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Without internal beliefs, we are adrift

Editorials and columns

Northern Michigan is so beautiful at this time of year. This past weekend my husband and I enjoyed a wind-tossed hike along Lake Huron’s shoreline. We took time to simply wade in the warm shallows and watch the geese couples call their goslings to safety while a gaggle of native swans bobbed on the offshore waves. It was so refreshing after our long winter. In our dating years (we met in high school) I was woefully ignorant of the great outdoors. I grew up in town and enjoyed being outside. I wore out a pair of flip flops every summer. I climbed trees, swam in the Thunder Bay River, ...

America: You know it when you see it

Editorials and columns

Recently this question was posed to me. As the nation celebrates its 250th birthday, what does it mean to be an American? Reflecting on this, it’s hard to distill an answer down to a single aphorism. In a nation of 342 million people, there may be as many answers as there are Americans. ...

We made July Fourth better

Editorials and columns

In 1912, our Fourth of July parade was a masculine affair. Only men were allowed to “strut and stare” as they processed along the parade route. The ladies watched, some waved, some even smiled, but most, I suspect, snickered, for they knew something was terribly amiss and they knew what ...

Selling America’s soul for $2 per acre

Editorials and columns

President Abraham Lincoln famously stated in the Gettysburg Address on November, 1863, that the nation would experience a new birth of freedom "and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”. Forty-five years later, President Theodore ...