Stephen Tuttle | Author

Experiments in the City

Oct. 1, 2022

Lawsuits involving Traverse City’s experimental fish pass project and restrictions on building heights have made their way to the state appeals court. Both involve appeals to decisions made by 13th Circuit Court judge Thomas Power. Power ruled the fish pass amounted to giving away cit… Read More >>

A Tradition of Ignorance and Intolerance

Sept. 24, 2022

In 1637, Thomas Morton wrote a book called New English Canaan, a satirical put-down of Puritans and their customs. Among other things, Morton compared them to crustaceans, and the Puritans, a cranky lot to begin with, promptly banned the book.

They followed that by banning John Elio… Read More >>

Midterm Surprises

Sept. 17, 2022

Midterm elections are always a little sketchy; without a presidential race, turnout is reduced and surprises often abound. Statistically, that first midterm for a new president’s party has not been good at all.

Going all the way back to Harry Truman’s presidency, the par… Read More >>

He Is Us

Sept. 10, 2022

So, you woke up this morning in your cozy house, condo, or apartment courtesy of some utility company probably burning fossil fuels to generate power. Trees were cut down, transported, and milled to create the lumber that likely framed your residence. The copper for the wiring was mined, tr… Read More >>

Classrooms and Buses

Sept. 3, 2022

According to a recent article in The Washington Post, we are facing a “catastrophic” teacher shortage. They report that some schools in Texas are going to a four-day school week, some in Florida are hiring veterans with no teaching training or experience, and some in Ar… Read More >>

More of the Same

Aug. 27, 2022

A Republican candidate for Congress in western New York says Attorney General Merrick Garland should be executed. (He subsequently claimed he was just being facetious.) A Republican candidate for the Florida House says he will introduce legislation making it legal to shoot federal agents fr… Read More >>

Closer to Home

Aug. 20, 2022

For this week: a local grab bag of news, projects, and plans.

Undeterred by a pair of convincing thumpings at the polls, Traverse City’s tall building advocates are at it again.

First they circulated petitions in an effort to repeal the charter requirements brought abo… Read More >>

Electric Everything

Aug. 13, 2022

Our best environmentally-friendly intentions have outstripped our ability to implement them. The push for electric everything is the best example.

New York City, Berkeley, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, and New Jersey, among other locales, have, or soon will, outlaw the use of natu… Read More >>

Deep Trouble

Aug. 6, 2022

There are elected representatives and others determined to change the very nature of our country and not in a good way. We should be far more concerned than we appear to be.

Out in Colorado, U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert is Example One of this incredibly dangerous trend. As rep… Read More >>

Want to Avoid the “Fraud”? Just Don’t Vote

July 30, 2022

The congressional hearings on the Jan. 6 attempted coup have been even more distressing than we imagined because the evidence uncovered has been more offensive than we imagined.

Of course, this all started with Donald Trump’s outrageous lies about the results of the 2020 elect… Read More >>

Marching Backward

July 23, 2022

Depending on your beliefs, this has either been the greatest session in U.S. Supreme Court history or a nightmare from which we will not soon recover.

Let’s review highlights of what they’ve done and look at a sample of what their next session promises. (Full credit to M… Read More >>

A Shameful Abdication

July 16, 2022

After a streak of especially nice weather in northern Michigan, it might be a good time for our semi-regular check on how other states are doing. As it turns out, not that well.

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (E… Read More >>

Infecting Everything

July 9, 2022

A contagion of political foolishness and extremism now infects all corners of the country.

Down in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis is using a compliant legislature—some would say downright ovine—to both install his ideology as law and to exact retribution in a way that probab… Read More >>

Protecting What We Have Left

July 2, 2022

We typically celebrate the Fourth of July with cookouts and fireworks, another day off work without much appreciation for why.

The Declaration of Independence, written mostly by Thomas Jefferson over the course of three weeks, isn’t so much an eloquent plea for freedom from op… Read More >>

No Cars and No Kids

June 25, 2022

Traverse City is looking to develop surface parking lots whenever practical or possible. There is no question those surface lots occupy incredibly valuable space that might be more productively used for other purposes. Such a purpose has been found, we’re told, on what is now Lot O on… Read More >>

The Furthest from Reality

June 18, 2022

Let’s check in on some Michigan politics at the top of the ticket.

The Democrat side is pretty much set with Governor Gretchen Whitmer as the candidate. Her road to reelection is likely to be bumpy given all that has happened in her tenure, including much over which she had no… Read More >>

A Lot Worse

June 11, 2022

The supply chain is something most of us hadn’t much considered until the various links started breaking. Now, that same broken chain is impacting almost every product we use or consume. In some instances, that impact can be life threatening for individuals and a national security iss… Read More >>

More Important than Life

June 4, 2022

Another day, another massacre of children, another night of parents lying sleepless, eyes wide open, minds racing, hearts irreparably broken.

When not slaughtering children in their classrooms, we slaughter shoppers in a grocery store; or worshipers in a church or mosque or synagogu… Read More >>

A Conspiracy of Ignorance

May 28, 2022

Some people, especially politicians, search and search until they find, or create, a conspiracy on which to blame their woes. If they’re lucky, it might even generate contributions and votes without the need for any kind of actual policy.

Which brings us to something called th… Read More >>

Would We Be Doing Any Better?

May 21, 2022

The question occurs as we watch Russia’s top-heavy, untested, and bloated military slog to a near standstill in their ill-conceived incursion into Ukraine. What Vladimir Putin no doubt believed would be a quick and decisive victory, bringing Ukraine back into the arms of Mother Russia… Read More >>