The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1271843
"Ark Encounter," my hus- band read aloud as we passed by a sign on Interstate 75 for the creationist theme park in Wil- liamstown, Ky. "We sure have been getting a lot of flood ref- erences lately. Now it's getting biblical." The flood references have been coming pretty rapidly the past couple of weeks. Our dishwasher flooded our kitch- en and then subsequently our basement. Our new RV had a roof leak, which flooded down onto my husband's head when we first drove it off the lot. Our yard flooded in a storm right be- fore we left. And now, an interac- tive Bible-based attraction. To be fair, in the midst of a pandemic, it's hard not to think of even the most minor setbacks and irritations as biblical. A pim- ple equals boils. Murder hor- nets equal locusts. And Kanye West's running for president equals the end of days. Though our floods have been far from Old Testament-worthy, they have given us pause to consid- er, "Is this a sign? " For months, we have been planning an RV trip around the United States. My family was supposed to leave in early Ju- ly, but the dishwasher incident caused our departure date to be pushed back. Now we're finally on the road, but something un- comfortable lingers. I don't tend to be someone who believes in signs. I always look incredibly awkward when giving a peace sign. I unabash- edly ignore the red hand and walk anyway. And I just recent- ly learned what my Pisces sign represents. However, as a child of the '80s and '90s, I must have had Ace of Base seep in deep somewhere, because despite my not looking for signs and my not believing in them, I'm always looking to have some sign "open up my eyes." There- fore, I started noticing a nega- tive trend of events, and they all seemed to be flooding toward the same outcome of disrupt- ing, postponing or ending my trip. Also, nearly every friend I have was saying, "Maybe you shouldn't go. You seem to be getting a lot of signs that you shouldn't go." "Why shouldn't I go? " I asked my friend Poppy. "What do you think this is a sign of? " "I dunno, girl," she said, shaking her head. "But if you wind up dead, I'm gonna tell your grave, 'I told you so.'" I was thinking of that line the first night of our trip. We'd left late and miscalculated our distance. Hours from our re- served campsite, we spent the first night of our yearlong ad- venture in a Walmart parking lot. I have slept in many places in my life. I've slept on park benches and in empty train sta- tions. I've slept on strangers' couches and ferry docks. But sleeping in an RV in a Walmart park- ing lot was an entirely new ex- perience. Perhaps it was that the bustle of movement out- side did not die down. Perhaps it was simply that my racing mind did not die down. Perhaps it was Poppy's line about me dying. But come morning, the sun was shining. The kids were smiling, and I felt refreshed. A few hours later, as we were heading toward our first intend- ed stop — Batesville, Indiana — we passed by the Ark Encoun- ter. "We sure have been getting a lot of flood references late- ly," my husband said. I looked at the sign and thought, "Yes, we have. And now we are pass- ing the Ark Encounter. The floodwaters have gone. We are safe and moving forward to our destination." Perhaps, if those signs were signs, they worked. We missed what we were sup- posed to miss. We were postponed for the length of time we were supposed to be postponed. We slept in a Walmart parking lot because we were not meant to sleep in Indiana. Not that night. Not yet. And now the waters were dried up. We arrived safely at Indian Lakes RV Campground. My husband parked the RV and put out the sides. I hooked up the electricity and then the wa- ter. I set up the chairs and sat in the sunlight, marveling that we had done it. We actually have taken off on this adventure. What a marvel! Then, an expletive from the RV — followed by my husband screaming, "The water! The wa- ter! " I ran to turn off the water and then went into the RV. The fau- cet had been left open, and the drain had a stopper. Water from the bathroom sink was flood- ing down the hall, past our ti- ny kitchen, into the living area and under the couch. I looked at my husband, on hands and knees with a towel. "Lots of flood references." The Press-Dispatch Wednesday, July 22, 2020 B-11 emancipation Court Report FELONY Pike County Circuit Court Mark Jonathan Hand charged with count I posses- sion of methamphetamine, a level 5 felony, count II posses- sion of a destructive device, a level 5 felony, counts III and IV maintaining a common nui- sance - controlled substances, a level 6 felony, count V posses- sion of a controlled substance, a level 6 felony, count VI un- lawful possession of a firearm by a domestic batterer, count VII carrying a handgun with- out a license and count VIII possession of marijuana. Robert Wayne Gunn charged with count I operat- ing a vehicle with an ACE of .15 or more and count II oper- ating a vehicle while intoxicat- ed, prior, a level 6 felony. Johnny A. Willis charged with count I operating a ve- hicle while intoxicated and count II operating a vehicle while intoxicated, prior, a lev- el 6 felony. TRAFFIC AND MISDEMEANOR Pike County Circuit Court Mandi D. Jeffries charged with public intoxication. Crystal Ann Freeman charged with disorderly con- duct. CIVIL Pike County Circuit Court Portfolio Recovery Associ- ates, LLC sues Tammy Hud- son on complaint. LVNV Funding, LLC sues Billy Wenzel on complaint. LVNV Funding, LLC sues Lawrence Dent on complaint. Professional and Business Collections sues Terri Ficklin on complaint. Keith Allen Ashby sues Christina Jean Ashby for dis- solution of marriage. SMALL CLAIMS Pike County Circuit Court Trinity Ambulance Service sues Crossroads Behavioral Health, LLC on complaint. Trinity Ambulance Service sues Washington Nursing Center on complaint. INFRACTIONS Pike County Circuit Court Michaela J. Perry charged with operating a motor vehi- cle without financial respon- sibility. Katelyn F. Froeschke charged with seatbelt viola- tion. Thomas F. Froeschke charged with seatbelt viola- tion. Alexa M. Schooler charged with seatbelt violation. Justin M. Birk charged with speeding. Miranda K. Farley charged with seatbelt violation. John D. McCarthy IV charged with seatbelt viola- tion. Hunter L. Willis charged with seatbelt violation. Jakob M. Cibak charged with seatbelt violation. Logan R. Montgomery charged with seatbelt viola- tion. Gerardo E. Serrano charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Austin C. Chastain charged with seatbelt violation. Jacob J. Lane charged with no valid driver's license. Levi Beck charged with speeding, exceeding 30 mph. down private sector jobs in fa- vor of more lucrative govern- ment contracts. Only 4 per- cent of workers at subsidized firms had been rehired from the ranks of the previously un- employed. Most jobs, especially con- struction jobs for infrastruc- ture, require training and skills to be safe and effective. Instead of training unem- ployed workers to expand pay- rolls, federal contractors of- ten hire skilled workers from the private sector at inflated wages. The temporary influx of money will simply shift re- sources within the industry in- stead of actually expanding it. By shifting resources, gov- ernment spending can de- stroy jobs and shrink private sector growth. It is also a mas- sive waste of taxpayer dollars. The 2009 stimulus channeled over $500 million to Solyndra only to have the solar manu- facturer go bankrupt. Small- er projects, like a Nevada bio- mass electricity plant, closed as soon as the federal funds had dried up. Temporarily pushing busi- nesses and workers to re- spond to government priori- ties creates new costs when the public funding ends and industries must reshuffle to meet private sector demands. Direct cash payments to indi- viduals are equally ineffective at boosting the economy. All those tax rebates and stimu- lus checks issued in 2008 and 2009 did not change the broad measures of consumer de- mand. We saw no evidence of increased aggregate consum- er spending as a result of fed- eral cash handouts. The similarly motivated "cash for clunkers" program, which subsidized new vehicle purchases, moved vehicle pur- chases up by a few weeks or months, but did not encourage people to buy more cars than they had planned to before the subsidy. The list of stim- ulus failures goes on. Do not forget that such new spending has to come from somewhere. If the government taxes or borrows one dollar from Americans, that is one dollar less they have to spend or invest. The tradeoff with fis- cal stimulus through stimulus spending is a choice between private activity or public ac- tivity. As one economist ex- plained bluntly, "We can build roads instead of factories, but fiscal stimulus cannot help us to build more of both." Congress has already com- mitted more than $2 trillion for the coronavirus. The Fed- eral Reserve has added ma- ny trillions more. Much of the relief was intended to serve as a floor on which the econ- omy and society could rest while nonessential activities and businesses were banned in an attempt to contain the pandemic. But this spending will still impose costs, distort- ing incentives and shifting pri- vate activity away from meet- ing the demands of consum- ers in the economy and toward those of federal bureaucrats. As the stay home orders are lifted and the nation be- gins to adjust to the new nor- mal, Congress cannot contin- ue to shovel so much money out the door. Spending billions or trillions more taxpayer dol- lars on fiscal stimulus produc- es high costs and dubious ben- efits. Lawmakers would do far better by removing all those unnecessary mandates and regulations that prevent busi- nesses from hiring additional workers or creating new prod- ucts. A fter the Great Recession, the people touting expensive stimulus plans promised a shorter and less painful down- turn. More than a decade lat- er, we now know those were empty promises. Congress should not repeat the mistakes of the past on the road to re- covery from this downturn. Adam N. Michel focuses on tax policy and the federal bud- get as a Senior Policy Analyst in the Grover M. Hermann Cen- ter. STIMULUS Continued from page 10 CHALLENGE Continued from page 10 grounds working from their own stations toward mutual ideals. I salute President Donald Trump's new executive order to establish a National Garden of American Heroes. He stat- ed that the garden would in- clude statues of American he- roes from all walks of Amer- ican life. I propose that the new Na- tional Garden be in Lincoln Park surrounding this Freed- men's Monument, and that the park be renamed Unity Park, to capture the theme of Amer- ican heroism that captures all in our nation under one set of principles and one God. Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal 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." Readers can respond to Star's column by emailing star-park- er@urbancure.org. MONUMENT Continued from page 10 outright stupidity, has its roots on college campuses. Sourc- es that report on some of the more egregious forms of the abandonment of free inquiry, hate and stupidity at our col- leges are: College Reform and College Fix. Prof. William S. Penn, who was a Distinguished Faculty Award recipient at Michigan State University in 2003, and a two-time winner of the pres- tigious Stephen Crane Prize for Fiction, explained to his students, "This country still is full of closet racists." He said: "Republicans are not a majority in this country anymore. They are a bunch of dead white peo- ple. Or dying white people." The public has recently been treated to the term — white privilege. Colleges have long held courses and seminars on "whiteness." One college even has a course titled "Abolition of Whiteness." According to some academic intellectuals, whites enjoy advantages that nonwhites do not. They earn higher income and reside in better housing, and their chil- dren go to better schools and achieve more. Based on that idea, Asian Americans have more white privilege than white people. And, on a person- al note, my daughter has more white privilege than probably 95% of white Americans. Evidence of how stupid col- lege ideas find their way into the public arena can be seen on our daily news. Don Lem- on, a CNN anchorman, said, "We have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them rad- icalized to the right, and we have to start doing something about them." Steven Clifford, former King Broadcasting CEO, said, "I will be leading a great movement to prohibit straight white males, who I be- lieve supported Donald Trump by about 85 percent, from exer- cising the franchise (to vote), and I think that will save our democracy." As George Orwell said, "Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them." If the stupid ideas of ac- ademic intellectuals remained on college campuses and did not infect the rest of society, they might be a source of en- tertainment — much like a cir- cus. Walter E. Williams is a pro- fessor of economics at George Mason University. ACADEMIA Continued from page 10 these hyper-entitled, over-in- dulged young white people would eventually try to ap- propriate Black Rage itself. James Baldwin, meet Little Richard. RIOTING STAND Continued from page 10 Continued from page 10 set up in wide open spaces for kids, without worrying about safe distancing. Year after year, we have brought our grandkids to the Splash Park and it has been a great and safe entertainment for them and so many other kids. We spend about 2-3 hours en- joying the cool water that re- freshes them from the heat. We are grateful for the Kiefers, who left a good por- tion of their money to help build this great entertain- ment. God bless them. We are so grateful for those who had this vision to build a safe and less expensive form of recreation using the money bequeathed to our county. We are grateful also for those who keep the place clean, op- erating well, and repaired if something breaks down. Guys, you know who you are and we are absolutely grate- ful for your contributions of time, energy and handyman skills. Usually after the splash park, we bring the kids to the playground to dry off and burn their endless energy. Funny, we thought that food will not be much in the minds of the kids, but they just con- stantly run back and forth to dig into the snack bag. We made sure they both had vegetables like carrots and celery and oranges, but the chocolate cookies and candy bars always disappear faster. We made sure they drank water and no sodas for hy- dration. Thankfully, they have learned to appreciate drinking cold water, and never asked for other sug- ary drinks. I think it's a mat- ter of education and enforce- ment of the rules which will pay off in the long run. Nighttime and bedtime can be a challenge when they are wired up after a busy day and they find it hard to sleep. A fter they say their night prayers, believe me, we try real hard to enforce the rule of no electronic devices after 10 p.m. If we do, they start roaming around the kitchen looking for snacks. We of- ten hear the complaint, "We can't sleep. Are there any snacks we can have? " We have to choose the lesser challenge of the two choices. Readers, do you know what I'm talking about? Well, I can share more inter- esting observations but re- living these activities makes me tired. Can you figure that out? I think septuagenarians who get to babysit should be paid more. But we get paid by much love and hugs from them, when they finally head back home. Have a great summer. School will soon start again. I hear from the parents it will be really different. I didn't want to hear the details. You know what I mean. Humor of the week: As I got older, I thought I was starting to get lazy. It turns out I am just being more en- ergy efficient. I tell the kids to pick that up, throw that away, carry this, carry that, get this for me, get that for me. If they refuse, I always add, "I guess, we're not going to the park." It always works like a charm. to the church at Ephesus, "Therefore put on the full ar- mor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done ev- erything, to stand." The apostle is writing the second-generation followers of Jesus. The church knows of the martyrdom of Stephen and James the apostle. The church at Ephesus knows their stand for God amongst a world that em- braces a pantheon of gods is unpopular and could result in arrest and death. The church may be asking then as we are now, "What is the future of Christianity and the Church? " The faithful at Ephesus know the church is in a frag- ile state. Furthermore, their future is tied to the provi- dence of God. Paul in this letter does not dismiss or downplay their fragile state and their anx- iety. What he offers is em- powerment to stay strong. He tells the church they are rooted and grounded in the love of God and He will equip them and enable them to stand their ground in love. The apostle Paul offers a prayer of edification for the troubled church, "For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strength- ened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love." As with the Church at Ephesus, we also have been equipped by the Holy Spirit to be a witness to the world in which we live. Like a good soldier, we have equipment to do battle with the carnal mind and the powers of dark- ness. However, these tools are powerless if they are not used. These words that Paul wrote centuries ago re- main words of hope and en- couragement for us in these challenging days as we seek to stand our ground, in the way of Jesus, rooted in love. It is worth reiterating that Paul ends his prayer for the struggling congregation at Ephesus saying, "Now to God, who by the power at work within us, is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine. To God be glory in the church and in Christ Je- sus to all generations, forev- er and ever. Amen." Paul assures us that the power of God is at work with- in us and the Church, and as the Body of Christ we can "Stand Our Ground" against the powers that demand the church become relevant and submit to the "forces of his- tory." I think Paul would encour- age the church to "Stand firm." God hasn't had His say, yet! " Think about it! Katiedid Versus By Katiedid Langrock Ark encounter Adam Scales (812) 354-8488 adam.scales@infarmbureau.com Adam Scales (812) 354-8488 adam.scales@infarmbureau.com