Thoughts for the Day, November 17, 2025: The poster caused a pit in my stomach.
Image of the Day
During our trip to Charleston S.C. Leah and I visited one of the historic mansions located near the seawall overlooking the bay and Fort Sumpter. It was a beautiful mansion built in the early 1800’s that has been preserved by the Charleston Historical Society. We had our own tour guide, so we learned so much about the families who lived there. Attached to the house was the slave quarters which during peak seasons held 80 slaves in what must have been very cramped quarters.
One of the rooms contained the above poster which contained all the names of the slaves owned by the two families who owned the house from the early 1800’s until the end of the civil war. Next to each name was the amount the owners paid to purchase the slave. Next to one slave’s name, there was no dollar amount but there was the phrase “useless”. Our tour guide explained that although the owners thought of her as useless, she was allowed to stay because she produced 15 offspring.
I have seen many things about slavery, but very few have touched me like this poster board. Seeing dollar values assigned to names hit home to me. It caused a pit in my stomach that stayed with me for days.
During our stay, I was impressed by how the tour guide on a bus tour and the tour guide at this home, talked freely about slavery and the history it had in Charleston. They were appalled by slavery but were not afraid to talk about it and the importance it had in the development of Charleston as one of the economic engines of the South.
It was a great trip to a historic town. Little did we know that when we were driving past Charlotte NC on Saturday, history was being made there as well.
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Whitefish need our help.
When you spend time in Northern Michigan, it doesn’t take long to learn that whitefish are an important part of the economy. Nearly every restaurant has at least three whitefish menu items on it. It is readily available in meat markets. It is a staple in Northern Michigan. However, whitefish are at risk because of invasive mussels filling our Great Lakes.
Per Bridge Michigan, Michigan lawmakers hope to unveil legislation in Washington this week that would dramatically increase funding to prevent invasive mussels from wiping out whitefish in the lower Great Lakes.
Following extensive reporting from Bridge Michigan on the issue, US Reps. Debbie Dingell, D-Ann Arbor, and Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, want to increase funding for mussel control research more than fiftyfold to $500 million over the next 10 years.
Otherwise, the “fish that we take for granted are going to just disappear,” Dingell told Bridge Michigan.
In a statement shared with Bridge, Walberg called the bill a “bipartisan effort to combat the spread of invasive mussels, protect the health of our fisheries and ensure that future generations of Michiganders can enjoy this national treasure.”
The damage wrought by invasive mussels is among the biggest threats to the Great Lakes in history. Yet Bridge found that while the US government has spent mightily to combat other threats, the fight against mussels has received a comparative pittance.
The main funding program for Great Lakes science has devoted an average of less than $1 million annually to the cause since 2010, according to spending records analyzed by Bridge. The federal government spends about 20 times that amount to keep sea lamprey out of the Great Lakes and has promised 90 times as much to build a barrier against invasive carp.
Dingell cited those stats as part of the inspiration for her bill.
“They’re all serious issues, but this is 90% of the fresh water in this country and 20% of the world’s (surface) fresh water,” Dingell said. “We need to be protecting it.”
Fearing that the fish could disappear before science catches up to the mussel invasion, Craven said the Little Traverse Bay Band is advocating for up to $100 million to start a federal whitefish hatchery program, much like the hatchery program that brought Great Lakes lake trout back from the brink of extinction.
The bill, called the Save Great Lakes Fish Act of 2025, would amend the 1956 law that mobilized resources to combat sea lamprey that at the time were decimating Great Lakes fish populations. The Great Lakes Fishery Commission, an international organization that coordinates lamprey control efforts, would expand its mission to fight off invasive mussels and then act as a steward for the $500 million in new research funding.
“Mussels are this generation’s sea lamprey,” said Greg McClinchey, the commission’s policy director.
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Gretchen and the state legislature continue to make headlines about the lack of transparency
From Bridge Michigan. Who needs April Fool’s when you have the Michigan Legislature and FOIA reform?
As they have for decade state lawmakers began 2025 promising to end Michigan’s dubious distinction of being the only state in the nation besides Massachusetts to exempt the Legislature and governor from public records requests. But like every year before it, 2025 will likely end with raised hopes, dashed expectations and the taxpayers still in the dark about the basic workings of their own government…
Why is this important? It’s not complicated. The public has a right to know how lawmakers spend their time, who they are meeting, what reports they are reading before votes and how they make decisions. This isn’t onerous or an invasion of privacy. It’s simple access to government that residents of 48 other states enjoy but somehow is a bridge too far for Michigan.
That’s notable given a $25 million earmark that led to criminal embezzlement charges, as Bridge Michigan thoroughly reported using — you guessed it — FOIA requests to access records in the state health department, which is not exempt from the law.
We also remind Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer that she remains, in effect, the only top executive nationwide whose records aren’t public.
When she ran for governor seven years ago, Whitmer vowed to open her office to public records regardless of whether the law changed. Her counterpart in Massachusetts, Maura Healey, was able to do so voluntarily without legislative action without legislative action. It’s long past due for Whitmer to do the same.
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Turnovers. Turnovers. Turnovers.
17, 22, 5 are the number of turnovers committed by the U of M Men’s basketball team in their wins over Wake Forest (17) and TCU (22) and the U of M football team in its win over Northwestern (5) in the last week,
As a U of M basketball and football fan, turnovers make for agonizing viewing, especially when they are self-inflicted. Gone are the days of John Beilein’s teams who were always near the top in having the least number of turnovers per game, and the Bo, Moeller, and Lloyd football teams which went out of their way to prevent turnovers. A fumble would most likely put a player on the bench for the remainder of the game and probably to the bottom of the depth chart after the game.
It is amazing that U of M won all three of the games. Each of the games could have easily been losses. For the most part the football team has minimized turnovers, so maybe Saturday’s game against Northwestern was an anomaly.
Michigan’s basketball teams have been plagued by turnovers throughout the Dusty May era. If the turnover issues are not resolved soon, Michigan will not be living up to its current top 10 rating.
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The NBA, MLB, and NFL have a gambling problem
You cannot watch an NBA, MLB, or NFL game without being overloaded with betting advertisements. Furthermore, the telecasts also have segments within the games giving various odds for betting on the game.
The NBA and MLB have both been hit with recent scandals involving “fixing” by players for bets made by associates of theirs.
In game betting is problematic and ripe for manipulation. As we are learning about the details of the recent MLB scandal, it is hard to detect a pitcher deliberately throwing a ball on a pitch in the middle of the game in which one of the pitcher’s associates bet the pitch would be a ball. But that is what is happening. Thousands of dollars bet on one pitch in the middle of the game.
In the case of the NBA, it is betting that a player will not score a certain amount of the points in the game and having that player take himself out of the game fake an injury or a cramp so that he does not exceed the point level allowing his associates to win their bet.
Betting on games is not going away but the NFL, MLB, and NBA are asking for trouble by giving in game odds and allowing the advertisement of betting sites on their television broadcasts. It feels so contradictory to me.
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You got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them and know when to walk away.
Lions’ coach Dan Campbell needs to heed the above words of Kenny Rogers in his song The Gambler.
In yesterday’s game Campbell was intent on going for it on fourth-down when it was clear the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles were not going to allow it to happen. Campbell was 0-5 on fourth down. As a result, he left up to nine points off the board by eschewing field goals. In a seven-point loss those points mattered.
After the game, Campbell was quick to recognize the error of his ways. Campbell gets my Onion of the Day, and he also has my Quote of the Day. Here is what Campbell had to say after the game.
“There’s some things I wish I would’ve done differently,” Campbell said. “Look, the bottom line is, if you go totally conservative in the way this game played out, you got a better chance of winning than with some of those decisions I made. I understand that, but also that’s who we are. It’s who I am and it bit us today.”
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Quote of the Day: See above by Lions’ coach Dan Campbell
Orchid of the Day: The weather in Charleston SC, once we got there. Driving through a blizzard in West Virginia was not fun, but we made it safely.
Onion of the Day: Lions’ head coach Dan Campbell for not knowing when to fold them and walk away.
Questions of the Day: How is it possible that MSU head football coach Jonathan Smith didn’t know MSU was under NCAA investigation when he took the job in November 2023? Per Smith, he was not told about the NCAA investigation by MSU administration until the beginning of 2025. As a result, Smith unknowingly used three ineligible players in the 2024 season causing MSU to forfeit their victories. If this is true, why would any coach want to come to MSU and coach?
Lyrics of the Day: I had a brother at Khe Sanh
Fightin’ off them Viet Cong
They’re still there, he’s all gone
He had a woman he loved in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms now
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I’m ten years burnin’ down the road
Nowhere to run, ain’t got nowhere to go
Hint: Reagan enthusiasts embraced this song as a patriotic song written by a great patriot. They should have listened to the words. It was a protest song about real America and how they treated Vietnam vets as written by one of the great rock and roll story tellers.
Lyrics of the Day for November 6, 2025. True Colors by Phil Collins
Video of the Day: See the above image.
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