Podcast Episodes Interviews, Show Notes, and Transcripts

At age 92, Harry Binder finished his last Bobby Crim Road Race. The Binder Family is well known in the Flint area for their successful businesses. During Harry Binder's long business career he owned a radio station, WAMM-AM along with Reliable Furniture Store. His cousin Julius Binder owned Binders' Big and Tall Mens Store. He tells of his file growing up on McFarland Avenue in Flint with other Jewish families. He is a humanitarian raising funds for the needy in Flint and even has a Crim Festiva...

Chris Christenson, is a dynamic lawyer and also a Flint native. He took an unusual path to the Courthouse and becoming President of the Genesee County Bar Association. Chris was a union carpenter when he decided to give up nails and planks for law books. He worked his way through law school as a union carpenter. Recently named a Super Lawyer by Michigan Lawyers Weekly, Chris has built his career around community service and activism in the legal profession. He is an expert in construction lawsui...

This is the second episode of the Boomer Zone. Arthur Busch and Scott McKinstry, lifelong friends talk about Radio Free Flint and the Boomer Zone. They talk about the selfie photo booth in the 1960's at Kresge's Department Store in downtown Flint, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, Dawn Donuts the Flint's legendary chain of donut shops people grew up on in the 1960s and 1970s. The talk goes to the essence of boomer culture and memories. So listen in and take a stroll down memory lane. --- Send in a ...

General Motors dumped leaded automotive paints, thinners, laquors, and other chemicals into a public park and surrounding areas in Flint, Michigan. The most obvious evidence of the environmental dirty deed was covered up with bulldozer and a little dirt. Then in 1953, the area known as the Dixieland Subdivision was built on top of and around this lead laced toxic chemical stew. Testing done in the area showed extremely high levels of lead at 200,000 parts per million in certain areas. In yards o...

Most paperboys finish their route at the neighbor's house. Arthur Busch's route finished at a gambling joint on the "strip" in front of a GM factory. He recounts a story of life in gritty Flint, Michigan. In his story, he of delivers the Flint Journal to a bar on his paper route and stumbles onto a robbery. Arthur then faced down the burglar who had sawed off shotgun in hand. The story of the "strip" as it was known to the neighborhood kids is about life in a factory town in the 1960's. It explo...

Arthur Busch narrates a story about the unsolved murder of a Flint drug store owner in 1954. It was the former prosecutor's welcome to Flint as his mom was pregnant for him at the time she witnessed the armed robbery and murder. The murder took place in a 1950's style drug store complete with a soda fountain. He recounts his mother's trauma and what unfolded afterwards. Flint, Michigan was once a wealthy town now has been harmed by globalization, drugs, public health crisis and crime. Today, it ...

Lawyers dream about appearing before the U.S. Supreme Court. Only a very small number of lawyers ever get the chance. Arthur Busch argued the first Flint criminal case ever to come before the United States Supreme Court, in March 2003. Arthur Busch shares his diary by telling the story of his historic experience.. His story includes what growing up in Flint taught him about winning and lawyering. It is a behind the scenes look at what a lawyer thinks and does to get ready for the biggest case of...

The second diary essay by Arthur Busch. Flint, Michigan is a rust-belt factory town. The town was transformed in the 1950's by a great migration of eager southerners seeking work in GM automobile factories. Arthur describes fondly his family and the hillbilly traditions and values they brought to Flint's Dixieland subdivision. He describes his family's southern customs and culture as they assimilate their lives into a northern GM company town. This all during the Golden Age for America's middle ...

History repeats itself. Flint Southwestern experienced violence that most remember as a "race riot" in 1970. The spark that started that racial disturbance was not what people thought at the time. Arthur Busch gives an audio diary of his memories of that incident. He discusses the current model of local policing; militarization of the police that has taken the cops from roles as those who protect and serve to those who occupy and suppress. Policing the police in America 2020 has not reconciled i...

Arthur Busch discusses the awakening of the northern Hillbillies in the heartland of America. Intellectuals call parts of the country where globalization has decimated manufacturing jobs the "Rustbelt". Income inequality has given rise to white American nationalism. It has found a home in places like Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan with profound social and political implications. To better understand the ingredients that give rise to this political unrest in the heartland of America, Arthur Busch d...

Hop in for a ride with local history columnist Gary Flinn to the halcyon days of flint. Revisit the contributions of oft-overlooked David Buick, the inventive and invaluable Flint auto pioneer who lacked the business savvy to become an auto legend. Travel back to the original Kewpee Burger and wash it down with an old Vernor’s ginger ale before catching a show at Capitol Theatre. In the shadow of Flint's success as an industrial hub and the tragedy that is the water crisis that came to a head ...

Flint, Michigan has been one of America's most violent cities for decades. It has been been a national leader in per capita homicides, violent crimes, sexual assaults and arsons. There are many unsolved crimes. Did you ever wonder what the back story was on some of these crimes? What goes into an investigative journalists efforts to dig to get the real story? Two veteran criminal investigators, one a seasoned former prosecutor the other a veteran investigative crime reporter discuss notorious cr...