While it’s been a while since I’ve actually seen it, I believe it’s optimism.

Last year’s edition of this conference was like attending a wake.  General Motors was declaring bankruptcy, and the heaviness of that development (“say it ain’t so!”) hung over the Grand Hotel like the rain that greeted those who mustered the enthusiasm to attend.  There were bitter spats that even broke out in some of the sessions (I remember blogging about one such dust-up between First Gentleman Dan Mulhern and Nolan Finley of the Detroit News) and the whole place was as edgy as Christopher Walken.

Fast forward to 2010 and the vast blue sunny sky arrived as if to coincide with a new outlook.  GM has bounced back far quicker than anyone predicted, and there are signs all over that something is shifting.  A guy like Newt Gingrich delivering the keynote address could generally be counted on to create a polarized crowd of adorers and revilers.  Instead, Gingrich ripped into the state for its past sins and prescribed a list of previously designated non-starters — and there was nary a peep of protest.  City Council President Charles Pugh told me he agreed with about 90% of what Gingrich had to say.  Keep in mind Gringrich urged, among other things, “Right to Work,” school vouchers, “work for welfare,” and forcing teachers to pay a portion of their own healthcare.  Maybe you have to get to this point for revolution to sound preferable to evolution.

Now make no mistake; the knock on this conference has always been that for all of its hew and cry, it seldom leads to anything tangible.   But as a journalist, I’ve always looked at this conference as a barometer.  And the read right now (notable in an election year) is that real change seems far more palatable than it has in the past.  In some ways, change is already coming — GalaxE Solutions is bringing 500 high tech jobs to downtown Detroit and the Chevy Volt will roll out this fall with breathtaking potential behind it.  When the winds of change start to blow, rather than planting a windbreak, maybe we’ll finally be ready to hoist a sail and go along.

-Devin, Mackinac Island

   Except…

    The latest poll had him on top of the other Democratic candidates.  That may be a pull on Fieger.  But my hunch is that it’s a Republican who weighs on Fieger’s mind as much as any of the Democrats.  To say that Geoffrey Fieger and Mike Cox don’t like one another is like saying Michigan and Ohio State have a quaint difference of opinion.  And I’m not sure Fieger could sleep at night if Mike Cox was in the Governor’s residence in Lansing.  I don’t really know if it would turn out to be Fieger versus Cox in the general election, but the political junkie in me giggles at the thought of that throwdown.  It would be, ahem, entertaining.

    But let’s not get ahead ourselves.  Let’s see what happens Sunday.

-Devin

   Well, it turns out it was about 13 miles away in downtown Oklahoma City where Timothy McVeigh had driven a load of fertilizer and fuel oil to the front of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building and blown the thing up.

     The hours that followed make up what I’ve come to understand as the worst day of my life — and yet it was so much worse for so many others.

    The 14-hours that I spent on the air that day were like a bad trick you play on a dog where there is no treat at the end.  Even with so many deaths, we were just certain we would spend perhaps a few days watching miraculous rescues.  But no, it wasn’t that kind of a story.  And I’ll never forget the middle of that afternoon when one of our reporters asked a nurse why she was leaving the triage area.  She said she was being sent home.  Our reporters asked why, and she said, on live television beamed all over the world, “Because there’s no one to save.”

     Fifteen years later, that phrase still haunts me.  No one to save…

   And yet, something else was happening, something that would take a little longer to process.  Oklahomans hoping to donate blood created traffic backups miles long and were asked to come back the next day.  Requests started to come from the bomb site — blankets, water, gloves, food — and every one of them was answered in minutes.  And it seemed as if the entire world had run to Oklahoma City.  Workers, supplies, rescue dogs, and of course millions of prayers poured in from everywhere.

   We drove around with our headlights on to show support and love for the families involved.  And the site of every car with headlights blazing  at midday meant you had to contend with not just the traffic, but your tears as well.  And the love and kindness that the bombing inspired is actually still very present in Oklahoma City today.  It’s a tough thing to say, but it’s a better city than it was before.

   It’s quite the irony.  But the worst day of my life turned me into an optimist.  Oklahoma City remains for me a sermon on the power of love.  I’d give anything to have those 168 beautiful lives back.  But what I learned on April 19, 1995 is that for every one truly evil person in the world, there are millions of good souls ready to drop everything to help someone they don’t know.

   That’s not a bad world at all.

-Devin

But turn to the op-ed page and you’ll find a piece by Delta VP Andrea Fisher Newman rightly extolling the benefits of landing the new US/Tokyo route currently up for bid.  Clearly, Detroit Metro is one of the most critical pieces of the fragile Michigan economic infrastructure.  Its position as one of the major US gateways to Asia comes with all kinds of business advantages and is a huge part of the argument put forth by those who want to develop the “aerotropolis” in western Wayne County.

Fisher Newman’s column is a plea for help, urging Michiganders to be active in the campaign to ensure the route is awarded to Detroit.  The competition for the route to Tokyo’s Haneda Airport is fierce.  (Haneda Airport is to Narita Airport in Tokyo what Midway is to O’Hare in Chicago; it makes for a far more convenient entry point for travelers bound for Tokyo’s city center, and it’s finally being opened up for direct service from the US.)  And with new service from Metro already coming to Hong Kong, Seoul and Shanghai, the Haneda route would be an enormous plum for Detroit.  (The irony that Detroit is having to learn to embrace the continent it long despised is rich, but I’ll save that for another post.)

But you can see the slight disconnect here.  Delta needs the help of those it is angering.  Now, we all understand the razor-thin margins on which the airlines are currently existing.  And it seems to me there is always a rather contentious relationship between a city and its hub airline.  But exasperating security procedures, baggage fees, and packed planes already have travelers fingering their car keys calculating the drive versus the flight.  If Delta needs an engaged, active advocacy from its Detroit customers, it may need to find some salve for the deepening resentment over sticker shock.  After all, there’s a recession going on.  It’s been in all the papers.

-Devin

Kado admitted to paying king’s ransoms to Kilpatrick and his father Bernard.  (The former mayor’s chief of staff, Derrick Miller, was also allegedly a payee.)  It is illegal to bribe elected officials, of course.  But Kado somehow convinced prosecutors (and the judge) that he was more victim than corruptor.  That Kado would walk away from the Cobo scandal with no jail time after having spread around hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep his Cobo contracts flowing seems incredible — until you look at the target further down the shooting range.  Prosecutors are showing us a fairly simple approach; if you assist in the investigation (James Rosendall) you’ll get by with a minimum of correctional discomfort.  Those who refuse to assist (Rayford Jackson) can plan on doing harder time.  (All of this recent activity makes the upcoming sentencing of Monica Conyers all the more fascinating.)  But Kado’s deal appears to have been sweetened greatly by his willingness to lead investigators right into the dragon’s lair.  Reportedly, he’s singing a pretty clear song about handing over money directly to then Mayor Kilpatrick.  He also reportedly wore a wire.

The text messages were juicy reading.  But you can have those.  I’ll take the Kado tapes, thank you very much.  They may give us a much clearer and definitive look at what the feds are hoping to characterize as a full-blown criminal enterprise.

-Devin

     A few other random thoughts about the week that was.  We now know that Attorney General Mike Cox will be deposed in the lawsuit against the city for its investigation of the Tamara Green murder.  And there are many who feel he gave Kilpatrick a pass that was far too quick and cursory.  But Cox said something this week that bears repeating.  He described Kilpatrick as “the knucklehead I sent to Texas.”  It’s worth remembering that what finally drove the last nail into the Kilpatrick mayoral tenure was Cox filing assault charges against Kilpatrick for the shoving match on the porch.  But that won’t help Cox with…

     …the attorney in the Green case, Norman Yatooma.  He has a set of circumstances that look like lawyer heaven to me.  It’s really tough to prove a rumor; ask Gary Brown and the dozens of other investigators and reporters who’ve looked into the Manoogian tale.  But Yatooma now has the accused in this case having to DISprove a rumor.  That’s even tougher.  Good luck with that.

-devin

     To me the deck seemed a little stacked from the time the four finalists were announced.  The IOC has plenty of goofiness on its resume, but they rightly understand the power of the Games to bring a city to the world stage.  And three of the four nations in the running have hosted Olympiads over the last two decades:  Spain had Barcelona in 1992; Japan had the Winter Games in Nagano in 1998; and the U.S. had two, Atlanta in 1996, and Salt Lake City in 2002.  That left seductive, vivacious, and completely sports mad Rio.  Not only had Brazil never hosted the Games, no city on the South American continent has ever hosted the world’s premier sporting event.

     It’s a fair question to wonder at the readiness of Rio, but the surge of infrastructure is a big of part of why cities fall all over themselves trying to lure the IOC in the first place.  The Games run for just two weeks, but the streets, public transportation, and venues are there long after the torch is extinguished.  The Olympics serve as a deadline-driven modernization machine.  Now, I’ll caution that it’s not magic.  A visit to Athens today will show you many of the once beautiful venues are now abandoned, covered in graffiti, and in sad disrepair (in the birthplace of the Games, no less).  But contrast that with Sydney which not only ran a textbook Games (I’ve never encountered friendlier, more helpful people) but used the world stage perfectly in introducing the land Down Under to the rest of the globe.  (Sydney managed to have the Games paid for before they began, and today, nearly all of the venues are in use.)  So of the four finalists, where can the Games do the most good?  Rio, with one foot in the first world and one in the third, seems ripe with possibilities.

     Make no mistake, perils abound.  Government corruption has long been ubiquitous in South America.  And Rio will have to convince some of the warier travelers that it can keep a lid on its famous petty crime.  But the IOC is seizing its chance to plow a new field, and those who’ve attended Carnivale will tell you that Brazil will put on a world class show.

     This stings in Chicago.  And it’s tough to swallow for a young President who may be wondering what happened to his Midas touch.  But rather than carping about the decision, let’s spend the time learning a little Portuguese.  Whatever happens, it’s not going to be dull.

-Devin

     Okay, so it’s a little melodramatic, but I couldn’t resist the chance to quote the Scorpions.  How often does an opportunity like that come along?  (I’ll try to work in “Rock You Like a Hurricane” a little further down…)

     Yes, we knew change was afoot.  But the depths of the desire for change among Detroit voters was even more palpable than most election watchers could have predicted.  Yes, many believed Martha Reeves would have a difficult time returning to the council.  But to see only two incumbants among the top five vote-getters was rather startling.  And for a political newcomer to outpace Ken Cockrel, Jr. by 10,000 votes for the top slot in the primary?  Even with a television career-aided profile, I doubt Charles Pugh saw that kind of finish in his wildest dreams.  (I doubt Cockrel was thinking along those lines either.)  But we went in knowing that three seats were coming open (Conyers, Rose-Collins, and Sheila Cockrel) and already we know that there will be at least four new faces on the nine member council.  Reeves is out, and Tinsley-Talabi was quite honest today in saying that her 9th place finish means she’s got some serious work to do before November.  Voters also no doubt got the attention of incumbents JoAnn Watson and Kwame Kenyatta who finished seventh and eighth respectively.

     The last incumbant to lose a city council election was Lonnie Bates, but at the time he had an indictment over his head.  Setting him aside, you have to go back to John Peoples in 1989 to find an incumbent getting voted off the city council island.  So the upheaval we’re watching is a jarring departure from politics as usual in Detroit.  (And Detroit voters, while not terribly numerous, deserve a fair amount of credit for wading through the 167 names on the ballot to craft a pretty clear message with their votes.)

     On the mayoral side, they apparently feel they’ve already voted for change; Dave Bing received an enormous 74 percent of the vote and barring an epic meltdown will stroll into the general election in November.  And of course Detroiters are watching serious change being enforced in the school system by emergency manager Robert Bobb.  Throw in the federal investigations that are forcing their own kind of behavioral adaptations and clearly, Detroit is a city in a state of change.

     Will it be enough?  Change for the sake of change isn’t worth much.  Hopefully in the next three months, the candidates can find the thread to sew a lining of progress into the fabric of change.

-Devin

     Do you want everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) exercising their right to vote?  Or would you prefer that only those who’ve worked hard to understand the issues and personalities populating their ballot make their way to the polls?  Most of us in the media casually urge everyone watching, listening or reading to “make sure you get out and vote”.  A few however (Nolan Finley of the Detroit News is one such voice) refrain from the “everyone into the pool” kind of cheerleading.  He argues that while everyone has the right, not everyone has the talent.  (And this year, who among us can say they truly understand the positions and prospects of all 167 city council candidates?)  At first, this sounds like haughty sneering from the ivory tower, but there’s probably no getting around the fact that when voters turn out unprepared and voting simply because they believe they must, we may not get the most effective candidates in office.  (We do tend to confuse popularity with effectiveness.)

     I’m not sure I’ve got an answer because I am uncomfortable with the elitism of the argument, but I do like the intellectual gymnastics of the debate.  And I’ll be watching with that debate in mind as we see whether Monica Conyers, shamed and bound for prison, makes the cut of the final 18 council candidates.  Even her supporters who like the idea of using their vote to protest her legal quandry should see that a vote for her is a wasted vote.  She will not serve and it keeps a viable candidate out of the November field.  Clearly, voters have a right to vote for Conyers.  But the turnout debate isn’t about a right.  People like Finley would argue that it’s about getting it right.

-Devin

     It’s hard to call Walter’s death a tragedy, or even a surprise.  He was 92 and had packed enough into his lifetime for a dozen men.  But what is sad is the passing of the character and grace that he brought to journalism.  For nearly a quarter century, Walter was very much our nation’s conscience.  We knew how to react to the death of John F. Kennedy once we saw Walter react on that dreadful day in 1962 (with a quiet tear).  When Walter gleefully gasped “Oh, boy,” we knew Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon was indeed beyond special.  It’s hard to imagine now in our splintered, Twittered, Facebooked, Tivo’d media world, but there was a time when households all over America screeched to a stop each evening so that Uncle Walter could fill us in on the events of the day.  He was the classic, neutral observer, the omniscient narrator (and heavens, I miss the days when that was the critical marching order for any broadcast journalist).

     Only once did Walter opt out of his precise and practiced neutrality, and he did so with purpose, great forethought, and clear honesty.  To great effect, he told the nation after his tour of Vietnam that the war was lost and that a proud, well-meaning nation needed to understand that.  By the time Walter finished that broadcast, the nation was beginning to.

     Can you even imagine another figure approaching that kind of presence in American life, in or out of journalism?

     God bless you, Walter.  And that’s the way it is.

-Devin