Sunday, July 5, 2026

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Commentary

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.

COMMENTARY

Students should set date to boycott city

After being lied to and run out of town by the city of East Lansing, my roommates and I are ecstatic to read the words “boycott E.L.” in The State News (“Money is power, ‘U’ should boycott E.L.” SN 9/27) It is not our intention to cause harm to any local business owners, but apparently city officials need a reminder of who supports its economy. Therefore, we propose that on one particular day, MSU students boycott all East Lansing businesses, from gas stations to retail stores to gyms.

COMMENTARY

LCC made right move with smoking ban

Kudos to Lansing Community College for banning smoking on its campus. It’s wonderful to know educational institutions are joining in the fight to marginalize and demonize the only people who actually suffer from the horrible tobacco companies that everyone loves to talk about.

COMMENTARY

Thank you

Sunday was a sad day for Tigers fans - not because the ball club posted its worst season record since 1996, but because a chapter closed in the team’s history. Sunday’s 1-0 loss to the Blue Jays in Toronto capped the Tigers’ 2002 season and the broadcast career for the only voice anyone of our generation has equated with the Motor City ball club - that of Ernie Harwell. Harwell didn’t say goodbye to the generations of fans who have tuned in to the voice of Tiger baseball for the last 42 years.

COMMENTARY

Students treat city badly, show respect

I disagree with the notion that we could be rioting at the strike of a match as established in the story “City official: Noise might lead to riots” (SN 9/26). But I am rather concerned with the irresponsibility and carelessness demonstrated by students gathering socially off campus.