5 min read

UofWinds 413,Week 22, 2025: Giant Sequoias Are Taking Root in an Unexpected Place: Detroit, Pretrial (Let Her Go Home), Fonts in Use


Good morning. I am not the only one up early this morn, as half my family now spends their Saturday mornings at the Ford Test Track to coach and manage house league soccer until the end of August. For us, TV soccer ends today and real-life soccer has begun.

Last weekend, our open windows shared the distant bass thumpings of the Movement Music festival being held across the river. This morning, my office window brings in cold air and the persistent hum of very loud and angry bees, which is what I like to imagine the Detroit Grand Prix to be instead of what it actually is.

Tomorrow is June. I should rest but there's work to do.


Giant Sequoias Are Taking Root in an Unexpected Place: Detroit


When the headline – Giant Sequoias Are Taking Root in an Unexpected Place: Detroit – appeared in my feed, it stopped me in my tracks. Even before I clicked on the article, the headline had already given me the vision of verdant sequoia forests in the Detroit interior; giant redwoods matching the scale of its absurdly wide boulevards, and protecting the residents from the sun as well as the skyline featuring the Renaissance Center.

The trees are being planted in Detroit’s Poletown East neighborhood through a partnership between two nonprofits, Arboretum Detroit and Archangel Ancient Tree Archive.

The effort started in 2020 and 2021, with the planting of 20 giant sequoia trees on private property and vacant lots owned by Arboretum Detroit. It continued late last month, as volunteers convened on Earth Day to plant roughly 100 additional saplings... ...The Earth Day saplings are roughly a foot tall. But, if all goes as planned, they’ll rocket to roughly 15 feet tall—and counting—over the next decade. The trees can grow up to two feet each year.

I did not expect that this article would have a library angle. But it did:

The clones were developed by experts with Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, which traveled to California to gather the trees’ cones and new-growth clippings in 2010. The group is working to propagate and preserve the world’s old-growth trees at its headquarters in Northern Michigan, as well as in “living libraries” around the world.

Giant sequoias are not native to Michigan. And, yet, they’re somehow thriving in the state, which has a much cooler and wetter climate than their native California.

The biggest giant sequoia east of the Rockies is a 77-year-old specimen, called the Michigan Champion, that was planted in 1948 on the eastern shores of Lake Michigan. The tree measures roughly 116 feet tall and 5 feet in diameter.

“They’re safer here ... we don’t have wildfires like [California],” Kemp tells the Associated Press. “The soil stays pretty moist, even in the summer. They like to have that winter irrigation, so when the snow melts they can get a good drink.”

I also admit, that even before I read the article, I had also concerns. Shouldn't Detroiters be planting native species of trees instead? This is also addressed:

Meanwhile, experts say some native trees—including hemlock, elm and beech—are struggling in the city. In addition to the giant sequoias, Arboretum Detroit is also planting roughly 80 other species of trees in the neighborhood.

“We’re planting the forest of the future,” Kemp tells MLive.com. “Diversity is the answer. There are so many natives that aren’t happy here anymore. We have to look at what trees are thriving.”

This is the power of that headline. There are 80 species of trees being planted in hopes of thriving canopy to be enjoyed by the city, but it takes a charismatic megaflora to spur a vision of a green Detroit, as if it can only occur with giant trees.

A startlingly beautiful vision of the future is what we so very much need in this moment and that is understood by Arboretum Detroit:

“There’s not another urban area I know of that has the kind of potential that we do to reforest,” says Andrew “Birch” Kemp, co-director and board president of Arboretum Detroit, to the Associated Press’ Corey Williams. “We could all live in shady, fresh air beauty. It’s like no reason we can’t be the greenest city in the world.”

Pretrial (Let Her Go Home)


The good news is that my soft-brained city councillor who was trying to move into federal politics with the cause that the Canadian government should reform bail because our incarceration system is not cruel enough to prevent crime, did not become our House of Commons representative in the federal election. (The bad news is another Conservative in that seat and she wants more carbon in our atmosphere.)

How can we talk to neighbours who believe that being tough on crime through stricter bail conditions will reduce crime, when our subject experts hold a strong consensus that it will not and are worried that it will only cause more harm.

I think we could learn from feeling-like-a-criminal, musician Fiona Apple. Apple knows more about the American bail system than most because for the last two plus years, she has been watching the courts of Prince George’s County, Maryland, as part of a larger effort organized by CourtWatch.org.

Earlier this month, she released this song about what she's seen: Pretrial (Let Her Go Home). You can watch it on YouTube or on the Let Her Go Home website:

On any given day, 190,600 women and girls are incarcerated in the United States. Over 60,000 women are detained pretrial, presumed innocent, caged in US jails simply because they cannot afford to pay bail. Their average yearly income is just $11,000. Over 66% are mothers with minor children.

Fonts in Use


Should I make a zine about why the bail reform campaign in Canada is so bogus?

I was reminded about the power of zines just this week, when I saw a room full of people pick up, leaf through, and put away for future reading and keeping, a zine that was commissioned to capture the Resisting Techno-Fascism [pdf] panel at the WeRobot 2025 Conference.

Zines are not just a great tool for knowledge mobilization but they are very useful in movement building work. As organizer (and librarian) Mariam Kaba said recently of the #TakedownTesla protests:

It would be great to have a downloadable well-researched zine or handout called something like "Better Than A Tesla" - that offers people suggestions for better EV's to purchase than Tesla. Why not educate folks about better consumer choices while picketing? March 7, 2025 at 7:54 PM

Protests are not just about having disagreements being expressed publicly; protests should be promises.

Last year I made a zine just for myself and my own amusement. This year, I would like to start making zines for my community. I remind myself daily of this personal (now public commitment), by subscribing to the rss feed of Fonts in Use, so that every day I can be greeted with delightful examples of beautiful and strange printed work.

I don't know whether zines should be promises but I now promise a zine.