Sapulpa Daily Herald (Sapulpa, Okla.), Vol. 95, No. 64, Ed. 1 Sunday, December 13, 2009 Page: 4 of 18
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- M - Weekend F.ditton. December 13.2009, Sapulpa Dally HcraM^ ^
Opinion
www.sapulpaheraldonline.com
Winterfest
Brenda Shance
Things That Matter
Have you done
your Winterfest
shopping yet?
Have you pul up
your Winterfest
tree?
I guess Sapulpa
is not going to have
a Christmas Parade
this year. 1 don’t
know what politi-
cally correct state-
ment needed to be
made or what reli-
gion or cult we did-
n’t want to offend
this year but 1
know "Christmas” went missing
on the agenda.
pn principle. I was offended,
as were those who wrote or called
us about it.
"Winterfest” made me think 1
was in some Bavarian ski resort or
at a Canadian Olympic event.
While in the process of change
in this country, everyday there is
something else to get used to. I m
not ready to change Christmas in a
small town. yet.
Like it or not. Christmas has
some pagan roots with its tree just
like another holy-day. Easter, with
its eggs and rabbits. This has got
to be a bit confusing for everyone,
including Christians.
But Christmas is a tradition and
we have Great Expectations about
it. We want the stores we shop to
hang "Merry Christmas” signs.
We buy Christmas wrapping
paper, not birthday wrap. And. our
Christmas parades end with Santa,
the great "gift giver” and one of
the greatest hoaxes, 1 mean tradi-
tions, of all time.
I think people would be having
quite a different debate if an
empty cross with its subtle mes-
sage of a loving God followed the
parade.
One of those two parade-enders
is more true to the occasion but we
all want and expect the other.
I expect something like a skier
with snow goggles
at the end of a
Winterfest parade.
To change the
name because
“Christ” is offen-
sive is, as one per-
son in this town
likes to say, "ludi-
crous.”
Well, enough
said. Have a Merry
Winterfest.
Ok. all that said,
here’s the real scoop. No one
intentionally hijacked Christmas.
Chamber director. Suzanne Shirey.
said "Winterfest" was added to
"Christmas Parade" in 2000
when Sapulpa starting having the
parade at night and "any omis-
sion of the word "Christmas" in
advertising by the Chamber for
this event was unintentional." See
her comment below.
Shirey and the Chamber have
taken some heat. The American
Legion has taken some heat as
parade sponsor. And so did we.
One reader’s scathing reprimand
was that I keep my personal opin-
ion off the front page. I called her.
she said she thought I chose to
change the name of the parade. I
assured her I didn t and all was
well.
In the Spirit of Christmas (joy.
peace, happiness and goodwill
toward all) I’m holding the letters
(which weren’t filled with good-
will) and if the writers still want to
see them in print after reading
today's Opinion Pages, call, say
so, and I will put them in next
week's edition.
Let’s chalk it up to learning
something - Sapulpans still want
to see a "Christmas" parade.
There are many battles that
could be waged in today's world
but for Sapulpa. this year,
"Winterfest” maybe shouldn't be
one of them.
/ f9
fif W / s#
GLOBAL VWN6 r
CONSENSUS V J
ENFORCEMENT
A Word from the
Sapulpa Chamber of Commerce
Director
IonUS events unintentional. Suzanne Shirey
Executive Director
Sapulpa Chamber of Commerce
The White House has sent out its Christmas cards - sorry, holiday
curds. "The cover, which is cream-colored with a thin maroon border,
depicts a gold wreath encircling a gold presidential coat of arms. Moving
away from a style favoured by the previous president, George us , t ere
is no biblical passage or mention of Christmas in the greeting. Well, some
traditions remain sacrosanct, as the tradition of “moving away from the
previous administration continues. .
A 2004 poll showed 96 percent of Americans saying they celebrated
Christmas, and 87 percent believed that it’s okay for nativity scenes to
appear on public property. Pam Meister
Family Security Matters
"Dear Mr. President...”
The writer hesitated. What he had
to say could change the course of the
world. He didn't want to tell anyone
about it-but if he didn't— things
could be even worse.
“In the course of the last tour
months it has ...become possible to
set up a nuclear chain reaction in a
large mass of uranium, by which vast
amounts of power and large quanti-
ties of new radium-like elements
would be generated...This new phe-
nomenon would also lead to the con-
struction of bombs, and it is conceiv-
able—though much less certain-that
extremely powerful bombs may thus
be constructed. A single bomb of this
type, carried by boat and exploded in
a port, might well destroy the whole
port together with some of the sur-
rounding territory".
The writer. Albert Einstein, deep
down was a pacifist who had great
compassion for his fellow man. [he
last thing he wanted was for mankind
to have a powerful atomic bomb.
By 1939 a number of nuclear
physicists, who had emigrated from
Europe to escape the Nazis, had theo-
rized that, by splitting the atom, an
atomic bomb of massive explosive
potential could be built. In March of
1939 Enrico Fermi, a refugee from
Mussolini's Italy had met with Navy
officials to tell them of the potential
of atomic energy.
They were skeptical. Finally Leo
Szilard, a Hungarian born physicist,
convinced Albert Einstein, a native
German, to warn President Roosevelt
about the possibility. Einstein was
highly respected by the President and
just might convince him.
Einstein finally decided that there
was one thing worse than mankind
having an atomic bomb namely,
that the Nazis would be the ones to
get it first. Einstein was a Jew and
knew full well the evil that the Nazis
were capable of—and he also knew
that Nazi scientists were taking the
initial steps to build one by enriching
uranium.
Although the letter was dated
August 2. 1939. Einstein held off
sending it for two months. Within a
John Mark Young
Some Things Never Change
month after he got it. though.
Roosevelt established a research
comfnittfffc and otTDecember 2.1942
a team led by Fermi attained a nuclear
chain reaction in Chicago. Within
two and half more years the top secret
Manhattan Project in the New
Mexico desert had built two atomic
bombs which were dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan and
ended the most destructive war in the
history of mankind.
But the danger to mankind w asn t
over. Before the dust had settled on
World War II. the Cold War with the
Russians was well underway and
some way had to be found to deter
them from attacking Western Europe
with their vastly superior convention-
al forces.
Later, the United States, by fusing
atoms, built a hydrogen bomb on
Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific on
November 1. 1952. A raging ball of
fire 3-1/2 miles wide pulverized the
coral island and spread radioactive
fallout over 7.000 square miles. The
Russians used espionage to steal our
nuclear technology and were soon to
follow.
But mankind still isn't through
bashing the tiny atom. We've split it.
fused it. and now we re going to
smash it.
Back in the Roarin’ Twenties an
astronomer at the Mount W'ilson
Observatory in California named
Edwin Hubble observed through his
powerful telescope that the celestial
objects in the universe were moving
outward Today NASA’s Hubble
space telescope is named after him.
Working backward, he theorized that,
if everything were moving outward, it
must have once been together in a
large mass which exploded in one
“Big Bang." Actually the author of
Genesis in the Holy Bible may have
beaten him to the idea.
But to test the theory a consortium
of European governments has com-
pleted a gigantic "Large Hadron
Collider" or "Super Collider” near
Geneva. Switzerland. The project is a
particle accelerator designed to hurl
atoms along a 16 mile buried tunnel
to bombard them together and
"smash" them into subatomic parti-
cles. Supposedly this will recreate
flic conditions immediately following
the Big Bang and we’ll discover
things like "hadrons", "Higgs
bosons" "quarks" “strangelets". "God
particles" or forms of so-called anti
matter". The protons, neutrons, and
electrons that we "non-physicists"
once thought were pretty sophisticat-
ed things will be "kids stult .
The United States started to build
its ow n super collider in Waxahachie,
Texas in the late 1980 s. hut canceled
the project amid great controversy in
1993. It would have been bigger ?nd
better than the European model, but.
alas, it was projected to cost as much
as the International Space Station and
Congress decided we couldn t afford
both.
By abandoning the project, we
may also have lost the spin-off tech-
nology likely to go along w ith it. The
nuclear age didn't just bring us
weapons of mass destruction, but also
nuclear power generation and miracle
medical technologies like CT scans,
magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI's). and chemotherapy.
At least this time all this "atom
bashing" appears to be for purely
peaceful purposes. And. who knows?
According to scientists, the spin-off
technologies of the super collider
may help us unlock the secrets of
magnetism, rearrange elements, cre-
ate new matter, set up wormholes for
space travel, or may even launch a
new technological age that will dwarf
the phenomenal advances of the
Twentieth Century.
Letters to the Editor
Reject the Copenhagen Treaty and
Do Not Harm America's Economy
Editor:
I encourage the rejection of the
Copenhagen Treaty. Its premise is
flawed. It places burdens on the
United States while allowing other
industrial countries, like China and
India, to remain unrestricted. Even if
enacted, the science is inconclusive
whether this would cease climate
change.
In our country, there are some in
Congress who want to pass laws that
limit the amount of C02 in the
atmosphere . They claim that C02 is a
pollutant. That is a myth and
absolutely false. There is no scientif-
ic proof that C02 is a pollutant.
Here’s what I am telling my repre-
sentatives in Congress:
1. Slow Down: The rush to label
C02 as a pollutant or pass cap-and-
trade legislation will hurt our nation's
economic recovery
2. Know the Science: There no
scientific evidence that C02 is a pol-
lutant
3. C02 Has Benefits: Higher C02
concentrations actually help ecosys-
tems support more plant and animal
life.
4. Other Factors Involved: As for
the greenhouse effect which warms
the earth, C02 is not even close to
being the most important of the
greenhouse gases. Most of the green-
house effect is due to water vapor,
which is about 30 times as abundant
in the atmosphere as C02 and has a
much larger greenhouse effect.
5. C02 is Green: More important-
ly, it has been proven that higher lev-
els of C02 result in more plant
growth as well as less water being
required for plants to grow faster and
larger. __
6. C02 Supports Life. While C02
accounts for less than one percent of
the atmosphere, C02 is essential to
life on earth. In fact, we all exhale
C02 and enjoy it in our carbonated
beverages.
Everett McKinney
Cushing
Where Does the
Money Come From?
Editor:
Not long ago, the American people
soundly voted against a $700 billion
U. S. House bill bailout. And. we
thought the representatives weren’t
listening to their constituents. Did not
the people tell them what they should
think?
By now, every American should
know that this country is a govern-
ment of, by and for the people and
one can’t expect legislatures and
bureaucrats to pay the bills for them.
Would bills get paid if Dad expected
his insolvent child to pay them?
From where does the money
come? Are not people the only ones
allowed to create money in the econ-
omy? Is that not why all U. S. rev-
enue bills originate in the House; not
the Senate? When the people reneged
on their debt, is that not why the U. S.
Senate was forced to take over the
people’s responsibility, to "pay’ the
$700 billion bailout bill? What’s
wrong with this picture?
Did not U. S. President Barack
Obama suggest to the American peo-
ple that it might be a good idea for
them to extend their private credit to
the U. S. A., to pay down the National
debt? Who's the fool here ? Perhaps
we had better find out what Obama
meant by "your private credit."
If the year 2012 seems close, and
if we believe a world financial crisis
is overdue, then the rush for health-
care reform is here: Reform that will
change our state of mind to financial
competency in-law, thus enabling a
restoration of the nation s financial
health at-law.
Currently, many people are pro-
crastinating in studying to understand
God’s law. It seems then, that as in
the days of Noah, at 2012's year end.
many will seek the Ark's salety when
the storm hits, but to no avail.
Lee Roberg
Sapulpa
Abortion
Editor:
Every unborn baby has a spirit and
a soul the same as an adult. It’s an
area that hasn’t been considered in
the abortion issue. One who performs
an abortion not only holds contempt
for life, he dismisses God by denying
the spirit God created the right to live
in the house prepared for it. A lawyer
who tries to confuse people with legal
gobble-d-gook would ask when the
baby’s spirit entered the baby, ie.,
whether in the womb or outside the
womb, but it makes no difference. If
the baby’s house is destroyed, it can-
not live in the house. No argument
can prevail against this fact.
Richard Morgan
Tulsa
>A ,
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Shance, Brenda. Sapulpa Daily Herald (Sapulpa, Okla.), Vol. 95, No. 64, Ed. 1 Sunday, December 13, 2009, newspaper, December 13, 2009; Sapulpa, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc1506872/m1/4/: accessed March 28, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.