Robert Downes

Random Thoughts Robert Downes We‘ll miss Anne Stanton
At Anne Stanton’s farewell luncheon last week, we took some time to think back on some of the amazing stories she’s written during her seven years at Northern Express.
My personal favorite was “The Wolfman of Brethren,” in which Anne wrote of John Patrick Sutherland, who died in a hail of bullets from overzealous police officers over the attempted micro-chipping of his 14 wolf dogs in September of 2005. That story won a Michigan Press Association award in 2006.

Features Robert Downes Becky Thatcher: Best Jeweler is also a World Traveler
By Robert Downes
Business has literally been an adventure for Becky Thatcher, who has roamed the world in search of gemstones and pearls which drape the counters of her jewelry stores around the region.
It’s this dedication to tracking down the best of the best -- even going to the far side of the world -- that earned Becky honors as “best jeweler” in Leelanau County.
Creating dazzling works of art in jewelry has been a lifelong quest.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes American Tsunami
Over the past four years, America has been swept up in its own economic
tsunami which has arguably been as devastating to our unemployed citizens
as the wreck of Japan.
Millions of jobs have been washed from our shores, but unfortunately, the
rescue has been largely impeded by ideologues on the right who are
presently in the driver’s seat in Congress. You know, the same folks who
argued that General Motors should be allowed to fail along with the
nation’s banks, forgetting that when major institutions go under, they
take us along with them.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Wild Kingdom
What’s the latest on Michigan’s wild hog crisis? Glad you asked.
Wild hogs were recently classified as an “invasive, exotic and prohibited
species” by the DNR. Outgoing director Rebecca Humphries signed the order
in December and it goes into effect on July 8, giving game ranches and
wild hog breeders time to give porky the boot. Over the years, these
outfits have allowed dangerous variants of the Russian boar to escape into
the wild, creating a virtual hog bomb.

Features Robert Downes The Indians in Winter:vHow they survived -- and thrived -- in a frozen land
By Robert Downes
Have you ever wondered how the Indians of Northern Michigan lived through
the cruel, cold winter months just a few generations ago?
Today, we depend on natural gas, forced-air furnaces, electric blankets,
heated cars and expensive down jackets… and still we complain of the cold
and yearn for Florida.

Books Robert Downes 1,000 Mile Hike: Loreen Niewenhuis’s walk around Lake Michigan
By Robert Downes
Loreen Niewenhuis doesn’t have much of a background as an adventurer or a
long-distance hiker, but nonetheless, in 2009 she completed a walk around
the entire circumference of Lake Michigan.
Today, the 45-year-old author from Battle Creek is on a new adventure,
embarking on a tour in support of her new book, “A 1,000-Mile Walk on the
Beach,” published by Crickhollow Books, with stops at bookstores
throughout Northern Michigan.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes To gather no moss
Keith Richards’ new autobiography, Life, offers some insight into what
youth is capable of when the fires of a dream are lit.
“The Rolling Stones spent the first year of their life hanging places,
stealing food and rehearsing,” he writes of their early days.
It doesn’t sound like an auspicious beginning, but Richards adds that he,
Mick Jagger and fellow guitarist Brian Jones spent that entire year
dissecting the songs of American blues musicians, breaking down their
chords, leads, harmonica riffs and vocal nuances in minute detail.
“We moved in in the summer of 1962 and lived there for a year through the
coldest winter since 1740,” he writes of their flat in London, which was
“truly disgusting.”

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Another Job Terminator
Did anyone feel a chill run down their spine last week when the IBM computer Watson obliterated “Jeopardy” champs Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in a stunt that has profound ramifications for the human race?
No, not some kind of SkyNet “rise of the machines” fantasy with Terminators running amok. The potential damage of Watson and his ilk is to eliminate millions of jobs in the name of “progress” and “productivity.”
Some background: several years ago, IBM set out to create a computer that could process all of the foibles of human speech: our slang, double-entendres, jokes, you name it, with the test being how well this critter would do on “Jeopardy.” They created a “question answering machine” composed of 400 mainframe computers containing 3,000 computer cores and 15 trillion bytes of memory.

Features Robert Downes A LIFE IN Balance: Libby Robold’s path to happiness
By Robert Downes
You can’t help but notice that Libby Robold has that sense of inner glow
that signals not just a state of contentment, but also an excitement about
what life has yet to offer.

Letters Robert Downes A Home Buyer‘s Paradise... Lost?
Here in the Midwest, we live in a home-buyer’s paradise compared to much of the rest of the world. Realtor Jack Lane (who hosts a real estate show on WTCM-AM) notes that the median price for a home in Grand Traverse County in 2010 was $145,000. The region’s high is Leelanau County, where the median price was $205,000 last year. In Kalkaska County, however, the median price was just $65,000. The median price for a home in Petoskey is reportedly $169,000.
By contrast, the median price for a home in San Diego County last year was $305,000. It was $225,000 in Denver and $205,549 in Fort Lauderdale.
So we’ve got some bargains in Northern Michigan (Leelanau County notwithstanding) and you’d think there would be something of a land rush on here in the region.
What’s holding people back?
“History will show you that most people will wait and wait, hesitant to act before the entire crowd acts,” Lane says. “Therefore, not until interest rates begin to rise and headlines begin to say ‘Housing recovers!’ will you see the market kick back to the levels of ten years ago. Most buyers need ‘the psychological permission’ of the masses. The really smart people are either already wading into the water or are donning their hip-waders as you’re reading this.”

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Egypt: Too many people and not enough resources
I’s been largely unsaid in the news, but the sight of 50,000 protesters scrambling through the heat and dust of Tahrir Square in Cairo sums up that ill country’s problems in a nutshell:
“Hot, flat and crowded,” to paraphrase the bestselling book by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. That’s Egypt’s real problem -- not just the oppressive government of Hosni Mubarak, which is a symptom of a place that has a population which is far beyond reason.
That’s the Middle East’s problem in general in the strip of 13 desert countries ranging from Morocco in the west to Iran in the east. Many of these countries have virtually no resources. But people? They’ve got loads of angry, restless, frustrated people held down by their medieval religion and despotic leaders.
Consider that virtually all of “Egypt” occupies a strip of green only a few miles wide along 600 miles of the Nile -- no different than during the kingdoms of the Pharaohs dating back 4,000 years. A few steps beyond this thin ribbon of green lies a desert as bleak and lifeless as Death Valley.

Features Robert Downes Shoes & Snacks for Backpacks blends family fun with a great cause
Even though the next school year is still seven months away, a small army of volunteers will be ringing the school bells of a good cause at a Shoes & Snacks for Backpacks fundraiser this Saturday.
The fundraiser will combine a family fun snowshoe event with food and beverage treats at the Grand Traverse Commons in Traverse City from 1-5 p.m. The idea is to raise funds to fill backpacks with much-needed school supplies in the coming year.
“This year we will pass the 10,000 milestone of backpacks donated for kids in need since the project’s inception in 2004,” says Nancy Thornton, a Kingsley resident and marketing professional who serves president of the Rotary Club of Traverse Bay Sunrise. “We expect to distribute approximately 1,300 backpacks in 2011, and will also distribute 1,100 books as part of the project.”

Music Robert Downes Great Indoor Folk Festival
A new day is dawning for the Great Indoor Folk Festival this year, as
the family-friendly event moves to the Sunday before Valentine’s Day.
That’s Sunday, Feb. 13, to be exact, with more than 50 musicians set
to perform in the sprawling Mercado  shopping area of Building 50 at
the Grand Traverse Commons in Traverse City.  If attendance matches
that of years past, the third annual event is expected to draw as many
as 1,000 people throughout the day.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Turning a Page 1/24/11
Congratulations to the Traverse City Record-Eagle, which has started
charging for a portion of its local online content. It’s about time,
and anyone who cares about the fate of newspapers in America should
hope this trend continues.

Art Robert Downes Digital Art at the Dennos: Korean artist Lee nam Lee brings classic paintings to life 1/17/11
Blending digital technology with classic paintings of the East and West is the challenge of Lee nam Lee, whose exhibition “A Conversation Between Monet and Sochi” will run at the Dennos Museum Center through March 27.
A sculptor by background and a master of digital technology, Lee nam Lee brings wall-sized paintings to life, even to the point of interacting with other paintings.
In the exhibit’s main work, a waterscape painting by French impressionist Claude Monet (1840-1926) is projected side-by-side with a water scene by Korean artist Sochi (1803-1893) on a 40-foot-wide wall. Other than their shared use of water, the paintings are completely different in style. Yet by using digital technology, Lee nam induces the paintings to move and interact.