Letters 8/31/06

Aug. 30, 2006

I Object
I object to using Traverse City‘s Open Space as the site of a free Christian music and dance party. Why should my tax dollars support a veiled attempt to rob me and my children of their birth religion? What’s next, Baptism Bash on the shores of West Bay?
I also object to the use of the Open Space as an outlet for the anti-war diatribe movie, “Dr. Strangelove,” shown at this year’s film festival. A large portion of my tax dollars fund what this movie mocks. Then you have the Open Space showing of “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.” Is Traverse City trying to become the home of the American Androgynist Society?
I object to the Open Space being the venue for a festival which showers embarrassing attention on a fruit. Why not hold Cherry Festival rites on a cherry farm and save us tax payers some money on Open Space upkeep?
I object to gas-guzzling ocean liners docked next to Open Space.
What kind of message are we sending by this display of excess at a time when we should be cutting our dependence on oil? Motor boats should be banned from docking next to the Open Space to promote the common good.
I object to bare-footed kite flyer’s frolicking around the Open Space on windy days with their heads in the sky. I am trying to teach my kids lessons about hard work and diligence. What they see, if they venture to the Open Space without my permission, are unrealistic displays of post-hippie love and freedom, on land my tax dollars support; that’s the kicker.
I am not going to even address the skate boarders, the hot dog roasters and folk guitar players. Space is limited.

David Halperin • TC

Goose Lake daze
Remember Goose Lake? Hell yes! I was inadvertently put in the position of becoming the poster boy after the event. The Sunday Free Press magazine put me on the cover. The article was somewhat of a slam at the hippie free-love movement. The tales to be told from that wonderful event might be a good book to read.
As you can see from the photo, it was in 1970. As Drew Abbott has said, “If you remember too much you probably were not there.”
Thanks for the great thoughts you awakened on that wonderful year. Peace, Man.

Jerry Aydlott, Sacred Sparks
East Jordan

Bad behavior
I always enjoy reading Random Thoughts, and I appreciate your analysis of the state of music festivals (8/17).
When you ask, “Does anyone remember the Goose Lake Festival of 1971?”, I have to admit, I remember it a little differently than you... but then, all of our memories are probably a little... umm...”hazy”. In my mind, I was thinking that it was in 1970, just the next summer after Woodstock, and that Joe Cocker actually didn’t show up.
I was just a small-town 18-year-old, awed by the amount of bad behavior. Not just hard-drug use, but also groups of bikers forcing their attention on unwilling girls and stealing other attendees‘ stuff at will.
Great music, but a crazy experience.

Bob Mittendorf • TC

(Thanks Bob -- not to mention the many people walking around the campground stark naked. Times sure have changed. -- R.D.)

Rx for disaster
Nurses are key members of the health care team, however, with respect to independent prescriptive authority, they have been engaged in a highly misleading campaign to gather public support.
Senate Bill 1245 seeks to completely remove physician involvement and oversight of nurses where prescriptions are concerned.
Nurses train for just six years, compared to the minimum of 11 years of training required for physicians. That extra training improves the quality and safety of the care the patient receives.
The public would be better served if nurses increased their training, instead of seeking a legislative shortcut.

William Riordan, D.O. • Petoskey

Protect your rights
“Nothing we can do ... can be accomplished alone.” -- Reinhold Niebuhr

Thanks to Joan Wolfe, Joe Sax, the late Representative Tom Anderson, and Helen and Bill Milliken (along with a multitude of others), Earth Day was ushered in with landmark legislation in 1970. That year the Michigan Environmental Protection Act was passed, and it gave citizens the right to sue over matters that give earth a chance, gave people a chance to stop the pollution of air, water, and natural resources.
In recent years, Joan Wolfe and Governor Milliken led an effort that blocked an attempt by industry in the Michigan Supreme Court to strike down the citizens’ right to sue to protect the environment as unconstitutional. The Court narrowed the right to sue by requiring citizens to show a connection between the activity and an affected interest of its members, but stopped short of nullifying the right all together.
In the past year, two more cases may have whittled away the right of nonprofit organizations to sue on behalf of their members unless they have a direct interest. While these decisions may not affect the ability of environmental organizations to sue on behalf of members who have directly affected interests, they may narrow rights of organizations to file suits on behalf of citizens in other areas of the public interest, such as insurance, public utility, health care, or licensing issues.
The assault on a citizen‘s right to sue has been intensified under the “tutelage” of Justice Scalia at the U.S. Supreme Court. It remains to be seen what will happen to this tool of democracy that places a check on government and the corporate mentality it stands for under the new Roberts Court.
The irony is that the very notions of freedom, free markets, and deregulation that marked the Reagan-Bush era are founded on robust individual rights to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of a few. Restricting a citizen‘s right to sue will have just the opposite effect.
For a background on Michigan
Environmental Protection Act and what
it took to get it passed, email John
Tanton at tsccontact@thesocialcontract.com. He just published a short essay by Joan Wolf, and it’s an inspiring example of what
citizens can do. To join the fight by citizens to assure that the Great Lakes and Michigan’s water remains a public
resource, please visit www.saveMIwater.org, and learn more.

Jim Olson • TC

Correction
A recent article on guitarist Ron Getz neglected to mention that copies of his new CD, “The Sentencing Phase,“ can be purchased via his website: www.rongetzmusic.com.