Let’s be honest, thoughtful
In considering the ongoing discussion of both sides of the faith based religious issues versus modern ideas of needs and concerns, the true fact is that from when time began there has only one real god that most have worshiped. That god has be the almighty dollar, yen, or ruble, whatever your nation calls it. It has been the single most driving force that has brought us wars, slavery, and inhumane treatment to our fellow man.
You don’t need to be an idiot to figure this out. You must have to be self centered and greedy to so readily accept its importance in your own and most other person’s lives. Its sins are heartlessness, greed for power, putting material things before those that better your fellow citizens, countless innocent lives lost and downgrading of the different nations citizens. This is not to put aside lying, cheating, stealing, and assorted other criminal activities that harm so many humans everywhere, every single day of our lives. Even the churches, who pander to those who support them the most with their offering plates, worry about how much they make more than worrying about addressing our many, modern social issues, including those built on bigotry and hate.
As the whole world’s population gains a better education and resulting understanding of a scientifically based world, it is no wonder that the past greatness and the power of our religions is waning. To reclaim their lost moral ground religious organizations must strongly focus on making our world, as it now exists, a much, much better place if they want to survive and thrive. Society has changed so greatly in 2,000 years that our understandings and reactions must continue to, ever more quickly, grow and change, too. This is a priority! We need to ignore our differences and really cherish our similarities. How much better our world was when Islam thought of Christians as fellow “people of the book” for example. Tolerance, the principle of forgiving and forgetting, and effort to understand others must once again become very highly esteemed world goals. Imagine the wonderful improvements this would bring. Instead of focusing on which religions are growing fastest we need to work hard on doing the most good which is truly in the interests of the world’s citizens. This would, rightly, appeal to our young, rather than disenchant them.
The strongest force finding its feet in our world today, thanks greatly to the internet and other media, is the truth backed by proven facts, that so many of the world’s citizens are discovering each day now. Hopefully information and determination will bring into being a better, more moral population and all of us can put aside the tainted, too often twisted beliefs of small, uneducated minds and greed of the past. I’m sure we can, all working together, succeed on our path to that long hoped for peace on earth that we only dream about now.
I for one, truly hope so.
Jim Hall, Clearlake Oaks
A warrior needed
To my friends and those who are not my friends:
We are currently in a world situation that many in positions of knowledge and power are describing as World War III.
That being the case, we as a country can no longer afford to have an apologizer and appeaser as our President and leader. We need a warrior.
We need a warrior who says what he means and who means what he says.
These last several years have left a path strewn with misrepresentations, deceitful actions and outright lies; even lies that cost Americans their lives. (Think Obamacare)
When our President says he has drawn a red line he must mean to cross it would cause grave consequences not just another line and further appeasement.
In these perilous times our military has been reduced in size and our country is being filled up with foreigners who owe no allegiance to our country and this because of the current administration’s political ideology.
For over six years now we have had an administration who constantly flirts with socialism, who dissects the Constitution in a manner that most Americans find foreign and unimaginable, with a president who has traveled around the world apologizing for our ancestors’ behavior and currently has our strongest ally wondering if they still hold that position, now, that must come to an end. We can no longer afford the price tag.
I’m not here to tell you which person to vote for for President, I’m just telling you that when you mark that box next to the name of the person you have chosen that that person be a warrior, a person with intestinal fortitude, a person who can rouse a nation as one, not continue to divide us into segments who will surely lose this war.
Bill Wink, Hidden Valley Lake
Common sense
Thank you Record-Bee for, “Do liberals have a free speech problem?” by columnist Gene Lyons (Opinion page, 2/6/2015).
If there are some liberals who don’t want their letters to the editor to be contested then they should utilize a different forum in which they can get their message out and at the same time be insulated from any possible negative responses. To dictate that certain individuals cannot respond to their views is simply not appropriate, regardless of the circumstances.
I thought that this was common sense, but evidently it’s not.
Bill Kettehofen, Kelseyville
A matter of time
Considering myself at 91 too old to drive a car on our death-dealing two-way highways, I gave my car to hospice and am now finding it always interesting and sometimes even fun having to get around without a car in a completely car-oriented environment. I write now apropos of a fault I find with our bus system. This fault can be easily corrected, though it’s about the most intolerable fault one could imagine in a busing system.
One recent Wednesday I had an appointment with Dr. Jack Wong at the Sutter Hospital Family Clinic, for which I meant to catch the 12:43 bus in Lucerne. Having noticed on catching that bus several times before that it had always arrived and left several minutes before 12:43, I decided, in view of the importance of this appointment that I had better get to the bus stop a little extra early this time; so I left home at 12:28. I was about 30 yards from the stop when the bus passed me and, seeing no one waiting at the stop, breezed right on by. I looked at my watch and found the time to be 12:30.
Thinking my watch must be slow, I, having returned home, called the bus company and asked what time the lady who answered the phone had. She said she had 12:51; I had 12:50. I explained my situation to the lady and she said she was sure the driver had not arrived and left the stop 15 minutes early, but she would speak to the driver.
I hope she spoke to all the drivers. There ought to be a regular time at intervals of one or two weeks when she, or whoever is the head honcho there, gets all the drivers together for a conference about whatever is of interest at the time. This would keep the drivers conscious of the importance of their function as well as keep them conscious of what their function is; i.e., to serve the citizenry. The driver’s function, so far from being nobody’s business but their own, is the business of everyone in the community.
I have noticed, in my use of the bus system that the main concern of most drivers is to not be late. It ought to be to meet such needs of the community as fall within the purview of their particular function. Being on time should draw attention to making and adjusting the schedules. The driver’s behavior vis a vis the bus stop should be never to leave a stop before the published time for that stop has elapsed.
Under no reasonable conditions should a bus leave a 12:43 stop until the forty-third minute after 12 has passed. No bus driver should need to be told this. If that time has passed before the bus arrives at that stop and the driver sees no one waiting at that stop, then he or she need not stop there.
A bus that is running on time should stop at every designated bus stop, even if no one is waiting at that stop and should not leave that stop before the published time for that stop has elapsed. This is because someone might arrive at that stop before the published time for that stop has passed. If stopping at every stop would take too much time because the stops are too close together, the distance between stops should be lengthened within reason. I think it would be good practice to try to make all buses arrive at a stop one or two minutes after the time published as the time for that stop. That way, the driver would not have to stop at a bus stop at which none were waiting to board. Leaving or passing nonstop a bust stop before the time published for that stop is unthinkable. Further, if someone missed a critically important appointment because a driver left a bus stop before the time for that stop had expired, I’m sure the issue would be legally actionable. And not the driver, but the bus company would be the defendant.
In all my experience as a patron of Lake Transit I have noticed only one driver who seemed to feel it beneath his dignity to answer a passenger’s questions. With that one exception I want to compliment every driver for her and his generous and patient help in all difficult situations. I can’t thank them more sincerely.
Dean Sparks, Lucerne
Hypocrisy
Have you noticed that some will insist that the Bible is full of errors, but then say there is no truth? They will say that there are no absolutes and they are absolutely sure of that. They will say that to tell others of judgment is wrong, but then say there is no right or wrong. They demand tolerance towards all but don’t want to be tolerant of someone quoting the Bible or praying publicly in Jesus Christ’s name. They sport coexist bumper stickers but try to stop anyone trying to talk about hell or sin. They will state that you are being narrow minded if you believe in two destinations after death, but they don’t think it is narrow minded to insist that everyone goes to the same place when they die.
Stacey Salvadori, Hidden Valley Lake
