March 19, 2024

Letters 07-28-14

July 27, 2014

Our simple rules: Keep your letter to 300 words or less, send no more than one per month, include your name/address/phone number, and agree to allow us to edit. That’s it. Email info@northernexpress.com and hit send!

Worry About Legals

I can’t figure out what perplexes me more, the misinformation everywhere in the media or those who believe it to be true. Take the Hobby Lobby case; as a company that is primarily owned by a religious family, they felt their First Amendment rights were infringed upon by the "Affordable" Care Act. Hobby Lobby didn’t have a problem with the birth control for employees mandate; it was the four methods of "˜birth control’ they considered against their beliefs (they’re pro-life) because these plans were like abortions.

But according to a recent letter from a woman in Cedar, this was an attempt to get an outright ban on birth control! How is Hobby Lobby advocating the banning of birth control by refusing to pay for contraceptions they view as abortions? After all, aren’t the sixteen other choices that Hobby Lobby IS willing to pay for enough? In this same letter this lady laments the 60,000 desperate children illegally entering this country, and armed militia hunting them down. Really? Do you know that at least 1 in 5 of these "˜children’ have a criminal record? How many of these "˜children’ are actually "mules" for the drug lords? How pathetically few will actually show up for these so-called hearings to see if they can stay here legally, and how many will continue to overload our "˜generosity’ until all of us are as poor as these "˜children’? There are hard working individuals and families who want to come here LEGALLY to better their lives who are being pushed to the back of the line to allow people that are here illegally to go ahead of them. What about their rights? Weren’t they in line first?

Kelly Croff, Alanson

Stop Labeling and Enjoy

I have been struggling to find a simple way of understanding for myself the concepts of conservative, liberal, and moderation as it relates to our social interactions with each other. Why are we consumed with how right we are, and how wrong the other fellow is?

Conservatives look at a situation and take only that which profits them. Liberals, on the other hand, absorb everything but rarely take effective action to make anything happen. It falls to the Moderates who seem to have the innate ability to convert that information for the day-to-day running of life that benefits all of us. Thankfully, we have lots of Moderates.

I offer this global analogy as a way of keeping things in perspective and learning to appreciate our diversity. Conservatives and Liberals are the north and south and make us think about things because of their opposing views. The Moderates hold it all together and are the "equator" of common sense.

We need all three types of individuals or there would be no progress for mankind. May we be less harsh and critical with others simply because they think differently then we do.

I, for one, have pulled myself out of this labeling system that limits my potential to function. Nowhere is it written in our genes that we must belong to one of these three groups. Just because we have different viewpoints, does not make us more right than the next person.

This is a great time to be alive. Relax into the beauty of this wonderful experience called life and enjoy the ride!

William E. Scott, Traverse City

Proposal One & The Public Good

Are you kidding me? Another corporate giveaway with loopholes for large corporations who rule us? Hasn’t our corrupt and worthless governor done enough to raise taxes, provide corporate welfare, unjustly tax pensions, and shut down elected officials with his emergency manager racket?

I for one am voting NO for it is endorsed by the Chamber, a political arm of the do nothing Republicans in Congress who don’t know how to govern and are only in politics to make money and gain public services for their profiteering friends. Does the public need to have corporations vie to control markets and set prices over public necessities we all need? Can you really "trust" someone who is in it for themselves and doesn’t give a damn about the public? You will pay more in taxes on this one, I can guarantee it!

Bradford Krull, Glen Arbor

The Truth About Road Workers

Apparently Mr. Kachadurian did not catch on to the fact that the MDOT Employee Memorial in Clare is a tribute to highway workers who lost their lives building our transportation systems. It was paid for by current and former MDOT employees who likely knew some of these people personally. It is in honor of real people who perished – men and women with spouses, parents, children and friends who mourn their loss. The workers charged with directing traffic at construction sites should not be belittled. They are charged with an important task, to protect not only the workers but the distracted, impatient or drunk portion of the public from themselves. And those generous wages and benefits for "sign turners"? The MDOT General Wage Decision I have on my desk for a current project lists Flag Person at $7.25 per hour, fringes, $0. My firm employs surveyors, engineers and technicians that work on the roads, bridges and highways and I am grateful that we have valued vendors such as Give Em a Brake Safety to supply the equipment that creates a safer work environment for them so they can go home every day to their families.

Rebecca L. Smits, Inland Seas Engineering, Traverse City

Idiotic and Misguided

As a seasonal resident, I always look forward to reading your paper, if only because of the idiotic letters to the editor and off the wall columns.

The recent column by Stephen Tuttle tries to blame George Bush for the immigration disaster on our Southern border, despite the fact that President You’re All Wrong Obama passed the Dream Act, encouraging people to send their children on the dangerous journey north, or the fact that he has brought senior officials from La Raza into his administration while brashly refusing to enforce existing immigration law. Tuttle accuses Bush, during whose term fewer than 18,000 illegal immigrants entered the U.S. in any given year, while more than 300,000 (including 60,000 children) have entered in just the past 9 months.

Then there’s the fanatical letter from Beverly Christensen about the Hobby Lobby decision. Apparently ignorant of the facts, Ms. Christensen thinks Republicans are out to ban birth control. (Seriously?) In fact, Hobby Lobby has long been paying for birth control, but refused to pay for the morning after pill, which works by causing a spontaneous abortion of a fertilized egg (fetus).

Then there’s the letter from George Edmonds who thinks Republicans have "an absence of emotion" when it comes to women’s health, Medicare, and Medicaid. Apparently George doesn’t know that it was President Bush who instituted Medicare drug coverage, or that the real war on women is the victimization of women by a culture that expects them to suppress their fertility and make themselves available on demand by ingesting cancer-causing hormones.

If all this weren’t so sad, it would be amusing to read how misinformed and misguided your writers (and readers?) seem to be.

Joe San Filippo, Manistee

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