Brian’s Column: Local Government inAction

You wouldn’t think fixing a ramp at the recycle center would be a big deal

NoviOkay this is a column about an incident that writes itself. Describes my recent interaction with the local government facilities, city of Novi, Michigan. I’m not the most active citizen, but have attended a couple city council meetings and try to do my civic duty. As a Libertarian, I do not want activist government but I certainly would like to see responsive government. Which means if there’s a dog running loose or a child being brainwashed against his will at the high school: “Could you please quickly send someone over to fix that?”

I’ve already written a piece on predatory local government, from the next county over, that is Wayne County and the Northville, Michigan, police. Who because of an ambiguity of driving a car registered and insured (all paid up, by the way) in my then recently deceased mother’s name, I was rousted by a girl cop and her magic license plate twanger. This wonderful little bureaucop even emphasized she could take me to jail—twice!—for such an egregious offense. I’ll let you read all about it in the column I wrote here, which had a semi-happy ending thanks to my own passionate oration in court against such outrageous behavior being well-received by an actual human judge. Continue reading

Brian’s Column: ‘Life and Times’ Prospecting

Some Thoughts and a Pitch from the Brave New World of People’s Publishing

PressSay what you will about the Amazon dynasty, its Createspace subsidiary has made possible an entire new set of careers for writers and editors qua publishers. What I mean by that is if you want to write a book and you know how to use a computer, you can put a real one up on the Web and available as printed material complete with ISBN and all the bells and whistles that make it available to all the libraries of the world. It’s like in the movie, The Jerk, when the Steve Martin character finally sees his name in the telephone directory! Continue reading