Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • 83

BRIAN DICKEHSOltfO, REGIONSTATE I VERDICT Disabled boy found tied to a bucket is removed from adoptive mother's home, pace 4b DESIREE COOPER A tribute to Albert Cleage Jr. pace 4b FRIDAY Feb. 25, 2000 Roadwork 2 Your Free Time 2 Obituaries 3 RegionState 4 ON TIM WEB www.freep.com phone 248-586-2600 Section Can one show be trash TV's final answer? I THINK most thoughtful Americans would agree that the two most pressing questions fac Jim A Oil ing this cpuntry are: LEARNING A LIFESTYLE EMBRACING JAPANESE Property tangled If, 1 I if At some schools it's the language and culture many yearn to know By LORI HIGGINS HUE PRESS STAFF WRITER The growing influence of Japanese language and culture on Americans sparked the interest of Lynn Manojlovich. "Ever since the fifth grade, I've been obsessed with Japan," the 14-year-old Clarkston High School freshman said. So instead of taking the more popular Spanish or French language classes, Manojlovich enrolled in Japanese classes.

Increasing interest in Japanese culture among many metro Detroit students can be traced to an economy that's more global, more native Japanese students in some area schools and the popularity of Japanese animation and icons such as Pokemon. That will be illustrated Saturday, when students from about 20 Michigan schools gather at Clarkston High for the annual Japan Bowl, which tests knowledge of Japanese language and culture. But it's illustrated daily at schools such as Pleasant Lake Elementary School in West Bloomfield, where 20 percent of the school's 600 students are Japanese. It's also seen at Novi High School, where 15 Japanese mothers volunteer daily in Amy Chermside's Japanese class, sometimes displaying kimonos and giving lessons in origami and Japanese calligraphy. "It's more than me just being able to tell them.

I get to show them. They get cultural insights every day," Chermside said. They're insights that some students are craving, said Barbara Rice, who teaches Japanese at Clarkston High. "Japan and its influence on American culture has been growing year by year, with the animation, comic books and the automotive industry," Rice said. More schools are offering Japanese courses now than 10 years ago, said John Chapman, international education specialist for the state Department of Education.

Dena Hillman expected about 20 to 25 students to enroll in her Japanese language class at West Bloomfield High School. But she ended up with 37. "People see it as something good for college. And it's interesting. It's not like the traditional languages," she said.

"Kids have become more sophisticated." Woodward Academy, a public 1) What are we going to do about all those folks on death row, especially in light of the growing evidence that a significant number of them may be, technically speaking, innocent? 2) Now that Darva Conger has walked out on her multimillionaire and stunt jumper Robbie Knievel has survived his close encounter with an onrushing locomotive, how are we going to entertain ourselves next week? Happily, I've struck upon a single solution to both problems. But first, let's reprise the remarkable week of television that brought us to the brink of this singular opportunity. Laundering the trash I know readers of a column as sophisticated as this one wouldn't be caught dead watching "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?" much less waste their time waiting to see whether some idiot is going to dash his brains out on live television. But thank God for TV news, eh, sophisticates? Sure, there are the occasional presidential primary results to slog through. But, as everyone knows, the real purpose of TV news is to repackage last night's prime-time trash as this morning's wry social commentary, so that all of us reproving folks cluck our tongues over the best parts.

Morning TV news is the great equalizer, enabling those of us who stayed up late reading the classics to enter our workplaces armed with the knowledge that Robbie didn't die, Darva scarcely looked at her new husband on their honeymoon, and the gal from West Bloomfield muffed Regis' $250,000 question. But that's yesterday morning's news. What have those moral reprobates in prime time television done to amuse us lately? What this country is desperately crying out for, it seems to me, is a single game show format that combines 1) the element of contestants betting large stakes on their ability to answer arcane questions correctly with 2) the chance to see people die violently on live television. Instead of allowing death row inmates to clog our appellate courts or divert presidential candidates from the campaign trail, why not let inmates compete for the chance to postpone their executions by correctly answering a series of multiple-choice questions before a live audience? Betting it all Condemned prisoners appearing on "Who Wants to Be Alive Tomorrow?" would earn ever-lengthening reprieves for each correct answer, culminating in a grand prize of commutation for those who answered all 15 questions correctly. Contestants could bow out at any point, leaving the program with whatever reprieve time they'd accumulated.

But those who gambled and answered a question incorrectly would be subject to instantaneous electrocution, lending new meaning to the host's observation that a contestant Was "in the hot seat." Two other now-ubiquitous phrases "No lifelines left" and "Is that your final answer?" would acquire increased poignancy. Of course, you and I have our standards, and we would never watch such depravity. But I bet Katie Couric and Matt Lauer would save us the Jiighlights. in court, red tape Former hospital center land is worth millions 1 PONTIAC Bv HUGH MCDIARMID JR. FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER It's a developer's dream: Two hundred-plus acres of real estate along Telegraph just five minutes from resurgent downtown Ponti-ac and nestled next to a shopping center.

It's also a nightmare: Property beset with bureaucratic red tape and a legal shoving match over a handful of partially demolished buildings. Some call the buildings historic jewels, others call them junk. Either way, estimates set the property's value at $5 million to $13 million. One day the furor will die over the fate of the Clinton Valley Center a collection of pre-1900 Victorian buildings where thousands of mentally ill patients were housed. When that happens, it could open the doors to a complex of homes, businesses, a park, library and perhaps a school adding hundreds of millions of dollars in property values to the city's tax base and putting feathers in the caps of city leaders and developers who swing the deal.

"From residential to light industrial to office, I think any uses would be viable there," said Henry Moses, executive vice president of Barry M. Klein Real Estate in Far-mington Hills. "It's a very well-located piece of ground." The future of the property is clouded by bureaucratic snarls that have grown increasingly thick in the last few months. Such problems entangled separate grounds of the former Traverse City state psychiatric hospital, where hundreds of acres have gone virtually unused since the Please see PONTIAC, Page 8B For walking, Bimiingham beats Detroit Consulting firm rates the best and the worst By SALLY FARHAT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER Birmingham is one of the nation's 12 best cities for people who like to go walking, says a new report. Detroit is the third-worst ahead of only Atlanta and Houston.

The report was ordered by the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, which paid a consultant $1,200 a day to compile it, covering 45 area communities. The consultant, Dan Burden, heads the nonprofit company Walkable Communities Inc. of High Springs, which has performed more than 700 "walking audits" across the country. Burden judges "urban form," compactness and a sense that speed is not everything, among other criteria. "Birmingham is a beautiful concept of an intact village and neighborhoods," Burden said Thursday.

Its downtown "has a vision to- Please see WALKING, Page 8B WILLIAM AHCHIEDetrM FrM Pren Bar owner charged in video poker case Steen, left, and Russell Dorn practice Instead, most will stay in the area for four to five years, Eguchi said. Andy Dale, principal of Pleasant Lake Elementary in the Walled Lake district, said the large Japanese population in his school has sparked interest in their culture. "They learn a terrific amount from each other," Dale said. "The Japanese children very quickly make friends with the American children. And they bond with them instantly." LORI HIGGINS can be reached at 248-591-5625 or higginsigfreepress.com.

Illusions Bar and Grill, owned by David Katzman, is on 4th at Lafayette, west of downtown Royal Oak. afcCKDelrort fn Pren they awarded no cash, only tickets redeemable for prizes, such as radios and CD players. "If your little daughter plays a game at Chuck E. Cheese, she can win a redemption ticket and get a prize. Same thing," Katzman said.

"I play hockey, don't smoke, work out. And I don't break the of Thursday for the Japan BowL THE COMMUNITY Most of the 5,000 native Japanese who live in metro Detroit work at Japanese businesses. Most stay five years or less. There are 360 Japanese businesses in Michigan, 240 in metro Detroit. Michigan's estimated Japanese population is 7,000, with 5,000 in metro Detroit.

Source: Japan Business Society of Detroit law" he said. But Assistant Attorney General David Tanay said it was "preposterous" to claim that Katz-man's machines required skill. Many resembled slot machines, which displayed computer-generated spinning icons, with payouts controlled by computer chips, he said. "Over time, even a theoretically perfect player, with perfect hand-eye coordination, could not beat the computer chip," he said. Other games were video versions poker and blackjack, in which skill was no match for the machines, Tanay said.

A state law penalizes failure to disclose cash deposits greater than $10,000, so Katzman instructed an employee never to deposit more than $9,500 at one time in his Royal Oak bank account, and was found by a bank Please see GAMBLING, Page 8B Clarkston High students Michelle charter school in Detroit that enrolls 600 students, emphasizes Japanese language and culture. "If they elect to go into an area that is involved with international trade or politics or any interchange between the countries, they would have that knowledge," Principal Paul Merritt said. An estimated 5,000 native Japanese live in metro Detroit, said Tateyuki Eguchi, executive director of the Japan Business Society of Detroit. Almost all came because of jobs with Japanese businesses in the area. Not many plan to stay in the 4 PAl site Don's Windmill Truck Stop in Eaton County Katz-man's machines "generated between $20,000 and $30,000 per week in gross revenue." Katzman, 40, reached Thursday at his home, said his machines were legal games of skill not of chance, as forbidden by state gaming laws.

He also said KTZ RlUA Truck-stop machines seized over gambling ROYAL OAK By BILL LAITNER FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER The operator of a Royal Oak nightspot faces racketeering, gambling and money-laundering charges, according to documents that said he operated video gambling machines at dozens of truck stops across Michigan. In complaints filed last week by the Michigan Attorney General's Office, David Katzman is accused of using gambling cash to open his Illusions Bar and Grill and to buy a lakefront house in Commerce Township, a 1998 Mercedes and a coin-operated game business in Livonia. Investigators said that at one BRIAN DICKERSON can be reached at 248-586-2607 or.