I continue to read with interest the complaints directed toward Police Chief Rory Collins regarding his subordinate officers. There are overtones of racial discrimination, profiling, and wrongful conduct. Most everyone intercepted by law enforcement feels that their situation just shouldn’t have happened. That’s simply human nature, but we should be thankful that officers use their best judgment to enforce the law and protect us as we go.
Those who would summarily criticize our state, county, and local system would do well to remember the late police Officer Mark Hunter, a man of great bearing and forceful presence who was a role model to the youth of this community, and who himself was vilified with allegations of wrongdoing. I recall Officer Hunter as being a champion of protection in the West End and, now that he has departed, we hear the cry, “If only Hunter was here.”
While I personally support the right of every person to express a concern, I must nevertheless express my appreciation to the chief, the sheriff, the Highway Patrol commander, all of the local departments and officers who make our lives safer daily.
Our community is far more solidified and stands together in support of law enforcement than has otherwise been portrayed by some individuals and groups who are simply enjoying the prospect of grabbing a headline.
— John L. Holshouser Jr.
Salisbury
Alcoa is going to draw down High Rock Lake beginning Sept. 15. This will mean that Alcoa has denied lake users effective use of the lake two of the last three Octobers. As everyone knows, October is one of the best times of the year to be on the lake. Alcoa makes unilateral decisions without input from lake users and homeowners. Alcoa seems to think the lake season is over after Labor Day; this is not true. It would seem to me that it would be very simple to start the drawdown Oct. 15 rather than Sept. 15. I don’t believe that would cause any problem for the DOT’s inspection of the St. Matthews Church Road causeway.
Maybe it is time for another entity to take over the lake — something similar to an airport authority, a Lake Authority, if you will. One who considers all the users’ concerns in place of this corporate dictatorship.
— Charles Branch
Clemmons

In reading Mr. Donald Heidt’s letter (Aug. 12) criticizing Mr. Creamer’s article on Jesus’ family (“On family,” Aug. 8), I was very amused that he accused Mr. Creamer of missing Jesus’ own doctrinally correct church. He stated that Jesus was an only child when it is clear he was Mary’s firstborn. The natural inference is that she had other children.
What really amused me is that he then had the unmitigated gall to state that Jesus’ brothers and sisters were Joseph’s older children from his widowed former family! Wrong, wrong and wrong.
I have no idea which, if any, Bible he reads, but of the many I’ve read, I’ve never come across this! I was especially amused that this “idea” is advanced by none other than Anne Rice, of “Interview with a Vampire” fame in her two “Christ The Lord” novels.
You do understand that if Joseph had older children by a previous marriage that Jesus would not be a legal heir to David’s throne according to law that it went to the first born, don’t you?
Space won’t permit me to go into detail here, but the term “brethren” is used 563 times, 125 times of actual brothers from the same womb, and is used in seven ways in scripture.
The phrase “His brethren” always refers to the children of Joseph and Mary after the birth of Christ. This included four half-brothers, of which the Epistle writers James and Jude were two and more than two sisters.
If they had been cousins, as Heidt inferred, the word sungenes would have been used.
All and all, I thought Mr. Creamer’s article to be entertaining and not needful of some very loose theology to criticize.
— Ron Russell
Mount Ulla