Stephen Tuttle | Author

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 >>

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 >>

Joe, Lia, Rockford, and Cowell

Feb. 3, 2024

President Joe Biden lags in the polls, suffering all manner of negativity from his opponents. While it’s true enough he hasn’t been a very good self-salesman, the country’s numbers are nearly all heading in the right direction.

We’ve already established that … Read More >>

Rhetoric Is Up, But Crime Is Down

Jan. 27, 2024

Donald Trump has nearly made fear-mongering an art form. He announces we’re facing great danger, usually imagined, then finds someone to blame for it and declares himself the only solution.

You might recall his announcement speech before he ran in 2016, with ugly assertions th… Read More >>

A SCOTUS Problem

Jan. 13, 2024

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has decided to take up the Colorado case in which Donald Trump has been booted off their primary ballot after allegedly having violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

This has the potential to become very mes… Read More >>

Playing with Fire

Jan. 6, 2024

Science is always trying to stay at least one step ahead of our needs and sometimes ahead of things we likely don’t need at all. Let’s see what 2024 has in store for us.

There is now such a thing as a micro nuclear power plant. Small enough to be moved by truck and able … Read More >>

Resolutions We Can Keep

Dec. 23, 2023

Are you making New Year’s resolutions this year? If so, you won’t be alone.

A 2022 poll by YouGov said 37 percent of us make resolutions or goals for the new year, and we’re pretty optimistic about it; a whopping 87 percent said they were likely to keep those resol… Read More >>

A Swift Conspiracy

Dec. 16, 2023

Time magazine says they base their Person of the Year award on “…who they believed had a stronger influence on history and who represented either the year or the century the most…” For 2023, they believe that person is Taylor Swift.

This was follow… Read More >>

Bad Attitudes, Party Issues, and Pipelines

Dec. 9, 2023

A certain former president who would like to return to the White House becomes more unhinged with each campaign rally. He has already said, right out loud, he would use another presidential term to exact “retribution” on his political enemies, meaning anyone not willing to offer… Read More >>

Replacing Dangerous Products

Dec. 2, 2023

This has been a very hot year. Not hot compared to tens of millions of years ago, but pretty damned hot since humans have been keeping records.

According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, July, August, and September were the hottest months on record, a… Read More >>

Try Something Else

Nov. 25, 2023

We need a political reboot.

The latest data and polling analysis from Statista found the approval rating of Congress at a stunningly low 13 percent. Yet we keep sending the same people of whom we think so little back to their cushy jobs in Washington, D.C., where they will continue … Read More >>

A Place at Our Table

Nov. 18, 2023

We typically celebrate Thanksgiving without much thought of how it all started and if it was even an especially good idea for one group of initial celebrants.

According to the History Channel, the first Thanksgiving took place in October of 1621 in what is now Plymouth, Massachusett… Read More >>

It’s the Politicians Who Are Failing, Not the Country

Nov. 11, 2023

Some national political candidates believe they can curry favor and earn our votes by telling us this is a failing country, or worse, a country that has already failed. It is nonsense.

In fact, there was never a time when we were perfect, and much of our past is definitely not great… Read More >>

Your Vote

Nov. 4, 2023

On Tuesday, Nov. 7, local elections will be held in many communities across Michigan, including Traverse City. These elections are critically important, but with no statewide or federal offices up for grabs, will likely attract an embarrassingly low voter turnout. It’s a shame.

<… Read More >>

Our Chaos Reality

Oct. 28, 2023

Science and math have their chaos theory that posits, among other things, that the smallest changes can create unpredictable and major disruptions elsewhere. The example most often used is the tiny amount of extra wind created by the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Africa might so … Read More >>