By Staff
I was shocked to hear that Mount Pleasant icon The Embers is closing June 30 after almost 50 years.
Founded by his dad, Clarence, in 1958, the elegant restaurant is owned today by Jeff Tuma, 54, who wants to spend time with his wife, Vicki, and daughter, Shiloh, 15.
The decision affects more than 120 employees.
It was a slow-paced, white-linen, fine-dining experience you might get when your parents visited you at Central Michigan University.
Known for one-pound pork chops and peanuts and peas salad, it's now another casualty of hectic lifestyles fueled by fast food.
Quips, quotes and qulunkers: "Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had a favorable rating of 3 percent. Given the poll's margin of error, it was possible Olmert had no support beyond his extended family."
– Joe Klein
in Time magazine
"Barack Obama could well defeat Hillary Clinton for the nomination. It would be the victory Bobby Kennedy was denied by an assassin's bullet. Obama is, like Kennedy, a charismatic freshman Senator, running before his time but – supporters think – uniquely suited to the time. Obama follows Kennedy in being a bold liberal and a skeptic of simple ideological stances, a gifted politician and an anti-politician, a man familiar with the halls of power yet a charismatic critic of them."
– William Kristol
"Although Clinton's lead is slipping, poll respondents say she would make the best high school principal, the best babysitter and the best contestant on 'Dancing with the Stars.'"
– Time magazine, April 9
"The deceptively normal average temperature this winter masked record-breaking highs in December and record-breaking lows in February. That's the sign not of a planet keeping an even strain but of one thrashing through the alternating chills and night sweats of a serious illness."
– Jeffrey Kluger
Go figure: "King of Queens," the CBS sitcom about a chubby delivery guy (Kevin James), his secretary wife (Leah Remini) and her cranky, cellar-dwelling dad Arthur (Jerry Stiller, who came out of "Seinfeld" retirement) return for their 200 episode tonight and the seven-show countdown to the series end.
How do you last nine seasons and segue into syndication without ever winning an Emmy?
"The Sopranos" is ending after eight years, but I've never seen it.
TV is all about trying to make lightning strike twice. Now that we know celebrities can dance, ABC plans "Fast Cars and Superstars," a summer reality series combining NASCAR and "Dancing with the Stars."
Getting behind the wheel will be Jewel, William Shatner, John Elway, Tony Hawk, Bill Cowher and Gabrielle Reece.
Jimmy Hoffa, who disappeared the month after I graduated from high school, will likely never be found, but the Justice Department paid $160,000 to the owners of a Michigan horse farm to replace a barn the FBI removed last year.
That must be some barn.
Records released to The Detroit News under the Freedom of Information Act show another $65,000 paid to excavators, anthropologists and other contractors involved in the two-week dig last May in Milford Township, northwest of Detroit.
Plus, the $225,000 tab for the latest wild goose chase does not include salary or travel costs for 40 to 50 agents.
31 million: Number of U.S. households without Internet access.