A Rain of Frogs

Remember this?

I wrote about Michigan Central station a few weeks back, and am saddened to see the topic darken my ‘net reading doorway once again.

According to The Infrastructuralist, the mayor of Detroit wants to fund an ‘emergency demolition’ of the grand old lady using Federal stimulus money.

This really upset me, more than I would have thought, considering I’ve never even been to the building. While I recognize that the building is probably too far gone at this point to even consider any sort of rescue, it’s always sad to have to admit such a thing. But the real kicker is the use of ‘stimulus’ money.

The only way I can see this stimulating the Michigan economy is by removing from the hearts of the citizens of Detroit a symbol of the cancer that has decimated the city.

And I can’t help but think the money (meant for stimulating the economy) would be better spent curing the cancer.

Doo-doo-doo lookin’ out my back door…

I game across this interesting concept today. It was featured in Core 77’s design competition gallery, and was designed by Americans Mathieu Zastawny, Mansour Ourasanah, Tom Dooley, Peter Byar, Elysa Soffer and Mathieu Turpault.

The idea is that people have to put money into the piggie bank in order to have it supply power to the device(s) connected to it. Kids would have to put money in the bank to watch television or get their daily Wii workout.

I know it has a list of potential flaws longer than my… well, it’s a pretty long list. Nonetheless, it’s a pretty interesting idea for showing children the real costs associated with their electronic pastimes.

And not just kids. I wonder how many adults would be surprised at the real-time costs of activities like watching television.

I read an article today about Obama requesting that the CEO of General Motors stepping down.

The article cites this as an example of fascism – a merger of government and corporate power, according to Mussolini. It explains in detail how the insipid tentacles of government are penetrating corporate America.

Of course, it completely fails to mention that General Motors is bankrupt and begging for a handout from the government. It fails to mention that management, most especially the Chief Executive Office of a company, must bear ultimate responsibility for the actions of the corporation he runs.

It fails to mention all of that stuff. But it does get to use an emotionally loaded, misunderstood and frequently misused word: fascism. That should distract enough people from the truth. Hell, this article has already invoked Godwin’s Law even before it became a discussion.

Telling an incompetent executive to step down before you’ll even consider mopping up the disaster his company created is not fascism, it’s prudence.

And prudence is a virtue, isn’t it?

I recently ran across a series of photographs documenting the degradation of Urban Detroit. In particular, this photo of Michigan Central Station caught my eye and made me think. Michigan Central station was in use from 1913 till early 1988, and has been more or less unused since. It’s state seems to mirror the state of the urban core of the city in general.

Detroit is the largest of the rust belt cities (Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit, Milwaukee, Toeldo, Hamilton, Sarnia, Windsor, etc.) and quite possibly the most lost. It is a modern oddity – a large, once affluent city that is crumbling before our collective eyes. Possibly even the first post-industrial non-wartime ruin in the Western world.

Regardless the reasons for the city’s current plight, this photograph of a once-great building makes me sad.

Photo from Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre Photography – The ruins of Detroit