March 18, 2024

Letters 02-15-2016

Feb. 12, 2016

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!

No More Balloon Launches In the recent Wedding issue, a writer noted a trend of celebratory balloon launches at weddings. Balloon releases are nothing more than a wind-born distribution of litter, not an appropriate way to celebrate a marriage or commemorate cancer victims and survivors.

This is especially a problem in northern Michigan, where the wind is likely to take the balloons to a nearby lake, stream or woods. Whenever I’ve participated in a beach cleanup, balloons and attached ribbons are always the greatest volume of trash collected (cigarette butts are the most by number). Even if you purchase allegedly "˜biodegradable’ balloons and ribbons, they will still be present for years. They are unsightly and can kill or injure birds and other wildlife that get tangled or try to eat them.

You would never take the whole box of balloons and just dump it on a beach, would you? And if you did, you’d get fined for littering. But somehow people think it is beautiful to release them and let them fall where they may, with no thought to the consequences.

Please rethink this.

Martha Lancaster, Harbor Springs

Plenty Of Blame In Flint Many opinions have been voiced about the Flint water crisis; all have left many questions unasked, such as:

Lead is the culprit, and a there is a ban on lead in paint, as well as one on lead in new plumbing materials. There are still many service connecting pipes made out of lead in service. Why? Have any been installed despite the ban?

The Flint River has high levels of chloride (a corrosive) in it. How long has this been known, and has there been any effort to lower these levels? What other contaminants are in this water that we don’t know about, and why don’t we? Why didn’t Flint city employees fully "˜vet’ this river before using it as a water source? Why didn’t the DEQ require these same employees to use a "corrosion control" additive? How much did/does the EPA know, and how long have they known it? Have they "˜cooperated’ with the locals?

The Flint water treatment plant was only used during an emergency in the past. Was this plant properly maintained and cleaned during the times it wasn’t in use? Are there any "˜parts’ in this plant made out of lead?

I’m not asking these questions to excuse the governor or the legislators for their actions, but as an effort to get at the truth and only the truth. If based in facts, the answers may prove that the crisis has been simmering for longer than most believe, and that we have more directions to point our fingers of blame than most of us have fingers.

Mr. Kelly Croff, Alanson

Stop Balloon Releases I was appalled by the column on the wedding traditions article that suggested making new traditions like releasing balloons at the conclusion of the ceremony!

I am the president of AFFEW (A Few Friends for the Environment of the World) in Ludington, and we clean beaches four times a year. We have collected so many helium balloons and strings over the past 20 years. One year there were over 100 balloon pieces that were collected in a half-mile span! This is littering! There are many other options; go to http://balloonsblow.org/

Mother Earth and her inhabitants thank you.

Julia Chambers, Fountain

Roosevelt Had It Right 202 years ago the British Royal Navy bombarded Fort McHenry during the War Of 1812. While being held captive aboard the HMS Surprise, Francis Scott Key composed the immortal "Star Spangled Banner" poem. 202 years later I ask, "Oh, say can you see" one of the most appallingly dishonest presidential election cycles since the Adams/Jefferson election of 1800?

Thanks to President William Jefferson Clinton and the 104th Congress. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed, creating the six monolithic corporations that now control all information on the public airwaves. We The People are now firmly held against our wills to an Orwellian bombardment of lies, half-truths, racialism, sexualism, ugly nativism, religious intolerance and explicit anti-Americanism. If we do not harken back to the unifying principle of e pluribus unum outlined below by President Roosevelt, we shall be transformed into "they the enemy."

"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here.

Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

-- Theodore Roosevelt, 1919

Steve Redder, Petoskey

Avoid Urban Sprawl In Petoskey I urge Resort Township, the City of Petoskey and Emmet County to dissuade Bay Harbor’s proposal to add new business and residential development along U.S. 31 near the main entrance to Bay Harbor.

I remember the News-Review’s photograph of the pre-Bay Harbor sign location along the highway that read "Little Traverse Bay" and behind it was a row of pine trees that shielded the condos from highway traffic noise and headlights; the bay nowhere to be seen. That sign has now found a home closer to East Park. The current view east of the light at Bay Harbor is one of the few remaining views of the bay from the highway. The last thing we need along that stretch is more urban sprawl.

The development certainly is a huge improvement over the old cement plant property but the remaining beautiful vista enjoyed by the public traveling along the highway should be maintained.

Barry Cole, Petoskey

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