Star News uses Deception & Work on Their Humor,

which needs lots of work

Somehow I missed your op-ed piece. I cannot keep up with my email.A friend of mine told me he read your article in the Star News, but had no details;Couldn't or wouldn't tell me of contents or even which issue.

Friend

1-31-06

Well, the Star News is acting normally - misleading and deceptive. I did not write what the Star News says I wrote as a response to Si Cantwell's column. Actually I did not read Si Cantwell's article until I was told the Star News published a Letter to the Editor from me. What happened is a group that wanted their opinion regarding Alito published in local newspapers sent me an e-mail asking me to write a short comment which I thought might be tacked on their big op-ed regarding Alito. The Star News' failed to publish the big well written article on Alito and published my quickly written remarks and incorrectly attributed them to an article written about people who use God to promote their positions written by Si Cantwell. Now I am going to have to find Si Cantwell's column on "God's actions" and see what Si wrote.

Well I will read Cantwell's article, who I know and like, but I want to see how out of context the Star News is and what is up their sleeve. Well I just read Si's article for the first time and I guess the Star News is inferring that I use God and Jesus to promote my political agenda. Hum....... The Star News takes my comments out of context and mis attributes them to an article I had not ever read by Si Cantwell. The Star News becomes deceivers and liars belittling Me in the process. I am completely flattered the Star News even knows my opinion as to My possible special status with God and is concerned even in the slightest. Don't you know you could start a riot?

So who is right and who is wrong in the eyes of God and Jesus or anyone, even the drunk sleeping on a park bench? The Star News deliberately deceived and lied because I had not even read Si Cantwell's article. How is that right by any measuring stick? Good grief!

I smell a pain in the _ss from the Star News' new Publisher. He has a name which may be a follow the dots to a zioni$t, Grubber or something, since $ulzberger is a zioni$t and Grubber is a $ulzberber mouth, logic dictates Grubber is a zioni$t or at least a closet zioni$t.

Dear Bobby, If you want to let the Star News write lies about me that your business. Let me tell you how $ulzberger operates if you don't know. $ulzberger encourages his publishers to belittle me and any person who does not dance the zioni$t jig as long as the Star News' lies don't get back to him. You might even win the Ottie $ulzberger "Dirtest NYTimes Publisher of the Year Award" which comes with a cash prize of $1.00. You can belittle me until the cows come home and as long a Ottie does not hear about it . You are safe. But if $ulzberger hears about the Star News' lying he is going to play all indignant and you're toast. Four or 5 Star News Publishers have come and gone since I have been around here. I'm still here, they are gone. What is the message?

Si Cantwell
Don’t use God’s actions to push your own moral, political agendas

Unlike some folks, I don’t claim to speak for God. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s getting tired of being dragged into our squabbles. I know I don’t like it when people use tragedy on a massive scale to score political points.

In the latest incident, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said God sent hurricanes crashing onto America’s shores because he doesn’t like our war in Iraq.

That came after pronouncements by some fundamentalist Christians including one Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, that God sent Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for being a sinful city.

If that were the case, why was Wilmington being punished with that spate of hurricanes in the 1990s? Sure, we’re guilty of decades of poor municipal planning, and we tend to spill sewage in the beautiful waterways he created. But we’re not exactly Sodom and Gomorrah around here.

Earlier this month, the Rev. Pat Robertson said the lord gave Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a stroke because he didn’t like Sharon ceding land to the Palestinians.

I don’t know where Robertson gets his material, but I don’t think God is writing it for him. I doubt it was God’s idea that the United States assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, even though he does seem to be a right unpleasant fellow.

In 2001, the Rev. Jerry Falwell said God allowed the Sept. 11 attacks to punish gays, pagans and abortionists. He later apologized, just as Nagin apologized and Robertson has repeatedly apologized.

Country singer Charlie Daniels also passed along that 9/11 story, saying God stopped protecting America because of gays and the American Civil Liberties Union and such.

That prompted some embarrassment in Wilmington. Daniels, a Wilmington native and a great musician, was about to be honored with a star on the city’s Walk of Fame. Organizers decided to go ahead with the honor despite the fiddle player’s harsh judgments. Protesters milled about with signs when Daniels accepted the honor.

I think God’s relationships with gays are between him and them. They’re still his children, no matter whom they date. That goes for lawyers as well.

Jesus said, “Judge not lest ye be judged,” and God said, “Vengeance is mine.” But no one ever pays any attention to that. We go on judging and, in some cases, meting out our own brand of punishment on people we think have offended God.

It’s hard to say why bad things happen to good people. That’s one of those Big Questions nobody can answer.

In the Bible, the Book of Job is an exploration of just that issue. Job wrestles with understanding why God has dumped a load of woes on his shoulders.

I’m no biblical scholar, but it seems like it concludes that we don’t have the ability to guess why God does what he does, and things will come out right in the end.

God gave us free will, the ability to make our own choices. I suggest that maybe he sends these catastrophes every now and then to test us.

Some people rise to the occasion, showing selfless courage in the face of danger or pouring time, effort and money into relief efforts.

Others fall short. After Katrina, there was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth about the plight of the poor. But that seems to have pretty much faded away now. Jesus had a lot to say about helping the poor, and we shouldn’t forget it.

I don’t like it when people try to use acts of God for political gain. God’s ways are mysterious. We can’t know why hurricanes hit or people crash planes into buildings.

We should quit blaming politicians, lawyers and gays for catastrophes and simply dedicate ourselves to living each day as if it were our last.

Contact Si Cantwell at 343-2364 or si.cantwell@starnewsonline.com. You can read his columns at www.StarNewsOnline.com/Cantwell or his blog at www.StarNewsOnline.com/CommonSense.

A dictator
EDITOR: This is in response to Si Cantwell’s column on “God’s actions”:

Samuel Alito will allow the U.S. Supreme Court to make Little George a dictator and not a fairly elected president doing the will of the voters.

Randy Crow
Wilmington

zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Note: The last Star News publisher was pretty funny. You would be reading along and something would come up and I would smile a little. The Star News is going to be a very difficult read if something does not happen to improve the humor.