Nuclear one of the best options we have

Can you believe it, a citizen of Jenison is shown in The Holland Sentinel of Feb. 13, holding a sign that reads, “Save the Campbell”? He advocates making our electricity by the most polluting method of burning fossil fuel. He refers to the J.H. Campbell Generating Station in West Olive, Michigan.

Joseph McCarter doesn’t live where the coal train ties up traffic. Unit 3 at the Campbell plant burns about 100 coal cars of coal every day. (Some cities consider spraying the train with water to minimize the coal dust.) Can you imagine digging that much coal every day? Is he aware of the mercury, arsenic and other heavy metal toxic pollutants that are released every day by burning coal? 

Friends of mine call me, “Mr. Nuclear” because I advocate for that power source. I take that position aware that every energy source has downsides. I came to my pro-nuclear stance because I am so anti-coal. I was raised in coal-mining country watching neighbors die of black lung disease. I worked in our nation’s first commercial nuclear power plant during its start-up year. It was there that I learned that coal ash is also a radioactive waste.

At the Shippingport Atomic Power Station, there was no smokestack spewing soot and climate-changing gases. There were no piles of coal requiring constant stirring to avoid spontaneous combustion. There were no railroad tracks to move hundreds of coal cars, full and empty, every day.

If one must advocate for more global warming gases, choose the burning of natural gas, as a small step toward common sense backup power for windless nights.  Burning natural gas is a bit more efficient than burning dirt. But please don’t get me started on the other ills of coal burning.

Donald Williams
Holland

No sense of decency

Outgoing MI GOP Chair Pete Hoekstra remarked with glee recently at the GOP Convention waking up and wondering each morning: “What executive order is he (Trump) going to sign today?” Surrounding delegates applauded enthusiastically with no understanding of the unconstitutionality, corruption, greed and cruelty each executive order unleashed.

“Have you no sense of decency?” I ask Republican delegates. Have you no empathy for the human suffering, misery and death these executive orders enact?

Shame on you for decimating USAID, which selflessly fed malnourished children on the edge of death, funded health clinics preventing the spread of Ebola, tuberculosis, M-Pox, measles and bird flu, rescued persecuted refugees escaping war with nothing but the clothes on their back and so much more.

Shame on you for applauding the elimination of the Department of Education, the Emergency Response System that ensures equal access to education for students with disabilities, rural students, low-income students K-12 and those seeking higher education.

Shame on you for applauding ICE’s cruel and inhumane treatment of defenseless immigrants and for even plotting incarceration in Gitmo and El Salvador.

Shame on you for applauding the severance of jobs, without due process of thousands of decent, hard-working public servants. How dare you approve of lost livelihood to Americans: of 10,000 fired, 75,000 bought out, 220,000 with less than a year’s experience in their “current” job. How dare you sleep while a recession heads to our cities and towns?

“Have you no decency?” dear reader if you stand in silence while Trump and Musk maliciously shatter lives and cripple the country in exchange for $4 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy.

Stop the blood money for tax cuts. Speak up before Trump and Musk come for you, and there is no one left to speak up for you.

Bob Bird
Holland

I got lucky. You can too.

There came a time when I had to decide whether to cut ties with MAGA family members or tolerate the seemingly intolerable. Only in hindsight do I realize that I made the right decision. I chose tolerance.

It’s been five years of enjoying family gatherings, visits, texts and phone calls. After all, I was pretty sure that they weren’t wearing underwear plastered with red hearts and “I Love Trump.” They were just at the other end of the political spectrum. Wouldn’t I tolerate a stranger who held conservative views? I had been a volunteer mediator for nine years and I truly believed that both sides were “right.” I was not a judge. My job was to help them become unstuck and move forward. Any success I had had in that role was from studying and embracing paradox and non-dual thinking.

Something had happened to all of us. As our familiar news sources moved toward the opposite ends of the spectrum, we had become radicalized. (An interesting point about gerrymandered districts: the winner doesn’t have to moderate his or her views, because there’s no competition. He or she can be radical with little consequence.)

In scientific terms (systems thinking) families that split were “differentiating” — recognizing that (someone or something) was different. We were being pushed to split because of politics while ignoring all the countless ways we related to each other. When differentiating is taken too far, the antidote is de-differentiate (integrate) — share a meal, go bowling, watch a movie …

I’ve cut way back on watching the news. I’m less angry, more positive and energized. Try a news cleanse.

We need to realize that we’ve been radicalized and conned daily for years. Reconnect with family and friends. Life is too short to do otherwise.

Jack H. Bender
Zeeland

Huizenga should lay himself off

As a resident of Ottawa County, I have watched your career since you were first elected as our congressman to the U.S. House of Representatives. I have read nearly all of your newsletters explaining to us your perceived responsibilities, love for this country, and devotion to the Constitution. While I often disagree with your policies, I never questioned your motives and always gave you the respect that you and your office deserve. I understood that the majority of the citizens in Michigan’s Fourth District shared your views, more often than mine, and that as an elected official of this district, you were indeed fulfilling the responsibilities of your position.             

However, as I understand your duties, there is a greater responsibility than placating your constituents. You have repeatedly sworn an oath that you “will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.” Let’s take a look at how you are doing on that front. 

Last February, when you joined the House Foreign Affairs Committee assigned to the subcommittees relating to Europe and the Western Hemisphere, you stated, “I look forward to being part of the solution that prioritizes American interests, supports our allies, and counters the expansionist desires of both Russia and China.” 

In the past six weeks, President Trump has worked feverishly to destroy our alliance with WHO and NATO, insulted our closest allies, and begun to remove most sanctions placed on Russia. His attack on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with Vice President J.D. Vance in the Oval Office was the most embarrassing action by a U.S. president in my lifetime and was apparently orchestrated as a justification to further embrace Putin and desert our alliance with Ukraine and all European allies. Blaming Ukraine for the war is totally inexcusable and does nothing to “counter the expansionist desires of both Russia and China.”

I am not a constitutional expert; however, I was taught repeatedly that one of the few constitutionally assigned duties of the U.S. House of Representatives was the “power of the purse.” The president is now refusing to deliver the weapons and the money you authorized.

Never before has an unelected, unsupervised citizen been given the authority to access secret, confidential and sensitive information on our citizens from the treasury, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, all under the premise of finding “fraud and waste.” Your response to one of my comments was that you are essentially fine with this unprecedented access to our private information from an unstable billionaire.     

In addition, the Senate is no longer providing its “advice and consent” responsibilities in an effort to show subservience to a president rapidly building unprecedented personal power.  

Because you and your colleagues are so interested in eliminating fraud and waste, I suggest you introduce a bill that would “lay off” the entire legislative branch until its congressional members decide to perform their duties as prescribed in the Constitution, which you vowed to defend. Your acquiescence to Mr. Trump is contrary to your actual oath. It is time for you to fulfill your duty instead of trying to preserve your job.  

Vern Jones
Jenison 

The long and the short of it

There are many ways to use this phrase in our daily lives. We’ve all heard it used in many contexts. I’m going to use it to show what is wrong with the way the current administration in the White House is trimming the fat out of the federal government. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for making the government leaner and more efficient. What’s happening now is sloppy, lazy and dangerous.

I started working for a medical equipment company in the early '80s based in Milpitas, California, right smack dab in the middle of Silicon Valley. Everybody was there: HP, Cisco, VLSI, Apple and many more. We were all growing in leaps and bounds until we got so big we could neither leap nor bound. Too big and bloated to run efficiently.

Enter the turnaround guys. At first, it seemed to work great, but not for long. A lot of the decisions that they made looked great and had an immediate effect on stock prices and sales. BOOM BABY! Then, all of a sudden, that guy was up and gone like a fart in the wind. He got a job/promotion with a new company based on the short-term gains he had accomplished at the last company. None of them stuck around for the long-term consequences their short-term gain produced.

It is going to be difficult to write this next part mainly because changes are happening so fast. This, by the way, is done on purpose. It shifts our attention from one thing to another without giving us time to evaluate any one thing. This tactic has been used by the military for centuries. Attack on multiple fronts so the enemy cannot effectively form a defense.

By the way, we’re the enemy.

Elon Musk and company are firing tons of people. They can’t fire people who are protected by unions or federal law so they go after the low-hanging fruit. The new/probationary employees. Two long-term consequences:

1. Who is going to replace the older/protected employees when they retire? The people who were training to take these seasoned veterans' places have been let go.
2. Who wants to get hired by an employer who will fire them if they decide to have more cuts because they are the easiest to get rid of?

Next are the layoffs at the Federal Aviation Administration. Once again, they can’t go after protected people so instead they fired the people who are responsible for repairing radar and radio systems, maintenance mechanics and aeronautical information specialists. Long-term consequences:

1-2. Same as above.
3. Less flights and more delays due to lack of staff or equipment outages.
4. The next plane incident.

All these short-term gains will have long-term consequences. They are trying to make you think that what little they save in getting rid of personnel will offset the $2 trillion increase to the national debt that the Republican blueprint will produce. They could fire every federal employee including themselves and not even come close to that number.

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Bill Fey
Holland

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