(Editor’s Note: This is a follow-up to the previous post. If you are passing our way for the first time, you will need to read the post below, dated January 24, for this one to make sense.)
As promised previously, here is the “Editor Responds” that was printed under my January 9 letter asking for a refund on the remaining portion of my subscriptions. This was not about the money. It was about me having a visceral need to take action. The one subscription was a Christmas gift and mine had six months remaining. I did get a check in the mail for $50 yesterday. This is what the editor put beneath my cancellation letter:
Editor Responds
I am sending a refund today. Yes, Monroe City is a God-loving community that prides itself on the cooperation of the various denominations of the entire community. As a member of that community, I agree. I consider myself part of that community. I’ll probably get myself in more hot water here, creating the cardinal sin of mixing politics and religion but I like our new president and look forward to a new era.
In no way, do I think that Obama is God or Jesus. However, like Jesus, I think he brings hope to our nation, to our world. Like Jesus, and really like all of us, he has (had) friends from various backgrounds that the public could scrutinize. All of us have friends and family who sometimes make us shake our heads, but they remain our friends and family. Likewise, we have made our friends and family shake their heads at times. And oftentimes we shake our own heads in looking at past actions, and then, hopefully we bow our heads and ask for forgiveness from God. Yes, despite our differences and our failures, we remain friends, family, clergy and political associates. If he would walk away from those people, we would similarly be disappointed.
When someone subscribes to the paper for $25 or $30 (depending on where you live), I make a promise to deliver the hometown news to our readers, a promise and privilege I take seriously. But for $30 a year, I don’t give anyone the right to judge my faith. Linda
Ok, is it just me? Did she...GASP...do it again, compare Obama to Jesus? Just wondering. This is my real “letter to the editor” sent via email, making sure it got to her in time for this week’s paper.
Dear Editor,
In no way was it my intent to judge your faith. I am not a professional journalist and not as skilled a writer as you. I did make one mistake in writing my thoughts. I should have written, “I found your words to be bordering on sacrilegious,” not asking you why you did not. I was just wondering, not judging or questioning your faith. I was tired of the epidemic, adulatory Messianic references to Obama in the press and decided to put my money where my mouth was, so to speak. In fact, I was surprised to see my January 9 letter to you published in the paper. It was strictly a business letter asking you to cancel two subscriptions and giving you an explanation. The intent was not to get on a soap box and espouse my political views on the public square. It was your right to print what you printed and my right to cancel the paper. End of story.
I do have to disagree with one thing in your response to my letter. You said that, “....despite our differences and our failures, we remain friends, family and community, knowing the best and the worst of each other. I suspect that President Obama is no different in examining his friends, family, clergy and political associates. If he would walk away from those people, we would be similarly be disappointed.”
Well, Obama did just that. The minute he was told by his campaign staff that if he did not publicly disavow Jeremiah Wright he would not win the election, he cut all ties with the Reverend. I read the other day that they do not speak, they do not correspond. He sure didn’t stick by his pastor and friend of 20 years, did he? Ask Alice Palmer, once Obama’s political mentor, how he stuck by her when she wanted to keep her Illinois Senate seat.
Isn’t it a privil
ege that you can write in your paper whatever you believe? I have a blog for conservative women where I gently poke fun at our liberal friends and politicians and bemoan the lack of any strong conservative leaders in our party. Isn’t it wonderful that both of us can write whatever we want and have no fear of someone knocking on our doors to confiscate our computers? I’m sure we can both agree on one thing.....we are blessed to live in America.There will be no more letters written to that newspaper. What’s that wise saying? Never get into a you-know-what contest with a newspaper because they have more ink than you do. Ah, yes, they have the ink, but do they have the music?
My tiny voice and our little blog will not make one whit of a difference in how the wheels turn in our bloated government. No strong Republican voices are speaking out for the conservative citizens in this country. I have never in my life felt so strongly about having to voice my opinion. I’ve just begun to exercise my vocal chords and I am not going to stop. This chick is learning how to shout. Maybe if we can all come together we’ll be loud enough for someone to hear us.
The Prez
P.S. I asked the blog manager to add “Community Activist” to the About Me section on the blog. Isn’t that how BO got started? Start saving change in a jar. I might need to be bailed out of jail in the future.
(Second Editor's Note - January 29, 2009! Here's the comment in the editorial regarding my letter (and the mistakes aren't mine - this is how is was printed):
Thanks to an on-line reader who sent the cost of a subscription to givea subscription to someone else (fi rst person from Hunnewell who comesin for a new subscription) to cover the loss of a subscription from a readerlast week unhappy with my post-holiday writings anticipating the newObama administration and celebrating the hope that a new administrationbrings. In that writer’s follow-up this week, there is a sentence thatrings true-we are lucky to live in the United States. In another country, wecould not even agree to disagree.
Like I said, they have more ink. This horse is dead!!)
No comments:
Post a Comment