Old Media Watch Section

Vicki Honeyman, owner of the shop Heavenly Metal in Ann Arbor, was interviewed for a report on American Public Media’s Markeplace, about the impact a two-month extension of the payroll tax break and unemployment benefits would have on small businesses: “All of the uncertainty in Washington is hard for small businesses because we’re at the bottom of the feeding pool. And all of these decisions, especially what affects us tax-wise, what allows us to either hire or lay off people or invest more money into our businesses, is so much determined by how Congress and the Senate votes.” [Source]

Automobile Magazine publishes photos of a prototype Porsche Boxster spotted on the road in Ann Arbor: “Yes, even prototype sports cars have to become commuter cars every once in a while: a reader sent in photos of a next-generation Porsche Boxster prototype testing during morning rush hour in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We wouldn’t be all that surprised if the car is in town for emissions testing, seeing as the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory is located within the city’s limits.” [Source]

Michigan Radio’s Mark Brush reports on the phenomenon of “yarn givers,” whose work has recently been spotted in downtown Ann Arbor: ”Last month, my wife found a hat on a fence post along S. Ashley St. Thinking someone lost it, she took a closer look to discover a note that read “FREE! Handmade wool and alpaca hat for YOU!” The discovery totally lifted her spirit, and reminded her of the goodness in people.” [Source]

BusinessWeek features Zingerman’s Mail Order in an article about how mail-order food businesses handle the holiday ordering crush. From the report: “The staff of 50 swells to 450 in November, filling the call center and 20,000-square-foot warehouse like so many of Santa’s elves. There is never enough parking, though this year the crunch has eased. The warehouse is adjacent to the former headquarters of Borders Group, the bankrupt bookseller, and Zingerman’s has been able to use its lot.” [Source]

Writing a guest column in Forbes magazine, University of Michigan engineering professor Peter Adriaens, who focuses on business entrepreneurship in clean technology, looks at whether the market is experiencing a social network “bubble,” in light of high valuations for Facebook, Groupon, LinkedIn and other companies. Adriaens writes: “We’re just at the beginning of this market disruption and what is happening with social networks bears only limited resemblance to the dot-com boom. The question is whether the business fundamentals have shifted value capture opportunities – PFC [positioning for value capture] analysis indicates they may have. Time will tell.” [Source]

The Detroit Free Press reports that the University of Michigan has purchased 21 .xxx domain names to prevent others from using those URLs for adult websites. The .xxx sites were open for sale to the general public on Tuesday by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. According to the report, UM owns about 470 domain names overall, including 50 that were bought to protect the sites, with no plans to use them. [Source]

Nation’s Restaurant News published a report on the first anniversary of Frita Batidos, an Ann Arbor restaurant opened last year by chef Eve Aronoff. The article quotes Aronoff about her plans for expansion: “My dream is to have multiple locations situated in urban areas/university towns surrounded by great agriculture so we can work with local farmers and follow the seasons.” [Source]

The Washtenaw Voice, the student newspaper for Washentaw Community College, reports on a proposal to increase enrollment at Washtenaw Technical Middle College, a WCC program that allows high school students to earn both high school diplomas and technical certificates or associate degrees. The plan calls for adding 50 students annually over a three-year period, bringing enrollment to 450 students by 2014, according to the report. [Source]

A list in Forbes magazine – ranking the “most buzzed about CEOs” in 2011 – includes Patrick Doyle of Ann Arbor-based Domino’s Pizza, who ranked 9th in the list compiled by Zeta Interactive, a marketing agency: ”Doyle has appeared in some of the company’s ads, admitting candidly that the pizza could taste better. Though Zeta only measured commentary, not Facebook ‘likes’ in its survey … Domino’s Facebook page ‘likes’ went from 400,000 to 2.6 million in 2011. Domino’s stock has performed especially well in a tough year for the market, rising from $16 in January to $32.” [Source]

Writing in The Atlantic Cities, Micheline Maynard reports on the recent dust-up over changes to Ann Arbor’s pedestrian ordinance. Maynard writes: “Ann Arbor, Mich. is the smartest city in the country – at least according to a new study by The Business Journals. But all it takes is an ordinance governing cars and pedestrians to get all those brainy people in a tizzy.” The article also quotes Ann Arbor Chronicle editor Dave Askins: “I’d say none of this is surprising. The basic idea that ‘I’m smarter than you’ is one that I think defines the character of Ann Arbor better than anything you might read in a brochure.” [Source]

Michigan Radio reports that the Ann Arbor A.V. Club, a publication with content from the satirical franchise The Onion as well as arts & entertainment features, is closing. It started publishing locally in September 2011 and was run by Bobby Mitchell and his company Bopper Media, according to the report. Mitchell told Michigan Radio that ”there’s a slight possibility The Onion corporate might want to take over the Ann Arbor A.V. Club and publish it.” [Source]

CNBC publishes a report on how Pfizer is trying to keep hold of revenues in the face of losing its patent for its cholesterol- lowering drug Lipitor on Wednesday. The article quotes Erik Gordon of University of Michigan Ross School of Business, who says that Pfizer’s tactic “spits in Congress’s face.” The company is cutting deals with insurers and pharmacies to cut the price of Lipitor, in exchange for agreements that would prevent the use of lower-cost generics. [Source]

The New York Times published an op-ed piece by Christopher B. Leinberger, a professor of practice in urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan, who writes about the negative impact of America’s “suburban fringe”: “For too long, we over-invested in the wrong places. Those [suburban] retail centers and subdivisions will never be worth what they cost to build. We have to stop throwing good money after bad. It is time to instead build what the market wants: mixed-income, walkable cities and suburbs that will support the knowledge economy, promote environmental sustainability and create jobs.” [Source]

Michigan Radio profiles John Harnois of Harnois Farms in Webster Township, who raises heritage turkeys: “These birds, the heritage breeds, were real close to dying out. It’s funny… you’ve gotta eat ‘em to keep ‘em going. To keep their genetics in the gene pool, there has to be a market for them.” [Source]

The Detroit News reports that a Nov. 29 speech by  former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick at Eastern Michigan University is being opposed by some students, including those who have created a Facebook page called Stand Up Against Kwame Kilpatrick @EMU. The speech is sponsored by B.L.A.C.K., Black Leaders Aspiring for Critical Knowledge, and Kilpatrick is expected to talk about “second chances.” Kilpatrick will go on trial next year on public corruption charges. [Source]

Michigan Radio reports on the Paint for Kids program, founded by Gene Firn of Ann Arbor: “Firn, who teaches a DIY painting class, was looking for practice walls for his students when he learned that the Ann Arbor school system doesn’t have a painting department. He thought he could help, so he submitted a proposal. The concept is simple: an experienced painter supervises parent volunteers as they transform hallways and classrooms over holiday weekends.” [Source]

A column in the Des Moines Register reports on the University of Michigan’s plan to invest up to $25 million of its endowment in startups spun out of the university, and looks at how some faculty at Iowa public universities would like to see the same thing happen there. The column notes that UM president Mary Sue Coleman served as president of the University of Iowa from 1995-2002. [Source]

An article by James Tobin, published in the latest edition of Michigan Today, looks at the history of University of Michigan scoreboards, beginning with the first scoreboard on the football field in 1899. ”In the 1890s, many of the football fans at Michigan’s Regents Field spent at least part of every game in a state of desperate uncertainty about what, exactly, was happening down on the field. ‘It is impossible,’ the Michigan Daily noted, ‘for everyone on both sides of the field as well as in the grandstand and bleachers to keep track of the number of downs, yards to gain, etc., as their only method of information is through the referee, who can not be heard all over the field.’” … [Full Story]

University of Michigan economists are forecasting that nearly 32,000 jobs will be added statewide during 2012, with another 45,000 during 2013, according to a Detroit News report. The article quotes George Fulton, director of UM’s Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics: “For Michigan, 2011 will go down as a year of solid job growth and one that saw the higher-wage segment of the labor market grow more rapidly than the economy overall.” [Source] The forecast was presented Friday morning at an annual UM economic outlook conference.

Experts from the University of Michigan are among those quoted in a Michigan Radio report about how income disparities are shaping neighborhoods. June Manning Thomas, a professor at UM’s Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning, observes: “We’ve created laws that essentially make it clear that purposefully setting up racial segregation is illegal, but we haven’t done that for class segregation. So, it’s perfectly legal for people to refuse to live near someone of a different social-economic status. And it’s not only legal, it’s enabled and it’s even praised.” [Source]

Former University of Michigan president James Duderstadt is quoted in a column by Joe Nocera in the New York Times about the role that institutionalized college sports played in the Penn State sexual abuse scandal: “College football and men’s basketball has drifted so far away from the educational purpose of the university. They exploit young people and prevent them from getting a legitimate college education. They place the athlete’s health at enormous risk, which becomes apparent later in life. We are supposed to be developing human potential, not making money on their backs. Football strikes at the core values of a university.” [Source]

Ann Arbor author John U. Bacon is interviewed for an item in the Inside the List column, to be published in the Nov. 20 New York Times Sunday Book Review. Bacon – whose recently released book “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football” is on the Times bestseller list – was asked what advice he’d give Penn State in the wake of a child sexual abuse scandal with links to the athletic department there: “Confess, fire and punish – then begin a transition to a brand-new regime. Few schools have done this very well, partly because they don’t realize coaches are not interchangeable parts. Las Vegas weddings tend to end in Las … [Full Story]

One of the women who accused GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain of sexual harassment in the 1990s – and who received a settlement from the National Restaurant Association as a result – has ties to Ann Arbor, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press. Karen Kraushaar, who initially did not want to reveal her identity, spoke publicly after her name was leaked by the online news site The Daily. Under her maiden name Karen Grassmuck, she grew up in Ann Arbor, attended graduate school at the University of Michigan, and worked for the former Ann Arbor News in the 1980s. [Source]

The Michigan Daily reports that the University of Michigan plans to close Baits I Residence Hall on UM’s north campus, which houses about 570 students. The dorm will be closed at the end of this academic year because of infrastructure issues, according to the report, and it’s unclear it if will be reopened. The article quotes Peter Logan, a UM housing spokesman: “If after assessing the situation we determine that having Baits I is extremely necessary, then I’m sure we’ll see what it would cost to make that happen. … We need to do more assessment of what it would require to not only bring it up to a level of infrastructure reliability, but then going beyond and making it a … [Full Story]

Members of the University of Michigan Professional Nurse Council, representing about 4,000 nurses at the University of Michigan Health System, have voted to ratify a three-year contract, according to a report in the Detroit News, ending a months-long dispute over terms of the new agreement. The contract includes ”a phasing in of health insurance premium increases and includes 3 percent wage increases the first and second years and 4 percent the third year of the contract, plus step increases,” according to the report. [Source]

A report in the Detroit Free Press looks at how rising tuition and other costs are putting some of the state’s public institutions – like the University of Michigan – out of reach for many middle class families. The article quotes Eric Cole, a fourth-year student at UM in Ann Arbor: “It’s scary to open that tuition bill and see how much money I owe them. It’s either work a ton to pay them off now, or get a lot of loans and have to pay them off later, but I think the degree is worth it, so you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to get through.” [Source]

The Nov. 3, 2011 edition of the New York Times features an op-ed by University of Michigan associate professor of history Matthew Lassiter. Lassiter, who is author of the book, “The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South,” offers some historical perspective on current presidential campaign politics. Writes Lassiter: “Mr. Obama’s challenge in 2012 is not the ideological fervor of Tea Party conservatives, but rather the recognition by many working-class and middle-class voters that both parties favor Wall Street over Main Street. While activist groups on the right and left compete to portray big government or big business as the enemy, the silent majority is still out there in the volatile political center, up for grabs.” [Source]

The Detroit Free Press reports that Michael Finney, former CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK, is a potential emergency manager for the city of Detroit. [Source] Detroit mayor David Bing has said the city could run out of money as early as February 2012. A recent report by the accounting firm Ernst & Young shows that Detroit will be in the red by roughly another $20 million by June, on top of its accumulated $200-million deficit. [Source]

The Livingston Daily Press & Argus reports that Ann Arbor SPARK would use $230,850 for salary and benefits for two staff members – part of the $335,880 annually that Livingston County would pay SPARK to run economic development in the county. In addition, SPARK’s contract with the county – which the Press & Argus obtained after filing a Freedom of Information Act – includes $50,380 for support from SPARK staff in Ann Arbor, $19,100 for information technology, $10,000 for marketing and recruitment, and $25,550 for office expenses. [Source]

The Ann Arbor bluegrass group Bill Bynum & Co. were featured on Detroit’s Fox TV affiliate for a “Fox Beat” segment, prior to last month’s performance at the Scarab Club in Detroit. In addition to Bynum, members include Chuck Anderson, Mary Seelhorst and John Lang. [Source]