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Five Things You Need to Know for Tuesday, April 4, 2006

Wildly unrelated: Off on the right foot: Tigers notch 4-3 opening day win, State should raise its voice, and budget, for tourism, Imagine if election coverage was like Professional Wrestling (honest, we were NOT searching for professional wrestling).

Beat the Train Bikes Detroit

The Girl in the D has a great feature (with photos) of the 2006 kick-off ride with Andy Staub and the members of Beat the Train in Detroit (BTT). BTT is a group of a individuals that meet up on Saturday mornings from April through October for medium-paced bike rides through the city of Detroit that are part training ride and part historical tour. Staub says "This is something you can't get from your couch or ... your front porch. You must get out and feel the streets. Experience the history and the majesty of our great city."

Read More than just a bike ride from Girl in the D
Beat the Train Detroit (LOUD MUSIC ALERT!)

Wrestling's Main Event Coming to Detroit

dBusiness Hartford reports that World Wrestling Entertainment has announced that it will present its cornerstone annual event, WrestleMania 23, on Sunday, April 1, 2007 at Ford Field in Detroit. The return to Detroit will mark the 20th anniversary of WrestleMania III at the Pontiac Silverdome, an event that attracted 93,173 fans, recognized as the world indoor attendance record for any sports or entertainment event. (well, see the Wikipedia entry for the scoop on that). Regardless of that (or your feelings about professional wrestling), a study done during WrestleMania XX in New York City found the event generated an estimated $13.5 million of new economic activity for New York City, created the equivalent of 96 full-year jobs and generated $2 million in taxes.

Read WWE To Hold WrestleMania 23 At Ford Field In Detroit in 2007 in the dBusiness Hartford
WrestleMania III from WikiPedia

Michigan in Line for Arabic Language Pilot

The Detroit Free Press reports that Michigan is in line for an annual grant of about $700,000 for up to 16 years to pay teacher salaries and other costs of teaching Arabic to students in grades K-12 and college as part of a multimillion-dollar, multiyear push called the National Strategic Language Initiative. Other languages targeted will be Mandarin Chinese, Farsi and Hindi.

Read EMBRACING ARABIC: State to get language grant in the Freep

Warmer? Colder? Is It a Partisan Issue?

The Freep's Barbara Arrigo writes that ice records on Grand Traverse Bay show a disturbing new pattern: after 13 decades in which the bay froze at least seven winters out of every 10, the rate slipped in the 1980s, froze only three times in the 90s and only once in the 21st century. The figures come from the Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Station's Jim Nugent, who explains that ice on the Bay keeps things cooler and protects the cherries from developing blossoms too fast.

In the interest of balance, George Will writes about fears of global cooling 30 years ago and says that the earth is always experiencing either warming or cooling. He wonders whether slowing economic growth and spending trillions to avert climate change is worth it.

Read BARBARA ARRIGO: Why less winter ice is the pits for state in the Detroit Free Press
Read George Will: Media fan flames of worry about global warming in the Detroit News

Fife Lake Man Crosses the UP on Snowshoes

The Ironwood Globe has a feature on Jerry Gauld of Fife Lake, who completed a snowshoe hike across the UP, traversing the North Country Trail 400 miles from the Straits of Mackinac to North Ironwood. The 57-year-old bulldozer operator said "Somewhere along the line a couple of years ago I was on that trail and I decided to go and camp out on it. As soon as I camped out, I thought, 'I'm going to snowshoe across the U.P. I'll bet nobody's done it.'"

The article suggest that perhaps nobody has done so since Bishop Frederic Baraga, the famed snowshoe priest who was a missionary to the Native Americans hundreds of years ago. Check the link below for Gauld's account of the journey!

Read Across the U.P. the hard way in the Ironwood Globe
View a Picture of the Bishop Baraga Shrine by B Givens on Flickr