Speak Out 12/23/07

Green churches

I DON'T know if it characterizes Southeast Missouri, but nationally I'm glad so many evangelical churches are turning green and recognizing our responsibility to be serious stewards of the environment.

Escaping addiction

REGARDING DENYING school financial aid to persons with drug convictions is wrong. We deny these people an avenue of escape from addiction. We deny them a chance to lift themselves above the influence of drugs. Then we blame them when they can't get away from the drugs. Perhaps some of us should consider this while we wonder if we're sober enough to drive home. If you have to ask, you're too drunk to drive, but I bet you will anyway.

Long-range issue

IT AMAZES me that anyone could look at the weather patterns for the last 100 years and think they can predict what the weather will be, or should be, in the next 100. If you look at the geological record from the last 500 million years, patterns emerge. These patterns are caused by cyclical, natural forces we cannot change. Is global warming happening? Most likely. There was an ice age 10,000 years ago, and we are still recovering. No one knows what the mean surface temperature of Earth should be. Do you? So, how can we say a bit of warming is bad?

Religious politics

COLUMNIST DAVID Limbaugh has cornered himself into a conundrum. Over the years he has (in the name of conservatism) come close to advocating a Christian theocracy. He has at least called for blurring if not severing the line of separation between church and state. So what? Well, we now have a Baptist preacher and GOP candidate for president, Mike Huckabee, who seems to have taken Limbaugh's message to heart. In fact, he may be the first presidential candidate in history to openly incorporate Jesus in a TV ad asking for voter support. However, when it comes to political and policy issues, Limbaugh and Huckabee often diverge, sometimes dramatically. Limbaugh cannot afford to overtly denounce Huckabee because it would open him up to apparently accurate charges of blatant hypocrisy. The only thing left for Limbaugh to do is write beating-around-the-bush columns, secretly hoping that a subtle message comes through that Huckabee's not the one. A cynical but accurate spin on Limbaugh's column would be that when it comes to all his Christian polemics, his purpose was not intended to mean that Christianity should ever get in the way of his neoconservative political agenda.

Thanks, holiday workers

I WANT to say merry Christmas to everyone who will be working at essential jobs on Christmas Day. You are appreciated so much by all the rest of us.