‘Tomatoes & Eggs’ Part I: Slavery at Grosse Ile, Michigan

Posted on February 9, 2013 by admin
pics inventory of slaves header

Inventory of slaves in Detroit, Michigan. Joel Thurtell photo of record in Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

By Joel Thurtell

Just as I predicted in a January 2007 Detroit Free Press story, Grosse Ile’s historians changed history.

But not the way I expected.

Early in 2007 (I retired from my Free Press reporting job the following November), the people who manage historical perceptions on the Big Island led me to believe that they were going to include the slavery aspect of their community’s past in a book they were preparing about Grosse Ile history.

Instead of publishing the facts, they chose to censor.

In Part II of my series, “Tomatoes & Eggs,” I’ll reproduce my review of the Grosse Ile Historical Society’s book.

And I’ll explain “Tomatoes & Eggs.”

With permission from the Detroit Free Press, here is the first installment of a series about local control of history.

pics macomb slave inventory
After William Macomb’s death in 1796, an inventory was made of his property, including 26 human beings who were slaves in Detroit. Values in New York currency at right. Photo by Joel Thurtell with permission of Burton Historical Collection.

Headline: HISTORY TELLS TALE OF SLAVES ON GROSSE ILE

Sub-Head: BUT MANY DETAILS ARE STILL A MYSTERY

Byline:  BY JOEL THURTELL FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Pub-Date: 1/21/2007

Memo:  DOWNRIVER

Correction:

Text: On Grosse Ile, they’re changing history.

Or at least they’re changing the way it’s written.

They plan to mention that black and American Indian slaves once lived

on the island.

pics macomb slave william macomb signature
William Macomb’s signature on letter about sale of two of his slaves. Photo by Joel Thurtell with permission of Burton Historical Collection.

Sarah Lawrence and Ann Bevak are working on the Grosse Ile Historical

Society book, and this information wasn’t on their radar.

Now it is.

Lawrence is editing the book, and Bevak is working on the early

history chapter.

Once I shared the results of my research with Bevak, she grasped the

possibilities, like reproducing the 1796 price list of slaves.

“It’s the kind of thing people will latch onto,” she said.

They aren’t the only Grosse Ile folks who are only now hearing about

this, even though human chattels were a part of daily life on Grosse

Ile for sure before 1796, and maybe later. That’s the year Britain

turned Michigan over to the fledgling United States. It’s also when

the largest holder of slaves in Michigan died.

After the death of William Macomb, his heirs itemized all  his

property – cows and horses, copper fish kettles, a beehive, a pair of

saddlebags and 26 slaves.

Twenty years earlier, William Macomb and his brother, Alexander

Macomb, bought Grosse Ile from Indians. I wrote about the Macomb

(pronounced Macoom) brothers a couple of years ago and got an e-mail

from Bill McGraw, a fellow Free Press reporter, who wondered if I knew

that William Macomb had been a slave-owner.

I didn’t.

At that point, McGraw contended that historians have written little or

nothing about this aspect of Michigan history.

Seems he’s right.

The Macomb brothers have descendants on Grosse Ile, and they didn’t

know about it. The brothers were the

great-great-great-great-grandfathers of Connie de Beausset. (Two of

the brothers’ children, who were first cousins, married and de

Beausset is their descendant.)  Her family owns the oldest working

farm in Michigan to stay in one family;  the farm specializes in

azaleas and rhododendrons.

“No, I can’t be any help to you at all on that,” Connie de Beausset

told me. “I haven’t heard anything about any slaves.”

Her daughter, who runs the family’s Westcroft Gardens, was surprised too.

“No, I wasn’t aware of them having slaves at all,” said Denise de

Beausset. “That’s funny; you’d think there would have been talk about

slaves running the farm. Nobody ever talks about it on our side. I

wonder if it was out of embarrassment or it wasn’t politically

correct. Nobody ever talked about slaves.

“I’ll be darned.”

I found the inventory of William Macomb’s property in the Detroit

Public Library’s Burton Historical Collection. The list is quite long,

and includes two oxen valued at 24 New York pounds; four cows, 40

pounds; a pair of andirons, 4 pounds, and a stovepipe, 25 pounds.

It has an “Estimation of the Slaves of the late William Macomb.” Most

esteemed were two slaves named Scipio and Jim Girty, each valued at

130 New York pounds. Ben was worth 100 pounds. Bel was priced at 135

pounds, but that included her three kids. Bob was worth 60 pounds.

Phillis was worth 40 pounds, though she was only 7 days old.

Jerry was valued at 100 pounds and his wife, Charlotte, with her two

children, was priced at 100 pounds.

But here’s the interesting thing about Charlotte: In 1793 and 1794,

the Macomb house on Grosse Ile was “in charge of Charlotte,” wrote

Isabella Swan in “Deep Roots,” her history of Grosse Ile. “Charlotte

had been with the Macombs as early as 1788,” wrote Swan.

Charlotte was boss of the farm, but still, after her owner’s death,

she was cataloged along with William Macomb’s 25 other human pieces of

property.

“I’ve never heard that name Charlotte,” Connie de Beausset told me.

What happened to Charlotte and the other 25 Macomb slaves? Letters in

the Burton Collection, written by William Macomb before his death,

show that he was in the habit of buying and selling slaves.

On Jan. 12, 1790, Macomb acknowledges partial payment for “a negro wench.”

He wrote on Aug. 17, 1789, that “I have taken the liberty to address

to your care Two negroes a Woman & a man the property of Mr. Alexis

Masonville. They are to be disposed of at your place for 200 pounds

New York currency.  I cannot say much in their favor as to honesty,

more particularly of the woman she is very handy & a very good cook.

The man is a very smart active fellow & by no means a bad slave.

“I hope you may be able to dispose of them at your place & remit to me

the money. I do not wish they should be dispose of to any person

doubtful or on a longer credit than the first of June next – I am Dear

sir your very Able servant Wm Macomb.”

The Ordinance of 1787 banned slavery in the new territories that would

become Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. But slaves belonging to

British settlers were still allowed. The 1810 census showed 17 slaves

still in Detroit, according to the American Legal History Network Web

site www.geocities.com/michhist/detroitslave.html?20079, and in 1818,

the Wayne County assessor was still taxing slaves as property.

On Grosse Ile, African Americans weren’t the only slaves. According to

Swan, there may have been an enslaved Indian on the island about 1795.

“The Indians who were slaves had been taken captive in inter-tribal

wars and sold to the whites. Those who held slaves when the Americans

took over were allowed to retain them,” wrote Willis Dunbar in

“Michigan: A History of the Wolverine State.”

With historical documents and publications to refer to, the Grosse Ile historians can use

the information about slavery in their book, to be published by Arcadia Publishing in

Chicago.

“I think that would be a good part for the book,” said Denise de

Beausset “That’s a really big part of the history of the island, that

it’s not just the rich and famous that moved here later.”

Great. Now I have another assignment for you Grosse Ile historians.

Under “slaves” in the index of Isabella Swan’s book there’s a

reference to pages 37-38: “Ben and Dan escape.”

Well, Ben and Dan made such a clean getaway that I can’t find mention

of them on either of those pages. Can somebody tell me the story of

those fugitive slaves, Ben and Dan?

Caption: 2005 photo by MARY SCHROEDER / Detroit Free Press

Connie de Beausset holds a copy of the treaty that the Macombs and the

Indians signed giving the Macombs the right to Grosse Ile. Although de

Beausset is a descendant of the Macombs, neither she nor her daughter,

Denise de Beausset, had known of the existence of family slaves.

JOEL THURTELL / Detroit Free Press

William Macomb’s signature on a letter relating to the sale of two slaves.

JOEL THURTELL / Detroit Free Press

“Estimation of the Slaves of the late William Macomb,” from the

inventory of Macomb’s property.

2005 photo by KATHLEEN GALLIGAN / Detroit Free Press

A Historical Commission marker stands on the Grosse Ile site of the

state’s oldest continuously working farm. Its owners are descendants

of William Macomb.

Illustration:  PHOTO

Edition: METRO FINAL

Section:  CFP; COMMUNITY FREE PRESS

Page: 1CV

Keywords: michigan history

Disclaimer:  THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE

PRINTED ARTICLE

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Hacking JOTR

Posted on February 9, 2013 by admin

By Joel Thurtell

The New York Times is lucky.

Lucky they’re a wealthy organization that can afford to hire a topflight computer security company when they find out that their computers have been hacked.

I can kid around about my big newsroom staff.

There’s Peter Pizzicato, music critic.

Writing restaurant reviews is Melanie Munch.

Ned Yardline edits sports.

Mary Typeset is our copy editor.

And Peppermint Patti is my star columnist.

Patti is my dog.

When I run into computer problems, I have nobody to turn to except for Billie Baud, head of IT here at JOTR.

In other words, the buck stops with me in every department, including computer security.

The Times believes that Chinese government hackers broke through the newspaper firewalls to access sensitive information.

I have no way of knowing who hacked my system.

It happened at least two times in 2012. Hackers struck in March, and for a time I was afraid I had lost all my files back to November 2007 when I first started writing for joelontheroad. My son, Adam, and his web-savvy pal, Potsy, struggled to revive JOTR. I had my site back in time to break articles about California’s Capital Appreciation Bond scam in April, May and June. Then in July, weird things began to happen. I had trouble using the site. I posted only one column in July 2012.

On August 17, 2012, I took two massive hits. The first came from The New York Times, when the paper of record falsely credited another news organization with breaking the story of an atrocious Capital Appreciation Bond issue by Poway schools in San Diego. That story actually was broken by me. I wrote about Poway’s CABs starting on May 1. I desperately wanted to respond to The Times. When I tried to log onto joelontheroad, I discovered it had again been hacked.

This time, I hired a professional webmaster to clean up the site.

Who paid for that?

Well, I don’t have advertisers paying to appear on my site.

I don’t charge people for visiting my site.

So yes, it was I who paid for repairing my site.

It took several days for me to regain access, but in fact, even after I could again log in, my site was still contaminated. My web guy had not cleaned the site thoroughly. Google was warning readers to beware of my site. According to my web guy, it would take time for google to scan my site and approve it for general consumption. But the google warning persisted for months. Early this year, I hired a new web person who succeeded in making my site secure for visitors. We now have a clean record with google.

I decided to write about the hack attacks on my site after reading about what happened to The New York Times. On August 17, 2012, when my site was taken down the very day when the Times wrote about me, I wondered if there were a connection. The Times provided a link to my site. Suddenly, I was exposed to the world. Normally, that would be a good thing — great publicity. Too bad for me that my site was hacked and vanished just when it had attained great visibility, thanks to the Times.

I’ve assumed that the two incidents — mention of JOTR in the Times and the near-simultaneous hacking of my site — were unrelated. In truth, I have no way of knowing.

But I sympathize with the agony of Times people whose files were illegally accessed. However, at least the Times didn’t lose access to their publication.

When you’re one guy paying to maintain a website while doing all the writing as well as such editing as a writer can perform on his own work, and suddenly disaster strikes in the form of some fun-loving vandal in who knows what country, you have a choice.

You can fold the operation and say to hell with it.

Or you can convince yourself that your site is performing a public service that is vitally needed even though there is no valid economic argument for keeping it alive.

Here at joelontheroad, I found myself muzzled at a time when I most needed to speak.

How ironic that the message I most wanted to communicate was my unhappiness about the way the Times had written about my role in the California CAB story.

I’ve convinced myself that this site has performed a public service. I was the first to speak out against the billionaire bridgemaster, Matty Moroun. I broke the California CAB story, which is now an issue before the Legislature in Sacramento. JOTR is an independent voice, and I intend to keep it alive as long as I can.

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CABs, me and The NY Times

Posted on February 8, 2013 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

If you get a mention in The New York Times, be grateful.

Even if it’s baloney.

Remember what P.T. Barnum said about not caring what the papers said about him as long as they spelled his name right.

Guess I’m no P.T.

Gotta come out with it.

Floyd Norris spelled my name correctly in his August 17, 2012 Times article about Capital Appreciation Bonds in California. And he even gave me credit, in a backhanded way, for breaking the story. But he had so many ways of taking it back that I can’t help feeling slapped.

As I point out to students at Joel’s J School, the Times reporter didn’t call me to get my views, even though he mentioned my name and status. Nor is there any attribution for the shreds of information contained in this paragraph:

In San Diego, the bond issue first gained attention on The Voice of San Diego, a Web-based publication, which published an article this month headlined “Where Borrowing $105 Million Will Cost $1 Billion: Poway Schools.” As the Voice noted, others, including Joel Thurtell, a Michigan blogger, had written outraged articles about the bond issue. But it was the Voice article that attracted national attention, including a report on CNBC.

1. According to The Times, I wrote about Poway on May 12, 2012. This is incorrect. My May 12 column was my third essay about Poway. I broke the Poway story on May 1 and wrote subsequent columns about Poway on May 10 and May 12.

2. My website, joelontheroad.com, is available worldwide, including in San Diego. Journalists other than those at The Voice of San Diego were aware of the Poway story from my columns before The Voice published. Therefore, The Times’ assertion that “in San Diego, the bond issue first gained attention on The Voice of San Diego,” is false. I reported Poway three months before The Voice’s August 6 story appeared.

3. Since when is getting the attention of CNBC a substitute for being first to publish a story?

4. Since when does the tone of a story — “outrage” have anything to do with having or not having a scoop?

5. The Voice of San Diego is, according to The Times, “a Web-based publication.” Joel Thurtell is “a Michigan Blogger.” But wait — isn’t my blog a Web-based publication? Why designate me a “blogger” and The Voice “a Web-based publication”? Is it because “blog” has a pejorative, or less respectable, sound to it, while “Web-based publication” sounds more Establishment?

6. What difference does it make that I’m a blogger living in Michigan? Does the Timester think that my location in Michigan disqualifies me from having a scoop about California?

Actually, this Michigan question is a good one. If the Timester had called me, I would have explained what he would have known if he’d been reading my blog for the past four months: I discovered the plague of CABs in Michigan in 1992 and after several months of research, the Detroit Free Press on April 5, 1993 published a set of my stories and charts demonstrating how Michigan schools were mortgaging their future by issuing high-interest municipal bonds known as CABs. In 1994, we won the Michigan Education Association’s School Bell Award for the stories. More importantly, in July 1994, the Michigan Legislature enacted new legislation banning CABs and clamping down on the buddy-system that had allowed attorneys to represent school boards and bond underwriters at the same time.

A phone call from The Times would have corrected all these misconceptions.

Giving credit to the journalist who REALLY broke the Poway story would have better served Times readers. Instead of pussy-footing and equivocating about “web-based publications” vs. Michigan bloggers, Mr. Norris could have shown that the CAB abuse has been around for a long time and Californians would do well to look at their long history of profiteering, all of which was exposed by a writer working in Michigan.

 

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God, Boy Scouts and my ‘Eagle Scout kills atheist’ story

Posted on February 8, 2013 by admin

By Joel Thurtell

Once a week for a couple years in the 1950s, we Cub Scouts in our blue shirts and yellow neckerchiefs would make a circle around the dining room table of Mrs. Nash, our den mother. We would place the first two fingers of our right hands against our foreheads and recite the Cub Scout Oath:

“I, (Cub Scout’s name), promise to do my best to do my duty to God and my country, to be square, and to obey the law of the pack.”

The same “duty to God” phrase appears in the Boy Scout Oath.

I don’t think we paid much attention to the words, but words are important to the Scouts. Words were what they used until recently to exclude gays from taking part in scouting.

That bit about “duty to God” is still very important to the Boy Scouts. Under pressure from gay and civil rights organizations, the Boys Scouts of America is considering whether to let gays become Boy Scouts and scout leaders. But the ban on atheists and agnostics remains.

Here’s what the scouts have to say about people who don’t believe in God:

The Boy Scouts of America’s official position is that atheists and agnostics cannot participate as Scouts or adult Scout Leaders in its traditional Scouting programs.

“The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God. In the first part of the Scout Oath or Promise the member declares, ‘On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law.’ The recognition of God as the ruling and leading power in the universe and the grateful acknowledgment of His favors and blessings are necessary to the best type of citizenship and are wholesome precepts in the education of the growing members.”

The BSA believes that atheists and agnostics are not appropriate role models of the Scout Oath and Law for boys, and thus will not accept such persons as members or adult leaders.

Anyone who doesn’t believe in God belongs to some lower-grade class of citizen. The people who run the Boy Scouts are serious about defining atheists as less-than-worthy citizens. Apparently, some scouts believe this. One person who took those anti-atheist words seriously was Arthur Shelton, a self-professed Eagle Scout convicted of murdering his friend, Larry Hooper, for refusing to say he believed in God.

While it’s true that the scouts also instruct their members that a Boy Scout “respects the beliefs of others,” they make it plain that a good scout should disrespect the non-belief of others. When you declare that nobody “can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God” and that “atheists and agnostics are not appropriate role models…for boys,” you’ve authorized disrespect for anyone who doesn’t believe in God. Tacking on that a good scout “respects the beliefs of others” is a sly reminder that those who don’t believe in God can never be real citizens and, moreover, make bad role models.

Well, okay, but you can’t say the Boy Scouts actually told Arthur Shelton to murder his friend for refusing to believe in God.

Of course not.

All the Boy Scouts did was make it possible for Arthur Shelton to perceive Larry Hooper. the atheist, as a substandard human being.

“I did it because he is evil,” Shelton told police. “He was not a believer.”

With permission of the Detroit Free Press, I’m re-publishing my October 28, 2004 article about how one man interpreted the Boy Scout ban on atheists.

TAYLOR: Death is result of debate about God

October 28, 2004

BY JOEL THURTELL
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

A Taylor police dispatcher took the call at precisely 12:44 p.m. on Oct. 18.

A 49-year-old man said he’d just blasted a man with a revolver and a shotgun because the man said he didn’t believe in God.

The dispatcher said the alleged shooter told him he’d just shot “the devil himself” and was still armed and standing over the body of the 62-year-old victim “in case he moved.”

“I want to make sure he’s gone,” the alleged shooter told the dispatcher.

The dispatcher asked the suspect how many times he shot the victim.

“Hopefully enough,” was the suspect’s chilling reply, according to the dispatcher.

When police arrived in the 15600 block of McGuire, they could see the victim seated on a living room couch with major trauma to his head, officers said.

They said they were certain he was dead. He was.

Lying on a hallway floor was a black 12-gauge shotgun. Two spent shotgun shells lay on the floor nearby.

Later, police found a revolver with five spent cartridge casings.

On the way to the police station, the suspect told police “he did not want to deal with anyone that did not believe in God,” according to the report.

The report also indicated that the suspect and the victim knew each other, although their relationship was unclear.

The suspect said he was an Eagle Scout, the report said.

The suspect said the victim had told him there was nothing he could say that would convince the 62-year-old to believe in God.

Following this discussion, the suspect said, he went into another room and removed his shirt. Then he shaved his face.

He tried once more to convince the victim to believe in God, but this time, he had the shotgun.

“How long would it take you to believe in God?” the suspect said he asked the victim.

“Not until I hear Gabriel blow his horn,” the victim allegedly replied, while tipping his hat.

That’s when the suspect shot him.

“I did it because he is evil; he was not a believer,” the suspect told police.

The suspect said the victim “has been locked up most of his life.”

Michigan Department of Corrections records indicate the victim was on probation for a drug conviction.

At the police station, the suspect commented that he believed there is a God.

Then, looking at the floor, he seemed to have second thoughts: “Maybe there’s not,” he said.

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My NRA hit list

Posted on February 7, 2013 by admin

By Joel Thurtell

I’m on the NRA’s hit list.

They’re hitting me up for money so they can protect patriotic Americans whose “Second Amendment rights,” the NRA claims, are in danger of being “dismantled and destroyed.”

“THEY WANT TO MAKE FIREARMS OWNERSHIP A PRIVILEGE – NOT A RIGHT!”

“They” are “liberal lawmakers” poised to steal our right to bear arms, according to the NRA”s fundraising letter.

Since the NRA is hitting on me, guess I’ll hit on the NRA.

I know something about guns.

And I know something about bears.

When I was a kid, I took a marksmanship and gun safety class at a YMCA camp in western Michigan where we were trained to safely handle and fire a .22 rifle. I have hunted with shotguns and rifles, shot at targets with a .22 rifle and fired the legendary 1911A1 Colt Automatic Pistol and German Luger.

I stopped hunting years ago. But meanwhile, for thirty-some years, I’ve been vacationing in a remote area of Ontario where cottagers and black bears have been encountering each more and more frequently. In the past few years, we’ve had something of a bear hysteria in our area of Georgian Bay. Dozens of times each summer, bears have been breaking into cottages and helping themselves to food. Often, they cause extensive damage. Occasionally, the incursions happen when people are present. Since black bears are predators of humans, whom they occasionally eat, this is not a joke. To me, the tales were somehow not real. That is, until I saw my first black bear in 2010. Suddenly, I could imagine the danger: This was no teddy bear, but a big, powerful, wild animal.

I decided it was time for me to think about how I would protect myself, my family, our dog and our cottage from marauding bears.

The solution seemed simple: Get a gun.

But to own a firearm in Canada, I would need something that seems completely foreign in the United States: a license.

In Canada, they’ve done what the NRA is so scared of: They’ve made firearms ownership a privilege, not a right.

If I intended to keep a rifle or shotgun, I would need a PAL.

“PAL” is short for “Possession and Acquisition License.”

In Canada, you can purchase and keep a non-restricted firearm (long guns like rifles and shotguns) if you take a class in firearm safety and pass a written and practical test.

There’s a bit more to it than that. For instance, you can’t have been convicted of a felony. To prove it, you need a certificate of good behavior from your local police department.

You need references from people who will attest that you are a responsible person.

Your spouse, if you have one, must sign that he or she is okay with your possessing firearms.

What’s so bad about that?

The process is run by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and it’s pretty straightforward. You don’t even have to take a class. You can do what’s called “challenging the exam.” That’s what I did. I studied a book called “Canadian Firearms Safety Course,” and when I was sure I’d learned the basics of firearm safety, I found a certified instructor, made an appointment and took and passed the test.

Nobody said I can’t keep a gun. The Canadians simply want to be sure I’m not likely to turn a firearm against someone else.

They’re also concerned about the high incidence of firearms used to commit suicide. So the PAL form has questions about the applicant’s mental health.

The Mounties can’t stop someone with a PAL from shooting up a bar or robbing a bank or committing suicide.

But what’s so bad about insisting that anyone who keeps a firearm know something about firearm safety?

What’s wrong with insisting that gun owners keep their firearms in a locked and secure place so kids can’t play with them and thieves can’t steal them?

What’s wrong with insisting that gun owners show that they’re responsible members of the community?

The NRA can hit on me all they want. They won’t get a penny from me.

Make firearms ownership a privilege?

One word describes that idea: Sane.

Joel Thurtell is a retired Detroit Free Press reporter who runs a blog, joelontheroad.com, and teaches journalism at Wayne State University.

This piece was submitted January 31, 2013 as an oped to The New York Times.

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Counting bodies, or not

Posted on January 31, 2013 by admin

 

Peppermint Patti

Peppermint Patti

For all the adorable images of cats that play the piano, flush the toilet, mew melodiously and find their way back home over hundreds of miles, scientists have identified a shocking new truth: cats are far deadlier than anyone realized.  

The New York Times, January 29, 2013

By Peppermint Patti 

What a relief, Sophie! We got off scot-free!

Geniuses at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have figured out that cats kill animals!

Ain’t that something?

And glory of glories, they left us dogs alone!

Whew!

What a relief, Sophie. Whatever they call those nasty things* that come out of the two-leggers’ bang-sticks, we dodged a big one.

If they knew what I — a lone wag-tail** — accomplished last summer in the way of rodenticide!

Let us just say, without specificity, that I knocked off some fluff-butts.***

Leave it at that, before the Smithsonian comes around checking.

What’s that?

Those scientists don’t actually count?

Yes, okay Sophie, I admit to two, as in 2, confirmed cotton-butt kills.

According to my two-legger.

Hah! I will gladly confirm two dead and leave it at that.

Nothing more delicious than fresh, raw fluff-butt, Sophie, as well you know.

Since you’re into outing me on fluff-tail mortality, Sophie, am I mistaken, or did I hear you ponderous black Labs brakking**** about feasting on whole extended families of  fluff-tusches?

All of which is by way of preamble as I meander to my point: What did the Smithsonian and F & W folks actually count?

Oh, the numbers are eye-catching enough:

“2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year, most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles rather than introduced pests like the Norway rat,” according to the Times.

Them’s a lot of sparrows and voles, Sophie.

Did you note the latent racism, Sophie?

I feel sorry for the poor Norway rat. His or her only sin was being brought to this country by two-leggers. What choice did the poor rat have?

What’s so great about “native” shrews, chipmunks and voles that they rate higher on the scale of conservation than the lowly Norway rat?

Do we need green cards for rats?

Shhh, Sophie — how many of us wag-butts are actually native to America?

And what about mice? Why no mention of mice?

Prejudice, Sophie. Two-leggers are always downgrading each other, and they do the same thing to us animals. Nothing we can do. Racism. Defect of the species.

Here’s the clincher, Sophie: How many of those billions of dead birds and mammals did the geniuses count?

How many shrew and vole and chipmunk corpses did they handle?

Zero!

Did they account for native vs. non-native species? Do we care how many sparrows got offed, given that they immigrated from Limey-land*****?

Those self-styled scientists made a computer model of other people’s body counts.

Except that the other people did not count corpses, either.

Nobody counted!

A model of models.

My study is better, Sophie.

I counted to two.

Let them guess the rest.

Editor’s note:

* It appears that Patti means “bullet.”

** Wag-tail = dog

*** Fluff-butt = rabbit

**** Brakking = bark bragging

***** Limey-land — England would appear to be the reference here.

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Do the math: Right-to-work makes great sense at Free Press

Posted on January 19, 2013 by admin

By Joel Thurtell

Excellent article by Detroit Free Press editorial editor Stephen Henderson explaining why “right to work makes absolutely no sense for Michigan.”

Sound arguments all the way.

I agree 100 percent.

One fact not mentioned: The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press are open shops, according to contracts negotiated by unions after the long, debilitating lockout that began July 13, 1995.

“Open shop” at the News and Free Press means workers have the right not to be members of a union.

Kind of “right-to-work” in miniature.

The way it works at the News and Free Press, if a worker elects not to belong to a union, he or she doesn’t have to pay union dues.

This is the real reason Republicans rushed to enact so-called “right-to-work” legislation.

Nothing to do with personal liberty, despite all the GOP breast-beating.

It’s all about depriving unions of dues.

Starve them of money, and you weaken unions.

Make them less likely to pursue ballot proposals like the failed attempt to insert workers’ rights to organize collectively into Michigan’s Constitution where Republican hatchet-men can’t kill them.

Cut back on dues, and the unions have less money to help their members.

Less money to pursue grievances and binding arbitration, all of which costs money in legal fees and union administrators’ time.

Less money to build the coffers that bolster unions on strike.

I learned all about open shop when I returned from the Great Newspaper Strike in 1997 and found that only 25 percent of editorial employees in our Newspaper Guild local’s jurisdiction were paying dues.

Seventy-five percent of editorial employees were freeloaders.

Excuse me — we were coached to say “free riders.”

“Freeloaders” is an insulting word.

Very sensitive feelings have these freeloaders.

When I retired in 2007, the proportion of dues-payers had risen to 67 percent. I understand now it’s 80 percent. That’s great, except that it means 20 percent still are scumb — I mean, freeloaders.

People willing to let others carry the burden.

But, of course, freeloaders are quite willing to collect any raises the union might bargain for.

Freeloaders are quite willing to collect the union-bargained pension when they retire to contemplate the supposedly noble life they led in the hallowed fourth estate.

Freeloaders who get into a jam are glad to call the union to represent them if the company is trying to discipline or fire them.

All of those benefits are paid for from union dues that the freeloaders choose through their vaunted personal liberty not to pay.

So here is what I have to say about freeloaders.

We need another law to supplement right-to-work.

Cut the freeloaders out of union-won benefits.

If they don’t pay dues, don’t give them a pension.

Cut them out of health insurance.

When they get in a jam, tell them to find their steward on the street.

You want benefits, you pay dues.

If not, you’re free to go to hell.

 

 

 

 

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Daily Show skewers Matty

Posted on January 10, 2013 by admin

By Joel Thurtell

Poor Matty Moroun.

The billionaire Ambassador Bridge owner just can’t get no respect.

The latest brine was poured onto his wounds by Al Madrigal of The Daily Show.

Thank you, Jon Stewart!

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Setting UM’s tone

Posted on December 16, 2012 by admin

By Joel Thurtell

Sidney Gilman’s Alzheimers research colleagues at the University of Michigan see some kind of “riddle” in their mentor and erstwhile hero’s parleying expert medical credentials into $1,000-an-hour consulting fees while serving as director of UM’s Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.

Where’s the riddle?

It was all about money.

The jig’s up for Dr. Gilman. He crossed the line into illegal territory, it is said, when he passed drug test results to investors before releasing them to the public. That gave his off-campus employer, SAC Capital, time to dump $700 million in Elan and Wyeth stock before other traders found out that the Alzheimer’s drug being tested was a dud. SAC Capital avoided $276,000,000 in losses thanks to Dr. Gilman’s timely tip.

Now that Dr. Gilman’s inside information racket is in the news, he’s retired, and the good doctor never existed as far as UM is concerned.

According to The New York Times, “The University of Michigan, where he was a professor for decades, has erased any trace of him on its Web sites, and is now reviewing its consulting policy for employees, a spokesman said.”

As long as UM is in erasure mode, there’s another abomination I’d like to see them wipe out.

That would be UM President Mary Sue Coleman’s annual $230,000 earnings as a board member for Big Pharm firm Johnson & Johnson.*

Doesn’t she make enough — $585,000 a year in 2011 — as UM’s president? She’s the fifth-highest paid university president in the country.**

Her $230,000 from the drug company makes Dr. Gilman’s extracurricular 100 grand a year seem downright second-rate.

What’s the difference between Dr. Gilman collecting grand-an-hour fees from financial firms and Mary Sue cashing in on almost a quarter mil from J & J?

The Times quoted University of Pennsylvania cardiovascular researcher Dr. Garret A. FitzGerald: “What is the argument for sanctioning your full-time faculty, using your brand name, to advise the financial sector? What’s the public good there?”

Dr. FitzGerald should have said, “financial AND pharmaceutical sectors.”

What, indeed, is the public good in presidential moonlighting?

Dr. Gilman was second fiddle.

Mary Sue sets the tune.

* Presidetn COleman’s Wikipedia listing notes that she still serves on the J & J board.

** It’s not clear whether the $742,000 total earnings reported for Coleman by CNN Money in 2006 include the Johnson & Johnson pay.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

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Guns again

Posted on December 16, 2012 by admin

Last time I ran this column, the lethal gunfire was in Arizona. Now the carnage is in Connecticut. Seems timely to re-run my October 2, 2010 column about Canada’s firearms law:

By Joel Thurtell

Watch out, NRA. My PAL’s gonna get you.

Before I tell you about my PAL, though, I’d like to share the big scare I got today, October 2, 2010, when I opened a letter addressed to me from the National Rifle Association.

The NRA said it’s asking “patriotic Americans like you”  to join their cause.

Did you know that a small cabal of liberal Democratic lawmakers is conspiring against us patriots?

“Unless you act now,” the NRA told me, “your Second Amendment rights are certain to be dismantled and destroyed.”

Wow! That scared me about as much as the black bear that swam near my boat last summer in Georgian Bay.

I know about those bears. They are tough hombres. Well, not hombres, exactly, because that’s the Spanish word for “man.” Tough customers they are. Why, one of those black bears actually broke into a refrigerator at our neighbor’s place in Canada and made off with a half-gallon of strawberry ice cream!

Know what’s REALLY scary? Pistol-totin’ people with guns in public places. Like bars. Four states allow pistol-packers in taverns. Now THAT scares me!

But the NRA says we’re losing our gun-totin’ rights. I sat up and paid attention when I read the NRA’s prayer that I join them by paying them $25 (a discount from the regular $35 membership fee!!) for a year of protection from liberal lawmakers poised to steal my prized “Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.”

“Because your firearm freedoms and your hunting and shooting traditions are under attack like never before.”

“THEY WANT TO MAKE FIREARMS OWNERSHIP A PRIVILEGE–NOT A RIGHT!”

Now, that might scare me, except I thought about that black bear who swam near my boat last summer, all the while ignoring my stupid human shouts to attract his attention. When you’ve got strawberry ice cream in mind, humans yelling from boats are of no consequence.

I also thought about those concealed pistols in the bars and wondered which way the firearms erosion is flowing. Seems like Second Amendment buffs are getting MORE rights, not less.

As I listened to my neighbors in Ontario telling stories about their encounters with bears busting into kitchens, I decided it was time to take measures. Gotta protect me and my family. No bear’s gonna heist my ice cream!

Gotta have a gun.

But in Canada, they’ve done what the NRA is so scared of: They made firearms ownership a privilege, rather than a right.

Know what? It’s not a bad idea.

Let me tell you about my PAL.

“PAL” is short for “Possession and Acquisition License.”

In Canada, you can purchase and keep a non-restricted firearm (long guns like rifles and shotguns) if you take a class in firearm safety and pass a written and practical test.

There’s a bit more to it than that. For instance, you can’t have been convicted of a felony. To prove it, you need a certificate of good behavior from your local police department.

You need references from people who will attest that you are a responsible person.

Your spouse, if you have one, must sign that he or she is okay with your possessing firearms.

What’s so bad about that?

Hey, you don’t even have to take the class. You can do what’s called “challenging the exam.” That’s what I did. I studied a book called “Canadian Firearms Safety Course,” and when I was sure I’d learned the basics of firearm safety, I took and passed the test.

Nobody said I can’t have a gun. The Canadians simply want to be sure I’m not likely to turn a firearm against someone else.

They’re also concerned about the high incidence of firearms used to commit suicide. So the PAL form has questions about my mental health.

I’m sane as can be, if you ask me — even if I do yell at bears.

Of course, in the end, the mounties can’t stop someone with a PAL from shooting up a bar or robbing a bank or killing him or herself.

But what’s so bad about insisting that anyone who keeps a firearm be trained in the rudiments of firearm safety?

Make firearms ownership a privilege, not a right?

Sounds reasonable to me.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com

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