The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1244007
B-8 Wednesday, May 6, 2020 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 This past week has been great, because practically every day Rose and I had a chance to Facetime our grandkids, and two of them paid a visit the other day. They kept their distance from us by talking through a glass door. Their mom had to explain why it had to be do- ne that way and they understood. But they will remember these weird ways of visiting when they grow up. It's something they will talk about someday. Way back before these social distancing took place, they all would drop by for visits and run to us to be hugged and kissed. What a different world we live in now. We do know human touch is so uplift- ing and so comforting, but for now, all we can do are gestures of pre- tend hugs and kisses. How I miss those days when during visits they would all grab a toy or a bicycle or a scooter and they would ride them on our drive- way like little race car drivers. We would constantly remind them to be careful, but they did not seem to care. I miss their brief screaming and then crying moments when they get hurt, but ice packs and band aids would quickly heal them. Televisits via elec- tronic devices are nice, but there's a big difference when you can be tru- ly near and present to interact and talk in person. Our youngest grandchild is now 8 months and we haven't held her for the past three months. Fortunately when we talk to her via Facetime, she would rec- ognize us and laugh as she hears and sees us. We also noticed she now sits and crawls and makes some effort to talk or mutter some words, like 'mama' or something like that. Our grandkids are fortunate be- cause they live in areas where they can run on wide open spaces, and fish on ponds, and play with chicks and duck- lings they are rais- ing. They get to enjoy fresh air since their nearest neighbors are quite far from where they live. I'm sure it's safe. Trust me. • • • I've discovered a few things to keep some sense of normalcy. I've kept the radio on almost all day on a low volume mode just to break the annoying silence in my home. In between, I'd switch to watch- ing T V, avoiding as much as pos- sible, inhaling negative news. I am guilty of being on my I phone and iPad and PCs more than I should, My Point of View By Dr. H. K. Fenol, Jr., M.D. Seeing our grandkids Minority View By Walter E. Williams Today's Americans, yesteryear's Americans Continued on page 9 Continued on page 9 Continued on page 9 Dr. Victor Davis Hanson is a se- nior fellow at the Hoover Institu- tion at Stanford University, a mil- itary historian and a professor emeritus of classics at California State University, Fresno. He has written two articles relevant to to- day's society. Last October he pub- lished, "Members of Previous Gen- erations Now Seem Like Giants," and he recently wrote, "Is America a Roaring Giant or Crying Baby? " In the first article, Hanson starts with some observations and ques- tions regarding the greatness of previous generations compared with today's Americans. He asks: "Does anyone believe that contem- porary Americans could build an- other transcontinental railroad in six years? ... America went to the moon in 1969 with supposed- ly primitive computers and back- ward engineering. Does anyone believe we could launch a simi- lar moonshot today? " Hanson ob- serves: "We have been fighting in A fghanistan without result for 18 years. Our forefathers helped to win World War II and defeat the A xis Powers in four years." Keep in mind that the A xis pow- ers (Germany, Japan and Italy) had far greater firepower than the A fghan rebels that we've fought. Hanson also could have asked whether today's Americans could build a 1,700 -mile road such as the ALCAN Highway, connecting the lower 48 states to Alaska, whose con- struction started in March 1942 and was completed in October that year. In terms of learn- ing, Hanson asks whether anyone be- lieves that a 2020 college gradu- ate knows half of what a 1950 grad- uate knew. In the 1940s, he says, young people read the works of William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzger- ald, Pearl Buck and John Stein- beck. He doubts that today's high school graduates could even fin- ish "The Good Earth" or "The Grapes of Wrath." I attended Ben- jamin Franklin High School from 1950 to 1954, and our senior Eng- lish class required reading includ- ed Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Can- terbury Tales" and William Shake- speare's "Macbeth" and "Julius Caesar." By the way, when I attend- ed Benjamin Franklin High, it was ranked the lowest among Philadel- phia's high schools. Hanson's second article asks whether our response to the CO- VID-19 epidemic will be that of a "roaring giant" or "crying baby." We can awaken, just as we did on Dec. 8, 1941, with massive amounts of fight, ready to get on a war footing. For those who were not around then or do not know our history, in 1941 our nation had seven fleet aircraft carriers and one es- cort carrier. By 1945, it was deploy- ing 27 fleet and 72 escort carriers. In December 1941, we had 2.2 mil- lion service members in the U.S. military. By the war's end, there were more than 12 million Ameri- cans in the armed services. That's an astonishing mobilization con- sidering our population was a lit- tle over 132 million. What's even more amazing is that our gross do- mestic product for 1944 exceeded the combined economic output of the Soviet Union, the United King- dom, Japan, Italy and Germany. Hanson says that our other choice regarding the epidemic is whether to continue the partisan bickering and blaming. We can ig- Race for the Cure By Star Parker Points to Ponder by Rev. Ford Bond What if? Christians now know what life without church "feels like." There was no persecution or demands from government to stop worship- ping God, and burn incense to Cae- sar. The church was asked to refrain from gathering while the govern- ment figured out what to do to con- tain the Covid-19 virus. Never in the history of Western Civilization has anything like this occurred. Churches became in- novative to keep the faithful con- nected, and most realized that "Church" was not the building, but fellowshipping and connecting to one another through Christ. We should take pause and con- sider what life without Christian- ity, the Church, and Christ would mean. Christians, as mentioned, had a small taste of what life with- out fellowshipping with one anoth- er feels like-and it is not pretty. I suspect many should now un- derstand the life of the persecuted Christian who must live in secre- cy, and where martyrdom is a pos- sibility. Sheltering-at-home is not persecution, but it gave us a taste of being alone with Christ, and un- able to share with others. Chris- tians in America were asked to re- frain from meeting for the good of the nation for a health emergen- cy-that should give us reason to consider, "What if I could not wor- ship openly; what would I do; how would I respond? " I suggest that the Church as a whole in America should reap- praise what it means to "Be the Church! " Is the Church a social and philanthropic organism that collaborates with the State, or does it represent the "breath of God? " In addition, what should the thrust of the mission of the Church be? Is the Church a progressive so- cial change agent or are we focused upon making disciples for Jesus Christ? The Church can change the world-and it did through the Name and power of Jesus Christ, but in the last 200 years, it has ne- glected its mission to transform lives [make disciples] and focused upon social change through the co- ercive power of government. Due to a variety of reasons, seg- ments of Christians feel they have no need of the Church-"I can wor- ship God at home." Paul dealt with this very topic in his letter to the Church at Corinth, "Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually." The apostles taught the bless- ings of God and the working of the Holy Spirit originated and worked through the Church. Therefore, one would be hard pressed to find passages of scriptures with an em- phasis upon the solitary Christian as "the Church." A Christless world is unfathom- able. Western Civilization's ethics, morality, and the worth of the in- dividual stems from the centuries of Christian influence upon the not only the masses, but also the pow- erful. Tomas Holland in a recent post answered the assertion that time can produce change that can re- sult in a population moving toward an ethical understanding of the in- dividual. He replied, "If you want a sense of what the world might have looked like without Christi- anity you can look at India, where you have very rich philosophical tradition, a very rich tradition of worshipping gods, you don't have something that emerges and wipes that out." India is an impoverished nation that remains locked in a hierarchy of castes that dictates how people interact. Modern secular democ- racy has not even made a dent in the social structure that supports religious inequality. Western Civilization embraces the rule of law and the worth of the individual, which is a result of Christianity across the centuries. Gone is the "Divine Right" of kings to rule as a despot, and the citizen- ry as subjects to be used, manipu- lated, and discarded [as a group]. The power of Christianity first resides in the workings of the Ho- ly Spirit through its members, and just as important the collec- tive consciousness and actions of the Church as a whole. For close to eight weeks the Churches in America have been empty and muted. God will use this event to good and each of us Many Americans are rightfully concerned about the status of the country's meat supply during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, there are no sim- ple answers to help address those concerns, and the situation is con- stantly changing. The following is a Q&A regard- ing the current status of the meat (including poultry) supply and provides a few recommendations that could help address any supply problems going forward. Even though Americans might be seeing empty grocery shelves, that is generally a logistics and in- ventory problem, not a reflection of food shortages. The coronavirus has drastically disrupted the food supply chain. In fact, rapid changes to the demand for certain foods resulted in sur- pluses, rather than shortages. Major customers for food, such as restaurants, hotels, and schools, all of a sudden were no longer food customers (or their demand was significantly reduced). Prior to the coronavirus, 54 cents out of every $1 spent on food was spent away from home. Those surplus- es are why farm- ers have reportedly been dumping com- modities such as milk and produce. Commodities that were supposed to go to those custom- ers no longer had a destination. As for the current concerns re- garding the meat supply, there is an additional—and more press- ing—problem due to disruptions in meat slaughtering and packing facilities. Q: Why are there concerns over the meat supply? A: Some meat-processing plants are closing or reducing their oper- ations due to coronavirus illness- es, affecting the beef, pork, and poultry industries. There has also been a reported 20 workers from meat-processing facilities who have died due to the coronavirus. Major companies such as Smith- field Foods and Ty- son Foods have been closing plants. Ty- son Foods published a widely reported ad- vertisement in several newspapers express- ing serious concern about the meat supply. One reported esti- mate asserts that pork slaughter capacity has been reduced by 25% and beef slaughter capacity by 10 % . Q: What does that mean for consumers? A: There appears to be signif- icant agreement among experts that there will be meat-supply dis- ruptions, but that doesn't mean meat won't be available. Within the next few weeks, it's likely that some meat availability, though, will be reduced and pric- es will increase. To simplify and expedite opera- Continued on page 9 Continued on page 9 We're seeing now what efforts against COVID-19 were sup- posed to produce: a flattening of the growth curve of new fatali- ties. The growth rate of fatalities is dropping. We entered the dark tunnel, and now we are on the way out. Rays of light are shining in. We will survive. But will we learn? It appears that the initial esti- mates of the scope of the threat were off by some orders of mag- nitude. But we started with zero knowledge. Mistakes are part of living. The problem is when we don't learn. The country already had huge, pressing problems before COV- ID-19. The experience with this crisis can and must provide invalu- able lessons for coming out a stron- ger and better nation. This experience should make it clear that politicians should not be micromanaging our lives. Can anyone be surprised that when the government dispenses a few trillion dollars in the course of a few weeks, targeting these funds efficiently — the aid being struc- tured properly and funds getting where they need to go — is impos- sible? Funds from the aid bills wind- ing up in the hands of big corpo- rations, professional sports teams and rich Ivy League universities while many small businesses that can't meet payroll are being shut out should come as no surprise. That's not to say we should not shine light where errors have been made, fix those errors and try to get the funds where they are most needed. But we must stay aware about the fact that government aid is by nature grossly inefficient and we shouldn't be doing it un- less there is absolutely no choice. The federal government budget going into this crisis was already approaching $5 trillion, 75% of which is transfer payments — that is, entitlements and social expen- ditures mostly dealing with wel- fare and poverty. So we routinely have annual so- cial spending on the order of what we're spending now to get through this crisis. Do you believe it is any more efficient? We've also seen in recent months a crisis in the governing structure of the nation. The founders designed and gave us a very good operating manual for how to run things. It's called the Constitution. We've witnessed chaos through this crisis between mayors, gover- nors and the federal government regarding who is responsible for doing what. This is the direct re- sult of court decisions over the course of many years obfuscating the clarity of the Constitution as originally drafted regarding the limited powers of the federal gov- ernment. The COVID-19 crisis has shined light on a crisis in American gov- ernment. We should fix it and ap- preciate the wisdom and efficien- cies of the Constitution as draft- ed and originally understood for defining and limiting power of the federal government. The crisis should also make us aware of the mistakes we have made in undermining traditional values, which has led to a collapse of the American family. We now see the vulnerability of our aged. The collapse of conjugal mar- riage and the dramatic drop in births means we are living in a na- tion growing old, with an increas- ing number of Americans who will grow old alone. It's not right. And it's certainly not healthy. In a recent Pew Research sur- vey, 45% said it "makes no differ- ence" that Americans now live in many different types of family ar- rangements. Fifty-seven percent say it is "essential" for men to have a career they enjoy, and 46 % say that is essential for women. But on- ly 16 % say being married is "essen- tial" for men, and 17% say it is for women. And only 16 % say having children is "essential" for men, and Heritage Viewpoint By Daren Bakst How COVID-19 is affecting meat supply Lessons to learn from COVID-19