Stephen Tuttle | Author

Indoctrinating Schoolchildren

June 29, 2024

The Louisiana Legislature, with both feet firmly planted in the past, has mandated that every public K-12 school, community college, and university shall prominently display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. They claim it is “a foundational document of our country.”

Justifiable Recognition

June 22, 2024

What did Socrates, Michelangelo, Emily Dickinson, Alexander the Great, Leonardo da Vinci, Richard the Lionheart, and Joan of Arc all have in common? They all may have been gay. (At least as historians can best guess.)

This comes to mind as we near the end of Pride Month, first offic… Read More >>

The Downtown Debate

June 15, 2024

In 1978, Traverse City established a Downtown Development Authority (DDA) in accordance with a Michigan statute passed in 1975. The DDA is a component of the city government and is primarily financed by tax increment financing (TIF) districts, in which baseline property tax values are estab… Read More >>

Rule of Law for Everyone

June 8, 2024

Republican Larry Hogan is the former governor of Maryland now running for the U.S. Senate. Commenting on the Donald Trump trial, he asked Americans of all stripes to “... respect the verdict and the legal process... We must reaffirm what made this nation great: the rule of law.”… Read More >>

Courting Trouble

June 1, 2024

There is something called the International Criminal Court (ICC) located in The Hague in the Netherlands. It was organized by the Rome Statute in 1998 for the purpose of being an independent investigatory and prosecutorial body for what is considered the worst state-sponsored behavior; war … Read More >>

Many Presidential Options

May 25, 2024

Quick now: What do Chase Oliver, Randall Terry, Claudia De la Cruz, Peter Sonski, Michael Wood, Bill Stodden, Joseph Kishore, Rachelle Fruit, Tom Ross, and Paul Noel Fiorino all have in common? No clue?

What if we add Cornel West and Jill Stein? No? Then let’s add Robert Kenne… Read More >>

Good News, Bad News

May 18, 2024

There is good news and not such good news on the climate front. 2023 was the planet’s hottest since official records started being kept in 1850, and it’s not getting any cooler; locations in both Texas and Arizona have already recorded temperatures over 100 degrees this year, a … Read More >>

Protesting the Wrong Target

May 11, 2024

American college campuses have been a protest in search of a cause for a very long time. It is nearly a coming-of-age tradition.

Some would place the start of college campus protests at the “Free Speech Movement” at the University of California, Berkeley in the mid-1960s… Read More >>

A Long Way to Go to Renewable

May 4, 2024

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, we now get almost 20 percent of our electricity generation from renewable sources, about twice what we were generating just two decades ago. But we are still getting at least 60 percent of our electrical power from fossil fuel sources… Read More >>

Resistance from Within

April 27, 2024

It must be difficult to lead when those you hope will follow demand you agree with them 100 percent of the time.

That’s the predicament Speaker of the House Mike Johnson finds himself in after having had the temerity to usher through the House a bill providing, among other thi… Read More >>

The Real Fraud

April 20, 2024

We know Donald Trump is going to continue spouting his delusions about the results of the 2020 presidential election because those lies appear to be foundational to his 2024 campaign. It’s more distressing that his followers continue to believe that which has been proven as untrue ove… Read More >>

Crossing Bridges

April 13, 2024

Is that bridge you’re about to cross safe? Are you sure?

This comes to mind as salvage crews try to clear the remains of the collapsed Francis Scott Key bridge that spans the entrance to Baltimore harbor. Of course, the bridge you’re on probably does not have a 984-foot-… Read More >>

Congress Shall Make No Law

April 6, 2024

The misinformation is ramping up as the next election approaches, and that means religious bigotry can’t be far behind, complete with nonsense about this being a “Christian nation.”

A former president, in what has to be one of the tackier moments in modern American… Read More >>

Taxing Times

March 23, 2024

Have you filed your tax returns yet? No? The deadline for the annual unpleasantness approaches rapidly.

Our tax code can be a nightmarish morass of nearly inexplicable rules and regulations. It is so big the Government Printing Office has to produce it in two volumes; one of 1,404 p… Read More >>

Encyclopedias of Women's Contributions

March 16, 2024

"Women's history is women's right—an essential, indispensable heritage from which we can draw pride, comfort, courage, and long-range vision."

Gerda Lerner, a founding member of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and one of the first to seriously study women&rs… Read More >>

A Clearer Picture

March 9, 2024

It shouldn't have been a surprise to those paying attention. Lack of public support and under-utilization of already existing parking decks have doomed the third downtown Traverse City parking deck plans, at least temporarily.

Downsizing the number of parking spaces was the first st… Read More >>

Playing Catch Up with Climate

March 2, 2024

Last year was yet another one for the weather record books. (This seems more like an annual event now than some sort of anomalous outlier.)

According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2023 was the hottest year globally on record. Each individual month … Read More >>

Patriarchy and Racism?

Feb. 24, 2024

Public school history teachers in some states have to be especially careful these days. Prohibitions now exist, or have been proposed, limiting how teachers can discuss race or gender and how both impacted our founding history.

Montana, South Dakota, Florida, Georgia, Utah, and Alab… Read More >>

A Not So Grand Old Party

Feb. 17, 2024

A balanced budget. A strong national defense. Smaller, less intrusive government. Unambiguous anti-communism. Near isolationist foreign policy.

Those used to be the calling cards of politicians—and their supporters—calling themselves “conservatives.” Their lo… Read More >>

Downtown, Dams, Businesses, and Buses

Feb. 10, 2024

Let’s see what’s up locally.

Traverse City’s Downtown Development Authority (DDA) is in search of a new executive director, Jean Derenzy having submitted her resignation. Derenzy was a strong steward of the DDA and a powerful advocate for downtown Traverse City, th… Read More >>