Cd'A: Not an idol, but idolized

I didn't want to write this. Really. I tried my best to ignore Ms. Heilman's attack upon my city, my countrymen, Western civilization, and Christendom, but my conscience eventually got the better of me.

In her zeal to explain why she regards the idol of a foreign god as a boon to our city, Ms. Heilman opens her letter by brazenly insulting her readers, saying, "Coeur d'Alene is quite frankly cultureless." From there she descends into a protracted barrage of name-calling, describing the people of Coeur d'Alene as "bigoted," "closed-minded," "small-minded," and "ignorant."

And aside from being an insult, it is just patently untrue. Far from being 'cultureless,' Coeur d'Alene and greater North Idaho are a bastion of traditional Americana with roots deep and wide. There is a reason, after all, that these territories are regular recipients of awards, commendations, and universal praise as "a Rockwellian vision," "America's best place to live," "a slice of old America," "Mayberry RFD," etc. Why, this very publication has run numerous articles underscoring the point.

Living in Coeur d'Alene, my family buys produce from local farmers on the honor system: The farmers leave their products at an appointed public location unattended and in exchange their customers leave money in a common pot. You can't do that in L.A., Dallas, or New York. Not even in Spokane.

Here most folks leave cars and houses unlocked. Strangers smile at one another in public and share more generously with their neighbors than in any locale I've ever seen. Visiting any one of our distinctly Northwestern coffee houses one may hear a cowboy folklorist spinning the saga of Lewis and Clark or witness the unsurpassed beauty of Celtic tunes played on Celtic strings. At Christmas, carolers stroll the downtown singing the old hymns. And our annual rodeo always opens with an invocation in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's our culture. Old America. The Occident. Christendom.

That's what people come here seeking - the things that have been lost in most other corners of the country. The 'cultureless' atmosphere which Ms. Heilman so callously excoriates is the very culture which traditional Americans and Christians so cherish.

And Ms. Heilman herself admits that the Ganesha statue represents "a culture very different from our own" and that those who oppose the statue of Ganesha "keep our community the way it is." Clearly, she knows we aren't 'cultureless.' It's just that she thinks our culture inferior to all others and advocates for its replacement with another. Any other.

But despite Ms. Heilman's contempt for Western civilization and our people, we can forgive her 'closed-mindedness' because that, too, is a part of our culture.

Daniel Brannan is a Coeur d'Alene resident.