The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1100017
B-6 Wednesday, April 3, 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 Updating to new tech My Point of View by Dr. H. K. Fenol, Jr., M.D. A fter many years of using my faithful personal computer and I counted a total of nine years of use, it finally quit. At first it started to get sluggish, then the cursor start- ed to jump places, and then high- lighting, copying and pasting be- came impossible to do. So it was time to do something. I have three laptops which serve as a back up. So I called my tech support to service a two year old relatively new and quite powerful computer, which I had rarely used. Then off I went to my tech support friend and had much work done to tune up the PC. I also had a new printer purchased and had it pro- grammed as well. Now I feel like a new person because I don't have to struggle to plead for my old computer to please cooperate and not crash or conk out. My prodding for my old PC didn't work. It just would not give me the last ounce of it's strength. The screen would fade out, the round thingy that swirls would endlessly do it's dance. Then it would be followed by a freeze. So, it was time to let it go My old, good, faithful PC friend, that through my best tweak and trick, just gave it's final last breath. Now that I have a newer device to play with, I did not realize how much faster and less anxiety pro- voking it is to use a good, fast com- puter. Well, there's always new shortcuts and new tricks I have to learn, but as time goes on, I'll feel Last month, a contingent of for- ty-six men and women from Hag- erstown, Princeton, and Amity United Methodist Churches de- scended upon Princeville, N.C., to help a few residents who lost their homes in the 2017 flooding caused by Hurricane Matthew. The work mission group teamed with the United Methodist Com- mittee on Relief, which has com- mitted itself to the rebuilding of homes or building new modest homes for individuals who have little means to repair the damage. UMCOR has a commitment through 2020 in the area and is still needing men and women to come and help. The flooding at Princeville was caused by the remnants of Hur- ricane Matthew in early October 2017 as the Tar River rose to re- cord heights. The channel of the river is 60 feet deep, and the flood waters rose 8 feet above its em- bankments. Princeville, N.C., is a small town of about 1,900 residents located on the east bank of the Tar River. The area is poor, with the median in- come at $ 31,667, and an average yearly income of $21,000. This is an area of impoverished families, and their story is similar to thou- sands of small cities across Amer- ica. The city's history is tied to the end of the Civil War. It was the first free slave town settled by former slaves in 1865. The area along the river is low-lying and swampy and exposed to flooding. The federal government has identified areas in the city that are eligible for buyout; and as of late 2018, twenty-two households had applied for buyouts from FEMA; none have gone through. Our workgroup con- tinued the work on two new and a third older home. The older home had been gutted and a crew worked on inte- rior framing and in- stalling a new electri- cal system. It will still be many months be- fore the elderly couple will be able to return [remember, this damage was done in 2017]. The funds for the new homes were made available from UMCOR and FEM, with the land being do- nated by the city of Princeville. The homes are three bedroom, 1,200 square feet. Our group was well equipped with skilled men and women who worked on roof- ing, siding, electrical, and plumb- ing. The people whom we were work- ing on their homes had been vet- ted by UMCOR, who targets fami- lies and individuals who lack finan- cial means to recover from disas- ters. Unlike several high profile relief agencies, the monies peo- ple donate to UMCOR is not si- phoned to other projects, but are earmarked to go directly to disas- ter relief. What did I learn [again] from working among those affected by disaster? First and foremost the need will always exceed the re- sources in manpower and money. The second and more depressing is that our nation has been condi- tioned to rely upon the "govern- ment" to rebuild communities. Even among church folk when disaster strikes the question arises after prayer, "Did they have insurance? " Because we live in an era of government intervention, we as- sume and expect gov- ernment to rebuild the lives and communities hit with disaster. Lit- tle thought is given to lending a helping hand to a neigh- bor. Small communities in times past rallied to help their neighbor in distress. The concept of shared community was practiced daily. In many areas of Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, the Old World Amish still practice communi- ty in daily life and in adversity. A tornado hit an Amish communi- ty in eastern Daviess County, in November 2005. Almost before FEMA and local emergency man- agement could evaluate the dam- age, the rubble was cleared and the damage repaired. A counter to this, in areas of the Florida pan- handle, they are still cleaning up from 2018 Hurricane. Among us are talented men and women and businesses that can help the disadvantaged rebuild their homes, but they don't. Donat- ing money to relief agencies help, but the bottom line remains that men and women are needed to do the actually work. How much fast- er could an area recover if all of us would practice "love your neigh- bor? " The physical plight of the poor Points to Ponder by Rev. Ford Bond Caring about your neighbor Continued on page 7 Minority View by Walter E. Williams University corruption continued Continued on page 7 Continued on page 7 Last week's column discussed the highly publicized university corrup- tion scheme wherein wealthy parents bought admission at prestigious uni- versities for their children. That is dishonest and gives an unfair advan- tage to those young people but won't destroy the missions of the universi- ties. There is little or no attention giv- en by the mainstream media to the true cancer eating away at most of our institutions of higher learning. Philip Carl Salzman, emeritus profes- sor of anthropology at McGill Univer- sity, explains that cancer in a Mind- ing the Campus article, titled "What Your Sons and Daughters Will Learn at University" (https://tinyurl.com/ y9ds7e7t). Professor Salzman argues that for most of the 20th century, universities were dedicated to the advancement of knowledge. There was open ex- change and competition in the mar- ketplace of ideas. Different opinions were argued and respected. Most notably in the social sciences, social work, the humanities, education and law, this is no longer the case. Left- ist political ideology has emerged. The most important thing to today's university communities is diversity of race, ethnicity, sex and economic class, on which they have spent bil- lions of dollars. Conspicuously ab- sent is diversity of ideology. Students are taught that all cul- tural values are morally equivalent. That's ludicrous. Here are a few questions for those who make such a claim. Is forcible female genital mu- tilation, as practiced in nearly 30 sub- Saharan A frican and Middle East- ern countries, a morally equivalent cultural value? Slavery is currently practiced in Mauritania, Mali, Ni- ger, Chad and Sudan; is it morally equivalent? In most of the Middle East, there are numerous lim- itations placed on wom- en, such as prohibitions on driving, employment and education. Under Is- lamic law in some coun- tries, female adulterers face death by stoning. Thieves face the pun- ishment of having their hands sev- ered. Homosexuality is a crime pun- ishable by death in some countries. Are these cultural values morally equivalent, superior or inferior to Western values? Increasingly, the classics of West- ern civilization are being ignored. Why? Because they represent the work, almost exclusively, of "dead white men." Only works of females, people of color and non-Western au- thors are seen as virtuous. The same is true with political history. The U.S. Constitution should be less respect- ed because its writers were white slaveholders. The academics who teach this nonsense to students are grossly ignorant of the struggle over the slavery issue at our 1787 Consti- tutional Convention. Professor Salzman concludes his article with the observation that "Marxist social justice offers all the answers anyone needs, so no inqui- ry or serious research is required. Be confident that at university your chil- dren will learn 'the right side' to be on, if little else." As a result of left- ist indoctrination, many college stu- dents graduate illiterate, innumer- ate and resistant to understanding. A survey of employers showed that over 70 percent found college graduates were not well-prepared in skills such as "written com - munication," "working with numbers/statis- tics," "critical/analyti- cal thinking" and sec- ond-language proficien- cy (http://tinyurl.com/ yymfsrg4). The American Council of Trust- ees and Alumni publishes occasion- al reports on what college students know. One report found that nearly 10 percent of the college graduates surveyed thought Judith Sheind- lin, T V's Judge Judy, is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. Less than 20 percent of the college graduates knew the effect of the Emancipation Proclamation. More than a quarter of the college graduates did not know Franklin D. Roosevelt was president during World War II; one-third did not know he was the president who spearheaded the New Deal. Such ig- norance might explain why these young people are the supporters of today's presidential candidates call- ing for America to become a social- ist nation. By the way, one need not be a Westerner to hold Western values. One just has to accept the sanctity of the individual above all else. Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason Uni- versity. Continued on page 7 Pursuit of the Cure by Star Parker Russiagate: Deceit, fake news from Democrats Heritage Viewpoint By Edwin J. Feulner Policymakers must maintain relations with Taiwan So now special counsel Robert Mueller has issued his report, and it turns out after two years of in- vestigation, at an estimated cost of $40 million, that "Russiagate" was fake news. Much to the dismay of Demo- crats, Mueller found no collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russians to in- fluence the 2016 election. Who are the winners here? Of course, the American peo- ple — and, of course, President Donald Trump and the Republi- can Party. And, we might say, also House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. At the age of 79, with 32 years in the House of Representatives, Pe- losi has a well-honed nose for sniff- ing out which political road to take. She told The Washington Post earlier this month: "I'm going to give you some news right now, because I haven't said this to any press person before. ... Impeach- ment is so divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path, because it di- vides the country. And he's just not worth it." Either the speaker's time-test- ed political sniffer is so fine-tuned that she smelled the fake news driving the Russia conspiracy in- vestigation or she knew that driv- ing the whole thing were dirty tricks that originated in her own party and that Mueller would not and could not cover this up. This is the big and troubling sto- I've visited Taiwan more than 120 times over the past 47 years, and every time I do, I'm impressed by its economic achievements and dynamism. Taiwan's economy is a model for Asia and beyond. Over the past 25 years, it has weathered several re- gional and global economic down- turns. Yet it has emerged from these crises as competitive as ev- er. Today it's the world's 10th fre- est economy, having recorded its highest score ever in the 2019 In- dex of Economic Freedom. Taiwan and the United States have a long and honorable histo- ry. Our peoples joined in a com- mon cause and fought to contain the spread of Communism. America's commitment is re- flected in the Taiwan Relations Act. Signed into law 40 years ago, the spirit and intent of the TR A — to deter aggression from Bei- jing, promote economic freedom, and protect human rights on Tai- wan — are as robust today as they were in 1979. Taiwan has built prosperity on a solid foundation: thousands of small and medium-sized busi- nesses. These enterprises, some- times called "an army of ants," have adapted to the nation's chang- ing circumstances and adjusted to fluctuations in international mar- kets. The strength of this "army" lies with Taiwan's people. Well-educat- ed, industrious and entrepreneur- ial, they have proven that individu- al initiative coupled with economic freedom brings prosperity, even to an island that has been diplomati- cally isolated. Of course, this army of entrepre- neurs hasn't operated in a vacuum. Wise, forward-thinking business leaders and policymakers have worked hard, with modest Amer- ican assistance, to put Taiwan on the path to prosperity. The nation's commitment to its high-tech indus- try and export competitiveness are the results. Taiwan's political transforma- tion has been even more impres- sive. Few countries can match the scope and rapidity of its democrat- ic movement. From 1986 to 1996, for example, Taiwan transformed from a society with no lawful polit- ical opposition to a nation in which leaders at every level are chosen in free elections. Just as competition strength- ened Taiwan's economy, it has strengthened its political institu- tions, even in the face of frequent bluster and intimidation from Bei- jing. But Taiwan's economic and po- litical transformations are far more than domestic successes. They have fundamentally altered Taipei's relationship with Beijing, with Washington and with the world. No longer can anyone say that free-market democracy is incon- sistent with Asian or Confucian culture. Taiwan has demonstrat- ed to the world that freedom is a stabilizing force — that free en- terprise, free association and free speech lead to entrepreneurship, prosperity and security. Taiwan's democracy challeng- es the United States and other na- tions to reassess their policies to- ward Beijing. In its policies toward Beijing, the United States seeks to ensure its own security while ad- vancing its economic and political interests. American interests in Asia re- quire more than soaring rhetoric and frequent meetings. They re- quire action. Moreover, American interests are not well served by a partnership with Beijing, particu- larly not if that partnership flour- ishes at the expense of other U.S. allies — and not if it undermines the U.S. goal of promoting and pro- tecting freedom and democracy among our allies. U.S. policymakers need to main- tain close, secure relations with Taiwan. This is especially impor- tant today, when more than 90 per- cent of those now serving in Con-