The Life of Riley, if Riley was getting his ass kicked.

Some of you may have wondered where I've been. Actually, I doubt any of you have wondered that. The last couple of months have kind of sucked. I'm not one to bitch about my own problems, it's much more fun bitching about other peoples problems. So, I'm not going to bitch. I'm just gonna tell ya what happened and where I've been.

Sometime at the end of April uncontrollable events forced me to close my restaurant. We were only open two years. We did some good things and failed at others. Bottom line, between our own mistakes and the the economy taking a dump we couldn't continue to take losses. It's a shame. We built a beautiful space in an unorthodox location and just couldn't keep it going until the economy and public awareness turned around.

It's been hard. Closing took a lot out of me. I'm facing a mountain of debt that even God couldn't pay off. I owe vendors and most importantly I owe my staff. That part hurts the most. I'll live and deal with my personal debt but owing the people I work with is hard to deal with.

Closing a business has been similar to going through a divorce. There's a sense of loss and helplessness that compares to divorce. Anyone who's been through a divorce can tell you that it's sometimes hard to be in the same small town as their ex. That's been my feeling concerning the restaurant. So, I've decided a change of scenery is what's needed for me right now. For the last week or so, I've set up camp in Detroit, to lick my wounds. I know that sounds nuts, trading Traverse City for the D but it's what I need right now. I need the familiarity of the streets, restaurants and the negativity which is uniquely Detroit. I also need friends and family. The people that go back to your childhood who know how to pick you up or knock you down when the time is right.

I feel good. Really. I'm regaining my optimism and my confidence and I'm looking forward.

So that being said, I'm ready to continue writing. You can look forward to rants about politics, life's absurdities and my life in Detroit. One of the things I'm most excited about is writing about food. Detroit is filled with great food joints which deserve a word or two from a master eater.

In short, I'm back! Republicans flee in terror. Hypocrites cower with fear. Food lovers drool or be disgusted by what will surely be my best writing yet.

Losing faith

I've lost complete faith in corporate America. This loss of faith has been building for many years but seems to have crystallized over the past couple of years. From a health care industry that has us by the balls (and knows it), to Wall St. making bets so risky, they look like a first time card player at the World Series of Poker, to the latest massive boondoggle, the BP oil disaster. To be perfectly honest this is not a spill, it is a disaster.

Over the last few year British Petroleum has been shifting it's brand to appear as if it's the only oil company that is interested in the environment. The commercials discuss green energies and protecting the Earth. They changed their logo to give it a "greener" look. They even had me wondering if they really were an Earth friendly company. Because I'm such a cynical prick, I hadn't bought in yet, but they did have me wondering. Now we all know this image makeover is complete horseshit.

Not only is the image equine scat, BP may be the worst safety and environmental offender there is. Consider this, over a three year period BP racked of an amazing 760 "egregious, willful" violations handed out by OSHA. Compare that to the next biggest violators, Sunoco and Conoco-Phillips each had 8!!!!! Exxon another huge energy company had 1!!!!! So to sum up BP 760 violations to 19! The rest of the field has a lot of catching up to do. Just so we're clear these aren't little piddily violations, like "not wearing a hard hat" these are serious safety violations. The kind that lead to workers being killed and entire enviroments being destroyed. In the past five years 3o BP workers have been killed in two seperate oil rig explosions a helicopter crash and other accidents. With 760 violations and 30 deaths you would expect the full weight of the federal government would be pressing on them and they were. BP for all of it's corporate malfeasance was fined $373 million. Now to you and I, $373 million is a shit ton of cash but to a company that makes billions a year, that kind of cash is just a cost of doing biz. So what about the current disaster? I'm not going to tell you anything you don't know. We all know they didn't have a real plan for preventing and fixing a disaster like we have now. We know that they are uncaring company hell bent on only profits. This is the point of this blog. Companies aren't built for caring, they are built for profits.

A corporation is designed and run to make money. They aren't designed to plant flowers and make little girls smile. OK, some are but you know what I'm saying. The main purpose is to make money for their shareholders. Every single dollar a company spends on safety measures is a dollar which is taken away from the profits which then go into shareholder pockets. So, when the profits are so high and the accidents are spread out by years and across the globe the impact doesn't seem so great. Except of course when the disaster is so large that an entire region is going to be devastated.

Let's be clear, corporations by themselves aren't evil. They are led by people who's goal is to make money, which isn't evil either. These people however, make decesions based upon making money for the company this quarter.This short sighted approach, often it's at the expense of everything else. Due to the complexity of the business world and the lack of governmental oversight, these same people are insulated from the repercussions of their actions.

In the end one would hope that those running these corporations would have more of a social conscience but they don't. The only entity which can reign them in, is government and we've done a horrible job. We've allowed regulations to be weakened in favor of business and in turn at the the expense of "we the people". We've allowed our regulatory institutions to be underfunded and devoid of talent and in most cases staffed by industry veterans who then go back to that industry to fat six figure salaries for a job well done. This happens and we don't seem to care. Also, let's be clear this isn't a GOP or Dem thing, they're both complicit. Nobody seems to give a shit until the entire economy stares into the abyss or an ecological disaster threatens to destroy a vast eco system and in turn ruining a way of life for millions of Americans.

I love the capitalist economic system we use. I've been a small businessman for a long time. I love the opportunities our country has to offer. But I hate thinking that corporate control of government is real and is becoming a reality.

So yes, I've lost faith in corporate America. They will never do the right thing unless made to do so. With that said, I guess I'm losing faith in government as well. The game is stacked and business has a bigger checkbook than I.

STFU!

Flashback to 2007 and the presidential race. Republicans drunk with delusion really believed they were going to win the White House. I mean, how could they not? They had the all star team of McCain and Palin. They were running against a black guy name Barack Hussein Obama. Hell, according to them he wasn't even an American. Wasn't he born in Kenya?

According to each candidate the race was about this policy or that policy. What it really was about was culture. Nothing makes this assertion more clear than the stupid chant of "drill baby drill!". On the surface this chant seems to relate to our energy policy but it isn't. It's always been about culture. The differences between the left and the right.

Now, I'm certain many knuckle dragging RWC (right wing conservatives) actually believed that by drilling off shore in American waters we could actually solve our energy needs. Of course this is complete fallacy and they are complete morons. If we tapped every available source of oil off our shores we wouldn't reduce our dependency on foreign oil one little bit. What most of the idiots chanting "drill baby drill" actually meant is "look here you stupid tree hugging idiots, it's just this simple, if you get out of our way and let us handle things we'll solve all our energy problems in days". At least that's what it sounded like to me. They seemed to be saying that that the solutions are simple and that progressives were holding up our energy independence.

But we knew better. We knew that offshore drilling came with a price that most of us weren't willing to pay. We knew that big business is interested in making money at the risk of all else including our environment. We knew that after eight years of the Bush/Cheney Oil Administration, that drilling safety measures had been watered down. We knew we could not trust oil companies to drill safely. We knew.

Fast forward to present day. Millions of gallons of crude oil is now floating in the pristine waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Tens of thousands of Americans, many still reeling from hurrican Katrina and the lack of government response are in danger of losing their livliehoods for years or forever. The gulf environment looks to be damaged for decades or generations. But what's the big deal? Oil is natural so says Rush Limbaugh. All of this happened because BP in cahoots with a business friendly Minerals Management Service office, put profit in front of safety.

Now, I (we) get no pleasure from saying "I told you so". RWCs need to understand that most issues are more complex and can not be solved with an idiotic chant. They need to understand that when we bow to big business real people can be effected. They need to understand how to "shut the fuck up".

So the next time a RWC like Sarah (no brains) Palin gives an interview but actually says nothing but bumper sticker statements which have no meaning, tell her to "shut the fuck up".

So RWC, here's the deal, either come to the table with real ideas and the intent to actually work with the other side or "shut the fuck up".

Kwame, U of M Football and other thoughts.

On the Freep's homepage today were several interesting stories which I feel the need to comment on. There was the former hip hop mayor being sentenced to five years for probation violations. An announcement from the current mayor's office which declared that tv crews will no longer be there to film raids by it's police force. U of M's football coach is deflecting blame for violations of rules by his football team and finally more young people being murdered in the city.

Kwame's cash and luck ran out and without any political clout none was forth coming. A Detroit judge today sentanced Kwame Kilpatrick to prison for five years for hiding cash and misusing cash from his former political life, both violations of his probation. Here's the rub, on one hand it appears as if the justice system has worked in Detroit, but in reality Kwame simply no longer had the cash on hand to make things go away. I know that seems cynical and snarky but if anyone has any idea of how things work in Detroit, you know I'm right.

Rich Rodriguez is an embarrassment. I'm not talking about his record as Michigan's head football coach or his arrogance or even for the violations that Michigan has just admitted to. I'm talking about the fact that he refused to take full responsibility for the violations. Rodriguez is in charge of a great college football program. More importantly he is a leader and mentor to the young men of the program. In the report released by U of M, Rodriguez say's he is partly to blame for the violations and his staffers are partly to blame. What? His staff works for him, they do what he tells them to do. When something goes down, a leader steps up and takes responsibility. It's like telling your neighbor that your dog is mostly to blame for shitting in his yard, but that you'll accept some responsibility. From the way he left W. Virginia to the way he's run his program, to his lack of leadership, Rich Rod has shown he is devoid of the honor, class and character that is required to be the head football coach at the University of Michigan.

A little girl was killed sometime last week by a Detroit police officer during a raid on a house to arrest a suspected murderer. The police immediately claimed that it was an accident caused by a woman in the house grabbing the officers gun. Generally, it's an issue of who do you believe, the police or the woman who claims she never touched the officer or his gun. The difference this time is that a tv documentary film crew was on hand. According to reports (mostly from the media whore Jeffery Fieger) the film paints a different picture of what happened. The police officer (again according to Fieger) kicked open the door and threw a flash bang into the room where the girl was sleeping, as it exploded the officer fired a shot into the room, thus killing the girl. Now we haven't seen the tape but if that's what happened, it sounds like at a minimum a manslaughter charge for the officer. So, today a spokesman from Mayor Bing's office made a statement saying that tv crews will no longer accompany police on raids. Why not? What are you afraid of? If it were not for the tv crew we would have only the police report to go on. There would be a dead little girl and no way to prove what really happened. The message I get from this declaration is, "our police department is so corrupt and/or ill trained that we do not want proof of their corruption or incompetence". Mr. Mayor, you can not improve the police department or the citizens opinion of it by pretending nothing's wrong. Mayor Bing, seems to be a good man for the citizens of Detroit but this is misguided decision.

Somewhere down the homepage, in small font is a story about another teen murdered in a drive by shooting. Over the past several weeks small children and many adults have been killed in the city of Detroit. Murders are so common that they don't get front page status. Only interesting murders get any type of coverage. It's sad, it's tragic, it's violence in the United States.

Whatcha gonna do?

It's been over a month since a British Petroleum oil rig exploded in the gulf of Mexico. Since that time eleven people working on that rig lost their lives, millions of gallons of crude oil has been released into the richest fishing waters our country has and Rush Limbaugh has again affirmed his role as America's biggest jack ass.

One more thing, President Obama has proved you can't have it both ways. Or at least you can't always have it both ways. President Obama is trying very hard to be a business friendly president very much like President Clinton was. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. The problem is business' are in business to make money not lose money on costly clean ups. Because of a friendly relationship with our government during the Bush years business is not prepared to clean up the disasters they create. So, when the oil rig in the gulf exploded British Petroleum told the White House they could handle the problem. The word disaster had not come up yet even though eleven people lost their lives pulling oil out of the gulf for BP. Now if Obama were the socialistic big government tyrant the right makes him out to be, he would've handled the response differently. Most likely he would've strolled in front of the cameras and declared a massive government response with the military taking the lead. There would've been coverage of US Navy ships rushing to the scene and helicopters hovering over head drop oil sponges into the sea. No expense would've been spared by the White House Press office to show how on top of things the government was. It didn't happen that way.

President Obama took BP's word that they could handle the spill. The president didn't want to appear as a guy who overreacts and that he trusts companies to take care of their responsibilities. Unfortunately BP was unwillingly or unable to handle the problem they created. Obama and his administration has for the most part stood on the sidelines and prayed BP could fix problem. That strategy has failed miserably and is making Obama look more like George W. Bush everyday.

Before any of you right wingers stand up and rejoice let me stop you right now and tell you, "shut up, you don't get a say in this". You can not espouse small government day in and day out and and then witness what happens when government stands on the sidelines and lets business have their way to disastrous effects. Then have the stones to say "see told ya, big govmint is bad!". This is a perfect example of the simple fact that massive problems can not be solved by big business because it's not in their interests to solve them.

There doesn't seem to be a solution in the immediate future. I do hope the Obama administration has learned that when something looks like a potential disaster that they rush in with everything they have even if it looks like over kill. Let the conservative pundits howl about how the president looked scared and unsure when he overreacted. The fisherman and their families in the gulf would've appreciated a little more help than they've gotten from BP or the federal government.

So what are you going to do now Mr. President? Are you going to continue to sit on the sidelines or are you going to commit every government resource to try to mitigate the damage. Or are you going to fly over the gulf and stare dispassionately out of the window like a failed oilman once did?

What happens in Detroit matters.

What happens in Detroit matters. It really does. No matter if you're in your cozy home in Traverse City or walking down the streets of Ferndale, what happens in Detroit matters.

Today I read an article in the paper stating that fourth grade children in Detroit scored last in the nation for reading. This follows a similar score released earlier for math. The fact that Detroit children are the worst educated children in America should alarm you. It should disgust you and it should make you think. The children of Detroit are behind the eight ball and they're only nine years old. I think you know where I'm going with this.

I mentioned Ferndale in the beginning of this post because for the most part it's where I grew up. For those of you who don't know, Ferndale sits on the Northern border of Detroit. Eight mile road is the real boarder. On the South side is Detroit and Wayne County. On the North is Ferndale and Oakland County. One usually doesn't use the word border when talking about city lines but it's what we always called it and with good reason. Growing up we always thought that Detroit was a dangerous, scary place where the law had little meaning and with good reason. Detroit represented urban decay and worse urban social decay. We often went to Detroit but we were always wary. We snuck across the border to buy booze because there was no law preventing us from doing so. On one such booze buying foray, my best friend was shot in the chest in a robbery attempt (I wrote about this previously). The shooting wasn't an isolated event. I personally know others who have been shot or seriously injured while in Detroit. In my mind Detroit has always been like a third world country. Crime, poverty, social decay and lawlessness have always been hallmarks of backward countries and Detroit is no exception, but it wasn't always this way.

From the early 1900s until the late 1950s Detroit was one of the richest cities in the world. A drive through Detroit today reveals whole sections of the city which were once filled with mansions teeming with wealthy inhabitants. Unfortunately most of those people fled Detroit years ago, leaving mostly empty neighborhoods and poor, lost people.

So, why does Detroit matter? Why, should we care what happens in a lawless city? Why should we care if Detroit's fourth graders can't read, write or understand math?

For better or worse Detroit has always been the economic engine of Michigan. In good times it's lifted us up and in times of economic woe it's been an anchor dragging us to the depths. It's as true today as it was in 1903, the year the Ford Motor Co. began.

Those fourth graders are sign of things to come. Yes it's bad now but it's going to get worse. As they age they will become increasingly frustrated by their lack of success in school. The vast majority will drop out before graduating. In 2006 only 21% of Detroit's students graduated! 21%! That means 79% will be on the streets of Detroit without a high school diploma. These kids have virtually no future. In short time they're choices will be dim. They can either, be under employed making minimum wage or they can find a way to get on public assistance or they can turn to crime. Remember, the days of a good union job are long gone. There are few options for these kids.

Under employed kids, eventually will have children if they haven't already. Soon they will be collecting food stamps or other assistance.

Turning to crime has it's obvious problems too. First they're are the victims. Next there is the exorbitant cost of policing, prosecuting and then incarcerating these kids.

No matter how you look at it these kids are going to be major drag on tax dollars. You can not ignore these kids and expect not to be affected by them.

Our only choice is to educate them. Educating children is infinitely more cost effective than the other options I've outlined. Add to that the fact that educated people give back more in many ways but predominately in taxes.

I don't know to change the educational deficiencies in Detroit. It's obvious that what we've been doing isn't working. The one thing I understand though is we can not ignore it. We can not pretend that Detroit's problem's aren't our own. If it means a wholesale change in the way we fund our schools, we should do it. If it means closing the whole school district down and start over, we should do that. If it means educating the parents at the same time we're educating their children, we should do it. The one thing we can't do is, nothing.

Today, I live in Traverse City. It's a wonderful small town community with good schools and people who geniunely care about what happens to the town and the people who live here. Traverse City seems like it's light years away from Detroit but it's not. While most people here probably have empathy for the children of Detroit, they probably don't give it much thought. It's easy not to care what happens hundreds of miles away in a city which is the polar opposite. But it matters. What happens in Detroit and to the the fourth graders who will not graduate matters to the fourth graders attending Central Grade School, in Traverse City. They will be the ones dealing with the problems created in Detroit.

So, please do not fool yourselves, what happens in Detroit, matters.

Doom and gloom in November? Don't think so.

I wish I would've wrote this before the May 18 elections but I was a little bit of a coward. I was worried that by small chance the elections would point the wrong way and make me look like a fool. Over the last few months we've witnessed tea party hysteria, polls all pointing towards a November doomsday for Democrats and a million pundits essentially saying the same thing.

Yesterday, we witnessed some interesting results in primaries and in one congressional election. In the election to replace Rep. Murtha in Pennsylvania, the GOP had an even chance at taking the seat but despite throwing a ton of cash around they still lost to a Dem. In several primaries , incumbants were beat on both sides of the aisle. This shows that the GOP doesn't necessarily have a winning formula in November.

Current conventional wisdom goes something like this, people are upset due to the economy, fight over bailouts and health care reform, fear of big govmint (yes I spelled it wrong), anti-incumbency feelings, unemployment, wars, oil spills, energy, deficits, (insert your current gripe here) and traditionally, mid term elections don't go well for the party in power. So, based upon these issues and a seemingly large tea party uprising and Fox News morons scaring the hell out of people (yes, FN we know he's black, please get over it) a landslide victory for the GOP is guaranteed.

I simply don't see it happening.

While the tea party movement made a lot of "top of the hour" newscasts I really don't think they're going to be very influential. Let's be honest, by in large they are nothing more than discontents in the GOP. They aren't new voters. It's not as if the GOP woke up and found they had persuaded millions of Dems to switch sides or that all undecideds had listened to Rush and lined up in the Red column. Worse, they are a bit schizophrenic about what they want (take a look the CBS/NY Times poll, sorry I'm having a hard time adding links to this damned thing). Tea partiers will have an impact. Mostly in districts and states in which they get their candidates on the ballot, voters will have to decide between and Dem and a radical GOPer. If they choose the radical, Dems didn't have a chance anyway.

Concerns over bailouts are valid. They represent real differences in philosophy between Dems and the GOP. To the majority of the public though, they are only meaningful depending on what the economy does. If the economy does not grow, middle America will look at the money spent on bailouts as a waste and blame the Dems even though it was G Dub's admin that started the process. If however the economy continues to grow (it should) and a sense of optimism returns then middle America will at worst forget about the bailouts or at best give credit to Dems for doing something positive.

With the GOP propaganda machine throwing everything it could at health care reform it's no wonder that people are unhappy about it. However, if the Dems do a better job of showing the people what they got out of it and if Grandma isn't put in front of a "Death Panel" (thank Sarah Palin for that lie), then public opinion will swing to them. I'm pretty sure, Grandma isn't in danger of having the plug pulled on her and I'm certain the Dems can't do a worse job of explaining their position, so I'm confident the numbers will creep back in favor for them.

Of course the big one is the economy. Almost everything I've written about in this article has to do with the economy. President Obama had the unenviable task of taking over an economy which was mired in a recession and teetering towards disaster. He inherited two treasure sucking wars and bleak job growth prospects. Nothing makes Americans more angry than poor economic conditions. I mean, if Jethro and Bobbi Sue Nascar can't have matching 3 ton pick ups, two 10,000 ft homes and zero percent financing, somebody's going to pay. The good news (if you are an American) is that the economy is improving. Unemployment is holding steady, a sign of stabilizing and our GDP is positive. Unless we experience another economic catastrophe (Europe?) the economic picture should be even better by November. This of course will spell bad news for the GOP.

So, is it going to be doom and gloom for Dems in November? Nah, I just don't see it. They will lose some seats in both the house and the Senate. They'll lose because the mood in the country will still be a little sour, they'll lose some because of the anti-incumbency feeling which is real and they'll some some over policy differences, but it will not be the crushing defeat predicted just a few weeks ago.

The only real hope the GOP has of regaining power is if Obama fails miserably. This of course what they want. I'm not just saying this, they've actually said it themselves. They want our country to suffer, for you to suffer. They don't want a robust economy because they want to be in power. It doesn't matter if you lost your home because you couldn't afford cancer treatment or because you lost your job 18 months ago. The only thing that matters is that they regain their place at the foot of the throne. They want to collect all the trinkets and crumbs that fall to them by being in power. This is real trickle down economics.

Fear not, it aint gonna happen. They may get closer but they'll have to wait a little while longer to run the truck into the ditch again.