Saturday, September 21, 2024

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Commentary

COMMENTARY

Precious pond

If some lake lovers have their way, Lake St. Clair might soon gain status as the sixth Great Lake. While it is nice and biologically diverse, it isn’t great. However, a worthwhile issue as been raised by the Great Lakes Commission - great status would bring Lake St.

COMMENTARY

Love should have say about Nirvana

I am writing to express my disappointment in Leslie Escobar’s column “Nirvana scandal a disgrace, Love should get a life” SN 10/2). Why should Courtney Love have equal say when it comes to Nirvana releases?

COMMENTARY

E.L. police right to ticket alley drivers

I am writing in response of the letter to the editor “Ticket sting shows ill intentions of E.L.” (SN 10/2). I would like to commend the police officer that finally ticketed the cheap, selfish, lazy people who drive through the alley between the MSU credit union and the parking lot on Albert Avenue.

COMMENTARY

TAs trying to abuse power of unions

In response to the letter to the editor “SN should side closer with union” (SN 10/2), I must respectfully ask, “are people nuts?” Of course job promotions are at the discretion of employers.

COMMENTARY

Union doesnt get respect it deserves

Arbitration will prove a costly process for both the Graduate Employees Union and the university. But it is the only out-of-court option left to the union if it wants to get the salaries it thought were promised to its most experienced teaching assistants in the contract signed last spring.

COMMENTARY

Council right to allow apartment construction, E.L. is home to students and residents alike

Yet again, the development of more student housing has residents bothered about noise, but finally the East Lansing City Council made the right decision.In a 3-2 vote Wednesday, the council approved a request by Campus Village Properties to build an apartment complex at 1153 Michigan Ave.The new development is expected to house 222 residents.After recent complaints concerning noise in off-campus neighborhoods, it is good to see the city council is not backing away from new near-campus housing geared toward students.This complex is not in the middle of a neighborhood, it’s on Michigan Avenue - near the Brody Complex and other student housing venues.East Lansing residents need to realize the city’s need to grow along with the university.

COMMENTARY

Pedestrians should share danger blame

I’d like to respond to Patti Ruggiero’s letter to the editor, “Drivers should read, yield to pedestrians” (SN 10/1). I’m a frequent walker or biker myself, but I drive on campus once or twice a week to my night classes.

COMMENTARY

SN should side closer with union

It is disappointing to read State News editorials, such as “Talk it out” (SN 10/1), that insist the Graduate Employees Union “might discover a job promotion should be at the employer’s discretion.” The editorial weakly backs up its assertion by presenting professors getting tenure as being equivalent to graduate employees being promoted to a level-three pay tier. Professors are unorganized workers and do not have a contract that stipulates when they should receive tenure.

COMMENTARY

City boycott not solution, go vote

I am writing in response to the letter to the editor, “Students should set date to boycott city” (SN 10/01). In regard to the past few letters that have called for a boycott of East Lansing’s businesses, students are making the wrong choice.

COMMENTARY

Unsatisfactory

It’s a good sign for college sports that the number of student-athletes who reach graduation is on the rise - some 60 percent of Division I’s freshman class of 1995 graduated from college. But MSU still has work to do. For the same class of students, MSU only graduated 57 percent of its scholarship athletes.

COMMENTARY

Lets talk about sex

The Bush administration’s strong-arm policies have claimed another victim - HIV prevention. The White House has deleted information about the effectiveness of condoms from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site, perhaps because the administration wants to promote a abstinence-only approach, The Associated Press reported. The administration needs a wake-up call.

COMMENTARY

Talk it out

The Graduate Employees Union is continuing to hunt for a resolution with the university concerning teaching assistant pay, and it’s time for the two sides talk over the issue in a timely fashion. The union might seek arbitration sessions with the university after a grievance filed last week was rejected by Provost Lou Anna Simon.

COMMENTARY

Nursing about desire, not financial issues

The State News published a series of reports about the nursing profession (“Career in crisis” SN 9/18 to 9/20). The feeling I got from that series was the profession is underpaid, underserved, overworked and not respected. Having been a nurse at Ingham Regional Medical Center for almost 10 years, I don’t feel this to be the case. I worked three 12-hour shifts a week.

COMMENTARY

Drivers should read, yield to pedestrians

Each day when I go to class I always think, “Am I going to get squashed today?” I admit I am not the best of drivers, but when I see people crossing the street and the yellow, neon signs that read, “Yield to Pedestrians,” I tend to stop so I don’t flatten anybody who might be crossing. Lately, it seems some drivers view these signs as some type of “metal objects” that somebody placed along the streets for decoration. What I find even more amusing is there are “baby yield signs” placed in the middle of the road that are supposed to clue in drivers they should yield to pedestrians. But this theory doesn’t work, as I discovered one sunny day.