WobblyReport

Michigan consistently has ranked at or near the bottom of U.S. states in government transparency and accountability for over a decade. Journalists and government watchdogs have been sounding alarms while statutory remedies have stalled in legislative limbo or faded entirely from view. Two policy reforms would go a long way: banning legislators receiving gifts from lobbyists and ending the total exemption from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests currently enjoyed by the office of the Governor of the State of Michigan and by members of the Michigan State Legislature. Given the incentives at play, Michigan residents cannot rely on representatives to enact the necessary reforms. In a response to an investigation published by the Detroit News in 2024 that revealed Lansing politicians receiving gifts from lobbyists unchecked, retired litigator Bob LaBrant said a ballot measure through a citizen-initiated petition drive may be Michigan residents’ only hope. “The December 2024 lame...

Toward the end of the 19th century, the United States of America was home to many working people’s organizations. Two such organizations, the Knights of Labor and the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (later known as the American Federation of Labor), have competing stories from 1882 about one of their chapters proposing that the first Monday of September each year be observed as Labor Day. Great battles for the eight-hour workday began two years later. The FOTLU held their national convention in Chicago and declared that “eight hours shall constitute a legal day's labor from and after May 1, 1886.” They planned and coordinated a series of demonstrations and labor strikes in order to win their demand. On May 1, 1886, an estimated 300,000 workers across the nation went on strike, affecting more than 13,000 businesses. The population of the United States at that time was between 50 and 60 million. In Chicago, where initially an estimated 40,000 workers went on strike,...

A run for the trees On runs, sentences... Half an hour was not a winning time in last week’s Happy Little Trees 5k race but it was good enough to place in the top 15% of finishers who had reported results as of Monday morning. Late reports are likely to be added—28% more results were submitted in 2024. The nearest meet-up for the event was on Earth Day in Bay City State Park. Unfortunately, Earth Day fell on a production day at the newspaper this year. Fortunately, the race could be completed anywhere outdoors between Earth Day and the weekend of Arbor Day, which fell on a Friday. Registration fees support invasive forest pest control as well as tree planting, care and maintenance. Presumably they also support the purchase of race kit contents, which comprised a racing bib, tee shirt, sticker and finish medal. Friday afternoon the weather was close to ideal for a run, after a bitterly cold start to April that made training more challenging. Some runners in humid-continental climate z...

Security and stability of one’s shelter is a fluid situation, as so many Midwest residents were reminded this spring. But three months before the 2025 ice storm, in late January, nonprofit workers and volunteers in the Midwest and across the nation made efforts to contact and count people living without stable and secure housing. Known as the Point-in-Time (PIT) Count and coordinated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the goal is “a count of sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January.” “It’s basically like the homeless census,” said Chad Lytle, Northeast Michigan Community Service Agency (NEMCSA) Street Outreach Director. Lytle coordinates homeless prevention in Crawford, Iosco, Ogemaw, Oscoda and Roscommon counties. “During that time, we're counting those who are literally homeless,” he said. “Literally homeless has a little tighter definition than people might think.” The federal government’s definition is simple ...

Vernal equinox occurs in Northern Michigan sooner than the end of winter proper. It’s a fact we and others live with amid perennial, invisibilising media campaigns proclaiming spring’s beginning at that moment in March when successive durations of light and dark are equal to one another. Someone updated a Wikipedia * article about the spring season on March 25, 2025, shortly before an ice storm interrupted electrical service to so many northern-Midwestern U.S. households that national media took notice . Michigan’s governor went on to deploy the National Guard to help move fuel and equipment around the state during recovery efforts. The Wikipedia article’s dovetailing introduction and conclusion provided broad definitions and lists of events both natural and cultural correlating with the spring season. In between, signs and stages were defined more systematically under headings and fields like ecology, astronomy and meteorology. Photo by Chandra Etymologically, the word spring ...