These are common stories in Reading, a struggling city of 88,000 that has earned the unwelcome distinction of having the largest share of its residents living in poverty, barely edging out Flint, Mich., according to new Census Bureau data. The count includes only cities with populations of 65,000 or more, and has a margin of error that makes it difficult to declare a winner — or, perhaps more to the point, a loser.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Reading, Pa. Meet Flint, Mi.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Uncovering Coolidge History
Coolidge Elementary closed in June after 83 years of educating Flint students. A time capsule, buried by the class of 1974, will be unearthed in a ceremony on September 24th at 2 p.m. and all are invited. For more information, check out the Coolidge School Facebook page.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Tigers Clinch
The Tigers clinch their first division title since 1987, back when guys like Matt Nokes, Darrell Evans, Lou Whitaker, Alan Trammell, Tom Brookens, Kirk Gibson, Chet Lemon, Pat Sheridan, Bill Madlock, Jack Morris, Doyle Alexander, Frank Tanana, and Willie Hernandez were on the team. That's also the year I learned to really hate the Minnesota Twins.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Here We Go Again?
Kristen Longley of The Flint Journal reports:
Flint became the first city in Michigan last month to undergo a state preliminary financial review, which is the first step in the process that could lead to the appointment of an emergency financial manager.
The process also could instead lead to a consent agreement between Flint’s elected officials and the governor, which would give local leaders expanded powers to help resolve the city’s financial problems.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Snyder has said the governor’s office will “work tirelessly” to avoid appointing an emergency manager in Flint.
Michael Moore: Here Comes Trouble
The New York Times weighs in on Michael Moore's new book, Here Comes Trouble: Stories From My Life:
To remark that “Here Comes Trouble” is by far Mr. Moore’s best book isn’t extravagant praise. He’s more concise as a documentarian; like all of his books this one is shaggy and overfilled. It’s a cabbage rather than a rose, a tangy ring of bologna rather than a sirloin. Side effects may include heartburn.
Mr. Moore’s coming of age as a working-class malcontent is, however, something to behold. It’s the story of a big lunk who learns to yoke his big mouth to a sense of purpose. It persuades you to take Mr. Moore seriously, and it belongs on a shelf with memoirs by, and books about, nonconformists like Mother Jones, Abbie Hoffman, Phil Ochs, Rachel Carson, Harvey Pekar and even Thomas Paine. Mr. Moore — disheveled, cranky, attention seeking, too eager to pick a fight — is easy to satirize. But he could nearly get away with branding his camera with the words once scrawled on Woody Guthrie’s guitar: This machine kills fascists.
Wade Mainer, R.I.P.
Country music pioneer Wade Mainer died at his home in Flint on Monday at the age of 104. Joe DePriest of The Telegraph reports:
As a professional singer and banjo player, he would introduce that music to audiences throughout the nation and also pass it on to new generations of performers.Mainer, one of the most popular and influential figures in early country music, died Monday at his home in Flint, Mich. He was 104.
Some called him “the godfather of North Carolina country music” and “the grandfather of bluegrass.”
He performed in the White House for Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and in New York City with folk legend Woody Guthrie.
“He was one of the most remarkable musicians of his era,” said music historian Dick Spottswood, author of “Banjo on the Mountain: Wade Mainer’s First Hundred Years,” published in 2010 by the University Press of Mississippi.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Glen Rice and Sarah Palin: The Oddest Couple of All?
Glen Rice, a star at Flint Northwestern High School, the University of Michigan and the NBA clearly had a lot of fans during his long career, including, it seems, Sarah Palin. New York Magazine reports:
One might have assumed that after three years of glaring media attention, all of Sarah Palin's skeletons had been whisked out of the closet by now. But Joe McGinniss — the well-known author who moved in next to the Palin family as he worked on his soon-to-released exposé, The Rogue: Searching for The Real Sarah Palin — apparently found out some pretty good stuff. And by "pretty good," we mean some of the most salacious things you could possibly imagine. According to the National Enquirer, which talked to "[p]ublishing sources familiar with the contents" of the book:
Palin had a one-night stand in 1987 with future NBA All-Star Glen Rice while he was junior at the University of Michigan. Just a rumor? Not exactly. "McGinniss quotes Rice as confirming the one-night stand," the Enquirer says. Furthermore, "Todd was very much in the picture at the time and the couple married just nine months later."