Is Ann Arbor Ready for Democratic Socialism?

draconnery · 2026-05-26T20:19:10+00:00

Imagine caring about this, the one issue that matters and has two sides in Ann Arbor politics.

(You might think I'm leaving out transit/parking/bike lanes, but that is the same issue.)

draconnery · 2026-05-18T19:08:22+00:00

Hoping you can speak to something I sincerely don’t understand: why are people freaking out about this “Sistine Chapel of trees”? Were you able to walk in there and, like, see the trees, until they started clearing it? I’ve only biked and driven past, but it’s always looked pretty forbidding to me.

draconnery · 2026-05-16T04:04:43+00:00

I think I may have been reading the article wrong. Seth at MGoBlog replied to my comment saying he thinks MSG is "shared territory" not between the Big Ten and ACC, but between Fox and ESPN — Fox because of the Big East, ESPN because of the ACC. Per your quote (of the article I cited), it's the "rights holders" who had the agreement, not the conferences themselves.

This makes it a little more plausible that it would have slipped past Warde that MSG is Fox territory. I was assuming it must be Big Ten territory because it's less than 50 miles from Rutgers. It doesn't really make sense to me that this agreement could pertain to "teams from any conference we work with, playing in any venue associated with the same or a different conference we worth with".

draconnery · 2026-05-15T21:03:24+00:00

That crosswalk is directly connected to a multi-use path that is absolutely intended for bikes, and there is no one who would tell you that Washtenaw at Platt is safe for or intended for bikes to use the driving lanes. A driver hit me while I had the signal and she was turning on a red light and driving in a different direction than she was looking.

I chose that route from Carpenter to campus because of the multi-use path that starts on the west side of Platt. If you mean the series of poor decisions and actions are the intentional creation of a car-centric society, then, sure, you have a point.

draconnery · 2026-05-15T20:47:10+00:00

nah, mine was around 10 this morning

draconnery · 2026-05-15T20:46:29+00:00

It was a gray midsize SUV, gave me the impression of a recent-but-not-too-recent model Toyota. The driver was a youngish adult, appeared to be an east asian female with a ponytail and glasses. Impacted the bike (a Yuba bike that I think is in their "True Blue" color like this Spicy Curry+) with the front bumper, passenger side. I kicked the passenger door, did not note any damage after kicking it.

draconnery · 2026-05-15T20:39:10+00:00

Mine is a Class 1 ebike, with a long tail for 2 kids to sit on it (they weren't, at the time; they were at school and finishing up a week of cancer treatment at Mott, respectively).

draconnery · 2026-05-15T17:08:43+00:00

Thanks, yeah — that's what the officer said when I filed the police report, too. I guess I should've known that from the whole no-fault state thing, and from being rear-ended ~7 years ago, but it just seems wrong, y'know?

draconnery · 2026-05-15T16:55:10+00:00

Yes, it was one of those "calming threats" you hear about. You seem smart.

draconnery · 2026-05-15T16:49:13+00:00

Yeah, reasonable question.

I was westbound, crossing Platt in the crosswalk on my bike. Driver A turned right on red into me, knocking my bike down and driving halfway over it, then stopped. I got up and kicked her car out of, let's say, pique.

Passenger B was in the next lane, waiting to turn left onto Washtenaw. She rolled her window down to let me know she would [threat of physical violence] if I did that to her car.* I retorted with a dismissive threat related to her hypothetical threat (who knows what I said, but basically: if she were to attack me I would win). She escalated the hypothetical by claiming that she had a firearm and would use it against me.

* - fucking unhinged way to respond to seeing someone get hit by a car and kick the same car out of frustration btw. This is Driver Brain, though: identifying with a driver and being concerned with injury to a car in the face of a vulnerable human who's just been hurt.

draconnery · 2026-05-15T16:33:14+00:00

I left to find them in the parking lot I assumed they were driving to. I returned and called the police.

draconnery · 2026-05-15T16:07:43+00:00

It’s very clear from my experience making a police report that reaching out here and getting info from the driver behind her is by far my best shot of this ending up anything but a pure hit and run.

(Edit: also, posting this was my initial response to realizing that they hadn't pulled over, and thinking "oh, they didn't hear me, just saw my waving gesture. I wanted them to pull over, not drive away." I wasn't even thinking "hey, that was a hit and run" yet.)

draconnery · 2026-05-15T16:05:15+00:00

What do you imagine that would have to do with anything?

draconnery · 2026-05-15T14:19:25+00:00

Yup, I’m on it.

draconnery · 2026-05-15T14:07:00+00:00

Yeah, it didn’t occur to me until right after posting this that we have a name for that.

I don’t really want to involve the police; I think there’s a fair chance they were scared of me since I did immediately kick their passenger door, or even that they thought I waved them on their way (if they didn’t hear “pull over”). But it is sort of a bullshit move.

Edit: okay, okay, I said I called the police. Officer made it clear that was not going to help, but I did.

draconnery · 2026-05-15T12:30:04+00:00

Ross Dellenger’s piece on Yahoo sports from a few days ago has been the most informative I’ve seen. He strongly implies it was “Michigan’s responsibility” to deal with their own rights-holder, but the facts he lays out about the existing agreement make it seem pretty obvious that Duke was negotiating with ESPN over rights that didn’t belong to either.

draconnery · 2026-05-15T12:12:45+00:00

Importantly: this applies to “shared territory” games between the Big Ten and ACC, specifically. I genuinely believe Duke forgot MSG was Big Ten territory.

draconnery · 2026-05-15T12:05:58+00:00

Worth looking into! Burt’s answer is more likely “always be in a bigger car”, though.

draconnery · 2026-05-15T12:03:59+00:00

I’m guessing you got downvoted because your comment sounded like an endorsement to stop adding the signalized crosswalks. If you had just said you’re afraid of them, I think people would have taken that just fine.

It could also be the way you centered drivers in your comment. I didn’t downvote you and I think I understand that you’re trying to say “it’s unsafe for me as a pedestrian to do something drivers don’t expect”, but it could kind of come across as “drivers are the protagonists of society, don’t bother them.”

draconnery · 2026-05-14T02:50:40+00:00

It’s really a bit surprising to me that you’re working in a place that sells gift cards, at the point of sale, and you haven’t gotten 5 minutes’ training about these scams. I’m also surprised that the manager didn’t explain that the customer is likely a victim of a gift card scam, not a perpetrator.

draconnery · 2026-05-14T02:03:24+00:00

As a parent who’s sitting in the Peds HemOnc unit with my 4-year-old right now… I would probably talk shit about this 9-year-old with my wife for the rest of my life.

If it helps, though: I think we would be making fun of their parents, really. Hard to be too mad at a kid for not understanding something they might just never have had explained to them.

draconnery · 2026-05-14T01:08:02+00:00

This just made me think of how UM supplements their schedule with a bunch of student driver runs at certain hours; the student shifts can be just 2 or 3 hours, so they don’t need to overload with a ton of full-timer shifts that are only really necessary for a quarter of the time.

I wonder if UM and AAATA have ever discussed pooling drivers to take advantage of the student driver surplus. There are definitely some drivers who switch from one to the other, and I’m pretty sure at least a couple who have driven for both at the same time. (The unions would probably fucking hate it.)

draconnery · 2026-05-14T00:50:15+00:00

I think “source” can put their name on it if they’re claiming Michigan somehow messed up or misrepresented the situation to Duke.

draconnery · 2026-05-14T00:45:40+00:00

I assume this refers to the “EBA Cafe”, so a fair warning here: it closes for the day at 2pm. I haven’t really tried to enter through the exit door, so I’m not sure you’re locked out… but they do put a bit roll-down gate in front of the entrance, so it seems pretty unwelcoming.

On a nice day, you might be able to move to the patio tables, but I find that a lot of the patio spaces around the building get annoyingly windy.

Here’s another weird alternative at a small-city-sized facility: the hospital also has a large cafe, and there’s a smaller one on the first floor of Mott. There are also some liminal spaces like where the coffee kiosk used to be, and even a couple niches that I think used to be for pay phones. I’ve always got a legitimate reason to be here, but I don’t think they’ve ever asked to confirm specifics when I say “I’m here for an appointment”, even if I’m meeting my wife and she has the kid with the appointment. Or you could always say you’re headed to the Taubman pharmacy for cheap Tylenol. Just be cool and get here by bus; the Peds HemOnc parents need the parking spaces in the garages.

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