LSJ Blogs: John Schneider

At what point does trick-or-treat become extortion?



When does a kid become too old to go door-to-door mooching candy on Oct. 31? What about kids in the 13-18 class who don’t even bother with costumes? Do you dare  tell them to take a hike?

‘Police Open Fire on Crazed Beast’

If you’re at  all interested in that unfortunate chapter of Lansing history that ended in the execution of an innocent elephant, be sure to check out the photo gallery posted on the LSJ website.

Eviscerating Halloween

Parents of kids at East Lansing’s Marble Elementary School got emails recently, the subject of which was “Fall Harvest msg.” The note was actually about Halloween, and I'll bet you have a pretty good idea of what it said.

A major pet peeve of mine

There it is again — in an  Associated Press story about a speech Gov. Rick Snyder was to deliver Wednesday: “The tax switch is part of a MAJOR SPEECH (my capitalization) the Republican governor plans to give today …”

‘Iraqi Freedom’ no ‘cakewalk’

In a 2002 Washington Post piece, George W. Bush adviser Kenneth Adelman notoriously predicted that the U.S. invasion of Iraq would be a “cakewalk.”

This week somebody sent me an unsigned email presenting a batch of numbers related to the war in Iraq. I doubt that the sender was an unbiased source; I assume it was somebody who opposed the war. But the numbers checked out, and they’re sobering.
Some examples:
- Time elapsed since the invasion of Iraq: Eight years and 200-plus days
- Number of U.S. military fatalities: 4,479.
- Number of U.S. military injuries: 30,182.
- Number of documented civilian deaths: around 112,000
- Number of displaced Iraqis in Iraq: 2.8 million.
- Federal funding for the war through fiscal 2011: $806 billion.
- The war’s total economic impact to the U.S. (according to authors Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Blimes): $3 trillion -plus.
w Number of weapons of mass destruction discovered in Iraq: 0.

A different breed of MSU student?

I’ll admit it — I braced myself for what might happen in East Lansing after that final miraculous play in MSU’s improbable defeat of the favored Wisconsin Badgers.

At least they didn’t say “billions and billions…”

An anonymous skeptic forwarded me the press release for this year’s Silver Bells in the City celebration, which claims there will be “millions of lights” downtown.
Millions?

Mom says son innocent of lip-synching

In Friday’s column  I relayed a reader’s suspicion — and Wharton’s adamant denial — that there was some  lip-synching going on during the recent run of “Jersey Boys.” The star’s mom says no way.

MSU’s contriteness better late than never

Notice how the immediate post-game chest-beating, we’re-not-apologizing-for-anything attitude has turned into a little soul-searching on the part of MSU officials?

Don’t blame schools for the dropout rate

If you’re searching for a reason why a quarter of the kids who started high school in Lansing in 2006 didn’t finish in 2010, look deeper than the classroom.