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Letters to the Editor

Praise for Hancock School Public Library

Thank you for recent articles highlighting the Hancock School Public Library. It is a true treasure, in no small part thanks for the creativity and dedication of director Boni Ashburn. She goes way above and beyond in writing the grants that have brought so much to the facility. She is unfailingly enthusiastic and helpful to patrons of all ages. And it is very evident that the students adore her. I hope Portage Lake District Library is keenly aware of what an asset we have in Hancock’s library, and in Boni Ashburn. I can’t wait to check out the Library of Things! Joyce Wiswell Hancock

Childhood games and lessons learned

Many of us prior to the advent of cellphones had the experience and fun of joining in on neighborhood games as children. Games like hide and seek, tag, kick the can and hop scotch to name but a few. These games were played after school, on weekends, and lasted until the street lights came on or when our parents called us home. These games were democratically comprised of boys and girls of all ages. The games had rules and were occasionally modified by group consensus. If rules were violated, admonishments and consequences would follow. Understanding and abiding by the rules kept our ...

Kudos to our local firefighters

I am writing to express my heartfelt gratitude to the volunteer fire departments in our community for their heroic efforts in saving my home from a devastating fire. Their selfless dedication and swift action undoubtedly prevented what could have been a catastrophic loss. On Friday, March 1, at 5 a.m., I awoke to the house/apartment complex next door on fire. The fire on U.S. 41 in Portage Township engulfed the structure. The flames were close enough to my home to melt the siding, but they put it out in time to save my house, and fortunately no one was injured. In a moment of ...

In protection of the Porkies, Lake Superior

On Feb. 27, over 30 individuals delivered spoken comments to the Michigan Strategic Fund, voicing opposition to a proposed $50 million grant to Copperwood, a foreign company’s plan to open a metallic sulfide mine at the juncture of Lake Superior, Porcupine Mountains State Park and the North Country Trail. Here’s why: The main thing our tax dollars would be paying for is not copper, but waste. With an ore grade of just 1.45%, for every ton of extracted material, 29 pounds would be copper and 1,971 pounds would be waste, requiring on-site storage, forever, in a 323-acre tailings ...

Facts and faith

Keith Raffel’s recent opinion column (“Did too many of them play hooky during history class?”) makes an important point - facts are essential to democracy. Knowledge of history can deepen our patriotism, especially when we learn from the mistakes we have made. We were given a Constitution that allows us to “bring about a more perfect union.” It seems that our love of money has corrupted our school curriculum by putting more emphasis on learning marketable skills than on creating responsible citizens. Some have argued, erroneously, that our country is a Christian nation. ...

Self-immolation is never the answer

It should go without saying – “Nobody should intentionally set themselves on fire”. The death of an active-duty airman who immolated himself on Sunday outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington to protest the civilian deaths in Gaza was a tragedy. One that was repeated many times during the Vietnam war. It started with a Buddhist monk in downtown Saigon (1963). More would follow. The first American was a Quaker, Norman Morrison, in Washington, DC at the Pentagon (1965). At least seven more occurred in the USA. Why? Morrison said that he “was shown” what to do while praying ...