LSJ Blogs: John Schneider

Let them eat cake … and ice cream ... and cookies

Here’s something you don’t see every day: a letter from a prison inmate complaining that inmates are treated too well.

Thanks for gambling

I’m pretty sure Steve Harry’s tongue was planted in his cheek when he asked, in an e-mail to me:
“What? We’re not supposed to use our Bridge Cards for lottery tickets? The Lottery spends $17.6 million a year encouraging us to play. We are led to believe it is a good thing. After all, the money goes to the School Aid Fund.
“Maybe the commercials should specify who should and who should not play.”

As my mother used to tell my brothers and me, ‘Fight nice!’

Apparently there will be a football game in East Lansing Saturday, and Pat Letts of Ionia, God bless her, hopes all involved will treat each other with respect.

Building a better mousetrap — NOT!

The new Ortho Home Defense Max mousetrap now allows us to encase a hitherto perfectly biodegradable dead mouse into a big chunk of plastic before committing it to a landfill.
Just what our planet needs, eh?

I saw it advertised on TV. It spares the user from having to look at, or, God forbid, touch an icky dead mouse. The old-fashioned reusable mouse trap may not be the most elegant device, but at least it doesn’t produce all that junk.

Legislator scolds ‘Big Mother’

The press release from State Rep. Brian Calley (R-Portland) came with this breathless headline:
“With budget in ruins, state decides to crack down on illegal baby sitting.”

'Without you, there would be no us’

Volunteers: Don’t be discouraged. You really are wanted, needed, loved …

Thatcher’s grand re-entrance

Spurned BoarsHead player Kristine Thatcher is launching her own professional theater. Right here in River City.
IN THIS ECONOMY!
How’s that for a dramatic gesture?

Local nurse: ‘I know what I saw’

OKEMOS — Go ahead — try to tell Mary LaPorte that it was an overfed domestic cat she saw in the vacant field across from Soldan’s, on West Grand River Avenue.

Poor-bashing: The new national pastime?

Are we too quick to beat up on the disadvantaged? Do we look for excuses to withhold compassion? Has the current economic hardship in this country spawned a climate of suspicion and scorn toward those who ask for help?

Please … no more!

How long would it take you to use all those return-address labels that arrive, unsolicited, in your mail box?