Commentary
Column: Climate grief and the stark choice that confronts us
If the five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, Americans can be found at all points along the continuum when it comes to global climate change and the environmental crisis that accompanies it. Like many who’ve contemplated a grim healthcare diagnosis that seems to belie of how they feel in the […]
Susan J. Demas: The UAW won the strike, so why doesn’t Donald Trump want to talk about it?
After decades of eroding wages and benefits, UAW workers this month won blockbuster contracts with the Detroit Three that few thought possible. During the “Stand Up Strike” — an homage to the Sit-down Strike against General Motors in Depression Era Flint that spawned the first industry collective bargaining agreement — the union for the first […]
Column: Democracy is on fire. Consider this your wake-up call.
For the better half of a decade now, I have had friends, some family members and even casual acquaintances give me the same excuse. Maybe you’ve heard it, too. It goes something like this: You know the news is really depressing and I just can’t handle it, so I have just quit watching. Or folks […]
Column: How can we make the most of this holiday season?
Given the feelings of unease that often punctuate our daily lives in many areas, the holiday season provides an opportunity for us not only to celebrate, but to discover lasting meaning that could carry us to new heights of understanding and rejuvenation. Lasting meaning can be found in many ways, but three ways in particular: […]
Jay Bookman: Unholy night – A Trump White House Christmas coup caper
It was a Christmas party at the Trump White House, and despite the festive decorations, the trees and the wreaths and the red-and-green bunting, the mood must have been grim. A few days earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court had firmly rejected a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas seeking the overthrow of election results […]
Column: Like an island, Indiana is surrounded, and it’s gonna cost us
With a few vital exceptions across America, the 2023 election was scheduled to deal with local government. Tip O’Neill famously coined the phrase, “all politics is local.” Oh, if the former speaker of the House, who held the gavel for virtually all of the 1980’s, could see the America we are living in today. O’Neill’s […]
Susan J. Demas: Conservatives really don’t want to take no for an answer on abortion bans
The anti-abortion movement won a momentous victory last year when the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. After almost a half-century, the constitutional right to abortion was suddenly snatched away, leaving the matter up to the states, just as conservatives had insisted they desired. Long-dormant state abortion bans sprung back into effect, while […]
Column: Everyone has a role in ending homelessness
November has arrived again, and that means it’s Homelessness Awareness Month. It’s most important to be aware that it is possible to end homelessness, and that everyone has a role in our collective achievement of that goal. The primary cause of homelessness is a lack of affordable housing. In Michigan, the shortage of rental units […]
Rick Haglund: UAW President Shawn Fain says the union has only just begun to fight
United Auto Workers union President Shawn Fain didn’t get the 40% raise his members were demanding at the Detroit Three automakers. He and his bargaining team didn’t win the 32-hour workweek the union was seeking. And the UAW failed to achieve its goal of restoring traditional pensions and retiree health care benefits for hourly workers […]
Column: In the Israel-Hamas war, children are the ultimate pawns — and ultimate victims
In 1903, a local mob killed 49 Jews, including several children, and raped and wounded 600 others, in the city of Kishinev, then part of the Russian Empire. These three days of violence later became known as the Kishinev pogrom. A few days later, the Jewish-Russian poet Hayim Nahman Bialik published a Hebrew poem that […]
Rick Haglund: Hard to recruit new Michiganders when people are ‘stuck’
“If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you,” is Michigan’s long-held motto. But not enough people are seeking it. Michigan’s population has been stalled at around 10 million people for decades. What’s worse, people are aging out of the workforce in droves and the state isn’t attracting enough people, especially young college graduates, to […]
Jay Bookman: Without compromise, extremism dominates
If you make compromise impossible, you make extremism inevitable. We see that dynamic playing out once again, with tragic consequences, in the Middle East. For decades, Hamas and its extremist backers have refused to acknowledge that Israel has a basic right to exist; Israel in turn has given lip service to the creation of a […]