Stories indexed with the term ‘2009 Election’

Last week I experienced my first pot of Jasmine Pearl tea. I say “experienced” because it was like watching performance art: dried leaves as tight as tiny ballbearings, doused with boiling water, slowly unfurling into something more akin to seaweed as the clear water turned a pale shade of green. Nice.

I’d sourced the tea from Jeremy Lopatin of Arbor Teas, so I emailed him to say how cool it was to watch the tea transform in my glass pot. He emailed me back and said that among tea enthusiasts, there’s a term for this process: the “agony of the leaves.”

The agony of the leaves. Maybe because of the week The Chronicle spent steeped in controversy, it struck me as a perfect metaphor for other transformations, too. In this monthly milestone message – our 14th for The Chronicle – I’ll touch on a couple of those. [Full Story]

This piece was supposed to be a straightforward look at a city council race.

It’s not.

Instead it’s a column that gives an account of an unusual situation involving a council veteran, who dropped from sight when an adult daughter’s long battle with leukemia took a scary turn; and a political newcomer, who declines to be interviewed except via email.

The council seat at issue is in Ann Arbor’s Ward 4, the southwestern part of the city.

Incumbent Democrat Marcia Higgins has been one of the ward’s two council representatives since 1999.

Hatim Elhady, a student at the University of Michigan, is an independent who’s running against her.

Ordinarily, that kind of introduction would be followed by additional biographical information to provide context and then the meat of a story based –  in large part – on interviews with each candidate.

But Elhady’s not talking. [Full Story]