While Lansing dithers in getting around to putting a (hopefully) winning budget together, schools continue to struggle to find quality teachers to lead classrooms. The decisions, or lack thereof, made in the Capitol have real-world outcomes on children in Michigan’s schools.
Why is Wilbur Ross still on the public payroll?
DUBLIN – “When would you like to schedule your knee replacement surgery?” asked my American doctor before I left for Ireland. I gave him a date that works for me (I’m calling it the result of an old basketball injury, not advancing age). His office scheduled it for that date.
Words often aren’t worth much if meaningful action doesn’t follow.
The poll was up Sept. 6-13.
The 2019-20 school year is well underway and happiness abounds!
In late August, the chic French luxury brand Christian Dior debuted an ad campaign for its fragrance referencing Native Americans. A number of American Indians immediately decried the advertisement as racist.
Flowers:
Tobacco ads have been banned from TV for about 50 years. But not e-cigarette products, which can still be marketed as a “safe tobacco alternative.”
Suddenly, this summer, we found ourselves in possession of a 7-year-old boy. At times, I have felt as if he was actually possessed by a force much darker than us. Nevertheless, two months into this, we have survived, with our souls and even most precious household knickknacks intact.
We support the Michigan Department of Civil Rights Commission’s recent move when the panel sent the agency’s director packing.
Everyone loves a mystery, right? It certainly is one of my favorite genres of books to read. Oh yes, being a pastor, I do read a lot of books about the Bible and theology, but I always like to have a good mystery to read before retiring each night.
It’s curious that in a state that just voted to allow the sale of marijuana-laced cookies, candy and soda pop, and where alcoholic drinks sit on store shelves in flavors that would make Kool-Aid jealous, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is exercising extraordinary executive powers to ban flavored vapin…
Did you just get an email about your tax refund? Or maybe an email using the phrase an “electronic tax return reminder?”
There are a few things that President Donald Trump has made clear in his 32 months in office: that he likes to be at the spinning center of attention; he never admits error; facts are irrelevant; and he will bluster, thunder and threaten for days on end. In other words, Hurricane Trump and H…
This matters: One of the most powerful companies in America, a corporation controlled by conservatives, whose stores serve as de facto public squares in many small towns, is ending sales of certain short-barrel rifle and handgun ammunition. And asking customers to stop openly carrying firear…
In the post-9/11 universe, airline passengers have no choice but to subject themselves and their belongings to screening by agents of the Transportation Security Administration. Sometimes that process is intrusive; sometimes it’s even worse than that.
The 50th anniversary of the Woodstock Music Festival was observed last month. To mark the occasion, I watched two documentaries about the legendary music festival.
Flowers:
The nonprofit that administers the SAT test to 2 million students each year has axed its nascent “adversity score,” a clumsy attempt to distill the possible socioeconomic hardships and challenges of a student’s background into a single neat and tidy number.
“Those seeking to politicize these tragedies make it more difficult to address the underlying causes.” – U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga, Aug. 4
A new poll question:
Every summer, our family tries to take a trip before the kids head back to the daily grind of school. We have lived frugal lives driving cars with over 200,000 miles, keeping phones until they die, and only updating our wardrobe when mandated by changing waistlines. The one extravagance we a…
Labor Day weekend arrived with the United Auto Workers facing one of the darkest periods in its history, engulfed in an ever-growing scandal that now touches the very top ranks of the union’s leadership.
In Federalist No. 69, Alexander Hamilton outlined differences between the new U.S. government promised by the Constitution and the monarchy of Great Britain, from which the young Republic had just broken. Among them: The king or queen “may prorogue or even dissolve the Parliament,” whereas t…
I’d been in England for two years but alone in London for only a little over a month. The single room was on the third floor of an old house. It had dark blue walls, high white ceilings, a sink, a desk and a creaky bookcase with paint as chipped as my nails.
In June, The Wall Street Journal published an article titled: “A Fascinating Long Weekend in Detroit: The Essential Guide.” While the travel column certainly highlighted many of the traditional tourism destinations in the city, it also featured locations like El Moore Lodge, Hamtramck Stadiu…
Online SOS appointments work
The photos are searing. The statistics are staggering. The costs are incalculable. The need for action is clear and present.
On Friday, May 22, 1959, a series of 10 historical markers written and constructed by Dave and Dottie Seibold were unveiled in the Tri-Cities. Covering a variety of topics related to the founding and development of Grand Haven and the surrounding area, the markers were the first attempt to p…
Illegal robocalls are a scourge of modern life. Americans got nearly 5 billion such calls last month alone — even though the Federal Trade Commission and its law enforcement partners mounted a crackdown in June and the Federal Communications Commission asserted in February that it had “reall…
Although Group of Seven summits rarely produce much of value, they can generally be relied on to avoid making things worse. This past weekend’s gathering in Biarritz, France, was a notable exception. With concerns about the global economy mounting, and security and environmental challenges d…
If you are a middle-class or poor parent, the college admissions scandal may seem like a steel door closing on your child’s future. The very rich bribed their kids’ way into elite schools, preventing average Americans from the financial, professional and other opportunities available at elit…
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson campaigned on a promise that the wait in line at Secretary of State branch offices would be no longer than 30 minutes, and she had a slate of good ideas to make it happen.
Most of us, myself included, don’t like to think about the bad things in life. Like the old song, I prefer to “accentuate the positive.” Because, indeed, there are many good things that happen every day.
Spring Lake is celebrating 150 years. Sometimes when I walk though the village, I think about the historic homes and businesses, and wonder about the people behind them. With the sesquicentennial celebration just around the corner in September, I decide to investigate.
I’ve always known racism. I’ve always known bigotry. Often, they were my neighbors.
As humans, we are always seeking answers, and asking “why?” is part of our nature. In the event of any murder – especially a mass murder – we instinctively search for the motive. News anchors commonly report on whether the motive is known yet, or whether investigators are still trying to det…
Here is the final tally of our first Online Poll:
Just as President Donald Trump made his selfish political agenda paramount by pushing Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to wrongly block entry to two left-wing congresswomen, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, Tlaib has now shown her true motive in refusing to accept an invitation to visit he…
The United States is built on the backs and dreams of immigrants, people who left strife-filled homelands in the hope of a better life. It is the moral rationale that declares our collective claim to an American exceptionalism that has existed since the nation’s founding, despite periods whe…
If you are looking for a high-paying job with good benefits and job security, you might try being a Washington, D.C., lawmaker.
If anyone among us thought the fight to keep the Asian carp out of the Great Lakes was all but won, a new report out this month should put a stop to those thoughts.
Journalism is not for the faint of heart, especially in an era where the most powerful politician in the land has labeled its practitioners “enemies of the people” who produce “fake news.”
Flowers:
This morning in my social media notifications was a badge from a local news station as a “Top Commenter,” which is funny, because I spend more time reporting comments on their threads than wading into arguments with people I don’t know.
Earlier this week, the Grand Haven Tribune contained a wonderful story about a local man’s (and his family’s) journey to the creation of a family restaurant in honor of his daughter who died of adrenal failure.
In September 1796, tired of the burdens of the presidency and sick of the attacks on him by his political foes, George Washington decided not to seek a third term of office, which set a precedent until Franklin Roosevelt. With the help of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, Washington wrot…
Michigan officials are considering whether to offer driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants, and while there may be valid safety reasons for doing so, the state must also ensure the integrity of its voter rolls.
Sad, angry, grateful, hopeful
Well, here we are again. August is winding down and the back-to-school paraphernalia is everywhere you turn, like a slap in the face to snap out of summertime mode.
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