From Laura Berman at the Detroit News. I happened to be channel surfing the AM radio in rural Ohio while on the way to Buffalo and got to hear the great Rush Limbaugh make fun of my town and the people who live there. He makes millions off of the pain and misfortune of others. Is this really the Republican way? If so, I want no part of it.
Rush-ing to judgment: National commentators don't understand Detroit's plight
They came in droves.
By 10 a.m. Wednesday, Cobo Center was drawing a bigger crowd than you could squeeze into Comerica Park for a free Eminem concert.
All that was in the air was a whiff of hope -- the promise of help -- and that hope drew tens of thousands, so many people that 150 police officers arrived on the scene to contain people. There was jostling, minor injuries and the frenzy of a crowd excited about rumored promises that weren't going to be delivered.
What was just as predictable as Detroit's chaotic botched application process for Detroiters seeking access to federal stimulus dollars was the national and international response: Laughter.
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Nobody laughs at Indonesians buried under rubble. They don't sneer at hurricane victims whose houses float away. But to the media conservatives who feed on the despair of the poor, Detroit's economic Katrina is an opportunity to stir up the rabble. In this week's case, it created a rush to Google and YouTube and provided fodder for fringe hate groups.
"Detroit's Model Citizens Line Up for Money from Obama's 'Stash' " is the way Rush Limbaugh's Web site headlined a story about the stampede for grant applications at Cobo. Two breathless days of commentary were devoted to the appalling greed of broke Detroiters. He also nationally aired WJR-AM's (950) onsite interview with a Detroit woman who explained she'd come to Cobo for "Obama money."
"Where did he get it?" asks WJR reporter Ken Rogulski.
"I don't know, his stash," the woman responds. "I don't know where he got it from, but he's giving it to us, to help us."
She added: "We love him. That's why we voted for him."
How did this woman's anticipation and excitement become a trigger for ridicule? For contempt and loathing?
From that brief exchange, Limbaugh extracted a wealth of knowledge about this anonymous woman. He went on to describe her as "dumb, uninformed, shockingly, saddeningly stupid, the model citizen for Barack Obama."
The truth is that her answer wasn't stupid: She believed she had a chance to qualify for assistance from the federal government. She received an application.
But she said, "Obama money," a phrase that he uses to then disparage the entire mass of people in attendance, people he assumes lack all good qualities, from work ethic to intelligence to education. Those are qualities he and his audience apparently share automatically, by virtue of their enjoying of his program and their shared ability to sneer at desperation.
This spirit -- of denunciation and contempt for poor, black people -- has been picked up by white supremacist sites that are unapologetically and openly racist.
Big surprise.
If Limbaugh came to Metro Detroit, he could visit virtually any street in any suburb and find unemployed engineers and teachers and executives who would happily walk to city hall for legally available grant money.
He could find hard-working, well-educated white people who have lost their jobs and whose seemingly guaranteed futures -- the reward for all those years of enterprise -- just ran out of warranty.
Why not sneer at them? Because most of them might become "us" at any moment? Because "we" need a "them" to keep the yawning abyss at bay?
I don't know WJR's hopeful woman whose sin is admitting on-air that she "loves" Obama. He's a United States president who signed a bill, passed by Congress, that may help her pay rent and utilities for a few months, assuming she qualifies for Detroit's $15.2 million share of $1.2 billion in grant money being doled out to 535 communities.
"The large number of people seeking to apply for this program demonstrates the breadth of the recession here in Detroit, and in the region," said a statement released by the mayor's office Friday.
Beyond her big moment, this woman is unlikely to receive a piece of the grant money: Only about 3,400 Detroit residents will get assistance. Already, the city has received 25,000 applications.
Everyone's had their fun at the expense of an impoverished city and a woman whose enthusiasm eclipsed her common sense.
Still, would a white woman's need seem quite so funny? Would Rush and Glenn Beck and the far-right-race-supremacists lagging just behind still leap to insult?
Poverty and despair aren't funny, of course. But hope? In Detroit?
Now, that's a hoot.
Laura Berman's column runs Tuesday and Thursday in Metro and Sunday online. Reach her at lberman@detnews.com or (313) 222-2032
I'm starting to get the drawing bug again. This drawing is of a bird hunter from the 1930's in Idaho. It was inspired by an old photograph. Done on drawing paper with a no.2 lead pencil, the same kind that school kids use. I was initially going to do a pen and ink rendering, but liked the way it was coming along in pencil that I decided to stick with that.
This small stone is engraved with "For Freedom" in German...
This sign is explaining to you that "you are not in Kansas anymore"
Checkpoint Charlie
Using a piece of broken glass, I etched my name into the Wall. It was totally approachable on the western side. On the eastern side it was separated from the public by barbed wire and a deadly "no man's land" patrolled by soldiers with dogs and machine gun towers...
Me, pointing to a portion of the wall. This photo gives you an idea of the scale of the wall...
This was taken from the third floor of a building on the western side. You get a clear idea of what a person wanting to cross from the east would be up against...
Peeking "over the top" at a guard tower"...
Seeing these photos, it's hard to get my head around the idea that this structure has been removed...
This is the Soviet war Memorial at Treptower Park . It is an impressive installation, constructed by the East Germans to thank their Soviet overlords for freeing them from "Militarism and Fascism". Although Nazi Germany was an evil empire I doubt the East Germans felt "liberated"...
This is the Monument to the Liberating Soviet Army. Guarded by two Red Army soldiers.
This is Fort Mackinaw. It was built by the British in 1780 to protect the lucrative fur trade route of the straits. In front is a statue of Father Jacques Marquette, whose arrival predated the British presence on the island by over 100 years. Native Americans are believed to have settled the island around 900 AD. the Ojibwa tribe considered this place to be the home of the Great Spirit ( Gitche Manitou). 
Motor vehicles of any kind are not allowed so your only choices are foot, bicycle, or horse drawn carriage. 
This is St. Anne's Catholic Church.
This is Round Island, which forms the "tail" of the Great Turtle.
Post race celebration. 
