into Sept. 11 column

To the editor:

Regarding the degree of concern shown recently over my mental health I have been, if not quite moved, at least amused. For the record, I didn't (in "Six years too long for 9/11 questions to linger," guest column, Sept. 11) advance any theory about the events of 9/11. All I say is that we haven't seen the evidence.

Call me old-fashioned: I like evidence. Saying it's been proven doesn't make it so, but if the critics can cite where to find proof of passenger planes in the debris at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, I'll go away quietly, and claim my fool's cap.

Yet, all I've heard is a line of argument so old it has a latin name: ad hominem. Attacking the man and not the argument is fun, but it sheds more heat than light. This isn't about me, this is about the lack of photo evidence available to support the official story. How acknowledging a simple truth, the lack of available evidence, transmutes into hating America, or dishonoring the dead I will leave to those alchemists who have spun their lurid fantasies out of this simple observation. It is they, not I, who conjure up mass conspiracies. My only point is that if there is a problem with the story of the events on 9/11, then what follows is based on falsehood, and then indeed, Something is Rotten in Denmark.

Sean McGuire

Plainville

Homosexuality can be

cured, thousands say

To the editor:

Kenneth Watson is correct. He states that the opinions I express are born of my religious views. I readily admit that I look to the Bible as my authority on any particular subject and then look for those facts which support that view. I am not ashamed in the least at how I arrive at my positions.

It is unfortunate; however, that when I should say that sexual orientation is a choice, he should call it "tortured logic," and that the facts say otherwise, when in his letter, he does not cite any facts which support his contention. By doing so, he makes himself out to be his own authority, as if he knew all homosexuals.

Before political correctness, the world's leading authority on homosexuality; its causes, treatments and cure, was Dr. Charles Socarides. Over the course of his long and very distinguished psychiatric career, Dr. Socarides claimed to have successfully affected a cure for homosexuality in one third of his patients, a success rate that would be highly lauded for any psychological disorder.

His rigorous scientific research of homosexuality was peer reviewed and widely published in his field. Only because the professional psychological societies were deliberately taken over by a politically correct liberal elite, who wanted no restraints placed upon sexual behavior, was his life's work set aside in favor of that view Mr. Watson expressed. It is a false view, and the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality stands right at the forefront of a truly scientific approach to the causes and cure of homosexuality today.

Say what you will about homosexuality, but the voices of literally tens of thousands of formerly active homosexual Americans will deny your assertions to the contrary.

Tortured logic is to state as an absolute that homosexuality is unchangeable, when so many living exceptions to your belief render it false.

Harold Crowell

North Attleboro

If it's written by man

then it must be fiction

To the editor:

I would like to respond to Ellen Curran's remarks Sept. 18 in which she states that I accused her of calling the Bible "basically fiction."

According to Webster's, the definitions of fiction are: 1. A literary work based on the imagination and not necessarily on fact. 2. A deliberately false or improbable account.

So I'm confused. Isn't that what you are implying when you say in your September 6th commentary: "And, again, with due respect, the Bible was not written by God, but by man. It was not written in English, either, but has been translated and interpreted for hundreds of years."

Aren't you saying that because the Bible was not written specifically by God (although 2nd Timothy 3 clearly refutes that) and that it was translated and interpreted by man that it (or at least parts of it) is not exactly what God meant to say, i.e. fiction?

I didn't misquote you. I just cleaned up the smoke and mirror routine. And based on that premise, let me restate my original question: if the only known document that identifies God is basically fiction, how exactly can you (or anyone) be sure of exactly what God teaches? Or whom among us is capable or righteous enough to discern which part of the Bible is valid and which is fiction?

The simple answers are we can't and no one. We are left to either accept the Bible as the true and expressed Word's of God with all the parts that agree or disagree with our own personal opinions or we don't. We are free to make that choice, but our choice has no impact on God. His Will is irrefutable.

Jay Guinan

Attleboro

Effects of streetscape

may be disappointing

To the editor:

I find the debate about our downtown revitalization quite interesting. I think a lot about the people who reminisce about the way they experienced downtown years ago. I have to wonder if the present phase, the streetscape program, will provide much of what these folks really are looking for. I suspect they are missing more than the hustle and bustle of days gone by. Something deeper has been lost; the camaraderie of personal interactions with friends; and store keepers and restaurateurs who recognize them and know their names.

Yes, I love beauty too, but I also love having a home and good food. That is a different kind of beauty that too many Attleboro residents do not have. To me, meeting those kinds of needs in our city are paramount. And I do not believe that squeezing many more condos into downtown will begin to address any of those needs.

And as for beautifying downtown, I keep wondering, "If we build it, will they come?"

Also, I have to admit that these more than 80-year-old feet are not looking forward to tripping along brick sidewalks, red, white, or yellow.

Julie Sophos

Attleboro

Criticism unwarranted

in Videogate controversy

To the editor:

As an avid reader of The Sun Chronicle, I have reached the end of my rope. This letter appears on the Op-Ed page, where it belongs, because it expresses my opinion. I'm sure I speak for thousands of readers when I say that it is time to move Mark Farinella from the sports pages to the editorial pages, where he really belongs. When football season begins, and sometimes even during the off season, this so-called sports writer begins his anti-Patriots rants. He has reached new lows with Sunday's "Cheaters can win" story.

First of all, as a Patriots fan, let me say I find what Bill Belichick did as reprehensible. He did wrong and deserved punishment for his deed. The league acted swiftly and handed out the harshest fine they are allowed to assess by league rule. They also fined the team heavily and they took away a first round draft pick. Those are pretty severe penalties by anyone else's reckoning. Ah, but the all knowing Mark Farinella doesn't think so. He, as he put's it, views these penalties as a "slap on the wrist" in regards to the coach, and a "swing and a miss" in regards to the team.

There is no legitimizing what was done. But Mr. Farinella, if he were truly a reporter, would have dug a little deeper. He talks about this "not being the first time." In those other episodes, the team being filmed simply took care of the issue themselves and threw out the person doing the taping. Not Eric Mangini. He wants revenge on his mentor, so he has the camera confiscated and sent to NFL Headquarters. By the way, he did this with 8 minutes gone in the first quarter. Somehow we still managed to blow out the Jets.

Please, do us all a favor Mr. Farinella. Stop dumping on the Patriots. Stick to scores and statistics where at least you will have some possibility of credibility. Otherwise, move to the Op-Ed pages.

Joseph Chabot

North Attleboro

What about Bible parts

you don't agree with?

To the editor:

I read Jay Guinan's recent letter concerning homosexuality and the Bible. Mr. Guinan argues that the Bible is the word of God and it must therefore be obeyed literally. He says that he knows the Bible to be true because the Bible says it is true. I do have a couple of questions for Mr. Guinan.

If the Bible is the accurate and inerrant word of God, then can you explain Leviticus 15:19, where it says that if a woman has a flow of blood from her body (menstruation), she will have to be kept separate for seven days. God commands this. I assume you therefore keep this practice. I wonder, where do you keep your wife or daughters for this seven-day period?

How about Leviticus 25:44, where it says that one may have male and female slaves, but must buy them from the nations around you. Do you think it's OK for people to have slaves?

The Bible says you can, so I assume you go along with that.

My final question regards Exodus 35:2, where it says that a person may work for six days, but the seventh day is a holy day of worship, a day when people don't work. It is dedicated to the Lord. Whoever does any work on this day should be put to death. That's what the Bible says, Mr. Guinan. Do you agree with this? I guess you have to, based on what your letter stated. I do have to hope that you don't visit any of the local stores on Sunday, though.

My point is not to ridicule the Bible or even disagree with your beliefs. My point instead is to say that people who insist on literal interpretations of the Bible can't pick and choose which parts they follow. They have to follow it all. I suspect that you don't - that you only follow the parts that you agree with. I do wish you would allow others the same latitude you have chosen for yourself. I would also remind you of God's words found in Matthew 7:1 - judge not, lest you be judged.

Bob Trinklein

Attleboro

Gloom-and-doomers

criticism expected

To the editor:

I was not surprised to read recent opinion pieces criticizing General Petraeus and the Iraq War Surge Plan. After all, those opposed to this war and the surge had their mind made up long before the report on progress came out. MoveOn.org had a negative ad all ready to go to press before General Petraeus even opened his mouth. One recent writer to went so far as to fire the general. Why? Because the report was not the doom and gloom report you wanted?

You Bush-haters demanded a bad report and expected failure. You are the same people who told us to expect 50,000 dead Americans if we went into Afghanistan and 100,000 if we went into Iraq. You are not the great military thinkers you believe yourselves to be, and now you dare to call a man who had served his country most of his adult life a liar? You dishonor this man and the entire military for political gain and its is disgusting.

Shame on you, shame on those jackals in Washington for their foolish grandstanding and shame on Move On for publishing such trash in a time of war.

Gary Johnson

North Attleboro

Norton board should

have moved faster

To the editor:

I was shocked when I read the story on your front page on Saturday, about the 90- year-old who was left to fend to himself in a wretched place no one should have been. What kind of people would have left anyone in such a wretched condition. I drove by this house many times. I couldn't believe that anyone would be living there. Why did the board of health allow this situation to endure such a long time?

Doug Smith

Plainville

Norton voters asked

town to change ways

To the editor:

If there ever were a time for the town officials to step up to the plate it is now. The vote is over and regardless which side either us were on, it is over

What we need now is real leadership, no matter how difficult and unpopular. The only thing this debt exclusion accomplished was to divide the town even more and solidify the "them against us" feeling and if other overrides are in the offing before drastic changes that can be seen and verified happen, those will also fail and create even more division in town.

The ideas brought forward at the last ad hoc meeting have to be explored or this year's financial situation will look great as compared to the years ahead.

I would hope that the board direct the town manager to look at all options that he has control over and use his skills and knowledge to make recommendations that are in the best interest of the town. A lot of voters, I among them, although intelligent and capable of conscious thought, voted no, probably knowing it was stupid, but did so to draw attention to the idea of "business as usual" has to end.

I know my no vote, as was the case of many others, was not anti anything, but a yes vote for, hopefully, change.

Joe Norton

Norton

Critics read too much

into Sept. 11 column

To the editor:

Regarding the degree of concern shown recently over my mental health, I have been, if not quite moved, at least amused. For the record, I didn't (in "Six years too long for 9/11 questions to linger," guest column, Sept. 11) advance any theory about the events of 9/11. All I say is that we haven't seen the evidence.

Call me old-fashioned: I like evidence. Saying it's been proven doesn't make it so, but if the critics can cite where to find proof of passenger planes in the debris at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, I'll go away quietly, and claim my fool's cap.

Yet, all I've heard is a line of argument so old it has a Latin name: ad hominem. Attacking the man and not the argument is fun, but it sheds more heat than light. This isn't about me, this is about the lack of photo evidence available to support the official story.

How acknowledging a simple truth, the lack of available evidence, transmutes into hating America, or dishonoring the dead, I will leave to those alchemists who have spun their lurid fantasies out of this simple observation. It is they, not I, who conjure up mass conspiracies. My only point is that if there is a problem with the story of the events on 9/11, then what follows is based on falsehood, and then indeed, Something is rotten in Denmark.

Sean McGuire

Plainville

Gloom-and-doomers

criticism expected

To the editor:

I was not surprised to read recent opinion pieces criticizing General Petraeus and the Iraq War surge plan. After all, those opposed to this war and the surge had their mind made up long before the report on progress came out. MoveOn.org had a negative ad all ready to go to press before Gen. Petraeus even opened his mouth. One recent writer went so far as to fire the general. Why? Because the report was not the doom and gloom report you wanted?

You Bush-haters demanded a bad report and expected failure. You are the same people who told us to expect 50,000 dead Americans if we went into Afghanistan and 100,000 if we went into Iraq. You are not the great military thinkers you believe yourselves to be, and now you dare to call a man who had served his country most of his adult life a liar? You dishonor this man and the entire military for political gain and it is disgusting.

Shame on you, shame on those jackals in Washington for their foolish grandstanding, and shame on Move On for publishing such trash in a time of war.

Gary Johnson

North Attleboro

Criticism unwarranted

in Videogate controversy

To the editor:

As an avid reader of The Sun Chronicle, I have reached the end of my rope. This letter appears on an Opinion page, where it belongs, because it expresses my opinion. I'm sure I speak for thousands of readers when I say that it is time to move Mark Farinella from the sports pages to the editorial pages, where he really belongs. When football season begins, and sometimes even during the off season, this so-called sports writer begins his anti-Patriots rants. He has reached new lows with Sunday's "Cheaters can win" story.

First of all, as a Patriots fan, let me say I find what Bill Belichick did was reprehensible. He did wrong and deserved punishment for his deed. The league acted swiftly and handed out the harshest fine they are allowed to assess by league rule. They also fined the team heavily and they took away a first round draft pick. Those are pretty severe penalties by anyone else's reckoning. Ah, but the all-knowing Mark Farinella doesn't think so. He, as he puts it, views these penalties as a "slap on the wrist" in regards to the coach, and a "swing and a miss" in regards to the team.

There is no legitimizing what was done. But Mr. Farinella, if he were truly a reporter, would have dug a little deeper. He talks about this "not being the first time." In those other episodes, the team being filmed simply took care of the issue themselves and threw out the person doing the taping.

Not Eric Mangini. He wants revenge on his mentor, so he has the camera confiscated and sent to NFL headquarters. By the way, he did this with eight minutes gone in the first quarter. Somehow we still managed to blow out the Jets.

Please, do us all a favor, Mr. Farinella. Stop dumping on the Patriots. Stick to scores and statistics where at least you will have some possibility of credibility.

Otherwise, move to the Opinion pages.

Joseph Chabot

North Attleboro

What about Bible parts

you don't agree with?

To the editor:

I read Jay Guinan's recent letter concerning homosexuality and the Bible. Mr. Guinan argues that the Bible is the word of God and it must therefore be obeyed literally. He says that he knows the Bible to be true because the Bible says it is true. I do have a couple of questions for Mr. Guinan.

If the Bible is the accurate and inerrant word of God, then can you explain Leviticus 15:19, where it says that if a woman has a flow of blood from her body (menstruation), she will have to be kept separate for seven days. God commands this. I assume you therefore keep this practice. I wonder, where do you keep your wife or daughters for this seven-day period?

How about Leviticus 25:44, where it says that one may have male and female slaves, but must buy them from the nations around you. Do you think it's OK for people to have slaves?

The Bible says you can, so I assume you go along with that.

My final question regards Exodus 35:2, where it says that a person may work for six days, but the seventh day is a holy day of worship, a day when people don't work. It is dedicated to the Lord. Whoever does any work on this day should be put to death. That's what the Bible says, Mr. Guinan. Do you agree with this? I guess you have to, based on what your letter stated. I do have to hope that you don't visit any of the local stores on Sunday, though.

My point is not to ridicule the Bible or even disagree with your beliefs. My point instead is to say that people who insist on literal interpretations of the Bible can't pick and choose which parts they follow. They have to follow it all. I suspect that you don't - that you only follow the parts that you agree with. I do wish you would allow others the same latitude you have chosen for yourself. I would also remind you of God's words found in Matthew 7:1 - judge not, lest you be judged.

Bob Trinklein

Attleboro

Norton board should

have moved faster

To the editor:

I was shocked when I read the story on your front page on Saturday, about the 90- year-old who was left to fend to himself in a wretched place no one should have been. What kind of people would have left anyone in such a wretched condition. I drove by this house many times. I couldn't believe that anyone would be living there. Why did the board of health allow this situation to endure such a long time?

Doug Smith

Plainville

Homosexuality can be

cured, thousands say

To the editor:

Kenneth Watson is correct. He states that the opinions I express are born of my religious views. I readily admit that I look to the Bible as my authority on any particular subject and then look for those facts which support that view. I am not ashamed in the least at how I arrive at my positions.

It is unfortunate, however, that when I should say that sexual orientation is a choice, he should call it "tortured logic," and that the facts say otherwise, when in his letter, he does not cite any facts which support his contention. By doing so, he makes himself out to be his own authority, as if he knew all homosexuals.

Before political correctness, the world's leading authority on homosexuality, its causes, treatments and cure, was Dr. Charles Socarides. Over the course of his long and very distinguished psychiatric career, Dr. Socarides claimed to have successfully affected a cure for homosexuality in one third of his patients, a success rate that would be highly lauded for any psychological disorder.

His rigorous scientific research of homosexuality was peer reviewed and widely published in his field. Only because the professional psychological societies were deliberately taken over by a politically correct liberal elite, who wanted no restraints placed upon sexual behavior, was his life's work set aside in favor of that view Mr. Watson expressed.

It is a false view, and the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality stands right at the forefront of a truly scientific approach to the causes and cure of homosexuality today.

Say what you will about homosexuality, but the voices of literally tens of thousands of formerly active homosexual Americans will deny your assertions to the contrary.

Tortured logic is to state as an absolute that homosexuality is unchangeable, when so many living exceptions to your belief render it false.

Harold Crowell

North Attleboro

If it's written by man

then it must be fiction

To the editor:

I would like to respond to Ellen Curran's remarks Sept. 18 in which she states that I accused her of calling the Bible "basically fiction."

According to Webster's, the definitions of fiction are: 1. A literary work based on the imagination and not necessarily on fact. 2. A deliberately false or improbable account.

So I'm confused. Isn't that what you are implying when you say in your Sept. 6 commentary: "And, again, with due respect, the Bible was not written by God, but by man. It was not written in English, either, but has been translated and interpreted for hundreds of years."

Aren't you saying that because the Bible was not written specifically by God (although 2nd Timothy 3 clearly refutes that) and that it was translated and interpreted by man that it (or at least parts of it) is not exactly what God meant to say, i.e. fiction?

I didn't misquote you. I just cleaned up the smoke and mirror routine. And based on that premise, let me restate my original question: if the only known document that identifies God is basically fiction, how exactly can you (or anyone) be sure of exactly what God teaches? Or who among us is capable or righteous enough to discern which part of the Bible is valid and which is fiction?

The simple answers are, we can't and no one. We are left to either accept the Bible as the true and expressed words of God with all the parts that agree or disagree with our own personal opinions or we don't. We are free to make that choice, but our choice has no impact on God. His will is irrefutable.

Jay Guinan

Attleboro