Most people in southeastern Michigan don't see metro Detroit the way coaches, players and officials of the metro's prep games do.

In a word, it's rough. Detroit's infrastructure, like street curbs, street lamps and water mains, are in serious distress or outright failure. When I traveled to Allen Park Cabrini this past week, I missed my turn off of Southfield Road into the neighborhood Cabrini is tucked within because the businesses that used to help illuminate smaller street signs are now darkened. In River Rouge, the 'Joe' jobs, like plumbing and electrical work, are gone and greasy spoon diners are shuttered. They don't plow neighborhood streets in Farmington Hills like they used to and Royal Oak's schools ask for parent volunteers to weed and feed the flower beds. You could seemingly insert any city name you want throughout this paragragh and still be factual.

This is why Compuware's Chief Executive Officer, Peter Karmanos, is being vilified in so many corners today. He hired Kwame Kilpatrick, Public Enemy No. 1 in the city of Detroit, and gave him a golden parachute from hell, a hell he helped forge.

It was Kilpatrick who promised much and delivered little in a term-and-a-half as mayor. The city parks and recreation centers? The parks are still an open sore and the city's recreation centers, especially the ones that were viable, are now shuttered in plywood and have been pillaged of the metals that made up the buildings' electrical and plumbing systems. The city's school board? A dysfunctional disaster that makes George Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina look heartfelt and thoughtful. The city's finances? Imagine a 400-car freight train running downhill with no brakes as it heads for a city with 800,000 people. City services are still pathetic and much of the progress the city was making in entertainment and overnight accommodations has been erased with the economic depression we're in.

But here's why Kilpatrick's hiring ought to make you mad as hell. In a time when we really need to make stand against corporate misbehavior, Karmanos instead emboldens it. You don't reward your son with ice cream for stealing candy from the candy store!

Worse, 250 people not convicted of perjury, not on the hook for a cool million as a part of a plea deal and not found guilty of ruining the lives of two honest cops got pink-slipped from Compuware this week while Kilpatrick was hired. There's enough good people losing jobs in this state alone to re-populate the cities of Warren, Saginaw or Flint to make them look like they did when they were teeming cities with enough tax base to fund a small country's entire government. But Kilpatrick, who hasn't told the truth in what seems like never, steps out of the joint after serving just 99 days for being as big a jackass as anyone in Detroit's 308-year history and takes a $100,000-a-year job as penance.

America is morally bankrupt and you don't have to look far to find the source. It comes from people like Peter Karmanos, who got sweet-talked by Kilpatrick to locate his headquarters in downtown Detroit. It comes from people like Karmanos, who shied from saying anything critical of Hizzoner a year ago when Detroit desperately needed someone to step up publicly and take a stand. Not brave enough when Kilpatrick seemed determined to drag Detroit to the depths of well-fed sewer rats, Karmanos waits to hire the most famous liar, cheater and crook in Detroit's political history with the allure of his bottom line being advanced handsomely less than week after his jail time ends.

Alienate the many to line the pockets of the few? I'm willing to bet that's not in the Compuware mission statement. Even Vito Corleone knew how and when to say 'No'.

Morally bankrupt? Who cares, right Pete? As long as you make that loot, it's all good. Who's next, Pete? Was Reggie Rogers just misunderstood? Did Bob Probert simply get caught up with the wrong people? Are you holding a tasty position for Monica Conyers, too? I can own a room, too, Pete. Why can't I get a 100K-a-year gig?

On second thought, never mind. If Karmanos will hire Kilpatrick, I don't to be hired. I'll continue to work my three jobs to make a little more than half of what I used to make. You can't buy pride, honor or integrity. You lose your credibility, not to mention your mind, when you hire Kilpatrick. It's a move so disingenuous to the good people of metro Detroit that Karmanos should be stripped of all his Detroit privileges. The only question that comes to light is just how deep was Karmanos buried in Kilpatrick's pockets when Hizzoner was mayor? In light of all the truth, especially the truth Kilpatrick used taxpayer money to attempt to bury, it makes you wonder if any of Kilpatrick's previous dirty deeds have Karmanos's fingerprints on them?

Live with that, Mr. Karmanos.

What if Michael Phelps was black? What if Phelps was a two-time Olympic gold medalist for Team USA's men's basketball team and was caught taking a hit off a glass lettuce burner?

Are we ready to be honest? Before you answer, name the last time a black athlete was pardoned in public for owning a scandalous photo similar to the one that Phelps recently cop'd to?

I'm not taking up 'The Cause' -- whatever that is -- because there are a ton of instances that offer no rhyme or reason for why they occur within our media's obsession with the instantaneous crucifixion and subsequent resurrection of the subjects pushed in front of our collective conscience in the same knee-jerk fashion most of us would like to push our in-laws out in front of rush hour traffic. Bill Clinton was crucified for banging a not-so-very-hot intern; George Bush was ignored for purposed war crimes. Go figure. Why do Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmerio get a virtual pass for their suspected roles in baseball's performance-enhancing scandal when compared to the outright vicious response Barry Bonds has elicited from media and fans? Please don't tell me it's just because he owns baseball's most famous mark, because to do so would be an outright admission you're living with your head in the sand.

That said, I find it somewhat amusing that Phelps gets a pass on this photo in the manner I've witnessed. In the Detroit Free Press Monday, the the Off Beat column penned by Krista Jahnke was titled "So Michael Phelps Is Human After All". Nationally-syndicated radioman Jim Rome was quoted as saying with a DUI on his slate already, he's not human, he's building a body of work. Today's edition of The Detroit News featured columnist Bob Wojnowski pleading for calm and reason in relation to the mistake Phelps made.

It makes me remember Detroit Southwestern High grad Jalen Rose being arrested during his first year at Michigan (1992-93) for playing video games in a Detroit house that doubled as a drug den. I was on the desk at The Ann Arbor News on the Saturday night a story came hurdling down the wire almost a year after the actual arrest just minutes before the morning edition's 1:00 am deadline. As you can imagine, we held production and made room for the story on the front page above the fold. We told ourselves we were being responsible journalists. Today I look back and cringe.

Rose wasn't smoking, wasn't selling and wasn't buying. He was playing video games, but he played a brash, in-your-face style of basketball. Rose played the 'City Game', and White America wasn't ready for Rose's style of talk-you-down, break-you-down, drive you down on your ass and shout you down the court while wearing shorts with a foot more material than any player in America. After Mick McCabe, the Detroit Free Press prep writer, discovered and published news of the October 4, 1992 arrest on March 9, 1993, six months after it happened, Rose was crucified for weeks and painted as a ghetto gangbanger. Fans and pundits alike called for his suspension. Wire services crackled with updates.

Phelps was inhaling from a glass stanchion the size of an exhaust pipe from a certified used Mini Cooper. He admitted to it. America's response? The mainstream media and sponsors alike call him human.

For the record, I have no problem with Phelps. I think the public backlash is punishment enough, and any prosecuting attorney willing to prosecute this as a criminal offense needs to just open a Facebook page like the rest of us if he really needs the attention that bad.

If nothing else, I hope you enjoy reading the paper in the morning all the more with eyes wide open.

~T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries. Cameron's 2nd title, Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries, is due in August this year!