Proposal to multiply the number of young national volunteers holds potential promise to help the country recover from the COVID-19 crisis.
Phil Power
Posted inPhil's Column
Phil Power | Legislating at gunpoint takes protest too far
Protest, peaceful assembly and the right to bear arms are constitutional rights – but guns inside the state capitol go beyond reasonable definition of “peaceful.”
Posted inPhil's Column
Phil Power | Searching for balanced political solutions in reopening Michigan
Is it time for compromise between the extremes in the debate over shutting down and reopening Michigan amid COVID-19?
Posted inPhil's Column
Phil Power | Lessons of Great Depression and past pandemics come home to roost
The pandemic is the worst for most of us — but hardly the first in recent world history. Those events offer lessons for current times.
Posted inPhil's Column
Reaching out to Michigan’s vulnerable kids
OK, here’s what we know about how to get poor and vulnerable kids started on the path to success: Get ‘em enrolled in GSRP (Great Start Readiness Program) the state’s pre-K program aimed at four year-olds from low income families and designed to get them ready to succeed when they start kindergarten. Compelling research conducted […]
Posted inPhil's Column
Michigan, nation will sorely miss Levin’s leadership, integrity
One major thought popped into my brain when I heard Carl Levin had decided not to run for a seventh term in the U.S. Senate next year: “Class is a lot like pornography. You can’t define it, but you sure know it when you see it.” Carl is a class act, through and through. And […]
Posted inGuest Commentary
Guest column: Make every vote count
By Dan Brown The result of gerrymandering is the antithesis of representative government. As Phil Power recently noted, when the 2012 election gives one party 54 percent of the seats in the Michigan House of Representatives while receiving only 45 percent of the vote, the concept of representative government is negated. But, is it only […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Journalism hall honors Center for Michigan founder
Speaking before the assembled guests at an induction ceremony of the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame, Center for Michigan Chairman Phil Power told a story about how he got into the newspaper business. It was the mid-1960s. After studying at prestigious schools in the United States and Great Britain, the young Power had moved on […]
Posted inPhil's Column
A birthday letter to Bill Milliken
Dear Governor: You celebrated your 90th birthday Monday. I’m sure you and Helen did it in your usual low-key manner, enjoying the serene beauty of the Old Mission Peninsula near Traverse City. All of your friends know how proud you are of the tradition of public service that has run through your family for generations. […]
Posted inPhil's Column
A plan to curb carp, before it's too late
Since the St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959, the Great Lakes have been locked in an unhealthy marriage with the Atlantic Ocean and the rest of the world. Before then, the Great Lakes had evolved over the millennia their own ecosystem, physically separated from invasion by non-native species. But once oceangoing freighters could take on […]