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September 2001
- An excerpt from
the September 15, 2001 Cluesonline™ newsletter:
 FROM
THE EDITOR:
Last Saturday,
I attended a University of Oregon football game with one of my daughters, and
her two sons. Young, intelligent, adults struggling to balance within themselves
the often painful questions and issues that confuse those who are descendants of
both the Native Americans who were the victims of the genocide levied against
them by the conquering "pioneers", and of the pioneers themselves,
they questioned my reason for standing for the national anthem and the flag. My
explanation that I stand to honor our family members who fought, and some died,
for our right to make such decisions as whether or not to stand for a flag was
met with questioning, slightly accusing, eyes and little comment.
Last Tuesday,
those same young men were calling me at my Illinois home devastated and
uncontrollably angry that terrorists would dare to come into our country and
kill innocent people. The questions of just three days prior are not answered,
of course, but they are put away for another time and place. For on Tuesday, two
young men who have had a relatively easy life in a generation whose only actual
knowledge of war and conflict has been in history classes or on television news
of far away countries, got a lesson in patriotism that none of us would have
ever wished for them! Indeed, several generations learned on a moment's notice
the meaning and importance of patriotism.
...Read the entire editorial
Enough!
"Our capital system is haunted by the
demon of error…" and thus Governor George Ryan of Illinois commuted
the sentences of all the prisoners on Death Row. Is there a more courageous man
in the state, or in the nation?
...Read the entire article
Please send
responses to gecastle@cluesonline.com |
