Collins' comments
by Kelly Collins

To keep from being a doom merchant I thought I would take a different tack this week and write about what I see that is good. Along with all the problems going on in the nation there are still good things. So many I am hard pressed to begin.

We live in a country that is able to elect a foreign actor to be the governor of a very large state. We are still on the cutting edge of technology. We are still a force to be reckoned with in the world community, economically, socially, and militarily.

People are starting to pay more attention to what they can do to correct the things that have gone wrong. Churches are becoming politically active and have made a positive difference. They are being dubbed the religious left. That scares some that this is happening. It shouldn't scare them at all. They are trying to get us back to our roots. They are using the freedoms granted to us all and that is good. If you disagree with what they are doing then get up and do as they are. That is what this country was founded on, the will of the majority. So many of us just sit back and let things happen to us without doing a thing about it. It takes activism, voting alone won't do it. Get involved in the issues, get involved in promotion of the candidate that reflects your wants. Sometimes because of our inactivity the will of true majority is not what gets done because we have not made our voices heard.

We are still free to do that. We can still hold our officials accountable. We can still effect the changes to our society, culture and nation that best reflects us all.

This is a great country still. If we work on what we believe in we will remain that way. That is just my opinion. What do you think?

An additional comment

I went to the Christmas program in Kenton last night. It gave me reason to think. All over America the same scenes I was seeing are being played out. Christmas music, the manger scene and the children doing what children for generations have been doing. It was more than that, it was a community coming together in peace. For a while nothing of the world mattered. It was an enthusiastic celebration of the real meaning of Christmas. There is nothing new to be added to the Christmas story. Each year it is the same even to the little ones that mess up their lines, the tots that wander onto the stage looking for big brother or sister. Yet it is always new. It is always uplifting.

To go to this traditional event made me realize that there is still a strength in this nation that has not atrophied. There is still much in our country that we can be proud of.