Opinion

by Lynn Parramore WHAT IF YOU could receive a guaranteed basic yearly income with no strings attached? Didn’t matter how much money you made now, or in the future. Nobody would ask about your job status or how many kids you have. The…

Cordial greetings. I appreciated the trial subscription to The Ann Arbor Independent. Ann Arbor is in need of an independent newspaper, providing careful and in-depth reporting about local affairs, and I had looked forward to becoming a…

by Steve Rosenfeld SECRETARY OF Defense Chuck Hagel unveiled his 2015 Pentagon budget in a detailed speech where he proposed spending $496 billion—about $45 billion less than the White House, retiring a tank-shooting aircraft and spy…

by Dean Paton UNTIL ABOUT 1980, America’s public schoolteachers were iconic everyday heroes painted with a kind of Norman Rockwell patina—generally respected because they helped most kids learn to read, write and successfully join…

SO-CALLED FRONT GROUPS are common. The Koch brothers have put together a network of 17 financially interconnected PACs and nonprofits. On the surface, the 17 entities appear independent from each other. It took an investigation by the…

ANN ARBOR’S LOBBYIST Kirk Profit also lobbies for Ypsilanti, Ypsilanti Township, Washtenaw County, the University of Michigan and Washtenaw Community College. According to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, Profit’s lobbying…

By Marc Joseph AS ENVIRONMENTALISM goes mainstream, corporations are marketing the word “green” as a panacea for the world’s climate crisis. Today the word describes a set of prescribed, mostly consumerist actions: buy local, organic and…

DR. JEANICE SWIFT hopes to attract students from districts throughout Washtenaw County in the 2014-2015 academic year. AAPS has designated 100 seats in kindergarten, 100 seats in first grade, 25 seats in grades 3, 4, 5, 50 seats in grades…

by Tom Watkins NEITHER CHINA NOR America is an island. What happens in one country impacts the other and often, all humanity. This makes China’s minority “problem” a world problem. The leadership of China met in Beijing in November,…

COLLEGE CAMPUSES ARE dangerous places for American women. According to figures from a U.S. Department of Justice study, 25 percent of college women will be victims of rape or attempted rape before they graduate within a four-year college…