Whittling Away

June 15, 2005

Whatever happened to the lost art of whittling? For all you video game kids, that was something folks used to do for fun a long time ago. You’d take a knife and shave a block of wood until you had whittled a work of art.
Beauty was in the eye of the bewhittler.
Whittling was alive and well in Michigan last week with a mailbag full of budget cuts on services, many of which will be painful in our region.
Here’s the rundown:

• State Sen. Jason Allen is trying to save the Newberry Correctional Facility in the Upper Peninsula from closing. The prison is about the only thing that keeps that town alive and kicking. But with a state budget shortfall of $475 million, Gov. Granholm is trying to shave $30 million off the Corrections budget, which is where the lion’s share of our tax dollars go in Michigan.