Drunk. With. Power. Michigan Republicans control just about every single thing in our government structure. We have a Republican Governor. A Republican Lt. Governor. A Republican Attorney General. A Republican Secretary of State. A Republican-controlled House of Representatives. A Republican Senate. The state Supreme Court is majority Republican. Basically, at any point where there is a decision to be made […]

Students and community groups amplified the real voices of women to put people before rhetoric in the conversation on abortion in the United States. Having an abortion is never an easy decision. For many of the 1 in 3 American women who will have an abortion in their lifetime, talking about it can be even more difficult because of the […]

Sometimes what’s best for a city doesn’t have a price tag on it

Back 2011, Michael Davis, Julie Swartz, Evan Major, and Jeffrey Doe formed a vision for an urban farm and community garden on group of five city-owned lots in Hamtramck, Michigan that had sat abandoned for thirty years. The lots were unable to be sold due to pending litigation so they approached Mayor Karen Majewski. Later that year, they were issued a permit under the city’s Adopt-A-Lot program to use the lots for a period of five years. Over the next two years, they transformed the lots into a farm with garden plots and fruit trees, including an almost unheard of fruit called the Paw-Paw which was originally native to Michigan.

Then, in June of this year, came the Emergency Manager. It’s Hamtramck’s second EM and, when Cathy Square, entered the picture, the future of the project became uncertain.

Click through for more.

Happy Halloween! This was VERY popular the last several years so I’m reposting for your Halloween viewing pleasure. Enjoy. I love Halloween but I’m not much of a punkin carver. However, I love looking at them. Here’s a bunch of the coolest punkins I could find on the web. Well, except this one. It was taken by my wife: Here’s […]

Finding out that your health insurance plan has been cancelled is terrible — especially when you have cancer. This practice, known as recision, was one of the worst and first insurance industry abuses banned by the Affordable Care Act, along with annual caps on coverage and pre-existing conditions for kids. Discovering that your insurance policy doesn’t cover much of anything […]

“What I learned from my military experience is that…there’s no way this is sustainable and there’s gonna be one day when we go back and die for this stuff.” I meet a lot of really terrific people in my travels but Gordon Soderberg is one of he most selfless, compassionate men I’ve met in a very long time. He has […]

Lies, damn lies, and statistics Photo by Anne C. Savage, special to Eclectablog Rick Snyder has embarked on a concerted effort to make you believe that he has turned Michigan’s job situation around. His latest farcical campaign centers around the fact that the number of people with jobs in Michigan is up 6.6% since 2009. Woo hoo! High five! Can […]

You wouldn’t walk into a store and walk out with a New York Times without paying for it, would you? Tim Kreider has a brilliant piece in this past Sunday’s New York Times called “Slaves of the Internet, Unite!”. In it, he perfectly describes the situation that many “content providers” on the internet, writers like me, Amy, and LOLGOP, and […]

I take the job of being a Representative very seriously and the only way you can be a good one is by being out in the community…and doing more listening than talking All photos by Anne C. Savage, special to Eclectablog On May 1st, Congressman Gary Peters from Michigan’s 14th Congressional District announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate to […]

Women shared their abortion experiences to raise awareness of the decisions and challenges they faced, as reproductive rights are increasingly under attack. If you’ve never had an abortion, you can’t possibly know what it’s like. Yet 1 in 3 women will have an abortion in their lifetime — and some of them never tell a soul. That’s why Advocates for […]

Let’s dance [Caricature by DonkeyHotey from photos by Anne C. Savage for Eclectablog] Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is clearly practicing for his court appearance in Detroit on Monday where he’ll testify in the court hearing to determine if the city is eligible to go into bankruptcy. Yesterday, Snyder was asked about his opinion about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Michiganders […]