Opinion
What About the Girls?
Guest Opinion
By Isiah Smith, Jr. | Aug. 16, 2025
*Sensitive Content: This column includes a discussion of sexual assault. In a hundred years, I shall never forget that 13-year-old child’s face, how her small, undeveloped body shrank as if disappearing into herself. She was 13 and a legally mandated participant in an adolescent group therapy session I led, along with my co-therapist, Angela, when I worked at South Dade Mental Health in Homestead, Florida. Little did we know the horrible trauma … Read More >>
Give Where You Live, Support Where You Summer
Guest Opinion
By Mercedes Bowyer | Aug. 16, 2025
As early as the late 1800s, northwest Michigan was a vacation destination. The expansion of steamship routes across the Great Lakes and the rise of passenger railroads made the region more accessible to travelers from cities like Chicago and Detroit and even as far as St. Louis. Wealthy industrialists and middle-class families alike were drawn to the area’s cool breezes, dense forests, and pristine lakeshores, seeking refuge from the sweltering heat and … Read More >>
Going Backward
Spectator
By Stephen Tuttle | Aug. 16, 2025
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth isn't making our military great again but he is making it about a century old. How? No women leaders, no men of color as leaders, no hesitancy to honor traitorous generals who took up arms against this country, no room for service members whose only offense was trying to be who they are... going backward in time and practice is a Hegseth specialty. Who was replaced? Chief … Read More >>
No Space in TC for Teenagers
Guest Opinion
By Tess Tarchak-Hiss | Aug. 9, 2025
Senior summer is supposed to be cosmic in the scheme of the Midwest experience: June through August is a fresh taste of freedom for the young, licensed, and lively. The millisecond final exams end, teenagers sprint to their souped-up trucks to get a start on their superlative summers. They’re going to achieve the insane and live up to the “last night was a movie” mentality. Or, more accurately, they’re going to go … Read More >>
Finding Comfort in Dodge City
Opinion Columnist
By Mary Keyes Rogers | Aug. 9, 2025
Am I the only person who didn’t realize that “Get the heck out of Dodge” is a Gunsmoke reference? I had no idea. As a girly-girl when I was a kid, westerns were not my thing at all. Unbeknownst to me, the TV show ran for 22 seasons on CBS, with 635 episodes originally airing between 1955 and 1975. I guess somebody was watching. Now, here I am, 75 years after the … Read More >>
Nothing Will Change
Spectator
By Stephen Tuttle | Aug. 9, 2025
On July 28, a man entered a building on Park Avenue in New York City and shot three people to death before killing himself. The same day, a man opened fire at a casino in Reno, Nevada, killing one and injuring a second person. On July 29, a shooting at a park in Conway, Arkansas, killed two and injured nine others. That shooter is still at large. On August 1, a shooting … Read More >>
What Do We Say When It Happens Here?
Editor's Note
By Jillian Manning | Aug. 2, 2025
We always think it won’t happen here. At least we hope it won’t. We hope that pain and fear won’t strike our communities, that we’ll be immune from the violence we see in other parts of the state, country, or world. But on Saturday, July 26, it did happen here. A man stabbed 11 people ranging in age from 29 to 84 years old in the Traverse City Walmart, leaving six in … Read More >>
Fringe, Fascism, and the Future
Guest Opinion
By Sam Inglot | Aug. 2, 2025
Over 10 years ago, I quietly attended an event called something to the effect of “The Michigan Tea Party Powwow” at a casino in Mount Pleasant. I remember it was cold outside, and inside I threw a few bucks in the slots when the event was over, which took place in an unmemorable conference area off the main floor. But lately, I’ve been remembering that event more for what it foretold about … Read More >>
Third Party Futility
Spectator
By Stephen Tuttle | Aug. 2, 2025
Elon Musk says he wants to start a third political party. We’ll take a short break here until you stop giggling. The U.S. has been basically a two-party system since the mid 1850s, though some would claim we’ve been a two-party system since 1796 when John Adams—a member of the Federalist Party, which ultimately morphed into the Republican Party—became president. First, some very brief history. George Washington had no party affiliation and … Read More >>
More Storms, Less Warning
Spectator
By Stephen Tuttle | July 26, 2025
The Big Beautiful Bill is big and it is a bill, but there is little in it or about it that is beautiful. Those of us who are not corporations or billionaires won’t find much in the legislation that will do anything but make our lives more challenging. Let’s see…it takes school lunches out of the mouths of low income kids; strips away Medicaid coverage for most caretakers and creates a red … Read More >>
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