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Diversity, equity, and confabulation

If The Onion or Babylon Bee or another satirical publication wanted to spoof the absurdity of DEI -- the ideology of "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" -- they couldn't have invented a character as unbelievable as Jason Arday. But Arday is very real: Born in 1985, in 2023 he became at 37 the youngest black man ever to hold a professorship at Cambridge University. Naturally, he had to overcome great adversity to do so -- indeed, superhumanly great adversity. Arday, the son of Ghanaian immigrants to London, is not only black; he's autistic and was nonverbal until the age of 11, ...

The stink of Musk

Elon Musk will be spending $100 million to $120 million in at least eight states to help elect Republicans in November, according to The New York Times. Musk's spending is set to begin next month, targeting Senate races in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, and Ohio, and potentially North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas. Musk will also spend in House races in states including California, Wisconsin, and Washington. The money won't be spent only on TV advertising. Musk's "America PAC" is lining up firms that focus on knocking on voters' doors. Fake grassroots. But Musk's money shouldn't ...

Five lessons learned from the Fauci fiasco

COVID-19 was a traumatic experience for our families, small businesses, schools and country. Understandably, people don't like thinking or talking about it. But we must. We now know, thanks to Sen. Rand Paul's doggedness and Anthony Fauci's supreme arrogance that he freely expresses in his diary, almost every decision made by the medical industrial complex was exactly the wrong thing to do. Fauci has blown himself up, and almost overnight he has gone from hero to antihero. Politicians and the media didn't take note of the fact that Fauci had a track record of hysterical and erroneous ...

Parkinson’s disease does not care, but our community does

In Alpena County, where nearly one in four residents is age 65 or older, it is estimated that up to 400 people are living with Parkinson's disease. Behind each diagnosis are spouses, children, friends, and caregivers whose lives are also deeply impacted. Parkinson's disease is the ...

AI bots are busting loose. Have we seen this movie before?

As an old-school newshound -- meaning I can remember typewriters -- I am familiar with the old newsroom saying, "If you don't like the news, just wait a few minutes." Lately, I find myself waiting more than a few minutes for another shoe to drop in a present-day saga widely referred to as ...

The Iran War is eating Trump’s presidency

An Iran war that was supposed to be brief, and then was supposed to be over, is imposing an increasing price on Donald Trump's presidency. We've seen a second term of a Republican administration go this way before. There are distinct echoes of George W. Bush's Iraq War -- the conflict that ...