Month: August 2019

This is the best of American wine country

This boutique hotel in Northern Michigan features just 32 guest rooms in a lakeside setting that’ll make you feel like you’re stepping back into the early 20th century. Nearby Walloon Lake Winery is one of many options in the Petoskey Wine Region.

Armed Horse Robbery

Mackinac Island, or Michigan’s go-to destination for fudge and vacation relaxation was the fifth most violent city in the state, ahead of Flint, according to the FBI’s 2016 crime statistics released earlier this month.

Channeling Wilt Chamberlain

Famed director Joel Schumacher, the maker of such 1980s hits like “St. Elmo’s Fire” and “The Lost Boys,” as well as 1990s duds like “Batman & Robin,” shocked the public this week when he claimed to have had up to 20,000 sexual partners in his lifetime.

How Stalin’s daughter became a Catholic

From childhood, she was Svetlana Stalina, the only daughter of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Later, she took her mother’s name, and later still, while living in the United States and upon marrying an American, she became Lana Peters.

Born in 1926, she grew up in an atmosphere where God was never mentioned. Her father ruled over a Communist Party and government that did its best to minimize religion’s role in people’s lives—or use it to advance communist ideology.

In the long run, however, that temporal power was not stronger than the example of Stalin’s Georgian mother—Svetlana’s paternal grandmother.

Goat Whackers

So why is there so much demand for goat grazing? For consumers, there’s still a novelty factor and the constant search for ways to be greener. Goats do emit methane, a greenhouse gas, … Read the rest

Winos Once Every Two Weeks

ed wine is good for gut health and can lower cholesterol, but you only need it once a fortnight, a new study has found.

The first major research of its kind found significantly higher diversity of friendly bacteria in the gut among red wine drinkers, but not among drinkers of white wine, cider or beer.

PSA: The Ultimate Guide to Jell-O Shots

It may be an emblem of Mardi Gras and Spring Break, but we say all summer long is a great time to get back in touch with that classic college drink: the Jell-O shot (which is technically the proper spelling). It’s also appropriate for tailgating season…

Drink Until You Glow

On the heels of the success of HBO’s hit show “Chernobyl,” scientists working in the area have developed a vodka made from grain and water from the contaminated exclusion zone.

The team of researchers, who have been studying the exclusion zone and its recovery from the 1986 accident, formed The Chernobyl Spirit Company to sell their product. Only one bottle has been created so far, but it was recently put to the test at Bar Swift in London. “It’s more of a grain spirit than a vodka, so it has much more fruity notes; you can still taste the rye,” bartender Sam Armeye told the BBC.

Everything You Need to Know about Mezcal

For a moment it seemed that mezcal’s popularity might be its undoing. With dozens of varieties of agave being distilled across Mexico—from the high forests of Oaxaca to the dusty wilds of Durango—there are thousands of permutations possible. Bottlings differ in flavor, depending on the … Read the rest

Subsidies: F to the Fourth. Food Stamps, Farmers, and Fast Food

The U.S. food stamp program was launched at a time when the nation was facing a tragic paradox: As millions of Americans suffered from hunger during the Great Depression, the country’s farmers agonized under a crushing bounty. The economic collapse of the 1930s had sapped food consumers of their purchasing power, so farmers found themselves with a glut of crops and livestock. That glut, in turn, sent agricultural prices plummeting.

In order to create artificial scarcity and boost prices, the U.S. Department of Agriculture under President Franklin D. Roosevelt initially paid farmers to plow under their fields and slaughter their pigs. The destruction of food at a time when so many stomachs rumbled sparked an outcry that prompted the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation (FSCC), a New Deal agency established in 1933, to instead purchase excess food and distribute it directly to the needy at little or no cost. This initiative, however, dampened business for grocers and food wholesalers, who complained of government interference and unfair competition in the marketplace.

Facing the triple problems of farm surpluses, weak sales for grocers and hungry citizens at a time of 17 percent unemployment, the FSCC hoped tiny paper squares could solve its trilemma. Rochester, New York, then became the petri dish for a new government-run economic experiment.

The Theology of Pederasty

One theology text used in some seminaries in the seventies was The Sexual Language by Andre Guindon. It specifically addressed the question of pedophilia. (Guindon uses the term pedophilia restrictively to denote sexual relations with a prepubescent minor.) According to Guindon, scientific research revealed that pedophilia … Read the rest

Hatred of the Middle Class

In some ways, the current age of victimhood has roots in the excesses of Second Wave feminism of the 1970s. The theme of Flora Rheta Schreiber’s bestselling Sybil (published in 1973) was that some American women were so oppressed that they split themselves into multiple personalities, as a defense. Marketed as nonfiction, Sybil became a national sensation, with 6 million copies sold and 40 million Americans watching a two-part television series based on the book. Thirty-eight years later, it was exposed as a hoax.

Nuclear Answers for Everything . . . A Venerable Tradition

Books flourished touting the newly acquired power of the sun. “When the bomb was dropped,” writer Isaac Asimov explained, “atomic-doom science-fiction stories grew to be so numerous that editors began refusing them on sight.” Cereal giant General Mills got into the act with an offer that children could mail in 15 cents’ postage and a Kix cereal box top in exchange for an “atomic bomb ring,” where kids could “see genuine atoms SPLIT to smithereens.” (General Mills “guaranteed” that the ring was not actually able “to blow everything sky high.”) Some 750,000 children were soon running around their neighborhoods pretending to launch nuclear explosions in all directions.

How Gun-Detection Technology Promises to Help Prevent Mass Shootings

Athena Security uses object-motion detection to spot when an individual brandishes a fireman, and immediately send an alert to their client, whether that’s a private security firm or local law enforcement. The company’s AI object-motion detection is camera agnostic, meaning it can work on any CCTV system. When a gun is detected, the video feed of the active shooter is … Read the rest

A Bit Too Harsh for Comfort

My principal purpose in visiting Buenos Aires is to learn about its not-so-favorite son, Jorge Bergoglio, who still hasn’t visited Argentina since becoming Pope Francis. During my first few days here, I asked every Catholic I met to explain that anomaly. I got some blunt and brutal answers.

“We all know he is a son of a bitch,” said a former prosecutor to me. “We are ashamed of him. He represents our worst qualities.”

Based on Above, Current Pope Apparently Not One of Them

The 100-year-old Franciscan who knew 6 saints in person.

Of the saints he met, three were popes. He met St. John XXIII while he was still the Patriarch of Venice, where Fr. Giuseppe had been assigned to work at the Frari Basilica. He spoke of the saintly pope in an interview in the St. Anthony Messenger: “We knew each other well. He often came to lunch at our convent in Venice.” St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II both visited the Basilica of Saint Anthony in Padua, where Fr. Giuseppe lived for nearly 50 years.

He also met three great Franciscan saints:

St. Leopold Mandic is a Capuchin saint from Croatia, famous as a particularly kind and gentle confessor, and described by Fr. Giuseppe as “a man of great humility, sensitivity towards others, and great wisdom.” Fr. Giuseppe was impressed by the time they spent together: “He used to come to the Basilica every Wednesday. He would first pay his respects to St. Antony at the Tomb, and then head straight for the confessional, where he used to administer the sacrament for hours on … Read the rest

83 Michigan Counties, 83 Bars

It’s no lie, we have a pretty great bar culture here in Michigan. From the down and dirty dives, to high end classy affairs, there is somewhere for everyone, and every taste. There are holes in the wall, and wood paneled beauties. You can meet friends for beers and a good talk at some, and enjoy a loud local band at others. There are so many to choose from across Michigan that we thought we’d help you find some of the coolest ones in each of our 83 counties.

Each of these spots offers something unique, from the decor, to the food, to the patrons and owners. Some are drinks only, while other bars are specifically known for offering incredible home cooked meals as well.

There are bars on this list that we know you’ve driven by dozens of times and always wondered if it was worth a stop. We lay out what to expect at these gems, and what patrons love about their favorite watering holes. This is your guide to explore some new places, or remember why you’ve always loved your neighborhood spot.

As always, we encourage you to drink responsibly, and never drink and drive.

The Great Experiment that Shouldn’t be Necessary

When students got their textbooks at the beginning of the year at San Mateo High School, they also received the Yondr pouch, a locking device for their phones.

The phone slides into it and gets locked through a magnetic device. It’s not unlocked again until the final bell rings. The procedure will repeat every day for the rest of the school year.

It’s Because They … Read the rest