Flint Artifacts: Stroh's Beer

Detroit Tiger Omens

The gods seem determined to remind me that after all the years of suffering, the Tigers really are good, and this year they could be great. Farley's, my favorite coffee shop in San Francisco, ushers in spring training every year with a great display of baseball paraphernalia. This afternoon I strolled in and locked eyes on the olde English D near the door, emblazoned on a baseball shaped cup suitable for Stroh's, provided you drink your beer with a straw. I think it's a good omen.

Flint Calling

A little Flint history with help from The Clash.

In Search of a Cure

Flint may turn to casinos to cure its economic ills, but the The Economist points out that hospitals might be just what the doctor ordered. (Sorry for that tortured healthcare metaphor.)

All this is an extreme example of a growing phenomenon. After the 20th-century factory town, such as Flint, Michigan, comes the 21st-century hospital town. Rural hospitals are often the main employers in their communities. Even Flint is trying to re-position itself as a medical hub. But a select few cities have entered the era of the mega-hospital. The most dramatic are Rochester, a medium-sized city where Mayo has long been a star business, and Cleveland, Ohio, a rustbelt city that has seen its hospitals boom and one, the Cleveland Clinic, become a new economic force. Each hospital is a behemoth: Mayo's revenues in 2006 totalled $6.3 billion, Cleveland's $4.4 billion.

Semi-Pro T-Shirts

For all you Semi-Pro fans, Flint Tropics t-shirts are for sale on eBay. It's a great way to channel your inner Will Ferrell.

State of the Unions

Are unions dead? Lawyer, policy analyst and longtime labor activist Nathan Newman doesn't think so.

200,000 union members were added in California alone last year. And this is based on a labor vision that had ten-year horizons for organizing, a level of long-term investment that few American institutions have been willing to make.

Flint's Patron Saint of the Arts

The conceptual artist Gordon Matta-Clark died 30 years ago and, as far as I know, he never stepped foot in Flint. But as the Whitney Museum in New York prepares to launch a retrospective of his work, it's clear to me his art has a visceral connection to the place where General Motors was born, lived and now staggers on life support. Long before Flint was forced to start destroying its abandoned homes — the gutted reminders of more prosperous times — Matta-Clark was cutting derelict houses in half.

"Matta-Clark may be best known for his “building cuts,” in which he sliced structures like loaves of bread," Karen Rosenberg explains in New York Magazine. "This house in Englewood, New Jersey, was split in two, over four months of jacking and tilting. Manfred Hecht, who helped out, said, 'It was always exciting working with Gordon—there was always a good chance of getting killed.' The house’s corners are now in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, but the rest is gone— it had been chosen because it was slated for demolition anyhow."

Matta-Clark also knew how to transform abandoned industrial sites — the closest things Flint has to tourist attractions — into artistic statements, into the cathedrals of economic decay.

"Matta-Clark cut five openings into the decrepit shed of Pier 52, calling it a “basilica” with a “rose window” (a bean-shaped hole facing the sunset) and illuminating a spot known for seedy nocturnal misbehavior," Rosenberg writes. "It was all done illegally—he later said, 'I had no faith in any kind of permission … there has never, in New York City’s history, with maybe one or two minor exceptions, ever been any permission granted to an artist on a large scale'—and once the city got wind of the project, Matta-Clark ended up leaving the country to avoid arrest."

Matta-Clark carved out a name for himself in the seventies, a decade when many exhausted residents wanted nothing more than to escape from New York, to flee from the crime and economic indignities. Sound familiar?

Here's to Flint's kindred spirit and unofficial patron saint of the arts.

Gordon Matta-Clark 1943-1978

No jobs but plenty of pit bulls

The Genesee County Humane Society has stopped taking in stray pit bulls due to overcrowding.

"We've got overpopulation. We've got a bad economy, and the majority of pit people are in the bad economy," said Edith Campbell, who works with Last Chance Rescue.

Perhaps they could be used for security at the new casino.

Viva Las Flint

I'm surprised it took the local braintrust this long to come up with this particular far-fetched plan to save Flint — Indian casinos.

"I think we have a 50-50 chance of getting it," Mayor Don Williamson told The Flint Journal. Williamson dispatched adviser Joe Conroy to Washington, D.C. last week to lobby those connected to legislation that would bring a casino to either Flint or Romulus.

A bill is expected to be voted on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives that would allow a casino to be established by the Sault Ste. Marie tribe of Chippewa Indians.

There's only one problem: casinos tend to suck more money out of the local economy than they put into it. Philadelphia City Paper lays out the numbers:

During their yearlong study, professors William N. Thompson and Ricardo C. Gazel of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas found that Illinois loses $6.7 million to casinos each year which otherwise would have been spent on local businesses. The sum does not include regulatory and infrastructure costs, or social costs.

In addition, the study found that areas closest to casinos suffered the most. The study also determined that riverboat casinos do not promote tourism, noting that 84 percent of Illinois gamblers live in-state. By comparison, Las Vegas attracts 85 percent of its gamblers from out-of-state.

Of course, look how Detroit has magically transformed itself into a safe, economically robust city with the help of casinos.

That was a little joke.

Mott Brothers Hardware Auction

Flint's venerable Mott Bros. Hardware closed in 1997, but it's taken until now to auction off the merchandise, antiques and collectibles.