A mother's unconditional love
Allie Gross' cover story on violence against transgender women in Detroit ("The throwaways," Jan. 27) brought a response from the mother of victim Ashton O'Hara, Patricia Sanford, who wrote:
I read the whole article. Thank you, Allie Gross. You have done a wonderful job trying to tell these girls' stories. Just hug all of them for me and tell them I have hopes that, sooner or later, they can finally be themselves with no stigmas. If they ever need to talk or vent or just hear someone say, "I love you," please give them my number. I'm in tears, but good ones, because I know my Ashton is finally at rest.
Lessenberry 'dead on'
In last week's Politics & Prejudices column ("What really caused the Flint disaster," Jan. 27), Jack Lessenberry held Gov. Rick Snyder to account for Flint's water woes, blaming his bottom-line-focused philosophy. This inspired a posted comment from a user named Harry Palmer:
Dead on.
Austerity, privatization, cutting taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and then claiming the state has no revenue: This sums up the modern GOP governing philosophy.
Too bad it took a whole city of poisoned kids before it was exposed.
Twenty-seven of Snyder's enablers in the Michigan House are term-limited out this year. It'd be nice to send the GOP a message that we won't let them sacrifice any more people for the benefit of the failed ideology of the DeVoses and the Mackinac Center.
In response to our Jan. 28 blog post, "ACLU's Curt Guyette wins 'Journalist of the Year,'" Laura James posted:
Congratulations, Curt Guyette. Thank you for listening to the people of Flint. Just when I thought that journalism was dead-dead-dead, you came along to remind us of the power of good reporting. I hope this is just the first of many accolades to come your way.
In response to our Jan. 29 blog post, "Gov. Snyder heckled in downtown Ann Arbor," a user named Dongald Trumpenis posted:
Ironically, it was only unintended incompetence of Snyder and his crony administration that has finally shined the spotlight on his contempt for middle-class America. Snyder doesn't actually hate the people of Flint, he is just not mentally or emotionally equipped to actually care about people who aren't in a position to advance him politically or monetarily. The people of Flint are nothing to him, so now he has to come to grips with why his political career is in a shambles over what he considers to be nuisance critters.
Snyder and his crew acted with far greater malice when it came to poisoning Michigan's democracy with conservative and corporate-favoring legislation. Every piece of GOP filth legislation that slimes out of Lansing for Rick's signature these days is an assault on the democratic process.
Public employees can't give out ballot information before an election, straight-ticket voting — twice saved by the voters — has been killed permanently with political dirty maneuvering, right-to-work rammed through in a shameless trampling of our political process.
This has been the focus of Snyder and his fellow Koch puppets — they are not equipped to serve the public, because 100 percent of their processing power is geared toward non-transparency and misinformation, and gaming the system to ensure more GOP votes in the name of plutocracy.
Snyder was ruining lives long before his crony EM decided to switch water sources, but Michigan will never be fully on its way to full recovery until all of Snyder's crimes are recognized for what they are.
He had a bad dining experience? Too bad. I'll have to avoid Ann Arbor for the foreseeable future, as I wouldn't be responsible for my actions if I were to run across that despot in the street.
