Scott Hagerstrom, executive director of the Americans for Prosperity Michigan chapter, addresses a group of Tea Party members at a recent meeting in the state capitol. The room was reserved by State Senator Patrick Colbeck, a Tea Party favorite. (Bridge photo by Pat Shellenbarger) A Tea Party member had a question for the moderator of […]
Tea Party teamwork: money and foot soldiers
Posted inPhil's Column
Michigan colleges welcome 'freshfolk' to exciting – and contentious – new semester
Last week marked moving-in day at college campuses all around Michigan. Normally, the start of term is a time of happy confusion: Excited kids going off to college, and anxious and proud parents wondering what the next few months will bring. But campus suddenly felt much more contentious this season. Last week an English professor, […]
Posted inBrunch with Bridge
In an echo chamber, language loses its power
SAY WHAT? Words really do have meaning, and distorting their meaning can have disastrous consequences. (Photo by Flickr user Ashley Marinaccio; used under Creative Commons license) I think evil is real. I also think we need to pay attention to language. For example: I’m haunted by my memory from a photographic history of Jim Crow […]
Posted inBrunch with Bridge
In examining U.P.'s issues, Native Americans weigh in
TIME TO TALK: Amidst the Upper Peninsula’s beauty lie problems bedeviling its Native American population. (Photo by Flickr user rosefirerising; used under Creative Commons license) Sometimes I get disappointed in Yoopers when they refuse to discuss the problems we have in the area, wanting to pretend there are none. I’d much rather address them and […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Michigan’s Tea Party battles for GOP's soul
It’s the second Saturday of August, as a group of political newcomers gathers in a classroom of a Baptist school near Lansing. They are plotting a political coup. Among their many goals, they want to dump Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Calley and replace him with one of their own. They’d like to repeal or at […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Kitchen table politics: Tea Party leverages social media to advance causes
Joan Fabiano, founder of Grassroots in Michigan, at her home computer. “I wanted to show that an ordinary person doesn’t need to have an organization in order to change public policy,” she said. (Bridge photo by Pat Shellenbarger) From a corner of her dining room, Joan Fabiano directs a Tea Party group she founded called […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Your graduation rates may vary
It’s not a statistic highlighted in college pamphlets or admissions websites, but it’s a data point freshman should think about as they set up their dorm rooms this week: Not all of them have the same chance of graduating. White students are more likely to graduate than African-American students at almost all Michigan universities. And […]
Posted inTalent & Education
MLK’s dream not yet realized at college graduation – it’s not even close
Why is one of these college students more likely to graduate than the other? Michigan colleges are struggling to figure it out. (Bridge photo by Monique Belser) Paulette Granberry Russell remembers walking on the sprawling campus of Michigan State University as a scared, under-prepared freshman. “I was an African-American woman and first-generation (to attend college […]
Posted inPhil's Column
Bipartisanship registers a heartbeat
Finally. After months of struggle, Michigan’s state senate passed legislation last week to accept Washington’s offer to extend Medicaid to nearly half a million of our state’s working poor. The vote was close – 20 to 18 — and the run-up to it was complicated, intense and very partisan. But when crunch time came, eight […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Breaker breaker one-nine, trucking jobs dying on the vine
With a fleet of some 60 trucks, Ottawa County-based Luther Logistics is primed to expand. If only it could find the drivers. “I could put four or five people in a truck today,” said Jordan Luther, the firm’s owner and operations manager. “It used to be that we would get four or five people a […]
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