Published: 10/6/2010
When the wimps running the British government sold out Czechoslovakia to Hitler, Winston Churchill, not yet in power, reportedly growled that they had been faced with a choice between war and shame. "They've chosen shame. They'll get war later." Last week, the Michigan Legislature did mu...[MORE]
Published: 9/29/2010
Here's what puzzles me most about the Tea Party movement, as well as everyone else who says they want serious change in this state. This fall, they've got a tremendous opportunity to do so — right there for the taking. And yet, they show no interest. Maybe that's because they — and mayb...[MORE]
Published: 9/22/2010
State Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop would have been regarded as an honest politician by at least one member of Abraham Lincoln's cabinet. Secretary of War Simon Cameron is now mostly remembered for saying, "an honest politician is one who, when he is bought, stays bought." Cameron him...[MORE]
Published: 9/15/2010
More than a half-century ago, the Democrats had a candidate who in some ways was sort of a white Barack Obama. His name was Adlai Stevenson. He was a brilliant speechmaker, also from Illinois, smart, sane and witty. Once, an adoring woman told him that all the thinking people in the country were be...[MORE]
Published: 9/8/2010
So how many people does Detroit really have? The U.S. Census bureau counted us all on April 1, except for the millions they had to spend time and money hunting down afterward. We'll learn how many people each state has around Christmas. But it will be next April before we get detailed population da...[MORE]
Published: 9/1/2010
Imagine your little boy or girl gets interested in the legal system and decides he or she would like to be a judge someday. Wouldn't that just be a parent's dream? What, after all, could be a better or more important job than applying the laws and helping people understand them? It's also ever so m...[MORE]
Published: 8/25/2010
"... It is important to recognize that ... the right to keep and bear arms is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for any purpose." —Guess who OK, now — which American-hating creep would write something as anti-Second Amendment as t...[MORE]
Published: 8/18/2010
"I believe that the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it." —President Barack Obama, 2009 Last week was a good one for General Motors. Think about that sentence. As recently as December 2008, it seemed very possible that nobody would ever be able to write t...[MORE]
Published: 8/11/2010
Types: News, Politics, Election
To my surprise, I was happy with the way the primary election turned out, even though one of the candidates I recommended didn't win. Speaker of the House Andy Dillon had the better credentials. He was the only one of all the candidates to take a firm position supporting the Detroit International ...[MORE]
Published: 8/4/2010
Types: News, Politics, Election
By the time you are reading this, you'll know who the major party nominees for governor are in our battered state of Michigan. But the question is — do you care? Sadly, for far too many of us, the answer seems to be ... not much. That's sort of bizarre, given that unemployment has been abysm...[MORE]
Published: 7/28/2010
Types: News, Politics, Election
COPPER HARBOR — Go vote on Tuesday, damn it. There may be no more important election in Michigan history than this year's. We — those of us who bother to vote, that is — will choose a new governor and a mostly new Legislature. That's the case every few years. But this one comes at...[MORE]
Published: 7/21/2010
Thirty years ago, there was hope Detroit was poised for a comeback. The population had fallen, but at 1,203,339 people, we were still the nation's sixth largest city. Times were tough, but there was hope. Chrysler had loan guarantees from the government and was about to introduce the K-car, the vehi...[MORE]
Published: 7/14/2010
Types: News, Government
You can, and should, hate war with a passion. The Vietnam War, in my opinion, did more to ruin this nation than any single event in history. The war in Iraq, which we were lied into, not ready for, and then badly botched, is now widely acknowledged to have been a criminal mess from start to a finis...[MORE]
Published: 7/7/2010
Kurt Hesse is about as purebred a Detroiter as you can find these days. He was born here, grew up here, and still works for the company his granddad founded in 1888 — Detroit Cornice and Slate. He's a 47-year-old businessman who for years has been trying to help his community and make a livin...[MORE]
Published: 6/30/2010
Here's what's wrong with journalism in the Age of the Internet: Last week, reports surfaced that a 54-year-old masseuse claimed that Al Gore tried to rape her in a hotel room in Portland, Ore., nearly four years ago. Not last week, four years ago. What is this woman's name? Well, she doesn't want t...[MORE]
Published: 6/23/2010
Timothy Duperron, chief operating officer for Focus: Hope, is a more-than-decent guy who worked for the Ford Motor Co. for decades, starting at the bottom and rising into management. He was still on the lower rungs and hadn't yet earned a college degree when he was given an electrician's apprentice ...[MORE]
Published: 6/16/2010
Types: News, Government
Everyone who knows anything about economics knows that Michigan's only hope for the future is a better-educated workforce. Our old-fashioned muscle-based, assembly-line economy is gone. There will be virtually no more high-paying jobs for unskilled high school graduates, ever, and no hope for dropo...[MORE]
Published: 6/9/2010
Helen Thomas has been a journalism legend for decades, the tiny lady in red who started covering the White House when John F. Kennedy became president, and has been there ever since, making most of us look lazy, blazing a trail for women. She's traveled the world, and asked tough questions of 10 pr...[MORE]
Published: 6/2/2010
Michigan's economic future is at stake right now, in the state Senate. If you think times are bad, imagine what they'd be without the billions in trade that move across the Detroit River every year. The vast majority of it moves across the Ambassador Bridge, which was built in 1929, is wearing out,...[MORE]
Published: 5/26/2010
Types: News, Environmental
Old Teddy Roosevelt oughta be angrily looking down and shaking his fist at those who run his Republican Party today. Bill Milliken is sitting up in Traverse City, presumably shaking his head. Once upon a time, Republicans like these two men were leaders in the conservation and environmental movemen...[MORE]
Published: 5/19/2010
That's right. Harass the bastards first, of course. Illegal immigrants have ruined this country. They took all our jobs and wrecked the auto industry and are why I have bad teeth. No doubt about it. Now, while I agree heartily with those sentiments, they aren't originally mine; they are based on so...[MORE]
Published: 5/12/2010
They were white and black, heavy and thin, men and women. They wore flats and heels; cordovans and cowboy boots; business suits, bomber jackets, and stained and dirty sweatshirts. All stood calmly and peacefully in a long line snaking around the stadium. Everyone knew who they were there for, and w...[MORE]
Published: 5/5/2010
Everyone knows that Detroit still has the largest public school system in Michigan, even if students have been fleeing it in droves. But what's the second-largest system? Grand Rapids? Lansing? Not even close. The answer is Macomb County's Utica Community Schools, which has an astonishing 29,283 st...[MORE]
Published: 4/28/2010
For Detroit, You Don't Know Jack, the Kevorkian movie that was first aired by HBO last Saturday was not just a movie. It was a major happening, one especially welcome after the city had been savaged once again by Dateline NBC just days before. Indeed, two days before the saga of Jack the Dripper h...[MORE]
Published: 4/21/2010
Things got so bad for Matty Moroun last week that the state's oldest amphibian had to send his normally invisible wife, Nora, out to try to defend him. Looking a trifle haggard, she clearly feared she and Manuel might be down to their last billion or so. "Is this the end of the American dream?...[MORE]
Published: 4/14/2010
Late last week, hundreds of ignorant Tea Party morons were as ecstatic as pigs in a Dumpster full of stale doughnuts. Bart Stupak, the Michigan congressman who cast a difficult vote to make health care reform reality, was stepping down! "That'll show 'em!" the know-nothings cried. How dar...[MORE]
Published: 4/7/2010
Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball. —French-born historian Jacques Barzun Baseball has the most intense historical consciousness and historical pretension of any sport ... yet it readily abandons tradition for commercial advantage. —Gerald Ear...[MORE]
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