The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1232982
The Press-Dispatch Opinion Wednesday, April 8, 2020 B- 9 From a father's heart Letter to the Editor Court Report FELONY Pike County Circuit Court Sarah J. Hammock charged with two counts of institutional criminal mis- chief, a level 6 felony, and count III criminal mischief. CIVIL Pike County Circuit Court Midland Credit Manage- ment, Inc. sues Albert Had- dad on complaint. Baptist Health Medical Group, Inc. sues Natasha Brown on complaint. been placed before those people who feared God and came to worship. Jesus had a remedy. Often overlooked dur- ing Palm Sunday celebra- tions is why Jesus purged the Temple. The Gospel of Matthew records the event and gives the explanation; "…It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves." Little has changed in the centuries since Palm Sun- day. My question is how do you visualize the Passion of Jesus as he rode into Jeru- salem. It still matters. Think about it! Continued from page 8 SUNDAY Our faith life has been greatly affected. For the past years, I began to wor- ry about our holy days be- ing overtaken by worldly activities- like sports which I have always appreciated but they have displaced our schedules for church and spiritual functions. Financial pursuits have become more prioritized to a point they have become an obsession. Politics has become meaner and un- kind. The world of electronic media displaced personal contacts to a point it seems like looking at each other, hearing each other, listen- ing to one another have been lost. Now don't get me wrong, we also have gotten much good out of these technol- ogy especially these days, it has been a lifesaver. We need to address the not so good things that have come out of them as well. • • • Wisdom of the week: Out of what seems to be tragic events, good things can also come out of them. We just have to be aware of them and be able to be part of the solutions to the chal- lenges that face us. Have a blessed week. Continued from page 8 ISOLATION the pretense that a disaster does not exist. Some people might re- luctantly agree that allow- ing prices to rise during a disaster helps allocate re- sources. But they'll com- plain that's not the inten- tion of greedy sellers who are out to profit. I say, so what? It's not sellers' inten- tions that count but what their actions accomplish that's important — name- ly, getting people to con- serve more and suppliers to produce more. Many of the problems associated with a disaster would be eliminated if peo- ple's buying behavior were the same as it was before the disaster. To get people to behave nicely and con- sider their neighbors is the ultimate challenge. I think rising prices are the best and most dependable way to get people to be consid- erate of their fellow man. Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. Continued from page 8 DISASTER tutional lines between the federal government and the states, resulting in massive growth of the welfare state. But while Democratic governors and mayors and Speaker Pelosi use valu- able time looking for who to blame, America's private business is already churn- ing to develop better and faster testing procedures, and soon we'll see a drug to eradicate COVID-19. Small and large busi- nesses are deploying re- sources in new and creative ways that will pay great div- idends when we emerge from this crisis. Challenges are met by free, responsible people stepping into the void: ex- actly what Viktor Frankl was talking about. Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renew- al and Education and au- thor of the new book "Nec- essary Noise: How Donald Trump Inflames the Culture War and Why This is Good News for America," avail- able now on Amazon.com. Continued from page 8 SOLVE Gen. Hossein Salami, commander of the Revolutionary Guard, warned that the virus "may be the product of the American biological invasion, which it first spread to China and then to Iran and the rest of the world." The Revolutionary Guard's cyber division has posted an online video of Khamenei's speech blaming America for the coronavirus outbreak, along with two videos of "experts" asserting that American and Israeli spies have used "demons" in their intelligence op- erations against Iran. News outlets linked to the Revolu- tionary Guard and pro-regime "ex- perts" have pointed fingers at the Unit- ed States and other enemies such as Israel since the beginning of March, when COVID-19 cases began to surge because the regime failed to enact ef- fective containment measures. Dr. Ali Karami, a lecturer of med- icine at a Revolutionary Guard-affili- ated university, claimed that America had engineered a virus to develop "eth- nic weapons" that specifically target- ed Iranians. Karami claimed without evidence that America did this by using DNA data gathered through the Iranian Genome Project at Stanford Univer - sity, which he asserted was financed by Baha'is, a religious minority perse- cuted in Iran. This nonsensical explanation fails to account for the high rate of con- firmed COVID-19 cases worldwide, but is a useful tactic to shift the focus away from the Iranian regime's mis- handling of the outbreak. These false accusations come after days of Chinese disinformation cam- paigns that have tried to rewrite the narrative on the coronavirus. China's Foreign Ministry spokes- man, Lijian Zhao, suggested that the U.S. military had brought the corona- virus to Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province. Zhao charged that the out- break in Wuhan followed the visit of 300 athletes from the U.S. Army and called for the United States to reveal the identity of patient zero. This is something that even the Chi- nese ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, called "absolutely crazy" in an interview with CBS News' "Face the Nation." Like Iran, China has been effective in controlling information provided by domestic media while projecting "smart power" externally in the infor- mation space. International news re- porting is heavily censored, and jour- nalists are monitored and restricted in their movement and speech by the Chi- nese communist regime. Back in February, China expelled three journalists working for The Wall Street Journal because of a criti- cal piece on China's mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak, a punitive action that the regime had not taken against foreign reporters since 1998. Beijing later doubled down and expelled re- porters representing two other U.S. newspapers. The Chinese government's tight control over the flow of information suggests that the free flow of anti- American conspiracy theories on Chi- nese social media is at least tolerated, if not encouraged, by the regime to ad- vance its own interests. Both Iran and China seem to have adopted the Soviet-style propaganda tactics that Vladimir Putin's Russia continues to exploit for the COVID-19 pandemic. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo forcefully rejected Chinese and Ira- nian conspiracy theories in a press statement Monday, saying that "fabri- cations that the U.S. is responsible for the Wuhan Virus put Iranians, Ameri- cans, and the rest of the world at risk." Even so, tensions will remain as Chi- na attempts to retake control of the narrative on the crisis and both Bei- jing and Tehran seek a scapegoat for their own coronavirus outbreaks. Iran's government has warned of a second wave of infections after Ira- nians continued to travel during the Iranian New Year holiday last Fri- day. While the regime looks at impos- ing new travel restrictions to curb the outbreak, former health ministers are urging the government to limit inter- city travel and close nonessential busi- nesses. Iran's dictatorship has refused for- eign aid offered by the United States, the World Health Organization, and other international health groups on grounds that foreign humanitarian aid workers could be "spies." The Iranian regime apparently will do anything it can to maintain its grip on power, even if it means needlessly sacrificing Iranian lives. James Phillips is a senior research fel- low for Middle Eastern affairs at The Heritage Foundation. Continued from page 8 PROPAGANDA To the Editor: This year the Sabbaths of Passover fall on the exact days of the week as when Jesus was crucified, buried and RESURRECTED! Praise Jesus! Some- thing GOOD is about to happen! Deliv- erance from evil, restoration of health, families and finances. A wave of Awak- ening and Revival. Pharaoh told Moses, "I don't know your God. " A fter Passover, when the covenant people of God came out of Egypt the whole world knew about the One True God of Israel. Although it's a troubled time we are in, it is also an exciting time. We are a generation of people who will see with our own eyes and experience in our own lives the mighty Goodness and Lovingkindness of our God in a more powerful way than ever before. Keep the faith my beloved family. God is faithful. Keep His Word in your heart. Choose to believe what He says above the evil reports we hear everyday. Our Father has a good end planned for us, not just in Heaven, but here on Earth right now, so that the whole world will know about our God. God is Love and Love never fails, trust in Love and Love will direct your path, through the valley of the shadow of death and Love has prepared us a ta- ble in the presence of our enemy. This table is the communion table, the cel- ebration of Passover. This is the victo- ry that overcomes the world - our faith. I John 5:4 So celebrate and praise Jesus, the manifested Love of God, on this Palm Sunday knowing that He is Lord! Keith Thomas Katiedid vs... by Katiedid Langrock Another confessions from the bathroom Confession No. 2,011 Topic: coronavirus I tried to eat the children. It was a mistake. They were tough and rub- bery, probably from all of the jumping on the trampoline they've been doing for the past two weeks. I couldn't even sink my teeth in. I know it's only been 55 minutes since my most recent con- fession, but you see, they were play- ing a game of "not it" followed imme- diately by "I'm not touching you" — a game comically misnamed, given the onslaught of slapping that ensues. Clearly, the attempt to eat them was out of my control. Perhaps I could try to fatten them up first like the witch in "Hansel and Gretel." But that would require letting them back inside the house. That would not do. Sanity for- bids it. But worry not; they are safely tramping around the yard, looking for the yellow-spotted fuzzy lizard that I swear I saw (and just made up), and I'm sucking on Breath Savers I found in the pocket of the old pajamas that I've been wearing for three days straight and that are most definitely over a de- cade old. We are fine. I'm glad I get these bathroom breaks. It's the only door in the house that locks and actually makes the game "I'm not touching you" true to its name. But as I sit here in my soli- tude on the toilet, I can't help but think about all the people who are not fine — even less fine than the woman writ- ing down notes as she reads stories of gingerbread hous- es owned by witches to her kids at night. It's hard not to think about all the peo- ple less fortunate than we are, the folks who have lost their jobs and the small- business owners who have lost their businesses. Some of these folks aren't even getting the media attention they deserve. Take the poor local neighborhood burglar. You know the guy (or gal). A stolen television here. A nice neck- lace from Betsy down the street there. The cash from under Carl's mattress gone. (Then again, does anyone real- ly trust Crazy Carl?) But now that ev- eryone is home all the time, what's the friendly neighborhood burglar to do? He comes into your home when you are not there. That's how the business model works. Did the government con- sider funds for the small-business bur- glars in its bailout? Sure, you think, the burglar can just burgle cars in the meantime; no one is in cars anymore. True, but this also means no one is in a car to leave a wallet in it by accident anymore. C'mon, people! We really need to think this through! If the burglars fall, what are we good law-abiding citizens going to do when the coronavirus leaves us in a lurch? In any book I've read or movie I've watched, the protagonist (psst, that's you), when faced with losing everything, does a bit of bur- gling to get by. That's our fu- ture. I guess a burglar in a bind could always expand to robbing liquor stores, but you know those places are far too packed to perform an ade- quate stickup at a federally mandated six-to-10 -foot distance between people. The children have decided that the antique couch from my grandmother is more fun to jump on than the tram- poline and that the flat-screen T V is more fun to hit balls against than the pingpong table. There will be nothing left in one piece for the burglar to steal once his business is back up. I guess that means our time together has end- ed. Until my next confession. Katiedid Langrock is author of the book "Stop Farting in the Pyramids," available at http://www.creators.com/ books/stop-farting-in-the-pyramids. Like Katiedid Langrock on Facebook, at http://www.facebook.com/katiedid- humor.