Category: Commentary
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Village Life: in Flint, there’s always more than one story; there’s always more to come
By Jan Worth-Nelson Some time in the middle of February – by far the longest, the damnedest, the cussedest month of the year in these parts–I got a severe attack of cabin fever. I’d been sick half the winter and between stink bugs, porn stars, scabs of snow everywhere, a terminally ill friend, threats of…
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Review: City’s crime, race, politics all in the lens of compelling, humanizing “Flint Town”
Ed Note: A community conversation about the eight-part Netflix series “Flint Town,” co-sponsored by East Village Magazine and the Flint Area Public Affairs Forum, is set for 5:30-7 p.m. Tuesday, April 10 at the Flint Public Library. Thanks to Ed Bradley for reviewing the series in advance of that event. The series, directed by Zackary…
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Commentary: How to get out the vote? GCD may have the answer–make it hard
By Paul Rozycki It must be a Flint thing. If you want people to do something, tell them you can’t do it. Make it difficult. Make it too easy and they will ignore you. Consider some recent elections in Flint. On one hand, in the last few years, an election to choose the members of…
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Review: “All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire”
Review by Robert R. Thomas Aptly titled, Jonathan Abrams’ book demonstrates his premise via an oral history that focuses on the creation of The Wire, a critically acclaimed HBO television series that ran from 2002 to 2008. Abrams’ book is an engaging dialogue script. But this script is a well-edited transcription of recorded interviews rather…
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Commentary Part One: Is Baker College delivering “college in a can?” Why one Baker faculty member quit
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part commentary considering how college classes are designed and offered — and the teacher’s role — beginning with retired psychologist and former Baker College instructor James Woolcock’s rumination on why he left teaching at the Flint campus. A complementary second perspective is offered by retired teacher and…
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Commentary Part Two: In teaching and course design, “not everyone can cook”
Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part commentary considering how college classes are designed and offered. Part One, available here, details retired psychologist and former Baker College instructor James Woolcock’s rumination, “Grandma’s Homemade Soup,” on why he left teaching at the Flint campus. We requested a response from Baker College, but since our request…
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Commentary: Time to jump-start the new city charter
By Paul Rozycki Last August Flint voters set the city on a new course when they approved the city’s new charter—the first since 1974. In the turmoil over the Flint water crisis, successive emergency managers, and recall elections, the charter sometimes seemed lost in the shuffle. Yet, the Charter Commission produced a significant and important…
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Village Life: Just another drag queen bingo night in Flint cheering things up
By Jan Worth-Nelson Can Flint be any more itself than combining a crowded bookstore, bingo, and a curvy six-foot tall drag queen in red sequins hollering out “B-8, bitches!”? I’ve been here more than 35 years and by now there is nothing much that could surprise me about my adopted hometown. The energy at Totem…
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Gerrymandering Part Three: going to court
By Paul Rozycki Just when you thought you’ve heard enough about gerrymandering, and the ballot proposals to end it—there is one more line of attack. Now the courts are getting involved. Two previous columns in past issues of East Village Magazine (Part One here, Part Two here) have outlined the problems and history of gerrymandering, drawing oddly shaped…
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Review/Commentary: “Destiny of the Republic” a timely look at an honorable president
“When he (James Garfield) was still a very young man, he had hidden a runaway slave… In Congress, he fought for equal rights for freed slaves. He argued for a resolution that ended the practice of requiring blacks to carry a pass in the nation’s capital, and he delivered a passionate speech for black suffrage…‘Let us…
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