Wanted for spring:

Saturday, December 20, 2008
Yours & Ours
Editor: Peter Comings • editor9gaylordheraldtimes.com
HeraldTimes.ccm
A4
Gaylord Herald Times
OTIR VIEW Southern senators need a check
Bush's loan puts
auto negotiations
in perspective
The loan offering from President
Busti to the Big 3 is the best
of the worst-case scenarios for
the stumbling auto industry.
Bush offered $17.4 billion in
loans Friday to the
'Although the beleaguered automak-
White House ers, ostensibly with
, . 1 1 the same terms and
plan includes rejected by
targets for the Senate a week ago.
concessions Namely, that involves
hv workers. I
Dy workers, 1
concessions from the
^ Workers
was pleased qj, p^y scales.
to see that the But the move puts
administration «hose negotiations
m the hands of the
individual compaappropriately
nies, giving them
left it to the '^e money and three
months to submit a
auto companies, pjgj^ jqj restructur-
United Auto ing. That can make
Workers
and other
the whole thing more
palatable — at least as
castor oil compared to
stakeholders anti-freeze.
to work out
IT'S DO OR DIE for
the details.'
Chrysler and GM, if
— Rep. Bart not Ford, as it doesn't
Stupak, D- sound like there are
any other offers forth-
Menominee
coming and an "orderly
banlftupfjcy" vfould seem to'
be a contradiction in terms.
Start the clock and put March
31 on your calendars.
The Gaylord Herald Times editorial board is
made up of editor Peter Comings, news editor
Cathy Landry, and design editor Frank Michels.
Reaching Us
"A viewjrom the 45lh pamllel "
Share your views with us
Write to: Letter to the Editor
By mail: Gaylord Herald Times
PO Box 598, Gaylord, Ml
49734
By e-mail
editor^gaylordheraldtimes.com
By phone: (989) 732-1 111
By FAX: (989) 732-3490
Probably a gift card
or a movie.
Carty Graham
Gaylord
f they want us to come down
there and whup their Confeder- Iate
behinds again, we can do that.
Contrary to beliefs of many who still
honor the Rebel flag, the South will
not rise again.
U will take more than a bunch of
Off the
Record
Jim
Gneeo
arrogant and ignorant
U.S. senators from
the South to take out
the American auto
industry and the state
of Michigan. If anyone
wants a volunteer for
alive ammunition
reenactment of Gettysburg
and Vicksburg,
I stand ready (maybe
not able) as a proud
Michigander.
One journalist
recently likened the
southern senators"
rejection of the auto
industry rescue plan this way: "Maybe
it dates back to 1861 when President
Abraham Lincoln exclaimed Thank
God for Michigan!" as 798 men from
this state arrived in Washington to
defend it against advancing southern
troops early in the Civil War."'
It's a well-knowTi fact many in the
South still harbor ill will toward us
Yankees. I can personally attest to
such animosity. A number of years
ago, I was on a mission to buy a small
town newspaper. 1 had a couple good
prospects in South Carolina (you cant
get much more Rebel than that place
where they flew the Confederate flag
over the state capitol until 2000).
1 got the message loud and clear
after a couple visits. Although they
wanted to sell their newspapers, at
least publishers were being honest
S
when they told me a guy from Michigan
probably wouldnt fare too well in
these parts. In other words: "Yankee,
go home!"
Nol only are the Republican senators
from the South who voted against
the Big 3 auto rescue plan fighting a
political civil war to wipe out a Democrat-controlled
United Auto Workers
(UAW). they are protecting their own
turf where competing foreign aum
makers have iiwested billions in recent
years.
Talk about hy^xacrites. The southern
stales these senators represent
have authorized millions in tax incentives
to attract and keep manufacturers
such as Toyota, Honda. Hyundai.
Kia, BMW. Nissan and Volkswagen.
But nol a dime for those other guys.
Personally, it miikes me want to
fire up a muzzleloader when I consider
that two of the ringleaders in
this grand theft auto scheme are Kentucky
senators Mitch McConnell and
Urn Bunning. I was born in Kentucky
- and Bunning was one of my heroes
when he pitched for the Detroit Tigers.
I need to emphasize I had no control
over my birlhplacc.The important
thing is I am proud to call Michigan
my home.
The Deep South stales even
showed their true colors in the presidential
election. A New York Times
statistical analysis of the election
showed that southern stales that
voted more heavily Republican (and
against a black man) than in 2004
"tended to be poorer, less educated
and whiter."
I lere's the good news: A political
scientist from Louisiana State University
(in the Deep South) says the
South has moved from being the
center of the political universe to being
an outside player in presidential
politics. Another pundit believes the
Southernization of American politics
in general - which reached a peak in
the 1990s when many Coi\gressional
leaders and Bill Clinton were from
the South - appears to have come to a
screeching hall.
That means, although a bloc of
southern Republican senators was
able to blocl^de the Big 3 this time,
their day of reckoning is coming.
Just to show you how stupid these
reputed southern "gentlemen" are,
even the foreign automakers located
in their states are pulling for GM. Ford
and Chrysler. If they go down, the flow
of American-built auto supplies will
dry up for them. Next thing you know,
they're out of business, also.
1-ortunaiely, not everyone in the
South still has a Confederate flag
draped in the back window of his
pick-up. Unfortunately, this despicable
dilemma still exists because of
individuals described recently by a
University of Alabama historian (of all
people). He says:
"Race continues to play a major
role in the state. Alabama, unfortunately,
continues to remain shackled
to the bonds of yesterday."
It's almost 150 years after the men
from Michigan defended our nation's
Capitol from Southern forces -1 don't
think this is what Abe Lincoln had in
mind.
—Jim Grisso is publisher emeritus
of the Gaylord Herald Times. You can
reach him by writing to PO Box 598.
Gaylord. Ml 49734 or by e-mail, jim&
gaylordheraldtimes. com.
Roots of Middle East violence
everal years ago it occurred to
me, and my hunch was con-
leix-
isti radio com'mehtwbr. 'th'ai if one
wishes to really understand what,
drfves such people as Osama bin
Laden, al Qaeda, and the Taliban,
one need only read the biblical
books of I and 2 Maccabees.
Religion in Unfortunately.
Today's World a large number of
Christians, especially
in America,
remain ignorant of
these ancient history
books. The reason
for this is that these
books are "deuterocanonical."
that is,
they belong to the
second or longer list
richar^i
Kropf
of biblical era books
generally accepted
by early Christianity,
but soon after
rejected by the conservative rabbis
In Jerusalem, largely because they
were very popular among the followers
of Jesus, or perhaps because
some of them were originally written,
not in biblical Hebrew, but
in Aramaic or even in Greek. For
some reason or other Luther and
his reformist-minded followers
Word on the Street ^ By Chris Engle
QUESTION: What's your best idea for a last-minute
Christmas gift?
A movie, a fleece
blanket of a gift certificate
Jessica Love
Gaylord
Gift cards for restaurants.
Chris Foster
Gaylord
Gift cards, books,
music and candy.
Haley Skoghmd,
12, Susie Skoghmd
and Valerie
Cour1rlgm,12
Gaylord
decided they should do the same,
hence when soinetimes included in
Prote«tiiu they are listed as
being jyirocryphaL" Only Catholic
and Owhodox Christians, and some
Anglicans, seem to consider them
worthy of really serious regard.
Yet even most modern jews
know better. Among other things,
ihese books (the first being mostly
a historical record) recount the
stubborn resistance of the lewish
people to foreign occupation,
and the lieroic martyrdom of Jews
who were determined not to compromise
the observance of their
faith and its customs in the face of
lorture and death at the hands of
ihe Greek and other pagan rulers
after the brief reign of Alexander
the Great. In the first chapter of
the second book — which is mostly
given over to religious interpretations
of the first — we find the
origins of the present day Jewish
feast of Hanukkah In the story of
the sacred fire that miraculously
accompanied the restoration of the
temple rites of worship in Jerusalem.
In addition, toward the end of
the first of these books we can even
find references to the overtures
made by Jewish leaders inviting the
Romans to come and protect them
Gift cards for restaurants.
It's always good to
go out to eat
KlinSchultz
Wolverine
r
—a decision that the lews, and no
doubt eventually even the Romans,
would weatM^Uy come ^
Certainlythe paralfels between
all this and what has been happening
in the Middle East in recent
times are too obvious to ignore.
Osama bin Laden and his allies,
the Taliban, may be fanatic Muslim
fundamentalists to our eyes. But
they are in many ways the successors
of Mattathlas and his sons, the
Maccabee (from the Hebrew word
for "hammer", like in sledge) brothers.
who saw themselves as commissioned
by God to kill the invaders
and to work vengeance on their
countrymen who collaborated with
the foreigners. How conscious bin
Laden and his allies actually are of
these parallel histories may be debatable.
One can only wonder how
our own leaders, in their zeal to try
to replace Middle-Eastern theocracy
with Western style democracy,
and to abandon the mess we created
in Iraq to go on confront perhaps
even a bigger mess in Afghanistan,
can afford to be ignorant of
how history tends to repeat itself!
— Richard Kropf is a retired
priest and theologian who lives
along the Black River.
Online PoUs
Recent online poll results I
How high will the numbers of the •
unemployed go in Michigan?
A. 10 percent 9%
B. 12 percent 19%
C. 14 percent 17%
D. Even higher .">6%
Numoer of VOTES: 317
(this is not a scientific poll)
NEW ONUNE QUESTIOM (startliix
Saturday):
What's the biggest national story
of 2008?
A. Barack Obama elected president
B. GOP chooses Sarah Palin for VP
C. Car makers face bankruptcy
D. Michigan unemployment near 10%
To vote oallae, go to:
) www.gaylordheraWtiines.coin
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