dveaner @ November 11, 2009 # Comments Off
I am confused by President Obama’s boycott of Fox News. Wasn’t he the candidate that was going to reach across the aisle to bring diverse people with differing viewpoints together to find consensus and make change? While it is true that Fox’s editorial programming is right-slanted, it is also true that CNN and the broadcast [...]
dveaner @ August 6, 2009 # No Comment Yet
Much has been made of the ‘Cash For Clunkers’ program that President Obama has been advocating. The way I see it the government wants to give my tax money away to people who can afford to buy cars. The excuse is that it will boost the economy, but experts have expressed doubt on whether it [...]
dveaner @ June 4, 2009 # No Comment Yet
From time to time the topic of consolidating governments comes up. Lansing Councilman Bud Shattuck has said he favors a county-wide government, and the idea of merging school districts was a favorite of former Lansing School Superintendent Mark Lewis. Economy of scale is the argument that most people like when advocating a multi-municipality or school [...]
dveaner @ May 29, 2009 # No Comment Yet
I have been a New Yorker for 23 years, and a Lansingite for 22 of those. Since last week’s ‘quality of life’ editorial I have been thinking about my own experience of Lansing. In those 22 years I abandoned a career and had two others, married and raised a family, and got wider in the [...]
dveaner @ March 26, 2009 # No Comment Yet
Things are getting out of control. Most people understand hundreds and thousands, and not long ago a million became a common number that it was possible, though unlikely, one could win on a television game show. I think most people would have been happy with millions, but our governments were dealing with billions.
Before government got [...]
dveaner @ January 8, 2009 # No Comment Yet
When Barack Obama is sworn in as President of the United States later this month he wants to spend a trillion dollars, give or take a few hundred billion, to stimulate the economy in a Roosevelt-like WPA (Works Progress Administration) - style program that he hopes will create jobs while incidentally fixing the country’s infrastructure.
My [...]
dveaner @ December 11, 2008 # No Comment Yet
Just because ‘Car Czar’ rhymes and sounds catchy doesn’t make giving $14 billion to three companies with years of really bad business plans a good idea. Congress has had a lot of bad ideas that seemed like good ones when they repeated them enough. How about that great idea in the late 1990s to encourage [...]
dveaner @ November 20, 2008 # No Comment Yet
I am sure it is politically incorrect of me to think what I do about the proposed auto industry bail out. I think that even considering it is a travesty. While executives are flying to Washington on private jets and probably spending millions on lobbying campaigns and television commercials to garner sympathy, they are doing [...]
dveaner @ November 5, 2008 # No Comment Yet
“Ask not what your country can do for you,” John F. Kennedy famously told Americans in his inaugural speech after he defeated Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election. “Ask what you can do for your country.” That one line caught fire in the American imagination, spurring a surge in volunteerism and public service. In [...]
dveaner @ October 23, 2008 # No Comment Yet
As an editor I get to choose what goes into my newspaper. My e-mail box is loaded with press releases, especially as the political season heats up. Like everyone else, I’m excited that Presidential election season is almost over, and am counting down the days on campaigncountdown.com . In the meantime I have to decide [...]