Letters

Letters Our beach is not a land fill
I walk to work every day on the TART Trail in Traverse City and then along the beach during the summer months. Last Tuesday was a beautiful, heavenly day in Northern Michigan -- blue sky, sun shininig, breeze blowing and piles and piles of crap littered our gorgeous beach.
I was saddened and disgusted by peoples‘ lack of respect for nature and other people‘s enjoyment of a public space. I tried to ignore it but couldn‘t. I went backlater with four large garbage bans and filled ALL OF THEM with dirty diapers, pop cans, liquor bottles, cups, Styrofoam, socks, a tank top, water bottles, a decapitated doll, carboard beer cases, Burger King bags and bottle caps.
Not only was it revolting to pick up someone else‘s garbage -- I have better things to do with my time!
So, for all of you idiots who left your filth on the beach:
1. Don‘;t ever come back; you don‘t deserve to enjoy the beach.
2. If you do, throw your garbage out next time -- there are trash cans everywhere.
3. If the trash cans are full, take your garbage with you.

Susan Ruoff • TC

Letters Flip side of tourism
Lack of tourism? Good riddance! (re: “Tourism on the Ropes,“ 6/8). All that’s good for is pollution. Close those big ugly box hotels and let them rot into something interesting... overgrown with northern paradise foliage.
Then people will come and explore...they’ll ride motorcycles and trains and even horses through Michigan for a breath of fresh air.
And it will be because Michigan led the fight against big business.
It utilized its railways and heavily taxed its biggest highways.
It will be because motivated entrepreneurs endeavored without doubt to grow their cities tall and tight as opposed to sprawled and bright.
It will be because world-savvy travelers opened hostels, cheap housing, and had other great ideas... including using education centers to their full potential for local research and improvement, including expanding locally-supported media. Oh give me time... I‘ll lead the way.
Northern Michigan can be self-sufficient! Just as long as it takes it upon itself to protect the Great Lakes with all of its might. They are a beauty and a paradise that nurtures the intellect, happiness, and the will to fight for it.

Jack P. McKenna • via email

Keep on digging
I was reading an article in the Oakland Press on community leaders trying to censor your (local) newspaper. Keep on investigating these criminals!
Don’t let them censor your paper. What is going on in this country? They are trying to take away our right to free speech. For this Senator Jason Allen, keep on investigating him; he needs to be exposed. If he runs for govenor and wins, God help us.

Ronald Backiel • via email

Long time to pay
Some of us have had the unfortunate experience of paying off a car loan after the car has died. The average life of parking decks is 30-35 years and the $16 million loan on it will last almost as long. Does this seem like the best use of our tax money? I don’t think so!

Jo Bartlett • TC
The new Meijer‘s
I believe a recent letter to the editor from Pete VanBerlo about Acme Township and the Meijer development included inaccuracies.
1) At no time did Meijer commit to not selling their property on the east side of Lautner Road to another big box development if Meijer did not use the property. The property could have been filled by another big box.
2) The township legal bills were not mounting at the time of the letter. Concerned Citizens of Acme Township is funding current lawsuits concerning the Town Center.
3) The township board is not trying to stop development. It is working hard to see that development fits the master plan. The master plan was created with extensive input of Acme residents and calls for a small town flavor to the community.
4) The developers have been fighting ‘tooth and nail’ to not abide by the master plan. It is the goodwill of the township that has been squandered, not the goodwill of the developers.
5) It is not a foregone conclusion that the developers will win in the courts. So far all the lawsuits have returned in Acme Township’s favor.
I fear that the letter to the editor was a perfect example of misinformation and scare tactics that have been the usual operating tactics of both the town center developers and Meijer. The bottom line of all developers is making money. The bottom line of the Acme Board of Trustees is to maintain Acme as a pleasant coherent town, not another sprawl development.

Charlene Abernethy • Acme Twp
A better community
Just a note to let you know I thought Anne Stanton did a nice job on the Record-Eagle/Ross Childs story (“Open Season,“ 6/1). It is clearly a story that had many tentacles, but just as clearly it’s an important story about the life of this community, if not northern Michigan. Anne worked very hard on the story, interviewing, double-checking, confirming, etc. She was a real pro throughout.
I think it speaks volumes about your organization that you were willing to devote the time and space to such a subject. You could have taken the low road -- as some other media have done from time to time -- but you didn’t. You dealt with the issue fairly. I thank you for that.
In the end, I think we all want the same thing -- a better and more inclusive community.

Bill Thomas • TC

(Bill Thomas is editor of the Traverse City Record-Eagle.)

Correction
In last week‘s Random Thoughts column, Robert Downes confused the Dutch Reformed Church (now called the Reformed Church of America) with the Christian Reformed Church of Grand Rapids.
Also, in “Tourism on the Ropes,“ there was some confusion as to the presence of rivers on the Wisconsin-Michigan border. Those rivers in the Upper Peninsula include the Montreal, the Brule and the Menominee.
Thanks to reader Bertram Walsh for setting us straight.

Letters Emergency situation
Re; your article, “Emergency Situation.” I worked as an ER doctor for 11 years, during which time I witnessed countless violent episodes. Emergency department personnel often become inured to violence because we see it so frequently, but some of it is so extreme that it can rattle even seasoned doctors, nurses, and technicians. In my opinion, some of this misbehavior stems from a seemingly pervasive belief amongst certain patients that the laws governing public behavior are somehow suspended in the ER. If people were to behave similarly in other venues, their outrageous acts would lead to arrests and imprisonment.
My www.ERbook.net web site and True Emergency Room Stories book give many examples of what it is like to work in an ER, including many cases involving combative patients. I just published another e-book of true ER stories that primarily pertain to romance, but it also includes stories in which violence was a central element. Your readers can download the e-book free (it’s an Adobe Acrobat PDF file) from the www.erlove.com site. Alternatively, you can read the same stories on that site.
 
Kevin Pezzi, MD • via email

Letters Ethanol: no solution
We’ve heard a lot of buzz in the media lately about making ethanol from corn, with no mention of a downside. I’d like to address one.
To say ethanol is renewable, it has to be made from a sustainably-grown crop. In this country, corn (often genetically modified) is grown with huge inputs of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, all of which are petroleum-based, and therefore not renewable.
Natural fertility in soil comes from microbial life which, when nourished and replenished, is renewable. Industrial farming practices extracted and destroyed this microbial life generations ago. We now treat soil as an inert medium through which we feed the basic chemicals to support crop growth. This is like a person using crystal meth to increase productivity... it works... for awhile.
Ethanol shows promise as a fuel, but it is only as healthy as the agriculture that supports it. I doubt we’ll ever produce enough to make a dent in the current gluttonous demand of the tank-driving American people.
Conservation is the one thing we can ALL do right now, but doesn’t get much press. The more we lower demand, the easier the transition to healthy, renewable alternatives becomes. Live simply.

Richard Allen • Leland

Trouble at tctv2
I am extremely unhappy that tctv2 Station Manager Mike Kroes has made it nearly impossible to continue with the program “Democracy Now“ during prime-time viewing.
Has tctv2 become a “right-wing“ and “anti-progressive“ network? If this is the case I will discontinue my support and promotion of tctv2, and certainly be vocal about it.
I urge you to reconsider this “new“ policy. If tctv2 is here to serve and inform the people, it should include all points of view, and air them during prime-time broadcasting.

Gwen Sanford • TC

Letters Conservative: then & now
When I was a teenager in the 1960s, dabbling in politics, my mom and dad left the Democratic party. They’d had enough of street protests and flag burnings, and made for the shores of the party of Eisenhower and Nixon. They’d seen Democrats try to solve all problems by throwing away money, but government, they reasoned, should conserve. They were conservatives. They didn’t like the idea of government being in debt, and were aghast at this new thing called a “trade deficit.”
The 1994 “Republican Revolution” would’ve especially thrilled them. Small government and welfare limits would’ve been right up their alley.
But they were true conservatives. Yes, keep government out of your pocketbook, but also out of unnecessary wars, your bedroom, and your telephone records. If they were alive today, they’d be appalled at the number of Republican congressmembers under investigation for corruption. They’d have just called it stealing.
They would have found the Republican’s trillion-dollar boondoggle in Iraq just as offensive as the useless Democrat-led government agencies of their own day. And the idea that a Republican president would move America from a surplus to this yawning, endless deficit would’ve made them furious. After all, isn’t that what “tax and spend” Democrats did?
But Democratic spending was a drop in the bucket compared to current Republican pilfering. No wonder commentators like George Will have long claimed that Bush and the current Republican crop, with their mounting legal bills, are not conservatives at all.
Me, I’m a liberal, a bit homeless in the current climate, but if my parents were alive, they’d feel just as adrift in today’s so-called “Party of Abe Lincoln.”

Lawrence Ming • via email

Abstinence doesn‘t work
Some “FACTs” in response to Matt Davis’ claims, from the Journal of Adolescent Health (April 2005) co-authored by Columbia’s Sociology Department Chair Peter Bearman and Yale professor Hannah Bruckman:
- Teens pledging abstinence are just as likely to have an STD as their non-pledging peers. That means, of the 600 pledging teens, 150 will acquire an STD.
- Teens pledging abstinence are six times more likely to have had oral sex, and male pledgers were four times more likely to have engaged in anal sex than their male non-pledging peers who had not had vaginal sex.
- 88% - that’s nine out of 10, or 540 of those 600 teens - will have sex before marriage.
- Teens who break their pledge will be 1/3 less likely to use protection than their non-pledging peers.
Your statistic about 30-40% of college men not knowing how to use a condom properly is interesting. Perhaps we could reduce that percentage with some good old-fashioned education? Some condom facts:
- Condoms, while not 100% effective, are between 80-97% effective; it varies depending on the study, but even at worst they are vastly more effective than the 12% success rate of abstinence.
- Most condom failures are due to misuse, not inherent failure in the condom itself. With perfect usage, the effectiveness is around 98%.
- Condoms reduce the risk of HIV/AIDS transmission by around 85%, and reduce the risk of gonorrhea for men by around 71%.
I would love to end this with a clever non sequitur, as you’ve ended your past letters, but unfortunately all I have are actual facts, and the facts are indeed clear. Abstinence might be a nice idea on paper, but in the real world it is clear, and factually proven, that it is not a viable or effective method of protection for our teens.
The solution is not a sad attempt to keep teens blind, deaf, and dumb in regards to sexual education, but is instead to provide them with all the options and education we can, so if they do decide to participate in sexual activity - and according to the facts, most of them will - they will be protected from unwanted pregnancy and STDs. Education and honesty are the answers, not a moral crusade.

Samuel Fine • Elk Rapids

Letters Bad Dogg
You must be kidding! Your recommendation of Snoop Dogg appearing at Interlochen would be like inviting John Wayne Gacy to address a Boy Scout convention, or an invitation for Jeffrey Dahmer to come to your family cookout. How many young people do you want damaged?
The first occupation of Snoop Dogg was as a pimp. Of course he hasn‘t been in trouble with the police since, oh perhaps two weeks ago. In addition to being a lousy role model for even ghetto children, his product is even worse. Rap music is trash, produced by garbage, and its only redeeming charm is that the practitioners tend to murder each other a lot. The lyrics are typically misogynistic, deameaning to all women (to the extent that the gutter patois can be understood).
If your wish is granted, today‘s Interlochen teens can look back fondly 40 years from now. Just imagine the conversation: “Honey, do you recall that wonderful ballad we heard about shooting three policemen?“ Or, “It‘s wonderful to remember that great old standard about turning my sister into a whore.“ (Oh, the term is “ho,“ another contribution to our cultural improvement by the rap community.)
Columnist/editor Downes has been thoughtful and correct on a lot of political issues, but on this one he is way off base.

Michael J. Gillman • TC

Letters Gas attack
Thank George Bush for gasoline prices.
The “cause“ was April 18th, Bush said, “All options are on the table,“ when asked if he was planning for the possibility of a nuclear strike against Iran.
The “effect“ was April 20th, when oil prices hit all-time highs.
Higher prices cause inflation. Oil investments are a hedge against inflation.
Hypocrite Bush. He causes higher gasoline prices and then tells everyone he will look into why oil companies charge high prices. Threatening to, or using nukes, will cause proliferation, which is what he wants to stop.
Stop the post-9/11 policy of scaring us into supporting Bush.

Tom Mair • TC

Been there
Regarding your story and subsequent letters about The Whiting Hotel, I have read testimonies both in support and in condemnation of the hotel and it’s guests. Most have been from outsiders looking in. Few, if any, have been from those that have actually lived there.
I have been a resident of the Whiting Hotel on several occasions. While there, I met folks from many different backgrounds, but we all had one thing in common: we didn’t want to wake up in an alley or under a bridge. I have heard of and witnessed several bizarre incidents there that to this day leave me stumped as to how or why they occurred. Each time I moved on to more suitable digs, I breathed a sigh of relief, and so did my family.
The primary point I want to stress here is that I resided there by choice. I made the best of the situation and moved on. There are folks there still with much more challenging situations than mine have ever been, and the Whiting Hotel is a shelter for them. A few bad apples turn up there on occasion, but they tend to weed themselves out eventually. As far as any criminal element goes, I see more local elected officials making the headlines than I do folks from The Whiting.
It’s all about choices, people. Rather on focusing on how many residents have left the building on a stretcher, how about asking how many have been saved?

A. C. Roney, Jr. • Kingsley

Letters Condom Wars Part III
In response to letter of misinformation from Matt Davis, I have to comment on his reckless, misinformed, and plain out wrong response to Jim Carruthers‘ letter (4/20).   
I know that the religious right has their own agenda, and use the lie and misinformation that are readily available on websites throughout the Internet. But what he presented was just wrong.
I am the outreach coordinator for one of Northern Michigan‘s last HIV Preventions programs, called Risk-To-Resilience funded by the Michigan AIDS Fund.  It is an MSM (Men who have Sex with Men) HIV Prevention program, which I‘m sure is turning Matt‘s face green. It helps educate gay men and community members at large on ways to prevent HIV and STD transmission. 
Condoms do work! Abstinence-based programs DO NOT! It‘s time to get their heads out of their other body parts and face reality.  
It is sad that the conservative religious right can only embrace one concept of prevention, and that is abstinence only.  It‘s a great concept, but it‘s time to get real and face facts.  
Our teens are having sex and will continue to have sex. Give them the tools and knowledge on how to protect themselves from HIV, STDs, and unwanted pregnancies.  We owe that to them, not our own personal political religious beliefs.
There is so much misinformation and ignorance out there. If a condom is used correctly with water-based lubrications, it is one of the safest ways to have sex. It‘s the facts; learn them.

Brian Simerson • Outreach 
Coordinator, Risk-To-Resilience 
   Outreach Program

Your country or the GOP?     
According to an April 17, 2006 poll in the Express, President Bush had a 54.3% approval rating  and 45.7% disapproval rating.  I cannot help but wonder when local Republicans will  start putting the love of their country over the love of their party.   
The current national polls show Bush with around a 34% approval rating (20% difference). What can our area possibly know that  the rest of this country doesn‘t? 
We continue to lose jobs under the nation‘s worst economic plan -- or maybe I should say lack of a plan -- unless you count borrow-and-spend and job outsourcing trade agreements as part of the economic plan. We are experiencing record $700 billion trade deficits; an ugly mismanaged war; bought and paid for legislators; and Medicare Part D.  The President also admitted that he spied without warrants and leaked Iraq intelligence to get even with someone who disagreed with him!  
When you buy your medicine, pay insurance, fill up your vehicles and pay for home heating -- remember these three industries are making record profits -- they are huge  donors to this administration‘s campaign funds.
If you think this is just a coincidence, you must be one of the 54.3% that thinks Bush is doing a good job. 
Republican Newt Gingrich stated in Time magazine that, “his party has bungled running government so bad that if he was a Democrat he would run on (that record).“  Seen enough?    
The Republicans have controlled Congress for 12 years.  When does all their “crap“ start working for all Americans and not just the rich and powerful who buy their way into government?  We have a nation waiting -- or is love of party more important than love of country? 
                           Pat Cook • Stanton

Letters Letter from prison
My name is Tracy Lautner.  A little over four years ago I developed schizophrenia.  I had no one to tell me it was schizophrenia; in fact, I thought it was an intense spiritual test from God.  Over the next year and three months, things went from bad to worse.
I lost my survey company, my truck, my dog, my savings, and my son’s mother was starting to question whether I should be allowed to take my son alone.
I felt that there was no way out. On March 15, 2003, I stole a truck in broad daylight from a dealership in an attempt to get the cops to shoot me.  Well, the officer hit me once out of 12 shots at nearly point-blank range, but didn’t kill me.  Those who know my case say it’s a miracle I’m alive.  As I sit here in this prison, I beg to differ.
During this incident I accidentally discharged the one shell of birdshot I had brought for myself: #8 birdshot. The officer was hit in his arm. At the hospital, he was treated and released.
A doctor from the forensic center deemed me criminally insane at the time of the tragedy. The prosecutor paid an independent doctor big money to say I wasn’t.  A third doctor agreed that I was insane. Unfortunately, the third doctor was not allowed to testify to this at my trial. The jury deliberated for nearly eight hours, but found me guilty. As the judge sentenced me to death (42-82 years), he said that he felt that the verdict could  have been, “not guilty by reason of insanity.”
I am on medication now and nearly where I was mentally before schizophrenia struck.  I hate prison more than I could convey to you using words. My 11-year-old son growing up without a father wrenches my heart. Until this tragedy, I never truly knew what regret was.
Visits from my son, his mother and my Aunt Shirley are the high points of my life. Receiving my weekly Northern Express is the highlight of my week. It brings me back to Traverse City for awhile. Yes, I was a resident all of my life until I was incarcerated three years and two days ago.  I am now 34.
I have many family and friends there and am still very concerned with the area.  I can’t think of a better place for my son to grow up.
In prison, as an inmate, there is so little you can do to contribute to family and society. If you were to print my letter, it would mean so much to me. If you can’t, thanks anyway.  It helped just to write it.

   Tracy Lautner • #501884  
   West Shoreline Correctional 
   Facility • Muskegon Hts.


Give the Whiting a break
Re: critics of the Whiting Hotel and the actions of its residents in recent letters:
To be honest, I’ve never seen that sort of behavior around the Whiting until after midnight or so, usually in the alley behind the hotel. And I work days now, not downtown, so I don’t spend anywhere near as much time downtown as I used to. 
From everything I read in both our local papers and see on the TV, it doesn’t look like there’s a whole lot of business being lost downtown due to these people. I suspect an awful lot of our visitors have probably seen a whole lot worse.
The people in residence at the Whiting Hotel are NOT a “display” of “our unfortunates.” They are real people, living real lives. Your attitude does nothing to help them, and as the saying goes, if you are not a part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

Frank Harden, Jr. • Sugar Loaf

Letters Not always as they seem
A few short months ago, I thought Goodwill was simply a place where you could donate used items for others to purchase affordably—a worthwhile outreach, to be sure, but a far cry from the complete picture of an organization engaged in a multitude of programs and initiatives changing lives for the better in and around our community.
I’ll not soon forget that brisk November day when my life’s perspective would change forever. My orientation as part-time Volunteer Coordinator included interviews with a whole host of department heads and tours of facilities and operations.
One of those outreaches was downtown Traverse City’s Whiting Hotel. Oh, sure, in my 30 years as a Traverse City local, I had heard Whiting tales that would “curl your hair.” I had actually climbed those ominous steps once before to deliver Thanksgiving meals.
Lucky for me, I was about to learn for myself the truth about the Whiting Hotel. I began supervising teams of volunteers continuing renovation work already underway. Many of the hotel residents joined in -- cleaning, painting, trimming and refurbishing.
I have met most, if not all who call the Whiting “home,” and I’m proud to know them. They are as diverse as the population of shoppers that wander Front Street -- some quiet and reserved, others outgoing and social, ALL respectful when respected and ALL kind when shown kindness. What is in common throughout is that they are PEOPLE, just like you and me.
I have been humbled beyond words by blessings I had taken for granted. Setbacks, challenges and adversity will impact each and every one of us or someone we love at some point in our lives. Pray that organizations like Goodwill and generous hearts like those who volunteer will be there when WE are the ones needing a “Hand Up.”

LuAnn Heinert • Volunteer • Goodwill Industries of Northern Michigan, Inc.

Letters Death at the Whiting
Regarding Liz Parmenter-Turec’s letter of last week, does she realize how many Whiting Hotel residents commit suicide (hanging themselves, drug overdoses, etc)? This happens so often, the merchants no longer blink an eye when the Fire Department comes racing down Front Street. There’s an ambulance at the Whiting at least once a week.
Mrs. Parmenter-Turec’s father wasn’t the only one that ended his life there last year, and her choice to personalize the situation and publicly identify her father as the specific person Ms. Morse was referring to seems presumptuous and disrespectful to her father’s privacy, not to mention his dignity.
I agree with Ms. Morse; get the Whiting out of downtown Traverse City; it doesn’t belong there. The fact that the residents of the Whiting are our uncles, fathers, brothers, and sisters is totally irrelevant to the fact that the Whiting is ridiculously out of place between two trendy shops on Front Street. Perhaps there would be less suicides at that hotel if the residents had some privacy during their down-and-out times and could get on their feet without being embarrassed, kicked out of shops, stared at, ridiculed, pitied and placed in a location where they are subjected to “judgment and disdain they too often receive.” This could be what is pushing these poor souls over the edge.
  One more comment: Word about all the free food programs offered by the churches in Traverse City is spreading quickly among the vagrant population in Kalkaska, Muskegon, Flint and Lansing. The homeless are heading to TC to take advantage of the free meals.
  Does Traverse City have the resources (shelter, employment, police power) to deal with this growing vagrant situation? If you feed them, they will come!

Erin Galloway • Kalkaska

Letters End the seal slaughter
The annual slaughter of seals in Canada has once again begun this past weekend. During the next several weeks, over 325,000 seals will be beaten or shot; 95% of these will be seal pups under 12 weeks, and 42% of these brutally killed will be skinned alive. 
Hundreds of thousands of baby seal corpses will be left to rot on the ice because there is no commercial market for seal meat and oil. This annual atrocity is called a “hunt.” This is NOT a hunt because sealers simply walk up to the seals and start bashing them over the head or shoot them. 
People around the U.S. and Canada are joining the Canadian Seafood Boycott. Canada’s commercial seal hunt is about money, pure and simple; therefore, the goal of the boycott is to take all the profit out of sealing.
Canada is the number one supplier of fish and seafood imports to the U.S. with Red Lobster being the largest purchaser. Please show your support to end this horror by not purchasing Canadian seafood and join area citizens April 7 at 5 p.m. in front of the Traverse City Red Lobster to show your disgust with their policy. You can also contact www.seashepard.org for more details on how you can help. 

Michele Lonoconus • via email
 For the Animals 

Story had a leak
I have read with interest the articles Rick Coates  has been writing on teens and the Internet.  This issue has provoked lots of discussion within the community.  
However, I take issue with and have to questions Rick’s statement that, “Internet filters are like condoms; they don’t always work and not every computer has one.” This statement could not be further from the truth.
Condoms work 98.9-99% of the time.  The one percent is due to operator error.  Is Rick trying to say Internet filters work 99% of the time and we need to worry about the 1% they don’t?
We have worked hard to educate teens and their parents on the dangers of unprotected sex in this community and the importance for the life-saving aspects of condom use.  Statements such as this continue to fuel misinformation around these topics and support the fundamentalist views that sex is only for procreation.
I hope you will either print a retraction or an accurate article on the use of condoms.  This only fuels misinformation in our community and society as a whole.

          Jim Carruthers  •  TC

Letters Thoughts on the War
One of the speakers at the anti-war demonstration last Saturday, March 18 said that demonstrations alone will not be enough to end this war.
More than just an end to this war, I hope to see an end to all U.S. imperialist wars. The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, and soon in Iran, maybe Syria, Venezuela, or North Korea are examples of our nation run amok. Fortunately, for the billions of poor around the world who suffer the consequences of our oppression, all empires fall. Usually from overextending themselves militarilly.
As painful as these wars are, once our government starts rounding up white middle class kids to fight their wars and when our dollar becomes as valuable as a hyper-inflated third world county currency, we may start seeing a homegrown insurgency here in the good old U.S.A. After all, isn’t that the real fear behind the need for a Patriot Act?
When the pain of imperialism finally comes home and starts to distract us from the Super Bowl, NASCAR and March Madness, then things may change, but probably not until then.

Randy Bond • Beulah

Follow the Golden Rule
Reading Vita Morse’s letter concerning the Whiting Hotel (Express, March 23) leaves me stunned. I think the Express should take up her challenge; write an article explaining why we “display our unfortunates right smack in the midst of downtown TC.”
I suppose moving the Goodwill “situation” out of public view will hide the problem of homelessness and allow us to shop with a clear conscience. We won’t have to wonder why more than half of approximately 66,051 homeless individuals will go without shelter tonight in Michigan, or the circumstances that push people like the resident of the Whiting to suicide.
Heavens, why expose ourselves to such an ugly reality when we can watch it on TV in the safety of our homes after wearing ourselves out with a day of shopping? I’m not afraid to go downtown. Neither are my daughters. I’m proud to say they even give spare change on occasion. They were raised to follow the Golden Rule.

Karen Malofy • via email

Letters Internet restrictions: 
a cool way to go
Kudos to Rick Coates and Northern Express for researching, writing, and publishing the article “Teens & Internet Predators.” As the mother of a teenage daughter and a soon-to-be teenage son, it was wonderful to have my restrictions on Internet usage upheld. 
As any parent has heard: “But Mom (or Dad), all of my friends IM. Why can’t I?” My response has and will continue to be NO—and Rick explained why in black and white.
You bet I shared the information in the article with my children. I love them. I know it’s difficult to have restrictions on children that might make them seem “uncool,” especially with their friends and fellow classmates—but imagine if more parents said no—it could be the cool way to go.

Mary Jo Zazueta • TC

Disgraced article
When I initially saw the cover of the Northern Express I was excited to see that someone was taking notice of the sick world of the Internet and what it could and does do to families.  Then, I opened up the article, and saw that you printed pictures of a butt in a g-string and you also added pictures of girls, teenage girls at that, prancing around in their underwear.   
Let‘s just say I shut the paper, and threw it out. I started thinking about why you would want to educate people on this very subject, and then subject people to it by putting those exact pictures in people’s faces?   
Did you ever even consider, that someone recovering from a pornography addiction may be interested in reading this article, but then you put a big fat trigger for an addict in the article? Or how about trying to teach young teenage boys and girls about the dangers of the Internet. Do you think its appropriate to put these pictures in front of them to look at?  You took a perfectly good article and disgraced it with exactly what we don’t want our children looking at. Is this ignorance? Or just stupidity on your part?  

 Jennifer Edson • via email

Letters Teens online: be a parent
I was just reading the lengthy, and might I say scary, article about Myspace.com (“Teens & Internet Predators,“ 3/9). I have two kids, a 16-year-old son and an eight-year-old daughter. The things they have to deal with are hard enough for me to swallow, but the whole online issue I have pretty much taken care of.
I DON’T let MY KIDS ON IT!!!! If they have homework that needs to be looked up, I do it with them. If my son wants some music for his MP3 player, I review it with him then download it for him. If there is a website he wants to check out, I watch what he is doing.
The whole notion that they have to be online to do homework is hogwash. My kids have had very little to find on the Web. When things are needed there is ample time at school for them to use school computers that are constantly monitored. No need to get spyware to see where they are going either. If they are on it I am sitting beside them.
Do them and you a favor, take the computer out of their room. Would you let 20, 18-year-old boys in your 14-year-old daughter‘s room alone? Well, chances are with that computer and cute little camera on top of it, that is what is happening.
You think, well they go on when I’m not around. I have one computer that is connected to a cable modom. It is password protected and only my wife and I know it. My kids have computers in their rooms that they are free to use anytime but neither is connected to the Web.
Bottom line, if you fear your kids are getting into the wrong things, be a parent not a friend. Limit them on the computer if they have a good reason and monitor them. It is your house, your computer, your connection, and most of all your child. You are the responsible one, step up and take a line from the past, “Just say no.” Take back control of your house and your Internet. They will be grown up and move out before you know. At that point they will make their own choices about what to do and see. Until then, protect them as a good parent should.

Joe Deater • Lake Ann