The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1155461
The Press-Dispatch Opinion Wednesday, August 14, 2019 C- 9 Court Report Continued from page 8 SHOOTING Continued from page 8 JOYS Continued from page 8 HEARTS Continued from page 8 BALTIMORE Continued from page 8 ECONOMY Continued from page 8 FEARFUL As faith and eternal truths become more mar- ginalized, more young people, particularly young males, become isolated and left with a sense of meaninglessness. They lose the key framework through which one takes personal responsibility for his or her life. It produces an inclina- tion to look for others to blame for their difficul- ties, for their personal struggles. Sometimes it becomes violent. There is a great price to be paid for a culture of meaninglessness. This is what we should be thinking and talking about, rather than simple political answers and who to blame. Star Parker is an author and president of CURE, Center for Urban Renewal and Education. Contact her at www.urbancure.org. FELONY Pike County Circuit Court Joshua Ryan Tindall charged with count I burglary, a level 5 felony, count II conversion, and count III driving while suspended. Joshua J. Byrd charged with count I domestic battery committed in the presence of a child less than 16 years old, a level 6 felony, count II confine- ment, a level 6 felony, count III stran- gulation, a level 6 felony, and count IV interference with the reporting of a crime. Seth A. Wilkins charged with oper- ating a vehicle with an ACE of .15 or more, and count II operating a vehicle while intoxicated, prior, a level 6 felony. TRAFFIC AND MISDEMEANOR Pike County Circuit Court Alice F. Altmeyer charged with knowingly or intentionally operating a motor vehicle without ever receiv- ing a license. Noah Alford charged with illegal consumption of an alcoholic beverage. McKenzie Dunn charged with ille- gal consumption of an alcoholic bev- erage. Amber M. Ridener charged with count I disorderly conduct and count II false informing. Jeremy M. Hardy charged with dis- orderly conduct. Brenda J. Payne charged with driv- ing while suspended, prior. CIVIL Pike County Circuit Court Barclays Bank Delaware sues Janes- sa Schepers on complaint. Jefferson Capital Systems, LLC sues Mary Crume on complaint. Professional and Business Collec- tions, LLC sues Bradley Lamey on complaint. Professional and Business Collec- tions, LLC sues Melissa Sinks on com- plaint. Tri-state Orthopaedics Surgeons, Inc. sues David Padgett on complaint. Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance sues Rebecca Bledsoe on complaint. Barry Bailey sues Jessica Bailey for dissolution of marriage. SMALL CLAIMS Pike County Circuit Court Rita Allen sues Jeremy Hardy and Amber Hardy on complaint. INFRACTIONS Pike County Circuit Court Kristi L. McGillem charged with dis- regarding stop sign. Michael L. Nolan charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Michaela K. Keller charged with speeding, exceeding 55 mph. Demi J. Croak charged with speed- ing. Steven W. Jackson charged with seatbelt violation. Ryan K. McCandless charged with speeding. Margaret R. Brescher charged with speeding. Ryan R. Schmitt charged with speeding, exceeding 55 mph. Marcus W. Butcher charged with speeding. Lacie L. Miller charged with speed- ing. Levi J. King charged with seatbelt violation. David L. Gayhart charged with seat- belt violation. Carolina Mora Sandoval charged with speeding. Casey L. Simmons charged with speeding, exceeding 55 mph. Nathaniel E. Willis charged with seatbelt violation. Marsha K. Boyd charged with speeding. April D. Gogel charged with speed- ing. Benjamin G. Louis charged with dis- regarding stop sign. Michael W. Seals charged with no valid driver's license. Jessica C. Catt charged with seat- belt violation. Micah L. Hopf charged with speed- ing. Treven J. Maier charged with speed- ing, exceeding 70 mph. Jessica L. Dennis charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Ashley N. Bragg charged with driv- ing while suspended. Melissa M. Woodring charged with speeding, exceeding 55 mph. Anthony R. Loveless charged with driving left of center. Jeremy D. Smith charged with driv- ing while suspended. Landon A. Jenkins charged with op- erating with expired plates. Cory M. Montgomery charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Landon A. Jenkins charged with ex- pired plates. Jeree Slaven charged with child re- straint system violation, child less than 8 years of age. Livensone Boucher charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Jason L. Garrett charged with speed- ing, exceeding 30 mph. er of pop culture to self-af- firm, to mobilize peer pres- tige, to avoid the most im- portant questions. Fortunately he was close to his parents and grand- parents back home. He surely would have been em- barrassed to present him- self to them as a parasite and criminal. I never heard any Superfly talk from him after that semester. I worry about kids who lack the strong parental influence that helped him remember who he really is, and get back on track. Where do they get their cues during adolescent confusion? Recent research in health sciences has elevat- ed the importance of in- flammation in causing dis- ease. I believe future men- tal health research will identify catastrophic con- sequences of cultural in- flammation by toxic, irre- sponsible entertainment products. Narcocorridas, Spanish- language ballads that glori- fy drug cartels, have trans- formed Mexican culture. When we lived there more than 30 years ago, violence was rare even among the criminal class. Now rival cartels kill Mexicans ca- sually, in large numbers. When Mexican house- wives heard about violent crimes in their country back in the late 80's, they said it was "not Mexican," and they presumed that the perpetrators had sojourned in the U.S. and returned home violent. They had a word for these "ruined" or "spoiled" expat Mexicans. But nobody can deny the Mexicans' ingrained blood- lust today, after three de- cades of violent film, tele- vision and music. I feel aw- ful for the peaceful, hard- working, family-focused Mexican majority as their most violent criminals un- dermine Mexican virtue. At the University of Ne- vada at Las Vegas, my al- ma mater, Marion Knight of Los Angeles attended on a football scholarship. He majored in business. His coaches said he was diligent in his schoolwork, and was typically 15 min- utes early for team meet- ings. Your kids may know him as "Suge" Knight, found- er of Death Row Records, and a suspect in the shoot- ing death of rapper Tupac Shakur. Possibly no other enter- tainment product line has been as corrosive of peace and decency as Knight's Death Row label. But Knight made a bloody for- tune from it, literally. I do not dismiss all rap as barbaric and obnoxious. The best of that genre, in fact, is exquisite poetry. Everybody has a right to listen to whatever music they wish. But vulgar and violent lyrics, amplified to window-rattling volume, is not an aesthetic quest; it's an intrusive act of intimida- tion, neither harmless nor private. Attempts at menace sometimes end tragically. We've read about grumpy old men shooting at ado- lescents because of their loud music or profanity, but I doubt that it's that simple. It may seem like fun to frighten and intim- idate the weak and mousy, but sometimes the mouse roars. Can't we all "just get along" as Rodney King be- seeched his city in flames? Yes! I've arrived at an age (and apparent decrepitude) where some of these thug- gish-looking young people are calling me "sir" and giv- ing way to me at doorways. So I don't think courtesy is utterly foreign to them. I try to express appreciation and reinforce their best in- stincts. It's OK to be courteous and deferential to your own generation, fellas. It might even astonish them. Gruff staredowns and profane one-upmanship are over- rated. May you discov- er the peace of mind that comes from treating one another with kindness and courtesy. on. Boy talk about guilt, I carry it for a few seconds, then I'm over the trip. Hey, the kids need to know mon- ey doesn't grow on trees and that they have to be smart with their mullah. • • • Now that we have re- turned from our overseas trip, I continue to appreci- ate what we have here in America. I have travelled enough I think to a point I know what I'm talking about. Here in the USA, we always strive for efficiency, we value time, we make things work, we express our opinion without fear of voicing them. We create, we innovate, we dare, we invent. No one has gone to the moon yet except us. We are basically a com- passionate and charita- ble people. Yes we do have flaws, for who group of people on earth do not have their unique defects . But we always strive to make things better. We love to work, love to have a good time, we celebrate, and when appropriate we mourn and heal our hurts. We always strive for fair- ness and justice. Ah, as I have said, I am so glad to be back Home, where our hearts belong. Humor of the : Two dogs were walking on the street. They started talking about how they feel. One of the dogs said, " You know, I seem to always feel de- pressed and anxious. I just don't understand why." The other dog muttered after thinking about what his friends said, "Why don't you then go seek the help of a therapist? " The other dog then said, "Well, I have tried to go to one one but they said I won't be allowed to sit or lay down on the couch." Wisdom of the week: If you always feel down, likely you're living in the past. If you are anxious, likely you are living in the future. If you are at peace, likely you are living in the present. Do not regret growing old- er, it is a privilege denied to many. Have a great week! sinful and capable of the most horren- dous acts of brutality. As mentioned, the second sin men- tioned in the Bible is murder. Jesus had something to say about murder and he pins our adversary as a murderer, and the father of murder and lies. Jesus, when exposing the motives of those who wished him harm laid bare the wickedness of their heart: "You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the begin- ning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the fa- ther of it." Allow me to be clear; you will not hear any secular news outlet either in broadcast or print that will make such a claim and remind the nation that there is an adversary who seeks to kill and destroy. We have banished him to cartoons and mythology. The media will use the concept of evil in other euphemisms in creative ways to describe the mass killer,but they will never cross the Rubicon and say evil spirits, or the devil. To do so would imply there is a God and perhaps humans are subject to God's laws and ways after all. As the nation slips away from God, evil advances into the vacuum. The in- fluence of the Devil has crept into mu- sic, movies, T V, schools, government, the church, and the workplace. Why are we surprised evil is becoming an everyday occurrence? Fifty shot each weekend in Chicago-not even report- ed! It took thousands of years for God to put morality in place to make humans live civilly together-and it has taken on- ly a hundred years to dismantle it. Make no mistake, the Devil has been relegated to folklore and there- fore, he does not exist and cannot in- fluence you because he doesn't exist. Jesus made Satan very real and char- acterized him and his children as mur- ders, thieves, and liars. It is not the devil who murders but his children. His children are those who have given themselves over to his way of hate, envy, strife, dissension, and slander, which are symptoms of a depraved mind. Let not one of us consider ourselves immune – hating is likened unto mur- der. Each of us needs to understand that though we belong to the family of God, we are not immune from the pressures of life and its influence. Consider what John wrote in his first epistle: "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no mur- derer has eternal life abiding in him." Embrace the grace of God and live with the encouragement that James wrote to those Christians scattered throughout the world "Submit your- selves therefore to God. Resist the dev- il, and he will flee from you." Being anchored in Christ is our hope! Think about it! per 100,000 people. Other cities with high murder rates included New Or- leans; Kansas City, Missouri; Cleve- land; Memphis, Tennessee; and New- ark, New Jersey. With 24.1 murders per 100,000 residents, Chicago ranked ninth in the nation, followed by Cin- cinnati and Philadelphia. Washington, D.C., was 17th. What about education in Baltimore? In 2016, in 13 of Baltimore's 39 high schools, not a single student scored proficient on the state's mathematics exam. In six other high schools, on- ly 1% tested proficient in math. In raw numbers, 3,804 Baltimore students took the state's math test and 14 test- ed proficient. Citywide, only 15% of Baltimore students passed the state's English test. Money is not the problem. Of the nation's 100 largest school sys- tems, Baltimore schools rank third in spending per pupil. Baltimore's black students receive diplomas that attest that they can function at a 12th-grade level when in fact they may not be able to do so at a sixth-, seventh- or eighth-grade lev- el. These students and their families have little reason to suspect that their diplomas are fraudulent. Thus, if they cannot pass a civil service exam, they will accuse the exam of being racist. When they get poor grades in college and flunk out, they will attribute their plight to racism. The information that these black students have is that they, just as white students, have a high school diploma and the only explana- tion they see for unequal outcomes is racism. The same story of poor educa- tion outcomes can be told about most cities with large black populations. The problems that black people con- front are immune to who is the presi- dent of the U.S. Those problems were not ameliorated when Barack Obama was president. Those problems are not going to be ameliorated by Trump's presidency, though the black unem- ployment rate is considerably lower. The lesson for black people is that pol- iticians and government handouts are not solutions. If they were, at a pub- lic expenditure that tops $22 trillion over the past half-century, black peo- ple would not be confronted with to- day's problems. Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. last summer with no signs of inflation to be found. Now, we are at closer to 2 percent to 2.5 percent growth, and some of that is due to excessively tight money. There are all sorts of market sig- nals of tight money. Commodity pric- es are still 5 percent to 10 percent be- low where they were this time last year. The consumer price levels have been close to 1.5 percent — which is below the Fed's target. I don't want in- flation, but the bigger threat right now in some markets is deflation. There are many other warnings of tight money. Nominal GDP has con- tracted from last year. And consider the change in market indicators today versus last August, before the two rate hikes happened. Last year, the inter- est rate on the 10 -year Treasury was 3.1 percent. Now, it is closer to 2 per- cent. This is a sign of declining infla- tion expectations. Even more amaz- ing is that the five-year Treasury In- flation Protection Securities spread, which is one of the best forward-look- ing measures of inflation, has fallen from 2 percent to 1.6 percent over the last year. This means the market is betting on inflation of well below where the Fed wants it. Time for dol- lar liquidity. Trump is battling a culture of limits to growth at the Fed. The president is correctly shooting for 3 percent to 4 percent noninflationary growth in the economy (as was laid out in the eco- nomic plan we put together back in the 2016 campaign), but most econ- omists at the Fed and in academia believe this is an impossible dream. They think 3.5 percent real growth — stoked by tax cuts, deregulation and domestic energy production — will only accelerate inflationary impuls- es. Wages under this model have to be kept under wraps to avoid wage- push inflation. No. Policy changes that promote the production of goods and servic- es don't cause inflation. If anything, more output leads to lower prices. That happened in the Reagan years, when the economy boomed and infla- tion fell from 12 percent to 3 percent. Ronald Reagan proved high growth and stable prices can peacefully co- exist. This happened in the Clinton years as well, when federal spending was cut dramatically. Of course, the Fed should always keep a watchful eye on inflation, and if it rears its ugly head, the rate cuts and other liquidity measures should cease. But the limits to growth skep- tics are wrong. This Trump economy has the capacity to grow north of 3 percent for years to come. Sorry, Eliz- abeth Warren, there is no recession or financial crisis around the corner unless the Fed mistakes like last year steer us over that cliff. Stephen Moore is the Distinguished Visiting Fellow for Project for Econom- ic Growth at The Heritage Foundation.