July

So why only one post for the whole month of July?

Lots of reasons, but the main one being it's summer - and there are better things to do than bitch about the state of politics in Grand Rapids. I'm also tired of having nothing good to say about anything, and that gets old after a while. Maybe it's the nature of blogs to whine rather than celebrate but a little balance would be a nice thing.

On the positive side, the Press did not endorse Linda Steil for the 73nd District House seat. Maybe she's a great person but the Steil family has owned that seat for maybe 20 years and I have a real problem with family dynasties.

It's also nice that the GR Public Schools Board is disowning the nasty PR campaign being waged by a bunch of union haters called the Education Action Group. Probably another front for the DeVos family, who when they are not working on getting approval for new helipads at their estates are trying to be sure teachers never get health care or a decent retirement. I really don't understand why the conservatives hate the teachers union so much. The only answer I can come up with is that they think it's better if everyone suffers rather than having one group that others less fortunate might aspire to.

The Great Lake Compact appears to be moving forward, which is probably a good thing. It's inevitable that the desert states will eventually set their sites on the Great Lakes and the more we do now to stop them, the more likely we will be to succeed in the future.

The MDP (or whoever is behind it) came up with clever way to cashier a lot of John Engler's judges (a good thing) but it's too bad they left term limits in place. Like a lot of people, I voted for term limits because I was sick of the status quo. Unfortunately the new status quo is worse, and our legislature is populated with nothing but trainees.

The Tigers have recovered from the early season collapse but nothing but a major slump by the White Sox is going to save them now. Still, they are a lot of fun to watch.