Handbook for Liars

Posted on October 1, 2009 by hro50ta1

By Luke Warm, D.M.

Professor of Mendacity, University of Munchausen

This is the first lecture in my series on the integrity of dishonesty.

As there is honor among thieves, so there should be upstandingness among liars.

Gresham’s Law applies to liars: Bad lies drive out good.

Good liars, you say? How can a liar be good?

Aha! A good liar is one who gets away with his or her lie.

That is what the art of lying is all about.

I ought to know — I’m a Doctor of Mendacity.

You know, like the Gilbert & Sullivan song, “There’s a Doctor of Mendacity, who resides in this Bombasity.”

Ha-ha! Even liars can be funny!

But this is serious: There are smart liars and dumb liars.

Today’s talk is about how NOT to be a dumbass liar.

Let’s say you’re some government official, or a business guy, makes no difference, you know someday you’re gonna have to talk to the press, and that’s gonna put you where everybody can see and hear you. Better sound earnest!

But you also know by the nature of your position, you’re gonna have to lie. You are undoubtedly doing something embarrassing or downright loathsome, and you know as an ongoing thing that the revelation of truth by you, speaking candidly, would minimally be an inconvenience and could lead to disaster, most often of the financial variety and occasionally of a nature that could terminate your life.

Hey, first of all, don’t feel bad about lying. Sure, it would be great to tell your grandkids you always told the truth, but you can still tell them that, even if it’s not true. Be a SMART liar!

See, dummies, this is all about non-verisimiltude. Faking it. Phonying up. Not little white lies. Big black lies. Bad black  lies. Socially unredeeming lies.

I’m sorry it takes a class to get this point across, but the good of your institution, whether business, government or crime syndicate if there is any difference, demands the lie.

But here are some things not to do when you lie, especially when lying to the press.

For example, if a reporter tells you something you know is so obviously true that any knothead could go see it, verify it beyond doubt, take its picture and publish the truth to the world, please don’t — please DO NOT!! — say it’s not so.

Denial of the flagrantly obvious is very, very stupid.

Want an example?

Let’s say you’re president of a company that owns an international bridge between the United States and Canada. We’re not going to mention the bridge by name in this lecture, but this bridge carries 40 percent of the freight between these two sovereign nations. And let’s say that the owner of this bridge is a mega-billionaire who thinks he too is a sovereign nation and can treat as an equal with Canada and the United States.

No fair guessing who this is! We’re going to leave the name of the bridge and the name of its owner synonymous. This is a class, not an expose. We  speak generically, not of specifics. We are academics, not pragmatics.

Now, let’s say that some news type confronts you with an obvious truth. You’ve been saying, let us say, that you put up fences on public property in the U.S. city where your span is based, basically stole city property. But you claim those fences are to provide “security” against “terrorists.” You’ve made a big deal about this and sent lawyers into court to make the false claim that there’s a big “security” problem.

And then some snot-nosed reporter comes up with a television camera and tells you that while you built a fence on the SOUTH side of your bridge, you didn’t bother to do the same on the NORTH side. You protected one side and not the other.

Fence on one side. No fence on the other side. Security here. No security there. This was succinctly reporter by Metro Times Editor Curt Guyette  with a video showing the naked north side of the bridge.

Because, knucklehead, the fact that there’s no fence and hence no security on the Canadian side of this bridge was reported on this blog almost a year ago. It was no secret, not even to bridge presidents. Not even to television reporters.

All this suggests that your claim of needing to protect the bridge is bogus, since you didn’t bother to do the same thing on the east side, which is in Canada, or on the north side in the U.S..

Basically calling you a liar.

And doggonit, the camera is running!

This is a toughie. What do you say?

DON’T SAY YOU DIDN’T KNOW THERE WAS NO FENCE ON THE WINDSOR–, I MEAN, ON THE CANADIAN SIDE, DUMBIE!

If you say that, it will make you look worse than a liar. It will make you look like a dope. This class is for wannabe liars. Dopes get a big fat F.

Denying it will only make you look like the clown and sycophant to the billionaire who pays you.

Getting caught in a lie is never as embarrassing as looking like a stooge.

So that is Lesson Number One from the Handbook for Liars: When a lie is yawning in front of you like a great big pool of shit, don’t jump in!

Lesson Number Two: If you do jump into a cesspool of mendacity, swim out as fast as you can, ask for a towel and claim you didn’t understand the question and were quoted out of context.

Don’t — repeat DO NOT!! — compound the lie by promising to “deal with that.”

That’s all for now from the Handbook for Liars.


Posted in Joel's J School, Me & Matty | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Book talks and signings

Posted on September 30, 2009 by hro50ta1

Sierra Club

Members of the Sierra Club of Southeast Michigan will hear Detroit Free Press photographer Patricia Beck and retired Free Press reporter Joel Thurtell talk and show a video about their June 2005 canoe trip up the Rouge River at 7 p.m.on Thursday, October 1, 2009 at the Northwest Unitarian-Universalist Church at 23925 Northwestern Highway in Southfield. Beck and Thurtell are authors of the book, Up the Rouge! Paddling Detroit’s Hidden River, published by Wayne State University Press. Beck and Thurtell will sign books.

Plymouth Community Arts Council

A collection of Patricia Beck’s photos from our book, Up the Rouge!, is now on display at the Plymouth Community Arts Council at the southeast corner of Sheldon and Junction streets in Plymouth.

On Friday, October 2, 2009, we’ll have a signing session at PCAC between 7-9 p.m. At about 7:45 p.m., I’ll talk about the canoe trip and the importance of questioning official claims about the Rouge. We’ll show our video, and in the Q & A, discuss how we might improve the river.

Posted in Book signings/book events | Leave a comment

Matty’s muzzle

Posted on September 30, 2009 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

Finally, someone besides JOTR and National Public Radio is worried about billionaire Manuel “Maty” Moroun’s penchant for storing explosives under his Ambassador Bridge connecting the U.S. and Canada by way of Detroit and Windsor.

 

Last year, NPR reported on the hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel fuel and gasoline Matty likes to store under the U.S. side of his bridge so he can sell it at his duty-free gas station. So have I — repeatedly.

 

Problem, of course, is that one well-flicked cigarette butt could take down the bridge.

 

That doesn’t seem to worry Matty, nor is it an aspect of the story that has interested other local media.

 

I’m happy to report that U.S. Rep. John Dingell thinks it’s a serious concern.

 

The Windsor Star reports that Dingell “takes issue with hazardous materials, such as fuel tankers, crossing the Ambassador Bridge or parking underneath to replenish storage tanks for the duty free plaza in Detroit. Hazardous goods such as corrosives, flammable and radioactive materials are not permitted on the bridge and are supposed to either use the Windsor-Detroit truck ferry or cross in Sarnia at the Blue Water Bridge.

 

In a February letter to the Federal Highway Administration, Dingell demanded to know “what actions has the (Federal Highway Administration) taken to ensure that these restrictions are enforced (and) “if no actions have been taken, please explain why.”

 

Happy as I am to see that someone of Dingell’s stature has brought up the flammable/explosive materials issue, I now hear through Crain’s that Matty is trying to muzzle Congressman Dingell. Matty’s federal lawsuit is aimed at banning the federal highway administration and Dingell from making the report public. 

 

With its explosive potential, the bridge is a public safety hazard. It needs to be shut down as a public nuisance.

 

No waiting around.

 

Shut it down and condemn it.

 

By the way, here’s my e-mail address:  joelthurtell@gmail.com.

 

If I get a copy of that bridge report, I’ll know what to do with it.


Posted in Me & Matty | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Matty’s bomb

Posted on September 29, 2009 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

The owner of the Ambassador Bridge has filed a federal lawsuit in Detroit against the Federal Highway Administration seeking to prevent public disclosure of a 2007 safety and condition inspection report of the span, saying the report’s public release jeopardizes national security and violates a confidentiality agreement.

The billionaire owner of the Ambassador bridge could have saved himself bundles of money if he’d only read JOTR.
Manuel “Matty” Moroun’s gonna  spend megabucks trying to suppress a two-year-old federal study of a report which, if it’s worth a damn, mentions the Number One safety concern for the bridge.
That would be the bomb that Matty himself planted under the span. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel fuel and gasoline that he’s storing under the bridge.
The fuel dump provides goods that Matty sells at his duty-free gas station.
Matty can prate about terrorists all  he wants, but it’s the bridge owner — Matty himself – who poses the biggest threat to life and limb on and around the bridge.
All of which has been reported on joelontheroad.com
Wake up, Matty!
Horse is out of the barn.
Cat’s out of the bag.
Old news.
You’re barking up a dead tree.
But I’m forgetting Matty’s chief tactic: Wearing down the enemy.
I can see a rationale, after all. It doesn’t matter that this is old stuff.
Anything to waste government time. The longer he stretches out the “debate” over his second bridge, the better his chances of finding jaded government officials or judges who’ll see things his way.
Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com
The owner of the Ambassador Bridge has filed a federal lawsuit in Detroit against the Federal Highway Administration seeking to prevent public disclosure of a 2007 safety and condition inspection report of the span, saying the report’s public release jeopardizes national security and violates a confidentiality agreement.
Posted in Me & Matty | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Good for the goose, not the news

Posted on September 28, 2009 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

Should truckers use computers while driving our highways?

The New York Times delved into that currently-hot issue in great detail on Page One of its September 28, 2009 issue and raised a bunch of disturbing questions.

Truck-drivers reading computers and texting behind the wheel are far more likely to have accidents than if they keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road, according to the Times. But the drivers are unlikely to stop using the computers, fearing the 10-15 minutes it takes to stop alongside the road will make them miss their delivery deadline and lose pay.

It’s fine for the Times to dig into this, but I wonder if the writer was not thinking at least subconsciously of another deadline-hounded industry that forces its employees to use electronic devices while driving.

That would be the industry to which The New York Times belongs.

Newspaper and media employees in general are under terrific pressure to meet deadlines that more and more loom almost by the minute. Used to be in the newspaper business, you had one deadline per day. Now, with the Internet, deadlines are ongoing.

And newspaper reporters and photographers are under constant pressure to stay in touch with equally time-harassed editors, who rely on the field workers’ cell phones to stay in touch.

I can tell you from 30 years in the newspaper business that this industry relies on a culture of stress to horsewhip its foot soldiers from action to action.

Cellphones are one of the bosses’ tools for goading workers to work faster.

Several years ago, I wrote a story about cellphone safety and driving for the Detroit Free Press. It was my choice — I felt there was a safety issue for all of us. At the time, I was concerned about the way editors were flaying reporters and photographers to meet print and Internet deadlines by making frequent calls on staffers’ personal cell phones. I didn’t find any individual industry statistics, such as for the trucking industry or the media industry. According to the Times, that gap has partly been bridged with a study of truckers’ use of computers.

At the time I wrote my article, in the late 1900s or maybe early 2000s, most of us reporters had cell phones we paid for ourselves. Certainly, the Detroit Free Press was not about to pay for cell phones for reporters. WE also had pagers, which signaled when desk people wanted us to call; pagers became obsolete, though, as editors increasingly relied on those cell phones for immediate contact with workers.

Editors insisted on having our privately-funded cell phone numbers. For a long time, I kept my cell  phone number secret, to such an extent that one editor tried various sneaky tricks — phoning my wife to bluntly demand my number and trying to wheedle it from co-workers — to get access to me while I was out of the office.

Free Press staff photographers are issued company-paid Blackberries with a miniature keyboard so they can not only receive voice calls, but respond to e-mails while they’re out of the office.

Are newspaper workers less prone to having accidents while texting or talking on cell phones than truck drivers?

I know from personal experience that reporters and photographers yak on cell phones while driving. Editors don’t ask, “Are you behind the wheel? Why don’t you pull over so you can talk to me safely?”

Hell no, they don’t care about safety, because it’s all about getting copy or images uploaded asap. They don’t like it if you say you won’t take the call now, but will call back later. At the Free Press, it’s often impossible to call the editor back anyway. They call out on a line that gives your cell phone caller ID a generic Free Press number with a recording, so you could waste tons of time trying to make that call back from the safety of a rest stop and still never get the editor’s desk phone number. The system is beating on you — better take that call when it comes in, even if you’re traveling 80 mph on a busy freeway.

As I say, it is a culture predicated on stress.

Workers are conditioned to take the bosses’ calls, even on off-duty time. Here is a true story: A friend — a Free Press reporter — made the disastrous mistake of answering an editor’s call on his day off. He happened to be driving his car, with his infant child in a child car seat. He was approaching an intersection when his cell phone rang. He answered the call, failed to see a red light, drove through the intersection and hit or was struck by a car. His baby son waa okay, but he suffered serious and lasting injuries. He was in the hospital for a long time, required surgeries for a badly injured knee and suffered other injuries that will haunt him the rest of his life.

It didn’t become a workers’ compensation issue because there was the reality that he didn’t have to answer the phone while driving. It was his choice. Therefore, so the logic runs, the editor did nothing wrong by dialing the reporter’s personal cell phone on his day off. The reporter made a mistake — he answered the editor’s call while driving.

I wonder how important that editor’s call was. I mean the subject of the call. The actual cell phone transmission had life-changing consequences for the person at the other end of the connection.

But I ask, Was that call worth the risk?

Was it worth the heartache, the physical pain, the emotional trauma on that reporter and his family?

The answer lies in a further question: Did the Free Press stop having editors call reporters and photographers on cell phones?

The answer, of course, is no.

Nor do we see newspaper articles delving in depth into the issue of their own misuse of electronic communications devices.

The trucking industry and its shipping  deadlines are a legitimate subject for reporting.

Newspapers’ own abuse of cellphones is just one of many black holes where media simply agree not to look.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com

Posted in Joel's J School | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Rouge book talks and signings

Posted on September 27, 2009 by hro50ta1

Sierra Club

Members of the Sierra Club of Southeast Michigan will hear Detroit Free Press photographer Patricia Beck and retired Free Press reporter Joel Thurtell talk and show a video about their June 2005 canoe trip up the Rouge River at 7 p.m.on Thursday, October 1, 2009 at the Northwest Unitarian-Universalist Church at 23925 Northwestern Highway in Southfield. Beck and Thurtell are authors of the book, Up the Rouge! Paddling Detroit’s Hidden River, published by Wayne State University Press. Beck and Thurtell will sign books.

Plymouth Community Arts Council

A  collection of Patricia Beck’s photos from our book, Up the Rouge!, is now on display at the Plymouth Community Arts Council at the southeast corner of Sheldon and Junction streets in Plymouth.

On Friday, October 2, 2009, we’ll have a signing session at PCAC between 7-9 p.m. At about 7:45 p.m., I’ll talk about the canoe trip and the importance of questioning official claims about the Rouge. We’ll show out video, and in the Q & A, discuss how we might improve the river.

Posted in Adventures on the Rouge, Book signings/book events | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Hardalee Press

Posted on September 27, 2009 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

People were wondering what I was doing all summer.

Notes came in from readers chiding me for letting weeks go by without a post.

Living in a place with no phone or Internet can make it hard to connect to joelontheroad.com. Even for Joel on the road.

I sure was on the road, and a watery road it was.

And that’s what we were doing for much of the summer. I’ll be writing more about McGregor Bay.

But I was not doing nothing.

That is to say, nothing I was not doing.

Or not doing nothing I was.

In July, I published my second book.

In March, my first book was published by Wayne State University Press: It’s Up the Rouge! Paddling Detroit’s Hidden River, the book I wrote with lots of wonderful photos taken by co-author and Detroit Free Press photographer Patricia Beck.

Up the Rouge! took three years to produce. I did some counting. I’m 64 years old. At three years a pop, how long would it take for me to see all of my books in print?

I’ve written a lot of books!

Why do I have so many unpublished books?

Because it’s damned hard to get books into print if you follow the conventional path of finding an agent and commercial publisher. Because I’d send out letters and proposals, then turn back to my full-time reporting job and forget the project. Lots of attention deficit disorder at work. But I made plenty of tries, and had a winner with the Rouge book.

I can understand why people give up on publishing. Lots of fine books go unpublished because their authors can’t find a way of clicking with the East Coasters who dominate American book publishing.

Having one book published by a university press is great, but it’s no guarantee that I’ll find a conventional publisher for the others. Besides, I don’t have three years to spend on each book. There are just too many of them.

As a result, check this out: Amazon is selling my second book, called Plug Nickel. It’s a collection of some of my columns about the wooden Lightning sailboat I restored. I finished the book in July and had it in print in time to haul the boat, Plug Nickel, out to Lake Onondaga in New York for a series of very relaxed races of vintage wooden Lightnings. What a blast! Sold a few books, too.

Very few.

Publisher is Hardalee Press.

My August project, while we were in McGregor Bay with no Internet, was to publish my third book, Seydou’s Christmas Tree.

It’s the story of how a Muslim kid in Togo, West Africa, led two American friends (my wife and I) through what they thought was a barren wasteland and taught them that ugliness and beauty are mere words.

You guessed it: That’s back cover copy from Seydou. It’s on Amazon, too, and soon will be fore sale on its own website. As will Plug Nickel.

Want to know what’s neat? I can beat Amazon’s price!

Yep, Amazon’s charging $19.99, with shipping for each of my books. I can do it for a buck less and still charge Michigan sales tax.

Watch for our shopping carts. Coming soon.

Now, how did I publish that book with no Internet connection at our place?

Easy.

Well, not so easy. I hopped in the Slick, the same Crestliner boat I used to give the French film-maker a ride on the Rouge in last summer, and drove it nine miles around shoals and islands to the marina. Drove my car another ten miles to Little Current, ordered a sandwich at the English Pantry restaurant and made use of their wi-fi.

I managed to write one blog post at the cottage, but whenever I got to the Pantry, I’d forget to post it. Too consumed with the book.  One of these days, I’ll post that column.

Drop me  a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com

Posted in Hardalee Press, Joel's J School | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Advice for Dan

Posted on September 26, 2009 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

I caught Ambassador bridge president Dan Stamper’s weird performance Friday, September 25, 2009 on WXYZ-TV-Channel 7.

I have some advice for Dan:

Prepare for these media interviews: Read joelontheroad.com.

Channel 7 reporter Heather Catallo noted that bridge owner Manuel “Matty” Moroun has fenced off part of a public Detroit park, supposedly to improve “security” at the bridge.

If that’s so, wondered Catallo, why not fence off the bridge on the Canadian side?

Stamper claimed he didn’t know about the lack of fencing on the Windsor, Ontario side of the bridge.

“No, well, yes, you’re bringing it to my attention and we’ll deal with that,” Stamper said.

Gosh, could Moroun’s top guy at the bridge be blind? How could someone who works with that bridge every day not know there’s no fencing on the east side of the river?

Yet if Dan had been reading this blog, he wouldn’t — supposedly — have been caught flat-footed by Channel 7.

I wrote about the lack of fencing on the Windsor side of the Ambassador Bridge back on December 9, 2008.

Of course, Dan Stamper is not blind, nor is he stupid. He’s aware of the absurdity of his boss’s claim that security is a risk on the Detroit side, but no problem over there in Windsor. Why if security really WERE a concern, he’d stop storing volatile diesel fuel and gasoline under the west side of the bridge.

As for his promise to “deal with that,” I’m guessing he won’t get anywhere with his “security” scam in Windsor. I suspect the Canadians would take a dim view of billionaires fencing off public property.

Much easier for billionaire trucking magnates to get away with that kind of ridiculous misbehavior in the good ol’ U S of A.

Fact is, security and anti-terrorism are the last refuge of a scoundrel. What’s really at stake is the fact that without control of Detroit’s public Riverside Park, Matty can’t build his second bridge.

Stamper pretended that it’s not a fact, but it is.

Matty’s squatting on the park, hoping that enough of his adverse possession will wear down Detroit elected officials and, with time on his side, force them to give him what he wants.

Will it work?

Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com

Posted in Me & Matty | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Looking back…

Posted on September 25, 2009 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

My old friend, Francie VanderMolen of the Berrien Springs Journal Era, sent this item from the current issue of the weekly paper:

30 Years Ago
September 26, 1979

Mr. and Mrs. John Gillette of Berrien Springs have bought The Journal Era from Charles Mierau. Joel Thurtell is the new editor of the paper.

Hard to believe it’s been 30 years.

The Journal Era was the best newspaper gig I ever had. It was a failing newspaper when John and Pat Gillette bought it from Charlie Mireau in fall, 1979. The true number of paid subscribers, once Pat weeded out all the freebies, was around 700.

Schrader’s, the town’s super market, had dropped its two-page ads long before the paper changed hands. There was just no credibility. The paper was cribbing its news  — yes, plagiarizing from the Benton Harbor Herald-Palladium and running press releases from the local school verbatim.

It was our job as the new custodians of the JE somehow to win back readers, convince the people of Berrien Springs, Eau Claire and environs that The Journal Era  was serious about reporting in those communities.

A year and a bit more later, when I resigned to become a reporter with the South Bend Tribune, the JE’s paid circulation was approaching 2,000 and Schrader’s was back in the centerfold with its double-truck grocery ads.

Much of our success came from the fact that neither John, Pat nor I were formally-trained journalists. John and Pat were University of Michigan English majors. I was a historian by undergraduate and graduate school training. We didn’t play by the J school rules because we mostly didn’t know what they were. If a story sounded interesting, that was good enough for us.

Guess it was good for readers, too.

Those were exciting times. We were trying new things every week in that newsroom in that old brick building on Ferry Street. Each week, I’d hear that we’d picked up a few more subscribers. It was terrific validation.

My rule of thumb was that our newspaper ought to surprise people, it ought to make them think and it should always be suspicious of government and business.

As I watch the bigger papers flounder, I wonder if the newspaper industry doesn’t need an infusion of energy and alternative approaches from people who are not trained as professional journalists, people whose minds are not suffocated by rules about what is news and what is not.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com

Posted in future of newspapers, Joel's J School | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Matty: Still squattin’ on Riverside Park

Posted on September 22, 2009 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

A year ago today, I went looking for the public boat launch at Detroit’s Riverside Park and was run out of the park by a shotgun-totin’ goon employed by Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel “Matty” Moroun.

It soon became clear that Matty had illegally seized part of the park, and his henchmen were illegally kicking others — not just me — out of a public place. Although he doesn’t own it, Matty needs the park to add onto his bridge. So he’s pretending he owns it, a bluff that may just work.

Sure, the city has gone to court to evict Matty from the land he’s squatting on.

Amazingly, the judge is still dithering about this no-brainer.

A year into this story, and Matty still acts like he owns the park.

Matty’s position is still the same: He’ll grab whatever he needs to expand his bridge.

My position hasn’t changed, either: Send a SWAT team to run him off city property,  charge him and his minions with criminal trespass, declare the bridge a public nuisance due to the explosive automotive fuel he’s storing under it and seize it under eminent domain.

Here is the story I wrote a year ago today:

Please don’t look at these pictures!

By Joel Thurtell

Matty Moroun doesn’t want you to see these photos.

In his eyes, they’re contraband. Maybe he’d like them to be seized by the Border Patrol.

Matty Moroun did not want me to take this photo from a public park in Detroit. The Ambassador Bridge, owned by billionaire Moroun, connects Detroit in the U.S. to Windsor in Canada. Joel Thurtell photo.

Matty Moroun did not want me to take this photo from a public park in Detroit. The Ambassador Bridge, owned by billionaire Moroun, connects Detroit in the U.S. to Windsor in Canada. Joel Thurtell photo.

The billionaire owner of the Ambassador Bridge has grabbed parts of two City of Detroit Parks and — maybe to cover up his takeover — he’s banned photography from what remains of the publicly-owned park. He claims authority under Homeland Security, but city officials tell me the feds say he’s acting on his own.

I found out about this by accident on Monday, September 22, 2008, while exploring one of the parks.

I almost fell into Matty’s clutches.

One of his gunslingers tried to arrest me for taking photos in the city’s Riverside Extension Park.

Luckily, I made good my escape.

But it’s clear I’d better be careful next time I explore a public park the bridge magnate wants for his own.

Is this kind of harassment by a hireling commonplace? Maybe it explains why nobody was using the park. I have since learned that Moroun’s henchmen had ejected a city parks worker from this same park. Isn’t that outrageous?

Matty Moroun doesn't want you to see this photo of his Ambassador Bridge taken with the ball field fence in foreground at Detroit's public Riverside Park Extension. Joel Thurtell photo.

Matty Moroun doesn’t want you to see this photo of his Ambassador Bridge taken with the ball field fence in foreground at Detroit’s public Riverside Park Extension. Joel Thurtell photo.

Actually, Moroun is treating the parks — Riverside Park on the Detroit River and its extension at 23rd Street near Fort — as his own property. Why, he lets his guards drive across the lawn and push law-abiding citizens around! I saw it. It happened to me.

What he is, fundamentally, is a squatter.

A freeloader.

A rich mooch.

I couldn’t believe what happened to me as I peacefully snapped photos at Riverside Extension. For the second time in less than a week, a security guard threatened to sic the feds on me.

First time it happened was Friday, September 19 on the Rouge River as I putt-putted in my motorboat up the freighter docking bay at SeverStal steel mill. A security guard huffed and puffed that I was boating in a “Marine Security Area” and had to get out pronto. He said he was going to take my boat number and report me to the Coast Guard. I reported on this incident in an earlier column, but since have talked to the Coast Guard and learned there are no boating restrictions on the Rouge River. The guard was full of crap. Nor did the SeverStal hired gun ever turn me in. He was REALLY full of crap.

Billionaire Matty Moroun doesn't want you looking at this photo of his Ambassaador Bridge taken from the City of Detroit's PUBLIC Riverside Park Extension. Joel Thurtell Photo.

Billionaire Matty Moroun doesn’t want you looking at this photo of his Ambassaador Bridge taken from the City of Detroit’s PUBLIC Riverside Park Extension. Joel Thurtell Photo.

Then on Monday, September 22, I learned about Matty Moroun’s effort to privatize the two City of Detroit parks near his Ambassador Bridge. Rich as Croesus Matty, I’m told, has fenced off a public boat ramp to the Detroit River at Riverside Park off West Grand Boulevard, citing “homeland security” and the need to protect his bridge from…

From what? Kamikaze boats out of Windsor?

It’s a brazen ripoff of public land.

I’m also told the city of Detroit is considering suing to make him open the ramp and get off park land. City lawyers are worried that by gradually cramping usage of the park, people will stop coming. Then he can show it’s not being used and offer a low-ball price.

It burns me up to hear of private people — usually rich jerks like Matty Moroun — commandeering public boat ramps. I decided to have a look. Problem was, I didn’t know exactly where Riverside Park is. I wound up in the city park called Riverside Park Extension. It’s a big grassy lot with a ball diamond, a porta-john and a couple of trash barrels. Nobody was using it on that bright afternoon. Soon, I would learn why.

I noticed a chain-link fence on what I took for the park’s perimeter. Clamped to the fence are signs that say, “WARNING DUE TO HOMELAND SECURITY NO TRESPASSING VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED.”

Matty Moroun does not want you to see this photo of construction material sitting on city-owned park land he's seized. This chain-link fence with warning sign is actually sitting on part of Riverside Park Extension, a public piece of property. Joel Thurtell photo.

Matty Moroun does not want you to see this photo of construction material sitting on city-owned park land he’s seized. This chain-link fence with warning sign is actually sitting on part of Riverside Park Extension, a public piece of property. Joel Thurtell photo.

Beyond the signs and behind the fence are heaps of gravel or sand. Later, I learned that the fenced-in area with gravel and threatening signs is actually part of the park. Matty has taken it over. The signs are not from the Department of Homeland Security. He had them made. So Matty’s threatening to prosecute people for “trespassing” in a public park!

I walked along what I took, as I say, to be the park’s border, snapping photos here and there. At the east end, I snapped photos of the WARNING signs and the bridge. All the while, I was trying to figure out how to get to the main park. I could see parts of a green lawn and what looked like a pavilion across a set of railroad tracks.

Suddenly, I was aware of company. A guy in a big white pickup truck tore across the park lawn, leaving deep tracks in the grass. I snapped a photo of this guy and the truck as he stopped on the grass beside me.

He was a muscular guy with tattoos on both arms. He had a shaved head and a gray goatee. On the passenger seat beside him, leaning against the seat back, was a shotgun.

“You can’t take pictures of the bridge structure from here,” he said. “Homeland Security. You can only take pictures back where you’re parked.”

“This is a public park,” I said. “You can’t stop me from taking pictures in a city park.”

“You can’t take pictures here. Go back to the parking area.”

"Doug" is the name a security guard gave as he tried to stop me from taking pictures in the City of Detroit-owned Riverside Playfield park. He tried to arrest me and hold me for questioning by the Border Patrol. Joel Thurtell photo.

“Doug” is the name a security guard gave as he tried to stop me from taking pictures in the City of Detroit-owned Riverside Playfield park. He tried to arrest me and hold me for questioning by the Border Patrol. Joel Thurtell photo.”Who do you work for? Let me see your ID,” I said.

I snapped his picture.

He pointed to a decal on the side of the truck: L.S.S. SECURITY (800) 542-3821.

I snapped a picture of the decal.

This security company logo on the side of a pickup was all the identification the security guard gave me when he tried to stop me taking photos in a public park and tried to hold me for questioning by the Border Patrol. Joel Thurtell photo.

This security company logo on the side of a pickup was all the identification the security guard gave me when he tried to stop me taking photos in a public park and tried to hold me for questioning by the Border Patrol. Joel Thurtell photo.

“What’s your name?” I said.

“Doug.”

“Your last name.”

He pointed to the side of the truck again.

“You need to get out of here,” he said.

“No,” I said.

“Okay, you can talk to the Border Patrol.” He picked up a hand-held radio and talked to someone, saying into it, “I’ve got a guy hassling me here with some cameras. I’ll hold him here till you come.”

Doug No Last Name put the radio down and told me, “Wait here. The Border Patrol is coming. You can talk to them.”

“No,” I said. “I think I’ll leave.”

“No! You’re staying here!”

Ambassador Bridge seen from Riverside Park Extension city-owned park. In foreground are building materials stored on what city claims is park land appropriated by bridge owner Matty Moroun. City reportedly is challenging Matty. Matty's minion tried to arrest me in park for taking photos. Joel Thurtell photo.

Ambassador Bridge seen from Riverside Park Extension city-owned park. In foreground are building materials stored on what city claims is park land appropriated by bridge owner Matty Moroun. City reportedly is challenging Matty. Matty’s minion tried to arrest me in park for taking photos. Joel Thurtell photo.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “You’re a private security guard and you don’t any authority over me. This is city property.”

I started walking across the grass.

Shotgun Doug backed his pickup and turned around, making a new set of tracks in the lawn. He beat me to the parking area and parked his pickup directly behind my little blue Civic, blocking me from behind.

When I got to my car, Doug The Enforcer told me, “Stay right here. The Border Patrol is on the way.”

“You have no authority,” I said. “You’re a private security dick blocking my car on public property.”

I unlocked my car, got in, started the engine, put the trans in drive and made a sharp right turn forward, spinning past him where he sat in his pickup. I made a quick right on Fort Street and headed for the freeway.

Bye-bye, Dougface.

But of course, Matty won that round — his shotgun-toting goon got me to leave the park.

Matty Moroun doesn't want you to see this photo of his henchman, the shotgun-packin' Doug, leaving deep tracaks in grass as he drives across Riverside Park Extension's lawn on Monday, September 22, 2008, so he could harass me out of the park. Joel Thurtell photo.

Matty Moroun doesn’t want you to see this photo of his henchman, the shotgun-packin’ Doug, leaving deep tracaks in grass as he drives across Riverside Park Extension’s lawn on Monday, September 22, 2008, so he could harass me out of the park. Joel Thurtell photo.

That’s what Matty wants — to scare people out of this public place so he can call it his.

Got news for you, Matty. I’ll be back.

No shotgun for me. Just my trusty Canon.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

Posted in Me & Matty | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments