The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1120204
C-8 Wednesday, May 22, 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 Caps, gowns and dreams My Point of View by Dr. H. K. Fenol, Jr., M.D. This past two weeks have been quite a thrill. First, we attended a Pre-K Graduation of my daugh- ter Marie and Rob's child, Isabel- la. She attended Corpus Christi school on the west side of Evans- ville. So being a fairly good sized community, there were about two dozen children who graduated. It was an exciting time for a lot of the young parents of these chil- dren, but quite a memorable time as well for the many grandparents who attended. Here's the magic kingdom sce- nario. The kids wore a blue cap with a yellow tassel and a dark blue gown. They were all excited as well, and being they were ages between 4-5, they sometimes were quiet, sometimes comical, some- times wiggly and restless. Overall though, they were well behaved. Drum roll. The kids walked el- egantly into their assigned spots on the stage marked with yellow stars with their names printed on each one. The ceremony started with the teachers greeting and We live in a violent and confused world. Though it seems America has been somewhat insulated from the horrors of war since our Civil War, the effects of conflicts around the globe have not bypassed our nation. Christianity, the moral founda- tion of Western Civilization, is un- der attack worldwide and little no- tice has been given by the media. The political rhetoric of Fort Wayne Mayor Pete Buttigieg as- saulted Orthodox Christianity as he made his progressive concept of faith an issue when, addressing his sexual orientation, he remarked "…My marriage to Chasten has made me a better man and yes, Mr. Vice President, it has moved me closer to God… If me being gay was a choice, it was a choice that was made far, far above my pay grade. And that's the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand—that if you've got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quar- rel, sir, is with my creator." Presidential candidate Buttigieg has presented himself as a victim of persecution of Or- thodox Christianity and new voice for the oppressed, and chid- ing the oppressors who do not agree with his concept of faith and sexuality. Former liberal ac- tivist David Horwitz in a recent column brought the conflict aimed at Christianity to the fore- front: "At a graduation ceremony at Liberty University over the week- end, Vice President Mike Pence warned students that it has be- come "acceptable and even fash- ionable to ridicule and discrimi- nate against people of faith" and that they should "be prepared for persecution." This was a gentle — one might say Christian — way of describing what has become an all-out war on believers." Though Horwitz and Buttigieg were speaking to American audi- ences, persecution of Christianity is worldwide, and the media fails to report the atrocities unless they cannot be dismissed (such as the bombing in Sri Lanka). The Pew Research Center notes that Christians are among the most persecuted religious groups in the world (Global Up- tick in Government Restrictions on Religion), yet lit- tle note is found in the American mainstream media. Pew research has found for 2016, "…83 coun- tries had high or very high levels of overall restrictions on religion – whether resulting from govern- ment actions or from hostile acts by private individuals, organiza- tions and social groups – up from 58 in 2007." Do the math. Forty-two percent of the nations of the world either by government policy or indiffer- Points to Ponder by Rev. Ford Bond We have this promise Continued on page 9 Continued on page 9 Continued on page 9 Minority View by Walter E. Williams Higher education in America Continued on page 9 Continued on page 9 Distinguished Professor Emeri- tus of Economics at Ohio Universi- ty Richard Vedder's new book, "Re- storing the Promise," published by the Independent Institute based in Oakland, California, is about the crisis in higher education. He summarizes the three major prob- lems faced by America's colleges and universities. First, our univer- sities "are vastly too expensive, of- ten costing twice as much per stu- dent compared with institutions in other industrialized democracies." Second, though there are some im- portant exceptions, students "on average are learning relatively lit- tle, spend little time in academ- ic preparation and in some disci- plines are indoctrinated by highly subjective ideology." Third, "there is a mismatch between student oc- cupational expectations after grad- uation and labor market realities." College graduates often find them- selves employed as baristas, retail clerks and taxi drivers. The extraordinary high col- lege cost not only saddles stu- dents with debt, it causes them to defer activities such as getting married and starting a family, buy- ing a home and saving for retire- ment. Research done by the New York Federal Reserve Banks and the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that each dollar of federal aid to col- lege leads to a tuition increase of 60 cents. For the high cost of college, what do stu- dents learn? A semi- nal study, "Academi- cally Adrift," by Rich- ard Arum and Josi- pa Roksa, after surveying 2,300 students at various colleges, ar- gues that very little improvement in critical reasoning skills occurs in college. Adult literacy is falling among college graduates. Large proportions of college graduates do not know simple facts, such as the half-century in which the Civ- il War occurred. There are some exceptions to this academic incom- petency, most notably in technical areas such as engineering, nurs- ing, architecture and accounting, where colleges teach vocationally useful material. Vedder says that student ineptitude is not surpris- ing since they spend little time in classrooms and studying. It's even less surprising when one consid- ers student high school prepa- ration. According to 2010 and 2013 NAEP test scores, only 37% of 12th-graders were proficient in reading, 25% in math, 12 % in history, 20 % in geog- raphy and 24% in civ- ics. What happens when many of these students graduate saddled with debt? The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in an October 2018 report, finds that many students are underemployed, filling jobs that can be done with a high school education. More than one-third of currently working college gradu- ates are in jobs that do not require a degree, such as flight attendants, janitors and salesmen. In addition to this kind of resource misalloca- tion, 40 % or more college students fail to graduate in six years. It is not unreasonable to ask whether college attendance was a wise use of these students' time and the re- sources of their parents and tax- payers. Continued on page 9 Defense spending is on the rise Heritage Viewpoint by Edwin J. Feulner Pursuit of the Cure by Star Parker Opportunity zone dream Lucid Moments By Bart Stinson War of 1812 A basic law in physics says that energy cannot be created or de- stroyed. It can only be changed from one form to another. The same rule, I think, applies to society. There is a given amount of hu- man energy. Is it going to be direct- ed creatively? Or destructively? We see both at play in the life and death of rapper Nipsey Hussle. Hussle was a born entrepreneur. According to a newspaper account, it's what earned him his nickname. He was polishing shoes at age 11 to earn money. Then began his music. And then he moved into in- vestments. And then, at age 33, he was gunned down in front of his cloth- ing store, Marathon Clothing, on the site of a strip mall in South Los Angeles that he and real estate de- veloper David Gross had planned to develop through the new Oppor- tunity Zone initiative. Opportunity Zones became law as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The idea was to provide for tril- lions of dollars of capital sitting in various types of investments — stocks, real estate, etc. — to be re- directed into investments in eco- nomically distressed areas around the nation by allowing the gains to be realized tax-free. The Treasury Department des- ignated 8,700 zones across the USA that could qualify, which included the strip mall where Hussle's clothing store was locat- ed in South L A. Hussle and Gross purchased the mall and planned to set up the "Our Opportunity" fund to develop the property into residential units and shops. Their concept was to incor- porate small investors through crowdfunding to partner with larger investors. This would en- able residents of the local com- munity to participate as investors and purchase homes in the resi- dential units. Hussle's concern was that the Opportunity Zone initiative might be successful in directing capital to distressed neighborhoods, but investors coming from outside the community would have little inter- est in the locals. The War of 1812 bicentennials passed with little fanfare in our corner of the Midwest, although it was a partly a contest for this re- gion. The U.S. declared war that June, and it raged on until Feb- ruary 1815. It was no lark, and brought our fledgling republic to the verge of extinction. American commanders antic- ipated danger at Fort Dearborn (Chicago), and ordered the evac- uation of 148 soldiers, women and children that first August. But 500 British-allied Potawatomi am- bushed them along the trail. They killed 86, including two women and 12 children. A fter fell- ing one especially valiant defend- er, they cut out his heart and ate it, to absorb his courage. The Po- tawatomi marched their captives back to Fort Dearborn, which they burned to the ground on the fol- lowing day. Some of the ambushed Ameri- cans survived the battle, but not their captivity. Others were even- tually ransomed. Whether it's fair to call the battle a massacre or not, the Potawatomi attack helped gal- vanize white public opinion against pluralistic coexistence with Native American societies. In the long run, winning the Battle of Fort Dearborn is pos- sibly the worst thing that could have happened to the Potawato- mi. They were eventually dispos- sessed and expelled from their an- cestral lands by white settlers who were unwilling to chance massa- cre of their loved ones every time a charismatic messiah figure like Tecumseh or Tenskwatawa came along to appeal to Native Ameri- can resentment. In the meantime, British com- manders induced some hasty fron- tier American surrenders else- where by playing "good cop, bad cop" regarding their Native Ameri- can allies' tendency toward massa- cre of their captives. But U.S. forc- es under William Henry Harrison deprived the British terror strat- egy of some of its bite when they hunted Tecumseh down in Canada and killed him at the Battle of the Thames in October 1813. Native Americans weren't the only ones burning U.S. facilities to the ground during the War of 1812, of course. British command- er Robert Ross set the torch to Washington, including the White House, in August 1814. The Brit- ish drove James Madison and his military commanders out of Wash- ington, into what is now Montgom- ery County, Maryland. The invaders occupied Wash- ington before a king-sized storm damaged their fleet, extinguished their fires, and spun off a tornado that pitched two of their cannon in- to the air and tumbled them down Constitution Avenue. The British were haughty and stubborn peo- ple but they could take a hint, and abandoned our capitol 26 hours af- ter their arrival. Baltimore put up a much tough- er defense than Washington. Mili- tia commander Samuel Smith, 62, assembled a force of 13,000 patri- ots and positioned them in a line of strong fortifications. When Ross attacked, we killed him, along with 300 of his fellow invaders. The British then went to plan B: they called their fleet up close to shore to bombard Fort McHenry, which was all that kept the invaders out of Baltimore harbor. The bombardment went on all day, and then all night. The fabled British fleet pounded Baltimore like an anvil: rockets, bombs, "a firelit clang," as historian Bruce Catton wrote, "of broken metal against masonry." And yet, when morning dawned, despite heavy smoke, Francis Scott Key could see that our flag was still there. The valor in Baltimore was bal- anced by a nauseating stench of Federalist treason to the north, where the Massachusetts legisla- ture had called a wartime conven- tion of New England states to un- dermine Madison. Vermont and New Hampshire rejected the call, but Rhode Island and Connecticut, to their shame, accepted. The Federalists deliberated in secret, passed long-winded resolu- tions and proposed a series of Con- stitutional amendments, but Amer- ican public opinion had turned against them. It was inexcusable that the Federalists had lever- We have a good news-bad news situation on our hands when it comes to defense spending. The good news is, it's heading in the right direction — up. The bad news is, it remains too low to fix the spending holiday that afflicted our military for years — a failure to fund that has seriously compro- mised our readiness levels. Budget numbers released by Democrats, who control the House of Representatives, look impres- sive at first glance: $ 622 billion for the base defense discretionary budget. That's an increase of 2.3 percent over the last budget the House passed. Unfortunately, it's not enough. Once you take the defense cuts of the last decade or so into consider- ation, you realize we have a lot of ground to make up. According to Former Defense Secretary James Mattis and Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we need be- tween 3 percent and 5 percent re- al growth in the coming years to keep pace with the threats facing our nation. I'm not just talking about North Korea. The missile danger from Pyongyang is indeed serious, and one that grabs big headlines every time Kim Jong- un decides to rattle his saber. But there are other countries of concerns around the globe. Take Iran, which the 2019 Index of U.S. Military Strength de- scribes as the Middle Eastern country most hostile to Ameri- can interests. Over the last sever- al years, it has moved closer and closer to becoming a nuclear pow- er, and it has continued enhancing its missile capabilities. And it ac- tively foments instability through- out the region. Elsewhere in the Middle East, we have a wide variety of terrorist groups on the prowl. Yes, the Is- lamic State has been all but wiped out, having lost more than 98 per- cent of the territory it once held, but it's not completely eliminated. And the Iran-sponsored Hezbollah and the Iranian-backed Shia mili- tias also present a danger to re- gional peace. Then there's Chi- na. The People's Lib- eration Army contin- ues to engage in live- fire exercises in the East China Sea near Taiwan, and to probe South Korea's and Ja- pan's air defenses. Meanwhile, Beijing's cyber-espionage and attempts at hacking computer networks show no sign of slowing down. And we can't forget Russia. It "regularly performs provocative military exercises and training missions, and continues to sell and export arms to countries hostile to U.S. interests," the Index editors note. "It also has increased its in- vestment in modernizing its mil- itary and has gained significant combat experience while continu- ing to sabotage U.S. and Western policy in Syria and Ukraine." Yet until recently, we had been