And most likely make remaining groundwater unpotable for centuries — Well, folks, just when you thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, it turns out the Great Lakes are being jeopardized by the Green New Deal. Believe me. I was as surprised as you are. Or, maybe I was a lot more surprised than you are. …

Big Rapids was never the same after Gotion after we saw each other truly for the first time. After Gotion, partisan flags flew less and neighbors talked more. Well-resourced business owners enjoyed far less deference from citizens as elected township, city, and county board members on principle of wealth and influence alone; instead, organic farmers were…

No environmental impact reporting has been done on the $2.3B taxpayer-funded plant, due to be built on wetlands which run into Lake Michigan. — I don’t know if you’ve heard about my quaint little hometown in the news lately. Coverage has been light, to say the least, and largely on conservative outlets, for entirely political reasons. I was on Fox & Friends. I was. Clown world. This is just clown world.

Personal failure is difficult to discuss. It’s is painful enough to admit one’s state of complete and utter failure to one’s self — let alone to soliloquize about to an internet full of strangers. So I’m going to hide behind the shield of metaphor, for a moment. In writer/director Dan…

Ah, privilege — it makes fools of us all. — She was everything an infant indie publishing house could want in an author. Or, at least, that’s how it appeared on the surface. Her manuscript was written, edited, forwarded, and even formatted. It was cheeky, funny, heartwrenching, and vibrant. It targeted a profitable intersection of recovering Christians and new age…

Our legislature has a serious monopoly addiction, and it’s destroying lives. — Everyone in Michigan should care about what’s happening with our state’s marijuana legislature right now. Yes: I mean you. Because, whether you realize it or not, it affects us all. Every one of us either is, or has in our life a person who at one point or another will…

Hey there! Long time no read. COSGRRRL the digital magazine has not only gone to print — it’s created a monster. More specifically: a new indie press called creativeonion Press, which specializes in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction by outsider authors. What does that mean for you? Well, one of a…

But I’ll probably lose my job soon, anyway. — My colleague here on Medium, Jessica Wildfire, recently published a piece titled “I’m a Teacher. I’m About to Quit.”. I’ve always enjoyed Jessica’s work, and I have a lot of respect for her and many of her views. I have to say I really didn’t enjoy the flavor of her…

Shedding oppression sometimes requires shedding rules of standard spelling — It’s a real buzzy word right now. Anti-colonialist. It’s often paired with anti-capitalist, and sometimes swapped for anti-imperialism. It conjures the image of a black-clad, umbrella armored hooligan busting bank windows to destroy the system, doesn’t it? In the context of literature, it conjures a spectacle of radical manifestoes —…