Stephen Tuttle | Author
Giving Thanks
Nov. 30, 2019
Thanksgiving is the best of holidays, except maybe for some cooks. It's a time when family, friends, and oftentimes stragglers with no place else to go are all welcome.
It has the added advantages of outstanding food and no secular connections; most everybody celeb...
Read More >>
Boycotting Everything
Nov. 30, 2019
We are in an epidemic of boycotts, or at least attempted boycotts. These are bipartisan efforts, with both the left and the right mightily offended about something, offering up a long list of targets. The strategy is simple: Don't buy these products, don't shop at these stores, and don't ...
Read More >>
“Untold human suffering … ”
Nov. 16, 2019
A recent report in the publication Bioscience, signed by 11,000 scientists in several different fields from 150 countries, declared we are in a “climate emergency” and warned of “untold human suffering.” That doesn't sound good at all.
This i...
Read More >>
Taking Orders from a Fool
Nov. 9, 2019
What happened to those Trump generals? And where were their defenders?
Our presidents seem to have an affinity for the military. Uniformed officers, with chests bristling with ribbons, make for a most excellent photo-op. It's a physical manifestation of the real po...
Read More >>
More and Less
Oct. 26, 2019
As Washington goes from bizarre to surreal, here at home our local DDA wants more than it was promised, and a local school board gave us less than we deserved.
Legislation enacted in 1975 permitted the creation of downtown development authorities (DDA) to correct a...
Read More >>
"It is Illegal ... "
Oct. 19, 2019
In June of this year, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News interviewed President Donald Trump. He asked the president, among many other things, if he would notify the FBI if a foreign government gave him negative information about a political opponent. Trump said he'd want to see the informa...
Read More >>
Make the Investment
Oct. 5, 2019
Democratic presidential candidates touting universal pre-kindergarten and free tuition to state colleges and universities might be on to something. Now, if we could just get the politicians and bureaucrats to be equally interested in K–12 public education.
Fun...
Read More >>
Into the Abyss
Sept. 28, 2019
We're sending troops to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This is a response to Iran's shoot-down of an American surveillance drone and, more recently, their alleged attack on a Saudi oil refinery and depot.
The troops are an effort to establis...
Read More >>
Fire!
Sept. 21, 2019
October 8, 1871, was a very bad day for fires in the United States. Sept. 14, 2019 Quite a mouthful, otherwise known as PFAS. Now the trick is to actually keep them out of our mouths. Aug. 31, 2019 The Michigan Legislature is currently contemplating competing bills regarding short-term rentals. One of them might not be such a good idea. Supported by the real estate industry, companies like Airbnb, and private property rights advocates, the first would prohibit zoning ordinan...
Read More >>
Aug. 24, 2019 Numbers are funny things. They can illuminate or deceive, confirm or deny, prove or disprove. Often, they mean little without accompanying context, and these days, we all add our own context. Aug. 17, 2019 The quadrennial invasion of presidential candidates is now fully upon Iowa. It's the Democrats this year, nearly two dozen strong, and all of them in a hurry; there is much to do. Aug. 10, 2019 One headline said the nation was “shocked”; another, we were “stunned.” If true, why? Mass shootings have happened for so long and with such regularity we shouldn't even be mildly surprised. Another week, another massacre. Aug. 3, 2019 Some cities and states have accepted, and are responding to, climate change realities, while the federal government continues to ignore them. Or worse. July 27, 2019 Lake Ann, Maple City, and Empire have each recently rejected efforts to purchase land by a company associated with Dollar General stores. Fair enough; communities have the right to establish their own zoning and exercise control over their future. July 20, 2019 This isn't your grandfather's Republican Party or Robert Griffin's or William Milliken's, or Ronald Reagan's. It is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Donald Trump. July 13, 2019 The United States Women's National Team (USWNT) just won the World Cup, the world championship of soccer. There was a chance they wouldn't play at all. July 6, 2019 We haven't much gotten along with Iran since they had their revolution, sent our buddy the shah scurrying into exile, and kidnapped 52 Americans, all in 1979. June 29, 2019 What most of us think about the American Revolution seems to be this: The British overtaxed the colonies, we threw some tea into Boston Harbor, we declared our independence, went to war, won, wrote the Constitution and became a new country.
At the end of an unusually hot and dry summer, railroad workers clearing brush outside of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, accidentally set a fire that quickly turned into a wind-aided conflagration.
Perflouroalkyl and Polyflouroalky Substances
PFAS, first developed in the 1940s, is not a single thing but a massive family of man-made chemicals — nearly 4,700 of them now, according to the Environmental Prot...
Read More >>
A Cautionary Tale
Numbers
When President Trump, who often makes up his own numbers, ran for preside...
Read More >>
Shadow Grasping
The Iowa caucuses, frighteningly, are less than six months away. And no Democratic candidat...
Read More >>
40 Every Day
It has happened at...
Read More >>
Time Growing Shorter
Traverse City is making a significant commitment to solar power. Berkeley, California, is moving away from natural...
Read More >>
Of Dollars, Dregs, and Decks
It's the snobbishn...
Read More >>
Leadership Lost
That's a shame, because Republicans are now part and parcel of his fear-mongering, race-baiting ignora...
Read More >>
Apples to Apples
As the national debate about pay equity between men and women continues to bubble along, our soccer program for wo...
Read More >>
Too High a Price
Their nonstop, hateful rhetoric toward Israel and their war with Iraq — we were on Iraq's side that ...
Read More >>
A Radical Idea
Not exactly.
Read More >>