VILAS COUNTY NEWS-REVIEW/THE THREE LAKES NEWS
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 21, 2012
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OP-ED/READER OPINION Commercial property owners Maines question business incubator FROM PAGE 16A Letter to the Editor: Re: Business incubator project This is sent as a notice to all other county taxpayers. As owners of commercial properties in Eagle River, we recently learned that the business incubator project spent $250,000 and another $50,000 is proposed to help create new business. In our immediate Eagle River area, there are at least 20 vacant commercial properties. There are probably a good many more properties across Vilas County with the same problems. Those owners pay county taxes. How can we compete with the county? If conventional land owners can’t fill their vacant units, the county should not be creating more commercial space and spending taxpayer
money to be in direct competition with other taxpayers. Couldn’t the money be better utilized by reducing commercial fees and taxes on privately-owned commercial properties? What has this spent money accomplished so far? We would like to see a published fiscal accounting and report on how many individuals have been helped as a direct result of the money already spent. The county could do more to promote new businesses by reducing fees and regulations that slow development. Sincerely, Arthur Senicka Donald Sojka Edward Gilomen Sojka Senicka Gilomen Rentals Eagle River
came around the corner going home a little after five, a deer stood in the road by my mailbox, a deer with forked antlers showing above its ears. Sunday wasn’t quite as eventful, but with temperatures in the 50s, who cared? I, for one, am of an age where I don’t care if it’s “too warm” for deer hunting. The way I figure it, if I’m going to sit for hours on a deer stand without seeing a buck, I’d rather be warm than suffering through something like 10 below. I wasn’t alone going buckless for opening weekend. Many friends suffered the same fate, but most I talked to enjoyed every minute
much as I did. My cousin, Nate, and his son, Jake, were entertained throughout the opening day by a sow black bear and her two cubs. My cousin, Alan, after killing a buck Sunday morning, was gutting it out when he heard a little commotion up the hill from him. Grabbing his gun, he figured he might get lucky on another buck someone else in his bunch could tag, but instead he looked up to see a bear — maybe the same sow, though he didn’t see any cubs — eyeing him up. What are the odds that gut pile is still intact? My dad and my cousin, Art, got home about one o’clock Saturday afternoon from a very successful deer hunt in Missouri. Art got the biggest buck of his life, and
my dad got a 10-point, or least it would have been 10 had not two tines been broken off. What made that buck so satisfying for him, not to mention please me to no end, is that my dad is 90 years old and still deer hunting. Not only was it a dandy buck, but he had to shoot it from his stand at the end of a wheat field with the pressure of knowing half a dozen fellow hunters having lunch in the deer camp lodge at the other end of the field were watching him. With pressure like that you might expect a miss, but as so many others have fallen to his venerable .308, so too did that one. Another highlight of the deer hunting opener was the success of my cousin’s daughter, Betty, on her first deer
hunt. Sitting on one side of a small swamp about 100 yards from Buckshot, she shot a spike about three in the afternoon. With the buck gutted, she asked Buckshot, “What do I do now?” He replied, “Go back on your stand and shoot one for me.” Twenty minutes later, kabloom; she did, that time a beautiful eight-point. Not bad for a 16-year-old hunting for the first time. As for me, there still remains Thanksgiving Day and three more days after that. The statistics may say my chances are getting slimmer every day, but to remain optimistic all I need do is remind myself that my very first buck and two of my biggest bucks have been Thanksgiving Day successes. Lightning in a bottle again, anyone?
The electorate chose democracy over plutocracy Letter to the Editor: Last week, someone listed a series of bullet points documenting the sad state of our economy. Fair enough, few are pleased with the present state of affairs. Incredibly, however, the writer seemed to be implying that President Obama was somehow responsible for the slow recovery. Apparently the writer wasn’t paying attention when the Republican minority set a record with 380 filibusters designed to obstruct any Democratic effort to get the economy back on track, or accomplish anything, for that matter (incidentally, consider requesting that your senators support the Merkley proposal, essentially designed to eliminate drive-by filibusters). Apparently, he was under the impression that President Obama had been handed a surplus and subsequently dropped the ball (that would be the previous administration). He seemed to be blaming the president for the implosion of the housing mar-
ket which had been in free fall before his inauguration. He seemed alarmed that median household income was falling, a reflection of the upward redistribution of wealth that skyrocketed with the Bush tax cuts (which he, no doubt, favored). Incredibly, as if this panoply of invectives provided insufficient catharsis for his disappointment with the election results, he went on to insult disabled persons, “many” of whom were, in his mind, guilty of fraud. He also imagined a “scandal” in Benghazi, that could “dwarf ” Watergate and Iran-Contra! Seriously? Nevertheless, I do find some common ground with the writer’s assessment that this could be “the most consequential election in our republic’s history,” a day when the electorate chose democracy over plutocracy, and when grass roots activism trumped unlimited campaign contributions by anonymous donors. Terrance Moe Three Lakes
Appreciate Pines’ iPad training Letter to the Editor: We would like to publicly recognize the technology committee in the Northland Pines School District for the outstanding classes they offered for iPad training. The classes were very informative and the personal
McNutt FROM PAGE 16A clean. She offers these ways to cover up that fact. If your house is a real mess, when your guests arrive, yell upstairs, “Did you find it?” Throw your tattered sofa
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help was greatly appreciated. Scott Foster and his entire committee are a credit to the district. We are very fortunate to have such an outstanding school system! Diana and Ken Whyte Conover pillows on the floor when the doorbell rings. People will think they belong to the cat or dog. Should your maple furniture be sticky, explain that it’s oozing sap. McBride tries to entertain only at holiday time. You can Scotch tape Christmas cards up to cover smudged and chipped woodwork.
Gabl should read history more carefully Dear Editor: However reluctant I am to write in response to the Mr. Gabl letter of Nov. 14, as I am with every one of his other letters (I long ago concluded that Mr. Gabl is an unacknowledged, but regular letter writer to the NewsReview), his latest series of utterly ahistorical predictions and observations (the 2012 Presidential election as “the most consequential election in our Republic’s history . . . ” Frank! Really? Try 1788, 1796, 1800, 1828, 1860, 1864, 1896, 1912, 1932 and several others.), the assertion that pushed him over the rhetorical cliff was his contention that “The Benghazi, Libya cover-up scandal has the potential to dwarf Watergate and Iran-Contra . . .” Get a grip, or read history a bit more carefully. That assertion minimizes two presidential actions that did and/or should have
FROM ACROSS THE HEADWATERS REGION
Compiled by Patti Katz Black
Question: What will you most enjoy about this Thanksgiving holiday?
resulted in impeachment and removal from office for two American presidents. They were constitutional crises in which both presidents violated their oaths of office, broke the law and probably should have been imprisoned, but of course, were not. Mr. Gabl’s claim reaches a level of silly so lofty as to be impossible to scale. Let’s make a deal: If the Benghazi issue reaches the level of impeachment, I will drive down to Prospect Heights and kiss Mr. Gabl’s (select an anatomical expression of your choice) if, in return, there is no impeachment, Mr.
Bob Joyce, 63 Contractor Woodale, Ill. “We have a place up here in Eagle River. Thanksgiving is a great time for family to get together with extended family that travel here from Illinois.”
Letter to the Editor: The Food for the Mind project leaders would like to take this opportunity to recognize individuals, schools, organizations, businesses and churches who have more than generously donated used and new books and money to help children who need to visit area food pantries have available to them children’s books to read and own. It is impossible to
Thomas
Madeline Messina, 12 Seventh-grader Lockport, Ill. “This is our first Thanksgiving here. Our cousins are coming, and we are renting a house, playing football, board games, eating and drinking sparkling juice.”
financial instruments (magical little invisible devices that “job creators” used to create wealth and profits for themselves), unregulated and irresponsible mortgage banker activities, all of which predate President Obama’s term. Funny how partisan history allows one to believe whatever one wants, no matter what the truth might be. Well, anyway, my offer stands. Professor Emeritus James Parker History, UW-La Crosse, 1968-2012 Eagle River and La Crosse
Food for Mind project helping children
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Julie Winter Paez, 43 Real estate broker Eagle River “I love having the family ‘trapped’ together for a few hours. I will bake my caramel-pecan pies and chase my three-year-old Addison.”
Gabl will refrain from writing his hysterical observations to the News-Review for a period of six months. Such a deal! Seize the day! And finally, from a recent historical perspective, nearly every complaint Frank articulates — the unemployment rate, health care premiums, lowered median household incomes, diminished home values, increased food stamp enrollment, the $16 trillion national debt — almost every one is attributable to two unfunded wars, since 2000 deep tax cuts for the rich, unregulated Wall street speculation in
trict of Columbia grant same-sex marriage licenses. The Supreme Court might soon hear arguments challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the legal union between one man and one woman. Conservatives might want to focus on strengthening their own marriages. With Mitt Romney winning just 27% of the Hispanic vote, Republicans need a new strategy to attract Hispanics whose values mirror those held by conservatives. Democrats appeal to human nature. They know a growing number of people are becoming addicted to government. Democrats know that envy and greed are “deadly sins” that can be exploited for political gain. A new generation of have-nots needs to be taught that having not today doesn’t mean
list all the donors for fear of leaving someone out. The food pantries that support the Food for the Mind project are Antigo (two pantries), Boulder Junction, Crandon (two pantries), Lakeland (serves four communities), Mercer, Rhinelander, Three Lakes, Tomahawk and Townsend. We would like to express our gratitude to you for helping the children in your area
have access to books. Research has shown that pre-school children who have books in their homes become better learners in school. Many people have not only donated money and books, but much energy and time to make this a wonderful and successful on-going project. Pauline Doucette Food for the Mind project coordinator Rhinelander
never having, and that if they embrace a set of principles and emulate successful people, those now without much can earn a slice of an expanding American pie. Now some advice for my distraught conservative evangelical friends. You made a valiant effort for the last three decades, hoping politics would advance another kingdom, which your leader said is “not of this world.” Don’t retreat; enlist in a better army with better weapons. The one you follow demonstrated a power superior to the state, the power to change lives. Employ that power. Each church and religious institution, each individual, can find one poor family and ask if they want out of their circumstances and are willing to work for it, if a path is offered. One example: If a parent wants a child out of a failing public school, offer them financial help in placing the child in a good private school. Feeding the hungry, cloth-
ing the naked, visiting prisoners, and caring for widows and orphans is not a social gospel that replaces God with government. That’s the view of the religious left. Rather, these behaviors serve the ultimate purpose of reaching the heart where real change takes place. And enough changed hearts lead to changed cultures. The government beast is starved when people become independent of it. This will require a transfer of faith in government, to faith in an authority higher than the state and a leader more powerful than any president. It will take time and investment of private resources, but it works and the results would be worth celebrating. We the people can still change the country in ways politics and governments never have and never will. Readers may e-mail Cal Thomas at tmseditors@tribune.com.