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Letters to the Editor

Support higher pay for nurses

To the editor: The Keweenaw Unitarian Universalist Fellowship’s Justice Ministry strongly supports the Portage nurses in their negotiations for higher pay. We were surprised to learn that the nurses working for UPHS – Portage were the lowest paid in the Upper Peninsula. Kendra Benson, an emergency department nurse put it so powerfully when she said, “We need a competitive wage scale with our competing hospitals in order to recruit and retain these nurses.” Nurses are our front-line workers. These people work tirelessly to help us to be healthy and safe. They have continued ...

Choosing whom to love and serve

To the editor: I get to choose whom I will love and serve. Free will is both a good thing and can be a very evil thing. We can choose to love one another or be self-centered and love and worship wealth, power, celebrities and an endless list of other things and gods; from the sun to drugs and any other Satanic addictions. We can choose to love and surrender our free will to God the father and his only begotten son, Jesus, by him our Lord and Savior; or love and surrender our life and will to some Satanic cult leader in politics, religion or some other weird dead god or ...

Need a new story

To the editor: Our everyday moods, interests, and feelings are largely determined by how well our present experiences match up with our currently favored “inner story” of how things ought to be. When things follow our inner script, we’re happy and hopeful. The unfolding inner stories of individual people will largely determine with whom they will interact. Social media and cable TV news networks provide like-minded adherents with an encouraging refuge where everybody seems to share similar inner narratives. Truth be told, the so-called American “melting pot” has always ...

Calumet Post Office

To the editor: I must take issue with Cal Thomas’ editorial about the U.S. Postal Service. I have run a mail-order business from my home for over 20 years. I use the Calumet Post Office for all of my shipping. In all that time, they have never failed to make a delivery on time. Postmaster Zubiena and all his staff are friends and helpers who do an exemplary job. Yes, postal rates have gone up in price over the years, but what hasn’t? I salute and congratulate the Calumet Post Office. You are the absolutely the best!

Country Music Jamboree

To the editor: The EB Holman Country Music Jamboree returned to the Houghton High School auditorium on October 9. After not having a show in 2020, there were a lot of people who were so excited to get back to great, live country music! The band Thunder and Lightning put on an awesome show with Mike Urbis as Emcee and lots of talented local artists. It was an extra special show this year, remembering Denise Kinnunen, who was a huge part of putting on the show since the start. We’re grateful for all the sponsors who make this possible for us. Their support covers stage rental, ...

Dwarfing the Huntington Beach spill

To the editor: Aging oil pipelines in Huntington Beach, California, and the Straits of Mackinac are beyond their expected safe lifetimes. Both are run by companies with histories of safety breaches, and both have anchor strikes occurring from the busy shipping lanes above the pipelines. Enbridge’s deteriorating Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac that transports Canadian oil across Michigan to Canada has recently experienced at least three anchor strikes. Anchor strikes on Line 5 are more likely now that the pipe is suspended above the lake bottom. In fact, this is the most serious ...