Aidan Wayne's article on the protests and Kinross Correctional Facility, Anthony J. Kaled of Detroit wrote:
I've worked in legal issues for a long time in various forms, and I have to applaud you all for your coverage of the current prisoner rights issues popping up around the country.
Aidan Wayne's articles are daring in their scope and superb in how much they stick out of the pack of drab and uncaring journalist pieces more commonly found in the Detroit Free Press and similar rags.
Please keep up the good investigative work.
Jack Lessenberry's weekly Politics & Prejudices column, "The danger we face," earned some thoughtful comments, including (OK, especially) this one from Jon Barber:
Jack, I get your disgust of Trump and the portion of his base that are passionate about him, but they aren't some sort of new thing. They have been around a long time. You can stop worrying about some sort of wave of "barbarism" or violent anarchy that is somehow greater than before — we do have laws to address violence and have been prosecuting that type of stuff a long time. Ideological crazies of all stripes are part of America, and we deal with them the best we can.
Much of his support is not that type, though. Plenty are nothing more than hardline GOP, never to vote Democrat, ever. They often are single issue, such as anti-abortion or Second Amendment, and thus have hopes that a Republican president is the answer with Supreme Court picks. They may not like Trump even, but may also feel that GOP in Congress will check weird Trump stuff if he were to win.
Most Trumpers are nothing but tribal political partisans, just as plenty of Hillary Clinton voters will also be. There will be much nose-holding by voters on both sides of the tribal aisle. We have a pair of untrusted candidates, and we have known that for a half a year and more.
Serena Maria Daniels' piece, "How to celebrate Dia de los Muertos without being an appropriating asshole," got a Facebook comment from Roxanne Newsom:
I don't hear anyone being shocked and offended by dressing up as drunken leprechauns on St. Patrick's Day. Oh, that's right: That's a predominantly caucasian culture, and a Catholic holiday, so no one cares about that. Get over it: We are all proud of our ethnicities and culture. Let's focus on our commonalities instead. Stop creating divisions.
And Steven Taylor joked:
Just be glad we're not culturally appropriating the whole "human sacrifice thing" the Aztecs were fond of.
Ryan Felton's News Hit, "Confusion over cost of Little Caesars Arena; speculation builds on a Pistons move downtown," earned some comments, yes. But what surprised us was that one of those comments was a poem, from commenter Just Sayin':
Like pizza dough it rises,
The cost of this stink,
What was once HUD money
Is now a HOKey HOCkey rink.
The cheese that we shared,
Along with our pensions,
Pools, schools, pipes and sewers,
And ghettofabulous mansions.
It's all on ice now,
Our housing demolished,
The way to improvement
Should be abolished.
Erratum: The original draft of our cover story, "A seat at the table," may have given some readers the mistaken impression that the editorial board of the Detroit Free Press opposes a community benefits agreement ordinance; it does not. It is simply against both community benefits ordinances on the ballot this month.
