Last night was college night in Grosse Pointe. More schools than you can shake your wallet at, and you’d better, because JESUS CHRIST I CAN’T BELIEVE THESE TUITION PRICES. Although they all tout their financial aid programs. The average Johns Hopkins student gets a $34,052 need-based scholarship. Against a tuition of about $59,000 per. How comforting.

I hope Kate enjoys Eastern Michigan. I hear Ypsilanti is lovely in January.

While I was touring the tables, I took note of a few lonelies, schools that just didn’t have the buzz to develop much of a crowd. Taylor University?* (*A little Christian school based in Upland, Ind.) I haz a sad for you. 🙁 I remember when your branch campus in Fort Wayne was a worthy part of my old neighborhood, and provided jobs and stability.

And then you pulled out. Eh. Screw you.

I shouldn’t say that. One of my neighbors was a Taylor instructor of some sort. On Halloween, a huge, huge event on my street, they handed out religious tracts. Have a blessed trick-or-treat, kids.

Afterward I took myself out for Wednesday night me-time. I got a beer that sucked (some sort of local craft thing that tasted like someone had put out a few cigarettes in it), mushroom soup that tasted like tin and a grilled cheese, insufficiently melted. I’m sure they serve far better food in the Johns Hopkins cafeterias.

Well, I guess many of you have heard about the latest Lance Armstrong news. The USADA report is a:

…202-page account of the agency’s case against Armstrong included sworn testimony from 26 people, including nearly a dozen former teammates on Armstrong’s United States Postal Service and Discovery Channel squads who said they were aware Armstrong doped to help him win every one of his record seven Tour de France titles.

But I’m sure all those 26 people were jealous and now have a book to peddle. You can’t convince the Lance-alots of anything, but I wonder if there’s anyone left who’s still buying his story.

I don’t have much bloggage today — another tough one — but I do have this, what sounds like an interesting documentary on the Reuther brothers, Walter, Victor and Roy. I was struck by this passage:

At some early screenings, Sasha Reuther said, he was struck by how little many young people know about the history of the labor movement. “The immediate reaction is, ‘Why haven’t I heard of any of this before?’ ” he said.

He added that he was especially moved by the way an African-American student responded at a Washington high school. The teenager was surprised to see whites attacked, Mr. Reuther said. “He said, ‘I thought things like that only happened when African-Americans were beaten up in the civil rights movement.’ ”

This isn’t ancient history, folks. And in some parts of this country, what kids would be taught about the labor movement probably wouldn’t resemble what we know.

I spent eight hours — no, nine — straight, staring into my computer today. What’s another? Let’s get it on!

Seriously, there’s nothing I’d like to do better than watch “The Choice” on “Frontline” and I think that’s what I’m going to do. Actually, I’m watching it now, and my takeaway: Mormonism is one strange faith.

Fortunately, I have some bloggage:

Crain’s took note of our work at the park last week.

A great blog post about one sports moment that’s a pleasure for everyone, even non-fans, to read. Not very long. If you’ve ever wondered what I’d like to see running in Mitch Albom’s place — in most sports columnists’ place — well, this is it.

For you Buckeyes, a fascinating story about OSU President Gordon Gee’s ex-wife, her new book and their time at Vanderbilt, when she — gasp! — smoked pot in the president’s mansion. (Medicinally.)

Boy, “The Choice” is great. Wish you were here. And sorry I’m so lame, but man, it was a long day.

Most Mondays I spend in Lansing (City of Light, City of Magic), and I try to get on the road as early as possible — I aim for 6:30 but usually blow it by a few minutes, mainly because I still make breakfast and find some other stupid early-morning chore, like reading Twitter to see who the real insomniacs are.

The difference between rolling out at 6:30 and 6:45 a.m. are noticeable. With every minute, traffic gets crazier, drivers get angrier, and if I can’t be on the road by 7, I might as well stay home. I’m not afraid to keep up with the pack, but there are moments almost every day I drive this route that I think Damn. I’m going 75 in the far-right lane, and still you sit six inches off my rear bumper?

Lately it’s fashionable to point out that some deadly thing “now kills more people than auto accidents,” and yet, if you check out the numbers, auto accidents kill a lot fewer people than they used to. Antilock brakes, seat belts, air bags — turns out they actually work. If you use them.

That said, prescription drug abuse now kills more people than auto accidents. Have a nice day.

Yeesh, Monday. Which will lead directly to a yeesh Tuesday and Wednesday, too. I wouldn’t like to be 10 years older so I could be in Deborah’s shoes, but I sure do wish I was going to Santa Fe this week with nothing in particular to do other than plan for a pleasant future. First item on list: Frito pie on the first of every month.

So, let’s do some bloggage:

This story overpromises something in the headline — the Todd Akin race is the start of “a battle for the soul of the GOP,” really? — but it’s interesting nonetheless. I was born in Missouri. I guess it didn’t take.

Another day, another scandal in Detroit city government. Today it’s the police chief, who retired after two women came forward saying they’d played Hide the Salam’ against all departmental regulations. One said it was straight quid pro quo for a promotion, and she’d saved the condom to prove it, and if that was more than you wanted to read about this particular situation, sorry about that. It sort of took me by surprise, too. Ew.

Kids, when your cocktails destroy your stomach — instantly, not over years and years like with our parents — it’s time to investigate the joys of a well-made Manhattan.

Yeesh, what a weekend. Highs and lows. We cleaned more of Riverfront-Lakewood Park. (High.) A crazy man in the park snatched up Alan’s chainsaw, leading to a few tense moments. (Low.) Went downtown for the Dlectricity, an after-dark festival of outdoor art installations, all incorporating light. (Big high.) Shoveled another dead squirrel over the fence at my backfence neighbor, who has taken to plinking at them with a BB gun. (Big low.)

Is Mercury in retrograde? No.

This was the second squirrel. This guy sits out there with a BB gun and uses them for target practice. Which would be OK — I don’t really worry about squirrels — but this is the second one to fall into my yard. The first one hit the driveway, and either died on impact or was dead on arrival. This one managed to make it to my back steps where I nearly stepped on him on my way out to do yard work. He was heaving his last breaths and did not appear to be going peacefully.

I scooped him up with the shovel and carried him to the fence. The guy was standing in his back doorway, aiming directly at me.

HEY, I GOT A DEAD SQUIRREL HERE AND THIS ONE IS YOURS, I yelled, and dumped it over the fence into his yard. He said something like OK and skittered back into his house.

I get that squirrels can be destructive and eat your tomatoes and all, but good lord, if you can’t kill them immediately, don’t even try.

Dlectricity was sublime, though. It’s done in other cities, but it was the first one for Detroit, and man, it was cool — projections on the side of buildins, LED-clad robots rolling around, a light-up bike parade and all sorts of stuff. Perfect for a fall weekend, and Woodward Avenue was thronged. My favorite was three women dancing in unison in a storefront window, in front of film projections. Take that, Art Prize.

I warm up to crazy-ass modern art, the older I get. The more it bugs newspaper editors, the better I like it.

So, some bloggage? This is a concise but on-point comment about something we touched on last week: Germany as a player in the world economy, and what we might learn about it.

Tim Burton’s career arc: What went wrong?

I got some pears at the market, along with my brussels sprouts. I think I’m going to make at least one of these salads. For the millionth time, thanks, Mark Bittman.

A good week to all.

Been holding off on these; they just don’t taste like anything but cool weather to me. Alas, their time has come. Four bucks per stalk.

Added: A terrible photo of a typical street-vendor item. I see this stuff everywhere. Every so often I read a column by some earnest doofus, wondering why African Americans don’t vote Republican more often. Really? Really?

So, Miguel Cabrera clinched baseball’s triple crown night before last, and where was Detroit’s highly paid celebrity sports columnist? Beats me. I hear he’s on a book tour, but wherever he was, he wasn’t in the paper today.

Mitch did write about Cabrera. On September 23rd. First paragraph:

I remember Carl Yastrzemski. All the kids followed him. It was 1967, the Summer of Love, but for boys sporting high top sneakers and baseball cards in our bicycle spokes, it was the summer of the Triple Crown — or another summer of the Triple Crown. Frank Robinson had won it the year before. And being wide-eyed fans, we figured someone would win it every year.

Ooooohkay, then. Tell me, though: Did anyone ever put baseball cards in bicycle spokes? I remember that trick, but you used playing cards. Baseball cards were for trading, but then, if you’re phoning in yet another soft-focus remembrance of the good ol’ days, it sounds better to make them baseball cards.

Oh, I just don’t have it in me today. It’s the end of the week, it’s been a long one, and Mitch isn’t my problem. But considering this guy is now writing about twice in a blue moon, don’t you think he’d have the time to give us a better ending than this?

Cabrera stays away from newspapers or Internet sites or even TV shows about sports. He said he was spending time watching movies or playing with his kids to keep the pressure off when he’s not at the park. He even has read a few books.

“‘Fifty Shades of Grey?'” someone joked.

“Huh?” he said.

“‘Fifty Shades of Grey?'”

“No.”

Right. Who needs 50 shades of grey when you’re chasing three points of a crown?

And that, as Deadspin might say, is how the winner of the Red Smith Award puts a cherry on top. Booyah.

So let’s go to the bloggage, and congratulate Deborah on her well-earned retirement. Now she can write to us about the Frito pie at the Santa Fe Woolworth’s.

Tina Fey on the end of “30 Rock.” I would so like to work in a writer’s room. It sounds like a newsroom at its best moments:

What are some of the made-up words you’re going to miss from the 30 Rock world? What are your favorites?

I mean, sometimes they come out of skits, skits that we’re shooting in our writers room, so that’s where “lizzing” and “high-fiving a million angels” came from. Some of them came from my daughter [Alice] when she was smaller and didn’t speak as well. [Laughs.] “I want to go to there.” I remember our head of post, when we were trying to cut that episode down to time, said, “We could cut that,” and I was like, “I think we should leave it,” and I’m so glad we did, because you never know what’s going to stick in people’s brains.

Why should hurricanes get all the good stuff? The Weather Channel announces it will name winter storms this season. Bundle up for Orko!

Eh, I’ve hit a wall. Have a great weekend, all, and I’ll see you back here Monday.

A few weeks ago, a bunch of us went for our annual bike ride to the Hare Krishna mansion for dinner. We detoured through Riverfront-Lakewood Park in Detroit. It was a mess — overgrown, strewn with trash, scary-looking. You can’t tell from this view:

But if I’ve set up the map correctly and you’re seeing the satellite view, you can see two boats, dumped there on the grass. One is just off the driveway, another at the northwest corner of the parking lot. Both have been stripped of every piece of sellable hardware, and graffiti artists have tagged them the S.S. Kwame (the former mayor now on trial for racketeering), and the Carlita (his lovely wife).

This got a big chuckle from the group, and we didn’t give much more thought to it until a few days ago, when my friend Laurie saw this column in Crain’s Detroit Business, comparing and contrasting Riverfront-Lakewood, the adjacent Angel Park and Grosse Pointe Park’s Windmill Pointe Park. They stand three abreast down the Lake St. Clair/Detroit River junction, although Windmill Pointe is behind a tall chain-link fence. (Residents only.)

She posted this on Facebook, and a member of the city staff piped up and said the Detroit parks are basically on triage, and that these two have been more or less abandoned. If you care so much, he wrote, why don’t you clean it up yourself?

Laurie thought about it for a while and said, “Well, OK.”

So last Saturday we rode our bikes down to do some reconnaissance. And what did we find? About a dozen people who live nearby, a bunch of mowers, a dozen stuffed garbage bags and a party going on. They hadn’t read anything in Crain’s. They just wanted to reclaim the park. And they’d made quite a dent, but it was a pretty huge job for just a few people. “If only we could get this place mowed,” one woman said. It turns out we could help with that. Remember the Mower Gang?

They showed up last night, at least 20 of them, on a variety of riding mowers, including the new Husqvarna donated by the company, who’d heard of their good work on behalf of the city’s beleaguered parklands.

These guys cook with the awesome sauce. In about two hours, they had that park mowed flat and were working on the Kwame and the Carlita. One guy had a Ford F-450 dually, and on the first try to dislodge Kwame from its years-long mooring place, snapped the tow strap. I got the feeling a guy who owns a truck that big doesn’t take failure lightly. He turned it around and pushed that goddamn boat a few times, and then someone got a chain, and before long he had towed it into the parking lot.

(Carlita came along a little more peacefully. A guy with a saws-all sliced that girl right down the middle. We’re hoping that lets the city pick it up easily.)

There’s still a lot to be done. The trash is pretty bad, and a few years’ worth of bait cans and tequila bottles can’t be picked up in a couple of hours. We’re going back on Saturday, maybe with a chain saw to get the last of the mulberry trees that are growing up through the seawall.

But even if we don’t, people can spend the last few pleasant weeks of the year in a pretty nice waterfront park. (You can click any of those photos and see them larger.)

So there’s that. Now it’s almost 11 p.m., and I just watched the debate. Sorry, but I think Obama was a little weak. Not a disaster, but he wasn’t on. We’ll see how the rest go. Meanwhile, some bloggage? Sure:

Our reader, and occasional commenter, Cathy D. had her phone stolen at a dinner Saturday night. She deactivated the phone, but the thing still works as a wi-fi device, and over the weekend discovered the thief was taking pictures, probably unaware they were being automatically uploaded to her Dropbox account. So now she has pictures of the thieves, but the recovery is still not happening. The local teevee station tries to get things moving.

Another amazing portrait of one of Detroit’s amazing characters by Detroitblogger John.

Like his house, some find Migo an unpleasant presence. He doesn’t wash, and he smells like it. He has an opening in his neck from throat cancer surgery, and to talk he presses a finger into the hole to create a hoarse, raspy voice underlined by an air-gasping wheeze when he breathes.

He’s bitter and complains about most things. And every minute or so, he turns his head and spits out a batch of syrupy drool. Sometimes it falls to the pavement, sometimes it drips onto him. He’s a spectacle.

And he simply doesn’t care. He’s had it.

“You can’t be decent,” he sneers. “You don’t want to be decent because these people are not decent. I say fuck it.” He pauses to spit again. Then he says, “I’m sorry. I don’t like to use bad words.”

That’s almost a perfect description. The only change I’d make is to delete “air” from the first paragraph.

Well, if he wants to go look at the river this weekend, he won’t have to battle tall grass to do it.

I stuck to my guns (sorta) and broke away at noon today for a short bike ride. Not much of one — just a couple errands to the post office, the bank, but enough to feel like my ass isn’t entirely made of blubber. Apparently, autumn is well under way — I rode through a yellow blizzard of ash leaves, nearly wiped out on ping-pong-ball size acorns, and still got a little sweaty.

The post office errand was to forward a mailer to the Lansing office for possible Truth Squadding. If you’re in Michigan, you can find many of the state’s political ads and related communication vetted there. Please to click, keep us going.

It’s going to be a long month. Which I think I said yesterday, but it bears repeating.

Change of subject.

Alan said the other day that he hoped the Pussy Riot story went on and on, because he so enjoyed hearing Diane Rehm say “Pussy Riot” in her quavery voice on NPR. I feel the same way about the University of Tennessee butt-chugging story. If you aren’t up to date: Apparently a frat boy was hospitalized with a sky-high blood-alcohol level, and evidence at the scene suggested he’d ingested box wine via enema.

Please don’t ask me why. Do I look like a frat boy? I don’t see how squirting wine up your ass would hit the bloodstream faster than sending it down the traditional pipe, but then, it is far more entertaining, and it requires reporters to say “butt chugging” over and over again. Again, this is a story where all you need to do follow the Gawker tags, and you can keep up just fine.

And what is the tag? Why, butt chugging, of course. Butt chugging, butt chugging, butt chugging.

The University of Tennessee has been officially crossed off Kate’s college list. Just kidding — it was never on it.

Let’s skip to bloggage:

Herman Cain visited Ann Arbor recently:

“Aw, shucky ducky,” Cain’s speech began. “Now let me see if I’m in the right place — uh, Go Blue?”

Ah, yes, Go Blue indeed. And what the hell, go red, too — after all, this was a cross-party fiesta. Just ask the uncomfortably pluralized Job Creators Solutions group, the organization that brought Cain and the College Truth Tour to Ann Arbor. According to their website, the College Truth Tour is a bipartisan initiative devoted to setting students straight on matters of the economy. And if you have any doubts about the bipartisan-ness of a lecture from a Republican presented by the College Republicans, never fear — the bleeding hearts got their word in. Specifically, from the back row of the auditorium, usually offering a poignant rebuttal to whatever poignant point Cain made. Just listen:

“The United States does not have a sugar daddy,” Cain yelled. “Who we gonna borrow from?”

“Australia!” someone shouted from the crowd. “Germany! China!”

And the geography lesson continued for another thirty seconds.

Remember when presidential candidates didn’t immediately descend into sideshow after they withdrew from their race? I blame Bob Dole and his damn Viagra ads.

First, let’s kill all the foodies. Or at least make them shut up for a while. The worst of them, anyway.

Southeast Michigan, meet your soon-to-be newest congressman. If you can find him.

I’m going to watch a history lecture. Good night.

These polls can’t be correct. Can they? (I’m looking at the right-rail stuff, the Election Day forecast, but especially the “now-cast,” which shows the gap wide and widening. It’ll tighten by Nov. 6, but I honestly expected it to be a lot tighter. I guess that’s what happens when you’re running the Personality Twins. Forget the commentary in this piece; just watch the embedded clip of the Chris Wallace interview. It’s Palin 2.0. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Well, it’s going to be a long month, just the same. Lots of local races. Frankly, if a pollster called and asked, “If the election were held today…” I’d interrupt and ask, “Pretty please?”

This is just the fatigue talking. Mondays are still the longest day of the week. It’s nice to get it over with just the same.

So. Some linkage?

We’ve spent a bit of time chatting about education here, and how different nations do it differently, so this is offered in that vein:

“The pressures and workloads that the students and the teachers in the U.S. are facing nowadays are, perhaps, greater than they were a decade ago,” Korsunsky said in a recent paper. “But still, compared to a typical Chinese or Korean school, a high-pressure U.S. school is a summer camp.”

Let’s start with discipline. Korsunsky’s student sources are not describing a Chinese version of a blackboard jungle with metal detectors at the main entrance. These are some of the best and most selective schools in Asia. Being “tardy usually results in physical punishment, such as running in the gym a few times or doing jumping jacks. Forgetting to do homework and talking during class will often result in hitting with ruler or some sort,” one student said.

How fun. Let’s be more like the Chinese, eh?

Good NYT piece on Fender, the guitar company, being squeezed from all sides — the culture favors turntables and digital music-makers, and the customers would rather own a vintage guitar than a new one.

What the hell, it must be class warfare day around here: I, job creator.

Tuesday, amuse me. I need it.

Brothers and sisters, I have spent too many days stuck inside through these early fall days, staring at a computer screen. And the reason I know this is, I finally took a break and got out for a bike ride of decent length on Saturday. And it? Was glorious.

In fact, it was so glorious that it persuaded me to redouble my efforts to get some things back into boxes, and try to restore something like sanity to my day. Work in one box, exercise in another, blogging in another, extracurricular writing in yet another. And more goddamn exercise, because it makes everything better.

Two months ago, I was getting up at 6 to ride to the pool and swim laps. Now I’m lucky to drag my ass out of bed by 7, and little exercise follows. Must. Show. Discipline. Fall is such a dangerous time, in many ways. Not all the changes of the new year are good ones.

So, in the interest of keeping things short, how about a quick few links, and then I can go do some butt crunches or something:

The Columbus Dispatch is generally a very conservative newspaper, but their polling generally has a good track record, and they spend the money to do it right. Something to remember when you see they have Obama up by 9 points (in Ohio), as early voting gets under way.

A column about the NFL refs’ lockout, and what lessons might be learned by American labor. Something I haven’t read yet, and enjoyed.

Our own MMJeff tries a little fun in his weekend column: Did Jesus own a dog?

Anonymity in political fundraising: One cautionary tale. (Link fixed.)

We now return you to October, already in progress. October! Already!