Did you know that Detroit is home to the oldest Black ski club in the world? The Jim Dandy Ski Club (JDSC) was founded in 1958 by Frank Blount, William Morgan and Reginald Wilson to increase minority participation in skiing and snowboarding.

Radar, American barn owl ambassador, Cleveland Museum of Natural History Wildife Center, Oct. 24, 2025. Photo by Alex Gray

Michigan is home to a brilliant array of wildlife. Although the state has suffered ecological damage over the years, conservation efforts have helped restore native species, such as the beaver. Once extirpated, or locally extinct, from Michigan due to the fur trade and habitat loss, beaver populations have been on the steady rise since 2008 through reintroduction efforts and conservation surveys.

It was five months after Donald Trump’s second inauguration before Americans returned to the streets in protest of his administration’s growing misdeeds.

The first No Kings protest occurred on June 14th (~2,100 separate events) with an estimated 4.5 million people attending. The second was on October 18th (~2,700 separate events), with an estimated 5-6.5 million people in attendance. Depending on methodology, No Kings, the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020, and the Women’s March in 2017 (also in opposition to Trump) rank as the three largest protests in U.S. history.

First, you have to lower your standards. Not all at once… if you do that, you’ll notice. Start small. Return emails later than you should. Learn to say “I’ll circle back” and never circle back. When someone points out a problem, nod thoughtfully and write it down, then lose the paper. You see a call from your wife, you’ll get back to it later, maybe. It’s not cruel. It’s efficient.

Abstract

From a young age, most of us are taught to fear a specific kind of shadow: the “monster” lurking in a dark alley, a depraved stranger waiting to pounce. We build our lives and our institutions around the comforting belief that if we stay in sunny spaces like university campuses or with family and friends, then we are safe from these monsters. We assume these foundational spaces are neutral havens where safety, truth, and reason prevail. However, this focus on external monsters is a dangerous distraction from a much more uncomfortable reality.

State Violence and the Politics of Sympathy

Out of a dream, I'm shot awake. Circles of darkness still linger, blocking out at least 70% of my vision though I see the clock clearly. It’s a quarter past 6 in the morning. My senses begin to unthaw as if they had just been taken out of the freezer. The scent of orange oil candles fills my nose, and the residue from the bottle of Ciroq that I emptied into my system in an attempt to drown my sorrows remains on my taste buds. Stiffness holds my neck captive, letting me know that I had fallen asleep on the couch. I look up slowly so that the light isn't too blinding.

A house at 3513 Bewick was purchased by John Hantz in 2019 as one of 80 homes he got as part of a deal to free up land needed for the Stellantis plant expansion. (Photo by Quinn Banks) courtesy Bridge Magazine

He is mental illness.

I hear a shuffling and a loud fake cough behind me. I know who it is. He hasn’t spoken yet, but I know him. God help me, I can smell him. Funny how that scent used to make me swoon. Now, it just makes me sick.

“Hey man.”

I turn and see him. I had not expected to see him here, of all places, but I’m not delighted. I had told him to fuck off, the last time we spoke. Never mind the last three times.

The light in the kitchen doubled as the door eased forward and the scent of my father’s cigarettes filled the room; he was home from work at the usual time. He carried a garment bag over his shoulder, smiling sheepishly at me while clutching his cigarette between his lips. “Why are you just getting home now?” I asked, the confusion apparent in my voice. His mother passed away that morning, and I received the call seven hours earlier. I stood with the entire room between us, my feet rooted but prepared to retreat, not yet sure of the mood he might be in.

When we were younger, we’d lean against the flowered sofa, our eyes fixated on the movements of Siti’s frail hands. Mesmerized, we’d watch as she massaged one month old Ali, as the olive oil would seep into the deep creases of her hands, like the rings of a tree, an indication of bittersweet age. Her youngest grandson, whom we called Aloushi, lay on the patterned rug, squirming beneath her touch. She’d continue to massage him in the olive oil, then wrap his tiny torso with the white cloth of fuschia and turquoise stripes that babies are given upon hospital birth.

I am nobody, which allows me to be anybody.

It can be liberating that people don’t know where I belong. Outside Dearborn, people see me as a Muslim Arab-American, but in Dearborn, my tan skin fits in with any culture, especially in the summer. I’m not too light to be mistaken for a Yemeni, not too dark to be mistaken for a Syrian, just in the middle. When I open my mouth, it perplexes people more.

“What dialect do you speak?”

“It’s called ‘Madani,’ it’s between Jordanian and Palestinian."

A Visual:

The house across from me is vacant. My neighbors and I take turns mowing the lawn, but we can do nothing about the hole in the roof. Through the windows, we can see that the water is destroying the inside of the house. I find it ironic that we are all drinking bottled water now because the city water is bad, and yet even the rain here is causing irreparable harm. What should be a life-giving symbol, water, is poisoning our bodies and destroying the houses. We have replaced all the plumbing in our house, the water heater, the boiler, the faucets, because the corrosion ate it all away.

The car parked in front of me looked like something out of a movie. An old, powder blue pick-up with three miniature American flags. I knew the person already but I hated myself for assuming so quickly. The car was a little rustic like the man in my head. I walked to see the back of the car and was disappointed that I was so right: Trump/Pence. The only thing that surprised me was that it was the library parking lot.

What is this doing here? I thought. I was cleaning out the kitchen before my mom arrived the next day when I found my mug in the cupboard on the highest shelf. I had to climb the counter to reach that shelf. I expected to find expired prescription pills and a bag of flax seeds that needed to be thrown out but not my mug. I was drinking coffee from that mug just a few days ago at 5am while writing a term paper.

I smell dog shit. Not the day old, baked in midday July sun dog shit either. It is pungent and terrible. My clothes are soaked. It could be from sweat from a humid midsummer night or from the dew in the grass I am laying in.

“You cheating bastard”, I heard my mother yell as I made my way up the sidewalk to our trailer, some single wide mobile home that managed to make it out of the 80’s. It was beginning to crumble around us as our makeshift family did the same. I pause outside of the front door not knowing what conflict I would be walking into.

Abstract - Nonverbal communication is displaying of emotions, feelings, and messages through actions and expressions rather than words. Research indicates that 93 percent of human communication is done using body language (kinesics). The objective of this paper is to understand how positive hand gestures have a greater effect on the audience and less to no hand gestures will have less effect on the audience. The paper uses different types of hand gestures during the 2016 presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

I am the bullet. My body is smooth and shiny. Bronze and sleek. My body curves to my pointed tip, rounded for flight, speed, and accuracy. I am flying with a deadly purpose. Alone in my mission I rip through the air with so much force my rounded head is alternating colors of red and orange. From my perspective, I am so fast the rest of the world seems to be in slow motion. Dust particles and debris float by me as I pass, and I see my destination. A canvas of caramel colored flesh stretched between the eyebrows and a dark brown hairline.

Empty Cot

It was dusty, and visibility was shoddy. It was hot, hotter than I have ever been. I gets so hot in midday that I am convinced my feet are literally cooking inside my boots. Thank goodness, we didn’t deploy with our traditional black boots. It would have been worse. We were in route delivering propane to the people of Mosul like we have been everyday for the last couple weeks with very little incident. All good things end, sometimes those good things end in carnage and bloodshed.

Abstract - My goal in writing and presenting about Urban Farming in Detroit is to show how diverse the urban farming initiative is within the city. I would like my audience to understand the farming history of Detroit, and see that Detroit has turned to gardens throughout the city’s history to sustain itself in the greatest times of need. I was able to visit different initiatives, and communicate over emails to urban farmers in the area. The internet and Facebook also played a role in searching out businesses and urban farmers in Detroit.

ABSTRACT - Like other immigrants across the globe, Detroit’s Automotive industry was a huge magnet in bringing Arab American immigration to Detroit. Many Arabs who immigrated to the United States faced linguistic, cultural, and social barriers. Beginning as a small store front connecting Arab immigrants with resources in the United States, today the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, has expanded to offer nearly 100 programs with a budget of $23 million.

ABSTRACT - Neurocriminology is a subdiscipline of neuroscience and criminology which provides evidence that while violent behavior has a social and environmental element, the other side of the coin is biology. This re-visioning of violent criminals could potentially help direct how we approach crime prevention and rehabilitation. Criminal behavior can be caused by life experience and by genetic inheritance. This paper shines a light on evidence that physical trauma to the brain and genetically inherited abnormalities of the brain can be the cause of violent behavior.