Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Essay: That Was the Year That Was - 12/22/06

I keep a diary. Actually, it is an extremely boring diary. My most passionate entries say things like “drove 40 deductible miles for business meeting. Bought stamps for home office. $39.00”

When I was younger, however, I kept a real diary, and when I look back at it, I find that what turned out to be the more important and significant things in my life were frequently in the background.

Most people’s diaries and early lives are like that -- and so is news, I have discovered after a life as a journalist. This much I know:  There are things happening on the periphery of the news this year -- or perhaps, just out of sight -- that will prove to have been far more significant than the stuff we are making all the noise about.

If any one story dominated Michigan this past year, it was the race for governor between Dick DeVos and Jennifer Granholm.

My guess is that in a few years from now, none of us will remember a single issue in this campaign or a single phrase from any of the candidates speeches. What we will remember is what happened to the auto industry in the years following that race, and what happened to Michigan’s economy.  And we also will look back on other things that we don‘t now fully realize were happening.

If you look back at Michigan newspapers from 1954, you will also see a whole lot of space devoted to that year’s totally forgettable gubernatorial campaign. And somewhere, a little story about a former assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan.

He was conducting clinical tests on school children of a vaccine he had invented that he thought just might prevent polio.  His name was Jonas Salk, and his vaccine changed America.

This past year was one in which Michigan was slapped in the face with the reality of the domestic auto industry, the force which built this state into a major industrial powerhouse a century ago.

General Motors and Ford are both in awesomely difficult straits. Neither will ever employ as many people as they once did. Neither will ever have the kind of market share they once did. Both are drowning in red ink while their major competitors are rolling in profits. Ford’s very survival seems an open question.

And they, and we, have to figure out what to do.Confucius didn’t really say that the worst curse you could give someone was “may you live in interesting times."

But these are, without a doubt, interesting times. But maybe better times than we know. The Soviet-era writer Ilya Ehrenburg did say this, at the worst point of the Stalinist tyranny: “If they covered the whole world in asphalt, a crack would appear. And in that crack, grass would grow.” 

The tyranny he knew has vanished from the earth. And the grass still grows. Here’s to happy holidays, and better things to come.

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Interview: Peter Luke - 12/22/06

It was a bad year for the domestic automakers, a good year for the Democrats, and a close to unbelievable year for the Detroit Tigers. Whatever else it was, 2006 is almost over. Correspondent and columnist Peter Luke joins Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry to help us sort out and make some sense of this year. 

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Essay: That Was the Year That Was - 12/22/06

I keep a diary. Actually, it is an extremely boring diary. My most passionate entries say things like “drove 40 deductible miles for business meeting. Bought stamps for home office. $39.00”

When I was younger, however, I kept a real diary, and when I look back at it, I find that what turned out to be the more important and significant things in my life were frequently in the background.

Most people’s diaries and early lives are like that -- and so is news, I have discovered after a life as a journalist. This much I know:  There are things happening on the periphery of the news this year -- or perhaps, just out of sight -- that will prove to have been far more significant than the stuff we are making all the noise about.

If any one story dominated Michigan this past year, it was the race for governor between Dick DeVos and Jennifer Granholm.

My guess is that in a few years from now, none of us will remember a single issue in this campaign or a single phrase from any of the candidates speeches. What we will remember is what happened to the auto industry in the years following that race, and what happened to Michigan’s economy.  And we also will look back on other things that we don‘t now fully realize were happening.

If you look back at Michigan newspapers from 1954, you will also see a whole lot of space devoted to that year’s totally forgettable gubernatorial campaign. And somewhere, a little story about a former assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan.

He was conducting clinical tests on school children of a vaccine he had invented that he thought just might prevent polio.  His name was Jonas Salk, and his vaccine changed America.

This past year was one in which Michigan was slapped in the face with the reality of the domestic auto industry, the force which built this state into a major industrial powerhouse a century ago.

General Motors and Ford are both in awesomely difficult straits. Neither will ever employ as many people as they once did. Neither will ever have the kind of market share they once did. Both are drowning in red ink while their major competitors are rolling in profits. Ford’s very survival seems an open question.

And they, and we, have to figure out what to do.Confucius didn’t really say that the worst curse you could give someone was “may you live in interesting times."

But these are, without a doubt, interesting times. But maybe better times than we know. The Soviet-era writer Ilya Ehrenburg did say this, at the worst point of the Stalinist tyranny: “If they covered the whole world in asphalt, a crack would appear. And in that crack, grass would grow.” 

The tyranny he knew has vanished from the earth. And the grass still grows. Here’s to happy holidays, and better things to come.

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Essay: Affirmative Reaction - 12/21/06

I have never been coy about how I feel about affirmative action. I am a battered old middle class white guy who believes we still need it. I am in favor of making Michigan government and our institutions of higher learning look more like America.

As a result, I voted against Proposal 2 last month, and would vote against it again. Unfortunately, my side lost. Decisively, in fact.

I am also a proud member of the American Civil Liberties Union, which I see as neither a liberal nor a conservative organization, just one designed to protect the constitution.

However, I have to say I oppose the lawsuit the ACLU and the NAACP have filed to attempt to allow the university admissions programs to continue.  I think the courts should rule against them  -- even though I also wish affirmative action could continue.

Why do I oppose that suit? Simply, because we lost, fair and square. The proposal on the ballot was completely clear. People knew what they were voting for. And it wasn’t even close. Fifty-eight percent of the voters wanted this.

It passed in every county of the state except three – the two major university counties, and the one that includes Detroit.

You can argue that the voters were wrongheaded, selfish, even racist. But democracy means majority rule. To try and overturn the will of the people by some legal trick in the courts is just wrong.

Think about this. Print out the officially certified results for governor, senator, and Proposal Two. The numbers in each case are nearly the same – uncannily so. Proposal Two won with virtually the same vote totals as Jennifer Granholm and Debbie Stabenow did.

What would you say if Dick DeVos filed suit saying the election should be invalidated and he should be governor instead? Or if the pro-dove hunters said never mind that we lost our referendum, we want the courts to let us shoot birds instead.

You would think that would be outrageous. And to my mind, the affirmative action lawsuit is too. That doesn’t mean those of us who believe in helping right old wrongs need to give up. There is a way that I think Michigan universities can achieve what affirmative action was designed to do without violating the new law. There is nothing that prevents universities from using affirmative action in admissions... if based on economic criteria.  The U of M has in fact been doing that for decades. Most minorities are, frankly, poorer than most white Anglo-Saxon Protestants.  That’s a large part of the reason we needed affirmative action in the first place.

Michigan State University never used the affirmative action criteria Michigan does, and MSU has historically had nearly as large a proportion of minorities in their undergraduate population. Those who were in favor of affirmative action need to study the reasons why Michigan State has been able to do that. And we need to realize that strategy beats sour grapes, every time.

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Interview: Mark Rosenbaum - 12/21/06

Last month, Michigan voters overwhelmingly voted for Proposal 2, which outlaws the use of affirmative action for racial or gender preferences in government hiring or college admissions programs. Now a coalition of groups including the NAACP and the ACLU have asked a federal judge in Detroit to declare affirmative action still legal. Mark Rosenbaum is an ACLU lawyer who has fought similar cases in California. He is also a U of M law professor.  Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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Essay: Extraordinary Measures - 12/20/06

When I was a freshman in high school, more than forty years ago, one of the very “bad” kids had been given some punishment or other, resented it, and attacked the principal.

He managed to give him two black eyes before the assistant principal, who looked like a Marine drill sergeant, kneed the student in the groin, kicked him in the ribs, and then held him in a chokehold till the police got there. The cops gave him a whack or two with their nightsticks for good measure.

And then he was trundled off to jail. Here’s how the finely tuned educational philosophy of the day handled such cases. The kid was given a choice. Prison or join the army. This was not today’s high-tech, smart bomb, be-all-you-can be army. This was the old model army, at the beginning of the big push in Vietnam.

I assume the bad boy joined up, but I don’t really know. I do know he became a legend, remembered for years with a mixture of horror, awe and admiration, especially by the misfits.

We live in a different world now, where paddling is forbidden, kids are overmedicated, and the armed forces want high school and community college graduates, not the leavings of the legal system.

Yet what to do about kids who are out of control seems to be an even bigger problem than ever. Last week, the state board of education made a valiant attempt to address this by adopting standards to address the emergency use of seclusion and restraint.

Seclusion in my era meant being put in the closet for half an hour for talking in class. Well, it is clear you aren’t supposed to do that to kids any more. You have to put them in a well-lit room.

And as I read the policy, you aren’t supposed to hold anyone face down or in any way that prevents them from breathing.

But beyond that it isn’t at all clear what the policies mean. My work consists largely of reading things and trying to figure them out. Having read these policies, I would say it is impossible to figure out precisely what the rules on seclusion and restraint are.

What is clear is that the state board of education has no power to enforce these guidelines, and no money to offer schools to properly train personnel what to do in emergency situations. We aren’t talking inner city here. Some kid was nearly killed in white-bread suburban Livonia last month after a fight that started with a nasty cellphone text-message exchange.

What needs to happen is for the legislature to give the state board the power to really do something about these issues, and the money to get whatever necessary crisis management training done.

We live in a society with too much violence and too many tragedies. We owe it to ourselves to find a way to do our best to keep both to a minimum in our schools, by any means necessary.            

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Interview: Kathleen Straus - 12/20/06

Teachers can no longer paddle students who are behavior problems.  But what happens when a student is just out of control – and a possible physical threat to others.  Last week, the state board of education adopted new state standards for the emergency use of restraint and seclusion of students. Kathleen Straus is president of the board and Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with her.

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Essay: American Classic - 12/19/06

The story almost sounds like a movie.  Michele Ronnick grew up in Florida in the 1970s, a blond, blue-eyed, attractive young woman. But while her friends were catching rays, she was discovering Greek and Latin. She went on to earn a Ph.D in Roman literature, and somehow ended up in the tiny classics department of a sprawling big-city school.

One day, doing research, she came across a reference to William Scarborough, a former slave who later became a classics scholar and college president.  She was astounded. Not just by his story, but by the fact that she had never heard of him.

That led to her discovery of his long-lost autobiography, hidden in the archives of the Ohio Historical Society. It was the story of an unknown American hero, written in a proper Victorian tone.

“I have never been ashamed of my birth conditions,“ he wrote late in life, when he was the president of Wilberforce. “I have left that to the slaveholders. I look ahead to years to come, when the melting pot -- America -- will have melted away racial lines, hates and prejudices -- a thing this country owes to its honor.”

Finding that book was the beginning of a bond between the long-dead black scholar, and a young white scholar born long after he died. She has now edited a collection of Scarborough’s writings, just issued by Oxford University Press, as prestigious a publisher as there is. She has also discovered other black classicists and put together a traveling exhibit on them. And in the process, she has also, perhaps unconsciously, proven the age-old value of a classical education.

Besides the intellectual discipline, studying the classics is a way the present communicates with the past.  That was once seen as the very heart of learning itself.

Educated people for centuries were as familiar with Homer and Aeschylus and Caesar as we today are with --Donald Rumsfeld.  Yet that tradition is fading now, and I think we are losing something. I know studying Latin in high school made me a better writer.

The study of ancient languages has been fast dwindling, and the very existence of a classics department is in peril at a place like Wayne State University, especially when budgets are more than tight.

Yet Michele Ronnick’s work holds the promise of piquing the interest of a new generation of African-Americans in the classics, and in a set of previously unknown heroes. I wish I could tell you that she has been suitably recognized, and she has been -- nationally.

But the professor says some on her own faculty take a dim view of her work, which they don’t see as legitimate scholarship, and she has been twice passed over for promotion. 

That’s an especially baffling attitude, since classics scholars here have two huge examples of what happens when you don’t adapt to meet change. I speak, of course, of ancient Rome …    and of the twin empires of Ford and General Motors.   

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Interview: Michele Ronnick - 12/19/06

William Sanders Scarborough was one of the most remarkable -- and least known -- African Americans in American history. He began learning Greek and Latin while enslaved as a child.  He survived Sherman’s burning of Atlanta.  And he went on to become a classics scholar and a college president.  But he had been forgotten until Michele Ronnick rediscovered him. She’s a professor of Greek and Latin at Wayne State University.  Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with her.   

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Essay: Bottled Policy - 12/18/06

If you want to start a newspaper from your home office tonight, nobody is going to stop you. You have as much right to publish the Joe Blow Gazette as the Sulzbergers do the New York Times.

However, if I decide to start my own radio station, and start broadcasting without a license, the federal government will shut me down just as soon as they bother to notice.

This happens fairly often, and those promoting so-called pirate radio complain their freedom of speech is being stifled. But they are wrong. The difference between print and broadcast is that the world could theoretically have an infinite number of newspapers or magazines. But there are only a finite number of spaces on the broadcast spectrum. If someone else starts broadcasting on the same frequency as this one, they’ll drown each other out.

Recognizing this, Congress declared the airwaves to be public property just like the national parks. They did this, in fact, nearly a century ago, before broadcasting even became a mass medium.

The federal government assigns and leases spaces on both the AM and the FM spectrum, and sets conditions for their use.

And if you think this is one more outrageous intrusion by big government, get this: Government got involved in regulating the airwaves because private enterprise asked them to do it. The early buccaneer broadcasters wouldn’t play nice, and were drowning out each other’s signals. So they asked for an umpire.

What does this have to do with bottled water? A lot. Even more than the airwaves, the United States and Canada need to see our water resources as a vast international public treasure. Michigan’s courts have been squabbling for years over bottled water. They’ve been fighting over whether Nestle has the right to pump water and, if so, how much.

But that is not where we should begin to consider this issue. What we need to do first is figure out how much water it is ecologically safe to pump out of the Great Lakes basin. Only then should we get around to deciding who gets to pump what and when.

Seems to me this should be done as part of a national summit conference involving the United States and Canada, to be followed by agreements between the several states and provinces. That is not to imply I have anything against anyone making money by bottling and selling our water. As long as it is safe to do so.

The Great Lakes are different from the airwaves in one way. If we ruin them, that’s it. For them, and probably for us. If you think that impossible, read Peter Annin’s terrifying new book the Great Lakes Water Wars, and learn how the Soviet Union destroyed the Aral Sea.

The professional oath physicians take starts this way: First, do no harm. That’s my choice for the foundation of our water policy. And,  come to think of it, for many other things as well. 

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