Robert Downes

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Bart, we feel your pain
There’s a pundit on TV in the early evening hours who specializes in
painting anyone in public office as a knucklehead.
Permanently saddled with a world-weary expression, he answers emails
from cynical viewers with rolling eyes, a “tch-tch,” and an exasperated
“I told ya so” before delivering the inevitable punchline about the
jerks in Washington pulling the strings of the hard-workin’ American
middle class.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Only parents can end bullying
It has taken years to sink in, but with the suicide of 15-year-old
Phoebe Prince in Massachusetts this January, we parents have finally
got the message that bullying in our schools is a deadly serious
issue.
Most of us know Phoebe’s story by now: she was a pretty girl who moved to the
United States from Ireland last fall and then suffered months of abuse
from her classmates after briefly dating a popular football player at
South Hadley High School.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Perhaps Charles Poole’s biggest “crime” was that he was an employee of
the federal government.
Poole was a 32-year-old employee of the Works Progress Administration,
an agency set up by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide jobs
for millions of unemployed Americans during the Great Depression.
One night in May, 1936, Poole was lured to a location in Dearborn by
members of a violent nightshirt group called the Black
Legion. He had been told that he was needed to round out a sandlot
baseball team as a pretext for his torture and murder.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Our annual “Best of Northern Michigan” survey produced some
interesting results in the politics department this year. Out of
approximately 75 questions, the one with the fewest responses was: Who
should
Michigan pick for governor in 2010?

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Cars 100% ‘Made in America‘ hard to find
My wife and I got quite a shock while window shopping at a local
auto dealership the other day. Ideally, we’d like to buy a car that is
at least assembled in the United States, and one that gets good
mileage at a price in the low 20’s.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes In the spring of 2005, undercover officers from the Flint Area
Narcotics Group raided a dance club called the Club What’s Next and
rounded up 117 young men and women under the pretense that they were
“frequenting a drug house.”

Dining Robert Downes ‘What’s for Dinner?’ Kathy Rymal has the answer -- in your own home
Do you long for the comfort and quality of home cooking, but don’t
have time to spend in the kitchen due to your crazy, hectic lifestyle?
Then relax, personal chef Kathy Rymal offers an in-home service that
brings healthful, imaginative meals direct from your own stove to your
table.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Getting a grip on globalization
I saw two men hitch-hiking in opposite directions on the road between
Kalkaska and Mancelona the other day. It seemed odd because you rarely
see a single hitch-hiker, let alone two within a few miles. And I’ve
noticed increasing numbers of people commuting via bicycle this
winter, grinding through heavy slush and snow, sometimes along busy
major roads. I get the feeling that these riders aren’t devotees of
the bicycling lifestyle, but rather, evidence of America’s declining
standard of living under globalization.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Off with their heads...?
In 1649, King Charles I placed his head on a chopping block in London and
had it removed “in one clean stroke” of a broadaxe.
Charles had made the mistake of becoming too big of a pain in the neck for
his subjects (pun intended). In addition to demanding more revenues from
Parliament under the notion that he was divinely ordained, he also
inflicted immense suffering on his people by embarking on two civil wars;
not to mention a great deal of religious meddling at a time when that
resulted in rivers of blood.

Features Robert Downes On a Roll: A couple discovers the romance of bicycling Europe
By Robert Downes
How do you combine romance with the spirit of adventure? For Casey
Stanton, 23, and Kristen Clauder, 22, it involved taking the trip of a
lifetime, having just finished a four-month bicycle tour of southern
Europe.

Features Robert Downes New Life’ for Your Home: Jill LeClair aims to reuse, redesign & redefine
By Robert Downes
A gift for creativity and an eye for design have served Jonelle “Jill”
LeClair well in recent months: Despite a tough economy, she’s launched her
own business, Renaitre, specializing in home makeovers on a budget.
Despite having no formal training in interior design, Jill decided to take
the plunge at the urging of friends who were impressed by her inherent
skills at selecting just the right color for a wall or the right
arrangement for a room in order to create a fresh new look at home.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Rough Road Ahead
City government has dropped the ball on two occasions involving road issues over the past year in Traverse City, and some residents are wondering how we managed to get so far off course.
As a result of these embarrassing, counter-productive gaffs, some feel that a city which prides itself on being a beacon of progress has been set back years.
It started with the news last year that the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) had plans to simply resurface Division Street, the north-south artery that funnels thousands of cars from West Bayshore to Meijer’s and the mall.
Advocates of “traffic calming,“ including TART Trails, protested that MDOT’s plan was short-sighted and inadequate. They argued that the time was right to re-engineer Division as a safer, slower route that would take pedestrians and cyclists into account.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Whole lotta‘ shakin‘ goin‘ on...
Groundhog‘s Day is always a head-scratcher for me. If the little guy
sees his shadow on Feb. 2, it means six more weeks of winter.
This is considered a ‘bad‘ thing across the country or in
Punxsutawney, PA where the prognosticating rodent makes his home. But
here in Northern Michigan, ‘only‘ six more weeks of winter sounds like
a sweet deal. Generally, we get socked with 10 more weeks of winter,
with the last of the snows ending in mid-April. (And many of us can
recall snowflakes even into May.)

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Biomass a short-sighted plan
More than a century ago, our ancestors had a simple plan for dealing
with industrial waste: they simply flushed it into the river or let it
settle into the ground. Problem solved. What could be easier and more sensible? No one had a clue at the time that there were
unintended consequences that would involve billions of dollars in cleanup schemes within a few decades.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Wedding Bell Blues
Sad, but true: I tend to have a hard time getting stoked for our annual
wedding insert each January, possibly because I haven’t personally
channeled getting hitched in quite some time now.