Pony-ing up for schools is just a bad bet

If there’s one pure example this election season of  crony capitalism, it must be pony-parlay-panacea: Amendment 68. It seems as though we have people all across the state really jonesing to place a bet on the ponies or reach a back door deal with Joey Bagadonuts’ employers — all under the only reason to pass […]

Regulations put the scary back into haunted houses

Anyone who knows me well knows I love fall. The Grand Valley offers many of the things I grew up with in Michigan. We have crisp mornings. The fall colors in the mountains rival any I recall from my youth. Orchards abound, and therefore, so does cider! My favorite holiday — Thanksgiving — nears, bringing […]

Summer vacation news has illusions going up in smoke

Please forgive me. But for all the ironic and scary things going on in the news lately, one headline this past week caught my eye more than the others. That’s right, you guessed it. It was the fire atop the Colossus roller coaster at the Magic Mountain theme park in California. To help you understand […]

Is it how busy I am, or how busy everything else is?

I’ve gone from personal deadlines of a trip to Michigan, a golf scramble fund-raiser for my daughter’s Express All Stars group to getting my house and things ready to host a dozen people for a fantasy football draft. (I know how silly it sounds, but people with kiddos understand). And now I’m getting things put […]

That and $300 will get you some school supplies

My recall has me paraphrasing an old adage that I recall went something like, “… that and  10 cents will get you a cup of coffee.” Obviously this adage is much older than even my earliest recollections because a cup of coffee was 25 cents when I was a kid and there were unlimited refills. […]

To my first-time readers, welcome to my column

Just as with the gambling at Rick’s, some readers were shocked at the tone of my last column regarding the state of the Republican primary ballot — although I prefaced my remarks in the first paragraph with the lines, “… here’s a column to show you just how seriously I take most of these folks. […]

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