Politics

Mackinac Notebook: Derail That Train Metaphor; Ex-Snyder Aide Cracks Wise

May 29, 2015, 11:17 AM by  Alan Stamm

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This is our last roundup of sidelights about the Mackinac Policy Conference, which ends Friday.

Metaphors about economic engines and staying on track get tiresome, right? But hey, we also resort to them occasionally if feeling lazy or uninspired.

Still, we got motion sickness while reading remarks that Kresge Foundation president Rip Rapson made at the Detroit Regional Chamber conference.

He spoke admirably about a vital Detroit topic -- "the overarching challenges of redesigning city services and strengthening the essential building blocks of the city’s long-term health and vitality." (Full text here.) But he's either a scale-model train hobbyist or effusively enamored with a certain metaphor for some reason.

Excerpts from Rapson's presentation:

A train is leaving the station. That train is the new Detroit.

You’ll hear in just a moment the familiar, but no less extraordinary, story of how we overhauled that train’s engine. . . .

I want to lay out six . . . building blocks – six boxcars on that train – that Kresge intends to invest in to help the train get up to full speed. . . .

We’re on track. . . . If everyone in this room were to grab a piece of this agenda and get on that train, we could, together, help Detroit regain its rightful position as one of the world’s great cities. . . .  Let’s get that train to top speed.

In fairness, Rapson deserves credit for not saying "all aboard."


Craig Ruff: "Uber should enter the horse-drawn carriage business." (Facebook photo)

Look who's a funnyman

Lansing lawmakers, lobbyists and journalists know Craig Ruff, 66, as a former senior policy adviser on education to Gov. Rick Snyder. He also served Govs. William Milliken and Jennifer Granholm, and is a founder of Public Sector Consultants, a polling and research group in the capital.  

His only standup act is as a public policy lecturer at the University of Michigan, though he seems to test comedy club material in daily Bridge magazine posts from the island. Samples:

► Uber should enter the horse-drawn carriage business.

► It’s a sunny Thursday morning, but that goes a short ways to explain the 80 percent of conferees wearing sunglasses. 

► Dozens of bars, restaurants and hotel lobbies in the downtown are attracting attendees, like (as Woody Allen would say) drawn butter to lobsters. . . .  At them, real work is done: Concepts are hatched and field-tested. Soft and hard deals made. Your network of new acquaintances expands explosively. Sometimes on a dance floor.

Ruff also drops refreshing frankness into his quick-hit journal, such as:

I’m much impressed with the quality of conversations on the [Grand Hotel] porch. I just left one on the desperate needs of veterans with post-traumatic stress. Do we see them as individuals? You tell me.

There are 240 veteran services agencies in Wayne County alone. I’m hard-pressed to say those folks are more interested in the individual veteran than in their self-survival. 

Bada bing -- rim shot.



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