Tough times for Michigan's children

I dare you to read this report and not cry. As you read it, realize that 2009 will likely be worse.

Michigan Kids Count Data Book 2008

From the Executive Summary:
"Poverty afflicts one of every four young children ages
0–4. Minority children have much higher rates—44
percent for African Americans and 29 percent for
Hispanics compared with 15 percent for whites."

Be well, Michigan

Dearest Michigan,
I love you deeply, but it didn’t begin that way. You were not my first choice. An accident of relationship and employment brought me to you and your wonders. I came slowly to adore your pride and shame. Your watery beauty, blue-collar grit, and political dysfunction pressed me close for a time. Troubles and strife twinkled like sunny glints on Great Lakes’ waters, too many to count – sharp lights – shards of lost hope slashing at a coherent future: death by thousands of cuts. So many stories to tell, all of them worthy, tragedies mostly. But stories of resilient hope, too. Your people wooed me and filled my heart with life. You had me at ‘swing state’ and I worked for your rebirth.

Yet you pushed me away with denial of my rights wedged into the Constitution by the will of a few. A rigid notion of marriage fell half-rotten from your tree. Self-righteous contempt said ‘no’ to another way of loving and bearing fruit.

I’ll keep watching you sputter forward, praying you catch a break and manage a happier future, as I seek my own. Don’t be afraid to open yourself to difference – new ways of thinking and being and creating. I will be watching from my new home and posting sometimes.

An accident of relationship has taken me to another place, my first choice this time. My new home is bluer than Michigan, begins with an ‘M’ and legally recognizes same-sex marriage. Finally I can exhale. After ten years of marriage, I am legally, publically and proudly married.

You’ll remain in my heart, Michigan. From the Porcupine Mountains to the Renaissance Center, from Sleeping Bear Dunes to Cobo Hall, from Flint to Grosse Point Farms, and from Saugatuck to Frankenmuth. Be well, Michigan. Be well.

Cars, karma and dogma

As the world waits for the rise (or more likely fall) of U.S. automotive manufacturing, Michiganders need a dose of healing and humor. Many Michiganders see their fates as terminally linked to fortunes of the Big Three and practically speaking, they are right. Working families and retirees depend on the Big Three for income and health care. Yet, these two necessities seem privileges in a time of recession, mass layoffs, soaring personal bankruptcies, rising home foreclosures and pervasive economic constriction.

When the wolf is at the door, laugh in his face, flip him off, and move on.

Products from the New Age industry can offer healing and humor. A word of caution and a disclaimer: some consider these serious modalities powerful medicine. Our Michigan does not endorse or guarantee results from any New Age healing methods.

"Are you ready to live an ABUNDANT life?" asks the advert. 'Well, shit yes," you might think. I've been laid off, am behind on my bills and eat Kraft dinner five nights a week, left-over Kraft dinner the other two. Maybe you need an "abundance coach" -- someone who can help you clear karma and limiting beliefs to get back on track with your true purpose.

Limiting beliefs are nasty little snares that trap us in the past or an illusion of powerlessness. Limiting belief number one in Michigan: Michigan's purpose is to manifest a twentieth-century automotive sector in the twenty-first century. While it is true that the current global economic crisis has doomed the Big Three, they created their own reality with wasteful designs, planned obsolescence, overproduction and finally outsourcing. They must change or die.

Limiting belief number two: you personally are responsible for remaining loyal to the Big Three even if it means short changing yourself and your family. You don't have to stay on the ship as it sinks. That's the CEO's job; he’s getting paid huge bonuses to stay aboard. You are not.

Limiting belief number three: Michigan can only thrive with the Big Three intact. There was a time Michigan teemed with lumberjacks. Situations change. You can, too, Michigan.

But if your abundance coach fails to lift you out of the pit, how about trying Divine Intervention Healing. Not just limited to the saints of old, you too can experience spontaneous remission, where the impossible becomes possible. Let’s see...the impossible: General Motors and Ford reinstate generous health care benefits for retirees, consumers have enough money to buy cars and the Big Three commit to a green future.

If that fails, how about consulting with a spirit medium for direct guidance from deceased loved ones or angels and guides? You probably won’t do any worse than recent guidance from your financial advisor and you might find out where Grandma hid the key to the safe deposit box.

In the end maybe you are looking for something more tangible... like a high colonic – an empowering change from the usual because you take it in the behind on your own terms for the sake of purging, cleansing and a refreshing lightness of being.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown against saving Big Three

I'm an anglophile, but Gordon Brown is testing my patience. Give me liberal doses of Monty Python, Shakespeare, the Magna Carta, Yorkshire pudding, paneer makhani, C.S. Lewis, the Rolling Stones, William Byrd, Beowulf, Peter Rabbit, cockles and mussels. But please spare me the advice to let the U.S. auto industry crumble.

At the G20 Summit yesterday British Prime Minster Gordon Brown described bailing out the U.S. auto industry as akin to 1930s style protectionism. Brown said, "The dividing line here is between an open society capable of trading round the world, against a protectionist response that happened in the 1930s and is totally unacceptable."

That's a whopper of an either/or. Either we're an open society presumably like Britain (hey what about all those cameras around London?) or we are stupid protectionists (pitching tea overboard). Has he trotted that past the Chinese, renowned for skewed trade practices, currency manipulation and government subsidized manufacturing? Probably not. Maybe he's just jealous that the United States still has a car industry to protect, while Britain does not...think Jaguar and Land Rover.

In fact, Mr. Brown champions extensive global management, regulation and oversight of finance. He would like to expand the IMF's role in the care and feeding of Mammon. According to the Times, "He wants the IMF to create a council of experts to monitor the markets for danger signs — his much-vaunted early-warning system — and the IMF’s coffers to be boosted by cash-rich states such as Saudi Arabia and China. He is also calling for a clean-up of the banking system, including a network of regulators to scrutinise the world’s biggest banks. "

But who minds the minders and what's Brown willing to trade away to get China and Saudi Arabia to ante up?

GM no more? No way

Dire news from General Motors late last week...they may run out of cash required to operate early next year. And following that gem, Deutsche Bank torpedoed GM share value by speaking the previously unspeakable. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, "Deutsche Bank said publicly today what many detractors of General Motors Inc. have been thinking for some time — the company is worthless."

Across the blogosphere glib finance types are musing that any company with a failed business plan should not be bailed out. This on the heels of US taxpayers bailing out the failed, paper pushing, speculative financial shadow economy? Puhleeeze.

To spitefully dismantle the Big Three, because they have more value in pieces shed of legacy obligations is stupid, short-sighted and heartless.The auto industry represents the last hope for heavy manufacturing in the United States. This sector could be transformed and retooled to foster new energy and transportation technologies and products.

To posit that automakers are struggling due to a failed business model is also wrong. GM, Ford and Chrysler have spent the last several years implementing brutal restructuring precisely in recognition that their business model needed transforming. What is doing them in today and tomorrow and the next day is the same global credit crisis that plagues all sectors of our economy.

So why then should the Big Three get help? Because they are our best shot at developing a national industrial policy aimed at job creation and the restoration of American manufacturing. They could form the foundation of a new manufacturing sector centered on energy efficiency and green technology. Today's automotive infrastructure was built on the arsenal of democracy that supplied the U.S. during WWII. Tomorrow's green energy economy could be built on today's infrastructure.

This is not a Michigan issue. If the Big Three go down, millions of jobs will be lost across the country in the first year, according to the Center for Automotive Research.

Should one or two or three of the Big Three go down this little recession will become big. This is not a hunch; this is a fact.

So good luck and best wishes to Gov. Granholm as she participates in the Obama Administration transition team. Make us proud, Governor.

Yes we did, a new voter's landmark day

Jeremy Whiting shares his experience voting in this historic presidential election.


"Yes We Did.

I am an undergraduate student at Wayne State University. Yesterday, I voted for the first time in my life, and what a first time it was. I drove from Detroit back to Ann Arbor, where I am still registered, and stood in a relatively short line before casting my ballot. Although I was only cautiously optimistic, the hope I have seen in the city of Detroit in the past few weeks let me feel a little excited about my vote. (I have to say, I am most definitely an Obama supporter, though I don't consider myself a Democrat.)

Little Obama-Biden signs were sprinkled along most of the on-ramps on I-94, and homemade Obama banners on bedsheets hung from footbridges overhead. High in the late afternoon sky, a sheet of Georgia O'Keefe clouds stretched out, with blue in between. My friend Ben was also in the car, voting for the first time in Ann Arbor, and the two of us couldn't help but be in a good mood. For me it was partially the joy of participating in our government, and partially the banners. I've yet to see any sort of McCain gear that didn't come out of a machine.

Many people in Detroit and the rest of Michigan see Obama as a welcome change. Although he hasn't pandered to auto companies, Detroit and the unions still support him. In my opinion, it's because Barack Obama has been a welcome dose of honesty in a region that needs it badly. Between the Engler/Granholm mess that's been left in Lansing, the Bush-Cheney deception in the White house, and the sad corruption in Detroit city government, Michigan has taken a lot of hits in the honesty department.

Besides that, the fact that those in charge still cling to a car-based economy hurts even more. The Big Three probably won't exist in the way we are used to come next year. We have suffered more than most other states, with one of the worst economies in the nation, something reflected in our biggest city more than anywhere else. So even when Obama came to the city of Detroit early in the election and told the automakers to raise fuel economy without government handouts, Michigan didn't get mad. We all knew Obama was right, and Mitt Romney was wrong. Car jobs aren't coming back. And that was before the economic crap really started hitting the fan.

My polling place, an elementary school, is used by two wards in Ann Arbor. One ward consists of 1960s subdivisions and upper middle class families. The other hugs I-94 and includes co-housing, a sizable African-American community, and some of the only real low-income housing in the city proper. The election workers kept talking about how the lower income ward was voting in record numbers. People who hadn't voted in 20 years but were on the rolls were coming in and when I heard that, I knew they weren't voting for another old white man. I cast my vote with no big issues, no malfunctions, and was on my way back to the D.

When Ben and I got back, we eventually went to a friends' house to watch the results come in. On the way over, even one of the neighborhood bums was talking about the election (albeit after asking for a cigarette).

“Now, I see you all did your duty today, but let me ask you this. Do you really, really, think it's gonna happen?”

We said we hoped so. As he walked with us and talked about bringing the power to the people, I realized that for him, nothing would change no matter who won. But at least if Obama was elected, we would have a president who cared more about telling the people what was really happening than hiding the truth and giving away taxpayer money to corporations. Not to mention, we've been overdue for a black president for a long time.

As the results came in, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of accomplishment. Michigan went for Obama and so did the nation. Standing out on the porch, we could hear fireworks, celebratory gunshots, ecstatic cheers, and the city felt alive. People walking by cheered with us and the liquor store down the street was hopping. Drivers honked as they cruised by.

As we all called friends and family, I knew that I would vote in every election for the rest of my life. Because last night, people who had never voted, and people who hadn't voted in 20 years were the ones who made a difference. If nothing else, the thing I'll remember the most about last night was the feeling of hope I felt watching Obama speak, and the same feeling on the streets of Detroit. Thousands of people flooded them to celebrate, and we were back in the game. Michigan needed this one, and we got it."

Democratic party leader receives threat against Obama

According to a report from WHMI, an FM radio station in Livingston County, Michigan:

"The Secret Service Agency is investigating a handwritten threat that came in the mail yesterday to the Livingston County Democratic Party Headquarters in Brighton Township. Party Chair Judy Daubenmier tells WHMI the handwritten unsigned note was addressed to her. Using racial slurs, the person suggested that it was their fondest hope that Barrack Obama “gets a bullet.” While the area has been noted for its history of racial tension, Daubenmier says when they knock on doors and make phone calls in the county they virtually never hear this type of offensive language. She says the view of this “one cowardly person” doesn’t reflect the general feelings of residents, which is unfortunate given the efforts to rid others’ stereotypically negative views of the area relating to race. Commander of the Michigan State Police Brighton Post Gene Kapp tells WHMI the complete document was handed over to the Secret Service, who will assist them in the investigation. Daubenmier says they will not be intimidated by the threat because they know it doesn’t represent the feelings of the broad community."

Michigan's social safety net still full of holes

Our social safety net is porous. It’s a net after all, not a helmet or steel-toed boots or safety glasses. Nets have holes. Stuff slips through. People slip through. Families. Children.

This week, Michigan legislators increased state cash assistance to poor families via the Family Independence Program by $1 per month per person – a cool $12 per year. According to the Michigan League for Human Services (MLHS) this is the first across the board increase in the monthly grant in 18 years. This increase isn't going to strengthen the safety net.

“We think it’s a positive symbol that needy families receiving cash assistance are finally getting recognized in the budget, but you have to keep it in perspective because the buying power of the grant has eroded steadily over the years,’’ said Sharon Parks, president and CEO of the League, in a press release.

While it may be a positive symbol, the $1 increase is also a shameful embarrassment. Next year, a family of three will receive $36 more per year in their FIP grant. If you’ve gassed your car lately, you know $36 doesn’t buy a tankful. The buying power of the dollar continues to erode. Good thing the Family Independence Program is intended to cover rent. So how much do families that qualify actually receive?

Prior to the $1 increase, a single parent with two children received $489 a month. Unfortunately, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Michigan is $627. To make ends meet recipients can also seek food stamps or federal housing subsidies. Recipients can even work. But if they earn a bit more than $300, they lose their FIP. The rules of the system push them toward independence through the holes in the safety net.

“There are plenty of families for whom this is their main income,” said Judy Putnam, communications coordinator for the MLHS. In the first quarter of 2008, 58 percent of families receiving FIP had no earned income. Children in those families do not benefit from cash income beyond the FIP grant.

The FIP assistance amounts to just 35 percent of the poverty level. In Michigan, the 2007 poverty level for a single parent with two children was $16,705.

In June 75,848 families received cash assistance from the Family Independence Program. This included about 150,000 children. Imagine the combined populations of St. Claire Shores and Farmington Hills as poor hungry children. Anybody got an extra dollar?

Creative Cities Summit 2.0 coming to Detroit

Tired of Michigan being the poster child for economic crisis and Detroit the archetype for lost cause? Ready to imagine healthy economic development and make it happen? Want a brainstorm to clean out yesterday's ways from your mind? Eager to meet like-minded people from around the world who've met tough economic development challenges with creativity? Then get registered for the Creative Cities Summit 2.0 October 12-15 at the Detroit Renaissance Center.

Featuring a power hitter panel discussion with Richard Florida, author of Rise of the Creative Class, John Howkins, author of The Creative Economy, and Charles Landry, author of The Creative City, the conference will examine the Midwest as a megaregion, transportation innovation, marketing the creative city, the city's role in attracting and retaining talent and more.

Speakers include:

John Austin, Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution; and Richard Farnsworth, former Chicago Tribune reporter and author of Caught in the Middle: America's Heartland in the Age of Globalism.

Doug Farr, a Chicago-based architect and planner. The author of Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design With Nature, Farr also will conduct an afternoon workshop on applying LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), the green building rating system, to neighborhood design.

Charles Landry, founder of the U.K.-based Comedia in 1978 and a leading authority on cultural development and how culture changes its development. He is credited with coining the term Creative Cities.

Majora Carter, founder of the non-profit environmental justice solutions corporation, Sustainable South Bronx (SSBx), is a MacArthur "genius," and one of Essence Magazine's 25 most influential African-Americans for 2007.

Special ballot measures to get out the vote (UPDATE and Correction)

Michigan's November ballot will most certainly bring out voters and provide drama and entertainment at a time voters desperately need it. Considered a critical swing state, a high Michigan turnout will most certainly favor Obama. Three titillating ballot measures are sure to get voters to the polls: government overhaul, medical marijuana and easing restrictions on embryonic stem cell research.

Michiganders frustrated with their legislators might have a chance to "say it" at the ballot box. Reform Michigan Government Now, advocating a smaller Michigan judiciary and sweeping salary cuts for elected officials, turned in nearly half a million signatures yesterday to get a Constitutional amendment on November's ballot. Saul Anuzis, chair of Michigan's GOP, questions the validity of the measure because Democratic strategists seem to be behind it.

The medical marijuana question may encourage young voters to take action. The measure does not say how patients would obtain marijuana and the state would not provide or regulate it. Sounds like a business opportunity for enterprising young college grads unable to find other work. (According to the Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care, the state would regulate the substance to the extent that qualified persons could cultivate "12 marihuana plants kept in an enclosed, locked facility.") You can read the proposed measure here.

The stem cell measure will probably mobilize folks on all sides of that issue -- from alzheimer's care providers to the right-to-life crowd. Obama and McCain both support the measure, but right-to-lifers claim the language of the measure would lead to human cloning. Sigh.

And if those measures weren't enough to stimulate interest, voters in the 9th district will have an independent option in November -- Jack Kevorkian will be on the ballot in the Peters/Knollenberg contest. And why not? He spent eight years in prison for second-degree murder,was released June 1 last year and remains on parole until June 1, 2009. Heck, he's had a productive year managing to jump start a congressional bid. Where does he stand on these issues?

Michigan stats in the news

Some curious stats and facts from recent news reports.

Michigan is a top exporter to Iran, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the last seven years. Curiously, during the Bush years, U.S. exports to Iran have increased more than tenfold, in spite of all the angry rhetoric about nuclear programs.

The Bay City Times reports that heroin trafficking is on the rise in mid-Michigan.

Michigan drivers buckled up at record rates in 2007 -- over 93 percent -- making it a top ten state for seatbelt use. (Chicago Tribune)

Isabella County had the highest increase in residents seeking food assistance in the first quarter of 2008 -- 23.6 percent over the same period last year. Sharon Parks, president of the Michigan League of Human Services says the trend will continue statewide, as people's unemployment benefits end they exhaust savings. According to Parks, "The economy is in a distressing state."

Michigan's richest man says "I'm working for myself. The auto companies are working for the UAW and it doesn't work." According to the Chicago Tribune, Bill Davidson, owner of Auburn Hills-based Guardian Industries, is Michigan's richest man. His net worth of about $4.5 billion makes him the 68th richest person in the U.S.

Economic Roundup -- more pain

General Motors will probably announce more cuts and restructuring today.(Reuters) According to the Globe and Mail this will include 1000 jobs slashed at the Owasha, Ontario plant that makes large pickups. Expect cuts in Michigan, as well.

Gaming the system? Greektown Casino has filed for bankruptcy and will seek court approval today of a bankruptcy loan. (Free Press) Borrowing money to lose less money -- you have to love that.

High school dropouts cost the state billions in lost wages, say experts. (mlive)

Moving on from Michigan

"If you are here for money or a signature, let me save you some time," I said preempting the pitch. "I don't do those things at the front door."

"O.K. That kinda covers it," he replied hugging a clipboard to his chest.
"So, how's it going?" I asked.
"Tonight, not so good." The ACLU activist on my front porch was slim and young in tee shirt and jeans. He could have been my son, clear-eyed, ready to change the world one front door at a time.
"What are you working on?" I asked.
"Constitutional stuff mostly," he shrugged with a smile nestled in casual stubble.
"I'd have been more pleased if you had success with the same-sex partner benefits at the Supreme Court," I said, looking past him to the blooming lupines thriving in the unseasonal cool air.
"Me, too."

Turns out, he doesn't live in Michigan, really, this activist for the progressive way forward. He was raised here in the liberal oasis of Ann Arbor, but goes to school out east and his family is relocating there as well. They just sold their house. But still he works for the cause in Michigan. He still wants to help here.

We chatted about the climate -- political, economic, cultural -- in our state, shook our heads and parted, well wishing, smiling, understanding each other a little. This summer, pursuing his ideals might turn into just another job. When it's over, he'll return to school and re-join his family's migration east. He's moving on from Michigan.

It's a creaturely thing, migration. We get attached to place, landscape, claiming our habitat, crying for its preservation and protection, associating safety with roots. But many of us notice when it's time to move on, nothing more to graze, too many predators, drought. We hear of better pasture, opportunity, maybe a place where we can gather and create and can be ourselves.

Maybe Michigan will again be a place people seek to settle. For now, she's exhaling, out with the old...

Edwards endorses Obama, Oh my!

Never mind the delegates, in Michigan John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama today. Michigan, epicenter of American manufacturing decline, heart of the rust belt, and ground zero of the national recession served as poignant setting for labor's candidate to join forces with the Obama campaign.

This is a green light for Reagan democrats to support Obama. All those hardworking, blue-collar democrats can feel a little better about voting for Obama. An Edwards endorsement may diffuse insinuation about Obama's being anti-American. The all-American, self-made man has just endorsed him.

There may be talk of Edwards as Obama's running mate, but just imagine him as Attorney General. Takes your breath away.

Obama's call to Michigan's manufacturing soul

Senator Barak Obama called for a national manufacturing agenda to develop green energy and create up to 5 million jobs in a talk at Macomb Community College today.

"It’s time to recapture the spirit of innovation that has always fueled America’s economic success. It’s time we had an economy that was driven not just by foreign debt, but by the power of America’s imagination. It’s time to tap the ingenuity of engineers and entrepreneurs, policy experts and working folks to meet the challenges of our time," Obama said.

His proposed plan would invest $150 billion over the next ten years in the green energy sector via a Clean Technologies Deployment Venture Capital Fund, and "create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund that will invest in innovation and job creation in places that have been hard hit by the decline in manufacturing," Obama said.

Obama alluded to unfair trade practices that have undercut American manufacturing, but didn't give specifics as to how he would enforce international agreements, saying he would make sure "that countries like China aren’t breaking the rules and putting American workers at a disadvantage."

The senator also called for a universal health care plan to alleviate economic stress on families, claiming he would implement a plan by the end of his first year in office. "Unlike John McCain, I have a universal health care plan. It’s a plan that will cut health care costs by up to $2500 per family per year and reduce costs for business and their workers by picking up the tab for some of the most expensive illnesses and conditions," Obama said.

What a week for the gays in Michigan!

Just when you were ready to put the dismal Supreme Court decision on same-sex partner benefits temporarily behind you, news that protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church will make an appearance at Eastern Michigan University today at noon. If you don't know what to do for lunch, stop by and share in the counter protest!

From the Triangle Foundation press release:
"Known for his "God Hates Fags" websites and propaganda, Fred Phelps is coming to protest against a student organization that allegedly promotes 'the sodomite agenda.'"

"If you would like to join Triangle Foundation and other LGBT and allied organizations on EMU’s campus, we would appreciate your support. Those of us who attend, please do not engage in violent ways or angry reactions. Be mindful he engages in spiritual abuse against LGBT people and our allies. After their protest we encourage our community to assist us in symbolically and physically washing the area of hate, bigotry, and exclusion with mops and brooms."

It's really difficult to see this event as unrelated to the Supreme Court decision earlier this week. The temptation is to say that the Westboro people are a fringe group and the Supreme Court is not. But the result for LGBT people is the same: public denouncement of who we are. Is that connection really such a stretch for straight people to comprehend?

It is doubtful the Westboro group is attempting to create synergy with the court decision, but you never know. They may be hateful, but they're not stupid.

Jon Stewart gives Detroit overdue comic relief

Thank you so much for covering the "Rustbelt Midwest Swing State F@#kfest." Lest we take any of this too seriously...

Same-sex partner benefits illegal in Michigan

Welcome to the backwater called Michigan.

The Supreme Court has spoken. The state constitution as amended by voters defines marriage in Michigan as only possible between one man and one woman. Public employers may not extend benefits to same-sex partners of employees.

If you are gay or lesbian and in a committed relationship, you cannot be construed as married in Michigan. While the court's decision only applies to public employers, it will be a green light for further discrimination against LGBT persons in Michigan.

Now you can be sure that Michigan is an inhospitable place for gay and lesbian people.

The straight majority asserted its will in 2004. Married heterosexual people really are privileged in Michigan. Heterosexual privilege is enshrined in the state constitution.

If you are in a gay or lesbian relationship, you may think of your commitment to each other as a marriage, but the state does not. You may share all your resources with each other, but Michigan will not honor your relationship. You have no protection. You can draft a sheaf of legal documents to simulate the contractual elements of marriage. You can hope that such documents will be honored as you attempt to conduct your business as a couple. But there are no guarantees.

Good luck with your new economy, Michigan. Good luck attracting quirky, creative, innovators. Good luck retaining gays and lesbians who've devoted themselves to public service and education for the wellbeing of their fellow citizens.

Maybe this is what some voters wanted -- to drive out the queers, make them unwelcome, purify Michigan for the sake of future generations.

Clare Public Schools squashes Day of Silence

If you're a gay kid in Clare Public Schools, you're on your own. The school administration will not support you or assure a safe environment or permit something as benign as participation in the Day of Silence, a national event of solidarity with LGBT youth in schools.

According to a report in the Clare County Review, Clare Public Schools officially prohibited student and teacher participation in the National Day of Silence sponsored by GLSEN.

Clare Board Of Education President Tom Weaver read a statement at the board meeting prior to last Friday's event:

"Teachers will be instructed to teach, and students will be instructed not to post any signs or hand out any literature.
If a student chooses not to participate in classroom activities, they will face the consequences of their actions. Disciplinary action will be taken against any students or teachers causing any type of disturbance relating to the “Day of Silence” issue."

Doesn't the Board of Education realize that harassment on the basis of perceived sexual orientation or gender expression is the most common "disturbance" relating to the "Day of Silence" issue? The issue is creating safe space for all students. Period. Kids are driven to suicide and assaulted every day because of actual or perceived difference. By prohibiting an event that demonstrates support for an inclusive environment, the community leaders are giving a green light for violence and abuse against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender kids.

Even worse, they are tacitly accepting a community standard based on suppressing civil action to protest injustice. They are condoning a community standard of discrimination, intolerance, conformity and fear.

It's bad enough LGBT adults in Michigan continue to face workplace discrimination.

Michigan's future depends on a culture of creativity and diversity and inclusion. That means welcoming gay and lesbian people. And transgender people. And all kinds of different people.

The Clare County Review reported that Rev. Jim Shuster, a bus driver and pastor of the North West Baptist Church, said, “This agenda is the homosexual cause. Are we going to allow this agenda into Clare Schools? It’s sin. Why do we want to legitimize sin in our schools? Our tax based school system should not promote this agenda.”

It's not a homosexual cause, it's a human rights cause. Kids have the human right to be safe in their persons in schools supported by the state.

Michigan, you have a long, long way to go. Please don't shoot yourself in the foot.

Toad restores hope

Big Yard Bob is a powerful toad.

Big Yard Bob has a message for Michigan: the news isn't reality.

My children named Bob years ago when they spotted him by the sandbox. He became their seasonal companion in the mud behind the shed, under some leaves, here and there. They could never be sure he'd join their adventures, but often he did.

Big Yard Bob is the reason we stopped fertilizing the lawn. It had nothing to do with Earth Day. We worried about his toady skin absorbing the poison meant for grubs and crabgrass. We didn’t want him eating things coated in pesticide. We didn’t want to kill one of our children’s best friends. We'd grown to appreciate Bob's surprise appearances and the thrill it gave the kids.

Even as the children became adolescents, trading the sandbox for iPods and calculus and Facebook, Bob kept to the yard. We’d spot him as we gardened or mowed.

Yesterday, I saw him -- a burly specimen of toady muscle. He leapt away from the mower into some leaves under a bush. And he reminded me that all the bad news in the world cannot suppress the wonder of a single toad.

Bad news can smother us. Negativity pummels daily: credit crunch, financial meltdown, global recession, food shortages, soaring energy prices, foreclosures, plant closings, layoffs, outsourcing. It just goes on and on.

A single Bob spotting returns me to my senses -- to my awareness of the real world, the natural world, the world of a life force that will not be suppressed by financialization, war, greed, corruption and hate.

Bob lives in the real world and he reminds me that I do too. Bob has no rights, but he is free. Bob is radically alive. Bob lives in the present moment. Bob is not American. Bob is not a Christian. Bob is not a Democrat or Republican. Bob cannot be destroyed in the media. He's not a consumer, voter, property owner, sports fan, or anything else other than a toad.

And we are -- if we can remember among the cyber noise and bad news -- completely, utterly human. None of the trappings we've come to "need" make us human -- identities, work, religion, addictions, ethnicities, sexual orientations, possessions, affiliations, afflictions. We were fully human at birth and as children, before we filled our minds with notions of who we "really" are and who we want to be. Before we accumulated false antidotes to our deepest fears.

Our responses to the news and anything else we encounter affect our perception of reality. These responses can increase suffering or help mitigate it. This is our power as human beings. We can make positive or negative change in the world. As bad as things seem, we can adjust our responses to make things better. We have a choice in the matter -- to attend to the thing immediately before us with full attention and care.

Try it. Take a deep breath and just attend to what is before you. Smile at a stranger. Focus on the present moment. Throw off the cognitive tangle of economic, political and global crises and be where you are. You'll be amazed how different it all looks as light and hope break through the obscuring illusion of fear.

Big Yard Bob is real. So is hope.