Record-breaking
Last week, we presented our "15 Best New Bands" issue. Reader Don Handy of Mount Clemens wrote in with praise — but didn't seem to dig the cover photo shoot, which featured the artists gleefully smashing a couple of boxes of bargain bin records:
Loved the cover story on the 15 new bands. It's too bad you didn't have an associated web link, to a site such as Soundcloud or Bandcamp, whereby one could actually hear a sampling of the artists, rather than simply read about them. I've only heard two of them and want to hear more.
The cover shot, however, is horrendous! Haven't we already lost far too much of our legacy? Don't you have any respect for your elders?
Letters for Lessenberry
In his Sept. 30 Politics and Prejudices column, Jack Lessenberry wrote that 600,000 people in Michigan who get Medicaid could lose their benefits on April 30 next year. Two years ago, "the federal government offered to let states expand Medicaid protection to those making up to one-third more than the official poverty level," Lessenberry wrote. But Michigan's state Senate barely passed the bill, and unless the feds allow a waiver, the entire Medicaid program will end next April 30.
"You might think Michigan Republicans wouldn't want to start an election year by taking health insurance away from 600,000 folks," Lessenberry wrote. "Rational politicians would never do that."
Reader Kenneth Koster from Clinton Twp. disputed the terms used by Lessenberry: This is not so much to debate Medicare expansion but to point out the misuse of terms in Lessenberry's article. Instead of "Fed" money he should say "U.S. taxpayer money." Instead of "free expansion" of Medicare he should say "U.S. taxpayer paid" expansion of Medicare. To suggest that having the federal government pay for something has no effect on people at any level is disingenuous. There is no free lunch at any level of government.
Reader "Harry Palmer" wrote:
Just when you think that these clowns in Lansing couldn't get any meaner, dumber, or even more useless... you read something like this.
For years the Detroit City Council was looked down on as the epitome of ineptitude (mostly by the Right Wing), but the GOP now running Lansing looks like the new "Gold Standard."
Reader "Edjusyou" wrote:
Take heart Jack, at least we're getting a new hockey arena and there's talk of the speed limit in Michigan being raised to 80 mph.
