Woe is the Budget

From the Economist:

CHOOSING the bleakest statistic from a report issued by Kevyn Orr, Detroit’s emergency manager, on his city’s financial health is like choosing the wettest raindrop in a monsoon. It could be the $1.3 billion general-fund deficit Detroit is forecast to run, absent restructuring, by the 2017 fiscal year. It could be the $200m revenue decline since 2008, the roughly $3.5 billion in unfunded pension liabilities or its $5.7 billion in non-pension retiree liabilities.

With the Free Press covering the impending woe of Detroit pension beneficiaries, this issue is only going to grow in profile. It's scary. These guys were made promises that the city cannot keep. There is no money there. I know there's a lot of debate about over-criminalization, but it truly is a crime that that these fiscal decisions were made and innocent workers will suffer.

DOMA and Moral Equivalence

Scalia’s dissent in the DOMA decision is a must-read. While he also eviscerates the majority’s standards of review (or lack thereof), these statements speak to moral judgment implicit in the Kennedy majority. Very eloquent quotes from Scalia like these:

But to defend traditional marriage is not to condemn, demean, or humiliate those who would prefer other arrangements, any more than to defend the Constitution of the United States is to condemn, demean, or humiliate other constitutions. To hurl  such accusations so casually demeans this institution.

By formally declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency, the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to  its traditional definition.

In the majority’s telling, this story is black-and-white: Hate your neighbor or come along with us. The truth is  more complicated. It is hard to admit that one’s political

opponents are not monsters, especially in a struggle like this one, and the challenge in the end proves more than  today’s Court can handle. Too bad. A reminder that disagreement over something so fundamental as marriage can still be politically legitimate would have been a fit  task for what in earlier times was called the judicial temperament. We might have covered ourselves with honor today, by promising all sides of this debate that it was theirs to settle and that we would respect their resolution. We might have let the People decide.

But that the majority will not do. Some will rejoice in today’s decision, and some will despair at it; that is the nature of a controversy that matters so much to so many.

But the Court has cheated both sides, robbing the winners of an honest victory, and the losers of the peace that  comes from a fair defeat. We owed both of them better.  I dissent.

Mad Men: Season Six

Wow, Mad Men. I saw this CS Lewis quote in an entirely different context, and it bore to mind Don Draper's transformation this season:  "When a man is getting better, he understands more and more clearly the evil that's left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less."

Don Draper spent a lot of time this season getting worse. Some thought he regressed: his affair with Sylvia, his fling with Betty, his excessive drinking, his experimentation with drugs, his sabotage of ad pitches, his back-stabbing of Ted and Peggy, his oblivion of Megan's career.

But in that last scene, after he received his leave from Sterling Cooper & Partners, as his daughter had angrily snubbed his name, as his he coped with her drinking at school, as his wife left the apartment after he told her he would forego moving to California...all of that. He had that moment half-way through, after the preacher told him about sin and forgiveness and Christ, and he had that moment with the Hershey's chocolates, it almost seemed like he was getting better. He understand a little more the evil within him, and he could not cope. And he returned with his children and his pained teenage daughter and they returned to where he came of age. And he revealed his pain there, and then the scene faded to black, until next Spring.

Don Draper is no more black or white than one of the most nuanced characters. You want to hate him, and you can't understand him. But his humanity is revealed and you fall all over again. Bravo, Matthew Weiner.

What Rule of Law?

I’ve been following the legal challenge a Detroit mayoral candidate has been making to get himself on the ballot, and I have to laugh at the way the Detroit Free Press is interpreting the appellate court decision denying the candidate a position on the ballot:

“As much as I respect the judges’ literal interpretations of the charter language here, I think their rulings run counter to the inclusive intent of election law in this state. No one should take much solace in that. And if not in this case, I would hope that sometime soon the state Supreme Court — which has established precedents that make this kind of quirky logic stand — will begin to apply the laws more faithfully with their intent.”

Quirky logic=”literal interpration”

Detroit Re-Imagined

A vision for a new Detroit.

If only...to see that many visitors/residents/guests/etc. milling through the streets of downtown, with stadiums and theaters and shops and restaurants. If only, someday...

Florida

For a trip that began with an agonizingly long delay and to go cups of wine, Florida turned out to be pretty nice. Time with work friends, away from the drudgery of daily life, a little time on the beach, and time with family was the recipe for the perfect weekend. It did go by so fast. It reminded me of previous Orlando visits--at 10, at 12, at 18, at 25...now at 37. Little pockets of memory, and it is a snapshot in time of the girl or the woman I am now. I'm fortunate to have these networks of friends across the country in my life, and days go by and I just only dwell on the frustrations and headaches that exist on a daily basis.

But it was nice way to spend part of Father's Day weekend. Remembering my grandfather, whose parents lived in Bridgeport, Connecticut, apparently. You learn something new every day. If only my great-grandmother had succeeded in evading him! Felicia and Walter, I believe.  How life would change, and cease to exist.

RIP Troy McClure

Thought this was awesome. It serves as the full filmography of Troy McClure, whom you may remember from such films.

And 15 years ago, Phil Hartman passed away. The Simpsons, sans Troy McClure was never the same. He is missed.

Napa '13

The annual Napa trip always goes by much too quickly, and I don't realize it until the whirlwind is over and then we return, all jet-lagged and ready for another week. We had much good food, of course. Bottega was fantastic, and the wine we drank (Biale Black Chicken Zinfindel) was also on Saturday's long and lush menu. That may have been one of my favorite ever Napa menus, though it was much too much. That peach salad with goat cheese, the gnocchi I'm still dreaming of, the sausage and clams and the spice, and dessert, which was the weakest link, though those donuts were quite tasty. Conversation was also delightful, and it made me nostalgic and reflective about my time working here. Though that long flight home, despite the very interesting The Interestings, took even longer. With the husband gone, I've got a long week ahead and much to do. And a disaster of a house to clean up.

Arrested Development Recap

I think this blog by Whitney at Pop Candy perfectly sums up my feelings about the new season of Arrested Development. Though I did not mind the ostriches as much. Perhaps because I probably disliked Lindsey's plot the most (with that weird face blind boyfriend), which made the ostriches a stronger thread in a weak storyline.

So will there be a movie? Who knows. I hope so. I think the unresolved plotlines lend itself to a movie. And the cast, hopefully, will buy in. We shall see. I wouldn't expect it for a few long years, though.

So what to get in to next, now that Mad Men only has a few weeks of fabulous left? (SO Good!). House of Cards, maybe?

Selling out the DIA

As talks in Detroit continue about a possible bankruptcy, there's been speculation that the Detroit Institute of Art's collection may need to be sold. 

Last month, Detroit's emergency financial manager notified the DIA that its art is a municipal asset and might be sold to satisfy creditors. The art world is watching to see what happens next.

"This is unprecedented," says Timothy Rub, president of the Association of Art Museum Directors and head of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. "I can't believe anyone is thinking about liquidating this public treasure." The AAMD has strict guidelines that prohibit museums from selling art except for the purpose of acquiring more art.

Detroit's art museum is one of America's finest, praised for both particular works and encyclopedic range. In addition to Rivera's murals, it displays masterworks by Agnolo Bronzino, Pieter Bruegel and Henri Matisse. A self-portrait of Vincent van Gogh hangs in its galleries. So does Henry Fuseli's "The Nightmare," a weird and well-known image from the Romantic movement that foreshadows Surrealism and other 20th-century tendencies. The DIA's collections of American and African art are of a similarly high caliber.

Yet the museum owns almost none of it. Under a longstanding arrangement, the DIA's collection and its 600,000-square-foot Beaux Arts building belong to Detroit's city government.

I'm not sure if the state could step in and buy it, or if that could even be an option. But all bets are off right now.  And as much as we'd cringe to see that Diego Rivera mural disassembled, there may be little option.

Soccer

I saw the national U.S. team play Germany at RFK yesterday, a stunning 4-3 win! The crowd was huge, and RFK is an outdated stadium. We couldn't even get beer or waters (needed on very hot and humid day). But I can see the energy that hard-core soccer fans bring, and I admit I was even getting into the game. About the game:

Clint Dempsey scored twice in a five-minute span of the second half and moved into second place on the U.S. career scoring list, helping the Americans edge a second-string Germany team 4-3 in an exhibition game Sunday.

The match, which drew 47,359 to RFK Stadium commemorated the 100th anniversary year of the U.S. Soccer Federation and followed a 4-2 loss Wednesday to a first-string Belgium in Cleveland.

"The feel-good factor is amazing," U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard said. "The crowd was great, on the centennial anniversary. It was amazing to be a part of that game, and obviously to beat Germany was special."

Jozy Altidore put the Americans ahead in the 13th minute with his first international goal in 1 1-2 years, and the lead widened to 2-0 lead three minutes later on an own goal by No. 4 Germany goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen, who misjudged a backpass.