Category: Commentary
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Village Life: Of elusive joy, lamentations and “wanton love”
By Jan Worth-Nelson Sometimes you have to fight for joy. At a recent East Village Magazine party at my house, wine flowed and four kinds of pasta from Flour and Eggs, comfort food extraordinaire, disappeared in thick hunks from trays on the big table, two extra leaves put in for the occasion. I’d put…
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Thanksgiving memoir: Temple of the City — a story of Atwood Stadium
By Gary L. Fisher NOTE: Gary Fisher, a local historian, spoke on the history of the venerable Atwood Stadium at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15 at the Genesee County Historical Society at the Durant-Dort Carriage Company office, 316 W. Water St., Flint. My first trip to Flint’s Atwood Stadium is seared in to my brain.…
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Commentary: Bent but not broken–remember Flint’s history of fighting back
By Ted Nelson This is a lightly edited transcript of Ted Nelson’s speech at the Flint Institute of Arts on Oct. 21, 2018 When the makers of “JFK: The Last Speech” arrived in Flint to shoot scenes for their award-winning documentary movie recently shown at the Flint Institute of Arts (FIA), they were eager…
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Commentary: Thanks due to election workers, who keep the wheels of democracy turning
By Paul Rozycki For those of us who spend our time trying to analyze the most recent election with polls, predictions and punditry, it’s easy to forget about all the work and preparation that goes into just running an election. The job of putting the ballot together, setting up the voting machinery, staffing the 231…
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Commentary: 2018 is not your typical midterm election
By Paul Rozycki This year’s midterm election could be like most other midterms….except when it’s not. And it looks like it’s not going to be like most midterm elections. The usual midterm election Here’s what usually happens in most midterm elections. First, the turnout is lower than during a presidential election year. While we usually get…
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Luminous “JFK: The Last Speech” essay collection reverberates 55 years after one October day
By Robert R. Thomas On Oct, 26, 1963, President John F. Kennedy gave his last public speech, at Amherst College in western Massachusetts. The occasion of Kennedy’s Convocation Address at Amherst was the ground-breaking ceremony for the Robert Frost Library. Frost, an avid friend and supporter of JFK, had taught at Amherst for many years…
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Review/Commentary: Foreboding “Fahrenheit 11/9” a jumbled jeremiad, but we still need it
By Jan Worth-Nelson In his opening remarks to a crowd of about 1,000 at the screening of his new movie “Fahrenheit 11/9” Monday night at Whiting Auditorium in Flint, Michael Moore said he was trying to do his part to save the movies. Movie theaters, he said, are “the last place that people can go…
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Commentary: Environmental Justice Summit convened empowering visions of clean water, air, land
By Michael Mascarenhas On Sept. 8, the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition hosted the 3rd Environmental Justice Statewide Summit at Flint’s New McCree Theatre. The event brought together close to 200 activists, environmental practitioners, citizens, and scholars to talk about what it means for all living beings to have clean and affordable access to water, air,…
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Analysis/Commentary: Who votes, who doesn’t, and why it matters
Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting. –Franklin D. Roosevelt Our American heritage is threatened as much by our own indifference as it is by the most unscrupulous office or by the most…
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Village Life: Why I use medical cannabis
By Ted Nelson I thought I was losing my mind. Two sleepless nights in a row had left me exhausted, depressed, and mentally discombobulated. I was having dinner at my Los Angeles apartment with my youngest son, sharing my distress. A month earlier, I had been diagnosed with an enlarged prostate after complaining of regularly…
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