The kaleidoscope of the Fence Post

For the past several years, scores of my letters to major national papers have been published, from New York to California, and yet none of these portray the kaleidoscopic face of America as the Daily Herald.

It shows the soft underbelly of the Midwest, of a country in turmoil with its citizens literally at each other's throats, trying to have their opinions typeset so the regional circulation can read their prescriptions to cure the country of its maladies.

My earlier readings of the paper occasionally enraged me, thinking how can people think like this? Or what planet did these writers come from?

And then, regaining my composure, I'd read something that counterbalanced the letter I just read. And then I would ask, "Why does this newspaper print such divergent ideas with so many approaches to solve the consistent conundrums in our life"?

So after submitting nearly 200 e-mail messages over the last seven years and receiving many favorable responses, I have come to this conclusion: That readers in the metropolitan area of Chicago are fortunate to have such a publisher that gives a mandate to its staff that all submittals be unedited and printed verbatim, warts and all!

Perhaps the Daily Herald reflects the microcosm of America, or how it should be if this democracy and the inherent freedoms it inscribes are to survive.

Do we fight for our future, erecting signposts here and now to set the direction we need to go, to ensure that one will actually be there for our children and their children?

Is there an alternative to fighting for institutions like the Daily Herald, without which totalitarianism would be just around the corner?

Articles and letters in this newspaper still outrage me, thank God! They alternately provoke or sooth me, invite me or keep me at bay, but always beckoning me to read the next issue.

Why?

Because in these last few years, the Daily Herald has assisted me in a journey of self-discovery, that I've finally got something to say like so many others and it thinks it just might be important enough to print.

James D. Cook

Streamwood