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I speak for the trees
Friday, May 9, 2008

State Senatory Mickey Switalski introduced legislation Wednesday to allow 16-year-olds to vote in school elections, an idea that was prompted by letters from two fourth-graders at Dresden Elementary School in Sterling Heights. The bill came after Dresden Elementary School teacher Heather Schodowski asked her class to write a local legislator about any topic.

The Detroit Historical Society continues the spring edition of its film series with two screenings of "Lily's Detroit" by local filmmaker Kevin Leeser, showing tomorrow and Sunday, at 1 p.m. at the Detroit Historical Museum. The documentary is about actress Lily Tomlin reminiscing about growing up in Detroit. She reacts with love and sadness when Leeser shows her footage of her old neighborhood as it stands now. You can see a good chunk of it here.

Corktown is now the home of a new children's book store. It's called Ladels and was opened by a mother/daughter duo. Co-owner Lauren Thomas join us this morning to share with us some of their favorite new children's literature.

(Corktown's new children's book store, Ladels.)

Detroit duo ADULT, known for their synth-punk music, will present a short, silent experimental horror film accompanied by their own peculiar electronic horror music tonight at the D.I.A. at 7:30 and 9:00. The duo will join us this morning as we listen to a few new, unreleased tracks.

Soh Suzuki is the founding member of Detroit Asian Youth Project, and he's coordinated a collaborative art project with a group of youth from the northeast neighborhood. "In depicting a single object in his paintings, he explores the meanings (both that of meaningfulness and meaninglessness) of the object's presence and also is concerned with his racial and ethnic identity in this art making process." The Detroit Asian Youth Project is putting on a demonstration at the D.I.A. on Saturday afternoon, from 1-5.

(Soh's work)

Speaking of the D.I.A., it's been six months since they re-opened their doors to the public after a comprehensive and expensive renovation and re-installation process. The Museum...with the help of a New York based design firm started to re-think how people experience art museums. And now the museum is seeing how their efforts have paid off. Detroit Today's Zak Rosen has more from one of the newly refurbished gallery inside the DIA.

 


Heather Raffo's 9 Parts of Desire starring Sarab Kamoo has been hailed as an example of how art can remake the world! Kamoo teams up with award-winning director Edward Nahhat to bring Ms. Raffo's play to life. The play is a performer's tour de force; one actress portrays nine different characters in a non-stop 90 minute immersion in the heartache, love, laughter and redemption these heroic Iraqi women find through the war. The show starts tonight at the Boll Family YMCA and runs through May 24th.

Sey Lui formed in the early summer of 2005, based on a mutual fondness for loose, dynamic, instrumental and improvisational music; with the aim of expanding on what they could accomplish with minimalism and repetition as a starting point. The trio will be in to perform for us this morning. They're playing CAID's 3rd annual Sonic Lullaby Festival this weekend.

 

 

divided/united
Thursday, May 8, 2008

Yesterday, a divided Michigan Supreme Court ruled "that a 2004 voter-approved ban against gay marriage also blocks governments and state universities from offering health insurance to the partners of gay workers." The decision will affect at least 375 gay couples. The ACLU has blasted the decision which upheld a lower court's decision that Proposal 2, passed by Michigan voters in 2004, prohibits public employers from offering domestic partner benefits. We'll hear from the ACLU this morning, and hopefully from you as well. 313-577-1019

As you've been hearing on our airwaves over the past few weeks, Democracy Now's Amy Goodman is coming to town tomorrow night at 7 p.m. Her new book is Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times. She'll join us this morning.

On Tuesday, the Homeland Security and Emerging Technologies Committee voted to send house bill 4854 to the Senate. The legislation requires public pension funds to divest from companies that do business with the government of Sudan. Michigan Senator Cameron Brown, chairs the committee and joins us this morning.

Last year…Chris Crocker posted a video on YouTube. It shows him under bed sheets…pleading with the media to leave Brittney Spears alone. It was viewed over 19 million times. What does the troubled pop star have in common with Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick? Not much…but they both inspired Victor Vulaj of Wixom… to post his own video on YouTube. Noah Ovshinsky has the story.

WARM Training Center has just released a very handy and helpful guide for homeowners. You can get it for free here. WARM's Jacob Corvidae will be in to talk all about what every homeowner should know about Green Building.

Satchel Vasandani is a Jazz Vocalist receiving a good deal of national attention as of late. He's the featured act at The Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe' this week. He's playing their tonight through Saturday. Folks can call 313-882 -JAZZ for more info.