Brunch with Bridge

In the last week of February, take time to learn about notable African Americans from the state where we live. Most you've probably never heard of.

If “freedom isn’t free,” as they say, one payment may be to remember that “promote the general welfare” part of the Constitution.

Michigan’s roadways can look like boulevards of broken Bambis, but if we really wanted to cut down on car-deer collisions, we’d allow a judicial increase in deer hunting.

Michigan’s new law allowing law enforcement to collect DNA from felony arrestees has civil libertarians upset, but as society’s definition of privacy evolves, the case may be moot.

Barack Obama and Rick Snyder are very different politicians, but in similar positions. One has gone on the offensive. It doesn’t seem to be on the other’s agenda. That, and other early portents, suggest an upcoming political year even nastier than the last.

Proposal A opened a wealth of choices for parents and students, but some see the ensuing marketplace as too fragmented to serve students well.

Some people can turn anything into a contest – even a friendly competition to improve one’s health. Running in place at the stove, anyone?

Michigan’s Republican National Committeeman has disgraced himself, and his party, with a series of bigoted, hateful posts on his social-media pulpit.

In Detroit, they paved Paradise Valley, and put up I-375. The people who lived in the way? Collateral damage, as always. Why can't we consider the human cost of coddling the car?

We can understand out-of-town media outlets for excluding people of color from their depictions of Michigan city life, but not our very own tourism campaign.

The common household chore, i.e., a job done by a complaining juvenile, appears to be an endangered species. Why is that?

Nothing personal, but the best people to select judges may not be the voting public. Could an appointment system work better?

It drove people from their homes, stressed the whole city and fouled up the celebration, but at the end, going nine days without electricity was a blessing after all. (Sorta.)

The Upper Peninsula in winter looks like a Currier and Ives print. And what’s for dinner on the big day? How about some venison?

My fellow lawmakers, my honored guests, my staff and family and sergeant at arms: Before I go back to my district, there are some things I’d like to put in the record...

There’s nothing like a powerful steel chariot to make a person feel strong, free -- and rude.

Debates, town halls and other election-season events are undeniably good for voters – and the media. But candidates see little upside, and lately are deciding not to participate.

From clichés to spur-of-the-moment renaming of the city’s neighborhoods, a native Detroiter has a few bones to pick with you guys.

Is the system so broken that a principled Catholic conservative can’t be a part of it? This one takes issue with a previous Brunch columnist, and says no.

It’s one of those things that sounds good on paper: Caught with a weapon? Automatic expulsion. But no one ever went on a rampage with a Swiss Army knife.