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Letters to the Editor

Give young girl credit for saving her life, too

There have been many articles published about the bravery of the young man who used his slingshot to protect his sister from an active kidnapping, but many of them focus on the brother and overshadow the work done by the little girl to stay safe. What that boy did to assist in saving his sister was courageous and he absolutely deserves to be recognized for his bravery and quick thinking. He stepped up to help his sister and that is a wonderful thing. However, while we are praising the brother for his efforts, we are slightly dismissing how well his younger sister defended ...

Why is Bergman hesitant to raise debt limit?

Representative Bergman in a recent constituent newsletter, May 23, 2023, writes that “Americans make those tough decisions in their personal lives everyday”, referring to the fact that we stand good for the debts we have incurred in our daily lives. When the bills come in, we pay them as part of our obligation when we bought the groceries, our automobile, electricity, or whatever else we needed to maintain our lives. If our spending pattern is out of sync with our income, we must adjust our future spending, but that adjustment has no bearing on our past debt, it still is due and must ...

Responding to such impassioned criticism

Responding to the impassioned fallout from my suggestion that “enraptured” wasn’t le mot juste to describe the response to David Sedaris’ recent appearance in Alpena, first, kudos to Anne Gentry for having such rabid supporters, ready to leap to her defense. More to the point, before I moved to Ossineke, I’d lived in California, Chicago, Brussels and New York City. But I’ve never lived in a place so defensive, so hostile to different opinions, rejecting “big city ideas” (“big city” being any town with more than 50,000 residents, including the City That Shall Not Be ...

Diet, exercise gets bodies running smoothy

What we know about sugar and what it’s doing to our body: If we go back to the 1970s, the average person consumed 40 pounds of sugar a year, and diabetes, cancer, gout, heart disease, stroke, dementia, Alzheimer’s was around but rare, a baby born diabetic was very rare. This had stayed like this for decades before the 70s. Today, the average person consumes over 150 pounds of sugar a year. This rise in sugar consumption started in the 80s, this was when all those power drinks came out, they were full of sugar. Al the known ailments mentioned above went up at the rate and today ...

‘Little Women’ performance made a splash

For over 40 years my wife, Grace, and I have been a part of Alpena Civic Theatre. We have seen many memorable performances, but few have reached the level of this presentation. Call it direction, call it set presentation, call it blocking perfection, call it acting preparedness — call it anything you would like but all of those things added together were something to behold. I cannot remember an opening performance that received a standing ovation until this one. Also, there is a vocalization within theatergoers express when something is beyond pale - a very loud “Wooo.” There ...

A response to Shuman’s recent Sedaris letter

Enrapture: to fill with delight. This would seem to be an appropriate description of the atmosphere at the recent David Sedaris event. But, for some reason, Mr. Clyde Shuman found Anne Gentry’s use of this word to be yet another reason to impose his hypercritical comments on the readers of The News. Ms. Gentry and many other young professionals in our community are involved in numerous projects and events that make our town a better place for everyone. I have never read a letter from Mr. Shuman that acknowledges, praises, or thanks anyone for their commitment to making Alpena a ...