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Letters

Tuttle right on

Stephen Tuttle’s column in the February 6 issue nailed it. The systematic disassembling of our Bill of Rights, through the endless prying into our personal business and matters, will be the undoing of our society.

Sadly, many, if not most of us blindly go along with it because it is always presented in an “in the interest of national security” frame of reference.

In the last month, I have had a personal package that was sent via Fed/Ex ripped open all the way down to and including the wedding card that we had sent to a former exchange student...

Features Patrick Sullivan

It’s been almost five months since someone took a saw to an orchard in Garfield Township and wasted 428 cherry trees.  The search for the culprit or culprits has gone cold, despite a $10,000 reward in the case.  Three other cases of orchard or vineyard vandalism have also gone unsolved in Leelanau County.  In two of those cases, 15 cherry trees were cut at one orchard and 22 at another. At a vineyard, someone destroyed 161 grapevines.

What’s partly stymied investigators is how strange these acts of vandalism are...

Features Erin Crowell So when a friend propositioned me on helping him with an upcoming book project that would have me running my first marathon, my initial thought was excitement, which was immediately followed by doubt as I pictured the number – 26.2 miles – in my head.

Letters

Labels Unfair

This is in reference to the political and religious bantering we are hearing. As I listen and think, I am kind of offended. The labels of right wing evangelicals and left wing liberals and Democrats who are apparently not Christian etc. You see the categories?

I object to being cornered. How can the Catholics be offended by birth control when it seems acceptable to drink and smoke and have other vices which in turn cause death? How can the right wing conservatives get the market on Jesus and God? Do they too prescribe to drugs and alcohol and lust and greed and hatred to those unlike them?

I understand the moral code we are aspiring toward. But until all are ascending into the perfection realm we are all here learning about love. Isn’t love the universal solvent? Yes, love the person, brotherly love, but not the sin.

I am a Democrat who IS a Christian...

Features Patrick Sullivan Opponents say this wetlands complex is exactly what is supposed to be protected under the Wetland Protection Act, and the developer and state shouldn’t be allowed to get away with flouting the law. They say the project could ruin habitat for several protected species and threaten a wetland complex that is crucial to the health of Green Lake.

Letters

Robo Fracking Letters

It seems like the “anti fracking” propaganda gets distributed on a regular basis similar to the Robo politico calls we will most certainly have to endure this coming fall. The message is more or less the same but the names are changed so the letters are not interrupted.

And like Robo calls after you heard the first one well you get the picture. There is no “opinion” just negative propaganda begged from what one can glean from the internet and like-minded blogs or in the name of saving the environment.

At what point can we have a meaningful discussion when it comes to energy...

Features Erin Crowell

For those of us who are completely lost when it comes to interior design, there are folks like Diane Kolak, design consultant and owner of Dwelement Home Design, who can help make our spaces more than just “livable.”

The Grand Traverse resident shares her tips on several common interior design topics in this year’s Home & Furnishings issue.

Letters

Vet Parade – Hell No

As a nation we have been “smitten with the madness – blindness – and astonishment of heart” – passionately in love with war.

Rather than hold a ticker tape parade, let’s have President Bush apologize to Americans for starting a war based on lies – apologize to Iraqis for the death of 117,000 innocent civilians killed, for the destruction of its infrastructure, and for leaving a nation at civil war – apologize to veterans and families – apologize to America for squandering its resources.

Let’s have President Obama apologize for the needless escalation of the war in Afghanistan – apologize to Afghan citizens for the reckless death of 66,000 innocent civilians – for fueling corruption – return his Nobel Peace Prize as unearned – and end the war today...

Features Mike Terrell The silence was deep and golden as we glided along at times under branches of overhanging cedar along the river. Snow covered the banks and helped illuminate the darkly wooded shoreline. The only sound was the gurgle of rushing water as it swept along the gravelly riverbed and around fallen trees and submerged logs.

Features Patrick Sullivan When Alward’s daughter told her she’d been repeatedly left unsupervised at the motel during an extended summer visit with her father, Alward said she was terrified. When she feared her daughter was alone again on Aug. 22, Alward drove to Gaylord, called the girl and then called police.

Features Patrick Sullivan They say it’s too soon in the process to be debating whether to sell the former Bech’s Mustard Factory to Short’s. First the village has to decide whether to sell the property at all, or to go ahead with plans started in September to build boat slips and a park at the site.

Letters

Fracking dangerous alternative

Fresh water contaminated and forever removed from the hydrologic cycle; poisoned air, rivers and streams; gas well leaks and explosions; debilitating health problems including asthma, neurological disease and cancer; dead wildlife and livestock; earthquakes; toxic gas plumes causing families to evacuate their homes; poisoned and exploding water wells; loss of property value and ruined roads from 24-hour truck traffic …

Features Al Parker Since those early Colgate-on-cardboard days, she’s become an award-winning landscape artist whose oil works hang in collections and galleries across the country. At the Northwest Michigan Regional Artists show currently at the Dennos Museum, Saxon’s The Sky Above the Lake.

Letters

Gov't not a business

Candidate Romney claims that his qualification for President is that he is a successful businessman. What he does not seem to understand is that government is not a business. A business produces products or services for a profit for its shareholders. A government provides services paid for with taxes collected from the citizens and businesses.

If the government were a business it could privatize the Defense Department. Following the Romney business tactic, the Pentagon Corporation could sell our surplus aircraft carriers to China, as Russia did. We do not need seven nuclear aircraft carrier task forces when no other country has more than one. We could level the playing field, sell off some of our ships and pass on the profits to the shareholders. That’s what businesses do.

If that meant laying off a lot of sailors, taking away their pensions and medical benefits and dumping them onto the distressed labor market, so be it. What matters to business is dividends for the shareholders.

Business thinks in terms of short term gains and quick profits. Governments think long term. It takes years to plan a bridge, for instance, and no private corporation is going to take that long range view...

Features Patrick Sullivan It is a struggle to make any money as an organic farmer in Northern Michigan, he says, as entrepreneurs in the industry face a bewildering patchwork of township and county regulation. Add in taxes and consumers who may talk up organic food, but who are unwilling to pay a premium for it, and organic farming begins to look like a recipe for bankruptcy.