When Ari Paul, a University
of
Michigan
alum,
met
his
aunt’s husband William “Buzz”
Alexander as a teenager, he
recognized how special Alexander
was right away.
“Meeting him for the first time,
you could tell he was someone of
incredible experience and had an
endless love of people,” Ari said.
Janie Paul, Alexander’s wife
and a School of Art & Design
professor, met her husband in 1992
at the Blue Mountain Center, a
community of writers and artists
upstate New York. They became
inseparable, she said.
“He just exuded a feeling of
interest in other people,” Janie
said. “The first thing I noticed was
that he was a great listener.”
The English professor and
creator of the Prison Creative Arts
Project passed away at his home
in Ann Arbor on Sept. 19. He died
of complications from frontal
temporal degeneration at the age
of 80, Janie said.
Alexander was born in Chicago
and raised in Wilmette, Illinois.
He received his undergraduate
degree from Harvard University
in 1960 and returned as an
instructor in 1967. While there,
he joined the Anti-Vietnam War
movement, putting him on the
path of social justice advocacy. He
moved to Ann Arbor to teach at
the University of Michigan in 1971,
where he taught until 2017.
He
led
many
activist
movements on campus, including
“The Committee for Human
Rights in Latin America.” He also
pioneered
anti-racist
activites
among
University
faculty,
co-founding
the
Concerned
Faculty organization in 1987. His
push to require English majors
to take classes about literature
written by women and people of
color led to the creation of the LSA
Race and Ethnicity requirement,
according to Janie.
“I’ll always remember Buzz for
the soft-spoken pedagogical and
political radicalism that allowed
him to bridge generation gaps,”
wrote English professor Alan Wald
in an email to the department. “His
success as a classroom teacher and
pioneer in the development of new
courses could send one into envy
meltdown.”
Political
cable
network
C-SPAN
stopped
outside
Rackham Graduate School as
part of its educational bus tour
Monday. The high-tech bus
acted as a mobile classroom and
has been on tour since 1993 to
engage with voters and elected
officials.
C-SPAN
marketing
representative Jenae Green said
the bus is stopping in various
cities in Michigan and several
other Midwest states for its
battleground
states
tour
in
preparation for the upcoming
2020 presidential election.
“Michigan plays a huge role
in the election, it always does,”
Green said. “We wanted to
make sure that we come by
the University of Michigan to
engage with students, professors
and just talk about politics,
and in an unbiased way — an
unfiltered way of letting you
see what’s happening, and the
candidates that are running
what’s going on in government.
And then just finding out more
ways to stay informed.”
Green said what separates
C-SPAN
from
most
other
news outlets is its unbiased
and nonpartisan reporting on
government affairs, since it was
created by the cable industry
as a public service. C-SPAN
receives no funding from the
government.
“We can truly make sure that
we keep our coverage unbiased,
nonpartisan, because we don’t
have to lean one way or the
other,” Green said. “In the way
that we show news, we don’t
ever have a panel discussing
what’s going on behind them …
so the viewers at home can make
it their own informed decision.”
Doug Hemmig, a C-SPAN
community
relations
representative who’s traveling
with the bus, said the bus acts
as both a classroom and a studio
with 11 large-screen tablets,
a smart board for classroom
teaching, a photo station and
a TV production studio for
programming.
michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
Washtenaw County’s Judge
Carol Kuhnke ruled Wednesday
to allow residents access to
records
of
communication
between private citizens and
city officials under the Freedom
of Information Act. In doing
so,
Kuhnke
ruled
in
favor
of Ann Arbor resident Luis
Vazquez
whose
April
FOIA
requested, among other things,
any interaction between city
councilmembers and Ann Arbor
resident Pat Lesko over email,
texting or social media direct
messaging since Jan. 1, 2019.
Vazquez said his interest
was piqued through a personal
distrust of Lesko. Lesko has been
named by many as an active
participant in Ann Arbor politics,
even running for mayor almost a
decade ago. Vazquez called her
“Machiavellian” and said she
often wrote or spoke poorly about
her adversaries in the media.
“I was just curious as to how
things were going to be with a
new majority on council, which
she obviously helped to elect,”
Vazquez said.
He and others also pointed out
the frequency with which Lesko
requests FOIAs herself.
“Those who want to find out
information
about
everybody
else should be prepared to reveal
information about themselves,”
Vazquez said.
Vazquez’s FOIA also asked for
communication between resident
Tom Stulberg and attorney Tom
Wieder with any public official
over the same period, as well as
communication between council
members Anne Bannister, Jeff
Hayner,
Jack
Eaton,
Kathy
Griswold and Elizabeth Nelson
who,
according
to
Vazquez,
constitute a new majority in
the city council whose views
and actions stand in contrast
to his own interests and shared
the political support of Lesko,
Stulberg and Weider.
Eleven
SACUA
board
members
held
their
weekly
meeting
Monday
afternoon in the Fleming
Administration
Building,
addressing
issues
facing
the University of Michigan
faculty and student body.
University President Mark
Schlissel was in attendance
for the first half hour of the
session, speaking on issues
of curbing vape use and
improving parking at the
University.
Schlissel said the issue
of vaping has been on his
radar
for
several
years,
and
administrators
have,
on
several
occasions,
considered crafting a ban
on
tobacco
products
on
campus.
“A year or two ago, Preeti
Malani, who’s our Chief
Health Officer from the
health system who has this
advisory role to me, said,
‘You know, Mark, we should
really consider making the
campus not just no smoking,
but tobacco free,’” Schlissel
said.
“And
by
common
usage, vaping falls under
tobacco, be that as it may.”
GOT A NEWS TIP?
Call 734-418-4115 or e-mail
news@michigandaily.com and let us know.
INDEX
Vol. CXXIX, No. 2
©2019 The Michigan Daily
N E WS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
O PI N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
CL A SSIFIEDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
S U D O K U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
michigandaily.com
For more stories and coverage, visit
Prison Creative Arts Project founder,
beloved professor passes away at 80
SONIA LEE
Daily Staff Reporter
The House of Representatives
passed the Secure And Fair
Enforcement
Banking
Act
on Sept. 25, to protect and
facilitate
relationships
for
banking organizations looking
to work with legitimate cannabis
businesses.
After
struggling
with maintaining relationships
with banks for years, Ann Arbor
cannabis
dispensaries
believe
the bill could drastically benefit
business and destigmatize the
cannabis industry as a whole.
The main purpose of the bill
is to prevent federal banking
regulators
from
“penalizing
a
depository
institution
for
providing banking services” to
cannabis companies for the sole
reason that these businesses
handle
cannabis.
Specifically,
these regulators are prohibited
from taking adverse action on a
loan made to these businesses,
discriminating
banks
and
credit unions for collecting or
processing payments for these
businesses and ending or limiting
the
dispensary’s
insurance,
among other restrictions.
The bill must now be passed
by the Senate and signed by the
President of the United States in
order to be enacted into law.
SAFE Act
to impact
cannabis
companies
GOVERNMENT
Businesses, students
reflect on potential of
new federal bills to help
dispensaries financially
PARNIA MAZHAR
Daily Staff Reporter
A2 judge permits FOIA requests of
private conversations with officials
Community reacts to ruling releasing public-private communications
Schlissel
joins talk
on vaping,
parking
ACADEMICS
BEN ROSENFELD
Daily Staff Reporter
Follow The Daily
on Instagram,
@michigandaily
DESIGN BY ROSEANNE CHAO
C-SPAN bus arrives at U-M
on high-tech educational tour
Mobile classroom engages with voters, elected officials in battleground states
See BUZZ, Page 2
See SACUA, Page 3
ELIZABETH LAWRENCE
Managing News Editor
RYAN MCLOUGHLIN/Daily
Jenae Green, a representative of the political cable network C-SPAN, gives students a tour of the network’s interactive bus while parked in front of Rackham Graduate School
Monday morning.
See CSPAN, Page 3
See SAFE, Page 3
MELANIE TAYLOR
Daily Staff Reporters
See FOIA, Page 3
11 SACUA members
discuss curbing U-M
e-cigarette use, online
voting for Assembly
Buzz, in
memory:
‘Something
magical’