Posts for category ‘Letters from the Minister’

Sent to the editor of the Chattanooga Times-Free Press.  

Regarding today’s letters, I have two comments.  To Charlotte Turner, who is incensed at the disrespect she believes Barack Obama showed to the American flag:  Ms. Turner, you saw two flags.  Obama was standing in front of an array of flags, some of which were American flags; others were Ohio state flags.  Neither Obama, nor the people who decorated the stage, nor the Democrats intended any disrespect for any flag.  At this time, jumping to conclusions will not serve our national interests.

To the letters editor: On the same letters page, you went out of your way to substantiate that the Weather Underground planted and exploded bombs.  I spent less than a minute uncovering the reason for Ms. Turner’s confusion.  Why could you not have done the same?  It would have made the letters page appear more balanced.

To the editor of the Chattanooga Times-Free Press:

The Free Press editorial, “Troubling Speech in Berlin” is misleading in that Sen. Obama’s words are taken out of context in an attempt to paint him as a bugbear of conservatives. In reading the entire speech, it is clear that the “walls” Sen. Obama mentions are metaphorical. His real message is in the paragraph just before the one the editor tears apart to find “troubling” words.

Here are Sen. Obama’s unedited words: “Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity. That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another. The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.”

The Free Press editor does his readers a disservice by not including the context of remarks made by candidates he opposes. Thus, we should always “check with the source.”

To the editor of the Chattanooga Times-Free Press:

The Free Press editor believes the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is “a distant, dark, uninhabited and rarely visited part of Alaska.” Distant from Chattanooga, perhaps. Dark only at night and in the winter. It is inhabited.

I believe the editor uses such language to describe ANWR so as to suggest that environmental damage caused by oil drilling is less consequential in such a place than if it occurred in, say, Chattanooga. Using his logic, one could establish a polluting facility on Mt. McKinley.

Environmental damage is damage to the planet wherever it occurs. The editor would like his readers to believe that one’s responsibility to the earth diminishes with distance. The editor brings new meaning to the cliche, “Out of sight, out of mind.”

At our present rate of consumption, ANWR could provide between 12 and 32 years of oil. And it would not reach the gas pump for about 15 years. The real reason to resist oil drilling in ANWR is because it is a band-aid at best and an environmental catastrophe at worst.

The editor would serve his readers better were he to put his language skills to work in promoting alternate fuel sources and conservation measures.

To the editor of the Chattanooga Times-Free Press:

If Mayor Littlefield is unafraid to make unpopular political decisions, I have a better one for him.

Instead of putting Marty Rutherford on the city payroll for three days in order that she may collect some benefits from her time on the city payroll, he could make an unpopular political decision that would eventually mandate curbside recycling.

Such a decision would anger fewer people than his recent decision; it would make more people happier; it would make the earth happier; it might take the pressure off the landfill expansion in Harrison; it would ensure more people will remember him for recycling trash than for recycling Marty Rutherford.

I am a resident of District Six, and no matter how long officials have winked at council members living out of their districts, it still remains the law that council members live in the district they represent.  Ms. Rutherford may have been an excellent representative, but that does not absolve her of responsibility to live under the law.  It was not forgetfulness or an oversight that made her live outside the law.  It was arrogance.

Someone recently suggested that I publish on this page my letters to the editor of the Chattanooga Times-Free Press.  So here is one:

Mr. Editor, you consistently choose the most divisive topics and the most inflammatory aspects of them to make a point. In this, you invariably miss the bigger picture and do your readers a disservice by not illuminating the complexity of the issues.

Case in point: the installation of footbaths within the University of Michigan. You’re upset that all students pay fees for a religious accommodation for Muslim students. You decry that Christmas music is disallowed on beverage carts, but you forget that the school calendar is a convenience to Christians.

You don’t mention the footbaths can be used by anyone and are not designed strictly as a religious accommodation; you ignore that other universities already have such accommodations and you fail to mention that Muslim students now use the sink to wash their feet.

You say the ACLU backs the project. The NY Times article you quote reports the ACLU saying the issues are complex.

Including these subtle points in your editorial along with a discussion of halal or kosher food in the cafeteria would give your editorial some balance and suggest to your readers that cultural or religious issues are not resolved by “common sense,” as you imply.