John Mathias Engler has once again infuriated his longtime political adversaries, and some new ones, as well as Lansing’s chattering class. Engler, the interim president of Michigan State University and a three-term Michigan governor, has demonstrated why the school’s Board of Trustees hired him to pluck its charred chestnuts out of the fire fueled by […]
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WORST REDISTRICTING SYSTEM EVER? It May Be Coming to a Voting Booth Near You
If it withstands legal challenges, as it surely will face, the Voters Not Politicians (VNP) ballot proposal must be approved by Michigan voters in the November general election. If it wins at the ballot box, it will rip reapportionment of Congressional and legislative district lines after every decennial census away from the Legislature and Governor […]
H.L. Mencken: The Media Don’t Drink Enough
By H. L. Mencken “Giants at the Bar” in “Days of Innocence” The New Yorker magazine May 24, 1941, Issue Photograph from Bettmann / Getty Not infrequently I am asked by young college folk, sometimes male and sometimes female, whether there has been any significant change, in my time, in the bacchanalian virtuosity of the American people. […]
Scrub Elected University Boards? Ain’t Gonna Happen
The Larry Nassar turmoil at Michigan State University has sparked renewed demands to refom the way Michigan governs its major state universities. Amidst all the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments, will anything actually result in change to the current system? In a word, no. Legislation has been introduced in the state capitol to […]
Jeff Daniels Play “Flint” Opens in Chelsea
ADVERTISER for Purple Rose Theater, Chelsea, Michigan Feb. 6, 2018 As the set darkens at the conclusion of “Flint,” a spotlight pierces the center of the kitchen table where there’s a glass of toxic, brown water. The lasting image punctuates the intense 75-minute play by actor Jeff Daniels, now being performed at The Purple Rose Theatre […]
NEW YORK TIMES: Time to Clean House at MSU
Editorials | It’s Time for Michigan State to Clean House by New York Times Editorial Board Feb. 1, 2018 A protester outside the Michigan State University administration building on Friday, as the trustees met inside. Credit Nick King/Lansing State Journal, via Associated Press Larry Nassar had a day of reckoning last week for his years […]
Engler’s MSU Presidency Fits an Historical Pattern
The appointment of former Gov. John Engler as interim president of Michigan State University may be controversial, but it was also entirely predictable — especially under the political circumstances. After all, this is the first time in modern history that a MSU Board of Trustees has had to pick an interim president following a resignation […]
NEW YORK TIMES: Larry Nassar is a Familiar Monster
by Frank Bruni New York Times Jan. 27, 2018 When Judge Rosemarie Aquilina handed down her sentence on Larry Nassar last week, she spoke to and of him as a kind of monster we rarely see. She was wrong. I know this because I remember Penn State, where an assistant football coach named Jerry Sandusky […]
DETROIT FREE PRESS: Snyder May Act to Remove MSU Trustees
by Paul Egan and Kathleen Gray, Detroit Free Press Jan. 26, 2018 LANSING – Gov. Rick Snyder is considering action against the MSU Board of Trustees, a spokeswoman said Friday. Spokeswoman Anna Heaton said Snyder is considering unspecified action against the board amid the ongoing sex abuse scandal involving former MSU doctor Larry Nassar. “The governor is […]
MIRS: Surprise! Snyder Ponders Action Against MSU Board
by Michigan Information & Research Service Jan. 26, 2018 Action involving the leadership at Michigan State University (MSU) by Gov. Rick SNYDER “is under consideration,” Snyder Press Secretary Anna HEATON said today, hours after ESPN released a reportabout the “widespread denial, inaction and information suppression” at the school involving sexual assaults. Larry NASSAR‘s numerous assaults against mainly female gymnasts aside, the […]