Friday, December 13, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Senators play politics with judgeships
Michigan could lose as many as four of its five seats on the nation's second-highest court if the Bush administration endorses a proposal being pushed by Republican senators outside the Great Lakes State.

Wednesday, December 11, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Suspension's silver lining is tarnished
I don't know if the Michigan Supreme Court will give Tony Daniel the back wages he's seeking.

Monday, December 9, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Bills admit drug stance went too far
More than two decades after enacting some of the nation's harshest penalties for the possession and sale of illegal drugs, Michigan lawmakers are poised to acknowledge that the state's approach to narcotics crime has been a costly failure.

Friday, December 6, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Bill could be Patterson's silver lining
What an annoying month it's been for Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson.

Wednesday, December 4, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Shulman bill smells like favors owed
And he didn't deny that he's the same Rep. Shulman who introduced legislation that could add $210 to the cost of your next new or used car.

Monday, December 2, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Student gives schools lesson in freedom
Did the Waterford School District break the law when it suspended a high school sophomore for posting a list of "people I wish would die" on his personal Web site?

Friday, November 29, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Halls to deck: In search of a perfect tree
"Simplify, simplify!" Henry David Thoreau counseled famously in "Walden," his paean to Yankee self-sufficiency.

Wednesday, November 27, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: In Greektown, the 9 winning gamblers lose
Sometimes, when you are a professional journalist, you are obliged to pose a question whose answer is so painfully obvious that you feel like an idiot for asking it aloud: Why weren't you truthful about your relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, Mr. President?

Monday, November 25, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Tubs, Taliban strike chords on both sides
Recent columns about a conservative coup in the Oakland County GOP and the U.S. Postal Service's efforts to recover 20 million mail tubs appropriated by its customers provoked these responses:

Friday, November 22, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Republicans battle over party's soul
The schism in Oakland County's Republican Party is partly about ideology (conservatives vs. moderates), partly about geography (Bloomfields vs. Boondocks) and partly about pedigree (pure-bred Slytherins vs. ticket-splitting Mud-bloods).

Wednesday, November 20, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Long arm of the law taps this husband
But I managed to keep my criminal past a secret from my prosecutor wife for more than a year -- until last week, that is, when Free Press staff writer Bill Laitner blabbed about it all over the front page of my own newspaper.

Monday, November 18, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Engler legacy will live on in state's courts
We may never know what gubernatorial courtesy persuaded Oakland County Circuit Judge Alice Gilbert to relinquish her seat just two years into her current 6-year term -- and just in time for outgoing Gov. John Engler to appoint her replacement before he leaves office.

Friday, November 15, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Cable merger is nothing to cheer about
This week the federal government approved the nation's biggest cable TV merger yet.

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: '8 Mile' packs far too many youngsters in
The most arresting thing about "8 Mile" isn't what you see on the movie screen. It's what -- or, more precisely, whom -- you see waiting in line to see Eminem's R-rated blockbuster.

Monday, November 11, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Free speech draws line at verbal abuse
Four conservative Republican justices who control Michigan's Supreme Court want to gut the state's sexual harassment law.

Friday, November 8, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Scholarship funds may not be safe yet
Now that voters have told health-care providers to keep their filthy mitts off Michigan's tobacco money, high school students can stop worrying the money won't be available to fund their MEAP scholarships -- right?

Wednesday, November 6, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Goofs by GOP made it easier for Granholm
Long before the polls closed Tuesday, Republicans were consoling one another with the observation that there was little anyone could have done to stop the juggernaut called Jennifer Granholm.

Monday, November 4, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Youth vote will count one of these days
We adults work so hard to foster an appreciation for democracy in our children.

Friday, November 1, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Time running out for pair to take stand
Proposal 4 -- the statewide ballot initiative that would constitutionally earmark hundreds of millions of dollars a year in tobacco settlement revenue to a handful of anti-smoking groups and health care providers -- is bad policy.

Wednesday, October 30, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Campaign ads show values aren't valued
OK, so maybe it was a little bit irresponsible of me to take off for California wine country just as Michigan's election season was moving toward its, um, dramatic conclusion.

Wednesday, October 16, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Archdiocese learns politics is political
After barging into Michigan's gubernatorial race with all the subtlety of a presidential motorcade, the Archdiocese of Detroit is shocked -- shocked! -- to find that there is politics going on there.

Monday, October 14, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Price of war must be open to discussion
It's been three months since we last saw you in Oakland County, and I'm relieved to note that nothing earth-shattering has happened in the interim.

Friday, October 11, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Drug court's success story is priceless
Accounting 101 teaches us that stocks are assets and taxes are liabilities. But it's not always that simple.

Wednesday, October 9, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: There's more than 1 way to spark debate
Michigan needs more televised debates between Jennifer Granholm and Dick Posthumus, and those debates should include more interaction between the gubernatorial candidates and the viewing audience.

Wednesday, October 2, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Memo from mayor adds up to division
So what, exactly, are we to make of the memo in which Kwame Kilpatrick outlines, with a directness worthy of Tony Soprano, the terms on which he proposes to deliver 280,000 Detroit votes to his party's gubernatorial nominee?

Monday, September 30, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Dog day care? Pooch has no bones to pick
I was climbing the parking garage stairs one evening when my friend Hugh hurtled past me.

Friday, September 27, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Age gap adds to an already lively race
Among the dozen Michigan House races considered toss-ups this November, the May-December matchup between 32-year-old Valerie Knol and 76-year-old Aldo Vagnozzi may be the most colorful.

Wednesday, September 25, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Impatience makes war a done deal
Sometime during the last month, while the rest of us were attending Back to School Night or wondering how to reallocate what's left of our 401(k) assets, our elected representatives in Washington stopped arguing about whether to invade Iraq and moved on to when and how.

Monday, September 23, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Togetherness counts most in long haul
We spent our wedding night in a luxury hotel suite high above the Detroit River. In the morning, we hosted a brunch at The Whitney and went home to pack for our honeymoon in the Greek isles.

Friday, September 20, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: Make need a condition of MEAP awards
Like many parents who took issue with my Wednesday column criticizing Michigan's Merit Award scholarship program, she was proud, angry and wary of being quoted by name in what she perceives as a racially charged debate.

Wednesday, September 18, 2002

BRIAN DICKERSON: MEAP money is caught in another mess
Michigan is warning 45,000 high school seniors that the $2,500 MEAP scholarships they anticipate may vanish if a ballot proposal to redirect $300 million in tobacco settlement money is approved by voters this November.