Detroit Follies: Documenting the ultimate demise of the city of my birth...
•The dead are fleeing Detroit along with everybody else. No, zombification has not occurred, but people are moving their deceased loved ones out to the suburbs mostly so they don't have to go into Detroit to visit their graves. That is how desperate people around here are to never have to set foot in Detroit.
•Our black-Irish mayor Kwame Kilpatrick finally got tossed into the pokey for real. He admitted to lying under oath, which is probably the least of his actual crimes, got a 120-day sentence, and resigned as Mayor, claiming that he was now set up for a comeback. Despite destroying the careers of numerous people and wasting tens of millions in public money, I have no doubt the people of Detroit will re-elect him in the next election. They deserve him.
•Every NFL season comes along with a healthy dose of unintentional comedy, but it's entirely possible that this season has peaked early. Rudi Johnson signed as a running back with the Lions just before the start of the season. So he shows up at camp, drops his bag outside GM Matt Millen's office and goes inside to meet with the boss. He comes out and his bag is missing. Well, the place is watched by surveillance cameras so they just go to the tape to see what happened. It turns out the guy he was replacing, one Tatum Bell, stole his bag. So they get in contact with him and explain that they have him on tape taking the bag and he claims it was a mistake, he thought it was someone else's and he dropped it as his girlfriends house. They retrieve the bag, minus Rudi's ID, Credit Cards, Cash and "some undergarments." Bell makes a public statement in response: "I ain't no thief!" but the double negative speaks volumes. You can't make this stuff up.
•One bit of good news. Detroit Metro Airport is getting a new terminal. Detroit Metro (DTW) is a Northwest hub and a few years back to built a brand new terminal for them, which turned things around 180 degrees. The previous terminal was horrendous -- like some kind of third world hell hole transplanted into the Midwest. The new terminal in contrast was a stunner. Really one of the finest airport terminals I've been in, and I've been in a few. Now they have new one for the non-hub airlines set to open mid-September. This is great news for all travelers around these parts, which includes me.
By the way, DTW is not even near the city; it's a good 20 miles west so even if you fly into Detroit Metro, you still don't have to go into Detroit. So we got that going for us.
