouquet delivered to their home or business once a week.

Like a CSA, in which a subscriber’s take depends on what and how much the farmer raises over a season, Good Scents’ customers get what Jones chooses to plant and what comes up each year. No matter what, he said, they will get a bouquet of flowers each week over the 26-week season. [Full Story]

The Eastern Michigan University pep band takes part in a promo for the new CBS remake of “Hawaii Five-0″ – the band plays a version of the theme song from the series, which originally aired in the late 1960s and ’70s. [Source]

We went to Pickerel Lake on a Thursday morning because my wife wanted to swim across a lake, and Pickerel is the only jet-ski-free body of water in the area. When we arrived at the tiny shingle of beach, an old man was already there, sitting in a folding chair in his straw hat, towels draped over shoulders and lap.

We exchanged simple “hellos,” and I noticed he had an accent – maybe British or Continental, maybe Wealthy New England, hard to tell with just one word. Another family – a woman with two daughters bracketing our toddler’s age – arrived. My wife got in the water. Our three-year-old and I began digging in the muck, he in a zip-up bathing suit with built-in life vest, me in pants and a button down shirt. I don’t swim.

When I heard the old man talking with the other mother, I looked up to see him wearing an absurd swimming costume: Some sort of homemade mustard-yellow G-string, a banana-sling with two thin cords, one around his waist, the other up his butt. He was facing away, so his stringy, pale hams were to me.

And then he turned. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education formal bid opening (Sept. 10, 2010): Seven professional services firms have bid on an Ann Arbor Public Schools contract to aid in the search for a new district superintendent. Dave Comsa, AAPS assistant superintendent for human resources and legal services, chaired a formal bid opening today, publicly opening the stack of mail containing the bids.

In each case, Comsa checked whether the bid contained a signed original, as well as a notarized affidavit disclosing any familial relationships that might pose a conflict of interest. Comsa stated that the purpose of the morning meeting was simply to open the bids and cursorily examine them, but not to answer questions or hold any discussion.

However, representatives of two bidders were present – David J. Kinsella & Associates, and the Michigan Association of School Boards. These were the same two firms that attended the pre-bid meeting last week. [Full Story]

A post on the Car Free in Ann Arbor blog describes a shopping trip to Sam’s Club using a bike trailer with a cooler: “We had to breakdown the toilet paper bundle and strap them separately on top of the cooler. Taking a bike and trailer for groceries makes you think twice about what is really important. I found myself putting stuff back and giving items a second thought – do I really need this really pretty ceramic mixing bowl set. When I had the car, I would have paid $20 for a set of 5 pretty bowls. Today, I put the box back. How would I get it home, why do I need more … [Full Story]

UM’s University Record publishes a Q&A with three people on campus who are active in sustainability efforts: Terry Alexander, executive director for the Office of Campus Sustainability; Don Scavia, a UM professor, special counsel to the president for sustainability, and director of the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute; and Ryan Smith of the Student Sustainability Initiative. Says Scavia: “Research is ultimately going to be the engine that moves us forward on sustainability. … [Research endeavors], whether it’s through technology, the natural resources or social sciences, are going to be critical for really understanding how we need to move forward.” [Source]

[Full Story]

The University of Michigan’s athletic department just completed its $226 million renovation, on time and on budget. To celebrate, last Saturday Michigan rededicated its iconic stadium in grand style, including fancy receptions, programs, pins and not one but two flyovers, all followed by a big win over Connecticut.

But the show-stopper wasn’t a world-class pilot or an All-American athlete – just some guy who walked out to mid-field.

In 2007, on Christmas Eve, 23-year-old Brock Mealer was riding home from their cousin’s house with his family and his brother’s girlfriend. It was a wonderful evening, full of appreciation and promise.

Brock’s brother Elliott had just accepted a scholarship to play football at Michigan, and Elliot and his girlfriend seemed headed for the altar.

But on the way home, a 90-year-old driver named H. Edward Johnson ran a stop sign and struck the Mealers’ SUV. Elliott’s girlfriend Hollis Richer and the Mealers’ father, Dave, were killed instantly. Brock was paralyzed from the waist down. [Full Story]

At its Sept. 9, 2010 meeting, the Ann Arbor historic district commission unanimously approved a “notice to proceed” for a major expansion to Zingerman’s Deli, located in the Old Fourth Ward historic district. The roughly $6.7 million project calls for tearing down a small fire-damaged house at 322 E. Kingsley – directly behind the brick deli building – and putting up a two-story, 10,340-square-foot addition that would be connected to the 5,107-square-foot deli building via a glass atrium. The project has already received approval from the city council.

This brief was filed from the HDC meeting in city council chambers. A detailed report of the meeting will follow: [link]

At its Sept. 9, 2010 meeting, the Ann Arbor Historic District Commission approved the installation of up to 30 solar panels on the roof of a home in the Old West Side historic district, at 217 S. Seventh St. The home, owned by Matt Grocoff of Greenovation TV, is the second one recently to receive HDC approval for a solar panel project. At their Aug. 12 meeting, commissioners OK’d another residential project – also on South Seventh – as well as a high-profile installation planned for the Michigan Theater building on East Liberty.

This brief was filed from the HDC meeting in the city council chambers. A detailed report of the meeting will follow: [link]

The New York Times reports on a $3.2 million investment that Ann Arbor-based Sakti3 is receiving from General Motors Ventures. The lithium-ion battery developer is led by Ann Marie Sastry, a UM professor: “The race is on in advanced battery development, with the aim of quickly riding down the cost curve. Who can get advanced batteries to market profitably? We have a technology that gives us optimism that we can make cost-effective battery cells.” [Source]

A New York Times feature looks at farming internships by focusing on the experiences of Evan Dayringer on Tantré Farm in Chelsea: “An ant-farm level of activity thrums just below the storybook surface. Vegetables and fruits are near the picking point. Soon they’ll be taken to the packing shed to be cleaned, bunched and boxed for the organic farm’s 360 members, who receive a weekly share, as well as for the Ann Arbor and Chelsea farmers’ markets. It’s an unrelenting cycle, one that is diligently followed by Tantré’s interns, who work and often live on the farm for a season in exchange for room and board and a monthly stipend that starts at $500.” [Source]

In the late 19th century, an interloper was committing thievery across Michigan.

Glimpsed now here, now there, the miscreant evaded capture, flitting away. Finally in the late 1880s the state responded to residents’ outrage and levied a bounty on the culprit’s head.

Its tiny, fluffy head: the offender was the English or house sparrow.

“This detestable bird is an imported resident,” said Charles Chapman in his 1881 “History of Washtenaw County.” The English sparrow had been introduced in Brooklyn in 1852 in the hope that it would eat harmful insects. It quickly spread across the continent. Wikipedia notes that today it is the world’s most widely distributed wild bird.

Chapman continued: “A few pair first made their appearance here in 1873; the streets of Ann Arbor are now overrun with them, and they are gradually making their way to the country. Wherever they locate they drive out the martin, blue-bird, swallows … They are a seed-eating bird, and in portions of Europe do great damage to the crops of the farmer.” [Full Story]

[Editor's Note: HD, a.k.a. Dave Askins, editor of The Ann Arbor Chronicle, is also publisher of an online series of interviews on a teeter totter. Introductions to new Teeter Talks appear on The Chronicle.]

The Dec. 11, 2009 edition of the scientific journal Molecular Cell includes an article called “Optimizing Protein Stability In Vivo.” It’s a paper co-authored by nine people. The first two names on the list of nine authors are Linda Foit and Gareth Morgan. The paper combines expertise in genetics and chemistry, reflected in the specific strengths of Foit and Morgan, who are two young scientists working in James Bardwell’s lab at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Michigan.

Foit’s name might already be familiar to Ann Arbor Chronicle readers in connection with what might be called a “unsuccessful physics experiment” near downtown Ann Arbor – an attempt to achieve greater residential density with a project called The Moravian. Foit addressed the city council in support of the project.

Morgan’s name is certainly familiar to our readers, but he’s no relation to the publisher of The Chronicle, Mary Morgan. Gareth Morgan was visiting Ann Arbor from England for a two-week span recently and will return to Michigan in October for around a month to continue his collaboration with the Bardwell lab.

The fact that Gareth and Linda’s contribution to the paper was equal is made clear through the last of seven footnotes on the author line:

7 These authors contributed equally to this work.

The collaborative nature of modern science was one of the topics that Gareth and I talked about on the teeter totter last Saturday afternoon, just before the University of Michigan football team started its season against the University of Connecticut Huskies.

We also touched on the issue of health and safety culture in U.S. labs compared to British facilities, and the role that game-playing might play in the future of science. For details, read all of Gareth’s Talk. By way of preparation, it might be worth thinking about where it’s easier to drink a cup of coffee – a U.S. lab or a British lab.

I took the occasion of Gareth’s explanation of the credit conventions for a scientific paper as a chance to reflect very briefly on how the allocation of credit is indicated in other lines of work, including journalism. [Full Story]

The Detroit News reports that the animal rights group PETA is asking for a federal investigation of UM’s Survival Flight course, which includes training on cats and pigs. The article quotes Justin Goodman, associate director of PETA’s Laboratory Investigations: “It’s outrageous, absolutely indefensible and we believe illegal for the university to continue maiming and killing cats and pigs for medical training purposes for which they have already deemed simulators to be educationally superior to animal use.” UM officials defend the use of animals in training. [Source]

At its Sept. 7 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council voted unanimously to award a tax abatement to NanoBio, based on an expansion that is hoped to add several jobs to the biotech company. The value of the taxes to be abated – on $200,000 worth of building improvements and $483,000 in equipment to be purchased – is estimated to be a total of $30,000 over the next five years.

The total state equalized value of all property in the city is $5,286,396,700. The total of abated property is $7,021,729, or 0.133% of the total. The city is thus comfortably under the 5% total abatement allowed by law.

This brief was filed from city council chambers. A detailed report of the … [Full Story]

At its Sept. 7 meeting, on the first day of fall classes at the University of Michigan, the Ann Arbor city council postponed a ban on a common feature of student rental housing neighborhoods: porch couches. The proposed change to the city’s ordinance was prompted by an early-morning rental house fire on State Street that killed a student in the spring of 2010. However, the council’s proposed modification to the city’s ordinance comes not in the chapter on fire safety, but rather in the nuisance chapter. The matter will now be voted on at council’s Sept. 20 meeting.

This brief was filed from the city council chambers. A more detailed report of the meeting will follow: [link]

A feature on National Public Radio looks at the issue of “green building” through the prism of UM’s new Ross School of Business building, noting also that the university has committed to seek LEED certification for every new construction project of at least $10 million. The piece quotes Andy Hoffman, a UM professor of sustainable enterprise who teaches a course in green construction: “One of the humorous things about studying this kind of topic is you can talk about dual flush toilets and waterless urinals in polite company.” [Source]

The city of Ann Arbor has issued a request for proposals (RFP) to help “develop and deliver comprehensive recreational golf opportunities” at the city-owned Huron Hills Golf Course. The deadline for submitting proposals is Oct. 29. Related to this effort, a citizens group called Ann Arbor for Parkland Preservation has been formed with the mission of preserving Huron Hills “as public land, by actively resisting privatization, commercialization, sale, lease or any other conveyance of the Public’s rights.” For background, see Chronicle coverage: “Public Turns Out to Support Huron Hills Golf.” [.pdf file of Huron Hills RFP]

The Detroit News publishes an opinion piece by UM economist Don Grimes, who argues that the current economic recovery is doing as well as or better than recoveries of the past two recessions: “But it’s time to stop worrying about recessions and recoveries and to begin dealing with the structural problems. We need to address the unsustainable growth in entitlement spending and public employee retirement benefits. We need to figure out how to re-employ the millions of people who used to work in manufacturing, construction, the retail trade, and in restaurants and bars.” [Source]

On her Relish blog, local photographer Myra Klarman posts her interview with Zack Pearlman, who’s starring in the film “The Virginity Hit,” which opens this weekend. Pearlman grew up in Ann Arbor and performed with several local theater groups, including Burns Park Players, Young People’s Theater, Pioneer Theatre Guild and Ann Arbor Civic Theater. Pearlman gives advice to aspiring actors: “Start doing improv classes. Start trying to get your name out there. Once you get through Improv 401, you hit a point where you’re performing all the time around town. You’ll start getting into that community, and who knows what happens from there? That’s my advice: just start!” [Source]

In an article on nontraditional schools, the Detroit Free Press reports on the opening of Little Lake Free School in Ann Arbor. Little Lake is the state’s newest nontraditional school, where the curriculum is driven entirely by students’ interests. By centering learning around what kids want, school officials explain, they’re more likely to associate school with fun. The article also interviewed Beth Tanenhaus Winsten, whose son is enrolled at Clonlara School in Ann Arbor, another non-traditional school: “My child tests off the charts, but he does not like rote learning. There are wonderful public schools and wonderful public school teachers, but for a kid like Max, he just needed more.” [Source]