Leave it to A2 to take all the fun out of Halloween. Today’s Other Voices column details how one family virtuously resists the temptation of excess sweets. “My family eats three pieces of candy apiece on Halloween, two pieces the next day and one piece the third day. We all brush our teeth promptly and vigorously afterward.”
Okay, so we haven’t been posting as much as usual lately. And here’s why.
This Judy McGovern column, aptly titled “Watch for report on greenway,” exemplifies everything that’s wrong with A2 political discourse today. It can basically be summed up by saying that you should watch for a report on the greenway.
What happened to our favorite columnist’s exhortations for townies to “take back the neighborhoods“? The nightmare scenarios about student cars taking up spaces that could go to hard-working Ann Arbor families? The insinuations that the Ann Arbor media need something akin to a Project Censored so taboo stories like the blight of porch couches can finally get some much-needed coverage?
A suffocating fog of blandness has settled over the political landscape in A2 these last few months, and bloggers are suffering the effects. Just turn on any city council meeting. The public comment portion is dominated by the same people and topics week after week. Palestine, Palestine, bringing back the spirit of the 60’s, more Palestine. Even the NIMBYs seem to be taking a breather. (As Tolstoy might have said, “Palestine public commenters are all alike; every NIMBY public commenter is NIMBY in his or her own way.”)
So we’ll do our best to hold up through this crank drought. In the meantime, we hear that there’s this report on the greenway that you should be watching for.
Well, it’s been a slow week for A2 overratedness, and here all we’ve got is something about Howell: school trustee Wendy Day facing calls for her resignation over a blog posting.
The Daily offers a round-up of last night’s mayoral and 3rd Ward council debates, from which we learn that Green Party council candidate Pete Schermerhorn is an “innovative, out-of-the-box, thinker and doer” (unlike those thinkers and doers that require extensive assembly before you can use them) and that “eccentric independent mayoral candidate” Tom Wall likes to say “Get on the ball and vote for Wall.” Any ideas for a competing slogan? Perhaps something like, “If you think he’s doing a good job as municipal fief, ya/Should vote for Hieftje.”
Not surprisingly, landlords are finding a way to pressure students into early lease-signing even with the new ordinance in place, by exploiting a loophole that allows them to get students to sign a waiver if they’re not planning to renew.
But where could students be getting these crazy ideas that housing in A2 is so hard to find that they should jump on the first lease that comes along?
Maybe you were able to find your current apartment with little or no trouble. It happens sometimes. But you might want to check around with your friends to see what they went through when trying to find a place to live. There are lots of horror stories out there. If you renew your lease with Campus Realty, you’ll find that you’ve just sidestepped a big headache when it comes to finding decent living quarters in a town where looking for the right vacant apartment can seem like a hopeless task.
A2 has somehow acquired a reputation as a source of cheerful, effusive young foodies. “On each visit I was cheered by the unusually good-natured servers, who are young and fresh-faced and yet knowledgeable about the menu and wine list. (They must be imported in carloads from Ann Arbor, Mich., or Madison, Wis.)” writes Julia Moskin in her New York Times review of Mott Street Mediterranean. She’s less enthusiastic about the food, however, pronouncing, “Octopus tentacles are not exactly flavorful on their own and should never be presented, as they are here, nakedly grilled.”
Ann Arbor’s techie and crunchy sides meet: Certified Colon Hydrotherapist will trade for web development. All right, the poster is in Livonia, but we doubt it’s an accident that s/he chose A2’s Craigslist as the most promising potential market for these services.
As far as we can tell, it’s not a satire: Seeking cat lover, must be outraged by Israeli occupation of Palestine. Does anyone know how Blaine feels about cats?
The Daily’s letters page provides consistent laughs with its deadpan, literalistic headlines, but today’s has one of the best in a while: “Girls wearing big sunglasses aren’t hot and show weakness.”