Columns
Postcard from the Pines: Award Season Thoughts
Esther Aug 20 1954 Yup, it is award season. It begins with one of the many music awards, goes on to the People’s Choice and culminates with the Oscars. There’s a whole lot of music, movies and good television to…
Pat’s Bits and Pieces: Valentines’ Day and loads of birthdays…
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Valentine’s Day is next Tuesday.I miss my old buddy Al.He wasn’t my Valentine but a special friend.He used to proofread the paper every Thursday. And every time I wrote a column about family, love or anything like…
Life as Performance Art
By G.C. Stoppel “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are Declaration of Independence keystones.Life is good, but no if it means I spend the last months or years in great pain, immobilized and mind away with the fairies. Liberty is…
Blue Star
By Scott SullivanEditorKnow BodyNo Nordic day’s complete without a dip ringed by icebergs, glaciers, stone faces … dash inside for a sauna with thawing mermaids. I was a hemisphere away, joining Ron and Maggie Conklin imagining conquering the South Pole,…
Mike’s Musings: Trade deficit with China continues to grow
Not too long ago on the occasion of my birthday, I was presented with a balloon, as well as other gifts. Unfortunately, the balloon did not last long. It escaped out the door wall and headed to the skies. My…
“Out and About”: Recycling, the heart, and balancing
Recycling is something we should all be involved in. Unfortunately, there are some things that cannot be thrown in with the paper, tin cans and other normal recyclables. Fortunately, there are several cures to this situation. About once-a-year, we are…
Postcard from the Pines: The Hog has come and gone…
Mich Manual 1869 Everyone with a public voice is talking about the cold this week…and the groundhog. In these parts, it’s likely that contrary to public opinion, he did not come out of his winter stupor. Why would any creature…
Pat’s Bits and Pieces: February … Again
Well it’s here again – my least favorite month of the whole year.Thursday is Groundhog Day and after they roust the poor critter out of his “log,” this year “Punxsutawney Phil” may or may not see his shadow. According to…
Blue Star
By Scott SullivanEditorSeal of DisapprovalThis time I knew it was all over. Ron and Maggie Conklin had paused en route to the South Pole to take pictures of seal pups, which on Page A6 she notes can grow to more…
Life as Performance Art
As you might have noticed I keep coming back to the theme of respect. We give it and we earn it. It is a rapid exchange of an intangible element in our life, flowing back and forth faster that the weirdest…
Mike’s Musings: Time to get control of Big Pharma
I’m not a fan of Big Pharma. If you read my columns regularly you know I have railed against the industry consistently. After all the sacrifices we made through the COVID pandemic, I think it is time to give them…
“Out and About” Law enforcement, rain and fog driving, and trivia
We’ve all had encounters with law enforcement at least once in our lives. These encounters are usually minor traffic stops because we failed to come to a complete stop at a stop sign, or we were caught driving over the…
Postcard from the Pines: It’s Snow Joke
Main Street March 26, 1923 50-14 Everyday life seems to have slowed to a crawl during this odd winter in Marion, Michigan. Winter is what it is, from one to the next. But this one is unusual, so far, for…
Pat’s Bits and Pieces: Just more winter bits….
Another week, another column…With January winding down – there’s only four more days – that must mean there’s only a couple more months to get through before spring arrives again.That seems like a long time, but the way the days…
Blue Star
By Scott SullivanEditorPope PolI knew Rand Paul would show up on my imagined South Pole trip paralleling Ron and Maggie Conklin’s real one. (See Page A6)I was there, dropped off by The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine on Cape Horn, marked with…
Life as Performance Art
The first of several garden seed catalogues arrived the other day, and I dropped everything for an hour or so to go through it. Others will soon follow, and I will go through them as well. We will dog-ear pages and…
Classified document scandal needs to be put to rest
After re-reading my opinion last week that the Trump/Biden classified documents scandal was much to do about nothing, I realized I left out a couple of major points.First, I minimalized the importance of classified documents, by writing many of them…
Pat’s Bits and Pieces: Recovering and complaining
Most of the time, I consider myself pretty lucky. I am nearly 77 and other than having my tonsils out at 5 or 6 years old, have not had many hospital visits or stays, other than for certain tests, a…
Blue Star
By Scott SullivanEditorPsycho ImageMy imaginary polar trip, paired with Ron and Maggie Coghlin’s real one, was past desperate. They’d passed through a Buenos Aires flower cooler down wood steps to 100-foot basement bar for cocktails. Maggie’s absinthe was served with…
Life as Performance Art
Harry and Megs recalled a conversation Mother had with me over half a century ago. I don’t know what brought it on, although it was probably a long-winded telephone monologue from her friend Juanita. Juanita would call several times a week,…
