The sculpture "A Matter of Time" is one of thousands of pieces of art on display in Grand Rapids through Oct. 10th, as my city has been overrun with 1700 artists from 21 different countries in 192 venues along with thousands of people to view it all for the second annual ArtPrize competition that kicked off this week. This piece depicts the "relationship between humans and the Earth by displaying the effects of the BP oil spill on animals and marine organisms", and its focal point is a globe in the outstretched hand - which at the time of this shot had been stolen. It has been replaced now, but the whole incident begs the question, "Can we replace the Earth?" And that's ArtPrize, as deep as you want it to be.With that long-winded caption, let's segue right into our own "matter of time" environmental issue to begin this week's tidbits:
The Enbridge pipeline that ruptured near Marshall has the go-ahead to restart at reduced pressure on Monday, the company receiving six months to a year to fix the forty known problems on the line as it operates under independent inspection and many stern letters of warning. That should do it, right? No worries though, if an "immediate" problem pops up, they have 14 days to fix it. Time is money, and oil is money, and we should know by now who wins that race. (see sculpture above)
In case that wasn't disturbing enough, the Freep reminds us today that we have 67,000 miles of old and crumbling oil and natural gas pipelines in this state, some of which never get inspected at all. Check out this "leaky time bomb" map of the pipelines and 17 accidents that have happened in Michigan in the past decade alone. Striking was the proximity of oil lines to water; the Saginaw Bay, the Mackinac Straits, the Au Sable River, up along the scenic and tourist-heavy west coast on Lake Michigan, not to mention every body of water near the Detroit area - all could make the Marshall accident look like a warm-up, don't you think?
Moving on to our favorite on-going man-made Michigan disaster now. Shocking as it is - it appears the Legislature is going to have the budget done on time. No, really, they mean it, honest, it's a done deal, sure, you betcha. The job that they said they would have done in the spring by June 30th after vacation looks to go right down to the wire, so place your bets for Thursday the 30th, I'm guessing late afternoon/early evening. With the Senate Democrats withholding immediate effect on the retirement plan and Mike Bishop making childish "we'll git you next year" threats, it might be wise not to count chickens here - although the major pieces are in place for the remaining budgets to pass. When the complaints arise that it isn't balanced, remember who prevented that from happening in the first place.
The UAW is pulling its money out of Chase to the tune of "hundreds of millions" of dollars, citing the company's refusal to help with mortgage foreclosures in Michigan and treatment of workers at the financially-tied RJ Reynolds tobacco farms in North Carolina. Go get 'em, Bob. Actions speak louder than words, and the UAW is signaling that they are willing to take action to draw attention to the problems that need to be solved - and that's a good thing.
Anyone else notice that Snyder doesn't have a plan for running the government, or is it just me? That isn't stopping him from promising more money to cities if they adopt the "best methods" for providing services though, even though he can't name what they are, even though he is talking about creating more government to determine how to proceed next. Looks like $2 million in political consultants buys you lines that get past the teabaggers, or, maybe they weren't serious about "less government" in the first place. One possible future: We should hire someone to go and scream "death panels!" when these committees meet to determine how much money your fire department needs, yes?
My hero, Carrie Jones. New head of the Michigan Film Office, Jones gets mucho applause for standing up to the Cassis Anti-Film Crusade, knocking down the negative talking points one by one while explaining the benefits of having this industry in our state to both a Senate committee and in this excellent article from Gonger/MiTech this week. Go read, she rocks. Nancy even admits that the hearings are a waste of time seeing as how nothing will change under the lame-duck legislature, but she still plans on being annoying right down to the last minute anyway.
And about those credits, Detroit 1-8-7 premiered to mixed reviews this week, drawing both praise and scorn and lots and lots of viewers and chatter in the Detroit area, and that's one of those intangible benefits that Jones is talking about. And hyper detail critics, settle down. It's a pilot. It's a TV show. Not everything will be true to life, and we should probably call it "soda" anyway. Give the show time though, and it will grow. The jobs certainly are, so keep tuning in to help out the home team. Future episodes will feature more of the city and that alone will be fun to watch.
What else is happening out there? Recent electric car/renewable energy news (there has been a bunch) deserves stand alone diaries one of these days, and I'll get to those soon - but it looks like that big shiny ball in the sky may distract my attention and lure me into checking out some cool outdoor art today.
Enjoy it while it lasts...