The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1244007
The Press-Dispatch Opinion Wednesday, May 6, 2020 B- 9 Court Report TRAFFIC AND MISDEMEANOR Pike County Circuit Court April M. Benningfield charged with domestic bat- tery by bodily waste. Kyle A. Sherwood charged with operating a vehicle with an ACE of .15 or more. CIVIL Pike County Circuit Court Breanna N. Bullington sues Dakota S. Bullington for dissolution of marriage. Camie Gilley sues Shawn Gilley for dissolution of marriage. Jennifer Hopf sues Josh- ua V. Hopf for dissolution of marriage. INFRACTIONS Pike County Circuit Court Kevin J. Lucas charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. James G. Corolis charged with improper passing. have the opportunity to "reset" our relationship with one another, while strengthening the Church. Think about it! Continued from page 8 WHAT IF? but like everybody else, we have to keep occupied. Once a day I try going to town, to have a change of scenery and run some errands. I do some yard work and walk around my premises to get my mus- cles toned up. Yes, I try to read a lot. And during these times, I try to communicate with my Creator to express so much gratitude, to tell many things and to hum- bly ask for many favors. Such activities do provide a lot of comfort for me. I'm sure it is true for all. • • • One of my friends who did a lot of travel shared with me something he learned. Apparently new announcements have been issued by airline pilots that goes like this: "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. We are about to take off to our destination. We will be fly- ing at 35 thousand feet. There appears to be good weather with no turbulence expected. The current tem- perature is 70 degrees and we anticipate no delays for this flight. Sit back, relax and enjoy the trip. I am cur- rently working from home and I can assure you my wifi works well and my lap- top has just been upgraded. So good luck." Have a great week, ev- eryone. Continued from page 8 Continued from page 8 GRANDKIDS LESSONS nore the importance of the crisis and instead scape- goat and play the blame game. We can talk not of an America in crisis but of the virus's effects on particular groups. We can decide that to hold China responsible for lying about the virus is mean, racist and, at best, xenophobic. In other words, Hanson says, "The choice is ours whether America awakens as a roaring giant or a cry- ing baby." My prediction is that Americans, left to their own tendencies, will roar together as giants and will ignore the political and media crybabies. Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. Continued from page 8 AMERICAN 22 % say it is for women. Let's pray that COV- ID-19 will bring forth a new respect for love and marriage in America, and produce new waves of chil- dren. 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." tions, some processing plants are ex- pected to make changes to their prod- uct. Therefore, for example, it might be difficult to find boneless chicken breasts at the grocery store, whereas chicken drumsticks will be available. If processing plants start to open back up, then these selection and price issues will be reduced. If they don't open up, and more processing facili- ties are closed, then the problem could get worse. This is a fluid situation that war- rants close attention. Consumers can also help mitigate any problems by not hoarding meat and looking to different sources of protein beyond beef, pork, and poultry. Q: Why are farmers euthanizing animals if there are concerns with the supply of meat? A: As with the dairy farmers who dumped their milk, livestock and poul- try farmers are faced with the prob- lem of not having a destination for their animals. Due to space limitations and costs, they can't keep them. That has led to very unfortunate problems re- quiring animals to be euthanized. Q: Why don't processing plants simply hire new employees to re- place those who are sick? A: The employees are not easily re- placed because there is a level of spe- cialized knowledge required. Q: What should be done to ad- dress the closing of meat-process- ing plants? A: The following are just a few rec- ommendations. The top priority needs to be creating a work environment that is safe for em- ployees. Unlike most other employees on the food front lines, workers at pro- cessing facilities work very closely to- gether, making it difficult to address the coronavirus problem. The employees can be spread fur- ther apart, but that would reduce the meat supply due to lower processing speeds, although that may need to be part of any solution. When distributing personal protec- tive equipment and making testing available, the federal government and states need to work together and pri- oritize workers at these plants. The meat-processing companies should be doing what they can as well to secure personal protective equip- ment and testing. They also need to adapt and make changes to protect their workers, in- cluding being in compliance with the new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration regarding workplace safety at processing facilities. At the same time, there's a need for liability protections for companies that do take appropriate steps to pro- tect workers. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that expresses the administration's con- cern about the current situation and is designed to keep processing plants open. The Department of Labor also is- sued a statement regarding its en- forcement policy that appears to mini- mize liability if proper actions are tak- en. Ideally, Congress would pass legis- lation to provide the necessary liability protection. All of that said, the food supply chain, from farmers to grocery stores, is remarkably resilient and innovative. While there's a current challenge fac- ing the meat industry, there's little reason to think the food supply chain won't again rise up to find solutions. Soon enough, this specific challenge will be solved, just like the coronavirus that has caused this pandemic. Daren Bakst is a Senior Research Fel- low in Agricultural Policy. He studies and writes about agricultural and en- vironmental policy and property rights, among other issues. Continued from page 8 MEAT SUPPLY Katiedid vs... by Katiedid Langrock Zoom attire High property taxes continue Letter to the Editor To the Editor: A follow-up on fuel usage for the Emergency Medical Services' Dodge Ram seems to be in order since 12 mpg only tells part of the story. The fuel us- age report from public files lists the following: Jan. 2, 2019 – $ 35.12, three days later – $ 34.04, five days later – $ 33.67, one day later – $15.19, five days later – $ 38.98, two days later – $ 36.78, three days later – $ 32.57, four days lat- er – $ 30.38, four days later – $ 36.60, three days later – $28.59, five days lat- er – $ 39.56. You get the picture! A correction is also in order. Public records list purchase price of the EMS transportation vehicle as $ 32,853, not the $ 35,000 budgeted. Let's look at why government is so bloated and costly. We'll start with one simple operation, trash collec- tion. By all counts, trash collection in- volves at the very least 28 in-county persons. To make it worse, there are unnumbered persons involved in ac- counting and record keeping in state offices somewhere. And surprise, ID- NR is involved in this. There are, by my count, 20 receiving some county compensation for their involvement. The commissioners' assistant, who receives a full-time salary, gets paid extra for counting and distributing trash stickers. This does not include persons owning property where the dumpsters are located. County records indicate that another new vehicle was purchased for the trash operation and the one it replaced is still being used by the county highway garage. Every vehicle you see used by the county has to have insurance, maintenance, fuel, taxes, etc., which leads to more taxes. To my knowledge, we sell no recycla- bles. I'm sure we pay to haul some to the dump and give some away. When I visited Gibson County, I was waiting in the office and was shown a $ 3,000 check for material just picked up for re- cycling at their office area. If you choose to do a little investi- gating, you will find tens of thousands of acres not being taxed at all and tens of thousands of acres being taxed very little. One area is listed as charitable and contains over 329 tax-free acres. The irony of this situation is this, the IDNR and appointed, not elected per- sons, are involved in the assessment of these properties. If you choose to ask your elected state senator and repre- sentative about this, they will tell you IDNR is too big to control by our elect- ed officials. Call your governor, I did. Don't ex- pect an answer. Jim Johns Why is dressing for online meetings so much more difficult than dressing for normal life? I know how to dress for work. I know how to dress for home. I do not know how to dress for both at the same time. If the meetings were audio on- ly, I'd be in pajamas all day. But the meetings are always with video, and I go through about 30 outfit changes be- fore I settle on something I hate but have to accept be- cause the meeting began three min- utes ago. As if I needed something else to feel anxious about. On a Zoom call last week, I realized 10 minutes in that I wasn't wearing a bra. I became completely distracted by this fashion faux pas. I tilted the camera up so it showed only my face, yet I was still paranoid about the lack of bra. A fter 10 minutes of constant fretting and missing my name being called twice, I decided this was ridic- ulous. Why was I suffering? I fixed the problem by putting on the sweatshirt that hung over the back of my chair. Great. Except it was unseasonably hot outside, and I began sweating profuse- ly. My face was only about a foot from the screen as sweat dripped off the tip of my nose. So professional. Perhaps the problem is I'm called into meetings so infrequently that I haven't had enough experience to un- derstand protocol. I reached out to my friends who are high-powered execu- tives and show their faces on video con- ference calls multiple times a day. "What are you wearing for online calls? " My one friend sent me a selfie of her in a Skyline Chili T-shirt that says, "I love a good three-way." Though I do love a good three-way (from Skyline Chili!), the shirt seems in- appropriate to me — even for this weird paradox of home/work attire. To be fair, I'm not confident I'm right about this. My friend has been an executive at her company for a de- cade and is highly respected and re- garded. But on the other hand, she re- cently told me that after a VP asked for updates on how employees were stay- ing fit during the quarantine, someone sent a pole-dancing video to the entire company. And no, the company doesn't sell poles. A few minutes later, another friend sent me a selfie of her in a very sleek lavender blouse, a sharp black blazer and pink granny panties. "They can only see you from the waist up! " she wrote, along with ma- ny giggling emojis. Why do people keep saying this? This is not true. During my Zoom call this week, my nearly naked daughter ran into my office and danced into view of the screen. I quickly jumped up to escort her out of the room. However, if I'd opted to go pantsless, my co-work- ers would have seen I was just as un- clothed as my child. My friend retort- ed that she does not have a kid to cause such gravity-defying reflexes. Which is true. But she does live in a state with spiders. What if there were suddenly a spider crawling on her chair? Is she really trying to convince me she would stay perfectly still and calm as a spider made its way toward her rump? What if a wasp got in and the little stinger buzzed around her head? No sudden movements would cause meeting participants to get a peek at her underwear? No, I thought after my friends' texts, I need to be fully dressed. But I remained perplexed. When I lived in L A, I was similarly stumped by the casual-chic attire that reigned. Well, which one is it? Am I supposed to look casual or chic? The trick seemed to be that one should work hard to look casual. So with the online meetings these days, are people supposed to work hard to look lazy, or are they simply supposed to be too la- zy to pick out a work outfit? Is the out- come the same either way? For my next meeting, I went with a sophisticated yellow blouse and shab- by yellow corduroys. My husband in- formed me I looked like a giant bottle of mustard. Which was true, but I fig- ured that no one else would think that unless they saw my pants. And no one is supposed to see your pants, right? Like Katiedid Langrock on Facebook, at www.facebook.com/katiedidhumor.