COMMENTARY
Gas money trumps gadget upgrades
It’s funny how the simple act of your once top-of-the-line phone becoming outdated causes you to re-examine society.
It’s funny how the simple act of your once top-of-the-line phone becoming outdated causes you to re-examine society.
Everything is just so expensive. The national average for a gallon of regular gas is $4. The cost of food is expected to rise by 5 percent this year — the largest increase since 1990. The housing market is struggling as people are having their homes foreclosed on faster than someone can bid on them. Unemployment rates are up and it won’t be long before our energy bills rise in cost.
If I told you that one out of three state employees works in a given department, and then asked you to guess which department I was talking about, what might your response be? The Michigan State Police? The Department of Human Services? The Department of Environmental Quality?
When Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., had more pledged delegates but fewer superdelegates than Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Obama supporters as well as others were outraged. They questioned the democratic process of nominating candidates for the presidential election. The last thing any of them wanted was a candidate chosen by so-called “party elites” that strayed from what the people wanted.
Finally, after over a year of constant campaigning, suspect primaries, undemocratic caucuses, questionable party rules, and in-party division, the Democrats have chosen their presumptive nominee for the presidency.
The reason jerks exist is because nobody ever calls them on their BS. This is why I can’t stand polite people. Infinitely tolerant of even the most egregiously inappropriate and insecure behavior, they outright ignore sexist, racist, selfish, or overcompensating behavior, usually only to rip into the poor sap the moment they’re out of the room.
When you look in the mirror, are you content with the image you see staring back at you? Everyone has their own personal standards for what they think is beautiful. Many people let the media decide those standards for them. The magazines, movies, Internet and other media can sometimes distort a person’s idea of what beauty truly is.
Tuning in to the American media nowadays is a bit like opening a time capsule to 2002. The propagandists seem to have reached into their file cabinets and pulled out the exact scripts they used during the run-up to the Iraq war.
After months of fighting, the issue of Michigan’s Democratic primary and its delegates has finally been settled. Given everything that came before, it’s perfectly fitting that the solution is just as much of a mess as the road that brought us here.
In a struggling economy, most businesses feel the stresses of decreased revenues as a result of decreased demand for their products or services, as people have less disposable income for such spending. For nonprofit organizations that provide social services, however, demand often increases during difficult economic times, while revenues decrease. This puts such organizations in the difficult position of having to provide more services to more people but with fewer resources.
“Detroit is one of the worst cities. I don’t feel safe visiting there because I heard it was the most dangerous city in the United States.” I can’t count how many times I’ve listened to people say something along those lines.
I’ve seen some nauseating trends in my life, reinforced by the media with wanton disregard for the people that depend on those same outlets to provide some sensibility where institutions like family, school and friendship cannot.
Last week, Michigan’s House of Representatives made one of the smartest decisions it has in a long time. On Wednesday, the House passed four bills that would regulate future use of water from the Great Lakes.
To a man who owns a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. With a military budget nearly that of the entire world combined — $529 billion in 2007 — the United States has one hell of a hammer. Not only is much of that budget tied up in counterproductive Middle Eastern entanglements, but much of military research is inapplicable to any foreseeable conflict.
The other day I picked up a local newspaper and read that my local 6th Circuit Court judicial race in Oakland County is expected to be the most expensive one in history with candidates spending $1 million.
After five years of hard fighting, I think both those who are in favor of the Iraq war and those opposing it can both agree: It’s a mess. Exactly why it’s a mess and whether it’s an irredeemable mess are certainly debatable points.
The job of a newspaper is to provide the readers with unbiased reporting, allowing them to form their own opinions about the story and decide how it will affect their lives. There is so much happening around us that sometimes it’s hard to process everything and recognize how it will impact your life personally — and that’s fine.
What do our laws say about our values as a society? How do we construct the world we desire through legislation and judicial processes? Last week, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that state universities cannot offer health coverage to the partners of gay employees.
If the mainstream media wants to reduce the presidential election to a sporting competition, they should have their sports reporters covering it. Obsessing over the candidates’ political strategizing and voter reception of their talking points doesn’t expand anyone’s understanding of the issues at stake. Journalists are not living up to their responsibility to shape the discussion on their own terms, rather than the terms of the nominees. The news media’s failure allows politicians to turn this campaign into a competitive spectacle.
Cookie-cutter political philosophy and party-line votes are the norm in Lansing. Doctrinaire legislators rule the day mostly because they lack the experience in statesmanship to see beyond simple ideological or partisan ideologies.