"When are you going to leave Michigan?"
That's the question my exasperated parents ask me at least once a month.
It's their endearing effort to entice me to move back to Sweet Home Chicago, a magnet for Gen Xers in the Midwest and beyond. They really don't have to sell me on a city with stellar theater, independent cinema, museums, outdoor dining, urban parks and, of course, miles of beachfront along Lake Michigan.
Too bad I'm head-over-heels in love with the Wolverine State, a land of tragically flawed heroes, from Lewis Cass to W.K. Kellogg. It's home to perhaps the finest historical museum in the country, the sprawling Henry Ford, and the rare and used bookstore I could die in, John K. King's concrete paradise in Detroit. We have the unblemished side of Lake Michigan, thank you very much - not to mention three other Great Lakes that carve out our two peninsulas.
But in the eyes of my protective parents, Michigan is the rustiest of the rust belt states - a lumbering, rancid remnant of manufacturing's glory days.
What they see in the news is 6.9 percent unemployment - sadly the lowest rate we've hit in a year, which still tops the country. They shudder about crime rates in Detroit, Flint and Saginaw (not to mention their third-world infant mortality rates).
My Republican accountant father sighs at our business-unfriendly tax structure and my Democratic teacher mother shakes her head at our abysmal high school dropout and college graduation rates.
Those are the problems we've grappled with for years.
But lately, it seems Michigan is even more determined to become the laughingstock of the nation. If we're on tee-vee, you can bet you'll want to cover your eyes.
That's what happens when you're overrun by folks suffering from childhood regression and determined to take it out on Michigan.
There was our 11-month soap opera last year over a budget bleeding $2 billion. We all knew how it would end thanks to our clueless, preening leaders, who at least looked pretty for the cameras before they shut the government down.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm (whose smile beat out two grownups in the 2002 Democratic primary) still had to be the most popular girl in school and couldn't make tough choices. Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, tried to be the Big Man on Campus and lost badly, while House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford Township, was a freshman trying to be student body president.
In the press box, I glanced up from rereading David Halberstam's "The Best and the Brightest" to watch rumple-shirted, sleep-starved senators screaming, pouting and almost busting into fisticuffs like 6-year-olds coming down from a sugar high on the playground. And I wanted to weep.
Then there was our January primary, a glorified toddler tantrum by Democratic National Committeewoman Debbie Dingell and Michigan Republican Party Chair Saul Anuzis. (Nyah, nyah, Iowa and New Hampshire, you can't keep us down). Only Saul was smart enough to massage his national party, while Mrs. D flicked off the DNC and got the state's delegates yanked.
While the botched primary permits Hillary Clinton to throw her own hissy fit about seating the Michigan delegation (seriously, Hillz, it's like the struggle to free the slaves?) it really just makes us look stupider than 48 other states plus Guam.
And now Leon Drolet, still trapped in the moody adolescent phase of Ayn Rand worship that sets in when your sweetie says no to prom, wants to "make history" by recalling Dillon. Evidently, the speaker raised taxes all by himself last year.
Boy, I just can't wait for national coverage of Libertarian Leon (neither can he) throwing the state into further chaos.
Fortunately, there is a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens, as Margaret Mead would say, who want to change the world - or the state, more precisely. The Center for Michigan, an Ann Arbor think-and-do tank, on Thursday released its 35-page, common-ground agenda for the Michigan's Defining Moment campaign.
It's chock-full of priorities for the state to embrace leading up to the 2010 election, including education, bipartisanship, quality of life and economic diversification, thanks to hours of work from more than 1,800 citizens. And in the interest of full disclosure, I was one of the wonks who helped write part of the report.
More importantly, the campaign has real-world strategies and is a call to action. In a sense, it's a blueprint for how the Great Lakes State can come of age even with a hamstrung term-limited Legislature, dismal economy and outmoded, underfunded schools.
Newspaper magnate Phil Power started the center after he sold his company in 2005 and decided, "I'll be damned if I will let the Florida sand flow through my toes and stick my hands in my jacket pocket while my state is going to hell."
Former Gov. Jim Blanchard tells me he's optimistic: "I just can't believe the great state of Michigan can stay down."
That's why I love this state, why I want to fight for it. And that starts with my decision to stay put.
Showing posts with label Phil Power. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Phil Power. Show all posts
Friday, May 23, 2008
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Want to save our state? Here's how
It's been 31 years since rumpled newsman Howard Beale ordered a generation to fling open the windows and declare:
"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
That's the line from the Oscar-nominated film "Network" everyone remembers, as it launched a thousand parodies and at least an ad campaign or two.But few people can recall the beleaguered Beale's soliloquy beforehand:
"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter.
"Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had 15 homicides and 63 violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be.
"We know things are bad — worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.'
"Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad!"
Substitute an iPod, TiVo and Xbox, and it all sounds eerily familiar, if not a smidge apocalyptic.
In the past few years, I have had scores of conversations with Michiganders who have touched on these themes. There is a palpable frustration, even anger.
One thing almost everybody can agree on: Our state is in trouble.
But nobody knows how to change it.Enter the Center for Michigan, which is recruiting people from Benzonia to Battle Creek to brainstorm an action plan for the state in 90-minute community conversations during the next two months.
They're guaranteed to be more constructive — and productive — than screaming out your window.
The center, a bipartisan, nonprofit "think and do tank" outside Ann Arbor, calls this "Michigan's Defining Moment." After all, we have the worst economy in the nation, an abysmal rating with Wall Street, a shrinking population, threats to the Great Lakes, an ailing auto industry, a crumbling core city and a structural budget deficit that still hasn't been resolved even after last week's last-minute deal.
More than 80 forums will take place statewide, with Kellogg Community College, the Kellogg Foundation and Battle Creek Unlimited throwing their muscle behind the effort locally.
The center's approach is one of pragmatism, not dogmatism, aimed at bringing the left, right and center together to set firm goals to revitalize Michigan before the 2010 election, when most state leaders will be booted due to term limits. Conversations will be underpinned by civility, something sorely lacking in cable news talk shows, the blogosphere or even the Capitol.
Rather than being bland spitballing sessions, the center wants residents' feedback in three key areas: how Michigan can grow, retain and attract a skilled workforce in a global economy; invest in our economy and quality of life; and reform government at all levels to be more efficient, modern and accountable.Organizers also want to inject some much-needed pride into our state.
After all, we live in a place of unparalleled beauty nestled between four Great Lakes, which is home to some of the best universities in the world and has given birth to a slew of innovations from Corn Flakes to cars.
That is fertile soil for a new, modernized Michigan to grow.
But how, you might ask, do these conversations differ from other periodic powwows to set the state straight?
Well, the forums aren't just for the usual suspects — politicians, CEOs, union bosses — though everyone's invited. But as center founder Phil Power stresses, this round of sessions is aimed at all residents, especially those who feel their voices are never heard.
Groups will meet again in the winter, and then the center goes full throttle for the election cycle, presenting the plan to legislators, holding state House race debates and even issue potlucks.
Sounds great. But as a cynical columnist, I had to ask: What if nobody cares and nobody shows?
"You gotta stir people," said the center's Executive Director John Bebow, himself a cynical former journalist. "People have great interest in public affairs if you ask them to participate. But who's been asking?"
After the budget fiasco, it's clear Lansing has a rather remedial understanding of our state's problems. Now's the time for the people to lead — and our leaders can follow.
"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
That's the line from the Oscar-nominated film "Network" everyone remembers, as it launched a thousand parodies and at least an ad campaign or two.But few people can recall the beleaguered Beale's soliloquy beforehand:
"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter.
"Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had 15 homicides and 63 violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be.
"We know things are bad — worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.'
"Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad!"
Substitute an iPod, TiVo and Xbox, and it all sounds eerily familiar, if not a smidge apocalyptic.
In the past few years, I have had scores of conversations with Michiganders who have touched on these themes. There is a palpable frustration, even anger.
One thing almost everybody can agree on: Our state is in trouble.
But nobody knows how to change it.Enter the Center for Michigan, which is recruiting people from Benzonia to Battle Creek to brainstorm an action plan for the state in 90-minute community conversations during the next two months.
They're guaranteed to be more constructive — and productive — than screaming out your window.
The center, a bipartisan, nonprofit "think and do tank" outside Ann Arbor, calls this "Michigan's Defining Moment." After all, we have the worst economy in the nation, an abysmal rating with Wall Street, a shrinking population, threats to the Great Lakes, an ailing auto industry, a crumbling core city and a structural budget deficit that still hasn't been resolved even after last week's last-minute deal.
More than 80 forums will take place statewide, with Kellogg Community College, the Kellogg Foundation and Battle Creek Unlimited throwing their muscle behind the effort locally.
The center's approach is one of pragmatism, not dogmatism, aimed at bringing the left, right and center together to set firm goals to revitalize Michigan before the 2010 election, when most state leaders will be booted due to term limits. Conversations will be underpinned by civility, something sorely lacking in cable news talk shows, the blogosphere or even the Capitol.
Rather than being bland spitballing sessions, the center wants residents' feedback in three key areas: how Michigan can grow, retain and attract a skilled workforce in a global economy; invest in our economy and quality of life; and reform government at all levels to be more efficient, modern and accountable.Organizers also want to inject some much-needed pride into our state.
After all, we live in a place of unparalleled beauty nestled between four Great Lakes, which is home to some of the best universities in the world and has given birth to a slew of innovations from Corn Flakes to cars.
That is fertile soil for a new, modernized Michigan to grow.
But how, you might ask, do these conversations differ from other periodic powwows to set the state straight?
Well, the forums aren't just for the usual suspects — politicians, CEOs, union bosses — though everyone's invited. But as center founder Phil Power stresses, this round of sessions is aimed at all residents, especially those who feel their voices are never heard.
Groups will meet again in the winter, and then the center goes full throttle for the election cycle, presenting the plan to legislators, holding state House race debates and even issue potlucks.
Sounds great. But as a cynical columnist, I had to ask: What if nobody cares and nobody shows?
"You gotta stir people," said the center's Executive Director John Bebow, himself a cynical former journalist. "People have great interest in public affairs if you ask them to participate. But who's been asking?"
After the budget fiasco, it's clear Lansing has a rather remedial understanding of our state's problems. Now's the time for the people to lead — and our leaders can follow.
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