ann arbor is overrated. » Blog Archive » Porch Couch Elitism, Southern Style

Porch Couch Elitism, Southern Style

A 1998 Reason article discusses a porch couch ban aimed not at students but at working-class residents of Wilson, North Carolina. “The committee came up with some lame excuses about eliminating breeding places for rats and fleas, but the real objection was that the stuff just looks so trashy,” writes UNC professor John Shelton Reed. (A journalist’s defense of the “irretrievable right to take a leak off [one’s] own front porch” quoted in the article may or may not help the cause.)

Yes, we’re really pushing this porch couch thing. It encompasses everything about Ann Arbor that we started this site to protest. It’s an attempt by A2 pseudo-liberals to enforce gentrification, eliminating the voices of those likely to disagree by waiting until they’re out of town and convincing the more ambivalent with disingenuous arguments about fires and vermin. And it will have a real effect on many students’ lives. (Somehow, we suspect that the distinction between upholstered and non-upholstered will become conveniently blurred when they come to take away the “outdoor” bamboo-frame couch on our own porch, which is covered with “indoor” cushions.) So we hope you don’t get bored with all the porch couch posts, and we’ll see you on the 19th.

65 Responses to “Porch Couch Elitism, Southern Style”

AAIO seems to be elevating this whole thing about porch couches to a cause celebre, making it the central theme of why Ann Arbor is overrated.

Mr. Kestenbaum nailed it when he repeated my claim that most locals could not care less and that this issue won’t go much beyond discussion in council chambers. Most local folks think it’s silly and a ploy by politicans to get some ink.

And now the real intent of AAIO is revealed. It’s not a catty, cynical and sometimes amusing web log populated by bored folks who don’t care for A2. Its posts are written by people who have excessive time on their hands to make half baked claims as to the relevancy of what A2 offers people who live here. It’s now discovered that AAIO actually has a purpose as a protest site. As if AAIO knew what protest was about. (ROFLMAO) You would do better registering to vote and getting your ass into the booth.

AAIO’s attempt at being serious severely undermines what little validity it had in it’s lame attempt to be a blase’ and oh, so cool voice of priveleged white kids.

Silly me, that I assumed that AAIO was more intelligent than to claim that the porch couch issue is the one that the local gentry will use to exercise its control over the captive student population. But AAIO seems intent in proving me wrong in my assumption of their intelligence by claiming that banning porch couches will have a real effect on many students lives. Indeed, it might if that was where those poor students slept very night. The attitude of AAIO in estimating what is important to students is just as elitist, cynical and condescending as their claim of A2 residents being rich uncaring snobs, err, (and) “Bobo’s”. It’s only “slightly” paranoid of AAIO and their fellow travellers to imagine that there is a pseudo liberal elite that is ready to pounce on innocent students at the first sign of a dilapidated, overstuffed davenport on a porch with peeling paint.

The “more ambivalent” locals will still be ambivalent, fires and vermin not withstanding.

To claim that the porch couch issue is central to the perceived town and gown conflict is to fill the ballon with hot air. To extrapolate this hokum into a generational rift is an argument weaker than the coffee at Washtenaw Dairy. This line of “reasoning” is not unlike the local folks who AAIO claims are liberal, Bobo snobs who have nothing better to do that make life unbearable for students, newcomers and succeeding generations.

Hmmm. Could it be that AAIO is maturing (heaven forbid) and becoming what it claims to disdain? Or is AAIO falling prey to the lazy way out? In other words, AAIO isclaiming that their world sucks and it’s someone elses fault.

In it’s haste to condemn the local gentry as rich white bitches in liberal clothing, AAIO seems to forget the deep roots of not only midwest independence in A2 but the history of local folks (regardless of their age, waistline and hair color) rebellious and iconoclastic nature.
posted by mucho (smarter than you) gusto on July 8th, 2004 at 11:44 pm
Excessive time on our hands? Any more of these book-length screeds and I’m going to have to upgrade my hosting package!
posted by ann arbor is overrated on July 9th, 2004 at 1:01 am
what’s happening on the 19th?
posted by Alex on July 9th, 2004 at 8:24 am
“Its posts are written by people who have excessive time on their hands to make half baked claims” - It’s a blog, what did you expect? That’s the entire format in a nutshell.
posted by George Hotelling on July 9th, 2004 at 8:32 am
Too much time on their hands? This from a guy who wrote a 500+ word ‘rebuttal’ as a comment? Perhaps a better signature would be mucho (more time on my hands than you).

I’d say that it does condense the whole town and gown conflict…into something more interesting: liberal rhetoric vs. fascist action.
posted by Wesker on July 9th, 2004 at 8:43 am
No, AAIO, if this website, if this community means anything YOU MUST FIGHT!!! This is the paradigm(used in the proper, original Kuhnian sense) of everything that is wrong with college towns in general, and Ann Arbor in particular.
College towns often have houses that have couches on the porch. If someone doesn’t like couches on prches, then they SHOULD FUCKIN” MOVE!!!! (I keep making this pouint over and over.)
posted by Lucky Jackson on July 9th, 2004 at 9:01 am
This underscores something that I have mentioned before - the fact that the students need some kind of self-appointed advocate in the community. By the time students begin to figure out how badly they are being screwed, it is time to move on. What they have learned,both from their interactions with the University and with their community, is an important lesson in powerlessness. This is not something that is good for a democracy.
posted by Lucky Jackson on July 9th, 2004 at 9:16 am
Mucho,

Have you ever lived as a student in this town? In the Old Fourth Ward? The neighborhood associations are one of the most influential local political forces and this is just one of the most over-the-top examples of the extent they’ll go to “protect” their property values at all costs. I think this is a great issue to educate students/young people/poor people about how neighborhood associations are willing to screw them in any way, if it means higher property values. The fact that what they’re asking for is so silly makes people easy to organize and educate.
posted by sst on July 9th, 2004 at 9:35 am
Mucho, as to getting asses in voting booths — not quite fair. AAIO has taken a deep interest in local politics. AAIO even supported and cast a ballot for a preferred candidate in the First Ward council election last fall. AAIO is urging people to attend a city council meeting in force. How much more political can you get without actually running for office?

And by no means does any of this undermine AAIO’s or anyone else’s validity as a critic, advocate, or spokesperson. Indeed, it serves to rebut the notion put forth by some visitors that AAIO is just flinging venomous lightning bolts from the mountaintop without offering any constructive ideas.

As to the rhetoric about the subjugation of the student population, once again, I suggest you look to East Lansing, where student/homeowner conflict is bitter and protracted. As soon as the antistudent forces took over the city council a few years ago, they gleefully enacted the porch couch ban, and enforced it stringently. I think they made it grounds for revoking a property’s rental license, in other words forcing the eviction of the disobedient tenants.

The fact that most nonstudent residents of Ann Arbor couldn’t give a fig about porch couches doesn’t mean the city council won’t cluelessly pass the thing. If you don’t want it to happen, make your voices heard. As many voices as possible!
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on July 9th, 2004 at 10:59 am
Hmm. Do you use a browser other than Internet Explorer, Mucho? Because IE has these 2 terrific features. One is a text bar at the top marked “address”, which lets you change the website you’re looking at if you don’t like it. The other is a little box with an X in the upper right corner, which lets you close the program and stop looking at webpages entirely. So, you see, there’s nothing compelling you to read this site if you don’t like what it has to say. No need to get so worked up.
posted by Nick on July 9th, 2004 at 11:48 am
I think mucho has the best reply’s by far.
posted by Bez on July 9th, 2004 at 1:19 pm
You’ll get my porch couch when you pry it off of my cold, dead ass.
posted by Eric on July 9th, 2004 at 2:06 pm
Bez and Mucho: Remember in second grade when you learned what apostrophes are used for? Apparently not.

Frankly, critiques like yours that are so lacking in logic and flawed in fact make for an interesting read. Keep up the terrible work.

Doesn’t it bother you that dozens of twenty- and thirty-somethings are sitting around laughing at your posts? Does it bother you that, in one breath, you move from telling AAIO that this is not a generational issue to claiming that AAIO doesn’t know about protest? The only think (you think) you know about AAIO is that (s)he is a grad student. Therefore, any commentary on his/her knowledge of protest must be solely generational in its context.

How do you know that AAIO is white and/or privileged? Or are you making that assumption based on the demographics of UM undergrads who are, on the whole, quite white and quite privileged? At any rate, your inductive reasoning fails.

And what are these “deep roots of midwest independence” in Ann Arbor? I’ve lived in the midwest. No self-respecting midwesterner would have anything to do with Ann Arbor. Being midwestern is about community values, leaving others alone, and not blowing one’s own horn — things that Ann Arbor clearly knows nothing about.
posted by Dan on July 9th, 2004 at 2:17 pm
Did anyone go look at the website mentioned in Wayne Laugesen’s column (www.hillneighbors.com)? It’s pretty scary. They have complaining down to an art. I bet the police department hates them.
Isn’t the real issue with porch couches, accumulated newspapers, etc. in the OFW that there are cranky older infiltrators living in an otherwise amiably run-down student neighborhood? I loved living in the OFW! It has a nice character of its own, separate from other AA neighborhoods (most of which have nice characters of their own as well). It’s not a big area, and porch couch “disease” isn’t spreading. Why should students be made to feel unwelcome because of others’ ill-considered property purchases? If people want to live in a neighborhood with no porch couches, I can recommend a few lovely ones. This proposed ban just seems meanspirited.
posted by c-loh on July 9th, 2004 at 2:17 pm
When in doubt, go for the punctuation I always say.

Are you white and priveleged, Dan? It sounds like it to me. I’m making that assumption based on the posts I read and the links to the weblogs as well as the demographics of the student population and webloggers in general. Please tell me I’m wrong. Ya know, I once tried to deny my white heritage too and identify with oppressed minorities to soothe my white middle class upbringing. At least I identified with people of color and not with kids who drive SUV’s and whose idea of a good time is getting drunk and pissing in the neighbors bushes.

I was born in Chicago and have lived in the midwest for my entire life, except for a couple of short stints in Atlanta and San Francisco. I understand your comment about minding one’s own business, but you should fault AAIO as much as anyone else when they assume to have a prescription of what would supposedly solve Ann Arbor’s overrated-ness. And that is to be something it isn’t. And because it isn’t like the cookie cutter metro areas that are always referred to here (Chicago, SF, Boston, etc) it’s bad and terribly overrated. Why A2 doesn’t even have any decent 24 hour restaurants that serve food that isn’t too fatty. Sheesh!

Protesting? I’ve been tear gassed and clubbed in all the better places in the country. DC, Chicago, Miami, Madison and even here in Ann Arbor. So get off your high horse about the protest shit. Talk to me when you have a felony conviction for failure to report for induction (Lessee, that was in 1975, most likely before you were born)

I’m glad that I can entertain the younguns. Why should I care if people laugh at what I say or write? It just shows that you and your ilk are easily amused. And this criticism is from people who think that Howard Stern and the Jerky Boys are high brow humor?

Ann Arbor was a farm town long before the UM landed here. Farmers have a well known independent streak and it’s been passed on to their sons and daughters, like me.

So between your guffaws over my bad punctuation and old fart drivel, tell me why my rant is flawed. After all it is my opinion and I never claimed it was based on facts except for my first hand knowledge of living here for 32 years and knowing more about this town and it’s residents (including students) than you’ll learn in the number of years it takes you to either drop out or graduate and live somewhere else that you’ll think is overrated.

You want a couch on your porch? Put an effing couch on your porch! But don’t call me or the fire department when you drop your cigarette because you’re so drunk you can’t feel it burning into your fingers. Let the damn thing burn down your house and your neighbor’s house too.

Oh, yes I did go to school at the U. I dropped out and learned a trade. Maybe that’s why I can’t write any gooder than this.
posted by mucho gusto on July 9th, 2004 at 3:13 pm
Mucho, a couple things:

1) Wasn’t the UM founded about 10 years after the first few settlers arrived in AA? Maybe there was a Native American population around “many years” before the UM, but not farms, nor European-ancestored settlers.

2) Why are couches on porches more dangerous for irresponsible college students, grad students and other folk who can’t afford teak, than couches inside of houses? If you can drop a cigarette on a couch outside, you can drop one on a couch inside. If people think couches on porches are ugly, that’s fine, but veiling their distain in a “safety” argument is disingenuous, to say the least.
posted by Anna on July 9th, 2004 at 3:34 pm
Has mucho gusto’s body been taken over by “Angry Liberal Voter,” or whoever that guy was?
posted by c-loh on July 9th, 2004 at 3:47 pm
old people are annoying
posted by Alex on July 9th, 2004 at 3:55 pm
While I appreciate boomers who are proud of their protesting days, when the biggest accomplishment they can point to is having gotten Nixon elected in ‘68, one really does have to wonder what, exactly, they’re so proud of. Truly, AAIO will never be able to name that among his/her accomplishments, but stopping the anti-porch-couch bills will have to suffice.

What, exactly, is mucho so pissed off about, other than the fact that AAIO doesn’t hestitate to point out the quality-of-life issues inherent in Ann Arbor and points out the laughability at Ann Arbor’s claims to greatness– or even goodness.

Besides, isn’t the entire ranting against porch couches the exclusive domain of the white and privileged? How is complaining about students and their lifestyles and their effect property values anything other than a white privileged concern?
posted by Constantine on July 9th, 2004 at 4:13 pm
Which is whiter and more privileged - U-M students or the residents? I would say it is a tossup. The people forcing this bad, however, are definitely whiter and more privileged. Mucho Gusto, OTOH is not privileged, unless it is a privilege to be an idiot.
posted by Lucky Jackson on July 9th, 2004 at 4:24 pm
If you’ll bother to read AAIO’s lead to this thread, he/she or it makes the claim that the porch couch issue is one that it will “have a real effect on student’s lives”.

Does AAIO, in its infinite wisdom, is the one who is underestimating the intelligence of students by making that elitist claim. C’mon, give us a break, graduate and leave town like you claimed a couple of months ago.

There’s a great free car show on Main Street tonight. But that’s soooo overrated. I’ll be there with a security detail.
posted by mucho (village idiot) gusto on July 9th, 2004 at 5:10 pm
Alex, I’m telling your mommy you said that
posted by Anonymous on July 9th, 2004 at 5:15 pm
Hey, false insinuations that I don’t vote are one thing, but this thing about me graduating soon is just blatant misrepresentation.

The 19th is when the City Council will probably debate this.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on July 9th, 2004 at 5:18 pm
Hey, look. This ban is poor legislation, poor government and poor relations with young people. Why shouldn’t we protest? Is the prescription always going to be apathy from you, Mucho, just because us damn kids (with our hair and our clothes) can’t levitate the Pentagon with our Yippie cheers? What’s wrong with getting involved in this?
And hey, if you’ve got the idea that our time would be better spent elsewhere, give us some hints for things we can do to possitively affect Ann Arbor and its politics. Otherwise, piss off with your “I had an idealistic phase too” bullshit, because you’re part of the fucking problem.
And christ, if I hear one more time about your truncheon travails, I’ll bust your head myself.
Up against the wall, motherfucker.
(As for that “great” car show, it’s blocking the alley to my office and has generally been shown to be run by fucking retards and officious morons. It’s a hassle, not a boon. But hey, you’re old enough to have happy memories of the Model T, so maybe I should just leave you to your decrepit, masturbatory nostalgia while I go out and try to fight more stupid legislation from our dumbass council.)
js
posted by js on July 9th, 2004 at 5:36 pm
Are there really people who can’t afford teak? Wow. Maybe I really do live in a bubble.
posted by Eric on July 9th, 2004 at 6:45 pm
fat and ugly is pretty boring as well.
posted by Dan on July 9th, 2004 at 6:45 pm
sorry meant to say annoying not boring.
posted by Dan on July 9th, 2004 at 6:46 pm
Yeah I know: that’s why I haven’t bothered to make it to any of the meet-ups.
posted by Alex on July 9th, 2004 at 7:23 pm
Let’s see, I have never listened to a single Howard Stern show and I honestly don’t know who the Jerky Boys are.

I am one-half “oppressed minority.”

I have never driven an SUV.

And I’ve been tear gassed, too. Do I get a cookie?

Arguably, AAIO is doing something very midwestern: not judging others, but gladly commenting on what’s wrong with the world. Go to any small town in the midwest. Go to the donut shop at 5 AM and listen. What are the farmers doing? Drinking coffee and talking about everything that’s wrong with the world.

Sorry you drank yourself out of college and lost your student deferrment. There’s a difference between protesting and being a wimp. Your little episode shows you to be the latter. You’re not a protester. You’re not particularly smart. You’re a coward and a draft dodger.
posted by Dan on July 9th, 2004 at 7:47 pm
I think it is more elitist to claim that students will be unaffected in their lives by assuming the cost of purchasing “approved” furniture that fulfills the requirements of yuppie zoning laws.

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to beg in the streets, steal bread, or sleep under a bridge, or place an old couch on the porch.
posted by Constantine on July 9th, 2004 at 8:07 pm
I would say, go students!

Couch ban sucks!

How’s that for a mature statement eh mucho?
posted by __earth on July 9th, 2004 at 8:30 pm
I’ll be the first to admit that we can surely all find cheaper, uglier, non-teak unupholstered furniture if need be. I don’t think this is as much a financial issue as an issue of power, sneakiness, and unnecessary regulation.
posted by Brandon on July 9th, 2004 at 9:29 pm
Naah, AAIO isn’t judging others.

Bobos, snobs, pseudo liberals, blah blah blah.
posted by you know who on July 10th, 2004 at 9:40 am
Wimps don’t put their asses on the line facing down gun toting Guardsmen.

Cowards don’t stand in front of a judge in Federal court and plead guilty to a five year felony.

I dodged the draft not because I had to, but because I wanted to.

Never had a student deferment. They were for wimps.

I dropped out because I couldn’t afford to go to the UM.

If you’re so all fired courageous, why aren’t you in Faluja? You’d much rather pout and whine about porch couches from your tidy little soapbox.

Yeah, I’m obviously not as smart as you, Dan. My degree is from the school of hard knocks. Cum Laude.
posted by mucho gusto on July 10th, 2004 at 9:58 am
Aww, js is inconvenienced by people who are having a good time downtown and preventing him from freely walking the overrated streets of A2.

Go fight the proposed porch couch ban. It’s such an important issue.
posted by mucho gusto on July 10th, 2004 at 10:14 am
And what have you done with yourself, mucho? As I said, can you point to any major accomplishment from your protesting days besides having gotten Nixon elected in ‘68?

Every underpaid, exploited 22 year old working at a non-profit has seen that patronizing Margaret Meade quote, “Never forget that a small group of concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” The flip side of this is that bans on porch couches are passed not because of a groundswell of popular enthusiasm, but because of a few cranky obnoxious “quality of life activists” (that “small group of concerned citizens”) and members of the town council that want to look like they’re being productive. The only way to counter this is to actually do something instead of getting all insecure that a few young adults in their 20s show more ability to handle public political activism that you ever did.

Can I ask, mucho, WTF your problem is?
posted by Constantine on July 10th, 2004 at 11:39 am
And this from someone who doesn’t even live in Ann Arbor? Has Connie ever set foot in A2?

It looks like from Connie’s bio that he has led a soft priveleged life. I guess that elitist upbringing makes him an expert at public political activism. And then to quote Margaret Meade? Talk about a pseudo liberal dissing a real one. I don’t get where he’s going with this talk of political activism. He must have been class vice president and campaigned against the repressive dress code at The Pingry School.

20 somethings that show more ability to handle public political activism than I ever did? Oooh, that’s cruel.Dude, you don’t know me and have no f***ing idea where I came from, what my life is about or what I’ve done (or not done) with it.

Insecure about it? Call me back when you are old enough to sleep without a night light.
posted by mucho gusto on July 10th, 2004 at 12:22 pm
I did not ask for more evidence that you have a problem. I asked for information about what, exactly, that problem was.
posted by Constantine on July 10th, 2004 at 12:27 pm
I have a steel plate in my head.

What’s your excuse kid?
posted by mucho gusto on July 10th, 2004 at 12:28 pm
From Constantine’s personal page.

“Those of you who know me know that I can be a grammar Nazi”

Whoa.
posted by Anonymous on July 10th, 2004 at 12:37 pm
No, Connie, you asked what my problem” is” and ended the sentence with a preposition. For a grammar Nazi, this is unforgivable.
posted by mucho gusto on July 10th, 2004 at 1:16 pm
Since when is “is” a preposition?
posted by Alex on July 10th, 2004 at 2:14 pm
As he’s one of my only real-life friends who posts here, I can tell you that Constantine has in fact been involved in plenty of political activism, and knows that “is” is a verb.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on July 10th, 2004 at 3:14 pm
Going back to the first diatribe – from what I gather at this site, AAIO chose to come to the U. of M. – other than other world class universities – because he or she was taken in by the PR that Ann Arbor was a cultural Mecca. Yet, when AAIO comes here, some dickhead is telling AAIO that they can’t have a couch on their porch. Cultural Mecca?

Porch couches are not as an important issue a health care or the war in Iraq. But why is it something to be stung by? If assholes are encroaching on your personal space, it might be time to stick an elbow out.

Perhaps a long term resident could explain how Ann Arbor went from having a $5.00 pot law to having PEDESTRIAN BREATHALYZERS?
posted by Anonymous on July 11th, 2004 at 3:50 pm
Sorry, last post was from me.
posted by A Different Jon on July 11th, 2004 at 3:53 pm
oy, what the hell is a pedestrian breathalyzer???
posted by Alex on July 11th, 2004 at 5:32 pm
According to this blog, the AAPD is giving breathalyzer tests to people walking down the street.
posted by A Different Jon on July 11th, 2004 at 9:31 pm
Whaa??? What are you talking about?

In my opinion, the charm of a college town is the student culture. You have to take the good with the bad, and although I personally don’t like porch couches, I do like the student environment created. It’s envigorating to be in an area where there is intellectual stimulation. So, just consider ther porch couches as part of the student charm.
posted by 50 plus on July 11th, 2004 at 10:35 pm
I think they had to stop the Breathalyzers after a Michigan Supreme Court decision.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on July 11th, 2004 at 10:43 pm
Fucking hippie liberal Michigan Supreme Court.
posted by A Different Jon on July 11th, 2004 at 11:57 pm
The pot fine went up from $5 to $25 a little bit ago. But it is really amazing that you get a slap on the wrist for an illegal substance, but if you’re walking down the streen with an open beer you get a huge fine.
posted by Kozzie on July 12th, 2004 at 9:46 am
There’s a clever way around that situation Kozzie. The last time I was stopped for an open container, I just told the officer it was filled with pot and viola only a $25 fine.
posted by Eric on July 12th, 2004 at 10:30 am
That’s a $25 fine, $25 in court costs (which may have been raised to $50), and that’s only if the officer decides to tag you at the city (civil infraction) rate. It’s at their discretion, and the state fine is insane (which is why it’s better to avoid DPS on hash bash, as they go straight to the state rate).
And the reason why it’s so low is that during the early ’70s, the students voted enough to pack city council with liberals.
posted by js on July 12th, 2004 at 10:50 am
…and the city council districts weren’t drawn in a way to minimize student electoral power.
posted by Brandon on July 12th, 2004 at 12:36 pm
In case you haven’t yet figured it out, Mucho is an FBI plant sent to waste all of your time with indefensible pissing matches.

Next he’ll suggest violent direct-action.
posted by Steven on July 12th, 2004 at 2:04 pm
Um, no, the city charter itself mandates “pie shaped” wards.

The ward arrangement used to be different, and there was a ward (the old 2nd) which was dominated by student voters. That ward was abolished in a deal made between the Republicans and the Human Rights Party to cut out the Democrats. I am not making this up.

The ward boundaries have been changed very little since that deal.

All that being said, the current 1st ward still has a huge student population, perhaps even a majority. If students voted in anything like the numbers they did in the 70s, the ward would elect two strong advocates of student interests.

Moreover, the student population in the other wards is plenty large enough to be a factor in those elections.

One further point: students who register to vote in the college town are an order of magnitude more likely to actually vote than students who are registered to vote in an inconveniently remote hometown.

Okay, so Mike Rogers got a state law passed in an attempt to prevent MSU students from voting him out of Congress. MSU has already overcome that problem, and MSU students are voting in numbers that dwarf the turnout at the august University of Michigan.

SO WHY ARE EFFORTS TO REGISTER U-M STUDENTS TO VOTE SO PATHETICALLY FEEBLE?

Setting up tables in the Diag is a worthless endeavor. The way to get thousands of people registered is to go door to door with voter registration forms.

I am trying my damndest to light a fire under the folks who are in a position to do something about this, but they seem to have asbestos underwear.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on July 12th, 2004 at 9:32 pm
Pay me a two dollars per registered student voter. I’ll give a dollar to each student, and a dollar to cover my costs and time. I’ll go door to door, with clipboard in hand, and bribe the fuckers. It’s cynical, but it would work. (Is it illegal? Only the city clerk knows for sure).
Then I’ll just go around again and pimp the drink specials on the first Tuesday in November.
posted by js on July 13th, 2004 at 12:57 am
Mucho- I’m, like, way more radical left protester-man than you, man. Like, my leftie cred is, like, all in order man. Back in the ’70s, when I was protesting, like, Laos, man, like all of Laos, man, like, Agnew ate my face. Dude. He was all up on me, and like, I was like “Dude, Laos is wrong! Also, like, Ann Arbor! Yeah! Let’s become like, mediocre and self-congratulatory, only, like in the future, man! And then we’ll, like, say that about other people!” and Spiro was all like “I must eat your face, dude. Nattering nabobs or whatever.” That’s totally what he said, and that’s, like, why I was cool in the ’60s when you weren’t even born. The eighteen-sixties, dude.
posted by js on July 13th, 2004 at 1:04 am
Err… I thought I already had posted something in response to Larry’s message, but either I posted it in the wrong thread, or I never did, or something, so forgive me if this is a double-post.

One part of the problem is the extraordinarily long lines for voting that seem to really heavily impact students — esp. those in dorms and along frat row — but not other AA residents. When I lived on 4th Ave. and voted at the Y, I could get in and out in ten minutes, while other students had to wait hours to vote when they lived in a more heavily-student-populated district (e.g. those that voted at the Union). Even if this is unintentional and breaks no laws, it has the effect of deterring students and should be corrected by the City. Imagine if this sort of practice heavily impacted an ethnic minority group or a particular religious group — the idea is pretty much the same.

Another problem is that the Daily does almost nothing to cover local issues, even those that impact students. They could greatly improve student participation by acting like Ann Arbor exists. Our paper here at my current univ. covers local politics, and a student (and/or recent alum, we have both at the moment) is often elected to city council.
posted by Anna on July 13th, 2004 at 11:07 am
js, you rule!
posted by kate on July 13th, 2004 at 12:54 pm
I’m astonished to hear that long lines of people waiting to vote are a problem at U-M student precincts. The vote totals out of those precincts are appallingly small in election after election, given the number of people who live there.

I remember waiting perhaps an hour to vote in a nonstudent precinct (in the 5th ward) in the 1992 presidential election. I thought that was pretty unusual.

If elected county clerk, I will push the local clerks to realistically predict turnout and provide enough equipment to prevent long lines.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on July 13th, 2004 at 2:15 pm
Not sure about Ann Arbor politics since I live in Ypsi, but I’ve voted in the student ward all of my political life and I’ve never had a problem voting. The longest line has been about 15 minutes or so. Which is kind of sad if you think about it because it means that not enough people are voting.
posted by Kozzie on July 13th, 2004 at 2:54 pm
I’ve only voted once at the Union, but it was in an off-year, so I can’t say anything about long lines. In and out. Was the bottleneck maybe caused by, say, a 3pm traffic spike of students out from class?
posted by js on July 13th, 2004 at 3:06 pm
Maybe the lines do spike at popular times. I know the wait in 1992 at the union was *well* over an hour (I had friends voting in that district; they said they waited around 3, if I recall). Maybe it only happens at certain times or during presidential elections. However, students’ schedules do tend to be pretty predictable, so spikes are to be expected. Hopefully they can take some preventative measures for this upcoming election. I’m sure even “year round” residents of AA want students to vote in the presidential election.
posted by Anna on July 13th, 2004 at 3:29 pm
Admittedly the News as estatic over a 14% turnout for the last school board election. Hmmm.
posted by Kozzie on July 13th, 2004 at 11:18 pm