Environment a concern
Recent issues have been concerns of global warming and plankton demise due to oversaturation of our low water levels and massive increased boat population on Grand Traverse Bay, and Elmwood Township wants to build another marina. Shouldn't the people and the department of environment deny this request? They won't let beach owners clean their private beaches, but they will let hundreds of owners of cabin cruisers poop in the bay? It just doesn't make sense.
I applaud Old Mission Peninsula where they don't seem to have the problem with possible water parks being put up, huge tax assessment increases, gigantic energy stations, sandwich restaurants and marinas put on their pristine lands. We should try and find out their secret.
I am a concerned citizen, as are many others, I'm sure.
Sylvester O. Penney
Cedar
No background check?
I am responding to the article published in the Jan. 20 edition of the Record-Eagle about Timothy Cavric, former police officer of Kalkaska and Frankfort. I think it's a disgrace to our communities to know that, for an officer of the law who is supposed to protect and serve the citizens, there is no background check done. How is that protecting our community and our children?
Most occupations do background checks, even low-paying jobs; there should be no question about doing a background check on someone who is serving as an officer of the law.
As for his possibly getting his job back in Frankfort, I don't feel they should have to hire him back. It is obvious he lied when it came to his resume and why he lost his job in Big Rapids.
Back pay? He should not be entitled to any money while he was employed somewhere else. Hopefully this is a lesson to our police departments that will make them do background checks before hiring any officer of the law in the future.
After all, how are they really protecting us and our children if they don't?
Yvonne Dimon
Kalkaska
So much for evidence
Thomas Sowell's March 1 column, "Throwing some cold water on global warming," accuses global warming advocates of mounting "a crusade rather than an exercise in evidence or logic." The funny thing is that Sowell's own disregard for evidence and logic is plain from the very first sentence on.
"It has almost become something of a joke," he begins, "when some 'global warming' conference has to be cancelled because of a snowstorm or bitterly cold weather." I haven't heard of any. Have you? So much for evidence.
As for logic, even if Sowell could produce evidence of the cancelled conferences he insinuates -- however delicious the irony might be for deniers -- this would be anecdotal evidence at its worst.
Sowell himself later admits that, "There is not even a lot of controversy over temperature readings" that show "warming ... has taken place in recent times." Even Sowell's reasonable-seeming admission that "Nobody denies that there is such a thing as a greenhouse effect" is more notable for the evidence it withholds than the information it provides.
The important fact here is not just the existence of the greenhouse effect, but the fact that it's increasing due to increased atmospheric CO2; thereby causing global warming.
Larry Hauser
Lake Leelanau
Losing part of the game
I personally did not attend the game between Buckley and Leland, but I do have some points I would like to make concerning winning and losing.
My twin brother and I played varsity basketball at Buckley. We both were starters our sophomore year. We were a very young team playing against older classmen in the Cherryland Conference, including a state championship team, Northport. We were on the losing end of many lopsided games. At times we did lose to an opponent by 50 points.
Sometimes the opposition scored 100. We were obviously demoralized after a game like this, but it is part of growing up. When I became a senior and our team was older, we won many more games. Some games we scored 100. The other team may have scored less than 50.
These young men will go through other hardships during their lives. They, too, will have their moments of glory and become better people because they have experienced both sides. This loss to Leland should be used as a motivation for improvement. We cannot play the victim all the time.
Mike Kolbusz
Buckley
Offensive cartoon
Your Feb. 25 editorial cartoon with Sen. McCain was shameful -- not beneath you, just shameful. If your aspiration is to be on par with The New York Times in sleaze, pat yourself on the back. They, like you, publish without fact, good job. I expect next week to see a cartoon of Sen. Obama with his arm around his minister and friend, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Rev. Wright, after 9/11, wrote, "White America got a wake-up call." Wright has also been a supporter of Louis Farrakhan who repeatedly makes statements anti-White, Jew, American and homosexuals. I can't wait for your cartoon.
Dr. Daniel Dolanski
Traverse City
Embrace the fair tax
In regard to John Watt's (Feb. 29) opinion that the fair tax is a dead-end measure, I say the only unfair measure is torturing us with our current tax system.
I am excited that people are finally demanding change. Throughout life, we are reminded of one thing over and over again; that if we are aiming for one objective, the simplest approach is best. Current Internal Revenue Service tax code is approximately 60,000 pages. Americans spend nearly $500 billion annually in the preparation and filing of taxes, along with businesses losing money to worrying about the tax implications of their decisions, resorting in much inefficiency to our businesses and economy.
The fair tax will bring transparency to tax policy, allow workers to keep their paycheck and close abundant loopholes found in our current tax code. Yes, sales tax will rise, but as we keep our entire paychecks, we need not be discouraged. The economy will boom from the stability of the tax revenue, and though out-of-state tourists may be initially discouraged from the higher sales tax, they will ultimately benefit from Michigan's productivity.
Support the Fair Tax on the ballot and let the people decide; bring stability to Michigan.
Todd McGee
Traverse City
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