Robert Downes

Random Thoughts Robert Downes We may be down, but we’re not out. Michigan got some great news last week with word that General Motors is planning to open a new battery-pack factoryhere, along with the largest battery lab in the country.
This is an ‘electrifying‘ development; state officials are striving to make Michigan a powerhouse for the batteries which will run the electric cars of tomorrow. “We want to be the battery capital of the world,” Governor Granholm stated in the Detroit Free Press.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes When my partner George Foster and I started this newspaper back in 1991, it was with the idea of having a strong emphasis on health and fitness.
We were both products of the fitness boom of the ’80s -- a time when running, biking, cross-country skiing and triathlons were more a way of life than something you did for fun.
Through the years, we’ve gotten soft on that side of the paper, but I still enjoy working on this annual tribute to fitness issue each January. It’s a reminder to reinvent ourselves each year.
A lot of you apparently feel the same way. I’ve been going to the same gym since ’91 and every January since then, the place has been packed with the newcomers.
But each year, the converts gradually taper off and the gym empties as the months go by. I once heard that the average newcomer to a fitness program lasts about 11 weeks before he or she caves in, but one of our local trainers thinks it might be more like six.

Features Robert Downes Everyone knows that a personal trainer can help you get in the best shape of your life by tailoring a workout to fit your needs and then seeing that you keep at it.
But how do personal trainers keep in shape? Do they practice what they preach? Here’s a rundown on some notable fitness experts in the area:

Music Robert Downes A new Blissfest Arts Recreation Center is in the works at the music organization’s 120-acre site outside Cross Village.
Blissfest Director Jim Gillespie says the new center will offer a range of attractions in a quiet, natural setting.
“The center will place special emphasis on traditional music, dance and crafts education,” Gillespie said in a release. “In addition, general recreation activities such as camping, hiking, nature walks and gardening will be available. Guests and members will be encouraged to participate in developing and maintaining the facility’s gardens, orchards and trails.”
The project is contingent on approval of township and county planning commissions that review special use permit zoning requests and allow for public input.
Several years ago, the Blissfest attempted a similar expansion and was met with opposition from a number of neighbors in Readmond Township. Since that time, the music organization has worked hard to prove itself a good neighbor by tightening up regulations and oversight at Northern Michigan’s biggest music festival, which is held the second weekend in July.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Moving On
Met a young guy over the holidays who is moving to Australia this week to take on a new job.
“How’s the economy doing there?” I asked.
“Not all that great, but better than here,” he said.
It sounds like a pretty sweet deal, working as an accountant in Brisbane, which is a city on Australia’s “Gold Coast” of spectacular beaches and tropical skies. Brad said he planned to learn how to surf and would be making frequent trips to New Zealand and New Guinea to audit businesses on behalf of the firm that is sending him Down Under.
Although he‘s from Florida, Brad‘s story made me think of all the people in Michigan who are moving on in search of a job.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Got a lump in my throat recently, reading the plans of the Detroit Free Press and News to go digital four days a week. Starting in March, the papers will end home delivery Monday-Thursday and begin offering an “electronic edition“ to subscribers for $12 per month.
Having had my first serious job as a paperboy with the Free Press at the age of 15, and then writing for the paper as a freelancer, it was a bit surreal to read the news of the online switch and come to grips with the “end of an era.“
But, considering the flight of readers to online sources for their news, it seems like a good plan. The key to its success will most likely be having an exact duplicate of the print version of the paper delivered online.
The electronic facsimile is a good way to go because current newspaper websites offer little or nothing for advertisers who pay the salaries of the reporters and editors who bring us the news.
Newspaper websites make it easy for readers to ditch their subscriptions. They‘re like candy stores giving away free lollipops out the back door and then wondering why there‘s no business up front.
So, perhaps the only way newspapers will survive will be by offering an exact duplicate of their publications online, complete with the ads that pay for the news.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes There’s been so little fanfare over the latest news from Iraq that most Americans probably don’t have a clue: the war is essentially over.
Okay, let’s qualify that by saying “barring some unforseen calamity, the war is over...” because you just never know.
But on Thanksgiving Day, the Iraqi parliament approved a new security pact that requires the United States to withdraw our troops by 2011.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes What does Mr. Scrooge think about the Big 3 auto bailout?
Meaning, the Republican Scrooges in the Senate who killed the rescue of the auto industry last week, at a time when the recession is expected to last for years...
Let’s take a trip with the Ghost of Christmas Present, shall we?

Mr. Scrooge: “Bah, humbug! I’ll tell you what I think of these short-sighted, fat-cat dinosaurs from Detroit, dragging 400,000 GM retirees in their wake, like the chains of Jacob Marley... (Rattle, rattle) You UAW workers never voted for me in the first place, and it’s the banks I care about! The banks, the banks! Where’s my change purse? Ah, here, my dears -- a $700 billion contribution to you good bankers. Spend it as you will! No strings attached -- it’s Christmas, after all! Bless you, my boys.
“But for you miserable automakers and your blue collar ilk, only a lump of coal, and not a penny in my purse for you!”

Random Thoughts Robert Downes If you’ve ever been to the Leopold Café in Mumbai, you probably felt right at home, even though it’s on the far side of the earth.
Having had lunch there a year ago November, it was especially sad and disturbing to see the puddles of blood on the floor of the café in the TV coverage of the Mumbai massacre. Ten people died on that scuffed and dirty floor, with at least 20 wounded as the terrorists came through the wall that opens to the street along what is called the Colaba Causeway.

Books Robert Downes Who knew? Akron, Ohio was at the epicenter of the punk rock movement at the dawn of the ‘80s, churning out some of the greatest bands of the era.
That’s one of the revelations in Punk Rock and Trailer Parks, a new graphic novel by Derf, the artist whose comic, The City has run in the Northern Express since the early ‘90s.
If anyone would know, it’s Derf Backderf, a resident of Cleveland whose work appears in alternative newspapers across the nation. Derf’s noir viewpoint is almost gothic in his approach to trolling the gritty, banal bottomlands of life in the Midwest -- an Ohio frozen in a New Dark Age and locked in medieval attitudes.
Nowhere is that exploration more evident than in his high school haunts of Akron, a town known as Rubber City for its tire factories, which also happens to be stalled by a Rustbelt recession as the book opens.
Yet there’s one bright spot for the trailer park kids doomed to life in Akron: by some odd confluence of fate, rage and despair, the town gave rise to a dynamic punk rock scene, starting in 1979, with acts such as Devo, Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders and other raw & ragged groups swept up by punk’s power. A lively club scene took root in a ruined bank, bringing in such iconic acts as The Ramones and The Clash. The punk rock eruption prompted Melody Maker magazine to dub Rubber City as “the new Liverpool.”

Random Thoughts Robert Downes We‘re moving to Europe...
Has anyone noticed that America is starting to look more like Europe lately?
Not that we’re sprouting castles or seeing women going topless at the beach, but there are some trends toward the Europeanization of America that are worth watching. Some good, and some ennh...
Ten years from now, you may wake up and find that you have all of the advantages of a citizen of Paris or Budapest -- and all of the disadvantages too. Consider the following:

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Seven years ago, there was a scorcher at the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore. It wasn’t a forest fire (as is an ongoing fear of some who live next the the park); it was the flames of public opinion over a proposed Wilderness Management Plan that many locals thought was a bit extreme back in 2001.
To take you back to those days of pitchforks and torches, there was speculation that the park would close several dirt roads leading down to popular beaches along Sleeping Bear’s 35-mile coast. And that fishing for coho salmon would be limited. And that large sections of the park would be declared “wilderness” territory, accessible only by hikers.
It was a public relations disaster, as park-goers blew their collective stacks over the threat of limited access. But one thing the public outcry proved is that people love Sleeping Bear, even though it sometimes seems we’re on the verge of loving it to death during the summer months when thousands seek the paradise of its beaches.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Many years ago, the first snowfall in November used to be a cause for celebration in our family because it meant good tracking through the woods during the deer hunt. My dad and uncles were out before dawn on the first day of hunting season, and when they bagged a buck the excited talk of their deeds lit up the Thanksgiving table as they relived the fatal moment in the woods again and again. Those memories of the hunt were more precious than gold, and they would be taken out and polished for many years to come. Even when he was in his 80s, I recall my father talking about his first deer, taken at the age of 17 on the family farm outside Rockford.
I thought of those deer last week when the temperatures were in the 70s. By now, perhaps, they’re making tracks in the snow, seeking to elude the 700,000 or so deer hunters who swarm the forests and fields. But last week, they could have used some sunglasses.

Features Robert Downes Even during the best of times, life is rough in Haiti, an island east of Cuba that is considered the poorest country in the western hemisphere. But when ophthalmologist Dr. Martin Arkin, M.D., visited the poverty-stricken island last August,
he and his medical team had yet another problem to deal with: that of Hurricane Gustav.
“A lot of patients couldn’t get to us because the roads were washed out by the hurricane,” he recalls. “Some who made it drove through three feet of water to get to the hospital. It was a fairly mild experience for us, because we were staying at a hospital on top of a mountain. But many people build their homes on the side of the mountain and a lot of their houses were washed away.
“Then there were three more hurricanes after we left Haiti and over 1,000 people died,” he adds. “It was pretty horrible after we left.”
One of Northern Michigan’s top specialists in corneal surgery, Dr. Arkin of Bay Eye Associates in Traverse City has traveled all over the world for years to help people in Third World lands with their eye problems. He’s conducted eye clinics in India, Cuba, Honduras and Peru. “I try to go every couple of years. Mostly I do cataract surgery,” he says, adding that he also treats a number of non-surgical eye problems.
TEAM APPROACH
In Haiti, he was part of a team which included three optometrists, a nurse and a number of non-medical volunteers, including his companion, Kristin Clara, a fifth grade teacher at Mill Creek Elementary School in Traverse City. “Kristin assisted me in surgery,” he says, noting that volunteers tend to get on-the-job training due to the lack of medical and surgical care on Haiti.
Why did he pick Haiti?
“I wanted to go someplace that really needed help, and I also like going somewhere different each time,” he says. “I went on the web and found the St. Boniface Foundation, a Catholic charity based in Massachusetts that’s been going to Haiti for years. We met the team at the airport and drove up to their hospital, which was built from donations by members of the church.
“If it weren’t for St. Boniface the people in the area we visited would have no care at all,” he adds. “They’d never seen an eye doctor and they don’t have any eye lasers in the entire country. That’s something you really need to have in eye surgery.”
Dr. Arkin had to bring his own eye surgery equipment and microscope to Haiti, which involved shipping it piecemeal. “Doing eye surgery involves a whole lot of equipment and supplies. I shipped it to the foundation in Massachusetts and then they sent a little bit of it with each person visiting Haiti until we had enough for 50 surgeries.”
He saw 500 patients during his two-week stay in late August and did 16 surgeries on people who were so far gone with cataracts that they would be considered legally blind in the U.S. The remainder of his supplies stayed on in Haiti to be used by the next med-surg team.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes A generation ago, there was another man who brought hope to America in a time of crisis.
John F. Kennedy‘s greatest gift was bringing inspiration and a ringing challenge to young people who were hungry for hope at a time when we lived under the shadow of mushroom clouds and the Cold War.
Today, we face a new crisis: the threat of world-wide economic collapse.
And, as was the case in 1960, we need a leader who can inspire hope, especially in the hearts of young people. It‘s the young who need to be uplifted with an optimistic vision of their place in America‘s future, rather than a creeping sense of despair.