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2 April 20-26, 2022 | metrotimes.com

NEWS & VIEWS

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Correction: In last week’s print issue we featured an interview with musician Davy Knowles, who we erroneously reported was performing at Westland’s Token Lounge. While the show was originally scheduled there, it has been postponed to Saturday, June 25. We regret the mix-up!

Readers responded to our 4/20 issue stories, especially Randiah’s story about burned-out Michigan workers starting new careers in the cannabis industry.

It’s so awesome this naturally occurring extremely useful plant is now being accepted as it should have been all along.

This is one of the most versatile plants ever.

It has so many great different uses.

— MichRae Marie Jandreau, Facebook Not going to sugarcoat it. It’s hard work but the benefits and culture is much better than a ton of jobs. You have to work yes but you don’t have to give up your soul or morels.

—Jason Blastic, Facebook I don’t smoke, but know people who need to! This should have been done years ago, so many wouldn’t have been sitting in jail.

—@ stage5clingrpup, Instagram Kudos to Dana Nessel for working to clear cannabis convictions. No one should be in jail for weed now that it’s legal.

—@kingrachelp, Instagram Sound off: letters@metrotimes.com.

Vol. 42 | No. 25 | April 20-26, 2022

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5

NEWS & VIEWS A demand for restorative justice Two months later the Indigenous community is still waiting for Detroit police to be held accountable

By Randiah Camille Green

Sun rays peek through the trees at Detroit’s Rouge Park as members of Michigan’s Indigenous community gather to turn maple syrup into sugar. It’s like watching magic happen before your eyes as the syrup is boiled and then churned into fine crystals in a wooden trough.

It’s a pleasant day for everyone involved as community members impart their wisdom of the old ways, but the occasion is cloaked in trauma. Two months earlier, at the exact same spot, the Detroit Police Department raided a sacred ceremony marking the start of maple sugaring season.

On Feb. 18, Indigenous leaders were offering thanks to mother earth with a ceremonial fire when DPD showed up with helicopters and tactical gear, forcing the group to leave with threats of arrest. On Monday afternoon, the Detroit Indigenous Peoples Alliance and ACLU held a press conference calling for accountability and a restorative justice sit-down meeting with DPD. While DPD quickly released a statement apologizing for the incident, Detroit Sugarbush Project organizers feel it was insincere and want to foster more understanding between police and the indigenous community so this won’t happen again. It’s the second year in a row the tradition has been disturbed by police.

Bonsitu Kitaba, deputy legal director for the ACLU of Michigan, said the incident was a violation of the freedom to practice religion that’s protected by the constitution.

“Today, we are calling on the Detroit Police to recognize that they have engaged in actions which violate the constitutional rights of the native peoples here and to rectify those wrongs by engaging in a restorative justice practice, and additional training and understanding of what these practices mean to the native peoples here in Detroit,” she said. “Without that acknowledgment and action forward, the Detroit police will fall in line with the historical oppression of native peoples that have been faced by this community for generations.”

Restorative justice is a practice

Community members boil and stir maple syrup.

where both the offender and victim of wrongdoing sit across the table from each other to listen and (hopefully) heal the relationship between both parties. While there is a clear disconnect between law enforcement and the native way of life that’s rooted in nature, community members are optimistic.

“Just because we signed treaties didn’t mean we gave up our rights,” Jefferson Ballew IIII from the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians Bear Clan says. “War will never be our way of doing things. Just like we’re doing here, we’ll always educate. When people say, ‘Why are you going to teach them about it? Why do you want to show them your own respect and your own self?’ If we don’t, who will? I don’t want my kids, my grandkids to ever have to do this again. So that is why we always reach out.”

Ballew was at the February night ceremony and was given just two minutes to extinguish the group’s ritual fire or be arrested. He added, “every time

6 April 20-26, 2022 | metrotimes.com

RANDIAH CAMILLE GREEN

native people show up to be sacred, it’s what scares America the most.”

Mark Fancher, Racial Justice Project attorney for the ACLU of Michigan, added they are recommending restorative justice because it has a well-established record of success.

“In a situation where there is a skilled facilitator, it is very successful in causing even, for lack of a better term, hardened criminals to come to terms with the fact that they have caused harm,” he said. “In a situation like this, where you have officers who may be ignorant — they may be arrogant but probably most of them think they’re doing the right thing — I think that the prospects for success are much higher.”

He said the ACLU does not enjoy suing people, contrary to what most people believe, and they would rather “have those who violated the rights of others acknowledge the violation, and act quickly and promptly to correct the errors that have been made.”

DPD’s previous statement said the

sugarbush ceremony was unauthorized because the organizers’ Memorandum of Understanding from the city and burn permit for the fire were expired.

The group clarified that they applied for the proper burn permit and MOU months before the ceremony and were still waiting for them to be issued when sugarbush season started. The burn permit was delayed by a clerical error on the Fire Department’s end, but nature waits for no one.

“Responding to public comments from the police, consent for Indigenous ceremonies and activities does not come from the city government, but from the creator and from nature itself,” Detroit Indigenous People’s Project leader and Huron Potawatomi tribe member Alexis Chingman-Tijerina says. “This is who we are. For this project, consent has come from our local Anishinaabe elders and a handful of Anishinaabe sugar makers all over Anishinaabe Aki, which is the name that we call the Great Lakes. This is a culturally appropriate means of obtaining permission.”

Along with a call for restorative justice, The Detroit Indigenous Peoples Alliance has released a set of demands including that the City of Detroit works to “honor all treaties and adhere to the principles of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (EPIC) for any action that would affect Indigenous lands, territories, or rights.”

They’re also calling for the police to “apologize meaningfully” and for the officers who approached the fire to be reprimanded and required to attend cultural awareness training. The group says they have sent their requests to DPD with no response so far.

As the day rolls on, Ballew, his wife Sonja Ballew, Chingman-Tijerina, and Sugarbush Project organizer Antonio Cosme share laughs with gatherers and invite them to taste the sugar (and amazing banana bread that Sonja made).

It is, perhaps, reminiscent of what a restorative justice meeting with police might look like — people gathering and sharing cultural practices to connect on a human level.

metrotimes.com | April 20-26, 2022

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NEWS & VIEWS Detroit illegally overtaxed homeowners $600M They’re still waiting to be compensated

By Steve Neavling

The city of Detroit made an

extraordinary admission about five years ago It overtaxed homeowners by at least million between and .

The illegal, in ated property tax assessments resulted in an estimated , Detroiters, most of them Black, losing their homes to foreclosure.

The ichigan onstitution prohibits property from being assessed at more than of its market value. Between and , the city assessed properties at as much as of their market value.

To this day, residents have not been compensated for losing their homes or paying more than they owed in property taxes.

The oalition for Property Tax Justice, a group of advocates for impacted homeowners, is trying to change that.

The coalition surveyed more than overtaxed residents to determine how they want to be compensated. The findings were published in a report released Thursday. esidents indicated that really no amount of monetary or in kind compensation could fully repair the harm that the city or county had caused them, their families, and their community, lexa isenberg, a housing activist and researcher, said at a news conference Thursday. esidents emphasi ed that they wanted resources to support them in dealing with the irreparable and intergenerational mental health conse uences. They also want the government to apologi e and to be held accountable for the wrongs that were committed. isenberg called for swift and meaningful compensation. ost of the surveyed residents prioriti ed cash payments as compensation. But that’s likely not going to happen because ayor ike Duggan’s administration insists that state law prohibits the city from providing cash payments or tax credits to any of the overtaxed residents. ctivists say they disagree and are calling on ichigan ttorney eneral Dana essel to give her legal opinion. s a lawyer and law professor, I

Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield.

COURTESY PHOTO

“This has not only affected residents’ bank accounts, but also their mental health. They need and want cash compensation now.” believe the legal logic is awed, said Bernadette tuahene, a professor at hicago ent ollege of aw and a member of the oalition for Property Tax Justice. There are all kinds of programs where money and resources are going to various individuals. The legal logic, in my professional opinion, is suspect, which is why we need to get the attorney general to weigh in on this.

Duggan and the city council have tentatively agreed to spend million on resources to residents who were overassessed, which only represents of the amount that was over billed. ithout the option of providing cash compensation or tax credits, advocates say there are still plenty of alternatives. They include home repair grants, houses or side lots from the Detroit and Bank, ection vouchers, small business assistance, and employment opportunities. ouncil President ary heffield,

8 April 20-26, 2022 | metrotimes.com

who has advocated on behalf of residents and the oalition for Property Tax Justice, said she and her colleagues are seeking ustice for those who have been unconstitutionally overassessed. aying residents should be allowed to determine how they are going to be made full, heffield indicated that she is laser focused on looking at ways on the state level or the philanthropic level that we can provide compensation. heffield also expressed skepticism about the Duggan administration’s opinion that state law prevents the city from providing tax credits. he said the council is beginning to work with state lawmakers to address any laws that would prevent tax credits as compensation. e are working diligently and very hard to find solutions, heffield said. e don’t ust want to put a Band id on it and not get to the core of what happened. on a Bonnett of the Detroit Justice

enter said the coalition’s report underscores the importance of compensating residents.

The report released today ust confirms there’s only one right road here and it’s for ayor Duggan to figure out a way to do right by the folks he serves and compensate them for the money that was wrongfully taken, on a Bonnett of the Detroit Justice enter said. Imagine if you or I had mistakenly taken hundreds of millions of dollars from the ity of Detroit and spent it. mong other things, the udge would still say, return the money,’ and that’s what we’re saying to the mayor, give back the money you wrongfully took.

The impact on residents has been more than financial, advocates said.

They spent a lot of time blaming themselves, tuahene said. hen you are buried in a mound of shame, there is no space for righteous indignation anger that leads to action. nd so part of the work of educating people about the structural in ustice, called illegal in ated property taxes, is freeing them from this mountain of shame so they can move to a place of righteous indignation and fight back. That’s where I believe Detroiters are now.

Damani J. Partridge, professor of anthropology and froamerican and frican studies at the niversity of ichigan, said the over assessments are part of a long, ugly history. rom the original Indigenous dispossession until now, people in the place we call Detroit are persistently having their homes taken away from them, Partridge said. Illegal property tax foreclosure is the newest form of dispossession. This has not only affected residents’ bank accounts, but also their mental health. They need and want cash compensation now.

Detroit resident andra Bradley said it was very hurtful to learn that the city overtaxed her by more than , . he called on the city to listen to what residents want. et people decide how they want to be compensated, she said. et them speak for themselves.

NEWS & VIEWS Democratic Party called on Republican leaders “to censure and rebuke” Bizon.

“The silence among Republican legislative leaders over Bizon’s criminal behavior is deafening and it is indicative of the way the GOP — time and again — simply brushes aside such coercive, intimidating and bullying conduct,” Lavora Barnes, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, said in a statement.

“Senator Bizon pleaded guilty to assault and battery and he received a punishment from the courts. As an elected official, he should also be punished by Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, whose inaction sends a message that he condones criminal groping and the bi arre, dangerous and offensive conduct of his caucus members.” Metro Times couldn’t reach hirkey’s office for comment.

—Steve Neavling

Best of the Rest

Demolition set to begin on toxic industrial site that oozed toxic slime

By Steve Neavling

An industrial site that oozed

a toxic green slime onto a Detroit highway in December is finally getting demolished.

Madison Height City Council approved a contract for The Adams Group to begin razing the Electro-Plating Services site at 945 E. 10 Mile Rd. on Thursday. The demolition is expected to cost , . To finance the effort, the city received $600,000 from state lawmakers and $150,000 from Oakland County. The Environmental Protection Agency spent more than $3.1 million to clean up the site and prepare it for demolition.

“Fortunately, the county was able to step in and support the City of Madison Heights through this unfortunate situation,” Oakland County Commissioner Gary McGillivray said in a statement Monday. “With the funding the county provided, we’ve been able to help protect the public health and welfare of Oakland County residents by assisting with the demolition of this troublesome site.”

State Sen. Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield, said the incident is a reminder of the importance of holding polluters accountable and protecting the public.

“Madison Heights endured the saga at Electro-Plating Services for far too long and this demolition will provide overdue closure for our community,” Moss said.

“We worked closely with our partners in City Hall to express the urgency to help clean up this site and I’m grateful that my colleagues in the Legislature supported our request to allocate the funding needed to bring this building down.

This entire incident should compel all of us to be better stewards of our environment and I’ll continue this work in the State Senate to ensure polluters are held accountable.”

The owner of the factory, Gary Alfred Sayers, was sentenced to a year in prison in November 2019 for illegally storing hazardous materials at the site.

Some of the hazardous materials were

Green liquid oozing from retaining wall along I-696.

MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

stored in a dirt hole in the basement, where the chemicals seeped into the ground and eventually found a path onto the freeway.

The green slime was groundwater contaminated with cancer-causing hexavalent chromium, which was featured in the movie Erin Brockovich.

“Madison Heights is extremely thankful to all levels of government that have contributed to making this demolition possible, and for their support over the past two years during the cleanup efforts at the lectro Plating Services site,” Madison Heights Mayor Roslyn Grafstein said. “The safety of our city’s residents is a concern for the entire region, and we’re happy to see that the City can depend on our elected officials at all levels to have our back when it’s most essential.”

Democratic senators call on GOP leaders to censure Bizon

Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich introduced a resolution Thursday to censure Sen. John Bizon after he was sentenced to a year of probation in March for inappropriately touching a health care worker while receiving COVID-19 treatment.

Bizon, a Battle Creek Republican, has faced no disciplinary action from the GOP-led Senate. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey previously said Bizon took responsibility for the assault and no discipline was necessary.

“Senator Bizon — a physician and public official not only has an

obligation to follow the law and treat people with respect, but to serve as a model for his fellow citizens,” the resolution states. “In committing assault and battery, Senator Bizon failed to meet the high standards of conduct expected of his office by the people of Michigan.”

Bizon blamed his behavior on COVID-19. The incident occurred in late August at an urgent care center in Marshall, where police say he grabbed a nurse practitioner by her waist and pulled her closer. Police say Bizon, a retired otolaryngologist, became angry when she declined to prescribe him his preferred medication.

During the sentencing hearing in March, the victim said Bizon “tried to bully, coerce and intimidate me to practice quack medicine because he believed in conspiracy theories.”

Sen. Stephanie Chang, D-Detroit, said it was “incredibly disturbing” that Bison was not held accountable.

“It is very disappointing that after all the bipartisan work we did on the Michigan Senate’s harassment policies, sexual harassment still appears not to be taken seriously,” Chang said in a statement. “It is unacceptable that he is being permitted to keep his staff, office resources, and committee chair positions. The Senate needs to hold this individual accountable for their actions. As leaders of this state, we should be held to a higher standard of conduct in both our professional and personal interactions.”

On Friday morning, the Michigan

U.S. Rep. Tlaib says she’s improving after COVID-19 diagnosis

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib is on the mend after testing positive for COVID-19, according to her spokesman Denzel McCampbell.

“She’s doing better,” McCampbell tells Metro Times, adding that she’s “quarantining until she is no longer contagious and is safe to be around others.”

The Detroit Democrat announced last week that she tested positive for the virus.

“After not feeling well over the weekend, I took an at home and PCR test. I am home quarantining and recovering,” she said in the message. “Please stay safe, everyone.”

Tlaib, who is fully vaccinated, isn’t sure where she was infected. A week before she tested positive, she visited the White House twice for bill signings.

Tlaib is running for another term in Congress in the newly drawn 12th District.

Tlaib is just the latest well-known figure from ichigan to get infected this month.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan tested positive for COVID, he announced on pril . fter two years, ID finally caught up with me,” Duggan said at the time. Duggan has returned to work.

“The mayor is doing well and feeling well,” Duggan’s spokesman John Roach tells Metro Times. “He was cleared to return to work and was at (Detroit Arts and Culture Director) Rochelle Riley’s arts awards.”

Michigan Supreme Court Justice Bridget Mary McCormack also tested positive, she announced last week.

—Steve Neavling

metrotimes.com | April 20-26, 2022

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NEWS & VIEWS The Incision

What America’s student loan debacle can teach us about neoliberalism

By Abdul El-Sayed

Earlier this month, the Biden

administration extended its pandemicera deferment on student loans again.

This marks the sixth time since March 2020, that the student loan payment pause has been extended, this time to August 31, 2022.

This is mixed news. For millions of debt-holders, it’s a welcomed relief. But it’s also a punt. Borrowers don’t know if payments will be required come August. The administration could, of course, extend the pause again. But endless extensions carry their own challenges. And even if borrowers don’t have to pay until August, it’s not all that far away, which puts a real cramp in their finances, anyway.

Then there’s in ation. To account for rising prices, economists believe that the average family should budget an additional $5,200. Considering that the average student debt payment is $4,716 annually, in ation is making debt repayment even harder. Kicking the can down the road is only sustainable for so long.

At some point, you run out of road.

But America’s ballooning student loan crisis is emblematic of neoliberal policy failure more generally — both in how it was created and in the failures of programs intended to solve it.

First there’s the fact of the loan crisis’s very existence: Student loans, themselves, are a problem that shouldn’t exist. In a country that achieved its success on being the destination to build your skills, the notion that you have to take out tens of thousands of dollars in loans to do so should be anathema. Indeed, it used to be.

Part of what powered that “American Dream” was easy access to skillbuilding through a system of well-funded land grants and public universities. The University of Michigan, my alma mater, used to be the “uncommon education for the common man.” Increasingly, that common person is finding herself

Neoliberalism created a debt colossus we keep kicking down the road.

The central crux of neoliberalism is that it accepts the inequities in our society as normal and justified. priced out.

A 2019 report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that funding for universities was down by 13% over the previous ten years. Meanwhile, tuition is up 25%.

Why is tuition up nearly twice the gap in funding? Because the loss of public funding has set off an arms race to compete for high-income students to cover it. And that means investments in ancillary services like recreation centers or dining halls.

Cut government funding. Allow the market to fill in. That’s neoliberalism in a nutshell. And the consequences are carried by students that can’t afford ballooning tuition and are forced to take on massive student loans.

Today’s average student loan debt is nearly $33,000 — up from $5,400 in 1989. That’s a collective $1.5 trillion in debt, outstripping every other form of debt except mortgage debt.

Here’s the worst part. Nearly 40% of student borrowers, including 54% of Black student borrowers, didn’t even finish their higher education degree.

Therefore, they haven’t realized the higher earnings those loans were supposed to offer.

So does neoliberalism deal with the debt that neoliberalism has imposed?

Neoliberalism eschews universal approaches to public policy, opting instead to define problems in their narrowest possible terms. Rather than asking, “How do we stop forcing people to take on debt to build their talent?” or

10 April 20-26, 2022 | metrotimes.com

even, “How do we wipe out this unnecessary debt?,” neoliberalism frames the problem in its particularities: “How do we ease the debt burden for the lowestincome borrowers?”

There’s a tradeoff between comprehensiveness and complexity. Programs that are comprehensive have far fewer rules and regulations. They are both easier to understand for beneficiaries, and easier to administer for bureaucrats. Fewer people fall through the holes in the safety net when there are fewer holes in the safety net. onsider the ffordable are ct, an important piece of admittedly neoliberal policy to address the problems in our healthcare system. Rather than a simple, blanket reform — such as providing every single American with portable, affordable health insurance — it created a patchwork system of fixes, all interconnected to solve a few of the system’s problems. The complexity made it easy for political opponents to pan and hard for everyday people to understand. Its complexity made it easy to chip away — just as the fall of the individual mandate did. And millions of Americans fell through the cracks in its labyrinth. Indeed, when President Obama joined President Biden in the White House last week to celebrate it, Biden also signed an executive order to address a “family glitch” that left nearly 5 million Americans out. Not to mention the millions of low-income Americans in states that have yet to expand Medicaid.

SHUTTERSTOCK

So what’s neoliberalism’s answer to its tightly framed question, “How do we ease the debt burden for the lowest-income borrowers?” It’s called “income-driven repayment, a a aes ue loan repayment system that was the subject of scathing NPR analysis. The program was supposed to lower monthly payments on the path to wiping out debt entirely after 20-25 years for the 9 million borrowers on its rolls. But of the 4.4 million who have been making their payments for 20 years or more, a paltry 32 have had their debt wiped. That’s 0.0007%.

You know why? Because neoliberalism gonna neoliberalism. The program’s administration was privatized, sold off to a shambolic corporation called ACS Education Services which failed to collect complete data about borrowers, including how many payments they’d made. When the government pulled the ACS contract, it moved their incomplete data to a host of other contractors, who then lost even more. Meanwhile, millions of Americans are stuck without the relief they’ve been promised.

Here’s the rub. The central crux of neoliberalism is that it accepts the inequities in our society as normal and ustified.

That logic permeates the way it frames and tries to address problems — many of which it causes. And it rejects universal approaches to policy solutions as “one si e fits all. It leaves people who’ve never experienced the consequences of poverty trying to architect solutions to problems they’ve never lived.

The solutions are elegant on paper, and impractical in real life. And who suffers The people whom the ideology has relegated to poverty in the first place.

Originally published April 12 by The Incision. Get more at abdulelsayed. substack.com.

metrotimes.com | April 20-26, 2022

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12 April 20-26, 2022 | metrotimes.com

FEATURE

Another senseless death

Video captures Grand Rapids cop shooting Black man in back of head following traffic stop

By Steve Neavling

Video footage released

last week showed a Grand Rapids cop fatally shot a Black man in the back of the head after a traffic stop over an unregistered license plate on April 4.

The death of 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya has led to protests after the family described the shooting as “execution-style.” ne of the videos appeared to show a struggle between yoya and the officer over the cop’s stun gun. et go of the Taser, the officer yelled while he’s on top of yoya, who was on his stomach. oments later, the unidentified officer shot yoya in the back of the head.

The only weapons at the scene were the officer’s stun gun and firearm.

The traffic stop began at a.m., when the officer spotted a car with a mismatched license plate. After stopping, Lyoya got out of his car and refused the officer’s commands to get back in.

Dude, I’m stopping you, the officer says. Do you have a driver’s license Do you speak nglish hen the officer tries to grab yoya, he runs to a nearby yard before being tackled by the officer. They tussled for a couple of minutes before the officer tried twice to deploy the stun gun.

The officer’s body cam shut off moments before the shooting. Police said it was accidentally turned off during the scu e.

The only video footage of the shooting was taken with a shaky cell phone by a passenger in yoya’s car.

Many questions were unanswered during the press conference, including why the officer, who was patrolling alone, tackled yoya over a misdemeanor offense.

Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Winstrom declined to draw any conclusions about the officer’s actions, saying the shooting is still under investigation

by Michigan State Police and the Kent ounty Prosecutor’s ffice.

“The test is going to be whether the view of a reasonable police officer, whether that deadly force was needed to prevent death or great bodily harm to that officer, instrom said, adding that a stun gun “has the potential to cause death or great bodily harm.”

Video from the officer’s body camera caught the moments before the fatal shooting.

Since the shooting, Winstrom began requiring police to patrol in pairs.

Brandon Davis, director of oversight and public accountability for the city, acknowledged that many in the community are upset by the shooting.

“The loss of life is always tragic, and given the history of our country, when the life, particularly of a Black man, is lost in an interaction with law enforcement, there is a great deal of emotion, frustration and anger, Davis said.

Grand Rapids City manager Mark ashington called the shooting very, very regrettable.

The video was painful to watch, Washington, who is Black, said.

Minutes after the press conference was over, ov. retchen hitmer and t. ov. arlin ilchrist issued a statement, saying they spoke with yoya’s family.

“I am heartbroken by what we all have witnessed as a father, public servant, and a Black man, ilchrist said.

“People are frustrated and hurting — searching for answers. Black people in

Grand Rapids, in Michigan, and across the country are mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted from generations of struggle. Yet we press on.”

Gilchrist and Whitmer urged the community to keep protests peaceful.

“When we demonstrate and make our voices heard, we must do so in a way that lifts our call for justice beyond the deepening the pain of this community,” ilchrist said. e must never cease our efforts to reverse ine uities, create systemic change, and guarantee justice for communities of color. We must recommit ourselves, through our words and deeds, to working together to build a more perfect union and a Michigan with equality and justice for all, where every interaction within our community, especially those with law enforcement, end with everyone able to return home to their families without harm.”

Lyoya and his parents immigrated to the . . in , among a growing number of refugees from the Democratic epublic of ongo that have arrived in ichigan over the past two

GRAND RAPIDS POLICE DEPARTMENT

years.

They told us that in merica, there’s peace, there’s safety, you’re not going to see killing anymore, that it was basically a safe haven, yoya’s mother Dorcas said through a translator during a Thursday press conference, the Detroit Free Press reported.

According to the paper, people from Congo made up the largest number of refugees in ichigan in and .

Lyoya was the oldest of six children in the family, and was working in a small manufacturing plant making auto parts.

I’m very surprised and astonished, Dorcas told the paper of their ight from violence in ongo, only to find in America the same thing has been following us.” yoya’s father Peter likened his son’s death to a “genocide.”

I didn’t believe that ... there’s a genocide in this country, he said. I didn’t know that here in America, there can be execution style ... to be killed by the police officer.

metrotimes.com | April 20-26, 2022

13

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Coordinate plant model rollout

by Simulation team to support apps &features requested by user community. Design &create wiring harnesses &load boxes, &source TPIMs from HW teams &verify test bench setup for basic function. Make changes to plant models using MATLAB &Simulink &dSPACE Configuration Desk when users request minor changes to simulation. Set up &configure instrumentation incldg ETAS 600.1 &592 devices, Lauterbach debugger, Intrepid neoVI FIRE2 &Vector HW devices on test benches. Configure Failure Insertion Unit HW using dSPACE Control Desk based on TPIM I/O pins &their properties as listed in Interface Control Documents &I/O matrix documents to perform Electric Failure Simulation.

Master, Electrical, Automotive, or Mechanical Engrg. 12 mos exp as Engineer, designing or maintaining HIL test benches to perform real-time simulations for validating interactions between SW of Electronic Control Units (ECUs), &collecting ECU HW input &output specs to create an electrical design of HIL test bench, or related. Mail resume to Ref#31050, GM Global Mobility, 300 Renaissance Center, MC:482C32-C66, Detroit, MI 48265.

14 April 20-26, 2022 | metrotimes.com

EMPLOYMENT Systems Engineer-Propulsion Coordination, Milford, MI, General Motors. Use MATLAB, Simulink &GMSIM to dvlp &use simulations of psgr vehicle &vehicle subsys performance. Use ETAS INCA, Serial Data Suite &VSpy tools to collect data &perform in vehicle testing in extreme environments &maneuvers.

Perform vehicle data anlys using ETAS MDA, MATLAB, &Excel.

Troubleshoot dvlpmt vehicles.

Perform Design of Experiments to test &optimize system architectures &technologies.

Submit emissions test lab request headers. Use DFSS, DFMEA &DRBFM to analyze &report product engrg design to analyze vehicle syss. Author system LADV plans. Dvlp, review &document reqmts in IBM DNG. Participate in subsystem &cmpt dvlpmt meetings to provide syss context. Coordinate engrg teams to address vehicle dvlpmt challenges. Bachelor Mechanical, Automotive, or Electrical Engrg.

6 mos exp as Engineer, using ETAS INCA &VSpy to collect data &perform testing, or related.

Mail resume to Ref#2966112101, GM Global Mobility, 300 Renaissance Center, MC:482C32-C66, Detroit, MI 48265.

metrotimes.com | April 20-26, 2022

15

WHAT’S GOING ON

Madeline Isakson, a 3D Design graduate of Cranbrook Art Academy’s program, prepares for the school’s 2022 student exhibition.

Select events happening in metro Detroit this week. Submit your events to metrotimes.com/calendar. Be sure to check venue websites for COVID-19 policies.

FRI 4/22-SUN 4/24 Astronomicon

Metro Detroit’s pop culture convention returns with celebrity meet-and-greets, cosplay, vendors, music, and more. This year’s special guests include Corey Taylor from Slipknot, Judge Reinhold from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Nick Castle from Halloween, pro wrestler Kevin Nash, and more. On Saturday, hip-hop duo Twiztid will perform a special set to celebrate its 25th anniversary.

—Lee DeVito From 5 p.m.-10 p.m. on Friday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. on Saturday, and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. on Sunday at Burton Manor; 27777 Schoolcraft Rd., Livonia; astronomicon. com. Tickets start at $30 for day passes.

FRI 4/22-SAT 4/23 Cal Freeman poetry readings

According to a press release, the work of Michigan-based poet Cal Freeman “has the heartbeat of the blue-collar worker and the vocabulary of a scholar,” and he is “likely the only poet to have read at Cambridge while sporting a De-

troit Lions hat.” The poet is celebrating the release of his latest collection, Poolside at the Dearborn Inn, with a couple Detroit-area readings. On Friday he’ll join Michael Lauchlan, Zilka Joseph, and Jason Storms at Pages Bookshop in Detroit, with music by Ryan Dillaha.

On Saturday, he’ll perform alongside Alise Alousa, Dan Denton at the Gaelic League National Poetry Month Celebration, with music by the Codgers, Enda Reilly, and Dillaha. —Lee DeVito

Southern rapper makes up one half of the duo Underground Kingz. (Jay Z’s “Big Pimpin” anyone?) Mike Tyson will also be making an appearance to promote his weed brand Tyson 2.0, which recently launched in Michigan in partnership with Common Citizen, an event partner for the fest. Besides music there will be food trucks, cannabis and non-cannabis vendors, and designated consumption areas onsite.

—Randiah Camille Green

Events start at 7 p.m. on Friday at Pages Bookshop; 19560 Grand River Ave., Detroit; 313-473-7342; pagesbkshop. com; and 5 p.m. on Saturday at the Gaelic League; 313-964-8700; gaelicleagueofdetroit.org.

The festival is from noon- 11 p.m. at Adado Riverfront Park; 201 East Shiawassee St., Lansing; experience420fest.com. Tickets are $50 for general admission or $200 for the VIP package, which includes a gift bag from the sponsors, exclusive viewing area, private restrooms, and a juice bar. Fancy.

SAT 4/23 2nd annual 420 Music Festival

It’s time to get high in the park and enjoy some music, which sure, people have been doing since forever, but this annual 420 event by Liv Cannabis does sound pretty dope. The festival is going down all day long at Adado Riverfront Park in Lansing with performances by rappers Curren$y, Too $hort, Bun B, and more. Even if you don’t know him by name, you’ve probably heard a few tracks Bun B’s rapped on. The

16 April 20-26, 2022 | metrotimes.com

SAT 4/23 Albert Kahn: Innovation and Influence on 20th Century Architecture

Industrial architect Albert Kahn is responsible for some of Detroit’s greatest hits, including the Fisher Building, the Conservatory and Aquarium on Belle Isle, and a number of early auto plants, among many others. The Detroit Historical Museum has collaborated with the Albert Kahn Legacy Foundation for

COURTESY PHOTO

this multi-media exhibition, which tells the story of the Jewish, German-born immigrant with photography, sketches, models (including some made of Legos), videos, and more. The exhibition runs through July 3. —Lee DeVito See website for hours; The Detroit Historical Museum; 5401 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-833-1805; detroithistorical. org. Admission is $10 for adults.

SUN 4/24 Cranbrook Graduate Student Exhibition

For the past two years, more than 60 of Cranbrook Academy of Art’s graduate students have been honing their craft, in fields like D Design, D Design, 4D Design, Architecture, Ceramics, Fiber, Metalsmithing, Painting, Photography, Print Media, and Sculpture. This week, they showcase their hard work.

The annual student exhibition opens for ArtMembers from 6-9 p.m. on Saturday, April 23 and opens to the public on Sunday. The show runs through May 15. —Lee DeVito Opens to the general public from 6-9 p.m. on Saturday, April 23 at Cranbrook Academy of Art; 39221 Woodward Ave., loom eld ills cr nbrookart.edu. Tickets are $10 for general admission.

metrotimes.com | April 20-26, 2022

17

MUSIC

Detroit native jessica Care moore is overjoyed to be recognized by one her longtime idols.

MARC KLOCKOW

Standing O

Detroit’s jessica Care moore gets shoutout from Oprah for poem about Ketanji Brown Jackson

By Randiah Camille Green

The world watched as

Ketanji Brown Jackson was berated and bombarded with questions that seemingly had nothing to do with her ualifications during her . . upreme ourt confirmation hearing. Jackson’s experience as a upreme ourt clerk, federal appeals udge, and arvard aw graduate was overshadowed by her race.

Black women know the feeling all too well. It doesn’t matter how educated, experienced, or elo uent you are when all people see is your Blackness and all the negative perceptions that come with it.

It’s what Detroit poet essica are moore has been writing about for years, so when she was asked to pen a piece in Jackson’s honor, she answered the call without hesitation. are moore’s poem, er rown hines, is now being spread across the web after garnering the attention of prah. The media powerhouse shared the inspirational piece on her website orpahdaily.com on

Tuesday. are moore read er rown hines unday night in a private group called in ith Black omen B , which brings together more than , in uential Black women for regular oom meetings. prah, who was also on the call, was struck by it and wanted to share. are moore tells etro Times over the phone that she knew prah was going to be in the meeting, but never expected the poem to blow up.

I read right before prah was going to speak, and the first thing she said when she came on was, essica are moore, I need you to send me that poem,’ she says. I felt like I was a year old girl again. prah could have asked me for money and I would have given her whatever she wanted. I’ve barely been able to take a breath since then, it’s been really incredible. n her website, prah writes, This uplifting poem, written by essica are moore, about etan i Brown Jackson

20 April 20-26, 2022 | metrotimes.com

spoke to my spirit, especially this line Black girls carry constellations inside their wombs waiting to be named.’ nd I wanted to share it with you all.

In the poem, are moore re ects on Brown Jackson, and so many other women before her, who dared to strive towards greatness in the face of those who doubted them. omeone probably told arriet that she was not fit enough to make it to freedom. omeone told osetta Tharpe Black girls do not play electric guitar. omeone might have told etan i she would never be But here you stand, necessary Justice, the poem reads.

Care moore is also the founder of Daughters of Betty, a collective of Black women in rock and metal formerly known as Black omen ock. he says the B group was her lifeline through the pandemic that kept her feeling uplifted and supported. prah wrote about the group, B ’s very existence is to connect Black women where they are by sup-

porting their efforts and it was the right moment to re ect on the significance of Judge Jackson’s confirmation, something that took years to achieve.

Though are moore is ecstatic about being recognized by one of her childhood idols, she continues to keep her head down and focus on what she always does honoring and inspiring Black women.

Black women and politics are interwoven into my work and I choose to use my art as a political platform, she says. I’m my own little independent machine, so I don’t have billions of dollars behind what I do, but it’s good to know that people who do have that support my work. prah has absolutely informed how I get down. The way she has the power to lift people up is incredible. eally, we all have that power, we ust have to use it You can read the full poem and watch a recording of Care moore reciting it at oprahdaily.com.

metrotimes.com | April 20-26, 2022

21

FOOD A dash of Asia

By Jane Slaughter

The basic idea at SuperCrisp

is to take American standards — hot dogs, hamburgers, fried chicken, French fries — and dress them up with a long list of Asian touches, rendering them basically unrecognizable but delicious. Think traditional faves that taste more like a poke bowl, on a bun.

This strategy is fine by me, since I love the toppings that owner Mike Ransom, of the popular local chain Ima, liberally sprinkles on — pickled ginger, wasabi mayo, pineapple chutney, toasted shallots, scallions, curry mayo, katsu mayo, Kewpie slaw, toasted chilis, chili-lime sea salt, garlic. You won’t find a dish that isn’t offered with lots of garnishes.

Even the most traditional burger, which features American cheese and iceberg lettuce (and is the biggest burger seller), also uses katsu mayo, which Ransom says, “takes it in a completely different direction. e won’t say what’s in his katsu, but we can guess that it will make the diner think Japanese.

One thoughtful touch: napkin dispensers on each table, because you will go through a lot of napkins as all those condiments spill out of their buns.

The in uences are largely Japanese, often of the “how Japan adapted Western variety. ewpie mayonnaise, the slightly sweet, egg-yolks-only, MSGenhanced import, is prominent. There are two miso soups. ere’s how uper risp makes its karaage ka gay, hard g fried chicken, according to chef John Pastore: the chicken sits for 24 hours in a marinade of tamari, soy, ginger, lemon, sake, and garlic. Then it’s oured in a mixture of non-gluten starches and precooked in vegetable oil in a deep fryer for two minutes, and left to rest. When a customer orders, it’s refried two more minutes, resulting in the super crunchy exterior that makes it so popular. The sandwich was first introduced at Ima’s nearby idtown location, and quickly became a hit.

The karaage technique is applied to whitefish and tofu, too, and you can ask for a hotter version, dredged in toasted chili oil. Then Kewpie slaw, pickles, lemon mayo, and red onion are piled on. (Take home the lemon mayo if you have leftovers; it’s good on everything.)

The result is somehow not over the top, just scrumptious. ansom keeps the starch mix secret,

Some of the offerings from SuperCrisp include American favorites with Asian ingredients.

too, saying experimentation was needed to create the right crunch and color and to stay crisp after the sandwich cools down.

Burgers are halal wagyu or veggie, and dressed with wasabi, kimchi, curry, or the aforementioned American cheese. I loved my curry burger with a sweet-ish pineapple chutney (and curry slaw and pickled red onion and ginger and curry mayo and scallions). No, you don’t taste the meat, but you do get the mouth feel. Buns are vegan brioche from Rising Stars Academy Bakery. ot dogs halal beef or vegetarian are Oki, Kali, Curry, and Kimchi. The very Asian-tasting kali uses Krab salad, avocado, pickled ginger, wasabi mayo, scallions, and sesame, with a nori wrap on the side. ike I said, nothing doggy about it, but I love the avors. The kimchi dog uses vegan kimchi and American cheese.

Servings of fries are enormous, and e ually tricked out. ot ries go straight to the nose, what with the ghost pepper and toasted chili, and then there’s the garlic, sesame, nori, and chili-lime sea salt as well, plus furikake ranch dressing as your ketchup substitute.

Pastore says about a third of customers order the spicy items, which he pegs at 7 on a scale of 10. All sauces are avail-

22 April 20-26, 2022 | metrotimes.com

able to take home: wasabi mayo, Oki, and ten more.

The staff at uper risp is especially friendly and knowledgeable. The level of feels-genuine welcomingness is noticeable. One server (you order at the counter and the food is brought to you) asked me if I remembered fish sticks, and said the SuperCrisp karaage was a very elevated version of that. If you like popcorn, get the edamame, they said. If you like pickles, get the spicy cucumbers.

I ordered an extra egg on my fish sandwich, was asked how I wanted the egg cooked, and it came just that way.

Ransom notes that a third of his menu is fried food, and therefore he’s added items to counterbalance the fat, like cucumbers with wood ear mushrooms in a Szechuan chili vinaigrette.

Two salads are offered, one standard (but with yuzu miso vinaigrette or furikake ranch , the other an excellent combo of greens with quinoa, avocado, pickled onion, toasted shallots, goji berries, and sun ower seeds. ery small gripe, directed at many restaurants that serve in plastic If the customer is taking the salad home, it makes sense to tuck the interesting ingredients in the four corners, so they don’t get the

MARC KLOCKOW

SuperCrisp 4830 Cass Ave., Suite C, Detroit 313-474-8880 supercrisp.com Handicap accessible 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday Sandwiches $9-$12

greens all wet. But if the customer is eating in the restaurant, it’s awkward to toss the salad in a full and imsy plastic container, without tossing utensils.

Edamame is always fun to eat but it can be bland; not here, though, with SuperCrisp’s superior garlic sesame oil and again that chili-lime salt. This was one of my favorites.

Desserts are in development: matcha rice krispie treats and miso churros.

Within a few weeks SuperCrisp will have a liquor license and will sell cans of a new beer from North Pier Brewery in Benton arbor. ansom gave the brewers specs for a food beer, a crisp and refreshing dry hop cold-style lager called SuperCrisp, and North Pier, he says, nailed it. It will also be on tap at all the Ima restaurants.

The Supercrisp vibe is friendly fast food, but the avors are oh so different.

4/29 LEWIS BLACK: OFF THE RAILS 4/30 SEVENDUST

AUGUST 20

ANTHRAX & THE BLACK SOCIETY LABEL

5/3

AN EVENING WITH STEVE HACKETT GENESIS REVISTED

5/6

JESSE MCCARTNEY

5/8

ACTION BRONSON, EARL SWEATSHIRT, THE ALCHEMIST, BOLDLY JAMES

APRIL 22

EMO NIGHT BROOKLYN AGES 18+

5/10 SIMPLE PLAN & SUM 41 APRIL 27

KALEO

W/ BONES OWENS

w/ Set It Off

MAY 1

MIKE.

5/11 JAMES ARTHUR w/ Nina Nesbitt

5/13 RYAN HURD

w/ Morgan Wade

5/14

MAY 2

SPOON

W/ MARGARET GLASPY

MAY 7

INTERPOL & TYCHO

TECH N9NE

w/ Joey Cool, X-Raided, Mayday!

5/20 THE OFFSPRING w/ Blame My Youth

W/ MATTHEW DEAR

metrotimes.com | April 20-26, 2022

23

FOOD years and we’re gonna take away a lot of cherished memories.”

Don’t get it confused with New Palace Bakery, which is just down the street on Jos Campau. They are still open for your Polish bakery cravings.

—Randiah Camille Green

Bites

Celebration of life planned for Detroit BBQ Company founder Tim Idzikowski, dead at 36

Detroit’s Michigan Squeeze Station serves up THC-infused treats

The Michigan Squeeze Station has some seriously chill vibes and may just be one of Southwest Detroit’s newest, best-kept secrets (and the area has many). The small cafe is known for its smoothies, fresh-pressed juice, ginger shots, and coffee infused with cannabis. (They’re also available noninfused if you aren’t ready — the high from just one drink will last you all day, trust us.) The shop’s annual Infused Fest features food pop-ups and vendors selling everything from tacos, jewelry, art, edibles, and infusedhoney. All the vendors are small, local businesses selling handmade goods.

There’s also music performances by local acts and an open mic if you’re feeling brave (or high) enough. The fest goes from noon-4 p.m. at the Michigan Squeeze Station; 6716 Michigan Ave., Detroit; 313-784-9353.

—Randiah Camille Green

By Lee DeVito

Tim Idzikowski, the founder and chef behind the popular Detroit BBQ Company food truck, died last week, according to his family. He was 36.

Reached by Metro Times, Idzikowski’s family says he died in his sleep on Thursday. No cause of death was given.

His family says he loved to cook since he was a child, learning from watching the Food Network on TV. “That was his star, Anthony Bourdain,” his father Tim says. “He loved him.”

Idzikowski founded Detroit BBQ Company about 15 years ago after he had been selling ribs at farmers markets around metro Detroit on weekends for beer money. He and his brother Zac built a catering business before expanding to a food truck, which Idzikowski had been doing full-time for about a decade, his family says.

“He was such a hard worker, and he was the most loyal friend that anyone could ever have,” his sister Kelly says.

“If he loved you, he was so kind and generous.”

A celebration of life is planned starting at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, April 20 at Batch Brewing Company in Detroit.

“It was his self-proclaimed favorite holiday,” his wife Tracey says.

Idzikowski considered Batch Brewing Company owner Stephen Roginson to be a good friend, his family says.

Detroit BB ompany staff will be on hand to provide food. Tips for the staff are much appreciated, his family says.

In lieu of owers, the family is asking for donations to Focus Hope or Detroit Dog Rescue in Detroit.

Kevin Heaney, a longtime friend who helped out with the company, says Idzikowski was known for his generosity and was helping him to launch his own hot sauce brand, Man’s Best Friend Sauce Co. “He would always help anybody out,

Detroit Shipping Co. hosts Cass C0rridor cleanup

Idzikowski started a popular food truck after honing his craft selling ribs at farmers COURTESY PHOTO markets for beer money.

anytime,” Heaney says. “If somebody was a dollar short, he would help them out. If somebody was hungry, he made sure they were fed. He just had the biggest heart, the biggest guy, and really through all the ups and downs over the years, always persevered and always looked out for those he loved. He really was just a great guy.” is family says they and current staff worked through their grief to fulfill all Detroit BBQ Company orders in time for Easter Sunday.

They’re still deciding what will become of the company he built, they say.

“He was the business,” his father says.

“He’s got great people, but he was the king.”

Batch Brewing Co. is located at 1400 Porter St., Detroit; 313-338-8008; batchbrewingcompany.com.

Hamtramck staple New Martha Washington Bakery closed

24 April 20-26, 2022 | metrotimes.com

The rumors are true. New Martha Washington Bakery in Hamtramck turned off the ovens and closed down for good on Saturday, April 9. The tiny but mighty bakeshop will be remembered for lines out the door for paczki on Fat Tuesday.

Despite the closure, which hasn’t been widely publicized, customers are still showing up to buy sweet treats.

During a call to the bakery to confirm the closure on riday, staff could be heard answering the door and telling would-be patrons, “sorry, we’re actually closed permanently.”

Sunca Bakic, who goes by Sandy, tells Metro Times the family decided to close up shop due to medical reasons.

Her parents have owned the bakery for almost 50 years, since 1973.

“Unfortunately, we made a family decision that we can no longer operate the business the way it needs to be,” she says. “We appreciate the heartfelt support from all of our customers over the

Detroit Shipping Co. is hosting a neighborhood cleanup of the Cass Corridor for Earth Day on Saturday, April 23. The swanky food hall has teamed up with Clean Detroit for the second annual cleanup and is looking for volunteers to help beautify the neighborhood.

Participants will pick up trash, clean out ower beds, weed, and plant owers around the neighborhood. Water, gloves, trash bags, and other cleaning tools will be provided. Like many things in Detroit, the Cass Corridor (where the food hall is located) has changed a lot over the past ten years. Detroit Shipping Co. was merely a vacant lot of grass before the swanky food hall made out of repurposed shipping containers opened up shop in 2018. While the neighborhood continues to transform, residents and businesses do their part to keep the area clean and welcoming. To volunteer, just show up at Detroit Shipping Co., located at 474 Peterboro St, at 10 a.m. and meet at the “Summer Oasis” tent in the back of the building. More information is available at cleandetroit.org.

—Randiah Camille Green

metrotimes.com | April 20-26, 2022

25

WEED One-Hitters

The plot against the ‘pot lot’

By Joe Lapointe

The pot-holed plot of vacant scrub land is hardly a paradise. So the pot shop wants to pave it and put up a parking lot. But Clinton Township has said “No!” a lot — at least so far.

“I’ve heard the words ‘pot lot’ so many times it’s disgusting,” says Tammy Patton, a township trustee who may soon vote in favor of the zoning change.

“With that term, somebody wants to spew negativity… We’re not selling marijuana on that parking lot.”

No, and it doesn’t grow there, either.

But the parcel of less than a half-acre in Clinton Township is a few feet from the Mount Clemens border, where JARS Cannabis sells medical marijuana and soon hopes to sell the recreational kind as well.

JARS already owns a larger, nicely paved parking lot for its customers on its side of the border line, on the west side of Groesbeck north of Canal in Macomb County. The store also owns the extra lot, in Clinton Township, which is across a street called Ferndale, behind the store, which has degraded into the look of an alley.

So JARS says it wants to use its Clinton Township parcel to spruce up the neighborhood and provide 18 spaces of parking for the cars of its Mount Clemens employees.

Although the Clinton Township parcel has been vacant for at least 15 years, opposition has come from powerful township leaders like planning director Bruce Thompson, attorney John Dolan, and supervisor Robert Cannon. e are still firmly recommending denial of this proposal,” Thompson said Thursday at the Planning Commission meeting in City Hall. In an interview afterward, he added: “It’s not unlike any other marijuana-related issue. There’s not much in-between. It becomes a very emotional issue.”

At Thursday’s meeting, Thompson was asked by commission member Bruce Wade whether cannabis might be Thompson’s reason for denial.

“I can’t really answer that question,” Thompson said. Later, he added: “We feel that this is not the highest and best use of this property, and that this use

A Macomb County community is torn over a cannabis dispensary’s plans.

isn’t appropriate. It is that straightforward for us.”

Cannon, in a telephone interview on Friday, says, “I’d like to see housing there.” Dolan did not return several messages requesting comment.

The planning commission voted 6-2 Thursday to approve the zoning change to allow the “pot lot.” But the commission is only an advisory body. Any change in zoning must be made by the Board of Trustees. That’s where this gets complicated.

Earlier this year, the commission approved the same request for the parking lot and passed it up to the board for a vote. But the board sent the proposal back to the commission to demand more details regarding landscaping, lighting and video security cameras.

Now that those plans have been submitted by JARS, the six members of the township board could vote as soon as the next board meeting, on Monday, April 25. However, the agenda has not yet been published on its web site.

Although recreational marijuana became legal in Michigan after a vote in 2018, individual communities can choose for themselves to allow or ban associated cannabis businesses. After the issue was petitioned for the ballot in Clinton Township in 2020, marijuana lost by a vote of 15,163-13,648.

“That ballot failed,” Thompson said.

“It is what it is. The citizens spoke.”

Robert Kirk, an attorney for JARS, appeared at Thursday’s planning meeting. Beforehand, he said the parking lot proposal is opposed by “a groundswell of in uential and vocal citi ens, although he would not name them.

Patton, the first frican merican on the board in township history, could be a pivotal vote. She is also on the planning commission, the only person to

26 April 20-26, 2022 | metrotimes.com

hold both roles.

During Thursday’s meeting, Patton spoke more than most members and suggested it is ludicrous for the board to keep batting the decision back and forth in the bureaucracy.

I’m ust trying to figure out what I’m missing in all of this,” Patton said. “A parking lot? Is that what we’re going to be fighting about Patton said people would park on that ground anyway and she has seen cars parked there in the gravel and mud when driving by recently. That general area, including an empty restaurant parking lot next door, is often used for illicit activity, including sex, drugs, and alcohol, Patton said.

Other members of the commission said Thursday that the JARS parking lot plan would improve the neighborhood.

One of them, Douglas Curd, said: “This may be the nicest parking lot we’ll ever get in Clinton Township.”

After studying plans for fencing and gating along with the landscaping, he said the proposed lot would be “pleasing to the eye. It’s attractive. This is going to be value-added. I’m supportive.”

JARS is an expanding enterprise. Its web site lists 11 stores in Michigan, including one in Center Line that opened this month. It also has four locations in Arizona, according to the web site, which also declares: “Our progressive approach to product, design, staff and community is helping change the conversation about cannabis in a positive, open way that any adult can connect with and feel good about.”

Two years ago, during the debate before the marijuana vote, a vocal opponent was Anthony Penna, an attorney representing a group that called itself Clinton Township First.

“People don’t want these businesses in their backyards,” he told the Detroit

JOE LAPOINTE

News. “They don’t want it near to their schools and churches, their homes.”

Calls to Penna for comment Friday were not returned.

The issue sparked extended debate on a public Facebook site called “Clinton Township Michigan Residents Group.”

A poster named Dean Riggs wrote that the township “has to have the absolute dumbest and pett(iest) people making decisions.

“It’s a parking lot, not a grow, or a building itself on their property,” he wrote. “Let them have their lot.”

Riggs added that township executives should purchase products from JARs and try to relax.

However, resident Nancy Goodchild accused trustee Patton of having “her own agenda” and that she should abide by the will of the community that cast the majority of its votes against cannabis business.

“She is supposed to be the voice of the community, the community that voted against it,” Goodchild wrote.

“When the Twp. Planner AND Attorney say it is not good for the Twp. . . .

Maybe it is time for a recall.”

Several other posters cited the other, bigger, empty parking lot next door, surrounding a vacant restaurant. One of them was Ariana Lidtke.

“It’s falling apart and rotting and has sat there for years as wasted space,” she wrote. e can’t even fill the empty shopping plazas we have now and you wanna turn this down? I can’t imagine being upset about something as minor as a parking lot.”

And David Boichyn summed up the opinions of several posters.

“Omg, I’m shocked that they even value this as an important item to vote in!” he wrote. “WHO CARES WHERE THE POT SHOP EMPLOYEES PARK!! lol“

metrotimes.com | April 20-26, 2022

27

CULTURE Bewitching Horror

‘You Won’t Be Alone’ is a gory, gorgeous feminist folktale Eileen G’Sell

A sky lit with clouds, a canopy of

trees, a brook thick with fish you can catch in your bare hands. With its exultant natural imagery and ruminative narrator, Goran Stolevski’s You Won’t Be Alone feels at times like a Terrance alick film, albeit one clawed through with shocking body horror. Think Julia Ducournau’s Raw set in 19th-century Macedonia with a Tolstoyan penchant for peasant life — peasants who are sometimes mistaken for witches, or, in fact, are witches, as in the case of Nevena, the movie’s deeply introspective, and unlikely, heroine.

The plot is difficult to summari e without spoiling the delightful (and disquieting) twists. A struggling single mother, Biliana (Alice Englert), is visited by Old Maid Maria (Anamaria Marinca), a “wolf-eateress” infamous for feasting on the blood of newborn babes.

Vowing to hand her daughter, Nevena, over to Maria when the child reaches the age of 16, Biliana sequesters her in an abandoned cave to shield her from the witch’s return. But when Nevena (Sara Klimoska) comes of age — mute and entirely feral — a dark hawk suddenly ies into her gothic grotto, and it’s clear that her mother’s attempts to save her are futile.

Smuggling the stumbling, slackjawed teen into the nearby wilds, Maria becomes a mother figure of her own didactic, sarcastic, and spiteful. When Nevena hurls a stone at her back, it is her first act of genuine agency in a film that, in many ways, is arguably more about female agency, and its extinguishment, than anything else. Abandoned by Maria and left to her own pathetic devices, Nevena drifts onto the property of a village family in which a woman named Basilka (Noomi Rapace) has recently given birth to her first child. While Rapace plays the ostensive lead in the film one otherwise cast with almost entirely unknown actors — she in fact plays one of an ensemble of characters whom Nevena unwittingly kills and becomes.

That’s right. The hero of the film is also a murderess — and yet a strangely likable one. Shot in rural Serbia — and entirely in an idiom that approximates that of a bygone era tolevski’s film is stunning to hear and behold. But for

Noomi Rapace stars in Focus Features’ new horror movie.

those who inch at the sight of blood, it may be worth it to squint through more than a handful of scenes. I can’t recall a time that a film so emotionally gutting was also filled with literal piles of guts. This is a film that utterly spills with necromantic entrails, while simultaneously probing the depths of female sel ood.

“With a woman, I am glass,” Nevena re ects, speaking to how women tend to mirror one another’s facial expressions in group situations. “With a man, I am water.” That the men of the village tend to thoughtlessly consume the bodies and creative fruits of their wives becomes more and more apparent the longer Nevena assimilates into various human networks. That she herself often kills and consumes the bodies of those with whom she is in close contact does not prevent her from recogni ing how vulnerable she is in female form. Old Maid Maria, too, is as much a victim as villain, and her backstory reveals the brutal extent to which women were blamed

28 April 20-26, 2022 | metrotimes.com

— and punished — for any mysterious maladies that befell the larger community.

For all its consciousness of gender inequity — especially violence against women — You Won’t Be Alone doesn’t reductively settle on the stance that men are inherently evil and unjust. If anything, Nevena’s ability to take on the body of different ages, genders and species suggests an endurance of soul distinct from social identity.

And yet within these identities, Nevena reckons with the rigid, often gendered, expectations of the larger human tribe. Is she better off a young woman messily hanging a sodden bedsheet? Or as a man haplessly failing to scythe the field The fact that evena starts out feral directly comments on how each corporeal identity sociali es her to assume certain expectations and behaviors, as opposed to some inborn essence. And throughout, she maintains a constant wonder at every shape that she assumes. “Man, oh man, oh man, oh man,” she laughs to herself a

COURTESY OF FOCUS FEATURES

You Won’t Be Alone Rated: R Run time: 108 minutes half do en times, incredulous at the dumbfounding complexity of existence.

In the end, You Won’t Be Alone seems to say that none of us are alone — that our selves are themselves compiled of so many reincarnated identities.

Like the best folktales — and the best horror movies — the real stakes aren’t with the witch in the woods but in the blood on our hands as very awed humans. That a subtitled film this weird was even produced in the first place let alone distributed to theaters across a country renowned for insular viewing habits — feels magical on its own. For those lucky enough to see Stolevski’s latest on the big screen, be ready to squirm but also to marvel.

Life is muck and guts and — somehow — it is also teeming with miracles.

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metrotimes.com | April 20-26, 2022

29

CULTURE Feel the Dern

David Lynch’s newly restored ‘Inland Empire’ still conjures a feeling like nothing else

By George Elkind

Not all movies press forward.

In 2006’s Inland Empire, newly restored under the supervision of its enigmatic director, David ynch, the film’s movement through time occurs on a looping track that cuts back across itself, with our guide (played by Laura Dern in a fractured starring role as film star ikki Grace) getting just as lost as the viewer.

The three hour film, assembled over years from largely unstructured scraps of low-grade video, may strike some as just a reel of scenes, and a marvelous showcase for Dern as a performer, but it proves far more purposeful in its calibration of formal technique, narrative motifs, and internal rhymes, which serve together to create a feeling like nothing else.

After a brief overture, Inland kicks off in earnest when a Polish born visitor (played by Lynch standby Grace Zabriskie, a sublime performer) comes to Grace’s palatial home, introducing herself as a new neighbor and suggesting it’s important to say “hello.” This last word, puncturing the sentence it appears in with a jarring, eerily singsong air, forecasts Inland’s power to locate the uncanny in the mundane. In the teatime meeting, the visitor seems frighteningly omniscient, pressing folktales, portentous questions, and seeming non-sequiturs in ikki’s direction, and provides the first signal that ikki, who’s in the running for a plum melodramatic role, might be getting more than she hopes in the process. Many a keystone to the film’s structure can be found in the frame this scene provides, which suggests the imminent production is a somehow cursed one, offering prophetic ruminations on action, consequence, identity, and even time.

But Inland aims to conserve rather than resolve its sense of mystery. Even for those equipped with the right tools to parse the web of meanings, they only provide a means of digging deeper into the film’s thematic narrative textures rather than of closing anything off.

Intersecting with the artistic work of Grace herself, Inland finds its protagonist sinking deep enough into her character that her life and existence apart from it become subsumed into the role. As

Inland Empire Rated: R Run time: 180 minutes

Laura Dern shines in David Lynch’s murky Inland Empire.

with Dern’s own delving into an atfirst dutiful, then constantly evolving performance, the viewer’s process is more about investigating a feeling than seizing upon anything resembling a single origin, problem, or cause. Like so much of the best artistic work, Inland Empire exists for its makers first, offering probing considerations of acting, film production, role confusion, and even sex and fame within its fabric. In this, what it offers proves inviting, even intimate, as a viewing experience each scene has an internal logic to it, even read in isolation from its wider, richer context.

Because of its intense peculiarities, describing Inland Empire could come down wholly — and rewardingly enough — to enumerating all that distinguishes its immediate formal aspects while ignoring the structures that undergird this work. Shot on lowgrade DV cameras, the word “smeared” arises often for those describing the blurred, rough-hewn quality of its digital images — which can scan as the photographic equivalent of painting with a knife. With its probing handheld photography and consumer-grade setup granting Inland an ease of movement and air of experimentation rare for productions of its time with recognizable stars, Lynch uses that freedom not to chase anything too buoyant but to give the film a feeling of descent an aesthetic, even spiritual movement venturing both inward and down. To this end, Lynch culls Inland’s most rep-

30 April 20-26, 2022 | metrotimes.com

ALAMY

resentative images from mobile shots of darkened halls, alleys, and studio soundstages, with light sources swinging from searing to sparse between carefully deliberated cuts driven by intuition over action. When the camera does settle on actors’ faces, the effect is rarely any calmer but remains just as atmospheric. Framing performers often in extreme close ups or off kilter angles, Lynch’s camera can seem to scoop up actors’ faces and hold them toward its wide, distorting lens, finding them partway ripped from the fabric of the film itself, uivering tenuously between the film’s world and ours.

This tension around identity, in which roles (and their accompanying status) become scrambled and upended in ways mediated by one’s surroundings, lies not only at Inland’s center but close to the heart of Lynch’s entire body of work.

Pressures around acts of private and public recognition abound in the film, and not without purpose or effect. ritic elissa nderson points to the film’s often-spoken phrase “look at me.”) Emphasizing that identity and self-concept can be as imsy as any mood or feeling, Inland calls attention to fame, value, and recognition as things bestowed in part by others, not just generated by oneself. These notions of value accompany the film’s various slides, from ollywood to Poland in ellipses found in dreams and doorways, its movements up and down vectors and settings associated with various levels (or lacks)

of prestige and class, and race’s ights into and out of different character personas. Like Twin Peaks before (and, thankfully, after) it, Inland holds ripe melodrama close to its center, spotlighting its eruption through regionalized scrims of manners into fits of aching need. Between the film within a film in which Dern stars and the shifting roles she plays that move around and through it, Dern’s given range of expressive, often discordant material she’s equipped to make the most of.

Through it all, boundaries between spheres like the public and private, the artistic and “real,” come across as both meaningful and delicate, or thin.

Solitary beams of light stream through holes and walls and windows, delivering ruptures that appear like little so much as they do a video being projected. Rather than providing even the illusion of a clean break as films like Lost Highway at first pretend to, or the fairly definite shift in roles that rips apart the players in Mulholland Drive, Inland’s structure curls. By replaying the same incidents, with perspectives altered each time in the ways that make a “scene,” Lynch insists that the lines we work to draw between ourselves and creative work are dangerously fine. ynch suggests the ways we map the world, chart our personal progress, and even demarcate time can be both futile and misleading.

All this might sound heavy to spend three hours on. Inland Empire also works ust fine as a feast of textures, and an exploration of haunting atmospheres conjured from the deep recesses of collaborating minds. Its looping structure and tangled themes all serve much the same ends, coming together to make a rich and newly polished bit of existential art.

Inland Empire will be screened at 7:30 p.m on Friday, April 22 at Cinema Detroit; 4126 Third St., Detroit; 313-4829028; cinemadetroit.org. Tickets are $10.

Savage Love

CULTURE Q:

I’m a married gay man. I’m nervous about sending this question and my husband is afraid you might answer it. I’m a fairly vanilla guy, while my husband is into bondage. We’ve been able to make it work because he’s into a kind of bondage he calls “storage.” On “storage nights,” I put him in bondage and play video games while he “suffers.” So far, so good. But I worry about accidentally killing him.

Most often I put him in his sleepsack — picture a leather sleeping bag you can’t get out of — which is strapped to a bondage board on the floor by our couch. I play video games for a few hours with my feet up on him. Every half hour, I tighten the straps. Toward the end of the night, the straps are so tight he can’t move or even take a deep breath. If he doesn’t complain or ask to get out, he’s rewarded with a hand-job when I’m done. We do this about twice a week. (We also have a leather straitjacket, but we use it a lot less often.)

I’m worried that he’s going to have an embolism or something because of the straps. Some go over him and around the board, pressing him down to the board, others go around his body and cinch in. The straps aren’t tight at first. But for the last hour they’re fairly tight, and for the last 20 or 30 minutes they’re almost unbearably tight. I never leave him alone.

If it matters, he’s in his 40s, in great shape, normal blood pressure, etc. He didn’t want me to write, because he doesn’t want to find out it’s dangerous and have to stop. For the same reason, he doesn’t want to ask his doctor.

We’ve been doing this for 10 years and I haven’t killed him yet. Is there a chance I might? Can you ask a doc for me?

—Seeking Advice Concerning Kinky Dangers P.S. It feels crazy to say this, but “storage nights” are special couple time for us and an important part of our intimacy. I don’t want to give them up any more than he does.

A : “Hours-long bondage and re-

straint raises a few concerns,” said Dr. Seth Trueger and Dr. Ryan Marino, both doctors who specialize in emergency medical care. (They read your question and shared their thoughts in an email they composed together.)

“First, however long you’re tying someone up, having some sort of safeword or action-equivalent alarm system of some kind seems prudent.”

If your husband is gagged when you

store him, SACKD, a one-two-three pattern of grunts can be used in place of a safeword.

“For a mix of reasons, restraining people prone — on their belly — can be particularly dangerous,” said the docs. “We know this from both patient safety research and examples from law enforcement. That doesn’t mean tying people up on their backs is always safe but tying someone down on their belly is worse. There’s also a known link between unexpected deaths and compromising the airway and breathing.”

So, don’t strap your husband face-down on your bondage board, don’t put anything around his neck or otherwise restrict his air intake, and if you haven’t already agreed on a safeword and/or safegrunt and/or safegesture, settle on one and/or all now.

“Another potential risk from tight restraints would be muscle breakdown potentially causing kidney damage and electrolyte issues (‘rhabdomyolysis’),” said the docs, “so platitudes like ‘stay hydrated,’ i.e., drink plenty of water before and after, is reasonable advice. And physical restraint plus ‘chemical restraint,’ i.e., sedation or intoxication, is a much more dangerous combination, so it’s probably safer to avoid anything like alcohol [when you play].”

It doesn’t sound like you’re doing rope bondage, SACKD, since sleepsacks and straitjackets designed for BDSM play are usually secured with leather straps, not ropes. But Dr. Trueger and Dr. Marino urge rope bondage fans to use quick-release knots. “If things go south, it’s easy for anyone to get ustered or start to panic, which does not make untying tight knots any easier,” added the docs. Safe and sane bondage tops know to keep a sturdy pair of safety scissors nearby for the same reasons.

As for your concerns about leather straps causing a potentially lifethreatening pulmonary embolism…

“There is going to be some level of risk with immobility and restraint with things like blood clots,” said the docs, and blood clots can cause an embolism, and embolisms can kill.

“But it’s doubtful that using straps instead of ropes would make a difference as far as clot/embolism risk, or that a short period of extra tightening — 30 minutes — would be riskier for clots or an embolism or anything other than bruising or other soft tissue injury from direct pressure.”

32 April 20-26, 2022 | metrotimes.com

By Dan Savage

JOE NEWTON

ong airline ights famously present a risk for embolism — all that time spent sitting on your ass — but ights of less than three hours don’t raise the risk substantially,” said the docs, “and using straps has the added benefit of being a bit more straightforward to release in a pinch.”

Be aware of the risks, mitigate them as best you can, and you don’t have to give up your storage nights.

“The way our brains work, we get lulled into feeling safe when we do risky things a lot,” said Dr. Trueger and Dr. Marino. “So, it’s important to not get comfortable and then get lax because nothing has gone wrong before. Figure out good safety rules and stick to them. And pay special attention during times of escalation.”

So, when you’ve pulled the straps so tight your husband can barely move — during that last half hour — you should put the game pad down, D, turn off the T , and focus all your attention on your poor, miserable, suffering ust the way he likes to suffer bondage freak of a husband.

Follow Dr. Seth Trueger on Twitter @MDaware. Follow Dr. Ryan Marino on Twitter @RyanMarino.

Q:

I’m a 59-year-old, cis, het, kinky Dominant woman. I’ve been in the D/s lifestyle for about 10 years. Last year a younger man found me on Fetlife.

We messaged and met for coffee. I was impressed with his maturity and self-awareness. We’ve had a wonderful time meeting about every two weeks to play and explore. During

that time we discovered that he really loves pegging. I’ve pegged him several times, and he’s told me he’s slightly addicted to the incredible orgasm he receives when being pegged. One of our D/s rules is that he ALWAYS has to ask permission to come. No matter what we’re doing, he must ask. And he always has. However, the last time I pegged him with my vibrating dildo, I realized he was coming without permission. I said, “Bad boy, you didn’t ask permission!” He was stunned and responded, “What? Am I?”, and then shot an even bigger load. We were talking afterwards, and he swears he didn’t know he was coming until I said something. He says he didn’t feel like was coming until a good five seconds later. Could this be due to prostate stimulation? I’ve never been particularly successful with prostate milking with other subs, so I don’t know. I have no concern that he disregarded our rules. He’s never been a brat in our dynamic. I’ve had other subs lose it without asking and apologize profusely while they’re coming. (Which, I have to admit, I kind of love.) Any insight here?

—My Inexperienced Sub Toy’s Recent Ejaculation Somewhat Suss

A : Congrats, MISTRESS, you may

have finally done it you may have milked a man’s prostate — but here’s how you can tell for sure did that first wave of cum drool out of his dick?

Prolonged stimulation of the prostate gland can sometimes cause the prostate to release seminal uid. But without the contractions that accompany an orgasm, “milked” seminal uids don’t shoot out, they oo e out.

If your sub was already leaking pree aculate, the release of seminal uids from his milked prostate wouldn’t feel like an orgasm, but like a big release of pre-ejaculate. It wasn’t until the orgasmic contractions kicked in and he started shooting that he could feel himself climaxing. And since the prostate gland produces only 30% of seminal uid released in a typical orgasm, he still had plenty left to shoot when those orgasmic contractions kicked in. But even if your sub didn’t come without your permission, MISTRESS, he’s still a bad boy and should be punished regardless.

Ask questions@savagelove.net. Listen to Dan on the Savage Lovecast. Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage.

Columns, podcasts, books, merch and more at savage.love.

metrotimes.com | April 20-26, 2022

33

CULTURE ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries author Marge Piercy writes, “I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again.” According to my analysis of the astrological factors, you’ll be wise to be like a person Piercy describes. You’re entering a phase of your cycle when diligent work and impeccable self-discipline are most necessary and most likely to yield stellar rewards.

TAURUS: April 20 – May 20 In 1879, Taurus-born Williamina Fleming was working as a maid for astronomer Edward Charles Pickering, director of the Harvard Observatory. Impressed with her intelligence, Pickering hired Fleming to do scientific work. By , she had become a prominent, award-winning astronomer.

Ultimately, she discovered the Horsehead Nebula, helped develop a system for identifying stars, and cataloged thousands of astronomical phenomena. I propose that we make her your role model for the duration of 2022. If there has ever been a year when you

Free Will Astrology

By Rob Brezsny

might achieve progress like Fleming’s, it’s this one.

GEMINI: May 21 – June 20 For 2,500 years, Egypt was a conquered territory ruled by non-Egyptians. Persians took control in B .

Greeks replaced them. In succeeding centuries, Egypt had to submit to the authority of the Roman Empire, the Persians again, the By antine mpire, the Arab Islamic Caliphate, the Mamluk Sultanate, the Ottomans, and the British. hen British troops withdrew from their occupation in 1956, Egypt was finally an independent nation self-ruled by Egyptians. If there are any elements of your own life story that even partially resemble Egypt’s history, I have good news: 2022 is the year you can achieve a more complete version of sovereignty than you have ever enjoyed.

And the next phase of your freedom work begins now.

CANCER: June 21 – July 22 During the next four weeks, some of the best lessons you can study and learn will come to you while you’re sociali ing and communicating. ven more than is usually the case, your friends and allies will offer you crucial information that has the power to cataly e dynamic decisions. Lucky encounters with Very Interesting People may open up possibilities worth investigating. And here’s a fun X-factor: The sometimes surprising words that y out of your mouth during lively conversations will provide clues about what your deep self has been halfconsciously dreaming of.

LEO: July 23 – August 22 “Hold on tight, I would tell myself, but there was nothing for me to hold on to.” A character in one of Haruki Murakami’s novels says that.

In contrast to that poor soul, Leo, I’m happy to tell you that there will indeed be a reliable and sturdy source for you to hold onto in the coming weeks — maybe more than one. I’m glad! In my astrological opinion, now is a time when you’ll be smart to get thoroughly anchored. It’s not that I think you will be in jeopardy. Rather, you’re in a phase when it’s more important than usual to identify what makes you feel stable and secure. It’s time to bolster your foundations and strengthen your roots.

VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22 In the latter half of the 19th century, the U.S. government collaborated with professional hunters to kill millions of bison living in America’s reat Plains. hy It was an effort to subjugate the indigenous people who lived there by eliminating the animals that were their source of food, cloth-

34 April 20-26, 2022 | metrotimes.com

practical dreamer should train not only her reasoning abilities but also her primal intuition, creative imagination, non-rational perceptivity, animal instincts, and rowdy wisdom.” I especially urge you to embody my advice in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. Now is a favorable time to make abundant use of the other modes of intelligence that help you understand life as it really is — and not merely as the logical, analytical mind conceives it to be.

JAMES NOELLERT

ing, shelter, bedding, ropes, shields, and ornaments. The beloved and useful creatures might have gone extinct altogether if it had not been for the intervention of a Virgo rancher named Mary Ann “Molly” Goodnight. She singlehandedly rebuilt the bison herds from a few remaining survivors. I propose that we make Goodnight your inspirational role model for the rest of 2022. What dwindling resources or at-risk assets could you restore to health?

LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22 British dmiral oratio elson (1758–1805) was born under the sign of Libra. He was a brilliant and unconventional strategist whose leadership brought many naval victories for his country. Yet he was blind in one eye, was missing most of his right arm from a battle wound, and was in constant discomfort from chronic seasickness.

I pro“ pose we make him one of your patron saints for the coming weeks. May he inspire you to do your best and surpass your previous accomplishments even if you’re not feeling perfect. But also keep in mind: The problems you have to deal with will be far milder than Nelson’s.)

SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21 nti apartheid activist Bantu tephen Biko was profoundly committed to authenticity. The repressive South African government hated that about him. Biko said, I’m going to be me as I am, and you can beat me or jail me or even kill me, but I’m not going to be what you want me to be.” Fortunately for you, Scorpio, you’re in far less danger as you become more and more of your genuine self. That’s not to say the task of learning how to be true to your deep soul is entirely risk-free. There are people out there, even allies, who may be afraid of or resistant to your efforts.

Don’t let their pressure in uence you to dilute your holy quest.

SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 – Dec. 21 “The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul,” said Sagittarian painter Wassily Kandinsky. Inspired by his observation, I’m telling you, “The

CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19 The language spoken by the indigenous Cherokee people is at least , years old. But it never had a written component until the 1820s. Then a Cherokee polymath named Sequoyah formulated a syllabary, making it possible for the first time to read and write the language. It was a herculean accomplishment with few precedents in history. I propose we name him your inspirational role model for the rest of 2022. In my astrological understanding, you are poised to make dramatic breakthroughs in self-expression and communication that will serve you and others for a long time.

AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18 A study by psychologists concludes there is a good way to enhance your willpower: For a given time, say one week, use your non-dominant hand to brush your teeth, wield your computer mouse, open your front door with your key, or perform other habitual activities. Doing so boosts your ability to overcome regular patterns that tend to keep you mired in inertia. You’re more likely to summon the resolution and drive necessary to initiate new approaches in all areas of your life — and stick with them. The coming weeks will be an especially favorable time to try this experiment.

(For more info, read this: tinyurl.com/ Boost illpower PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20 In his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, philosopher Friedrich Niet sche wrote, ou have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” According to my reading of the astrological omens, you will be ustified to say something like that in the near future. Now is a favorable time to honestly acknowledge differences between you and others — and accept those differences ust as they are. The important point is to do what you need to do without decreeing that other people are wrong or misguided.

This week’s homework: What’s your favorite ethical trick?

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MASSAGE

RELAXING NURU MASSAGE for the quarantine must not be sick. Must be clean and wear mask. Outcalls only incalls are at your cost Hey I’m here to help. This is Candy melt in your mouth so try my massages they’re sweet as can be!!!

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AUTOMOTIVE

DONATE YOUR CAR TO KIDS Your donation helps fund the search for missing children. Accepting Trucks, Motorcycles & RV’s , too!

Fast Free Pickup – Running or Not - 24 Hour Response - Maximum Tax Donation – Call 877-266-0681 (AAN CAN)

metrotimes.com | April 20-26, 2022

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