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Daily News deadline for election letters

The Daily News will accept Letters to the Editor on the Nov. 3 elections through 5 p.m. Wednesday. Letters should be as brief as possible — ideally no more than 250 words — but can be up to about 500 words. Potentially libelous statements and personal attacks will not be published. The Daily News reserves the right to edit letters for length, grammar and questionable statements, or to refuse to publish questionable letters. Priority will be given to those who have not had a letter previously printed on the elections. These letters must be signed, with a telephone number for ...

Prayer not proper at board meetings

At the Dickinson County Board of Commissioners meeting on Oct. 12, I formally objected to the board’s ongoing practice of facilitating sectarian prayers immediately before official county board meetings. Local government should be an environment where all taxpaying constituents feel equally respected, regardless of their personal faith or lack thereof. The board often claims this practice is insulated because it happens moments before the official meeting gavel sounds, but this is a distinction without a difference. Telling residents they are “free to leave the room” if they ...

Daily News deadline for election letters

The Daily News will accept Letters to the Editor on the Nov. 3 elections through 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 28. Letters should be as brief as possible — ideally no more than 250 words — but can be up to about 500 words. Potentially libelous statements and personal attacks will not be published. The Daily News reserves the right to edit letters for length, grammar and questionable statements, or to refuse to publish questionable letters. Priority will be given to those who have not had a letter previously printed on the elections. These letters must be signed, with a telephone number ...

When labels get corrupted

Do political or even religious labels of a person mean much? I believe they only really suggest a vague support of a generally abstract set of values or beliefs. Persons of a specific group will often accommodate actions that are criminal, immoral and dangerous to outside persons and groups. For example, people will often ignore, excuse, blame people outside their group or belief system for criminal, immoral or physically harmful acts that are done by persons in their group. The ICE officers’ behavior to Hispanics that many Republicans and some Christians condone by their silence or ...

Time to hate wolves in the UP — again?

BARB: In the Sept. 21 Daily Mining Gazette of Houghton, I read of legislation proposed in the state House to require hunting and trapping of gray wolves in Michigan if and when the species is removed from the federal list of endangered species. This is not the first time, and probably not the last, for such a proposal. What is new, of course, is that voters go to the polls next month and will see the names of the sponsor and co-sponsor, respectively, of the proposed bill — state Reps. Dave Prestin, R-Cedar River, and Greg Markkanen, R-Hancock. Prestin’s news release implies that an ...

Michigan kids need daylight after school

I’ve lived and worked in Iron Mountain for 47 years, and every winter I watch our kids lose the daylight. Here on Central time it’s dark by 4:15 p.m. in December. A child gets off the bus and there’s no light left for sledding, skating or a game in the yard. Four months indoors in front of a screen isn’t good for anybody’s health or mood. The Sunshine Protection Act would fix that by keeping us on Daylight Saving Time all year. The U.S. House passed it 308 to 117 this summer. It’s stuck in the Senate because one senator, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, keeps blocking a vote. The ...