letter to the editor

Letter to the Editor:

It’s always easy to point fingers at failure when we look at our deteriorating roads, homelessness, drug addiction and the problems we have in Alabama. We are fifth in the nation for poverty and next to the bottom in education. We have a failing healthcare system and rural hospital closings that have put our citizens in harm’s way.  Why does this not change after an election? There is this old saying that insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. Same elected leadership means the same problems.

Editor’s note: This letter is in reference to the Ernest Riley story the Journal Record featured in the Nov. 9, edition.
In the summer of 1941, our family sharecropped on Papa Burleson’s farm in Marion County, AL, about halfway between Guin and Winfield. Wymon Burleson, my father, had a younger brother, James Dalton, living and working in Winfield.

I was severely bitten by a dog in September and had to go to the hospital twice. The people who own this dog have it both on a leash and enclosed in a fence at this time.
However, I am now being chased on my daily walk by two more dogs. I have emptied two canisters of spray and have gotten no response from the owner of the worst of these.
Why isn’t there a leash law in Marion County? I called the sheriff’s department and was informed there is none.

He was a young pastor neither immoral nor heretical, but simply naïve and unskilled in human relations. He could conjugate Greek verbs but didn’t know how to take time to earn the trust of the congregation before he could lead them. Additionally, he listened to some famous pulpiteers who taught pastors are vice-regents under God and “overseers” in a very real sense. One of these pastors called himself a “benevolent dictator.”
An older minister, sensing a collision about to happen, counseled humility.

Once again, and for the last time, I am responding to Joe Hamm. I know the readers are getting a kick out of the ridiculous debate that has turned into a narrative far from the subject of my original article.

I am responding once again to Lynda Kirkpatrick for the sake of defending the Christian worldview, not her attacks against me. I am writing as a Christian, not a registered voter. I have no allegiance to any political party, which allows me to critique them all with equal veracity.

Dear Editor,

The Journal Record published an article that was submitted to them by Joe Hamm from Hamilton. However, his name was not on the article as required by the JR. I am told that it was an oversight, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. Mr Hamm’s opinion of me and his interpretation of my article is totally false. He is certainly entitled to his opinion, but that is what it is: his opinion. Nothing he said was based on facts.  

It was a TV program called “To Tell The Truth.” Three people came onto the stage claiming to be a person of accomplishment, but two were imposters. Panelists asked questions to determine who spoke truth, and then the announcer iconically said, “Will the real John Doe please stand up?”