In the days after Sept. 11, our nation came together in a way it hadn’t in years, in common shock and anger and resolution. Strangers greeted each other while standing in line at the supermarket. Families reached out to hold each other in grief and gratitude for safe passage. Partisan quarrels that had seemed earth-shaking […]
Posted inQuality of Life
Get out of jail free
Anyone who’s played Monopoly knows the importance of having a “Get Out of Jail Free” card in their pocket. If a physician friend of mine is right, some Michigan teens have something similar stuffed in their wallets and purses. The doctor and his colleagues have seen an influx of parents coming in with their teen […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Health costs decide health of Mich.
“Higher doctor fees drive U.S. health care costs, report finds” Well, no surprise there. And no, I’m not saying doctors should work for free or for a pittance. The story behind the story on this is why there’s such a fee differential between the U.S. and the rest of the Western nations. This story is […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Stomach-churning: Highs and lows in Mich. economy
Michigan has starred in its own disaster movie in the first decade of 21st century. The economic equivalents of F5 tornadoes and magnitude 9 earthquakes have battered the automotive industry and smashed construction work in the state. You knew all that, having lived here. But amid all the destruction there was surprising growth over the […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Agriculture's growth real, but not the stuff of myth
Late last winter, Gov. Rick Snyder officially dubbed March 17, 2011, as Michigan Agriculture Day. The proclamation lauds the industry as “the source of virtually everything we eat each day,” and says it plays a “key role in the growth and reinvention of Michigan’s economy.” It’s one of the ways that Snyder has singled out […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Economic shockwave flattens construction industry
Bloomfield Park, an abandoned mixed-use real estate project in Oakland County, stands as an eerie symbol of the construction industry’s collapse in Michigan over the past decade. Looking like the bleak setting of a “Mad Max” movie, the planned $2 billion development on Telegraph Road just north of Square Lake Road was to have featured […]
Posted inSuccess
Michigan produce found on local plates, global trade routes
Lori Lennard is a third-generation Michigan potato grower whose family farm this year will harvest more than 100 million pounds of tubers destined for the potato-chip fryer and other uses. Lennard Agriculture Co. – which has supplied Detroit-based Better Made Snack Foods with its main raw ingredient for nearly half a century – has burgeoned […]
Posted inLand O Links
Land O Links
“I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there” — Nobel-winning physicist Richard Feynman (1918-1988). * I like the idea of paying car insurance by the mile, since my commute is less than 10 minutes. I don’t like the idea of an insurance company sitting in […]
Posted inMichigan Government
SE Michigan is hotbed for government collaboration talks
Michigan is well-populated with organizations and people studying how to develop better public policies and better governments. One such group is the Center for Local, State and Urban Policy at the University of Michigan. A key part of their work is to survey government leaders to discern what’s going on in the trenches of delivering […]
Posted inPhil's Column
We must protect 'Michigan, Our Michigan'
(Originally published Aug. 25, 2011) The Latin motto on the state of Michigan’s great seal — “Si Quaeris Peninsulam Amoenam, Circumspice”– says it all. Translation: “If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you.“ And it is a great — no, perfect — set-up for all the wonderful “PureMichigan” TV commercials extolling the beauties of […]