The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1196046
The Press-Dispatch Opinion Wednesday, December 25, 2019 B- 5 individuals by what they look like or where they come from. President Trump was elected in 2016 because his Make America Great Again message resonated with voters tired of politi- cal correctness and identi- ty politics. Our country is about core principles, univer- sally true for all, that se- cure and protect individ- ual freedom and dignity. This is what this new ex- ecutive order is about. Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Re- newal and Education and author of the new book "Necessary Noise: How Donald Trump Inflames the Culture War and Why This is Good News for America," available now at starpark- er.com Continued from page 4 SEMITISM Court Report FELONY Pike County Circuit Court Patrick Cox charged with count I child solicitation, a level 4 felony. Corey J. Cox charged with count I stalking, a level 5 felony, count II in- timidation, a level 5 felony, and count III pointing a firearm at another, a lev- el 6 felony. TRAFFIC AND MISDEMEANOR Pike County Circuit Court William J. Bailey charged with driv- ing while suspended, prior. Joshua R. Moore charged with viola- tion of rule adopted by director. Wade L. Hurdle, Jr. charged with op- erating a vehicle with an ACE of .15 or more. Dillon K. Bedell charged with driv- ing while suspended, prior. CIVIL Pike County Circuit Court LVNV Funding, LLC sues Linda Kay Carlson on complaint. Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC sues Christina Rogers on complaint. Medical and Professional Collection Services, Inc. sues Anna Smutzer on complaint. Mariner Finance, LLC, successor in interest to Personal Finance Company, LLC sues Shawn Kunz on complaint. Mariner Finance, LLC, successor in interest to Personal Finance Company, LLC sues Connie Rowe and Michael Rowe on complaint. NBT Bank, National Association sues Melissa Beadles on complaint. American Express National Bank sues James Hegedus on complaint. Kyle Edward Kaeck sues Morgan Michelle Kaeck for dissolution of mar- riage. Jamie Weist sues Kristoffer Weist for dissolution of marriage. SMALL CLAIMS Pike County Circuit Court Willis Family Farms, LLC sues Dereck L. Vickers on complaint. INFRACTIONS Pike County Circuit Court Evan T. Potts charged with speed- ing, exceeding 55 mph. Markes G. Straw charged with speeding. Belinda R. Hignett Grant charged with speeding, exceeding 55 mph. Mackenzie B. Upton charged with improper display of license plate, re- newal sticker not affixed to license plate. Benny D. Thomas charged with seatbelt violation. Ashley J. Sharp charged with speed- ing, exceeding 55 mph. Luke J. Parker charged with throw- ing burning material from a moving motor vehicle. Brittany N. Hess charged with speeding. Angel M. Mann charged with speed- ing, exceeding 70 mph. Jennifer M. Kemp charged with speeding, exceeding 55 mph. Richard C. Lyon charged with speeding. Wade Steven Leonard charged with seatbelt violation. Autry J. Gaynor charged with speed- ing, exceeding 70 mph. Aguinaldo Matzenbacher charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Shu F. Jiang charged with speeding, exceeding 55 mph. Jenny R. Wiscaver charged with no valid driver's license. Laura E. Blue charged with speed- ing. Robin R. Small charged with speed- ing. Caroline Isaacs charged with oper- ating with expired plates. Donald A. Arnett charged with speeding. Emily K. Rexing charged with speeding. And this shall be a sign un- to you; you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host prais- ing God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." He then he says, "That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown." And that's what Christ- mas is all about. Can't im- prove on that story. Since 1965, the culture war has continued unabat- ed and most universities, public schools, and retail- ers have removed "Christ- mas" as the center of the holiday [as official policy]. The politically correct and God haters continued to attack anything remote- ly connected to Christiani- ty and the Christ child. Nonetheless, we've lately begun to experience a new attempt to return "Christ- mas" into our holiday slo- gans. A little more than a de- cade ago [December 2005], ABC Television gave A Charlie Brown Christ- mas an hour slot and add- ed never-before-seen Char- lie Brown Christmas Tales, which are vignettes of sev- eral of the Peanuts gang. Christmas reminds us word that the love of God became tangible. God sent His Son in the form of man to earth. God's love gift to us could now be touched and walk among mankind. Love among us. Think about it, and have a Merry Christmas "Char- lie Brown.". Continued from page 4 REVISITED way, and who knows what followed next. So, lessons to be learned . . . we all share the same humanity, and that the pow- er of music and Christmas transcend hatred and divi- sion. Need I say more? • • • In case you are curious, I did a little research on this song. It's origin was in a small alpine town in Aus- tria about 200 years ago, where a young Austrian priest named Joseph Mohr wrote six poetic verses. Mohr was a gifted violin- ist and guitarist. Although gifted in composing music, he asked his friend Franz Xaver Gruber to write the music for the six verses. I'd like to spare you the details of the song's histo- ry. You can certainly look it up through Google Uni- versity. I'd like you to qui- etly sing it yourself. Don't be embarrassed. No one is listening except God, and He'll have to put up with the voice He gifted you with. Here's the song: "Silent night, Holy night. All is calm, all is bright. Round yon Virgin Moth- er and Child. Holy Infant so tender and mild. Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace. Silent night, Holy night. Shepherds quake at the sight. Glories stream from heaven afar. Heav'nly hosts sing Alelluia. Christ the Savior is born, Christ the Savior is born. Silent night, holy night. Son of God, love's pure light. Radiant beams Thy Holy Face. With the dawn of redeeming grace. Jesus Lord at Thy birth. Jesus Lord at Thy birth." A very Merry and Blessed Christmas to All. Continued from page 4 SILENT NIGHT als; they are simply target- ing Phillips. For those in the LGBTQ community, and elsewhere, who support such attacks, we might ask them wheth- er they would seek pros- ecution of the owner of a Jewish delicatessen who refused to provide cater- ing services for a neo-Na- zi affair. Should a black ca- tering company be forced to cater a Ku Klux Klan af- fair? Should the NA ACP be forced to open its mem- bership to racist skinheads and neo-Nazis? Should the Congressional Black Cau- cus be forced to open its membership to white mem- bers of Congress? If you're a liberty-minded Ameri- can, your answers should be no. Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. Continued from page 4 NORMS not work in the 1970s, but they will be even more harmful in the 21st cen- tury. What is different to- day from 50 years ago is globalization, with jobs, businesses, and invest- ment capital flow to plac- es in the world where af- ter tax returns are high- est. If we raise the income tax rate to above 50 per- cent, businesses and in- vestment capital will flee to lower tax jurisdictions. Ask nations like France or Greece or Venezuela what happened to their econo- mies when they devised new wealth tax systems to "soak the rich." Or look at the massive losses of people and in- come from high income tax states like New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Illinois, and even California. These states are bleeding wealth as residents relocate to low tax haven states like Ten- nessee, Arizona, Florida, Texas, and Utah. Does Senator Sanders really want to make us look like Connecticut, where local- ities are banning home- owners from posting "for sale" signs because the mad rush to leave is crush- ing real estate values? An even worse idea is higher estate and wealth taxes. This has never worked. The United States has an estate tax of rough- ly 40 percent to extract money from the Bill Gates, Warren Buffets, and Tom Bradys of the country. However, it generates on- ly about 1 percent of fed- eral tax receipts and many studies find that the dead- weight loss to the econo- my far exceeds the value of the tax collected. Even communist and socialist countries like Russia and Sweden have given up and repealed their estate taxes because they were harm- ing their economies so no- ticeably. What do they know that Senator Sanders does not? Soak the rich tax policy is not an economic growth or jobs strategy. It is an economic envy platform that was abandoned in the 1970s because this tale of high taxes on the rich and an expanded welfare state only drove down every- one in the country. Only a very poor student of his- tory, and there are far too many of them in Washing- ton and in academia, would want to reprise that model which drove the American economy to its knees. Stephen Moore is the Distinguished Visiting Fel- low for Project for Econom- ic Growth at The Heritage Foundation. Continued from page 4 RICH Down on the Farm by Hans Schmitz, Purdue Extension Katiedid Versus by Katiedid Langrock Exploring local census and county data Hiding the tree swing The National Agriculture Statis- tics Service releases a book each year highlighting state and county level agriculture data, and the results new- ly published for last year are rather surprising. For one, 2017 was a census year for agriculture, and the results from that cen- sus dominate the data for 2017 and 2018. Additional- ly, one particular anomaly seems to dominate local pride in da- ta for 2018. State-wide, Indiana is highly com- petitive with other states around the nation. Indiana was 2nd in egg pro- duction in 2018 and the amount of live chickens on hand as of December 2018. We were third in spearmint, to- mato, and cantaloupe production, and fourth in soybeans, peppermint, pump- kin, and turkey production. Rounding out the top five, we were fifth in corn, watermelon, and hog production. Of importance but not recorded in this publication is ducks. Indiana wins duck production in the nation. The rankings each year give coun- ties sources of pride on which to hang their metaphorical hats. If we look strictly at yields in 2018, Gibson and Posey Counties both made the top ten in alfalfa yields, with Gibson 5th and Posey 10th. Posey also made 8th place in other hay yield, in a category interestingly topped by Marion County. From a crop perspective, we produce a lot of corn, soy- bean, and wheat, but other counties tend to win produc- tion records. For corn, Gibson Coun- ty ranks, 13th in the state, with Posey at 25th, and Pike an interesting non- report. Wherein a county does not have enough individual reporters of a single crop, that county is lumped into an "other counties" column. This fact is important both now and later, as Pike is also a non-reporter for soy- bean. Gibson County ranks 20th in soybean production, with Posey at 30th. Now, wheat is very interesting. In 2017, the year of the census, Posey dominates acreage and production, with 20,500 acres producing 1.45 mil- lion bushels of wheat. Gibson comes in second at 18,400 acres and near- ly 1.3 million bushels. Allen County came in third, with Pike falling into the non-report category. In 2018, Gibson gets the number 1 designation, with 18,700 acres and 1.2 million bushels produced. Allen moves up to number 2, with Knox County grabbing number 3 at 13,300 acres and 695,000 bushels. Posey County moves to a non-report in 2018, which helps increase the "Other Counties" total year after year by dou- ble the acres and 2.5 million bushels of production. Posey County skews the other counties significantly, while Pike County shows up in individual county numbers at 47th, with 1,500 acres and 85,600 bushels produced. In an interesting side note, the sta- tistics book that is disseminated state- wide contains a bit of a 4-H photo con- test for youth to enter to have their photographs highlighting the divi- sion between sections of the publica- tion. Congratulations to Hannah Lang of Posey County for inclusion of her picture of a rather happy pig. The An- nual Statistical Bulletin complete with this picture can be accessed at https:// www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_ State/Indiana/Publications/Annual_ Statistical_Bulletin/1819/19index. For Chrismukkah this year, I bought my kids a giant tree swing. This has been an effort three years in the mak- ing. The kids have always wanted a tree swing (heck, I've always wanted a tree swing), but we are blessed with magically tall and an- cient trees on our property — which means the lowest branches loom high above our house. Buying a tree swing is easy; getting it set up has proved to be nearly impossible. Plenty of people have come by the house to see whether they could hang the swing for us, and plenty have turned down the paying gig. This year, I found a professional competitive tree climber to take on the task. And I could not be more thrilled with the results. Seeing as this gift took a miracle, I want to wait until Dec. 25 — Christmas morning and the third morning of Ha- nukkah — to give the gift. The plan is set. A scavenger hunt, beginning with a letter left under the Christmas tree, will lead them out to the swing. It will be festive! It will be magical! It will be memorable! If it can be kept a secret until then. The tree where the swing is sits right out front, alongside our driveway and next to where the cars are parked. It's visible from the front door and nu- merous windows in the house. How on earth can we keep the kids from see- ing? I reached out to my high school group of friends. They all have chil- dren around the same age. Any sug- gestions? One friend recommended I put wrapping paper over the windows to look like decora- tions. I tried it. It looked per- fect from inside, but from out- side, it looked as if the home had been boarded up. As if drug deals were most defi- nitely going on inside. As if we had Santa gagged and hog- tied in the basement. I probably would have let it stand, but the darkness was getting to the kids, and they tore down the paper. Luckily, they didn't look out the window. They were too distracted by the glee of ruining my dual-purpose decor. Seeing as the room looking out at the tree is not often played in, we de- cided to pretend the room is being renovated to keep the kids away. This seemed to work fine for hiding the gi- ant tree swing when the kids were in the house, but I didn't think it would work if they went outdoors. Because of the cold weather, they haven't wanted to play in the yard. However, just walking to and from the car and driving up and down the drive- way would bring their own risks. One friend suggested we blindfold the kids but offered no story we could tell the kids as to why. Also, isn't the best part of being blindfolded figuring out how to see in spite of the obstacle? Another friend suggested we just stick big brown paper bags over the kids' heads as we walk them to the car and strap them into their car seats. Hey, kid, Mommy has gone insane and wants you to wear this bag over your head daily. That's cool, right? My friend made sure to add that I should cut holes in the bags so the kids could breathe, which made me realize that her mental image of what this would look like was very different from my mental image, with the big open area having never restricted ox- ygen. If child protective services were considering coming to visit our board- ed-up home, I'm pretty sure the brown paper bags over my children's heads (with holes cut in!) would seal the deal. Another friend suggested blinders and candy — specifically, candy that is really hard to open, such as Laffy Taf- fy, with which the wrapper inevitably gets stuck onto the candy itself and an inexcusable amount of time has to be spent separating plastic from the plas- tic-looking confection. Perhaps this sweet distraction could work, but when I asked her where one buys blinders, all she could say was, "Horse stables? " So far, I'm boarding up my home and my car and loading my kids up with sugar while sticking blindfolds over their eyes, equine blinders on their faces and huge paper bags over their heads. All to preserve the magic of the holidays. All this magic is exhausting. The 25th could not come soon enough. Like Katiedid Langrock on Facebook, at http://www.facebook.com/katiedid- humor.