Letters 9/15/05

A 3-BR home in every pot
For the billions and billions wasted in President Bush’s losing war in Iraq, the United States could buy every survivor a three bedroom home in a clean, dry, safe state. Bring the troops home, declare the war won and spend our money on our own people.

Marshall Raftery • Brutus
(Korean War Marine)

Kerry is worse
Many in the US (with the exception of the Mayor of New Orleans, who is an African-American) are blaming President Bush for the sluggish response to the hurricane that swept through the south a short time ago.
But if you remember back to the election of George Bush, his opponent, Kerry, stated that if he were elected he would be closing military bases and cutting military spending.... Where would that have left the victims of Hurricane Katrina?
Are you people really that gullible that you would blame an act of nature on a president? And as to the slow response of military/national guard personel, it was Clinton that closed MANY military bases in that area and throughout the whole country.
Also, the Mayor of New Orleans spoke recently and stated that the President was given inaccurate information from which to make decisions. He held no blame for George and he was on the frontlines watching the devastation.
Time to get real, folks. The Democrats set us up to be unable to respond in a timely manner (by closing bases and cutting our military) and now they want to make this a political argument.

Darci McKellar • Kalkaska

More on gas prices
In reply to NE’s 9/8 letter from Brett Yokum, P.E., refuting the previous issue’s Northern View by Representative Stupak on gas prices:
Mr. Yokum’s rude letter, as well as Rep. Stupak’s assessment, both miss the mark. Oil production corporations have enjoyed record profits in the quarters where domestic fuel prices have spiked. Readers may search the Internet on terms like “(oil company’s name) earnings” and “fuel prices” to inform themselves.
I must ask – where’s the Hydrogen?

Charles Clark • TC

Mas Gracias Para Taqueria Margarita
Mario Batali was right on target when he named Taqueria Margarita in Traverse City as his favorite restaurant. It doesn’t take one of the great American chefs to recognize that in our own backyard, we have truly authentic regional Mexican cuisine. Hey, I’m not even in your backyard and I regularly drive to Taqueria from Harbor Springs for lunch, dinner, breakfast, you name it. In fact, I’ve been spreading the word in Emmet County, although now that Batali has spilled the beans, I won’t get my favorite table. That’s okay, any table at Taqueria Margarita is a great meal.
And yes, I’ll be one of the many enjoying the Epicurean Classic next week along with all the other foodies. Mangia!

Abby Dart • Harbor Springs


Arise women of this day
In his 8/22 Random Thoughts column George Foster sums up:
If Mr. Bush made good on his promise to ‘be a uniter, not a divider,‘ Cindy Sheehan and others might stay home in support of their mourning families where they belong.“
“Go Home” seems to be the latest echo reverberating from the conservative Right. I was “ordered” that by a driver who passed by the weekly Cindy vigil in TC. I hear it being repeated by those who are attempting to “Swift Boat” Cindy Sheehan and her supporters.
Does that mean go home “where they belong” and shut up and do not question?
May I remind you of what Julia Ward Howe envisioned when she created Mother’s Day in 1870 as a time for all the mothers who lost their sons in the Civil War to protest the senseless violence:

Arise then... women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
As men have often forsaken
the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great an earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace.

Marilyn Bagdonas • Clam Lake

‘Our water‘ is selfish
In response to Andy Guy’s piece on the Great Lakes water diversion issues now being hashed out (“Whose water is it anyway?“ 8/18):
Water activists seem to put a lot of emphasis on the issue of who owns Great Lakes water. Do they think it at all reasonable that one-half of one percent of the world’s population should own 20% of its fresh water supply? Do they think it a good thing to have a law that says, in principle, that 99.5% of the world’s population has no claim whatsoever on the water we happen to live close to?
I have no objection to maintaining the Great Lakes ecosystem and controlling the resource as a resource which we ALL have a claim to, but I have to say that the whole “OUR (Midwestern) water” pitch leaves me cold. This is nothing but imperialism, plain and simple.
This attitude has led to a lot of time, money and effort being wasted on non-problems like Ice Mountain, a facility which Noah Hall, water resource specialist at the National Wildlife Federation called “a model of what you would want to allow.”
Let the standards for Great Lakes protection be environmental and scientific, not parochial and jingoistic. Let us look for private industry to behave in accordance with the health of the lakes and pay fairly for the use of common resources, but let’s quit it with the grasping selfishness.

Oran Kelley • TC

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