Tulip City Dispatch

In 2007, a group called Citizens For Progress began a movement within the City of Holland.  Their aims were to repeal a ban on alcohol sales within the City Limits on Sundays.   A true grassroots movement, they posted letters from the Holland Sentinel, as well as letters to individual city council members, on their Blogspot . It was in the 1980s when the City of Holland decided to ban alcohol sales in the downtown area specifically.  Meanwhile in the rest of the state, Ottawa County itself allowed sales of spirits and mixed drinks in bars and restaurants (but not beer or wine in bars and restaurants); and the whole State of Michigan had a ban on any alcohol sales in stores or shops at any time on Sunday (I can recall more than one instance in college where we were shooed out of the liquor aisle precisely at midnight). Citizens For Progress had a specific list of benefits for the City, should they repeal the prohibition on Sunday sales: -The City of Holland and its businesses have inve

  Behind The Bastards  is a podcast series about the worst people in history.  Hosted by Cracked alum Robert Evans (the Joe Rogan of the American Left), he goes into depth exploring the backgrounds and stories of dictators, cult leaders, grifters, and other terrible people.  As a Michigander though, especially one who writes articles about local events, I'm forced to wonder why the hell so many Michiganders are featured on BTB. Starting from a broad perspective, while Josh Duggar doesn't directly have connections to Michigan, I've definitely known people who subscribed to his ATI "cult" teachings.  I had peers in high school who fit the descriptions in Evans' podcasts to a T .  As Evans described the abuses within that particular branch of conservative Christianity, I shuddered to think that I probably hung out with kids subject to those same abuses. Battle Creek, MI, is known as Cereal City, USA.  That's just a hop, skip, and jump down the road from my

With the recent passing of former Secretary of Defense, and noted war criminal responsible for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Donald Rumsfeld , some bits of trivia came to light:  Namely, that his family had a vacation home in Castle Park, just south of Holland . There are a lot of myths and legends about Castle Park, due to its impact on the world of literature, as it's where L. Frank Baum wrote The Wizard Of Oz , but that's content for another blog entry. Anyway, anything I could write on the topic of Secdef Rumsfeld has pretty much already been written here: https://www.castlepark.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2011_Spring_Banner.pdf https://www.ft.com/content/6fefa640-c19b-11dd-831e-000077b07658 If I had literally anything else to add, I totally would have.  I've spent weeks roaming the internet, Googling and Duck-Duck-Doing my way around, but the Wood TV link says it best:  Ol' Rummy tried to keep a low profile, and succeeded!