Detroit's bankruptcy case was assigned Friday to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes, a veteran Detroit jurist who was appointed to the bench in 1985 and plays rhythm guitar in a rock-and-roll cover band, Robert Snell reports in the Detroit News.
Rhodes is a 1973 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and a former law clerk for the late U.S. District Judge John Feikens. He is also a former assistant U.S. Attorney and federal magistrate.
In his spare time, Snell notes Rhodes plays classical guitar and serenaded his future wife by playing the songs "Sound of Silence," "Eve of Destruction," and "Sloop John B,” according to a profile on the website of his rock band The Indubitable Equivalents.
In the Free Press, Tresa Baldas reports Rhodes is a disciplinarian in his courtroom whose demeanor was described as "unpleasant" and "difficult."
A Little Bankruptcy Music
Detroit music is an embarrassment of riches when radio or TV producers look for "bumpers" to take an audience into a story about the city's bankruptcy. Two national outlets chose classic tunes from the 1970s Friday for their musical interludes: NPR selected "We Almost Lost Detroit," Gil Scott-Heron's 1977 number that recalls, like a 1972 book of the same title, the partial meltdown in 1966 of the Fermi 1 nuclear plant in Monroe. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. has also covered the song.
On NPR, the choice was "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye, the famous 1971 song that topped the Metro Times list of the 100 Greatest Detroit Songs of All Time, and came in fourth in Rolling Stone's rankings of the greatest songs of all time.
Free Press Finds a Point of Light
Let’s pretend we’re in grade school. Remember those tests in which you choose something that doesn’t match the other things in a group? We'll try it with headlines in selected papers Friday over stories about Detroit’s bankruptcy. Which headline seems out of place?
*$18bn in debt, once-proud Motown files for bankruptcy: Times of London
*'Detroit is basically broke': cuts, cuts and cuts to follow bankruptcy filing: The Guardian
*BILLIONS IN DEBT, DETROIT TUMBLES INTO INSOLVENCY: New York Times
*DETROIT’S RECKONING: Detroit News
*Going for broke: Detroit files for bankruptcy: Chicago Tribune
*‘A CHANCE FOR A FRESH START’: Detroit Free Press
If you chose the Free Press headline, you get secured creditor status. Even on a day upon which uncertainty and pain are the operative sentiments, the Free Press managed to find a fresh ray of hope. By contrast, the paper’s reporting was comprehensive and much less treacly.
Curbside Symbolism on East Jefferson
Ann Savage, a Dexter photographer, went downtown Thursday after a client meeting 10 miles up Woodward and happened to be near City Hall when big news broke.
"As I drove down Jefferson Avenue," she writes at eclectablog, "I noticed all the news vans parked in front of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center and parked between vans to watch the newscasters filming live coverage of the city’s latest news.
"The meter flashed “EXPIRED” with the reflection of the Ren Cen in the glass. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach."
Savage and her husband, Chris, operate the "progressoive news and commentary blog. Fifteen images from her visit are here.
"I drive into the city each day," writes Corey Williams of AP, "shaking my head at the scores of vacant houses along my route."
Corey Williams of AP Gets Personal
Detroit native Corey Williams, a former Detroit News staffer who joined the downtown bureau of Associated Press in 2007, steps beyond just-the-facts objectivity to reflect on the city's turning point in a column posted Friday at the national newsmagazine Salon and dozens of other sites.
He opens with a vivid vignette from 1967 that's pure Detroit.
I was 5 years old, standing with my grandmother outside our clapboard home as the Michigan National Guard rolled down Warren Avenue.
There was shooting and screaming. Buildings burned. A gas station exploded nearby. Sparks fell everywhere.
It was the fiery baptism that would define Detroit over the next 46 years.
Now the Cody High and MSU grad, who lives in West Bloomfield, recalls how "the city’s violence kept me away after high school and college. Its dirt, squalor, lack of real opportunities and horrible public education keeps me from raising my family there now."
I drive into the city each day, shaking my head at the scores of vacant houses along my route. I’ve taken my two daughters into those neighborhoods, gently reinforcing the need to excel in school. . .
I don’t know if wiping away as much as $20 billion in debt through bankruptcy will fix Detroit. . . . But at least and at last there is a plan. In Detroit’s drawn out, decades of failures there is hope.
And maybe — maybe — somewhere down the road there still is time for Detroit’s golden years, even in my lifetime.
