Governor Whitmer signing Executive Order No. 2019-10. (Behind Gov. Whitmer, l to r): D.J. Hilson, Muskegon County Prosecutor and President, Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan; Stephan Currie, Executive Director, Michigan Association of Counties; State Rep. Lee Chatfield, Speaker of the House; Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II; Chief Justice Bridget McCormack; and Attorney General Dana Nessel.
By Melissa Walsh
While covering city beats with the Grosse Pointe News, I learned how vulnerable many can become to arrest and incarceration, especially those with low income. For instance, many of the police reports I read as part of my reporting detailed arrests of drivers pulled over after their license plate had been scanned by a public safety officer while driving along Lake Shore Drive. I recall the report of a young mother being pulled over for expired auto insurance. She had not been speeding. She hadn’t run a red light or made an illegal turn. The officer had simply discovered by running her plate that her insurance coverage had expired just days earlier. The officer arrested her. She had her two toddler-aged children in the car and told the officer she was on her way to drop them off at day care before heading to her job in Grosse Pointe. The officer allowed her to call her husband. When he arrived, he was arrested for the same offense — driving with expired auto insurance. A relative picked up the kids at the police station while the two were in custody. Of course, a law enforcement officer who discovers the infraction and releases the offender is potentially liable if they were to cause an accident following the release. I get that. Yet the couple I mentioned above did not demonstrate being a threat to society. And yet, for missing a premium payment, they were facing the financial quicksand of court fines and fees, in addition to missing work and the trauma of their children witnessing their arrest. I read about many arrests like this one, which, from the perspective of common sense, seem unreasonable. Is jail being used to protect society? Or are the lives of too many arrestees upset with job loss and financial hardship caused by a justice system that counters a smart approach to justice? The problem of the accelerated rates of arrest and incarceration over the past few decades, especially among low-income populations, caught the scrutiny of the ACLU, which launched its national Campaign for Smart Justice in 2018. With volunteers investigating the arrest and incarceration systems and statistics in each of the nation’s 50 states, the ACLU aims to examine the issues and promote criminal justice reform. In early 2019, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer issued Executive Order 2019-10, which created the Michigan Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration, which went to work from April to November 2019 to investigate Michigan's justice system and determine its failures and best practices, including alternatives to plunging an individual into a whirlwind of court fines and fees (ie. tether and drug-test fees) and probation and incarceration that only the wealthy can avoid. Their findings were released on January 14, 2020.
From the Executive Summary of the Michigan Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration, January 2020.
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Preparing for Prohibition
Late 1919, local authorities and residents were gearing up for the Volstead Act to go into effect January 1, 2020. Though the prohibition of alcohol for consumption had gone into effect in Michigan in May 1917, Detroiters enjoyed a supply from neighboring Ohio. With the Volstead Act drying up all U.S. states, Detroit’s bootleggers turned to a supply chain from Canada. And many of Detroit's doctors had been writing prescriptions for whiskey, which would be filled in Windsor pharmacies just across the Detroit River. The Canadian government had announced on December 10, 1919 that it would lift its war-time prohibition on alcohol (and horse-racing) effective January 16, 2020 and granted amnesty to offenders who were criminalized while the act had been in effect. The manufacturing of liquor would be permitted for shipment from one province to the other. This restricted the sale of intoxicants, but opened up the means, per export permit, for Detroit's neighbors in Windsor to have liquor delivered to their homes for “private consumption.” We know from history that bootleggers, like the Purple Gang, took advantage of this policy to illegally transport Canadian whiskey from Windsor over the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair into Detroit, the Downriver communities and St. Clair Shores. So in 1919, while bootlegging opportunists like the Purple Gang were setting up logistics for importing bonafide Canadian whiskey, other less-sophisticated operators were selling low-grade moonshine. On December 27, 78 deaths were reported in four states (Michigan was not among them) within 48 hours from drinking “fake rum,” which was actually wood alcohol with brown coloring to pass as whiskey. Though Detroiters were spared this tragedy — still enjoying ample, though costly and illegal (but legal from a pharmacy), supply of genuine whiskey -- the move to crack down on alcohol distribution was ramping up by state and federal law enforcement. This led to a series of raids. It was difficult for Detroiters to discern from legitimate law enforcement agents from thieves. For example, the Christmas Eve edition of the Detroit Free Press reported that men posing as state food and drug enforcers seized 8 gallons of “Christmas cheer” from a Detroit man’s cellar. Every human generation has its own illusions with regard to civilizations; some believe they are taking part in its upsurge, others that they are witnesses of its extinction. In fact, it always both flames and smolders and is extinguished, according to the place and angle of views. 
"Sarajevo" by Zvonimir Barišin, Adriatic Storm - https://www.deviantart.com/adriaticstorm/art/Sarajevo-Vjecnica-66353411
By Melissa Walsh
Burek and baklava. Giant juicy black grapes and luscious red tomatoes. Old men wearing the red fez selling Turkish coffee pots in the baščaršija, "marketplace." Olympic gold-winning champion basketball players at the cafe. Stars of Sarajevo’s popular rock band Bijelo Dugme at Obično Mijesto, or “Usual Place” — a bar in the baščaršija beloved by Sarajevo’s hipsters. And the cafe bar called Broj Jedan, or “Number One," set in a well-to-do neighborhood in the edge of the valley, where the politically well-connected lived. These are among my countless memories of Sarajevo. While I was a student at the University of Sarajevo in 1988, nearly each evening, for sure each weekend evening, I was among hundreds of young Sarajevans walking to the “meeting place” on Maršala Tita Ulica, "Marshal Tito's Street," where those in their late teens and 20-somethings greeted each other with Vozdra -- Sarajevan pig latin for “hi,” or Zdravo, “hello,” transposed. Vozdra, gde si? they’d say. Particular to Sarajevo was the pronunciation of Gde si?, or literally, “Where are you?” This was slang for "How are you doing?" Sarajevan youth did not pronounce gde with the prescribed hard g and hard d, but as a soft consonant blend. So to American ears, Gde si? sounded like the name "Jessie." When I uttered the greeting in the way of a Sarajevan youth, my friends would laugh. It was much like how I would react if a foreigner in my home town of Detroit greeted me with,” Yo, whadup doe?” Walking to or from the meeting place, one would pass soldiers buying kolaći, “sweets” for gypsy kids begging in the streets. They might take Principov Most, “Princip’s bridge” to cross the Miljacka River, where the first shot of World War I was fired. They might walk past the famous Sarajevo library or travel by street car past the yellow Holiday Inn and other modern buildings with a similar hideous and boldly modern aesthetic. I started from 127-A Lenjinova, an apartment building in the Grbavica section of Sarajevo, across the Miljacka from the University of Sarajevo’s Filosofki Falkutet, or School of Philosophy, where I was a student. I rented a room from a widow caring for her elderly mother and two grown sons who had finished university and were looking for work. My friends in the building included Nik, Milica, Bogdana, Nina, Igor, Goran, and Maja. They identified as Yugoslavs. Everyone I met in Sarajevo from 1987 to 1989 identified as a Yugoslav. I did not know that I was encountering a Sarajevan Yugoslav civilization in danger of extinction. The Sarajevo unity I witnessed was not an experiment. It was not a powder keg of hate. I experienced first-hand Sarajevo’s celebration of East and West — European- and Asian-influenced literature, music, and food. I witnessed close relationships between Sarajevan and Sarajevan, not between Croat and Serb, or Serb and Muslim, or Muslim and Croat. These relationships were caught in the anxiety of 40-percent unemployment among those under age 25, coupled with sky-rocketing inflation. The Sarajevo that I was first introduced to in 1987 and last visited in 1989 was a vibrant community of talented and well-educated individuals who identified as Yugoslavs. They were not hostile. They did not talk about their ethnic and religious family history unless I asked them about it. My circle of friends celebrated both Catholic and Orthodox Christmas, which are two weeks apart, Islam’s Ramadan, and communism’s May Day. They displayed Tito’s image somewhere in their apartment. They toasted each other with živeli, “to life,” or literally “(we) lived.” They laughed and added the Partisan toast of their parents who survived World War II, Smrt fascismo, slobodo naradu, “Death to fascism, freedom to the people.” I couldn’t foresee fascism about to attack this great valley of cultural diversity and national unity within two years. But I knew a man who saw through the illusion I believed in. Twenty-nine years later, in 2018, I encountered Prague’s free-market make-over while traveling with my sons. It was stunning.
Photos by Melissa Walsh.
By Melissa Walsh
While a wave of revolution swept Eastern Europe 30 years ago, I was completing my degree in International Studies in Sarajevo and Vienna. During that time, I also traveled to Krakow and Warsaw, Poland, and to Prague, Czechoslovakia, participating in short-term study programs. This month, November 2019, as I’m compiling a memoir about my years abroad during the late 1980s, I’m consumed with nostalgia from my three visits to Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic. The first was while in transit to Poland by train in March 2019. The next was five days in Prague in April 1989. And the most recent was in July 2018, when I spent three days in Prague with two of my sons. But why is this month special? In addition to marking the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (November 9), this month commemorates 30 years of democracy in the former Czechoslovakia (which in 1993 became the Czech Republic and Slovakia). Czechoslovakia had been a communist country since 1948. A series of reforms in the 1960s and a period of strikingly liberal revisions in 1968, known as Prague Spring, which included rolling back censorship, prompted the August 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia by troops from Warsaw Pact countries. A tight Eastern-bloc hold on Czechoslovakia remained for two decades. Czechoslovakia’s November 1989 Velvet, or Gentle, Revolution, began on November 17 with a student demonstration honoring International Students’ Day — a commemoration of the 1939 student demonstration against the Nazis, during which 1,200 Czech students were sent to concentration camps and nine were executed. The demonstration spawned additional anti-government protests over the next ten days, including a wide-reaching, nation-wide general strike on November 27. On November 28, 1989, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announced the end of the party’s monopoly of power. Days later, the constitution was revised and the borders opened. On December 29, 1989, well-known playwright and political dissident Václav Havel became President of Czechoslovakia. The first two times I was in Czechoslovakia, in 1989, Havel was in prison.
In his memoir To the Castle and Back, Václav Havel called the 1989 revolution, described in the video below, “a drama in several acts.”
Havel had been active in advocating for liberal reform that led to the Prague Spring in 1968. With the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia the following August, his passport was seized and his plays were banned. Havel continued advocating for human rights, resulting in several arrests and a four-year imprisonment (1979-1983). By this time, Havel was recognized domestically and abroad as an important political dissident and crusader for human rights, earning him the Erasmus Prize in 1986.
Havel was sentenced to nine months in prison on February 21, after being accused and convicted of organizing a January 1989 anti-Communist demonstration, during which Charter 77 dissident activists laid flowers at the memorial of Jan Palach — the young man who burned himself alive in January 1969 in protest to the 1968 Warsaw Pact occupation of Czechoslovakia. He was released early from prison on May 17, 1989. In late March 1989, I was on a train from Vienna to Krakow, passing through Czechoslovakia. I remember my luggage being searched by police. Everyone’s was. The police also removed the ceiling panels in the train compartment and searched there. They searched everywhere. It was a tense experience. I also remember chatting with two Czechoslovakian guys about my age. I was 21. The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches. — E.E. Cummings By Melissa Walsh Here in Detroit, we were hit yesterday with 7 to 8 inches of snow. After work and school, we shoveled with a chase of hot chocolate. No big deal. I like winter. The only thing I find annoying when winter happens is the bombardment of whining about winter. With each snowfall, my Facebook and Twitter feeds light up with the grumbling. And these laments aren't from the folks who have a legitimate snowfall grievance -- those who are too old or sick to shovel their walk and drive. The gripes, I noticed, usually come from healthy people. And I know many of these people have gym memberships. Snowflakes. Just stop it. Enjoy the snow-shovel workout, maybe with your dog or with a kid. Toss snow on the dog. Dogs love that. Throw a snowball at the kid. Kids love that. Or listen to some tunes and get your snow-shovel groove going. Work it. Feel that winter beat. Snow is pretty. Snow is fun. Snow is glorious. It’s soft. In the light, sparkles like diamonds. Some of my fondest memories wouldn’t have happened without snow. The ski trips with friends. Tobogganing with my dad when I was little. Making snow angels on the playground. Years later, I enjoyed watching my kids build snow bunkers before waging a snowball battle. Today, I enjoy walking my dog on a quiet day while sporting my warm coat, my Habs tuque, and my comfy boots. I like hearing the snow crunching beneath my steps. I'm happy. The dog is happy. Life is good in the snow. And that’s not all snow is good for — the fun and the beauty. It’s also healthy. Yes, snow is good for our health! Snowfall means cold weather, which is good for our bodies. We burn more calories when we’re chilled. Seasonal allergies and inflammation are reduced in cold weather. Scholars have written white papers presenting evidence that we think more clearly in cold weather. (Here’s a link to one of those papers.) We sleep better in the winter. And our blood flow is more oxygenated as the body warms itself, especially during a winter work out — like working that like snow-shoveling rhythm or that winter wonderland strut with the dog. Mother Earth also benefits from an abundantly snowy winter. Snow’s “blanket effect” insulates the landscape for healthy gardens. Melting snow provides moisture for dormant plants and evergreens and replenishes the water supply. These environmental truths about snow not only benefit humans, but also outdoor animals in their natural habitat. The sunlight that snow reflects into the atmosphere helps the planet maintain a healthy solar energy balance and a regulated surface temperature. Here, where I live, in the Earth’s Northern Hemisphere, 98 percent of the planet’s snow falls. Without healthy snow fall here in the North, other areas of the planet are affected negatively due to a global "snowpack" shift. Less snowfall leads to changes in global cooling, which causes bad things happen, such as unexpected arrival of monsoons and other storms at unestimated lengths of duration. So to the people who complain about snow — those living in snowpack towns like mine: Do you really want the alternative? A lack of snow fall where you live has catastrophic consequences. Stop complaining. If you hate snow so much, then take steps to move south. But most importantly, while you're living in the snowbelt, be mindful about helping a neighbor who is too old or sick to shovel their driveway.
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