The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1081488
C-8 Wednesday, Februar y 13, 2019 The Press-Dispatch OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg To hear some critics describe it, the U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty is a disaster in the making. "Dangerous, destabilizing and potentially counterproductive," in the words of John McLaughlin, deputy CIA director from 2000 to 2004. Pulling out will "cause new tensions with European allies," The New York Times opines. Adds the Stimson Center's Michael Kre- pon in Forbes: "A new arms com- petition now beckons." Really? Let's consider a few per- tinent facts. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermedi- ate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty in December 1987. It prohibited the United States and the Soviet Union from possessing, testing and de- ploying ground- launched cruise and ballistic missiles with a range between 300 and 3,400 miles. Signing the INF Treaty was in both nation's national in- terests at the time. It permitted an entire class of weapons to be eliminated. But more than 30 years have elapsed. The world has changed. Russia, which inherited the treaty obligations from the Soviet Union, has been in violation of the trea- ty terms for at least five years. What was once a mutually benefi- cial arms control agreement is now serving no one. The main objec- tion to withdrawal is that it would encour- age Russia and the United States to build more nukes and spark a new arms race. But that's been occurring on the Russian side for a while now. As The New York Times reported on July 28, 2014: "The United States has concluded that Russia violat- ed a landmark arms control trea- ty by testing a prohibited ground- Valentine's Day My Point of View by Dr. H. K. Fenol, Jr., M.D. Valentine's Day. Ever wonder where the word Valentine came from? Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or Feast of St. Valentine is an annual holiday celebrated on February 14. Saint Valentine (Italian San Valentino, Latin Valentinus) is a widely recog- nized third century Roman Saint and since the high middle ages is associated with the tradition of courtly love. St. Valentinus was born in the year 226 AD in Terni , Italy. He was martyred and buried at a cemetery north of Rome. The Roman Catho- lic church continues to recognize him as a saint and authorizing him as such on February 14. He is also venerated in the An- glican and Lutheran faith, and by some Eastern Orthodox faiths. His remains apparently are deposited in St. Anton's church in Madrid, Spain where they have lain since the late 1700s. Some of his remains also are claimed to be in countries like Ireland, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Greece, Vienna, Malta and Scotland. • • • As far back as I can remember in my younger years-especially my teen years, I associated this day with many couples getting hyped with an obsession to buy something for the love of their life. They're mostly flowers and choco- lates, to hopefully send a message of courtly love. This is also a time when couples pen romantic notes John Wesley along with George Whitefield led renewal movements that still have a direct impact up- on our world. Renewal within the church has historical roots. Because the church is comprised of imper- fect men and women, the church through the centuries has cycled between spirituality and carnality The religious world of John Wesley in 1730 England revolved around the Anglican Church, which would be considered litur- gical, formal, and stuffy. There is nothing inheritably wrong with liturgical worship, but it had be- come formalistic and ritualistic. As with all ritualistic worship, the spiritual aspect of worship that generates a life pleasing unto God can be lost. That is the state of the Anglican Church of John Wesley. Wesley's journey from Angli- can liturgy to Meth- odist evangelism came about by intense soul searching. He was fervent in his quest for sanctification and piety and was instru- mental [along with his brother Charles] in forming a small club or "class" at Ox- ford [1730] to study the scriptures and pursue a de- vout Christian life. We read, "The group met dai- ly from six until nine for prayer, singing the psalms, and reading of the Greek New Testament. Dur- ing the day, the group prayed sev- eral minutes each hour and each day for a special virtue. The group took Communion every Sunday, fasted on Wednesday and Fridays taking the evening meal, and vis- ited prisoners in jail, paid debts of people in jail, and cared for the sick." Today, we would commend these men as pious and sincere workers for the King- dom of God. However, Wesley's contemporaries at Ox- ford considered him [and his club] fanatics; other students derided them, and they became known as "the Oxford Methodists," a phrase not meant to be a term of endear- ment. Points to Ponder by Rev. Ford Bond We need a Wesleyan revival Continued on page 9 Continued on page 10 Continued on page 9 Continued on page 9 Minority View by Walter E. Williams Is reality optional? Continued on page 10 Continued on page 10 Suppose I declare that I am a king. Should you be required to ad- dress me as "Your Majesty"? You say, "Williams, that's lunacy! You can't prove such nonsense." You're wrong. It's proved by my declara- tion. It's no different from a per- son born with X Y chromosomes declaring that he is a woman. The X Y sex determination system is the sex determination system found in humans and most other mammals. Females typically have two of the same kind of sex chromosome ( X X) and are called the homoga- metic sex. Males typically have two different kinds of sex chromo- somes ( X Y ) and are called the het- erogametic sex. Governments are beginning to ignore biology and permit people to make their sex optional. Sex can be changed on one's birth certificate, passport, Social Secu- rity card and driver's license. In New York, intentional or repeat- ed refusal to use an individual's preferred name, pronoun or ti- tle is a violation of the New York City Human Rights Law. If a per- son born with X Y chromosomes asserts that he is a woman, then repeatedly addressing the person by the name on his birth certifi- cate, referring to the person as "him" or ad- dressing him as "Mis- ter" violates the law and subjects the vil- lain to heavy penal- ties. The law requires acknowledgment that sex is optional rather than a biological de- termination. Do the people who support the optionality of sex al- so support the optionality of age? My birth certificate shows 1936 as INF Treaty: It's wise for U.S. to withdraw Heritage Viewpoint by Edwin J. Feulner Pursuit of the Cure by Star Parker Observations Sowell Response to the State of the Union Lucid Moments By Bart Stinson Where's the beef? My fellow Americans. Given that the Democratic Par- ty chose to select a recently defeat- ed political candidate to give a re- sponse to the president's State of the Union address because she is black and a woman, I feel I should also step up and give my response. Although I have not recently lost a governor's contest, I am black and I am a woman. Democrats want Americans, particularly minority Americans, to believe that a left-wing agenda is what they need and what will de- fine America's future. I am here to say today that the agenda of the left is the problem, not the solution. For too many years the left — and I am talking here about those with a hard-core secular humanist and socialist agenda — have been dominating discourse in our mi- nority communities. America's future is in the values that defined it from the beginning. Christianity, capitalism and the Constitution. When I say Christianity, I do not mean to deny the bedrock of reli- gious freedom. I mean to say that theses values must be predom- inant and define our nation and our culture. There is no freedom without family, and there is no family with- out faith. It's as simple as that. Should every American be free to choose — yes. But recognize that in 2018, growth of the American popula- tion was the lowest it's been in 80 years. The Census Bureau proj- ects that in 16 years there will be more Americans over 65 than un- der 18. Without children, our fu- The Weekly by Alden Heuring Variance In a brilliant series of 1984 Wen- dy's commercials, gravel-voiced character actress Clara Peller rid- iculed a competitor's meager por- tions by demanding "where's the beef? " In today's parlance, we might say that the ads went viral. Presidential candidate Walter Mondale tapped the popular ads that primary season for a "zing- er" that mocked rival Gary Hart's much-ballyhooed but insubstan- tial policy proposals. "Where's the beef? " Mondale demanded in March. It was another way of say- ing the Emperor has no clothes. The phrase entered American slang repertoire for a season, and then fell into disuse. I remembered it again, recently, when the main- stream media and their fellow Dem- ocrats were disappointed to learn that the president's son called two business associates, not his father, between his calls to arrange a 2016 meeting with Russians. Democrats had tantalized their media playmates with the prospect of a smoking gun. Young Trump's call logs showed the numbers as "blocked," but they were decod- able. This was a mystery that could and would be solved. Demo- crat members of the House Intelli- gence Committee feigned smug in- sider confidence that the evidence establishes the president's guilt. When Rep. Andre Carson of In- diana was asked to confirm on cam- era that Donald Trump Jr. phoned his father that day, which would suggest collaborating with him on Russian collusion efforts, the Intel- ligence Committee member was coy. "Stay tuned," he said. He simply could not bring him- self to disengage from what he certainly knew to be a false claim. Anything goes against Donald Trump. And Rep. Carson wasn't alone. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of television and newspaper stories referenced the blocked phone num- bers. The New York Times called it "one of the more tantalizing mys- teries of the whole Russia affair." But it doesn't seem so tantaliz- ing anymore. We stayed tuned, as Rep. Carson counseled, and aren't very impressed with the beef por- tions that we waited for. There is a pattern here. Democrats insinuate dark conspiracies, then retreat be- hind a solemn veil of confidentiali- ty when it comes time to back their accusations up. Robert Mueller is an experi- enced prosecutor with all the co- ercive assets of the Justice Depart- ment at his disposal. He won't go home empty-handed. He is thor- oughly networked with federal prosecutors in big cities across the nation. If he shakes any tree hard enough, something will sure- ly fall out of it. His franchise has been extend- ed beyond its original expiration date. Democrats who objected to the expense of Independent Coun- sel Ken Starr's investigation of Bill Clinton have nevertheless signed on for Mueller's budget of about $10 million per year. Despite an unlimited budget and an open-ended mandate, the Muel- ler team's indictments and court fil- ings have not indicated any crimi- nal activity by Trump or the Trump campaign. The FBI has seized Trump's personal attorney's files, emails and hard drives, and mounted a shock-and-awe raid on his asso - ciate Roger Stone as if he were a cartel kingpin. Yet the court filings that flowed from that have not indi- cated that Trump or his campaign had any advance knowledge or ren- dered any support of the Russian activities. Asking the Russians what they know about your opponent is not a crime. If that's collusion, then the Clinton campaign has to answer for the Christopher Steele dossier, based in part on inquiries he made of Russian intelligence officers. And "if it were a crime," as Jon- athan Turley wrote in The Hill, "then journalists, campaigns and public interest groups would be subject to regular criminal pros- ecution." The question has ripened. The American people are entitled to ask Democrats in the mainstream me- dia and Deep State alike: "where's the beef? " There is variance in all things. Every person, every rock, every particle of air is somehow differ- ent. Even though we live in a fi- nite world, the possibilities are ef- fectively endless. Even the same person, the same rock, the same particle of air changes, if ever so slightly, as each moment passes in turn. Over the course of history, we humans have fought and scraped to overcome the variance in our own little ways, to achieve per- fect consistency, perfect under- standing, in our endeavors. Ev- ery added decimal point to which we can define a problem or solu- tion is another tiny step out into the waves of knowledge lapping against our shore, but the more we understand, the more we re- alize our own tiny limits within the vastness of the cosmos - and even the universe it- self is limited, as far beyond us as it seems from where we stand and peek out into the void. Nevertheless, we keep trying, as is the human condition. And we have invent- ed some rather clev- er devices to aid us in our struggle to reach infinity. First example: the tape mea- sure. This humble tool, found clipped to the belt of many an en- gineer, carpenter, welder (the list goes on) is perhaps the most famil- iar means we humans have of en- gaging in the art of measurement. And measurement, of course, is the human struggle for discovery in a nutshell: you com- pare what is known to what is unknown, and by comparing, you gain enlightenment. To use a tape mea- sure, simply hang the "reference point," the little bucktooth at the end of the tape, on the edge of whatever you wish to measure. Pull the tape out until it reaches the far edge, read the marks on the tape, record your reading. Now you know something you didn't know before, even if that something is as simple as the depth of your kitch- en table.