The Juneteenth Issue of City Pulse comes out today. Here is my submission.

Stars, Stripes, and Selective Memory: Why Juneteenth Deserves More Than a Hashtag and a Target Sale

I’m a 54-year-old cis white guy, born in the golden era of grilled cheese sandwiches, Saturday morning cartoons, and the kind of oblivious American freedom that felt like a birthright, not a construct. For the first 40 years of my life, I mistook privilege for normalcy. It wasn’t malice—it was just… America, the whitewashed edition.

Then came Trayvon Martin. A 17-year-old kid shot dead for the crime of walking while Black—and suddenly the land of the free had a different contour. I watched in disbelief as people twisted themselves into moral pretzels to justify his murder, while George Zimmerman was elevated to some kind of neighborhood-watch Batman. Colin Kaepernick takes a knee and America responded by throwing a tantrum with the energy of a toddler who just found out bedtime is real. The cartoonish double standards I’d be blind to for so long.

Fast forward past the outrage cycle, past Kaepernick’s knee (and America’s collective neck craning away), we’ve got folks fighting tooth and nail to keep Juneteenth in the discount bin, all while polishing their flagpoles for July 4th. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts are being axed like they were some radical Marxist spell cast upon HR departments. School curriculums? Scrubbed clean of anything that might give little Johnny the impression that America has ever done anything wrong. And let’s not forget the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture—the literal repository of truth—being forced to remove items. Because apparently, it’s easier to erase history than to teach it. DEI programs are being axed like they were caught teaching kids to read Karl Marx in drag. School boards are banning books faster than they can spell “inclusion.” DEI offices are getting gutted like someone found empathy hiding in the budget, as if saying “Black Lives Matter” is more offensive than, you know, erasing actual Black lives from the American narrative. Black leaders’ names disappear from government buildings like someone’s trying to win a game of DEI Bingo in reverse. First one to wipe out all cultural memory gets a flag pin and a podcast deal. What are we doing? Deleting names from buildings, deleting facts from textbooks, deleting history like it’s a Netflix show that tested poorly in focus groups. All while clutching pearls about “erasing history” whenever someone suggests maybe Robert E. Lee doesn’t deserve his own zip code. And the irony? It’s thick enough to slice with a butter knife. These are often the same people who will chest-thump about “preserving American heritage,” while actively deleting the heritage of Black Americans who, let’s be honest, built the damn country—for free.

So let’s talk about Juneteenth. Not the corporate-sanctioned ice cream flavor or the obligatory tweet from that one senator who voted against making it a federal holiday. Let’s talk about why Juneteenth should be reverent, sobering, and, yes—uncomfortable. Ah yes—Juneteenth, the holiday that shows up on calendars now but still gets side-eyed by half the country like it wandered into the wrong cookout. It’s the day that commemorates when the last enslaved people in Galveston, Texas were told they were actually free—two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Basically, it’s America saying, “Oh right, we forgot to tell you… our bad!” You’d think a moment like that—the literal end of slavery—might command some reverence. Maybe even fireworks, parades, or a dramatic reading of actual history in classrooms. But no. Instead, Juneteenth gets a discount at Old Navy and maybe a soul food pop-up next to the company vending machines. Meanwhile, July 4th is treated like a national baptism—pure, perfect, unblemished patriotism. Never mind the whole “slavery was still going strong” thing when the Founders were high-fiving each other with quill pens. Juneteenth isn’t a side dish to America’s history—it is the main course. It is the moment the ideals of freedom were finally extended—however begrudgingly, however slowly—to the people who had been written out of the script from the beginning. It is a sacred marker that freedom in this country has never been free—and it has never been evenly distributed. So no, Juneteenth isn’t just another holiday. It’s not a theme day. It’s not a “Happy Juneteenth!” text with a fist emoji. It’s not an excuse to slap red, black, and green on a coffee cup, or t-shirt and call it progress. It’s a day to sit in the discomfort of America’s delayed justice. To acknowledge the centuries-long gap between what we say we are and what we’ve actually been. It’s a time to listen, to learn, to shut up and show up. Juneteenth makes a lot of white people nervous. Because it’s not a holiday you can fake your way through with a bald eagle shirt and a Lee Greenwood playlist. It’s a holiday that whispers, “Hey, America, maybe you’re not the hero in every story.” And America hates that.

This is what Juneteenth is up against: a country that loves the idea of freedom—as long as it doesn’t come with context, discomfort, or accountability. Fun fact, formerly enslaved people were promised 40 acres and a mule as reparations. In that time, that would have been a pathway to fundamentally change the trajectory of Black economic, social, and political life in America. But guess what? Andrew Johnson evicted freed people violently and rescinded the order for any reparations for formerly enslaved people. But guess who did get reparations? If you guessed Confederates who were pardoned and economically empowered through sharecropping and Jim Crow laws, you’re a winner baby.

And now, in 2025, we’re in the middle of what I can only call a Reverse Enlightenment.

And if you’re someone like me—who had the luxury of ignorance for far too long—Juneteenth is a day to reflect on the fact that freedom delayed is freedom denied, and silence is complicity dressed up as politeness. So go ahead, enjoy your fireworks on July 4th. But on June 19th, maybe don’t reach for the party poppers. Instead, reach for a book, a podcast, a conversation. Sit with history. Not the version written by the winners, but the one carried on the backs of the people who were never supposed to survive it.

And if you’re uncomfortable?

Good. You’re finally doing it right.

Think about the narrative you’re hearing about the National Guard being deployed in LA right now. Here we are again watching the beacon of democracy declare war on its own citizens, criminalizing dissent, and pretending the Constitution is more of a vibe than a binding document. It’s less “of the people, by the people, and for the people” and more of “the strongman, by executive order, here’s more freedom. Mind the tear gas, and rubber bullets.” I mean, he has a parade this week, so I guess that’s why he didn’t send the tanks in. LA is a test. Who’s next?

The White House is pushing Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation-backed fever dream that’s basically a blueprint for authoritarianism wrapped in a flag. It calls for purging federal agencies of so-called “woke” ideology (read: racial equity), dismantling civil rights protections like they’re graffiti on the Lincoln Memorial. Project 2025 isn’t just some bureaucratic restructuring plan—it’s a cultural purge. It’s a scalpel aimed directly at the already-faint pulse of justice in this country. It’s the kind of political necromancy that wants to drag us back to a time when “freedom” had an asterisk—

What should your AC tech do during maintenance? Click on the image above to link to the video of what they should be doing~ including cleaning it inside and out.

What WE do: Open up the A/C, remove the cover, inspect all parts, clean the inside, clean the outside, clean the top fan assembly and reassemble. We even bring the hose!

For your A/C unit to work correctly, it does need to be cleaned regularly. Dirty A/C units cannot operate as efficiently as clean ones, and gunk blocking fan blades from rotating cleanly doesn’t help performance either.

You should have your A/C serviced regularly for optimal performance. You want to be able to click on that switch on the thermostat on the first hot day and know that it’s working properly.

Contact our team at All Star Mechanical for a maintenance service. We’ll do it right.

Welcome to 2025. I am not prepared, and I don’t know what I could’ve done differently. It is really just hard to believe everything that has happened since the election. I mean, it’s a whirlwind, and the hits keep on coming. I know my tears are being swallowed up by the anti woke crowd, but I couldn’t care less about their glee, nothing should surprise me anymore and so I will just continue to live and vote for the change I want to see, it is literally all I can do.

I have no doubt that what we will see in the coming months will be chaos. I am only hopeful that the chaos slows down the harm that will certainly be unleashed on so many. I distinctly remember the first administration in which he displayed himself as such a foul character from every single aspect, and I still can’t understand how anyone would choose that. I call you a liar if you said you would accept your child behaving like him. Everything I was taught as a child was to reject that type of behavior. I didn’t think you could make this stuff up and people would believe it but here we are listening to him talk about making Canada the 51st state? I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that they think that the billionaires they love so much are somehow going to make life better for them. Do they understand the billionaire class became billionaires at their exploitation, regardless of how it’s spun? Now they think that these same billionaires will reward them with wealth, or security, or peace of mind? I’ve been waiting for trickle down economics to work for like 50 years, and the rich just keep getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, wages are stagnant, and people are working themselves sick. Yeah, the I told you sos will not make up for the destruction they leave in their wake.

My message is this, just because your guy won an election, doesn’t translate to you being better off. I have no doubt that you’ll walk around with your chest puffed out, but even more probable is that you will find out that he doesn’t care about you even a little, so your posturing will be in vain. The only segment of the population that will prosper will be those who are already rich, or those willing to sacrifice any of their dignity at the expense of others. Trump and his ilk have never parted with a dollar, even if it meant to bankrupt someone who works hard.

With the economy being the reason (that’s their claim anyway) many people voted for a billionaire, I wonder how they came to the idea that he, or anyone around him, has their interests at heart. As a small, privately, and truly locally owned business, my goal has always been to provide the type of quality workmanship that you should always expect to receive. I can say with certainty that nobody locally does what we do, and I’d rather you hire another small locally owned business than one that has sold out to the corporate greed of big money. The economic trend lately in many industries of public service has been for private equity groups to maximize profits by purchasing companies or businesses, which in a consumer capitalist society has never benefited the consumer in the long run, as they have to cut costs somewhere in order to satisfy their shareholders. Eventually they buy up all of the competition, and then they can charge whatever they want. They tend to market everything they offer by using gimmicks such as buy a furnace and get a free AC, which is never really the case, but they certainly can give quotes that are much cheaper because their goal is quantity over quality, and the end game is to not have any competition so they can then set the value at whatever they want, which will make a lot of products unaffordable by a majority of people who are already struggling, and so these private equity groups own financing companies who have already set up predatory lending options that will worsen the situation for people with no other financial means.

It is already here in Lansing. Many of the companies that you’ve thought were local are not local at all. They are owned by private equity firms whose goal is to eliminate companies like mine. We may all look back one day and say “why aren’t there any quality contractors out there anymore?” and it will be because the right has played the long game, and destroyed local business. It has happened in so many industries, and it is now happening with the home service industry at a pretty good pace. Just as an example, look up Heartland Home Services and you’ll see they own at least 3 dozen heating and cooling companies including ones you’ve heard of right here like Vredevoogd, and Hager Fox. They still advertise as being local, but Heartland Home Services has bought out plumbing and heating and cooling companies from Kentucky, to Delaware, Minnesota, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, and several right here in MIchigan. This is just one private equity firm, there are so many others. Hedlund Plumbing built a reputable business but is now rebranded as Service Professor. They are not locally owned and they are flooding the radio, TV and social media with ads to get you to call them. Look, I can’t compete with the volume, but the type of tactics they use are not good for the consumer, and with shady tactics, it is usually followed by less than scrupulous work practices. Trump, Elon, and the other billionaires’ policies will promote more of this until we are living in the world of the movie Idiocracy.

I hope the rest of the world stands up to defend decency, because I feel pretty small. I feel like I am witnessing everything I have come to know is not normal anymore, lies are perceived as truth, intellect is perceived as elitist, history doesn’t matter, money determines one’s success, etc. I can’t keep up. I am only thankful to know that there are so many of you who see things similarly to me.

There was a time, I think, when most people could see the good, and the bad, and make a distinction between the two. A time when people inherently did the right thing. Maybe I am being nostalgic, but I want to see the good in people, but it is getting harder and harder when we as a collective have chosen the likes of a man who has no redeeming qualities. It is as if we have forsaken humanity because he has built an empire and a brand. His tall buildings are a symbol of American exceptionalism, and I don’t mean that in a good way, because he is certainly exceptional in all of the ways I despise. I want to see more people get ahead, get a proper education, understand the world is full of many walks of life that look nothing like their own, and accept people regardless of their differences.

We are still a young country, but we’ve grown at an exponential pace during the industrial age. Many who subscribe to old ways of thinking do so because it’s hard to accept new ideas, but that just isn’t good enough. The ideas they inherited were passed down subconsciously to their children and generations afterward. Brave people spoke out and we saw change, but to this day we still see the vestiges of hate that I hope are gasping for its last collective breath, but I won’t hold mine because I can see how stubborn it is. It is up to us who find ourselves amongst those with long held ideas to continue to challenge them and make it known that hate is not welcome here. I can say with certainty that silence is only going to make things worse. You can’t fix a problem if you don’t confront it, and I know from personal experience that hearing a bigoted joke, or a racist joke, or a sexist joke and not saying it may not harm me, but it will harm someone close to me.

For the next four years, I will continue to promote diversity, equity and inclusion. I want the best people do have opportunities to contribute to society, and it doesn’t mean that just because someone is of a certain race, sex or orientation that they should be given anything, but that they shouldn’t be excluded just because their name looks foreign, or they dress a certain way, or because of who they love etc. For me, I know people in positions of power often overlook an application because the person’s name is Jamal, and not Steve. They may be equally qualified, but Jamal may not even get the call back to prove he is indeed the best fit. DEI is not about giving the position to someone just because said person is Black, a Woman, or identifies as Queer, if you think that is what DEI is, you are not listening, either willfully or ignorantly, or both.

I am sure the next few weeks will be as chaotic as the last couple of months. My head is on a swivel, and I can barely focus on any one thing, but the economy will impact everyone and I suspect the likes of Joe Rogan, Glen Beck, Steve Bannon, Elon and so on will spin things to fit their narrative through plausible deniability (they’ve mastered this), but these people are all profiting off of the exploitation of many who have been deceived by false narratives that keep them comfortably in their bubble. These are the types of people who are bad for the American people, no matter what party you subscribe to. They all sell America out by claiming they are loyal to the ideas and promises of this nation. They have been claiming the sky is falling since Obama took office, and yet, we have seen progress along the way. Hopefully they won’t burn it down, but they will blame it on Joe if it does.

Going solar with a heat pump option is the next step for the homeowners with solar who want to maximize the use of their solar array and heat and cool their homes. Solar arrays, along with a new variable speed inverter heat pump with 2 stage electric resistance auxiliary heat and a new humidifier powers the heating and cooling at this Lansing-area house.

This homeowner client had a solar panel array with battery backup and wanted to power their furnace with the solar array. This heat pump plus electric auxiliary heat allows them to use their solar-generated electricity to heat and cool their home! This doesn’t use a standard gas hookup, but is powered by electricity the homeowner generates from their solar panel array. From the outside, it looks just like a regular A/C unit, and on the inside, a regular furnace. But it’s not!

This is an air to air source heat pump with back up resistance heat. The heat pump is basically an air conditioner with a reversing valve. In the summer, the outdoor unit is the condenser, and the indoor unit is the evaporator, and it reverses operation in the winter. On the coldest days, the back up resistance heat gives more output when it’s needed. It uses a lot of electricity, but with solar it will offset the cost and with enough hours banked it could actually produce more than you might use. There is no gas, it’s entirely electric. The indoor unit is an air handler with a coil and the back up heat.

These types of systems come with a 30% tax credit from the federal government’s Inflation Reduction Act, passed by the Biden/Harris administration. Tax incentives help defray the cost of a new installation of solar electricity, weatherproofing, heat pump systems such as this, to help combat climate change.

Going solar with a heat pump option in Michigan:

If you have solar panel array at your home and want a great option for heating your home in the winter and cooling it in the summer, contact us for a quote on this system. You could power your heating and cooling from the sun!

There is nothing worse than realizing your furnace or air conditioner has stopped working! And worse yet, it’s always when you need it (naturally!) What do you do when you need heating and cooling repair in Lansing? Call All Star Mechanical!

You have a lot of choice when it comes to heating and cooling repair in Lansing. We’re the hometown team who has been (honestly) serving Lansing for over two decades. We will always give it to you with a solid explanation, so you are aware of how your system works (and why it’s not working) and what it will take to fix.

Why Trane? They’re simply reliable for long term performance! And, if you’re going to invite us into your home and install the biggest home system you have (heating and air conditioning), you’d better choose reliable over cheap! Trane air conditioning repair is something that we do, and we do well.

When we counsel customers about what type of air conditioning and heating system to install in their homes, it’s usually because it’s not working. And, you know, if your air conditioning isn’t working, and it’s 92 and humid, you’re probably pretty irritated about that already. On top of it, now you have this big expense. But what if we told you that expense could last you many decades? That certainly takes the ‘per-every-92-degree-day’ cost down pretty cheap. Everyone compares it to a fancy latte at a coffee shop but even if you DO forego a stop in at Strange Matter coffee, we promise you’ll be a lot happier if your home is 72 degrees tonight at 10pm!

Trane air conditioning systems work. They work reliably year over year, and decade over decade. We don’t want you to just have a few years of blissful cool indoor weather, we want you to have decades of it. And that kind of reliability works. Now, if you DO have to replace it, we might also talk to you about replacing your furnace at the same time. Why? Not so we can make a buck, but so you can SAVE some. If your furnace is also aging, you will find a whole systems replace to be far more energy efficient AND cost effective over time than replacing one over the other.

We love doing Trane air conditioning repair too – the parts are available, they’re reliable, they work. We won’t be returning again and again to fix the same problem. You’ll be happy with the cool in your house on your upper floor and your main floor at the same time (we aim for less than a 2 degree difference!) And, if you’ve spent a sweltering humid Michigan summer without it, consider what it’s going to be like as every summer seems to be getting hotter and hotter!

Give us a call to schedule a service review!

Lansing Heating and Cooling companies are by and large run by one of two kinds of companies: independently owned businesses like Lansing’s All Star Mechanical or they are owned by large companies (aka “Private Equity”) that have bought up many smaller firms. You might not know they are owned by large firms because they kept their “small town name”.

What is the difference and what does it mean for Lansing heating and cooling services? Simple. If you’re part of a big private equity firm, their goal isn’t service, it’s extracting the most amount of profit out of the company. A good company really invested in Lansing is pretty easy to spot. Do they actively work in Lansing? On their company social media do they show that they are invested in things that are happening around Lansing? That could be anything from attending local events and festivals to being involved in local initiatives, activism or even politics (yes, politics!)

If you’re invested in Lansing, then the customers you serve are your friends and neighbors – or they are friends of your friends or neighbors (it’s a small town!) And as such, you have to do the right thing by them, because your reputation will precede you!

Yes, it’s a new Trane furnace. Yes, it’s a basement. But nobody gets excited about their new furnace, except us! And yet, it’s one of the bigger expenses you might have to have in your home!

What to look for in Lansing Heating and Cooling companies?

Do they work in the Lansing area exclusively (that also includes our outlying communities like Okemos, Haslett, Bath, DeWitt, St. John’s, Holt, Delta Township, Grand Ledge.) Do they have Lansing customers? Some big companies have come in from other places with no connection to Lansing.

Have they worked on a variety of installations for heating and cooling? We’ve done some really great stuff with homeowners with all sizes of homes (and basements, crawl spaces or closets!)

Here’s our recommendation for what to look for and why.

Lansing’s All Star Mechanical Larry Kirchoff talks with WLAJ’s Susan Angel about how businesses, faced with rising costs, are responding – without gouging Lansing customers! In this segment, Larry and Susan explore how businesses are coping with their costs rising, and how having great employees (paid a living wage) reduces turnover (and cost), how working with customers on their budgets (and factoring in long term functionality of their furnace and air conditioning equipment) can pay off for both the business AND the customer.

Inflation has affected the home heating and cooling (HVAC) industry a lot. Here’s what we’re doing to help YOU, the customer, as prices everywhere go up. We’ve done that in a few ways:

Absorbing the cost of price increases, so you don’t have to pay for them (we do)

Retention of our staff – paying them a good wage means they are happy and stick around. Training is a huge cost in our industry. Happy employees love to help customers!

Check out this short video interview with Larry Kirchoff, All Star Mechanical and Susan Angel from WLAJ.