Columns

While I sometimes have a hard time figuring out what I want, I sometimes have an even harder time figuring out what God wants. Of course I want peace and love, who doesn’t? I would also want a cure for…

By Scott SullivanEditorGod’s HammerI repent many things: getting married, tearing labels off pillows, writing this column … And I’m better for it.Doesn’t mean I stop doing those things. But the guilt I harbor allays my fear I’ve become another mild-mannered…

Maybe someone can explain to me why firebombing a Tesla dealership or a Tesla car makes sense.Over the past week Tesla vehicles have been front and center in the resistance directed at President Trump and his DOGE leader. Elon Musk.…

    I sometimes glance at the marquee outside a church.  Some give the worship hours and their cleric’s name; others have a pithy little maxim to amuse the motorists.  A good example was one about wishing Noah had swatted the…

My wife has suggested that I clean up my office. It seems she came in there yesterday and couldn’t find her way out. This prompted me to clear out a couple file folders filled with useless information. I thought you…

In our adult formation program, The Rescue Project, we have come to a point where we have heard the Good News of Jesus Christ, again, and once more have the opportunity to respond. In a recent gathering we prayed this…

By Scott SullivanEditorDadDon’t you hate columns that start “Don’t you hate …”? Pick your poison. We all hate, say, robocalls. So how come there are so many?I call folks who lean on tropes like these faux curmudgeons. A real one…

President Trump likes to say his favorite word is “tariff.” He hopes to use the word to force corporations to locate in the United States, instead of other countries where they have tax and trade advantages. More corporations mean more…

BY G.C. STOPPELFew hold party politics and politicians in high esteem. Campaigns grow longer and more expensive and polarization fiercer. Consensus and compromise are no longer goals; they are dirty words.The last presidential election was packed with negative ads and…

By now everyone should have their clocks set to the correct time. You’ll notice that you are probably getting up in the dark and watching the sunset around 7 PM. It would be nice if this could have been the…

Ever notice that when Christians speak of the human soul that we always refer to it in the feminine gender? We use the pronoun she and not he, even when we speak of the soul of a male. All of…

I’m not sure I am going to do justice to a column that my mom so effortlessly and beautifully wrote every week for decades, but I felt one last column should be written none the less, so here goes.Our mom…

By Scott SullivanEditorPsychoGreat news on the crazy front. A new website aims to share knowledge and lead discussions about psychopathy, a disorder characterized by fearlessness, difficulty inhibiting behaviors plus severe lack of empathy and remorse.We all know psychopaths. Charles Manson,…

     A year ago, somewhere between Halloween and Thanksgiving, there was a slight crisis on the home front. It was during this time that Madame Dewey realized she was missing a stocking.  The default go-to response at other dire moments…

I lost a good friend and co-worker last week. Pat Maurer, has been a part of the Clare County Review since 1983, first as a sales rep, then a writer, then editor and finally as owner. Along the way my…

by Jim Whitehouse “Lucy’s on my lap and Max is cuddled up next to me,” says my beloved wife Marsha, who is spending a few days in Florida with our daughter Jill’s family and menagerie. We’re talking on our phones,…

There seems to be a notion now-a-days that rules were established to control people, dominate them, that without them there would be chaos, and to take away freedom. I have even heard it said that religion and religious laws were…

By Scott SullivanEditorOfficialI can’t tell you how pleased I am that President Donald Trump has named English America’s official language. Now politicians may actually speak it. Trouble is, there’s a flip side.To start, so long to “Saugatuck” and “Michigan” whose…

American psychiatrist William Glasser, mid-1960s founder of Reality Therapy and author of “Choice Theoryy,” died more than a decade ago. He was never well received by followers of Freud, Jung and others in his field. According to one story, Glasser…

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has received a lot of attention in the news lately. Led by Elon Musk, his minions of young computer nerds have found billions of dollars of waste and fraud taking place in our vast…