A great air show
Kudos to the National Cherry Festival air show committee for putting together an outstanding event.
The static display at Northwestern Michigan College's flight school, as well as the twilight air show were great additions this year.
Estimates are that 300,000-plus spectators lined the shores of West Grand Traverse Bay to watch the show on July 5 alone.
Please do not change anything based on a very small amount of people that feel the need to complain about noise, as they are obviously in the minority.
Looking forward to another great air show and festival in 2009.
Sue Thomas
Traverse City
Unsettling remarks
I strongly disagree with the following remarks broadcast at the end of the Blue Angels demonstration: "It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech; it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press; it is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate."
Soldiers do not give citizens of a democracy the freedoms of speech, press and demonstration.
These rights are created by the people themselves and then enforced by brave and honest politicians and judges.
In America, our citizen-written Constitution gave us these freedoms, which were then protected by the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Soldiers do protect our freedoms when they obey just orders of an honest president and Congress, as in World War II.
I am so grateful for the courageous World War II veterans still in our community.
They indeed protected the rights our Constitution gave to us.
In short, soldiers protect but do not create democracy. And soldiers actually threaten our freedoms when they unquestioningly obey illegal orders of dishonest politicians, as in Vietnam and now the Iraq War.
Matthew Posner
Suttons Bay
Let's hear it for lawyers!
The announcer for the Blue Angels at the Cherry Festival said poets, reporters, campus organizers and protesters have nothing to do with securing our constitutional rights.
As a lawyer, I am not sure if I feel honored or slighted that my profession was not included in that class of "ne'er-do-wells."
Let's hear it for the lawyers in the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Bar Association, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild and our own Progressive Lawyers group here in Traverse City!
These groups have taken on the mighty to protect the rights of the weak.
They deserve some credit for upholding the rights embodied in the U.S. Constitution, rights some have died protecting and some have died trying to merely achieve right here at home.
The birth of democracy and its vitality depends foremost on vigorous debate in the press, freedom songs/prose, and the citizenry often addressing their grievances in the street.
A country that inverts those resources and places the military at the top of the pinnacle is known as totalitarian or fascist.
A path, I trust we do not want to travel.
A recording of the Blue Angels monologue is at TraversePeaceAlerts.org
Marian Kromkowski
Suttons Bay
Dogs at the Open Space
In response to a letter asking why we would bring our pets to the Open Space area, this is my third therapy dog in training.
I take him as many places as I can to get him used to crowds, noise, sudden moves, so that he can be safe in the situations that he will be in at nursing homes, hospices, or with children.
My first dog was a therapet in the University of Michigan Pediatric Oncology Clinic and it was a perfect placement, but she had to go through testing to become a therapet.
So that's why I take my dog as many places as I am permitted to go with him.
Paula Hartmann
Traverse City
Thoughtless and selfish
I would like to express my disappointment that our shut-ins and elderly people were completely left out of the Cherry Festival when the parade was not televised.
Many of these people have no choices in life but to accept what others do for them and to them. What they were dealt in this case was thoughtless and selfish.
Think about it; we'll all be in their situations someday.
Shame on those people who are responsible.
Nancy Coleman
Traverse City
Militarism glorified
I spent summers in Traverse City since second grade, and I always looked forward to the Blue Angels. What can I say? Every little boy loves airplanes.
When I first heard about folks demonstrating against the fighter jets, I thought they were crazy.
But then I realized that from the time I was a child, the Cherry Festival air show has been nothing more than a U.S. military ploy to win my allegiance.
Militarism is sterilized and glorified until we forget that war is hell, and instead just think it's cool as hell.
We celebrate our machismo toys while the very same tools kill women and children in parts of the world most of us will never visit.
After listening to the audio that went along with this year's Warthog/Blue Angels military recruitment scheme, I was appalled and disgusted. Weapons systems listed as if it were a sports show, the efficiency with which these machines of death perform their duties bragged about, and blatant military propaganda intended to convince us that it's somehow honorable to brandish power with the barrel of a gun.
Shame on the Traverse City Cherry Festival.
Shame for making our children more comfortable with mass murder.
Jason Glover
Portland, Ore.
The writer is the former publisher of Traverse City's Thirdeye Magazine.
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