Si Quaeris Peninsulam Amoenam Circumspice: If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you. It is the official motto of a state now advertising itself as a "19-million-acre playground that’s Pure Michigan."

For most of her adult life, Mari has lived the ultimate gamble: getting through without health insurance. She has always had a job but made too much money to qualify for Medicaid, which caps income for single adult recipients at 35 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $3,900 in 2012. Her employers did not offer a health benefit. With an annual income of less than $22,000, buying insurance on her own was simply out of the question.

Let me tell you about the time I accidentally took Carl Levin to the wrong country. But before we get to that, a few other personal thoughts about the man who has served this nation for 34 years and counting in the U.S. Senate, from which he has announced his retirement.

It is a perpetual campaign — not just for president, but for state offices as well. Just three months after the 2012 general election, campaigning is well underway for 2014.

Michigan is one of the dumbest states in the nation, but it's not a matter of genetics or innate intelligence. We aren't trying hard enough. And we're also losing too many of our best and brightest.

A soft-spoken policy wonk has become one of the most influential voices in Michigan on how to reinvent the state’s economy. No, it's not the self-described "One Tough Nerd" in the Governor's Office. He's Lou Glazer, co-founder and president of Michigan Future, a nonpartisan Ann Arbor-based think tank.

Don't look now, but Lansing is already in another election cycle. And it looks like it is going to be nasty.

The Virg Bernero reelection campaign got underway Monday evening with a State of the City address right out of Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America." Bernero's nearly half-hour speech to a packed audience at the restored Grand Trunk Western Railroad depot was a non-stop recitation of Lansing's economic successes in the last couple of years, with little mention of the continuing major budget challenges facing City Hall.

Gov. Rick Snyder and legislative Republican leaders have loudly proclaimed their desire to work on a bipartisan basis in 2013, a far cry from their one-party rule of the last two years. The governor's call is based in large part on political necessity.

How do we build the new Michigan economy? The answer to this question is our most important political debate for 2013. After riding on the automobile-driven wave that was our 20th-century key to prosperity, politicians and economists continue to battle over the best economic model for the 21st century.