Opinion
Old-fashioned Term Limits
Spectator
By Stephen Tuttle | June 14, 2025
According to Pew Research, Ballotpedia, and pretty much all other public opinion research companies, the approval rating for Congress hovers right around 30 percent. So seven out of 10 adult Americans think Congress is doing a crummy job of which they disapprove. One suspects if more people were paying closer attention, the approval ratings would plummet even further. The public would be right; Congress has become a dysfunctional body of warring incompetents … Read More >>
A Flexible Regional Housing Fund Is Essential for Northern Michigan
Guest Opinion
By Yarrow Brown | June 14, 2025
Northwest Lower Michigan is a place of incredible natural beauty, vibrant communities, and economic opportunity. Yet, for many who live and work here—or hope to—the region’s lack of attainable housing seems like an insurmountable barrier. Addressing this crisis requires innovative solutions, and a flexible access to capital for housing development is precisely the kind of tool the region can use for decades to make meaningful progress. In 2023, Housing North commissioned a … Read More >>
Protecting Wild Horses
Guest Opinion
By Patricia Thomas | June 7, 2025
You and your family are walking downtown Traverse City on a beautiful summer day. As you are walking toward an ice cream shop, you look behind you because there is a helicopter coming very close. This helicopter is hardly flying above the car tops; you can feel the whirling of the blades. You have no time to think—everyone grabs their families and starts running as fast they can. The helicopter steers everyone … Read More >>
Me, My, Mine
Guest Opinion
By Greg Holmes | June 7, 2025
When I was at a traffic signal the other day, I waited for the inevitable to happen. I was certain that someone would run the red light. Running through a red light has become such a common occurrence that for safety’s sake, it simply must be anticipated. Sure enough, a red truck fulfilled my prophecy as it barreled through the red light and the intersection. There are two reasons for the increase … Read More >>
Selective Humanitarianism
Spectator
By Stephen Tuttle | June 7, 2025
A word first coined by a Polish author in 1944, “genocide” is defined by Amnesty International as the killing or destruction of specific ethnic, racial, national, or religious groups or nationalities with the intent of fully destroying them. Sadly, these kinds of horrors have existed pretty much forever. History lists hundreds of genocides all over the globe. Though we don’t like to talk about it, the list would include our decimation of … Read More >>
The Sins of a Nation
Guest Opinion
By Walt Wood | June 7, 2025
"Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." As Christians, this is how we begin prayer. The starting point is confession. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. My Lord, Jesus Christ, has instructed me to love myself and my neighbors, and spread the good news of his life, service, death, and resurrection. I confess to failing in … Read More >>
Joy Is a Form of Resistance
Guest Opinion
By Adrienne Brown-Reasner | May 31, 2025
It is very easy to get lost in the doom and gloom we hear and read constantly these days—the countless anti-LGBTQ+ bills, attacks directed at the trans community, the endless day-in, day-out worrying about what the next executive order could mean. And it would be easy to feel hopeless and scared. But what I have seen instead is a community with an unmatched resiliency not backing down, not shying away, but relishing … Read More >>
You Might Be OK
Guest Opinion
By Tom Gutowski | May 31, 2025
Assuming you’re white, a U.S. citizen, not gay, trans, disabled, or autistic, not a liberal activist or critical journalist, not a judge who’s issued a ruling unfavorable to Trump, not a migrant, legal or otherwise, not the child of a migrant, not a tourist, not on Trump’s enemies list, not a political rival, don’t have the wrong tattoo, and you’ve never protested against the war in Gaza, the odds are you’ll be … Read More >>
Nothing Is Better than a Tree
Spectator
By Stephen Tuttle | May 31, 2025
I think that I shall never seeA poem lovely as a tree. So begins Joyce Kilmer’s classic ode to our leafy friends. He’d likely be displeased if he was still alive and lived around here these days; we’ve found plenty of reasons to remove plenty of trees from plenty of locations. This lament should be prefaced with the acknowledgment that people are not marauding with chainsaw in hand, felling trees at random … Read More >>
The Lie That Won’t Die
Spectator
By Stephen Tuttle | May 24, 2025
Be thankful your children don’t attend public schools in Oklahoma. Superintendent Ryan Walters has interesting ideas on what schools should be teaching and how they should teach it. Walters has proposed, unsuccessfully, mandatory teaching from the Bible and required that every classroom have a Bible—but not just any Bible; Walters wanted Oklahoma taxpayers to foot the bill for the $60 apiece Donald Trump endorsed Bible, many times the cost of Bibles found … Read More >>
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