Thank You, Jenny No Jobs Left Behind Granholm

I wish I could take credit for that title but I can't. I got it from a friend this past week. I found this editorial in The Detroit News and thought I would share it with you.

Maybe global warming is the best hope Michigan has for an economic revival.

Michigan has 3,288 miles of stunningly beautiful coastline -- more than any other state except Alaska -- but for half the year uncomfortably cool weather leaves the beaches empty.

But raise Michigan's average annual temperature, which ranges between 40 and 50 degrees depending on where you're standing, by five to 10 degrees and our state would be climate competitive.

It's not hard to imagine Florida's sun and surf worshippers packing up and relocating along Michigan's newly balmy shoreline to escape the sizzling heat that will scorch the Sunshine State if the earth continues to warm. Or retirees migrating back home from a parched Arizona to Michigan's lush golf courses.

The Great Lakes could become the new Gulf Coast, but without the hurricanes.

What other chance do we have?

Michigan has been sliding sharply downhill for most of this decade, and now there is the very strong sense that we're about to fall off the cliff.

The possibility is real that one of the Big Three automakers -- most likely Chrysler -- won't be around this time next year, at least not in its current form, and the remaining two may well be in bankruptcy.

Decades ago, this state decided to ride the domestic auto industry to the bitter end. In deference to the United Auto Workers, it chose not to do the things necessary to court the foreign automakers, who instead took their automotive jobs to the business-friendly South. In deference to the Big Three, it chose tax policies that favor dying manufacturers at the expense of the industries fueling growth in other states.

For six years, Gov. Jennifer Granholm and state lawmakers responded to Michigan's single-state meltdown by choosing inaction over doing anything that might ruffle anyone's feathers.

You can almost hear the sigh of relief from Lansing as the rest of the world joins our recession. With everyone sinking in the same boat, the pressure is off of them to fix the gaping holes in the S.S. Michigan.

There was a time not long ago when this state had prosperity, and plenty of it. But we chose not to use it to educate our children, leaving Michigan near the bottom in educational attainment and with a work force unprepared to capture the high-tech and green industry jobs we insist will be the foundation of our comeback.

We've got nothing to offer, because at every turn we've made bad choices.

Granholm told an interviewer recently that Michigan's hopes rest with the election of Sen. Barack Obama as president because he'll spend billions of dollars on public works projects that will create jobs here. That's a scrawny string for a rapidly plunging state to grab hold of.

A recovery is not automatic or inevitable. If one or more of the domestic automakers disappear, a true economic comeback easily could be 20 years off, and only then if we do the things we must to help ourselves.

Unless by then global warming has bailed us out. In the meantime, we may want to stop building windmills.

Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The News.

I think this picture says it all. (Just in case you are curious. I am not in favor of bailing out the automakers. They are where they are after 26 years of poor business decisions. That should not be rewarded.)

Let's Be One

Week six of my scrapbooking class was all about unity. Making all the items on the page work together and seem as one united whole as opposed to a chaotic mess. I hope I succeeded.









This week she had a real world color assignment. It was fun Halloween colors. Can you tell from my layout what the colors were?






We left this morning. After 10 hours in the car I am now 4 hours east of Pittsburgh. What's up with that? On to New York City tomorrow. My guess is my free internet is over for a couple of days. I have found the more expensive the hotel the fewer free amenities.

I'm Leaving Again

Yup, I'm hitting the road again. Tuesday we leave for Syracuse for a sales call and start the drive to New York City. We bought a tour and voucher credits for lodging at Catholic Central's auction last year and are finally getting around to using them. We arrive on Wednesday hopefully with some time to walk around before a show Wed night. We are seeing Phantom of the Opera. We have our personal tour Thursday morning, we are going to Ellis Island in the afternoon and then seeing Mama Mia in the evening. Friday on to Philly to meet up with Sarah and Cory. Saturday is the ND/Navy game and Sunday back home. It should be fun.

I got behind posting my layouts for my scrapbooking class so here are the layouts from last week. It was all about space. White space to be exact. Not every space on the page needs to be filled with something. Empty space can be a good thing. Here are my interpretations of the sketches she assigned.













I am going to write up a couple of posts and if I get a chance while I am gone will post them. Otherwise, I will be back in a week.

The Weekend In Review

I bet you didn't even know I was gone this weekend but I was. And the reason for our little trip this weekend was this:




Sarah's high school had made it to the district finals for football and since we hadn't been over to Monroe to see a game this year we decided we should make the trip this weekend. I believe in eight years of following this team we only missed one game. We went to every one of those with our friends, George and Kathy, who also never missed a game. The year we started attending their games they won one game that season. A few years later we saw them play in the finals at Ford Field. It was quite a ride with this team. This year was supposed to be a rebuilding year. At least eight of the starters on the offensive line are sophomores. The next couple of years should be fun but this wasn't supposed to be one of them. They have turned out to be overachievers and found themselves playing for the district title Friday night. It rained most of the way over to Monroe but had cleared by game time. We led the whole game with Bishop Foley right at our heels. With 1:35 left in the game Bishop Foley scored and was one point behind. Do they kick the extra point for the tie or go for two? They went for two and scored. It was now 29 - 29, Bishop Foley. Central had the ball around midfield and it was fourth and eight. The quarterback threw a little sreen pass (which they had practiced for a month) to the receiver who had hurt his leg a couple plays before and was still limping. He ran down the sideline for 65 yards and with 41 seconds left, scored! Talk about exciting. The score stood and we won.

The excitement wasn't over for the weekend. On Saturday the girls were playing in the district volleyball finals. So we drove to Blissfield to watch the game. The first match they were down 10 points but somehow rallied and won. They went on to win the next two and won the district title.

I listened to the Michigan game on the radio, saw part of Penn State, saw the ND game (what happened?) and followed the Lion's game on the game blog. I am just going to share one quote from the writer of the game blog which I found quite funny.

For the longest, I've been the one person rebuking the idea of a 0-16 season. Just like the marketing campaign at the beginning of this season, I'm starting to believe in now. Kirkland Crawford, Detroit Free Press. I hear you, brother.

From there it was back to Butler but not without one more stop. D wanted to know if it was ok if we stopped at the beer barn on the way home. Yes, in PA beer must be bought at a beer barn, and liquer and wine at a liquer store.





He seemed a little too excited about a trip to the beer barn until the truth came out. It seems the girl who works there likes to wear skimpy shirts and short shorts. What a disappointment when she wasn't the one working this weekend. She asked at least three times if we wanted cold beer from the refrig. instead of the warm beer off the floor. D says it is a dollar more for cold beer, hence the multiple questions. Considering we weren't going to be drinking this beer right away and the building isn't heated and it was cold inside, she didn't get the extra dollar.

"Welcome back to PA, people."

In Case You Were Wondering

just what that stuff was that arrived in the mail the other day that put a smile on D's face.





Here is the answer per National Geographic.





This is used by both major league and college umpires. D worked for thirty years to become a college umpire so the fact that he needs to have baseball rubbing mud makes him very happy.

His Dream Became A Reality

and no matter who you voted for yesterday, that is a good thing for us and our country.

A Quiz If You Should Choose To Accept It

A package arrived in the mail the other day. When D opened it and showed me the contents he was grinning ear to ear. So my question to you is, do you know what this is and why we would want such a thing in our house? And why would such a small thing make him so happy? I look forward to your answers/guesses.





Since we are on the topic of sports (Oh, did I just give the answer away?, let's talk about the Lions. Yes, they were one play away from beating the Bears but good sense prevailed and they went down in flames. You have to give them credit, they sure made it exciting this week.

For your amusement I thought I would take some quotes from Michael Rossenberg's Lions article in the Free Press on Monday.

The Lions are 0-8, or as I like to think of it, Halfway to Nowhere. And with the Cincinnati Bengals finally winning for the first time all season, the Lions are alone on their desert island.

They are the only winless team in the league and they have a quarterback controversy. I swear, sometimes I think they exist purely for the benefit of sports columnists.

Orlovsky played OK in the 27-23 loss to the Bears, especially since he and Colletto were not on the same wavelength. Literally.

Colletto said his headset kept cutting out and he couldn’t call plays. He didn’t say when this happened, but given Colletto’s history, I assume it was when the Lions scored 23 points in the second quarter.

“We ran plays I’ve never even seen before,” Colletto said, and I thought that was probably a good thing, but he seemed frustrated anyway.

And this is his opinion on Culpepper joining the Lions.

Culpepper spent the spring and summer looking for a chance to compete for a starting job, and nobody offered him one. So he retired.

“Unfortunately, what I found out was that the league did not share any of the optimism about me as an unrestricted free agent that I expected,” Culpepper said. “In fact, there was an overwhelming sense that there was no room for me among this year’s group of quarterbacks.”

We should have known then that Daunte Culpepper would end up in Detroit. There is plenty of room on this desert island, Daunte. Let’s see how well you can swim.

This new development should be interesting. This week they play a team who just got beaten this past week by the previously winless Bengals. Who thinks Jacksonville will lose two games in a row against winless teams?

The poor Irish. Four overtimes only to lose the game. But there was one bright spot. Jon Bon Jovi stood on the sidelines during the game. In honor of him being there the band played "Living On a Prayer". Good stuff.