Harris added that maybe, just maybe, if the city makes those hard decisions and gets it together on a short-term basis, markets convinced that the city has a new commitment to economic responsibility might lend part of it.

But they are apt to take a lot of persuading. Detroit's choice, in the end, may not be between an emergency manager and what we have now, but a choice between a manager and bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy would be devastating to everyone the city owes money to, and make it much harder for other cities in the state.

Whatever happens next, interesting times are coming. And it's fairly clear that the longer we deny reality, the worse things will be.

How to deal with Troy: Someone needs to print bumper stickers that say: "I think I am never going to shop in Troy again now that a stupid bigot can get elected mayor there."

And the rest of us need to shame that suburb until they get rid of the narrow-minded yahoo they elected mayor this year. 

In case you missed it, we learned last weekend that the city's new mayor, Janice Daniels, posted this on her Facebook site last June:

"I think I am going to throw away my I Love New York carrying bag now that queers can get married there."

For whatever reason, nobody noticed, and she got elected anyway. Troy always has been a faceless, white-bread suburb without a downtown, full of people who, with the exception of the growing Asian community, have struck me as mostly uninteresting and unintellectual. This is a place, after all, that twice voted to close the city library, and only narrowly agreed to give it a reprieve in August.

Possibly to make up for blundering into support for literacy, Troy elected Daniels in November. A real estate agent for Century 21, she is active in the Tea Party, probably because the Know-Nothing party ceased to exist about 1857. She seems to think all taxes are bad, and during her campaign, spoke against the library millage.

You can't blame her. Some queers have been known to read books. When her Facebook post became known, Daniels said it was "probably a poor choice of words," but didn't apologize. Troy has 81,000 people, some of whom aren't publicly embarrassing. 

Couldn't it find a better mayor?

> Email Jack Lessenberry