Metro Times 11/02/2022

NEWS & VIEWS

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We received responses to freelancer Adam Stanfel’s story about soul singer J.J. Barnes ahead of what could be his final live performance at northern soul festival Detroit-A-Go-Go.

This article needs to be a book and then a screenplay. Jesus. What a beautiful tapestry of a musical life.

—Sam Sage, Facebook

A real humdinger of an article. Jennifer Carolyn Milligan, Facebook

What a great deep dive. If anyone wants to know anything about Detroit or Northern soul all they have to do is read this piece.

Well done Adam and thanks for giving JJ his flowers while he’s here

—Noah Schaffer, Facebook

JJ was a security guard in the old Detroit News building. One of the nicest, most humble guys I ever met. I’m also a musician and we’d chat for hours. He told a hilarious story about Gladys Knight stealing a slice of ham off his plate while they were traveling together on a train. Great piece about a nice guy who deserves the accolades

—George Hunter, Facebook

George Hunter it was so nice to say “Good morning, Mr. Barnes” to him every day. I would tell people we had a music legend at our front desk.

—Susan Whitall, Facebook

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NEWS & VIEWS

Broadcasting hate

Tudor Dixon ampli ed racist remarks, conspiracies on her TV show

By Steve Neavling

Tudor Dixon defended blackface, called hijabs oppressive garments, and amplified racist remarks and conspiracy theories during her two years hosting a daily TV show on the far-right media network Real America’s Voice.

As Dixon tries to soften her image in the final days of Michigan’s gubernatorial race, Metro Times found numerous instances in which she used her platform to sow divisions, make insensitive comments, and spread misinformation about the 2020 elec tion and COVID-19.

Polls show that Dixon is narrowing Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s lead in the race as the West Michigan Republican tries to appeal to moder ates and independents by toning down her rhetoric. But Dixon — who said her experience as a conservative com mentator prepared her to run — can’t run from her history of using inflam matory rhetoric.

Real America’s Voice is a far-right alternative to Fox News, providing a steady diet of Trump propaganda and conspiracy theories. The network also distributes Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast.

Dixon’s show ran from June 2019 to May 2021, the month she announced her gubernatorial campaign.

In one segment in June 2020, Dixon defended blackface after You Tube star Jenna Marbles apologized for doing an impression of rapper Nicki Minaj that involved darkening her skin with makeup.

“What is acting if you are not acting like someone else?” Dixon asked. “She was being funny.”

Dixon added, “It was clearly comedy, and so this is where we are right now. Comedians have to go by the wayside. We can no longer have comedy.”

Also in 2020, amid the protests for racial justice following George Floyd’s death by Minneapolis police, a number of companies reviewed their logos and branding. Mrs. Butterworth’s parent company Conagra Brands announced that it would review the shape of its syrup bottles, which have been criti-

cized as an example of the “mammy” stereotype.

In a segment, Dixon imitated Mrs. Butterworth’s voice, saying, “So every Saturday my husband comes out of the pantry with the Mrs. Butterworth and says, ‘Hello girls, I’m thick and rich,’” Dixon said.

In the same segment, in discussing a similar move by the former Uncle Ben’s rice brand, Dixon’s co-host Matt Locke said, “You want to be really over the edge? What are all the Asians go ing to say about the rice going away? Gotta have some Uncle Ben’s!”

On a separate show, Dixon called hijabs “oppressive garments” and suggested Iranian women are being “murdered by their own family” for marrying without their consent. Of course, many Muslim women say they are happy to wear a hijab, as it is a symbol of their faith.

On another show, Dixon repeated the racist claim that suggests Planned Parenthood aims to control the Black population.

“We have so many Black activists who are now coming out and saying Planned Parenthood puts 80% of their clinics into Black communities,” Dixon said. (In 2015, NPR reported that a Guttmacher Institute survey of all of the nearly 2,000 abortion clinics in the U.S. found that 60% were in majoritywhite neighborhoods.)

In another segment, Dixon agreed with Locke when he made an apparent joke about transgender people.

“I feel Black today,” Locke said. “Can I not? Can I not be Black today? Can I not be a woman today? Can I be a chandelier? What do I feel like today? We’re warping the lines of reality.”

On Dixon’s show, Locke also claimed that Democrats had constructed a “perfect storm,” saying the George Floyd protests and the COVID-19 pan demic were part of a complex scheme to beat former President Donald Trump.

Locke resorted to violent rhetoric when he defended Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis lawyers who brandished guns at Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020.

“These people are lucky they didn’t show up at my house because there’ll be a lot of them laying on the ground,” Locke said. “I would be shooting first and asking questions later.”

After Locke’s diatribe, Dixon responded, “This is what so many people are saying we are going to ward a true civil war in this country.”

Maeve Coyle, a spokeswoman for Whitmer’s campaign, says Dixon’s comments during and after her media career underscore that she is a danger to Michigan.

“Tudor Dixon’s long record of racist and bigoted statements while pushing conspiracy theories and casting doubt on our democracy is dangerous,” Coyle tells Metro Times. “After spend ing years platforming anti-abortion activists and election deniers, Dixon is now trying to force her extreme agenda to ban abortion with no excep tions for rape, incest, or health of the mother and undermine our elections on Michiganders.”

She adds, “While Dixon has a welldocumented history of embracing and making racist, offensive statements, Governor Whitmer has brought people together to make historic in vestments in public education, secure major increases in funding for law enforcement, strengthen Michigan’s infrastructure, and fight like hell to

protect access to abortion and repro ductive freedom.”

While Dixon has toned down her rhetoric, she continues to make con troversial statements.

She used xenophobic rhetoric to attack the deal with Chinese battery company Gotion High Tech, which brought $2.4 million in private investments and 2,350 jobs to Big Rapids in Michigan.

“We are truly bringing in a com pany that has its corporate ties in China,” Dixon said on Breitbart Ra dio. “This is where they come from. … This is a Chinese company. And you and I both know how China works.”

“Tudor Dixon’s extensive history of dangerous remarks and laughing at out-of-touch comments by guests she brought on her own show is just the latest reason why she is entirely unqualified to lead,” Michigan Demo cratic Party spokesperson Rodericka Applewhaite said. “Michiganders deserve better than Dixon and her re cord of pushing backward beliefs and extreme conspiracy theories — not to mention her DeVos-backed agenda designed to decimate public schools, slash funding for law enforcement, and ban abortion with no excep tions for rape, incest, or health of the mother.”

Dixon’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon used her far-right platform to sow divisions, make insensitive comments, and spread misinformation about elections and COVID-19.

SHUTTERSTOCK

NEWS & VIEWS

That’s the ticket

Third party candidates vie to be Michigan’s governor with long-shot campaigns

By Lee DeVito

Last month, history was made in Michigan when Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer debated her Republican challenger Tudor Dixon ahead of the Tuesday, Nov. 8 general election. For the first time, the two major-party candidates are both women. But they’re not the only women — or men — run ning for the office. There are candidates representing four other parties on the ballot, though you probably haven’t heard much of them, if at all.

Grand Rapids’s WOOD-TV, which aired the first of the two debates, tells Metro Times that the other candidates were not invited because of the guidelines of its parent company Nextstar, which requires candidates to have at least 10% support in a poll. Detroit’s WXYZ-TV, which aired the second debate, says candidates have to poll at 5% at least. Michigan’s third-party candidates have drawn less than 4% combined.

It’s a vicious cycle. With little cam paign cash on hand and little media attention, it’s unlikely that a third party candidate can crack that ceiling — even though with growing partisan polar ization, it feels like the U.S. political duopoly is untenable. Perhaps unsur prisingly, a Pew Research Center poll released earlier this year found that nearly half of young voters said they wished there were more than two par ties to choose from.

Since you won’t see these candidates on TV, Metro Times reached out to them to let them make their case.

Mary Buzuma

LIBERTARIAN PARTY

Of Michigan’s other political par ties, the Libertarian Party is the most popular, though still a distant third. Thanks to Gary Johnson’s 2016 presidential campaign (or perhaps more to the unpopularity of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton), the party cracked 5% of the vote here, allowing it to hold its first gubernatorial primary in 2018. Michigan Libertarians received further attention in 2020 when former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash of Grand Rapids switched his affiliation from Repub

lican to Libertarian and briefly flirted with running for president. There are whispers he could run again in 2024.

“We were finally moved from the kid die table at Thanksgiving, and we were sitting with the grownups,” says Michi gan Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Mary Buzuma. “That was huge.”

A retired Navy veteran who lives in Grand Haven, Buzuma has run for office as a Libertarian five times, includ ing for governor, U.S. Representative, state Representative, state Senate, and county clerk. She says she was ap proached by the state party. “This will be my last time,” she says. “Ten years of rejection is enough. But there has to be more voices in government.” She selected her own running mate, Brian Ellison of Royal Oak, who also served in the military.

Buzuma believes the two parties have become too big, yet are primarily

concerned with the short-term goal of winning elections. A former supporter of Democrats, she says she became disillusioned with them because they claim to be the party of peace yet also support foreign wars, and first became interested in libertarianism about 17 years ago when she heard Ron Paul speaking on the radio.

Buzuma says one of Michigan’s big gest problems is education, and rejects the notion that the solution is simply providing more funding. “Throwing more money at a problem doesn’t always improve it,” she says. “But competition does.”

Buzuma advocates for schools choice programs, as well as the Student Op portunity Scholarship Program Initiative, a proposal supported by Trump’s former education secretary Betsy DeVos that would disburse scholarships from private donors. “I really think that

this would give parents and students an opportunity to at least leave a school that is not working for them,” Buzuma says. (Opponents have accused the proposal of “privatizing education.”)

Buzuma is critical of the school clo sures during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as Whitmer’s use of executive orders under the Emergency Powers of Governor Act, which she extended without the support of the legislature until the Michigan Supreme Court struck the law down. “She wanted to win the war on COVID, but nobody knew what winning was,” Buzuma says, adding that she would call for addi tional legislation that would put guard rails on emergency powers.

“Some are very troubling to me because they put an unprecedented amount of power into the hands of bureaucrats who are not elected, like the Department of Health and Hu man Services,” Buzuma says, adding that’s what happened when Whitmer declared a public health emergency due to the rise of teen vaping. Michigan then became the first state to ban flavored e-cigarettes, which are also used by adults as an alternative to more harmful traditional cigarettes, and the ban was dropped after vape shops filed a lawsuit.

Buzuma thinks health measures like wearing masks or getting vaccinated should be choices left to individuals, though she says she got vaccinated against COVID-19 because she was serving as the primary caregiver for her mother. “For me, I understand that there are soft constraints on my liberty, one being family obligation,” she says. “If it was just me by myself, I probably wouldn’t have.”

On Proposal 3 — or ensrhining the right to abortion in Michigan law, one of the biggest issues on the November ballot — Buzuma says she personally believes that it is wrong, but says the government should have no say in the matter.

Buzuma supports cannabis legaliza tion, and says more drugs should be decriminalized, which she believes would curb problems with fentanyl and opioids, as well as decrease crime. She thinks police brutality would also be decreased if departments focused their resources more on criminals than

Mary Buzuma.

minor traffic offenders.

Of Line 5, the controversial oil and gas pipeline in the Great Lakes that Whitmer has unsuccessfully called to be shut down, Buzuma says she sup ports Canadian operator Enbridge’s proposal to relocate it into an under ground tunnel. “I would hate to see an oil spill in that area,” she adds. She also says she’s skeptical of alternative energy sources like wind and solar. “We’re finding out that wind is not that effi cient and solar takes a lot of space,” she says. “To me, a mix for now is probably the best option.”

She is also against corporate wel fare and calls for tax cuts. “Michigan taxpayers work hard for their money,” she says. “What I would like to do is just give people more money through a well-deserved tax cut … because people, consumers, grow an economy. Government doesn’t. Government just takes from it. They only grow more gov ernment, or more government jobs.”

More information about her campaign is available at electmarybuzuma.com.

Donna Brandenburg U.S. TAXPAYER PARTY

Another woman running for governor is Donna Brandenburg, a Grand Rapidsarea businesswoman who initially ran as a Republican. Her campaign was derailed along with a handful of other GOP hopefuls after the company they hired to collect signatures to get on the primary ballot was accused of submit ting forged signatures. Brandenburg faced another hurdle when her running mate Melissa Carone — a Trump supporter and conspiracy theorist who was parodied on Saturday Night Live — dropped out to support Dixon instead.

Brandenburg is also prone to conspiracy theories. She believes that the signatures issue was a “farce” to illegally keep her off the ballot, and that Carone was coerced by “threats” to support Dixon. Since the ballots are already printed, she has not selected an alternate running mate, but says if elected she would choose “a very strong Lt. Governor who is able to stand up to some of the pressures, regardless of what comes at them.”

Brandenburg says she had never run for office before. “I believe that all politicians are liars, cheats, and thieves, and I didn’t want anything to do with it,” she says, but the U.S. Taxpayers Party of Michigan approached her to run. The party is the local affiliate of the national Constitution Party, which promotes a conservative Christian view of the U.S. Constitution. Brandenburg

says her faith led her to decide to run. “I’m an unapologetic Christian,” she says. “I said to God, ‘If you want me to run, I’m willing, but you’re going to have to make this thing happen.’”

Brandenburg believes Whitmer overreacted to the COVID-19 pan demic, which she says was a boon to big corporations, including pharmaceuti cal companies. “Every single action they took was for self-enrichment, and had nothing to do with the protection of our people,” she says. “They ruined small businesses in this state. They attacked the wealth of our families, our individual rights.”

She declined to answer whether she is vaccinated against COVID-19. “It’s my personal information and I’m not going to answer that,” she says.

Due to her religious beliefs, she does not support abortion, and she declined to weigh in on cannabis legalization. She believes law enforcement needs more funding, and has the support of former Detroit Police Chief Craig, who was previously considered the Repub lican gubernatorial frontrunner until his campaign also collapsed due to the issue with signatures.

She supports Enbridge’s plan to relo cate Line 5 to the tunnel, and believes the issue is somehow being stalled to be used as a political football. One of the arguments against Line 5 is a 2018

incident in which the pipeline was damaged by an anchor; Brandenburg believes this was the work of “ecoter rorists” to sabotage it.

Brandenburg believes she has a shot at winning over independents who are dissatisfied with the two-party system. “Right now all we have is a political industry, which exists for self-enrich ment and to protect itself. It’s all we have. Most of these people have never had a real job,” she says, adding, “I’m a CEO and I intend to fully manage the state like a business and return it to the people of Michigan, the taxpayers, and the people who are the rightful owners of the state.”

More information on her campaign is available at brandenburgforgovernor.com.

Kevin Hogan GREEN PARTY

If one thing unites all of Michigan’s third-party candidates, it’s that they’re running scrappy campaigns. Green Party candidate Kevin Hogan launched a GoFundMe to raise $5,000,000 for his; as of publication it had raised only $150 from a total of six donors. When we asked for a publicity photo, he sent an oddly distorted jpeg file. And when

we interviewed him in September, he had not yet even spoken to his running mate, Destiny Clayton, who was picked by the Green Party caucus.

A biochemist who was born in Detroit and now lives in Dearborn Heights, Hogan says he first became interested in the Green Party around 2013 or so, after previously supporting Democrats. “The Green Party has social justice and environmental concerns that the Democrats don’t have,” he says. He previously ran for the University of Michigan Board of Regents, earning 72,160 votes, or 1% of the vote.

Hogan calls the pandemic “the Gretchen Whitmer COVID-19 pan demic,” blaming Whitmer for not acting sooner, and allowing the virus to spread. “As far as I’m concerned, especially as a biochemist, she owns the virus and the pandemic,” he says. (Of course, by now, the virus that causes COVID-19 has spread to just about every corner of the planet.)

Hogan is a published biochemical sci entist who studies immunology, and has worked at the University of Michigan and Wayne State University. He believes the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are inad equate, and says if he was governor, he would look into commissioning better ones. (He says he only got one initial dose of the Moderna vaccine, but expe rienced inflammation so he decided not to get any subsequent doses.)

He believes Whitmer should have kept the economy open during the pandemic, arguing that younger people were not getting sick enough to be hospitalized. “That was the time to have herd immunity,” he says. (Experts have said such an approach would have resulted in many more deaths and hospitalizations.) But Hogan also criti cizes Whitmer for reopening industries just as new variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 were spreading. (The variants come from the virus infecting people and replicating.)

“She’s an attorney, not a scientist,” Hogan says. He’s also critical of Whit mer’s war against e-cigarettes.

Hogan supports major healthcare reform, and advocates for Medicare for All. “When you have [former Red Wings player] Vladimir Konstantinov — and remember, he was a multimillionaire — worried about paying health care, that says a lot for the rest of us,” he says.

He supports cannabis legalization, though he says he doesn’t use it. He also believes that police brutality is a prob lem, and says the “Defund the Police” movement was successful. “I generally think that these protests are working, and they should continue,” he says. He calls for reforms including immediately releasing police body cam footage to the public, as well as better training for cops

Donna Brandenburg.

in psychology and sociology.

Regarding Line 5, Hogan says he has not been following the issue closely enough, though he leans toward clos ing the pipeline down. He believes that more should be done to steer energy consumption away from oil, includ ing tax breaks for electric vehicles and incentives to trade in older cars. He also calls for a massive investment in infrastructure, including solar panels and windmills.

Hogan believes more robust third parties would force the Democrats and Republicans to work together. “If we had a third party, they will be more inclined to work with the third party, and you will start getting things done instead of gridlock, deadlock,” he says.

More information on his campaign is available at facebook.com/your.KevinHogan.

Daryl Simpson NATURAL LAW PARTY

The Natural Law Party was founded in 1992 to “bring the light of science into politics,” but all of its state chapters have dissolved since then, except for Michigan’s.

Candidate Daryl Simpson admits he’s not very knowledgeable about his party’s history. “I don’t really have party ties,” he says. “I don’t align with any one party.”

He says he was initially considering running for City Council in Davison, but the Natural Law Party chair Doug Dern convinced him to run for gover nor instead. Dern is also his running mate, as well as an attorney who unsuc cessfully ran numerous times to be on the Michigan Supreme Court. Simpson was nominated at the party’s caucus. “There were seven people, I think,” he says.

Born in Flint, Simpson now lives in Genesee County, and says he had never run for office before. “I find myself to be mostly pretty centrist,” he says of his political beliefs. If he was governor dur ing the COVID-19 pandemic, Simpson says he would defer to scientists to help him make decisions. However, he also says he’s not vaccinated against COVID-19, something that experts have advocated. “It wasn’t an act of defiance, I’m definitely not against it,” he says. “I just haven’t been put in a lot of positions where I’ve had to travel or meet a lot of people.”

Simpson says he previously worked in ichigan’s film industry with the goal of becoming a director, until the tax incentives were eliminated and the industry collapsed. (Simpson says he

would consider bringing them back if it made sense, “but not if they were costing us money.”) He has also run a cannabis dispensary and a small pro wrestling company, and these days, he has a real estate license and works as a pharmaceutical delivery driver. He says he has at times struggled to put a roof over his head.

“I’d be talking out of my ass if I say I knew everything that was wrong with the economy,” he says. “But from the citizen’s perspective, I believe we need to think of more modern approaches.” He shares a Reuters article about a dam in Costa Rica that provides energy to run hundreds of computers to “mine” cryptocurrency, a decentralized form of digital currency that has been hailed by supporters as a revolution in finance and assailed by critics who say it’s overhyped.

“I’m definitely more of a believer in the technology than I am not,” he says. He says as governor he would aim to gradually replace and eliminate the income tax in the state with ideas like this. “I know that the technology ex ists,” he says. “So could it be adapted to working for the government to create revenue? I’m just thinking out loud right now.”

On the issue of abortion, he says he is not opposed to it, but his opinion doesn’t matter — he defers to the will of the people. “I’m not a religious person, so none of my governing would be [guided] by religion,” he says.

He says he has not been following the Line 5 issue. On the Defund the Police movement, he says, “I’m not 100% sure there’s a huge amount of systemic police brutality,” adding, “I believe a lot of departments and a lot of police officers can use some continued training or completely rebuilt training.” But he also thinks negative sentiment toward cops fueled by the Defund the Police movement is escalating danger ous situations, too.

His other ideas include calling for private investors to contribute to infra structure, including major overhauls of Michigan’s deteriorating schools and prisons.

Other outside-the-box ideas include using unemployed people or prisoners to help clean up trash in exchange for pay or lodging, and legalizing sex work.

Of Whitmer’s job so far, Simpson ad mits he hasn’t followed it closely enough to make an assessment.

“I don’t know every single thing she did during her administration, so I’m not going to ridicule it completely,” he says. “I didn’t notice a whole lot that benefited me, though.”

More information is available at facebook.com/migovernor2022.

COURTESY PHOTOS

Above: Kevin Hogan. Below: Daryl Simpson.

NEWS & VIEWS

The Incision

What the public can teach pundits (and politicians) about saving democracy

By Abdul El-Sayed

Last month, a New York Times Siena poll set Democratic hearts racing, showing a four-point advantage for Republicans a five point swing since the summer. The shift represented the political fallout of continued inflation, looming recession fears, and the presi dent’s limited approval.

Republican wins in key battleground states in November could be catastroph ic for the future of free and fair elections in this country. The MAGA-infested GOP is dead set on leveraging every office they take to prosecute a culturedriven grievance agenda. And every indication suggests they’ll use any state and local election office they win this cycle to engineer future election out comes they cannot win fair and square. But the poll also found that only a minority of respondents seem to care. Though 71% of likely voters agreed that democracy was “under threat,” the specter of an authoritarian attempt to steal the next election by the MAGA base wasn’t what they had in mind. Only about 17% attributed their worries over democracy to that risk. Rather, worries over democracy were based on whether or not it could actually deliver results for everyday folks. Indeed, 68% of those polled endorsed the idea that the

government “mainly works to benefit powerful elites.”

If your media diet looks anything like mine, most of the coverage you’ve consumed probably registers some combination of shock and dismay at the finding, as if the proposition over how democracy is broken is an “either/or” matter.

Rather it’s “both/and.” The New York Times/Siena poll and its coverage surface something profound about how we got to this point, and about how divorced political coverage has become from the realities of most Americans.

Imagine American democracy as a once majestic tree. Most political cover age would be focused on the small but growing group trying to cut it down — while the public seems to recognize that it’s been ailing for decades. If you’re serious about the health of the tree, you have to recognize that both are serious threats. In fact, decades of malnourish ment and misappropriation have made that tree much easier to cut down in the first place.

The consequences of our ailing de mocracy extend into nearly every facet of the most pressing challenges voters complained of in the survey. Inflation offers a perfect e ample. Americans

haven’t had to live through this kind of inflation in nearly years. And while the economic phenomenon of infla tion may be the same as was then, the context in which Americans are feeling it has changed considerably.

In the 19 s, wages were keeping pace with growing American produc tivity. Since, wages and productivity have decoupled as Reagan-era financial deregulation and union busting al lowed corporations to take ever greater shares. The flavor of inflation is hitting an American society that has experienced more than four decades of rising inequality. The poorest Americans today lack the same economic reserves, the same bargaining power they might have had in the past. Inflation is hitting American families harder than in the 19 s or anytime in the past be cause of it.

That’s as much a democracy problem as it is an economic one. It was govern ment policies in the intervening period that allowed such massive wealth trans fer from America’s workers to America’s capital class. It was government policies that allowed that class to pay less in taxes to fund the basic functioning of government and more into politics to sway it.

A full 25 days out from election day, outside organizations — not includ ing spending by candidate campaigns themselves — had spent $1.3 billion to influence the outcomes of federal elec tions. That’s not money being raised a few bucks at a time online — those are massive checks written by people and companies with massive wealth.

How come the American public sees and understands the threat that money

poses on our democracy — the sickness that it represents — while pundits and politicians cannot? Perhaps in the thick of the system have become so inured to this kind of legalized corruption that it’s baked in — normalized as just another part of the system.

And that’s the real danger. Let me go back to the tree analogy here. Long be fore cynical Republicans riled their base up to cut the tree down, they set about undermining it. They stopped water ing it, and kept it in the shadows. They made sure any fruit that it bore was kept from those who needed it, sent instead to the wealthy and well fed — telling us that the fruit was poisoned. Only then would enough people turn on the tree.

Rather than protect the tree back then, many of the same forces rally ing to protect the tree from being cut down now were complicit in its mal treatment. They kept quiet, or worse, they participated in it. They thought accommodation would have no lasting consequences.

The frontal assault on our democracy is truly shocking — and it ought to be the most important issue facing our country in these elections. Yet, the systematic starvation and misappropria tion of our democracy that brought us to this point ought to have been the most important issues facing our country for the past several decades. But it wasn’t. So perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised that the imminent threat to our democracy we face in doesn’t inspire the same worries, either.

Originally published Oct. 25 in The Incision. Get more at abdulelsayed. substack.com.

The American public understands something fundamental: The MAGA attack on democracy is only possible because the civic foundation of our democracy has been weakened to begin with.

EMPLOYMENT

CLOUD ENGINEER, United Wholesale Mortgage, Pontiac, MI. Architect, design, and develop flexible Google Cloud, MS Azure, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing technologies & infrastructure to enable UWM to scale hybrid cloud solutions on demand to meet current/future flexible technical & business requirements efficiently incl. access control & security. Apply understanding & analysis of cloud concepts & utilize public cloud computing services of cloud providers incl. Google Cloud (GKE, Fire Store, & Big Query); Azure AKS, AVD, AAD, APIM, ASB, Azure Storage Account, Purview, Synapse Analytics, Cognitive Services, & Migrate; & AWS cloud (S3 Buckets, & Device Farm). Set up subscriptions in Azure Infrastructure w/ distinct billing, networking schemas, & access management levels. Manage subscriptions & resources across multiple clouds. Build & modernize technology solutions to use managed services including Azure SQL database, Azure Service Bus (ASB), & Azure API Management Endpoints to enable microservices architecture deployment to public cloud. Master, Computer Sci., Computer Info. Systems, Computer Engrg, or related. 12 mos. exp as Developer, Engineer, Analyst, or Architect, designing or developing AWS or Azure cloud computing technologies & infrastructure to enable technical solutions to scale hybrid cloud solutions on demand to meet current/future flexible technical & bus. reqrmnts incl. access control & security, or related. Mail resume to Ref#2866-22, UWM, Human Resources, 585 S. Blvd E., Pontiac, MI 48341.

EMPLOYMENT

HEAD OF BUSINESS CONTROLLINGDOORS, NA, Brose North America, Auburn Hills, MI. Supervise & mentor 2 Project Controllers & 1 Brose Mexico Controller in MEX. Advise CFO & Sr VP, Doors–NA, & administer Door Bus. Div in NA region, on related commercial topics incl. administration, financial performance, booked & acquisition product development projects, & project investment, to ensure compliance w/ Brose values, principles, rules, & regs. Formulate, develop, & track target costing, incl. product purchasing & production materials, for sellable Brose mechatronic products, incl. door modules/syss, window regulators, latch modules, latches, spindle drive syss, window regulator motors, & related door syss electronics, based on market prices to ensure competitiveness & profitability in the future. Ensure accuracy of project calculations for open & booked business. Master, Bus. Admin., Finance, or Accntng. 36 mos exp as Controller or related, developing & tracking target costing, incl. product purchasing & production materials, for sellable mechatronic products, incl. door systems & window regulators, based on market prices to ensure competitiveness & profitability in the future, or related. Mail resume to Ref#2190, Brose, Human Resources, 3933 Automation Ave, Auburn Hills, MI 48326.

A little school with big clout

By Joe Lapointe

HILLSDALE In Michigan’s rural outback, it’s not that odd to hear the sounds of guns.

Of course, there’s deer hunting season. Bang!

And maybe militia groups practicing and plotting to kidnap and kill the governor. Bang! Bang!!

But near the campus of Hillsdale College, disciplined gun sounds abound at the John Anthony Halter Shooting Sports Education Center.

Here, student-athletes for the Chargers bring honor and glory to an ultra-conservative institution of higher learning that is proud of its fidelity to the Constitution of the United States of America and to its Second Amendment “right to bear arms.” Bang! Bang! Bang!

In addition to its long-established shotgun team, Hillsdale recently started a pistol-shooting team that won a national competition last spring in its first year. That team is coached by a local cop named Adam Burlew, a part-time deputy with the Hillsdale County heriff’s Department and a “casual” employee of campus security, according to responses from both agencies when reached by telephone.

Burlew is a good shot, too. He proved it last year when he shot to death not only a dog named Rico but also the dog’s owner, Oscar Herrera. Both dog and man attacked the deputy, the sheriff’s office said

the dog first with its teeth, the man ne t with a knife.

After the local prosecutor e onerated the local deputy, the mother of the dead man sued the deputy and the sheriff in federal court. The case is in discov ery until Nov. 10 and is scheduled to go to jury trial on June 20.

Ian P. Fallon, the lawyer for Herrera’s mother, said the shooting was preventable and that the deputy showed a “tragic lack of compassion and common sense.”

In a news release on the day of the filing, the lawyer said the deputy and the county sheriff, cott Hod shire, “will be held accountable for the shoot-firstand-ask-questions-later’ decision making that cost Oscar Herrera his life.”

Is this legal circumstance of Hillsdale’s pistolshooting coach another e ample of the College’s increasingly belligerent public personality?

Might his continued presence be in part a symbolic gesture by a multi-tentacled educational juggernaut that enjoys serious clout with both the e tremist elected officials of the Republican arty and with the radical reactionaries on the Supreme Court?

Well, perhaps, in part, but it is not so simple.

The authorities at the private, Christian school located in southern Michigan near Indiana and Ohio chose not to answer uestions for this report about the Hillsdale gun teams or the cop who coaches one

is aiming for you, too.

Michigan’s small but mighty Hillsdale College enjoys serious clout with the national Republican Party.

PHOTOS: JOE LAPOINTE

of them or about anything else.

Messages sent to Burlew were not returned. His lawyer chose not to speak on his behalf for this report.

Despite repeated requests, Hillsdale also stone walled questions about:

Hillsdale’s nationwide foray out of its college sphere and into charter schools and conservative curriculums for students from kindergarten through high school;

The recent attack on schools of education by Hillsdale President Larry P. Arnn, a key political ally of former President Donald Trump. Among other things, Arnn said teachers come from the “dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges;”

Hillsdale’s new “1776 curriculum” based on Trump’s “1776 Report” from a committee run by Arnn. Trump formed it to counter the “1619 Project” by the New York Times, which presents American history from an African-American point of view and is now taught in some schools;

That recent photograph of Pat Sajak, the host of Wheel of Fortune, smiling alongside Marjorie TaylorGreene, the conspiracy-spouting Congresswoman from Georgia. (Why would it matter if a TV game host posed with a daffy Republican legislator Be cause Sajak is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Hillsdale College.);

Or about Hillsdale’s view of American history that treats the Constitution not as a mere governing document written by wealthy politicians centuries ago but as Holy Writ left by saints of olden days to be interpreted only by the high priests of the Federalist Society, the soothsayers of the Heritage Foundation, and the wealthy donors who fund Hillsdale’s endow ment of more than $900 million to keep it free from federal funding.

Had the school spoken up on behalf of its pistolshooting coach, it could have said:

Adam Burlew is completely innocent. Bodycamera video telecast by WWMT, Channel 3, shows both shootings were likely justified.

In the video, the dog — a large, brown, pit bull — bursts through the screen door of a house, bounds down the steps, and charges the cop, who fires at least four shots. The owner walks to the dead animal and talks to the cop, who points a Taser at him.

“Wait, don’t! Do not do that! Sir, put that down! Put that down right now!”

Then

Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!

At least four more shots are heard on the recording.

According to an Associated Press account posted at the time of the lawsuit, “State Police said (Herrera) confronted deputy Adam Burlew with a knife . . . A paramedic later found a folding knife in a closed po sition on the ground, though the knife was open with the blade sticking out when state police recovered it, the lawsuit says.”

Whatever the outcome of his court case or the institutional logic behind his continued coaching presence, Burlew’s pistol-shooting team is but the most recent manifestation of a Hillsdale posture that is increasingly on the cultural warpath and views guns as more than mere tools for target shoots.

Charles Steele — an economics professor who is the shooting team’s faculty advisor — says in a video on the website Armory Life that “the Constitution is primarily set up to protect the rights of the people” and that “the Second Amendment is the amendment that protects the First Amendment.”

The First Amendment pertains to free speech; the Second to gun “rights.”

“It is important to promote something like the Second Amendment and promote the shooting sports and shooting activities,” Steele says, “because the ultimate guarantee of freedom is that we are capable of defending it ourselves.”

Supporting this in the same video is John Cervini, identified as vice-president of institutional advance ment for Hillsdale. He praises the recent partnership between Hillsdale and the pringfield Armory, which provides guns to Hillsdale.

“We believe that pringfield and Hillsdale College are lockstep in our belief and support of the Constitution and the Second Amendment,” Cervini says in the video.

The video ends with a musical note on the soundtrack that grows heavier and louder as the screen shows seven shooters slowly raising their guns and aiming them at the camera.

Even if Hillsdale won’t discuss Coach Burlew or anything else, its scholastic, religious, and cultural messages nevertheless come across loudly and clearly

lines read like segments of prime-time opinion shows on Fox News Channel.

For instance:

“The Rise of Wokeness in the Military;”

“The Politicization of the Department of Justice;”

“Spiraling Violence in Chicago;”

“Critical Race Theory: What It Is and How to Fight It;”

“The January 6 Insurrection Hoax.”

Arnn took over Hillsdale in 2000 after a sordid, sex-and-suicide scandal forced the departure of the previous president.

Since then, with growing might, Hillsdale has mixed fast-moving streams of education, politics, culture, patriotism, and religion into a roaring rapids of what some might call militant, white, Christian nationalism.

Arnn has courted (and has been courted by) Republican governors like Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Ron DeSantis of Florida, and Bill Lee of Tennessee.

Noem said she hoped her state could build a satellite campus for Hillsdale. South Dakota recently paid Hillsdale professor emeritus William Morrisey $200,000 to facilitate a revision of the state’s social studies content standards.

A South Dakota historian named Stephen Jackson joined the Social Studies Work Group to make suggestions for the improvement of the teaching of history, particularly that of tribes indigenous to that state.

Writing in the “Perspectives on History” website last week, Jackson said Morrisey ignored most of what that study group had suggested.

“Morrisey wrote the draft of the standards before the commission even met,” he wrote, calling Mor risey’s choices “censorship.”

Jackson wrote that Noem has made opposition to Critical Race Theory a central part of her political brand. In that CRT is a way of making sense of racial history, Jackson also wrote: “Locally and nationally, history education is at the center of US culture wars.”

Arnn’s contempt for teachers came clear last sum mer as Hillsdale was about to launch its own postgraduate program in education.

“The teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country,” Arne said in Tennessee at a conference with Gov. Lee.

“The philosophic understanding at the heart of modern education is enslavement,” Arnn said. “Education destroys generations of people. It’s dev astating. It’s like the plague. You don’t have to be an expert to educate a child because basically anybody can do it.”

His comments brought blowback from Hillsdale’s many critics. They are happy to define the philosophy behind both its tidy Michigan campus and its “satellite campus” on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., which hosts courses, speeches, and conferences.

“You shot my dog, bro,” says the man, who calls his dog his best friend.

“Dude,” the cop says, “your dog bit me. That’s why it got shot.”

“Don’t shoot me,” the man says.

“I’m not gonna shoot you,” the cop says. “Sorry about your dog.”

But the tension escalates when the man rises from his knees, puts his hand in a back pocket and advances toward the cop. The cop then points a gun at him and says:

over its extensive and sophisticated internet pres ence.

The site offers to the public free of charge and easy to access — courses like “Constitution 101” and “The Genesis Story.”

“We’re on our way up through angels toward God,” Arnn says in the Genesis course video. “In Christianity, Jesus is the word.”

Hillsdale’s monthly newsletter “Imprimus” claims 6.2 million readers. It appears online and on slick, printed paper on campus and elsewhere. The head

One such critic is Carol Corbett Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, an advocacy group for public schools.

A former high-school principal, she is wary of many things, including Hillsdale’s foray into charter schools and K-12 curriculum as well as the larger overall push for “vouchers” and “school choice” by which public money might eventually fund religious and private schools.

“(Hillsdale) College’s mission is to maintain ‘immemorial teachings and practices of the Christian faith,’” Burris says in a telephone interview. “Now,

With growing might, Hillsdale has mixed fast-moving streams of education, politics, culture, patriotism, and religion into a roaring rapids of what some might call militant, white, Christian nationalism.

obviously, they cannot do that directly with charter schools.”

That’s because charters are public schools, but privately run. When public money is involved, there is still, technically, a separation between church and state.

“What they do, instead, is they use a call for ‘moral virtue,’” Burris continues. “But the reality of these schools is they are designed to grow adults with the very narrow-minded, white, Eurocentric perspective in order to fuel the conservative movement.”

One e ample of Hillsdale influence in metro Detroit will be “The Hill Pointe School” somewhere in the Grosse Pointes. On its website, the new school promises its “location will be announced soon!” and that kindergarten through fifth grade classes will begin in 2023.

The Hillsdale logo appears on the Hill Pointe website.

“The Hill Pointe School funding board is united in their admiration of the mission and vision of Hillsdale College,” the website says. “ . . . Hillsdale provides enrichment training to the faculty and staff throughout the school years.”

Hillsdale also provides a good deal of public rancor. To borrow the metaphors of gun vocabulary, Arnn and his colleagues at Hillsdale sometimes shoot off their mouths — and sometimes shoot themselves in the foot, figuratively speaking, of course.

Arnn, for instance, can see the positive side of a tyrant. In his 2015 book Churchill’s Trial, Arnn wrote of Adolf Hitler’s popularity in Germany until World War II.

“Forget for a moment that we know Hitler to be a

monster,” Arnn wrote. “Remember that he was for years one of the most exciting forces to arise in mod ern European history, and that he appeared to millions as a figure of hope. Following the First World War, his country was in the throes of steep decline, and he was returning it to order and health.”

Another prominent Hillsdale figure, the professor David Azerrad, said earlier this year in a speech at a Catholic college in Pennsylvania that Kamala Harris is an “affirmative-action vice-president” who got the job due to only the color of her skin.

Dismissing the theory of “white privilege” in the United States, Azerrad said deserving whites are often overlooked in favor of mediocre Blacks who are “showered with praise” for minor accomplish ments. He also said nobody today would know of the scientist George Washington Carver had he not been Black.

In his speech titled “Black Privilege and Racial Hysteria in Contemporary America,” Azerrad said: “This Black privilege not to be offended is increasing ly being supplemented by a Black demand to be honored in all realms regardless of accomplishments.”

After mis-pronouncing the Vice- resident’s first name more than once, Azerrad said: “The real color of privilege in America today is Black.”

Azerrad is an assistant professor and research fellow at Hillsdale’s Van Andel graduate school of government in Washington. This “satellite campus” stands across the street from the Heritage Founda tion. Azerrad once worked at Heritage, as have many Hillsdale figures.

The capital complex is called the “Allan P. Kirby, Jr., Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship.” It

opened in 2010 near Capitol Hill. Its website says “the 16,000 square foot building houses a large lecture hall for public lectures, educational seminars, and congressional briefings.”

Hillsdale often has insisted that its Washington headquarters — a building blended from three Victorian-era townhouses — is not a place for lobbying but for education.

According to its website, the Kirby Center merely offers “reception parlors, classrooms, a beautiful Americanist and liberal arts reading library and study space for Hillsdale students, and offices for the Hills dale in D.C. faculty and staff.”

A piece four years ago in Politico reported: “Kirby hosts caucus retreats and regular dinners with mem bers of Congress and staff to discuss finer points of constitutional governance.

“It’s also home to several schlocky paintings of Churchill and the founding fathers, a glass-encased first edition of the Federalist apers donated by con servative radio host Mark Levin,” Politico reported, “and two dozen or so interns each semester — most, but not all, of whom work on Capitol Hill or in con servative media — and a studio where The Federalist founder Ben Domenech records his daily podcast.”

In addition, the Center boasts the presence of Mollie Hemingway, a right-wing commentator listed by Hillsdale as a “teaching fellow for journalism.”

In 2018, a Politico headline called Hillsdale “The College That Wants to Take Over Washington” and joked that Hillsdale is the real “Trump University,” not to be confused with Trump’s disbanded scam school of real estate.

Certainly, Hillsdale is media-savvy within its own

A skeptic might find Hillsdale a gushing fountain of white, Christian nationalism.

silo. Commercials for Hillsdale ran frequently on the right-wing radio show of the late Rush Limbaugh and Hilldale’s instructors are often interviewed as experts on right-wing radio stations like WJR in Detroit.

When the Center opened, one of its first hires was Limbaugh confidante Virginia Thomas, wife of upreme Court ustice Clarence Thomas. One of her duties was to bring in guest speakers.

During the ongoing debate over the 2020 Presi dential election, rs. Thomas has been one of the most aggressive proponents of Trump’s Big Lie that the White House was stolen from him by current resident oe Biden.

Her husband spoke at the Hillsdale commence ment in 2016 and called Hillsdale a “shining city on a hill.” Wikipedia lists Clarence Thomas as a “visiting faculty and fellow” at Hillsdale, but the school did not respond to a request for comment regarding his current input.

“It has been some years since my wife, Virginia, and I have been to Hillsdale together,” Thomas said in the commencement speech in 1 . “Of course, we have known Dr. and Mrs. Arnn for many, many years. And we have been quite close to Hillsdale.”

Proximity to the Supreme Court has become a Hillsdale selling point and this approach has become even more pointed since Trump, as president, placed three religious fundamentalists on the Court.

Those three eil Gorsuch, Brett uds ava naugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joined Thomas, Samuel Alito, and John Roberts earlier this year to overturn Roe v. Wade and take away a woman’s Con stitutional right to choose abortion.

In the near future, this extremist Court might attack gay rights, as Thomas has ominously suggested. e t on the docket Affirmative action in colleges. Much of the homework for such rulings comes from law clerks, who are not merely office helpers but rather work as legal research scholars for the Justices. Coincidentally, a proud post this semester on Hillsdale’s “alumni marketing” site is titled “Supreme Assignment” and it brags that “The Hillsdale College alumni pipeline to the Supreme Court continues.”

“During the past two decades, the College has had six graduates serve as clerks to the nation’s highest court,” the story says. “Add three more to that total, as lliot Gaiser, ’1 , Garrett West, ’1 , and anuel Valle, ’11, recently completed their terms in Washington, D.C. Gaiser and West clerked for Associate ustice amuel Alito while Valle clerked for Associate ustice Clarence Thomas.”

But wait, there’s more to this loop.

“Gaiser and West were back on the Hillsdale campus to start the academic year,” the story reports, “teaching a course titled ‘Constitutional Interpreta tion’ and also speaking at a Federalist Society event.”

Although the school officially offers a bachelor’s degree in ancient “liberal arts,” its contemporary students also try to master the current conservative crafts.

One e ample As votes were being counted in the residential election at Detroit’s TCF Center, Hillsdale students responded when Republicans pro testers chanted “Stop the Count!” and insisted that Trump was being cheated.

About a dozen Hillsdale students scrambled from Simpson Residence dorm and piled into three cars to drive 1 miles to the otor City to join the protest.

“That was when I was a sophomore,” student Austin Harm recalled. “That was a long time ago. I’ve

gotten older and matured a little bit.”

But Harm said Detroit election authorities would not let the student protestors crash the main room to challenge the ballots.

“After that,” he said, “we just got pi a.”

He said he didn’t know what Hillsdale students might do this year if they disagree with the midterm election results on ov. .

The school had a different kind of political urgency when it was founded in 1 by Free Will Baptists amid the hills and dales of the American frontier. This was only seven years after ichigan became the 26th state in the union, even before northern neighbors like Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Back then, Hillsdale’s high calling was to abolish human slavery.

An early president, dmund Burke Fairfield, helped form the brand-new Republican Party in nearby ackson shortly before the Civil War. Back then, Republicans were the left-wing liberals who nominated Abraham Lincoln, their first successful presidential candidate, in 1 .

When the war came the following year, many Hills dale students volunteered to serve in the Union Army and Hillsdale students died in the conflict.

A monument to those veterans graces the lawn in front of Central Hall, near the intersection of Hillsdale treet and College treet. Other statues on the pretty campus include those of the English prime minister argaret Thatcher and Frederick Douglass, who escaped from slavery, campaigned for its aboli tion, and lectured at Hillsdale before the war.

A century later, in 1966, Hillsdale made international news when many students reported seeing the bright lights of an unidentified flying object on campus. Authorities dismissed the phenomenon as “swamp gas” from decaying vegetation. o similar sightings on campus have since been reported.

Another major event that put Hillsdale in the spotlight came in 1999 when the daughter-in-law of the school president killed herself outdoors at the campus Arboretum with a gunshot to the head from a . special after revealing a long-term affair with her father-in-law.

That leader was George Roche III, who was ad mired by conservatives like William F. Buckley, r., who interviewed Roche along with Friedrich Hayek on the TV show Firing Line in 19 . That video is a jarring time trip.

Roche lanky and suave in a tailored suit and pol ished in his authoritative tone uotes hakespeare to attack social justice efforts as merely the power grabs of greedy governments.

“Power must make perforce a universal prey and last eat up himself,” Roche concludes. He also mocks affirmative action with a dismissive “There are Lithu anian minorities as well as Black or whatever.”

And Roche is eerily predictive when he tells Buck ley that the typical General otors factory worker in a Hamtramck bar this is years ago is backing away from unions like the United Auto Workers because inflation and ta ation reduce spending power despite periodic raises.

“The practical politics that once caused the average working man to be aggressively oriented toward orga nized labor might not be working any longer,” Roche said. “The ability of organi ed labor to hold its troops together . . . may be coming to an end.”

This sort of self-fulfilling prophecy also came from President Ronald Reagan, who appeared with Roche

Back then, Hillsdale’s high calling was to abolish human slavery — back then, Republicans were the left-wing liberals who nominated Abraham Lincoln, their first successful presidential candidate, in 1860.

in a promotional video for Hillsdale.

“Hillsdale deserves the appreciation of all who labor for freedom,” Reagan says on the video. “Your creative outreach on national issues enables little Hillsdale to cast such a long shadow.”

Some might think that the shadow of Roche’s sexand-suicide scandal would have taken the momen tum out of a place that preached its family values and moral superiority. But after replacing Roche, Arnn opened up the throttle.

His Barney Charter School Initiative began in 2010, right about the time Hillsdale opened its Washing ton campus, during the “Tea Party” backlash against Barack Obama, the first Black president.

Burris — Arnn’s critic from the NPE — said the Hillsdale president is not so much interested in money as he is in political power. Nevertheless, she conceded, he is an impressive fund-raiser.

“He received a huge grant from the Barney Family Foundation,” Burris says. “Arnn has been really masterful in getting funding from the DeVos family, from the Walton Family Foundation, and from other, deep-pocketed individuals and foundations that all hold this vision — this very conservative, libertarian vision — of what the world should be and how to best prepare young people to espouse the beliefs that they believe in.”

Burris said Hillsdale and Arnn have successfully created what she called a mythology about a rigorous curriculum that teaches phonics, Latin, and Great Books.

“What they are about,” Burris says of Hillsdale, “is raising the next generation of conservative thinkers and right-wing Republicans.” The college is said to appeal to some survivalist families, to those whose children were home-schooled and to students from outside Michigan.

Hillsdale refuses to provide statistics regarding race or anything else, but a one-day walking tour of its campus recently indicated the student population (about 1,500) is at least 90% white, the faculty even more so.

Arnn makes no secret of his partisanship with racebaiters like Trump.

His endorsement of Trump in 2016 enabled a fac tion of conservative educators to support the Repub lican candidate. As a reward, Arnn has said, Trump considered Arnn for Secretary of Education before choosing Betsy DeVos, a West Michigan Republican whose family has close ties to Hillsdale.

One prominent Hillsdale graduate is her brother, the security consultant Erik Prince. His “Blackwater USA” mercenaries fought in Iraq for the United States and were accused there of murdering 17 civilians in a Baghdad gun massacre.

After four Blackwater contractors were convicted, Trump pardoned them shortly before Trump’s words sparked an insurrection of seditious rioters to attack the U.S. Capitol, where some chanted “hang Mike Pence!” (Trump’s vice-president) on January 6, 2021.

Prince’s sister, Betsy, has long advocated charter schools and “voucher programs.” Under vouchers and “school choice” policies, public tax money could go to private and religious schools instead of to public schools.

It is a step beyond the charter school concept. The movement toward privatization of public money for education is happening so quickly that sometimes the categories seem to blur.

And this is fortunate for DeVos and Hillsdale in their effort to undermine public education because the Covid pandemic forced parents to be more aware of things like sex education and racial history being taught in their public schools.

Two years ago, on a visit to Hillsdale reported by the Detroit News, DeVos said “Parents are more aware than ever before how and what their children are — or are not — learning. And far too many of them are stuck with no choices, no help and no way forward.”

MLive recently reported that, as of 2021, Hillsdale had partnerships with more than 70 charter schools, reaching more than 14,500 students. But as Hillsdale has become more strident in its public posture, some charter schools have backed away from alliance with the College.

They became disillusioned with what they per ceived as Hillsdale’s heavy-handed influence in not only the curriculum but also on who gets to run the schools.

In Colorado, Derec Shuler — CEO of Ascent Classical Academies — told MLive “We’re still partners, but we’re going to be more removed partners in the future.”

In Tennessee, several local school boards have had second thoughts after reading Arnn’s recent email again attacking educators outside the Hillsdale bubble.

“In many instances,” he wrote in the email, “instead of classes of substance, they find lectures on highlycharged subjects like racism and sexuality — subjects that should be broached, not by teachers, but by the child’s own parents.”

Nashville TV station WTVF reported: “An online course — which Hillsdale recommends as a resource for the charter school teachers — portrays Black Lives Matter and other modern-day civil rights movements as being a threat to the country.”

Along with topics of race and sex, Hillsdale’s edu cational efforts often include immigration, another hot-button issue for right-wing fear mongering.

In his online Hillsdale course called “American Citizenship and Its Decline,” professor Victor David Hanson declared immigration a plot by leftists to gain control over elections.

“It’s just simply a large influ , sort of a late Roman Empire migration, soley for the purpose of enhanc ing the progressive agenda of the Democratic Party,” he said, “or the idea that these are going to be new constituents . . . We have no border and there is no immigration law.”

Another example was the “Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar” in Franklin, Tennessee, last April. A featured speaker was Abigail Shrirer, the author of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters

She called transgender awareness a “social conta gion” among teen-age girls who wish to “stick it to mom” by becoming boys. Without citing evidence, she said “gender-confused people” attend rallies sponsored by Black Lives Matter and Antifa.

“We must refuse to recite the lies that warp our children and wreck our families,” Shrirer said. “A cultural battle is at last being fought.”

Following a wave of applause, she said: “This is the first audience I’ve been to that didn’t want to throw things at me.”

In a question-and-answer session after her speech, she said Ivy League schools allow young women to enter as females and graduate as men.

“In some cases, they end up without their breasts,” Shrirer said. “It absolutely happens.”

After a brief pause, she added: “I guess that’s an advertisement for Hillsdale.”

Hillsdale’s “alumni marketing” site brags that “The Hillsdale College alumni pipeline to the Supreme Court continues.”

WHAT’S GOING ON

Be sure to check venue websites for up dated information. Add you own events to metrotimes.com/addevent.

Wednesday Nov. 2

Live/Concert

Greyson Chance 7 pm; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $25-$75. Tegan and Sara 7 pm; Garden Bowl, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $42.50.

The Smashing Pumpkins + Jane’s Addiction: Spirits On Fire Tour 6:30 pm; Little Caesars Arena, 2645 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $49-$150.

DJ/Dance

Thursday Nov. 3

Live/Concert

DRAIN 7 pm; Edgemen, 19757 15 Mile Rd., Clinton Twp.

Sheila Landis: Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald 7 pm; The Hawk - Farm ington Hills Community Center, 29995 Twelve Mile Road, Farmington Hills; $20 in advance / $25 at door.

Warren Zeiders 7 pm; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $22.

DJ/Dance

AfroSoul Nov. 3, 10 pm-2 am; Willis Show Bar, 4156 Third St., Detroit; $10.

Interstellar Thursdays with Tony Nova Every other Thursday, 9 pm-2 am; The Grasshopper Under ground, 22757 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; No cover.

Friday Nov. 4

Live/Concert

Aaron Lewis 8 pm; Sound Board, 2901 Grand River Ave., Detroit; $57-$70.

Alex G 7 pm; Magic Stick, 4120 Wood ward Ave., Detroit; $23.

Bars of Gold, 84 Tigers, Kind Beast 7 pm; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff, Hamtramck 1 .

Bazzi: THE INFINITE DREAM TOUR 7 pm; The Fillmore, 2115 Wood ward Ave., Detroit; $39.50-$69.50. BoomBox featuring the Backbeat Brass 9:30 pm; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $20.

Dilla Fest: Detroit 2022 with Busta Rhymes, Frank N, Dank feat. Illa J, Dez Andrés 8 pm-midnight; Russell Industrial Center, 1600 Clay Ave., Detroit; $30.

Dirty Dancing in Concert 8 pm; Fisher Theatre, 3011 W. Grand Blvd, Detroit; $55-$85.

Eric Ripper, Natalie Siagkris 8-11 pm Berkley Coffee, 1 1 West 11 ile Rd, Ste 50o, Oak Park; $5 suggested (door jar or pay at bar).

Girl Talk (Ages 18+) 9 pm; Saint An drew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $35.

Greektown Casino Hotel Presents Chaka Khan 8 pm; The Music Hall, 350 Madison Ave., Detroit; $55-$89.

Hip Hop Beats Showcase by Rap Music Producer The Corporatethief Beats first Friday of every month, 7-9 pm; No cover.

JEAN DAWSON: Chaos Now* Tour 6 pm; The Shelter, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $20.

Joanne Shaw Taylor 7 pm; Royal Oak Music Theatre, 318 W. Fourth St., Royal Oak.

Kings of Strings - Your next favorite Band 8:30-11 pm; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; FREE.

She Wants Revenge with The Chameleons & D’Arcy 8 pm; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $35.

DJ/Dance

Fast & Loose w/ DJ Nervous Recs + special guests 9 pm-2 am; Second Best, 42 Watson St., Detroit; No cover.

Continuing is Week Art Exhibition

Saturday Nov. 5 Live/Concert

Anthony Gomes 7 pm; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $20$120.

Anti-Flag, We Are the Union, Blind Adam And The Federal League 7 pm; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff, Hamtramck .

Cooper Alan 7 pm; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $25.

Copeland 7 pm; Pike Room, 1 S. Sagi naw, Pontiac; $29.50.

DIRK KROLL BAND live! @ Edo Ramen 8-11 pm; Edo Ramen, 4313 W 13 Mile Rd., Royal Oak.

HYRYDER-Grateful Dead Tribute (A band beyond description) 7-11:30 pm; Diesel Concert Lounge, 33151 ile Road, Chesterfield . Idiot Kids, Hail Alien 8-10 pm; Berk ley Coffee, 1 1 West 11 ile Rd, te o, Oak Park; No cover.

Dilla Fest

THE LIFE AND legacy of the influential hip-hop producer and beatmak er J Dilla will be celebrated in his hometown of Detroit with an upcoming event dubbed Dilla Fest.

The touring event makes its Motor City stop on Friday, Nov. 4 at the Russell Industrial Center.

The event is slated to feature performances by hip-hop icon Busta Rhymes, as well as Detroit acts like Dilla collaborators Frank N Dank, DJ Dez Andrés, and Illa J, J Dilla’s son.

According to a flier, it’s hosted and endorsed by Dilla’s mother Ma Dukes and her James Dewitt Yancey Foundation and produced by MeanRed.

Dilla is beloved for his work with acts like Slum Village, the Pharcyde, the Soulquarians, and more. He died in 2006 at 32 following a battle with a rare blood disease.

Last year, author Dan Charnas published Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm, a biography of Dilla that received wide acclaim. You can read an excerpt in Metro Times about how Dilla and T3 of Slum Village landed a record deal by linking up with NBA player John Salley and producer R.J. Rice.

—Lee DeVito

Starts at p.m. on Friday, Nov. at the Russell Industrial Center; 1600 Clay St., Detroit; mean.red. Tickets start at $45.

Last Night Saved My Life 7 pm; Pike Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $13.

Lez Zeppelin 7 pm; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $36.

Michael Franks 8 pm; Fisher Theatre, 3011 W. Grand Blvd, Detroit; $60-$125.

Skilla Baby 10 pm; Pike Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $30-$40.

Supper Club 6:30-10:30 pm; Trust Cocktails, Shareables & Nightlife, 205 West Congress Street, Detroit; No cover.

The Beatles Album Club: Please

Please Me, A Hard Day’s Night, Beatles For Sale, Help! 7 pm; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $10.

Winds Of Neptune + Mega Weedge (Ween Tribute Band) 8:30-11 pm; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; No cover.

Zoso - The Ultimate Led Zeppelin Experience 8 pm; Emerald The atre, 31 N. Walnut St., Mount Clemens; $25-$200.

J. Dilla.

COURTESY PHOTO

DJ/Dance

Liquid Stranger Nov. 5, 8 pm; Royal Oak Music Theatre, 318 W. Fourth St., Royal Oak.

SIDEPIECE - KISS & TELL: SECOND BASE TOUR Nov. 5, 9 pm-2 am; Russell Industrial Center, 1600 Clay Ave., Detroit; $25.

Sunday Nov. 6

Live/Concert

Detroit Metropolitan Youth Symphony 3 pm; The Hawk - Farm ington Hills Community Center, 29995 Twelve Mile Road, Farmington Hills; $15 in advance / $20 at the door.

JD Simo, Patrick Sweany 6:30 pm; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $15-$100.

joan 7 pm; The Shelter, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $20.

Local buzz

By Broccoli and Joe Zimmer

Welcome to a new column about Detroit’s music scene. Got a tip? Hit us up at music@metrotimes.com!

FATHER DUKES LAUNCHES DJ

RESIDENCY: DJ Father Dukes has fired up a new bi-weekly residency. “Block Club” is hosted at Tenacity Craft, a relatively new bar and brewery in Detroit’s Piety Hill neigh borhood. Originally hailing from Flint, Tenacity has established quite the cozy little space at their De troit location, with not only a hefty beer selection, but also coffee, tea, and kombucha for non-alcoholic drinkers. When mentioning the Detroit-style pizza that the bar also serves, Dukes had this to say: “it’s fire truly blew my mind.” uch an unexpected setting seems apt for a Father Dukes residency, with her eclectic sets garnering praise from both casual party-goers and serious techno-heads alike. Depending on the night, you can expect to hear classic techno and dance hits, new tracks from freshest Detroit talent, or (if you’re lucky) a deep Jamiroquai cut. Dukes expects to perform every other Thursday, with a rotating guest DJ in the mix as well. Follow Father Dukes (@wolf___hailey) or Tenacity Craft (@tenacitycraft) on Instagram to get the scoop on the next Block Club.

EIGHT YEARS OF PARAMITA SOUND: We don’t need any excuse

Juvenile and Twista 7:30 pm; Sound Board, 2901 Grand River Ave., Detroit; $40-$52.

Saxappeal + The Crü Live 7-10 pm; Baker’s Keyboard Lounge, 20510 Liver nois Ave., Detroit; $15.

Sun Kil Moon 7 pm; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $25.

Sunday Jam Sessions Hosted by Sky Covington & Friends 8 pm-midnight; Woodbridge Pub, 5169 Trumbull St., Detroit; No cover.

Two Door Cinema Club 7 pm; Mag ic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; Varials, Dr. Acula, Orthodox, Distinguisher, Ma a Birdhouse pm anctuary Detroit, 9 Caniff, Hamtramck; $17.

Varials, Dr. Acula, Orthodox, Distinguisher, Ma a Birdhouse 6 pm-midnight; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932

Caniff, Hamtramck . DJ/Dance

Bar Wars w/ Chuck D and TRBLMAKR 10-11:45 pm; Fifth Avenue Novi, 25750 Novi Rd., Novi; $5.

Monday Nov. 7 Live/Concert

Aaron Lewis Frayed At Both Ends Acoustic Tour 8 pm; Sound Board, 2901 Grand River Ave., Detroit; $57-$70.

The Devil’s Rodeo first onday of every month, 8 pm-1 am; Trixie’s Bar, 2656 Carpenter Avenue, Hamtramck; No cover.

Mothership, Electric Huldra 7 pm; anctuary Detroit, 9 Caniff, Ham tramck; $15.

Senses Fail 6:30 pm; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $25.

DJ/Dance Tuesday Nov. 8 Live/Concert

Four Year Strong 6 pm; Saint An drew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $25.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor with MANAS 7 pm; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $29.50.

Peach Tree Rascals, Miles 7 pm; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $20.

DJ/Dance

B.Y.O.R Bring Your Own Records Night 9 pm-midnight; The Old Miami, 3930 Cass Ave., Detroit; No cover.

Karaoke/Open Mic

Songwriter Night 8-11:59 pm; Ghost Light, 1 Caniff t., Hamtramck o cover.

to highlight Paramita Sound, the small record store that has evolved into a community hearth for some of the most exciting artists working in the city today. With a reputation for throwing great parties (remember the Beat rofile at the West Village house?), Paramita just celebrated eight years in business, so let’s take a moment to highlight a few great events that happen every month. Drawn Sessions (every third Thursday): hosted by Wrcklés, expect a mix of hip-hop, house, afro-beats and soul and reggae edits, with guest DJs spinning as well. This is a drink and draw event with the best soundtrack ever. 94 to East Africa every first Thursday co-hosted by ProblematicBlackHottie and Nick Speed. Getting cross-generational with it, Hottie and Nick host a bumping night of hip-hop and afrobeats; songs to shake your ass or nod your head to, with a nice glass of natty wine from the bar. Speed has reached legendary status as a pro ducer, and Hottie’s sets are always a hit, making this one of the don’t miss nights at Paramita.

HITECH IS SLOWLY TAKING

OVER: Local house music legend and FXHE label head Omar S has always had an ear to the ground, find ing the most promising new artists that you’ve never heard of and cap turing their youthful fire within the grooves of vinyl records. HiTech is no exception; the group, consisting of multi-talented artists King Milo, Milf Melly, and 47Chops, have cut their teeth in underground mosh-

pits and DIY venues across Detroit and beyond. Their debut record, re leased in July of this year, conjures a raucous and joyous energy, dripping with sweat and Hennessy. Merging the best of footwork, jit, ghettotech, and more, all wrapped within the touch of the sonic genius that Omar has refined over the years, HiTech’s sound is undeniably exciting and remarkably innovative. Since the release of the record, HiTech has rocked esteemed stages such as Boiler Room Detroit, and even was a featured guest at Omar S’s show in New York with Four Tet, Jamie XX, and Floating Points. The only way to go is up, so strap in and prepare to get freaky.

KE THU DROPS 12-INCH: Detroit techno duo Ke Thu just put out a new record via Still Techno, a relatively new imprint housed within Still Music Chicago. Like a

Beacon Against the Fog was written and recorded in 2020, and contin ues the group’s mission of pursuing an “earnest exploration of techno and everything it is capable of.” The record’s title track is a measured, chugging feat of structure that dis plays impressive sound design and engaging melodic progression. The rest of the record is no less remarkable, and the group’s prolific run of releases has caught the attention of music heads both locally and across the pond. The group played Movement Electronic Music Festival earlier this year in Hart Plaza, they just got back from a show in Buffalo, New York over Halloween weekend, and they are slated to join a stacked lineup for the Interdimensional Transmissions x Paxahau event at Tangent on Saturday, Nov. 26, so be sure to keep an eye out for what’s next from one of the rising acts in Detroit’s thriving live techno scene.

Ke Thu.

COURTESY PHOTO

MUSIC

All about that bass

TikTok phenom Blu DeTiger brings her first headline tour to Detroit’s El Club

By Lee DeVito

On her 2021 single “Vintage,” pop star Blu DeTiger sings about needing a guy to match her outfit someone who will wear a motorcycle jacket but still hold the door open for her… and also knows all the words to “ r. Brightside.”

It might technically be a tad preemp tive for the illers’ track to be considered “vintage,” but 24-year-old DeTiger who has earned a massive social media following thanks to her bass-playing prowess and modeles ue looks draws much of her inspira tion from the past, whether it’s s indie rock or classic rock or Top pop. During last summer’s festival circuit, her sets included a medley of covers including Gorilla ’s “Feel Good Inc.,” Outkast’s “ s. ackson,” and .I.A.’s “Paper Planes” — all songs that came out when she was a child.

“I was definitely not listening to what the other kids in my school were listening to,” she says. “All my friends in middle school or whatever, they didn’t know what I was talking about. I was just on a different wave.”

DeTiger got her start playing bass at age , enrolling in anhattan’s chool of Rock program her older brother Rex played drums) and studying classic rock bands like the Rolling tones and Led eppelin. In her teenage years, she says she was more into 19 s and ’ s funk and R B like Chic, Cameo, and

atrice Rushen. But she was no rockist, either. “ Teenage Dream’ by aty erry is like one of the best songs of all time,” she says. “If you don’t like it, you’re lying.”

By age 1 , she was working as a D , and got the idea to bring along her bass guitar to play live along to the tracks. he says this helped further e pand her musical tastes.

“ ou have to know every song,” she says. “ ou have to know all the classics, you got to know all the new stuff, you got to know all the old stuff. I just kind of got an appreciation for every thing.”

As an adult, she started working as a bassist-for-hire, touring with acts like Caroline olachek and alt-rock band itten. he also began to build a social media following by posting clips of herself playing bass on TikTok, which she had just started using.

he says she posted one clip before heading on an airplane to London for a gig. “I didn’t think much of it,” she says. “I just posted it and then I got on the plane. And when I landed, it had like , likes, just something ridiculous. It kind of went viral over night. I was, Oh, wow, like, people are actually into this,’ and I literally prob ably put like seconds into making the video.”

When live music was paused dur

ing the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, DeTiger got into a routine of posting clips on TikTok every day, covering tracks ranging from rince to egan Thee tallion, and eventu ally garnering some nearly 1. million followers. he says it helped her scratch the itch to perform.

“To have another outlet where I could almost, like, instead of performing for an audience, just perform for my phone, and find a new audience online, that really helped me,” she says.

Being a social media star may very well be helping to inspire a whole new generation of girls to pick up the bass. “It’s the best part of what I do,” she says. “I get so many messages that are like, ou inspired me to get a bass, and now I’m playing and I’m learning your song.’ Like, that just makes me feel so good.”

DeTiger is on the road for her first headlining tour, which makes a stop at Detroit’s l Club on onday. Her live sets have something of the eclecticism of a streaming playlist, offering both a slick pop feel as well as off-the-cuff jam sessions with her backing band, which includes her brother.

“I always want to kind of have an ele ment of everything in there,” she says. “I want to have the pop star moment, I want to have the rock moment, and I want to have the funky moment. I just want everyone to feel like they e peri

enced a real thing that took them to all these different hills and valleys.”

DeTiger is also at work on a new album, and just dropped a new single called “ levator.” The video features DeTiger and friends goofing around in an elevator, with cameos including ear ly viral social media star Rebecca Black, as well as musicians like ffie, Dave 1 from Chromeo, and Ale ander .

“I just te ted my friends, I was just like, Hey, are you free Tuesday night ’” DeTiger says. “ veryone brought great energy, too, which was so e citing.”

Back when DeTiger first picked up a bass, indie rock acts like the illers were credited with helping “save” rock ’n’ roll, which still stubbornly refuses to die. DeTiger is not convinced it even needs saving.

“I feel like it’s always going to be around,” she says. “I think no matter how big electronic music gets, or people are making music on a laptop, you still can’t beat the sound of the real instrument. And everything comes back around. That actual connection of playing an instrument with your hands and producing that sound, it’s just never going to go out of style.”

Blu DeTiger performs on Monday, Nov. at El Club; 4144 Vernor Hwy., Detroit; elclubdetroit.com. Event starts at p.m. Tickets are $26.

Blu DeTiger performs at Detroit’s El Club.

CHRISTINA BRYSON

Friday 11/4

Twin Deer/ DJ Alright (Detroit)/ Animal Scream (Evil Motown)/ Zack Keim Doors@9pm/ $5 Cover

Saturday 11/5

The Quasi Kings/ HWT Doors@9pm/ $5 Cover Happy Birthday, Kyle Jackson!

Sunday 11/6

Veteran’s Day Parade We Are Open @11am

Mon 11/7

FREE POOL ALL DAY

Tues 11/8 ELECTION DAY!

Don’t forget to vote! B. Y. O. R. Bring Your Own Records (weekly) Open Decks! @9PM NO COVER!

Happy Birthday, Gena Varajon!

Coming Up in November : 11/10 HAG/Mammon/ Disturbio313

11/11 Craig Brown Band/ Slizz/ The Hi-Views

11/12 Kings of Strings/ Big B and the Actual Proof/ Crimson Eyed Orchestra (Blues Night)

11/18 Dark Red/ The DeCarlo Family /Lunar Missionaries

11/19 BANGERZ AND JAMZ (Monthly DJs)

11/23 Thanksgiving Eve with DJ Bet & DJ Skeez

11/24 Thanksgiving Day Open 8am for the Parade

MUSIC

Feelin’ blues

Blueswoman Joanne Shaw Taylor continues to expand her sound

By Alan Sculley, Last Word Features

Joanne Shaw Taylor is widely considered a blues artist, but she doesn’t consider any of her nine studio albums to be blues records and she doesn’t write what she sees as blues songs.

“I’ve always said I’m a blues guitarist, I’m a soul singer, and a pop-rock writer and it all just kind of jumbles together, because I’m hugely influenced by blues, but when I learned to sing, I was never going to sound like Freddie King or Howlin’ Wolf,” she says in a late-October phone interview. “All my influences were male, so I had to seek out other music forms with female voices. And then again, just as a music fan, I love good pop songs, whether that’s David Bowie or Bonnie Raitt or Fleetwood Mac or, I love Harry Styles new album. So it’s a bit of a jumble, but there’s cer tainly a blues influence in there.”

Taylor’s description of her music might be more accurate than ever with her new album, Nobody’s Fool es, there is a blues influence, especially on rockier tracks like “Just No Getting Over You (Dream Cruise),” “Then There’s You,” and the funky title track, as well as the soulful ballad “The Leaving Kind.” But on what may be Taylor’s most musically diverse album, there’s also a strong pop/rock thread running through the frisky “Bad Blood,” the sweet and light “Won’t Be Fooled

Again,” even the driving “Figure It Out,” while “Runaway” has a jazzy folk feel and “Fade Away” is a piano-andcello-laced ballad Shaw wrote about the loss of her mother, how her grief has evolved, and the perspective she’s gained in the near-decade since her passing.

Whatever styles she incorporates on Nobody’s Fool, the songwriting is consistently strong and the perfor mances from Taylor and the musicians are inspired. And that’s been her goal every time she’s embarked on an album project.

“I’ve always promised the fans every album will be different. I don’t see the point in doing the same album again,” she says. “If you particularly love, I don’t know, ‘White Sugar,’ it’s great. It’s still there for you to listen to. But I’m going to make sure the next album sounds different, and one thing I can promise is I’ll always put out songs I be lieve in. They have to be the best songs I can do at this point. So I think you’ve just got to do that, really, and hope for the best as opposed to taking it really and just trying to figure what people (will) like.”

For Nobody’s Fool, Taylor teamed up with her long-time close friend, blues-rocker Joe Bonamassa, and his producing partner Josh Smith. The pair also produced The Blues Album, Tay

lor’s 2021 disc of cover songs by blues artists. That album also marked her first release on eeping The Blues Alive Records, the label run by Bonamassa and his manager, Roy Weisman.

The recording of The Blues Album went smoothly. And as Taylor began to turn her attention to making a new album of original material, she was ex cited to team up again with Bonamassa and Smith, and feels their partner ship grew over the course of making Nobody’s Fool at the legendary Sunset Sound studio in Los Angeles.

“I think it’s far more collaborative than any album I’ve ever done. I do see me, Joe and Josh as sort of a band, really,” Taylor says. “I provide the songs, but they’re very involved in the arrangement really, the direction that those songs go. I essentially give them a song on acoustic guitar and vocal, so they have a lot of say in it.”

Some of the 10 original songs on No body’s Fool took on whole new shapes with the input of Bonamassa and Smith. A prime example is “Runaway.”

“That’s one of my favorites, actu ally,” Taylor says. “I wrote it on acoustic and it was really Joe’s and Josh’s idea to kind of take it in more of a slightly Joni Mitchell (direction), I would say, which I really liked.”

Another song that evolved consider ably is the one cover tune on Nobody’s

Fool, a version of the Eurythmics’ hit, “ issionary an,” which gets an effec tively slower and grittier treatment.

“Again, that was Joe and Josh,” Taylor says. “I had it as a very sort of acoustic blues kind of format. They took it and played around with it and I came in and they kind of got that vibe going of, it’s almost a White Stripes form, that coolness to it, a little bit darker. And I was like ‘Actually, this really works. I really like what we’re doing with it.’ It was such a different take on it. And fortunately, Dave (Stewart) was in L.A. at the same time as me, so it felt right to finally do something with him (in the studio) after all of these years.”

Stewart, Annie Lennox’s musical part ner in the Eurythmics, is the musician who discovered Taylor when she was 16. He immediately hired her for his touring band at the time and helped her get meetings with a number of record labels as she was getting her solo career off the ground. By that time she met Stewart, Taylor, who started out playing classical guitar at age 8, had already been gigging for a couple of years.

“I loved playing guitar, but just didn’t like the discipline of the classical world,” says Taylor, a native of Wednes bury, West Midlands, England. “So of course, when I discovered (bluesman) Albert Collins, who plays guitar in such a bizarre way — I don’t think anybody but Albert Collins has played it (that way) since — you know, I just realized this is a fantastic instrument and really there are no rules to it. Blues guitar is all about personality. Freddie King sounds like Freddie King and Albert Collins sounds like Albert Collins. So I just loved that idea that I could sound like Joanne Shaw Taylor.”

Taylor’s songwriting skills, her soulful and sassy voice, and her guitar chops have earned her a steadily grow ing audience. To promote Nobody’s Fool, she’ll have a five-piece band that includes a second guitarist and Ham mond organ player, which will allow her to faithfully reproduce her songs in a live setting.

She also thinks the Nobody’s Fool material is enriching her live shows.

“I think it definitely adds a new dy namic, but it’s not too far of a stretch,” Taylor, 37, says. “It’s still kind of rooted in blues, pop soul, which I think I’ve always sort of skirted around those three genres. So I think it will tie in nicely, but I think also it will give a bit of a lift in the set to kind of change tack a little bit.”

Joanne Shaw Taylor performs on Friday, Nov. at the Royal Oak Music Theatre; 318 W. 4th St., Royal Oak; 248-3992980; royaloakmusictheatre.com. Tickets start at $39.

Joanne Shaw Taylor performns at the Royal Oak Music Theatre on Friday.

KIT WOOD

Ima’s movin’ on up

By Jane Slaughter

Mike Ransom has a deserved reputation for doing everything right, and he ups the ante at his new izakaya in Corktown. The cial ok o ra el uide tells me that the word izakaya is made up of three kanji with the mean ing “stay-drink-place.” I love that it’s a pub with good food (since just about all Japanese food is good food), intended for you to unwind with friends or coworkers after work. There’s a lot of drinking in Japan, and a lot of work to unwind from.

The original Ima (meaning “now”) opened in 2016 across the street from the new izakaya, immediately winning fans for its noodle soups and rice dishes. Now the tiny starter restaurant has been swapped for the space that used to be Gold Cash Gold. The original pawnshop’s battered sign is still there: “General Public Loans, Money in 1 Day.”

The new Ima has retained Gold Cash Gold’s décor: the beautiful stained glass wall in the foyer, the giant eagle on the floor reclaimed from a middle school gym), brick walls painted white, house plants on shelves, a ceiling of reclaimed wood formed into chevrons.

The thing about Japanese food is that it can be both delicate (up to a point)

and rib-sticking satisfying, in the same dish. A fat udon noodle, slurped out of a spicy broth, is comfort food supreme, but Izakaya’s udon soups are mostly vegetables, with the protein more of a condiment. You feel satiated but rea sonably virtuous.

Those soups are a small part of a long menu that includes noodles not in soups (yaki udons—pan-fried, no broth), 23 hot and cold appetizers, rice bowls, skewered proteins and “market cuts” of Chilean sea bass and New York strip with fi ed prices, and , below what many establishments are charging these days). They’re Japani fied, with, respectively, a miso-yu u glaze and a ginger-soy butter sauce.

But I stuck with the more traditional Asian fare, including pho and dump lings.

To start at the start: it’s hard to choose among 23 starters, ranging from pickles and edamame to steamed clams and beef tartare. Shrimp-scallion dumplings are a perennial crowd-pleas er and me-pleaser, five of them with crisp e teriors and a tart chili-black vinegar dipping sauce.

Also good is chicken karaage, a hit at Ransom’s Supercrisp spot in Midtown. The crunchy e terior of the nuggets is

achieved through two bouts of deepfrying, after a -hour marinade and a bath in a non-gluten starch mi . It’s served with Japanese Kewpie mayo on the side, made with yolks only, four vinegars and MSG, but no sugar: more umami.

I found a skewer of kurobuta pork sausages less interesting—like hot dogs, really—and only three of them. Better to have chosen the asparagus and smoked trumpet mushroom skewer, or fish jerky or pork belly. As I said, you will not lack for choice.

The three versions of yaki udons are miso butter, kimchi and teriyaki, The eminently slurpable thick wheat noodles are fried and served with greens, shiitake, scallions, shallot, chili threads, lemon and nori, nori being the most noticeable taste, the flavors blending as you progress through the dish. ork belly, one of the optionalproteins also charshu chicken, beef short rib, chili shrimp, roasted tofu) was delectably tender.

The meat can be tricky with chop sticks for us Westerners, of course, but persevere. Such was the case with beef pho in a big stainless steel bowl, which blended ginger and Thai basil flavors e pertly, both of them infusing the beef.

Ima Izakaya

2100 Michigan Ave., Detroit 313-306-9485

imaizakaya.com Bowls $14-$18 plus a protein

Another night I ordered a udon chicken broth soup called ginger tori, with short rib, an egg this side of hardboiled, scallions and wakame (sea weed). I would have liked more ginger taste and less wakame (but wakame is inherently strong). Ransom has also brought over his popular vegan Porcini Forest udon soup from the old Ima. Seven rice bowls include barbecued eel or eggplant and a Korean-inspired Fried Egg Boombap with kimchi. My companion tried the smoked salmon bowl and we scarfed it, but again, my choice would be more smoked salmon flavor and less seaweed.

The alcohol is e tensive at Ima, as befits a stay-drink-place. I couldn’t tell whether some patrons were truly whiling the evening away in izakaya fashion, but the elements to do so are there.

Some cocktails are low-ABV and there are mocktails. The ingredients lists are lighthearted—toasted coconut mezcal, lychee liqueur—more than your serious whiskeys. A “Rhinestone Cowboy” of St. Germain, juniperinfused sake and tonic was astringent, with a big spray of rosemary. The tall “Club ” sports dried pineapple and mint leaves, with a mostly coconut flavor. Ransom designed a cocktail, the Ima Peach Press made from gin, peach, quinine and lemon, and North Pier Brewing in Benton Harbor cans it for the Ima chain. The sakes are described the way wine connois seurs do it—such as “apple, melon, round, bright”—and I won’t pretend to say more. Beers and wines are from all over, Italy to Quebec to Missouri (Bud).

For dessert, I love the way Ransom throws an herb into the sweetness. Coconut Tofu Custard is light and minty with a base flavor like warm vanilla tap ioca, some blueberries and a sprinkle of cocoa crisps it’s not too many flavors. And the Chilled Cream Cake dresses up a tender yellow cake with strawberries, whipped cream—and Thai basil.

Raised by hippie Zen Buddhist parents near Traverse City, Ransom says Japanese is his comfort food. He grew up cooking for his siblings using high quality miso, mushrooms, kelp, tempeh and tofu imported from apan. When he opened his first Ima, “it made everything full circle. It was natural to me.”

Detroit’s original Ima restaurant moved across the street into the former Gold Cash Gold space.

VIOLA KLOCKO

FOOD

Detroit bees helped make this bourbon

By Lee DeVito

ALL SUMMER LONG, buzzing bees have kept busy, collecting nectar from flowers to make sweet honey in their beehives. And now, it’s time to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Bees in the D is a Detroit-based beekeeping nonprofit that manages more than 200 honeybee hives in and around the city, including on the roof top of Detroit City Distillery’s astern Market facility. For the past four years, the two groups have collaborated each autumn to make limited-edition bottles of bourbon barrel-aged honey and honey-infused bourbon.

“We take 55 gallons of honey, and we barrel-age it in one of their bourbon barrels for 90 days, and then we empty the barrel and they put the bourbon in it, and it takes on that honey finish,” Bees in the D co-found er Brian Roest-Peterson tells Metro Times. “It takes on the flavor of the residual whiskey that’s in the barrel, as well as the wonderful flavors of being inside them.”

He adds, “It’s this wonderful candy flavor, and it’s just ama ing.”

Only about 500 bottles are made, and the products are very popular. The honey ($40 per bottle) typically sells out within hours, while the bourbon ($60 per bottle) is expected to sell out by the end of the week, Roest- eter son says.

Both items will be available for online purchase starting at 8 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 11 at detroitcitydistillery.

com shop, with pick-ups available at a launch party starting at 4 p.m. at Detroit City Distillery’s tasting room at at 2462 Riopelle St. A limited number of bottles will also be available at local liquor stores and Meijer grocery stores, Roest-Peterson says.

Bees in the D has beehives at about locations across five counties in southeast Michigan. The hives are managed by Roest- eterson’s partner in business and life, beekeeper Brian eterson-Roest, who says that honey will taste different from one hive to the other, due to the different types of flowers available to the bees.

“It actually does have a very wide ar ray of flavors, which is the fun aspect of it,” he says. “But also the time of year is a factor. Honey in one location in the spring is going to taste different than the honey that we get from that exact same location at the end of sum mer.” ach bottle of honey has a code on it, which can be cross-referenced on beesinthed.com to see exactly where it came from.

Peterson-Roest started beekeep ing as a hobbyist in 2010, and formed the nonprofit to help bee popula tions, which have been declining for decades.

“ nfortunately, with so many differ ent factors like pesticides, there’s a lot more diseases, climate change, loss of habitat it’s just more and more things are stacking up against the odds for all our pollinators, like

butterflies and bees,” he says.

Bees in the D provides shelters for the bee colonies, and routinely checks in on them to make sure they’re healthy. They also work with local gar dens and farms to distribute seeds and educate people about the importance of planting pollinator-friendly plants.

“They are at the base of the food pyramid in our ecosystem,” he says. “But what’s cool about Detroit, too, is we’re in so many urban gardens, that it helps the production of the gardens, and that food also goes back to the communities. o we’re also not only helping the ecosystem for the wild animals, we’re helping to feed the residents of Detroit.”

As for the bees, Peterson-Roest says in the cold months, they form what’s called a winter cluster, surrounding their queen bee and vibrating their muscles to keep her warm. “It’s like a giant bee hug,” he says.

The cluster will move around the hive, with the bees eating the honey they’ve stored to sustain themselves throughout the winter. For that rea son, Bees in the D leaves about 80 to 100 pounds of honey in each hive so the bees have plenty for themselves.

The health of the bees is the most important thing, he says.

“If they do produce e tra, that’s where we get to go in and harvest and we can enjoy their labor as well,” he says, “by putting it on our biscuits or whatever.”

Chili Mustard Onions to close

AMERICA’S FIRST VEGAN coney island is getting ready to shut its doors.

Detroit’s Chili ustard Onions will be closing by the end of this year. Owner ete LaCombe was busy pumping out orders when we called on Thursday morning but he did confirm the restaurant’s unfortunate fate.

“I don’t have an e act date yet, but we’ll be closing in December,” he says. While depressing, hope is not totally lost as the business is up for sale at , , so it’s possible someone could buy it and keep it going.

A listing by real estate agency Keller Williams Paint Creek notes “the business has tremendous upside potential as it is only operating for 4 days for limited hours. A new owner could increase the opening hours, relocate the space, or increase the menu, and catering, the options are endless.”

Chili ustard Onions’ potential did seem endless when Today show host Al Roker visited over the summer during a segment for Family Style with Al Roker on Detroit coneys. He was impressed by the vegan dog, telling LaCombe he had a bright future.

LaCombe wrote in a social media post about the closing that he is plan ning to manufacture the restaurant’s products for retail and restaurant wholesale, so potential new owners could keep the same recipes we’ve come to love.

“After an incredible 1 and 19 we were eyeing e panding and franchis ing CMO and then 2020 and Covid put everything on hold until things got better,” he wrote. “ eed of the Restau rant Revitali ation Fund would help us get back to our 2019 days and hours of operation. We unfortunately did not receive the RRF grant...”

He continued, “If you want to open a CMO restaurant, food truck or trailer anywhere in the world I will be avail able to help from start to finish.”

There aren’t many other places in the city to get a vegan coney dog (though the UFO Factory does serve one). And sure, Honest ohn’s serves a vegan Reuben with an Impossible pattie and a vegan hani John, but Chili Mustard Onion’s “Brush ark” wrap is a better hani, anyway.

The closure is the latest blow to De troit’s vegan dining options following the closing of Cass Cafe and Harmony Garden, which both shut after nearly years in the community. Chili Mustard Onions opened in 2018.

If anything happens to Seva or The itchen by Cooking With ue, we’re gonna be pissed.

—Randiah Camille Green

Bees in the D and Detroit City Distillery are getting ready to drop their annual limited-edition collaboration. COURTESY PHOTO

WEED

Michigan’s longest serving non-violent offender opens up

Heart-wrenching documentary features Flint native Michael Thompson, who spent decades in prison after selling weed

By Steve Neavling

MICHAEL THOMPSON NEVER imagined that selling marijuana would have landed him in prison for decades.

But that’s what happened after he was caught selling three pounds of weed to a confidential informant in Genesee County in 1994.

While he languished behind bars, his parents and only son died. His daugh ters grew up without him.

Michigan’s longest serving non-violent offender, Thompson is an e ample of how the war on drugs went too far.

ow Thompson, who was finally released after his sentence was com muted by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2021, is the focus of an award-winning short documentary, The Sentence of Michael Thompson, that premiered on MSNBC on Sunday, with the Documentary+ debut coming on Nov. 1.

The -minute film e plores the hypocrisy of a criminal justice system that keeps non-violent offenders locked

up while others profit from cannabis legalization. It includes in-depth interviews with Thompson, his attorneys, and family members.

“My thing is, no one should be in prison for marijuana today.” Thomp son tells Metro Times. “No one. When does the politics stop and the love for humanity start?”

The film, presented by BC and TR, along with a ynonymous ic tures production, premiered at several festivals and received critical acclaim, winning the Audience Awards at SXSW and the Chicago Critics Film Festival, the ury Award at the Riverrun Interna tional Film Festival, and the Jury and Audience Award at the alm prings International Shortfest.

The filmmakers first reached out to Thompson during the COVID-19 pan demic in 2020.

“Michael’s story really resonated with me,” co-director yle Thrash tells Metro

Times. “He had a story he wanted to share, and because of the pandemic, I had a lot of time.”

When Thompson was arrested, police searched his home and found 1 firearms, many of which were anti ues and stored in a locked gun safe. But due to prior drug convictions, he wasn’t legally allowed to own guns and was sentenced as a fourth-time habitual of fender, which increased his penalty.

He was sentenced to 42 to 60 years in prison.

“I didn’t think I’d be in prison for 45 days,” Thompson says. “I thought the appeals court was going to throw it back on (the prosecutors’) lap. But hey, I was wrong. Twenty five years later, here I am telling this story.”

After Thompson was released, he couldn’t stop thinking of the people he spent time with behind bars.

“Everybody in prison is not bad,” Thompson said. “There are some good

Joe Biden wants everyone to know he’s not pardoning pot dealers

EVEN THOUGH CANNABIS re form advocates praised resident oe Biden for finally making good on his promise to e punge pot records, the president evidently wants folks to know that clemency doesn’t apply to dealers.

During a recent speech at Delaware State University, Biden trumpeted his record on weed but pointed out that the pardon doesn’t e tend to those who sold the stuff. The disclaimer was first covered by news site Marijuana Moment

“And I’m keeping my promise that no one — no one should be in jail for merely using or pos sessing marijuana. None. None,” the Democrat said. “And the records, which hold up people from being able to get jobs and the like, should be totally e punged. Totally e punged. ou can’t sell it. But if it’s just use, you’re completely free.”

Biden’s clemency deal only ap plies to 6,500 people who commit ted a federal possession offense or who violated possession law in Washington, D.C., according to Marijuana Moment. Another 2,800 people are now serving time in federal prison for pot convic tions that aren’t limited to simple possession.

—Sanford Nowlin

Originally published by our sister paper San Antonio Current. It is republished with permission.

people in there.”

Thompson launched the ichael Thompson Clemency roject to advo cate for prison reform and people who have been wrongfully sentenced.

“He has a fire in him that can’t be uenched,” co-director Haley li abeth Anderson tells Metro Times. “He’s go ing to fight for as long as he can. He has a lot of empathy.”

The directors said they hope the film motivates people to advocate for change.

“The movement is not going to be successful without regular people fight ing the battle,” Anderson says. “Our job is to get visibility and get people engaged and involved.”

LOGAN TRIPLETT/MSNBC/XTR

CULTURE

Man and machine merge

Jason REVOK

gears up for first solo museum exhibition at MOCAD

By Randiah Camille Green

Jason REVOK creates a me chanical mandala of repeating shapes as he guides an elliptical gear around in an eight-foot circle.

It’s like watching a dance of sorts — like a gladiator moving a boulder in some strange physical rite of passage. As paint drips down the canvas, the onceperfect geometrical shapes become imperfect, and more human.

This is the process behind many of the works REVOK created for his upcoming solo at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, titled The Artist’s Instru ments. The show will be on display from Nov. 5 to March 25, 2023.

“A lot of the work involves this almost kind of merger of man and some kind of crude machine where it’s powered by the movements of my body,” the Detroit transplant by way of California says. “It’s a very crude and imperfect kind of me chanical process where the shortcoming and failures of my body and ability to continuously repeat these motions over and over again create these little errors that are out of my control, and break up these mathematical patterns.”

REVOK has fashioned a large-scale Spirograph-like device to create the work in The Artist’s Instruments Remember the little plastic shapes you might have used to draw geometric patterns as a kid? Yeah, that thing. He says playing with Spirographs with his daughter inspired him to try and make one as big as humanly possible.

“One is like 96 inches, which is like eight feet, and that’s like the absolute maximum I could really power with my human-size frame,” he says. “I basically just created a massive, oversized one that uses spray paint instead of a ball

point pen, and as far as I know, nobody’s ever done anything like this before.”

After spending nearly the last four months creating new work for the show, REVOK tells us he’s exhausted.

“I have been working til three or four in the morning for like the last two months, like four to five days out of the week,” he says. “In four months, I’ve made 35 new works.”

The Artist’s Instruments includes several distinct series, which recreate a sense of assembly line production.

REVOK associates them with Detroit’s history of industrialization.

In his series of what he calls “tape loops,” REVOK strategically places tape onto paint rollers, which he uses to create more repeating patterns that he likens to music.

“I make these little unique tools that kind of have a phrase embedded in it and then that phrase just loops over and over creating these continuous loop ing patterns,” he says. “They’re kind of like meditation objects, but they’ve also always had this kind of musical sound element to them in my head. It’s almost like a phrase in the way that hip-hop artists over the years have taken a drum break or a breakdown from some classic song and sampled that one little bit to create these repeating beats.”

His inspiration for the tape loops comes from avant-garde composer

William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops recordings. In trying to digitize clips re corded from the radio on cassette tapes, Basinski noticed the tapes became noticeably degraded and eventually crumbled.

For the show, REVOK collaborated with software engineer Gabriel Valente Ferrao to create a program that reads his paint strokes like a record needle, giving the exhibit an element of sound.

“ o what you hear is a direct reflec tion of what you see, and what you see is a direct visual representation of the sound that you’ll hear,” he says.

Then there are REVOK’s “selfportraits.” Rather than a painting or photograph that depict the artist as he appears in the physical plane, these are linen drop cloths from his studio floor that have accumulated layers of paint over the years.

“Over the course of years and years or months and months of me working, all of the excess material, every color that I use and every layer that I’m applying … all the excess material from those works is falling in this very circumstantial way onto the cloth beneath me,” he says. “I view them as almost like long-term exposures or like recordings of me.”

He adds, “I’m making all this work kind of consciously and deliberately and meanwhile, simultaneously, while I’m making that this other body of work

is happening that I have no control over.”

REVOK says he has lived in Detroit for about six years. The self-taught art ist grew up in southern California and began creating as a graffiti writer back in the 1990s.

“I came to learn and be interested in art through years of years of paint ing on the street,” he says. “All of the processes and tools that I both created or adopted into my practice are almost entirely industrial tools, construction materials stuff that you’re more likely to find at Home Depot than an art sup ply store.”

He says the MOCAD show marks his return to painting after years of work ing primarily with reclaimed materials.

“So a lot of the work that I’ve created for this show here at MOCAD is kind of my last 10 years of coming back to painting but with an entirely new approach that is very mechanical and process-based,” he says. “It isn’t about this free, kind of romantic, emotional way of painting really loose or with big gestures, it’s really restricted and limited to this system of different tools, and machines, and instruments that I’ve created.”

MOCAD is located at 4454 Woodward Ave., Detroit. For more information see mocadetroit.org.

Jason REVOK creates one of his pieces for The Artist’s Instruments

ELAINE CROMIE/ COURTESY OF LIBRARY STREET COLLECTIVE

CULTURE

Park Chan-Wook smartly updates classic noir

By George Elkind

Best-known for 2003’s Oldboy and too overlooked for 2016’s baroque chamber drama The Handmaiden, Park Chan-Wook has been leaving filmmakers across the globe sprinting after his coattails for years. Cynical without succumbing to selfseriousness, politically astute but never hammy, and a brilliant stylist devoted to evocatively rendering each of his genre-inflected tales, it seems only natural that he’d feel at home with something resembling noir. With his latest, Decision to Leave, he’s done wonders with a story many many peers have made far less of, enlivening famil iar tropes with a restless devotion to variety, atmosphere, and a certain wry circumspection that could hardly feel more natural. This brand of cynicism feels (as ever) a proper match for noir: something Park renders as he ought to, expressing a worldview that rises both from and past a set of stylistic conven tions.

“Your Korean’s better than mine,” says Detective Hae-jun (an alternately earnest and steely Park Hae-il), the insomniac lead character of Decision to

Leave’s existentially wandering roman tic mystery. The second-person subject of the statement, Seo-rae (played with fluid versatility by Tang Wei is also an object of police investigation: a suspect in the death of her husband who fell (or something) from a solo climb up a steep, slippery cliff face and, before long, quite a bit more.

Such a remark is typical for Park (see The Handmaiden), who’s long observed brilliantly the ways that language, taste, and culture enmesh themselves in the workings of both interpersonal and global power: varieties of a single force never cleanly cordoned off from one another. In this case, expatriate fantasies — here, the idea that Seo-rae, who’s Chinese, should feel somehow out of her depth — meet political and personal realities, leaving Hae-jun taken aback at her coolness but some how in denial of her as a formidable, self-possessed force. Her coolness at her husband’s death only leaves him more so, stirring intrigue within him that goes well beyond the case.

Their relationship, and the hazy circumstances which surrounded

his death, are for much of Park’s film which he co-wrote alongside Jeong Seo-kyeong as well as directed) enveloped in a literal and figurative fog. More than a tonal feature, water suffuses ark’s film in the forms of mist and waves, seeming to move as a substance even beyond itself. Digital exteriors are photographed with a kind of blue-green filter or perhaps postproduction grading), with more satu rated cool tones stitched strategically into key places within the frame. Park’s interiors are only so different, shad owed in the manner of antique aquari ums — with splashes of more saturated hues and tinted lights serving to guide the eye. This results in a film whose characters — especially Detective Haejun — seem to be fumbling about and out of depth, never quite settling into a place of comfort. With the move ment of waves, rain, and floods being both unpredictable and inevitable, the film’s guiding stylistic motifs grant it a sense of unity and certainty, with Park’s assuredness in style guaranteeing that he’s steering things, unlike his lead, with a clear sense of orientation.

This sensibility proves freeing, too, enabling a story which might normally risk lapsing into vagueness to traverse different sorts of scenes with a sense of holistic unity in tone. Brilliant set pieces pepper the film’s progression (though no scene ultimately lacks in visual interest or style) — creating a welcome sense that Park’s incor porating a broad but authoritatively controlled range of tones. Cinema tographer Kim Ji-yong’s camera shifts readily between movement and stasis, stability, and jitters, depending on the demands of a given scene. Working more with zooms than do many of his contemporaries, Park’s background in action filmmaking gives him a sense of liberty even in the film’s more con tained, intimately scaled scenes.

But this sense of freedom —– epito mi ed in a whirlwind knife fight atop a construction site that feels cred ibly rough and improvisational, but extending throughout the fabric of the film feels finally and purposefully contained by an air of misty ambiguity. Damning his characters to not move in isolation, but always through or against something, wincing or squint ing to even move or see, Park hems his characters into close but never fully familiar quarters, on a shared existen tial plain.

This is truer nowhere than in the film’s gutting depictions of roman tic intimacy. With the film’s central relationships defined by uneasy assertion and sharing of knowledge, trust, and power, Decision to Leave frames what might be a source of comfort as yet another alien land scape of quasi-martial risk-taking and strategic reserve. Aligned as the viewer is with the ever-weary Hae-jun, there’s a rich and touching, yet faintly comic sense of his own impotence. Police work and romance alike here involve a sense of partial knowledge and comfort punctuated by intermit tent fits of scrabbling with a certain form of male egotism lampooned in a particular standout scene which nods to Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Within this sphere, a world which always feels quietly pressurized from without and circumscribed, power can be asserted only in defiance of an obvious need for succor and for help.

If such themes feel familiar, es sentially evergreen, then that’s as they should be; security and certainty being but two of society’s foundational myths. The difference between ark’s work and so much else — and espe cially so many other police stories — is that he knows them for what they are. Lately, that’s come, along with so much of what he does here, to be a bit of a forgotten art.

In Decision to Leave, Seo-rae (Tang Wei) is being investigated by detective Hae-jun (Park Hae-il) following the death of her husband.

COURTESY PHOTO

CULTURE

Savage Love

Just the facts

By Dan Savage

There is more to this week’s Savage Love. To read the entire column, go to Savage.Love.

Dear “Savage Love” Readers: After Nov. 14 my website Savage.Love will become the exclusive online home for my column. My column will still ap pear in print in some publications, but you will no longer be able to read the column online anywhere other than Savage.Love. This move will allow me to continue bringing you new columns — new questions, new answers — every week. I hope you will check out Savage.Love, where you can join the community of “Savage Love” readers and enjoy my latest columns, decades (!) of archives, the “Savage Lovecast” podcast, and much more. —Dan

:Q I’m a woman in a hetero marriage. We’ve happily played with others a bit but not recently because we have a small child. We are both bi and in our 40s. We talked about getting the monkeypox vaccine, but I didn’t think it was urgent because we’re not currently having sex with anyone else. Here’s my question: What should I do after learning that my husband got the monkeypox vaccine without telling me? I noticed a red bump on his arm, and he said it was nothing. After I said it looked like the monkeypox vax reaction, he admitted he got the vaccine but didn’t tell me. I was in favor of him getting the vaccine, so I’m totally panicking because he sneaked to get the shot. I think he’s cheating. It’s 2 a.m. where I am, and I just ordered two at-home HIV/AIDS tests and I’m getting a full STI panel at my OB GYN on Monday. What should I do? I’m a wreck.

—Seriously Panicking Over Unapproved Shot And Lies

A: By the time you read this, SPOU SAL, those at-home HIV/AIDS tests will have arrived, and you will have your results. You’ll also have seen your OB GYN and most likely gotten the results of your STI tests. Assuming

there were no unpleasant surprises — assuming you’re still negative for all the same things you were negative for the last time you tested — what does that mean?

While I don’t wanna cause you an other sleepless night, SPOUSAL, your test results can all be negative and your husband could still be cheating on you. But in the absence of other evidence — in the absence of any actual evidence that your husband has cheated on you — I think your husband deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Getting the monkeypox vaccine is the only fact in evidence here, SPOUSAL, and it’s a huge leap from, “My husband got the monkeypox vaccine without telling me,” and, “My husband has been cheating on me with other men during a public health crisis that has primarily impacted gay and bi men and wasn’t using condoms with those other men and knowingly put me at risk of con tracting monkeypox and HIV.” If your husband has a history of being reckless about his own sexual health and yours — if he tried to go bare without your consent when you played with other people, for example, and that incident and others like it fueled your freakout — I don’t understand why you’re still married to this man.

Zooming out for a second...

I can think of a few very good reasons why a married bi guy might decide to get the monkeypox vaccine even if his partner wanted him to wait. First, those shots haven’t been easy to get. If the vaccine became avail able where you live and/or his doctor offered it to him, it was a good idea for him to get his shots even if he’s not currently sleeping with anyone else. And why would his partner — why would you — want him to wait? If you didn’t want him to get those shots as some sort of insurance policy, e.g., if you wanted cheating to be needlessly and avoidably risky as some sort of deterrent, that seems pretty reckless.

Sometimes, SPOUSAL, the likely excuse is the honest answer. I’m guessing your husband got his shots because he hopes you — the both of you — can start playing with others again in the near future and he wants to be ready. Guys have to wait a month after getting their first shot before getting their sec ond shot, and another two weeks after that before they’re fully immune. (Or as immune as they’re going to get.) If your husband has been looking forward to opening your relationship back up — by mutual consent — sometime in the

near future, he most likely wanted to be ready to go when you decided, together, to resume playing with others. And he didn’t tell you he was getting the shots because, although he wanted to be ready to go when the time came, he knew you weren’t ready and didn’t want you to feel rushed or pressured.

My analysis of the situation presumes your husband isn’t a lying, cheating, inconsiderate, reckless asshole and deserves the benefit of the doubt here. You know your husband better than I do, SPOUSAL, and it’s entirely possible that your husband has proven himself to be a liar and a cheat and an inconsid erate asshole and a reckless idiot again and again and again.

But if that’s the case — if he’s all of those horrible, no-good, disqualifying things and, therefore, not deserving the benefit of the doubt here I would ask you again (and again and again): Why are you still married to him then?

:Q I need advice as to how to restart the “sex with others” part of my life because cancer surgery left me without erections, and it is not fi able can have intense orgasms if I masturbate or et oral se on accid enis a a 73-year-old male, and I have been into kink since I was a teen, so I understand that there is much more than PIV that can give one pleasure. I also understand that for the vast majority of people, PIV is what sex is about. People come on to me often, so I have no problem attracting people. What is your advice as to how to present this issue when someone shows interest in me? With online dating, I would like to be upfront and ut it in rofile, but a ublic fi ure and can t ust ost a icture of myself in a dating app and disclose this. Do you have any suggestions about dating online where I can omit putting my picture? I’m attracted to females, cis and trans. I have never been with a transgender woman, but after surviving cancer I am more open to everything now than I was before. (Seeing the end of life up close really removes a lot of blocks.) I am not attracted to males at all. What word best to describes my sexual likes?

—Giving But Not Hard

A: You’re…

Go to Savage.Love to read the rest.

Ask: questions@savagelove.net. Listen to Dan on the Savage Lovecast. Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage.

CULTURE Free Will Astrology

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES: March 21 – April 19

In the coming weeks, I encourage you to work as hard as you have ever worked. Work smart, too. Work with flair and aplomb and relish. ou now have a surprisingly fertile opportunity to reinvent how you do your work and how you feel about your work. To take ma imum advantage of this potential breakthrough, you should inspire your self to give more of your heart and soul to your work than you have previously imagined possible. . . By “work,” I mean your job and any crucial activity that is both challenging and reward ing.)

TAURUS: April 20 – May 20

Here’s my weird suggestion, Tau rus. ust for now, only for a week or two, e periment with dreaming about what you want but can’t have. And just for now, only for a week or two, go in pur suit of what you want but can’t have. I predict that these e ercises in ui otic futility will generate an une pected benefit. They will motivate you to dream true and strong and deep about what you do want and can have. They will intensify and focus you to pursue what you do want and can have.

GEMINI: May 21 – June 20

our most successful times in life usually come when all your vari ous selves are involved. During these interludes, none of them is neglected or shunted to the outskirts. In my astrolog ical opinion, you will be wise to ensure this scenario is in full play during the coming weeks. In fact, I recommend you throw a big nity arty and invite all your various sub-personalities to come as they are. Have outrageous fun acting out the festivities. et out a placemat and nametag on a table for each partici pant. ove around from seat to seat and speak from the heart on behalf of each one. Later, discuss a project you could all participate in creating.

CANCER: June 21 – July 22

A Cancerian reader named oost oring e plained to me how he cultivates the art of being the best Cancerian he can be. He said, “I shape my psyche into a fortress, and I make people feel privileged when they are allowed inside. If I must sometimes instruct my allies to stay outside for a while, to camp out by the drawbridge as I work out my problems, I make sure they know they can still love me and that I still love them.” I appreciate oost’s perspective. As a Cancerian myself, I can attest to its value. But I will also note that in the coming weeks, you will reap some nice benefits from having less of a fortress mentality. In my astrological opinion, it’s ART TI

LEO: July 23 – August 22

Leo poet Antonio achado wrote, “I thought my fire was out, and I stirred the ashes. I burnt my fingers.” I’m telling you this so you won’t make the same mistake, Leo. our energy may be a bit less radiant and fervent than usual right now, but that’s only because you’re in a recharging phase. our deep reserves of fertility and power are regenerating. That’s a good thing Don’t make the error of think ing it’s a sign of reduced vitality. Don’t overreact with a flurry of worry.

VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22

Virgo author iegfried assoon became renowned for the poetry he wrote about being a soldier in World War I. Having witnessed carnage first hand, he became adept at focusing on what was truly important. “As long as I can go on living a rich inner life,” he wrote, “I have no cause for complaint, and I welcome anything which helps me to simplify my life, which seems to be more and more a process of elimi nating inessentials ” I suggest we make assoon your inspirational role model for the ne t three weeks. What ines sentials can you eliminate What could

spoiled or sullied.

CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19

JAMES NOELLERT

you do to enhance your appreciation for all the everyday miracles that life offers you

LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22

ou Libras have a talent that I consider a superpower ou can remove yourself from the heart of the chaos and deliver astute insights about how to tame the chaos. I like that about you. I have personally benefited from it on numerous occasions. But for the ne t few weeks, I will ask you to try something different. I’ll encourage you to put an emphasis on practical action, however imperfect it might be, more than on in-depth analysis. This moment in the history of your universe re uires a commitment to getting things done, even if they’re untidy and incomplete. Here’s your motto “I improvise compromises in the midst of the interesting mess.”

SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21

“Fear is the raw material from which courage is manufactured,” said author artha Beck. “Without it, we wouldn’t even know what it means to be brave.” I love that uote and I es pecially love it as a guiding meditation for you corpios right now. We usually think of fear as an unambiguously bad thing, a drain of our precious life force. But I suspect that for you, it will turn out to be useful in the coming days. ou’re going to find a way to transmute fear into boldness, bravery, and even badassery.

SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 – Dec. 21

For decades, the Canadian city of udbury hosted a robust mining industry. Deposits of nickel sulphide ore spawned a booming business. But these riches also brought terrible pollution. udbury’s native vegetation was devastated. The land was stained with foul air produced by the smelt ing process. An effort to re-green the area began in the 19 s. Today, the air is among the cleanest in the province of Ontario. In the spirit of this trans formation, I invite you to embark on a personal reclamation project. ow is a favorable time to deto ify and purify any parts of your life that have been

The literal meaning of the an cient Greek word aigílips is “devoid of goats.” It refers to a place on the earth that is so high and steep that not even sure-footed goats can climb it. There aren’t many of those places. imilarly, there are very few metaphorical peaks that a determined Capricorn can’t reach. One of your specialties is the power to master seemingly improbable and impassable heights. But here’s an une pected twist in your destiny In the coming months, your forte will be a tal ent for going very far down and in. our agility at ascending, for a change, will be useful in descending for e plor ing the depths. ow is a good time to get started

AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18

volved A uarians are often blessed with unprecedented friend ships and free-spirited intimacy and innovative alliances. eople who align themselves with you may enjoy e perimental collaborations they never imagined before engaging with you. They might be surprised at the creative potentials unleashed in them because of their synergy with you. In the com ing weeks and months, you will have even more power than usual to gener ate such liaisons and connections. ou might want to make a copy of this horo scope and use it as your calling card or business card.

PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20

I surveyed the history of lit erature to identify authors I consider highly intuitive. iscean-born Anais in was my top choice. he used language with fluidity and lyricism. he lived a colorful, unpredictable life. o one better deserves the title of Intuition Champion. And yet she also had a discerning view of this faculty. he wrote, “I began to understand that there were times when I must ues tion my intuition and separate it from my an ieties or fears. I must think, observe, uestion, seek facts and not trust blindly to my intuition.” I admire her caution. And I suspect it was one reason her intuition was so potent. our assignment, isces, is to apply her approach to your relationship with your intuition. The coming months will be a time when you can supercharge this key aspect of your intelligence and make it work for you better than it ever has before.

This week’s homework: Imagine you have taken a particular consciousnessalterin dru a ine how it affects you.

Election Day is upon us. One should not eat, drink, drive and definitely not vote angry. Vote early, vote often…. Have a drink after you vote

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