The Michigan Model

IBD Editorials ^ | April 3, 2009

[patton]

“When I was a girl in rural Tennessee during the Great Depression, one could scarce find an able-bodied man. They had all “gone to Detroit” to find a job.”

Ma’am, there is an entire novel in that one sentence.

[cripplecreek]

http://onlyndetroit.com/html/decay/ond-0016-all_abord.htm

[HP8753]

Michigan has desperately tried everything to revive its once prosperous economy.Everything except what they should have tried...........

Cut Taxes,Cut Spending,Cut Regulation,Cut the Welfare rolls,Quit voting for the Communist/Democrat party.

[WVNan]

Strange you should say that. I've been thinking about writing that novel. Barefoot girl, share-cropper's cabin on grandfather's farm. Black Mammy Rose living with our family of six; living on what we could scrape out of the land and Dad teaching for pennies at a country school. No welfare in those days. Mammy Rose's "menfolk" had all gone to Detroit. She was left alone, so we all crunched together in that old house to sink or swim. It was not a bad deal for a kid. We had lots of outdoors in which to roam, we picked cotton and scratched out enough food from a garden, chickens, and pigs.

Stay tuned for "the rest of the story."

[patton]

Oooh, I would buy that book.

And, it would be apropos - given the current recession, people would eat it up.

Start writing, have fun. Remember to show it, not tell it.

;)

[VanDeKoik]

Unbelievable.

Detroit may as well cease to be a independent city, and just revert to a township.

[cripplecreek]

The worst part is that we’ve actually done something right by giving tax breaks to Hollywood and it’s worked. The sad part is that it was limited to Hollywood and will never be a basis for an economy.

[WVNan]

LOL. I can’t decide whether to write it as my biography or as fiction. My whole life is about six novels. Should I break it up into a series of fictionalized biographical novels, or one epic novel? Yeah, like I have time to write a book.

[MissouriConservative]

“We can not win on facts and ideas”

We can ONLY win on facts and ideas. That is what Conservatives do. We are not ruled by feeling but by thinking. Liberals feel, we THINK.

If we have to get into emotions, then we have lost the battle. We do not want to do what the Republicans have done, become our enemy. Either we convince people with facts and our ideas or we lose.

[FrdmLvr]

The Michigan St. train depot, once every bit as magnificent, if not more so, than Grand Central Station. It’s sad to see what’s become of it. To see it standing, battered and abandoned amongst the rest of the battered and decaying neighborhood is just a tragedy. It’s on the outskirts of Corktown, the Irish neighborhood that’s undergone a facelift, and right down the road from Tiger Stadium, another abandoned wreck that’s almost completely torn down, except for one corner. The city never could get it together enough to salvage it for posterity. A part of 20th century American cultural history, gone forever, in both cases.

[patton]

I don’t know - I have never managed to sell a story, though I have told a few.

But I do know, you need to both base it on what you know, and divorce yourself from it.

And, what else do you do with your time - hang out on FR?

You know what makes a PhD? An original contribution to human knowlege. A book. Write one.

“Sarah looked at the dirt between her toes, dreading school today. It would not go well.”

(egads, shoot me - that was awful)

[cripplecreek]

The guy who put the site together seems to have a lot of love for Detroit but has absolutely no love for Coleman Young, Kwamee Kilpatrick, or Minica Conyers.

[FrdmLvr]

Can you blame him?

[cripplecreek]

He seems to know where blame belongs.

[patton]

I am good at bad writing.

So shoot me.

[FrdmLvr]

You got that right!

[WVNan]

LOL....pretty awful. What do I do with my time? Let me count the ways. I’m a retired pastor for a church of 60 members and all that encompasses ( they call it part-time). I’m a member of local Tourism Committee;Chamber of Commerce; President of the county Performing Arts Council, Directing a production of Hansel & Gretel currently, babysit my grandaugher two days a week, but I’m only 75, so I still have a lot to do.

[patton]

You know what I regret?

I missed a date with granpa, to watch the quiet man.

[WVNan]

Now that sounds like a short story. Write it.

[MHGinTN]

My granddaughter (twelve now) and I watch Ratatouille in that fashion, as a ritual we share. It is my favorite movie in the genre presently.