This is a shout-out to our so very efficient Chapel Hill police. Also to CPI Security.

So here’s my little story: This morning I set off the alarm system by opening the front door without disarming.

I manage to turn it off after scrabbling for some time for the turner-offer. So it’s off. I congratulate myself on my technological wizardry and head outside to get the Sunday paper.

Wrong thing to do. CPI is yelling at me from the intercom inside the house. And by the way, they’ve already called the cops. By the time I get inside it’s too late to tell them I am just a ditz, so I pick up the phone to call them. Too late again: 911 is on the line.

Apologies, apologies. I start to call CPI, but they’re already on the line. Apologies again. I breathe. I start for the kitchen to make my morning coffee, but here’s a big policeman at the door in his bullet-proof vest. I apologize again. He casts his professional eye behind me to see if someone nasty with a gun is hiding in the shadows, decides I would not be so cheerfully apologetic if there were, and warns me that my creeping jenny is about to take over the front pathway. Which is true.

All this took place in the space of approximately three minutes from when I first set off the alarm, so three cheers for the Chapel Hill police, three cheers for CPI Security, and three cheers for creeping jenny, the most efficient ground cover of all!

Joanna Scott

Chapel Hill

Yay, Tiger Chill!

I would like to applaud, long and loud, the organizers of the first annual Tiger Chill (CHN, Sept. 19), Tammy LeMoine, Sondra Komada, and Christine Cotton.

Tiger Chill is a festival to rival Apple Chill. It was held as a fundraiser for the clubs at Chapel Hill High School Saturday, Sept. 15. What I saw was an entire community pulling together for a common cause. Every club had a booth (over 70!) from bouncing ping pong balls into Solo cup towers (impossible!) to fast-pitch baseball, face painting, ring toss, inflatable machines (bouncing gyms), miniature golf, and so much more. Students, teachers, and parents threw their entire support into this project, and the community came out to support us.

Kudos to the supporters and many volunteers, but especially to Tammy, Sondra, and Christine for making their “brain child” become a reality. You knocked yourselves out for our school, and I thank you.

Karen Bell

CHHS math teacher

No reconciliation

I attended the Sept. 12 Chapel Hill Town Council meeting in an effort to understand the rationale and legal basis by which political advertisements may be displayed on publicly supported transportation. What I heard instead were vague references to legal arguments and a great deal of the anti-Israel position of the perversely named “Church of Reconciliation.”

While resident Adam Goldstein provided sound legal arguments in support of barring such ads, the church’s Pastor Mark Davidson spoke in opposition to such a ban by devoting almost all of his allotted time to a diatribe against Israel. Either Pastor Davidson could not defend the legal basis by which such ads may be displayed or he simply could not resist his well-entrenched anti-Israel bias.

And should we as bus passengers be forced to endure his pronouncements or, as one speaker commented, just “look out the window” instead? There is precedent for that since African Americans in pre-1960s Chapel Hill did the same thing, from the backs of the buses of course. And so did Jews in 1930s Germany.

I expected some effort at “reconciliation” on the legal aspects of this issue. But that might be something I suspect the church would rather avoid.

Ken Weiss

Chapel Hill

An open letter to the congregation of the Episcopal Church of the Advocate

Dear Congregants,

Because your leaders have made the unfortunate decision to ignore the cries of our community, I am appealing directly to yours. Please do not take from us, the people of Forsyth and Stokes Counties, the beloved St. Phillips Church of Germanton, listed on the National Register of Historic Places and a community landmark for 120 years.

As I’m sure you are aware by now, the history of this church is unlike many others in that it has largely gone without a formal congregation, but instead has thrived on a partnership between the church and community who have successfully preserved intact a beautiful and tangible connection to our shared history. The church’s unexpected dissolution of this partnership has truly upset our community and the Episcopal congregation in Germanton who have been denied the use of this church. The grief and anxiety caused by the threatened removal of St. Phillips to Chapel Hill reaches across generational and secular boundaries. We stand together in fear of you and your intention to remove an irreplaceable part of who we are.

Despite what you may have been told, the people of my community have not abandoned our oldest standing and best preserved example of the Carpenter Gothic rural church. Citizen and faith organizations stand ready and willing to assume care of this landmark church, they only ask that they be given the opportunity. Though I can certainly understand your desire to create your own house of worship I hope you understand that, should you decide to continue with your plans to take this structure away, a new beginning for your community will have come at an immeasurable cost to ours.

James Reinard

Winston-Salem

Taking issue with my statement that Obama did not dodge the draft, reader Perry Collette notes that Obama was too young for it (CHN, Sept. 9), which ignores the more salient point that Romney did dodge the draft during the Vietnam War, with four deferments. Then, as a presidential candidate in 2007, he had the nerve to say: “I longed in many respects to actually be in Vietnam.” Oh, right. As a veteran Mr. Collette might want to consider this record of cowardice.

Mr. Collette asserts shaky propositions as facts. Thus, claims that the Sudanese offered to turn over bin Laden are unsubstantiated and have been rejected by the 9/ll Commission. Clinton tried to kill bin Laden before 9/ll, which is more than Bush did. No evidence exists to show that the Obama Administration has “leaked classified information on a regular basis.” While Obama used marijuana as a young man, along with millions of other young people, if this usage precludes admission to an Ivy League school then the ranks of Ivy League students would be markedly thinned.

As for Romney’s admission to Stanford and Harvard, all doubts on the part of those schools would have been resolved in favor of the son of a governor and head of American Motors. And there must have been doubts. Romney may be diligent and focused but he can’t be very bright to say so many stupid things. He likes to fire people; his clumsy insults on the Olympic preparations brought down upon his head the wrath of the U.K

Even more stupid: his statement that on Day 1 of his presidency, he would declare China a currency manipulator, so he could put tariffs on Chinese goods. Thomas L. Friedman savaged this in a recent column for the New York Times. “That is really cool,” he wrote. “Smack China on Day 1. I just wonder what happens on Day 2, when China, the biggest foreign buyer of U.S. debt securities, announces that it will not participate in the next Treasury auction, sending our interest rates soaring. That will make Day 3 really, really cool.”

What a wonderful candidate!

Patty Barker

Chapel Hill