The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1323379
I just learned Howard Briscoe of Petersburg passed away this week. Howard served as principal at Peters- burg and Pike Central high schools, and for several years as superintendent of the pub- lic schools in Pike County. I first met Howard when I was working with the Old Ben Coal Company at their regional office in Oakland City. I would often play golf at Oakland City CC — a nine hole course across the street — after work with other Old Ben employees. It didn't take long to find out who the best golfer in town was - of course it was Mr. Briscoe. A fter Howard retired, we would see him at school func- tions. A couple of our princi- pals and I called him "The Senator," because of his de- meanor, and he just looked like he could work on Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C. So well dressed - all of the time! He was a tremendous public school administrator, respect- ed by all of his colleagues in SW Indiana. Thank you Howard for tak- ing time to mentor me ... and for encouraging so many to do their best for children. I will miss my warm, conge- nial friend. A true champion for children, and for the Pike County community. Dr. Michael L. Harding Terre Haute, IN The Press-Dispatch Wednesday, December 30, 2020 C-5 Memories of Howard Briscoe Letters to the Editor tive jerks. • The media for utterly ig- noring Hunter Biden, calling his emails a "distraction." • Twitter for blocking the New York Post's account for 16 days and labeling their links exposing Hunter Biden's emails "unsafe" and "harm- ful." • Google, for censoring search results to show only certain news outlets (and al- most never showing the Dai- ly Caller or Breitbart). • The media for constantly making life seem worse than it was. • And Trump — for mak- ing everything about him. NICE: • Merry Christmas to vac- cine developers all over the world. Equally noble were the entrepreneurs who failed, but spent their own money trying. • Innovative companies like Zoom that invented good things and let people use them for free. • Jeff Bezos for delivering packages right to my door. I don't mind that he's made $200 billion for himself. It's his money. He didn't take it from others. He created wealth. • Joe Biden, for declaring victory in a dignified, modest manner. • Donald Trump, for being first president in decades to leaves office without starting a new war or sending troops to a new conflict. • The founders of LBRY. tv, and Parler.com, for build- ing social media options with less censorship. • Doctors, nurses and EMTs who risked their lives helping others. • Doctors, nurses and EMTs who came out of retire- ment to help others. • Truckers, shelf-stock- ers, gas station workers, store owners, food processors and all the essential workers who kept working during COV- ID-19, making our lives better. • The politicians and bu- reaucrats who finally lifted years of stupid regulations to allow professionals to work in other states and let truck drivers drive when they want to drive. • People who wore masks even when they didn't need to, just to reassure those the me- dia had made crazy. • Businesses that adapted to serve the vulnerable, doing things like switching to deliv- eries and starting senior-on- ly hours. • Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator of Bitcoin, who launched a digital curren- cy revolution that gives us an alternative to government cur- rencies. • Citizen journalists like Andy Ngo and Tim Pool, who cover topics (like ANTIFA) that most media barely touch. • Businesses that stayed open, to pay their workers, even when losing money. • Volunteers who helped people. Notice the pattern here? Most of the worst came from politicians and the me- dia, who want to be praised for "serving" us. The best came from free Americans doing what we think is right. A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! John Stossel is author of "Give Me a Break: How I Ex- posed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media." NAUGHTY Continued from page 4 dom and personal responsi- bility. Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renew- al and Education and host of the new weekly news talk show "Cure America with Star Parker." DIRECTION Continued from page 4 I think most of us now had more time to do some seri- ous readings about the real meaning of Christmas. We have appreciated hearing Christmas stories and songs better, and we had more time to connect in a more mean- ingful way with family and friends. • • • For the first time, I had a chance to participate in a zoom meeting with my fami- ly, siblings and their children and grandchildren, and my relatives on both sides of the family. We heard from each other about what's going on in everyone's lives. That is, of course, without the stress of traveling long distanc- es, losing sleep, overeating, overspending, feeling hur- ried, etc. What an amazing world we live in. The technology of electronic communications has certainly changed our way of connecting. Thank goodness for our nephews and nieces who are so savvy setting this up. Did I think that is good? Well, yes and no. It depends on how you look at things. Yes, we all connected well and saw everyone who par- ticipated. No, it is different when you speak face-to-face with a loved one. Certainly I'm sure the economy will be impacted as well, when we do not spend and spread around our resources. Hope- fully when things return to normal, which I hope is soon, our economy will heal quick- ly. • • • Wisdom of the week: Let's get ready again with our list of New Year's resolutions, promise to carry out the promises and continue to be safe and practice good health habits. Let us cooperate with the mandates from our re- spected officials and scien- tists, and hope that this pan- demic eventually goes away, soon. It's been a real difficult year. Humor of the week: Since meals have been the greatest source of our comfort during this lockdown, here are some tips about meals. There are five kinds of food groups: To go, Micro- waved, Take Out, Recycled and Leftover. To parents who want their kids to eat healthy: You can- not hide broccoli in a glass of milk. Forget the health foods. When you hit the seventies, you need all the preserva- tives you can get. To those who love dogs, never trust them to guard your food. Are you tired of checking out your fridge? Welcome to the club. Families are like fudge… mostly sweet but with few nuts. Have a great week and a better and blessed 2021. ZOOM Continued from page 4 PREPARED Continued from page 4 EPA Continued from page 4 Court Report FELONY Pike County Circuit Court Audrey Lynn Turpen charged with count I posses- sion of methamphetamine, a level 5 felony, count II main- taining a common nuisance, a level 6 felony, count III car- rying a handgun without a li- cense, count IV possession of marijuana and count V posses- sion of paraphernalia. TRAFFIC AND MISDEMEANORS Pike County Circuit Court Matthew Becher charged with violation of rule adopted by director. Joshua A. Hale charged with count I possession of marijuana and count II pos- session of paraphernalia. CIVIL Pike County Circuit Court Discover Bank C/O Discov- er Products, Inc. sues Nema Simpson on complaint. Professional and Business Collections sues Terry Worni- ca on complaint. Hoosier Accounts Service sues Jennifer Drew on com- plaint. INFRACTIONS Pike County Circuit Court Stephanie A. Page charged with registration and display of registration. Jennifer L. Meade charged with speeding. Luke T. McGaw charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Jessalyn A. Rose charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Mark C. Jensen charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Ruben S. Nino charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Charles A. Ziepolt charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Jacob A. Hille charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Michael L. Morrison charged with speeding, ex- ceeding 70 mph. Tonya R. Armstrong charged with speeding, ex- ceeding 70 mph. Lauran A. Hodges charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Asia I. Allen charged with seatbelt violation. Rodney A. Christy charged with operating with expired plates. Julia C. Smith charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Kevin Gutierrez-Herrera charged with speeding, ex- ceeding 70 mph. Angel J. Rodriguez charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Mallory J. Oxford charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Vance K. Lloyd charged with fishing, hunting, trap- ping or chasing without land- owner consent. Darcy Chesser charged with failure to obey signs and markings while driving a ve- hicle Christopher Dyer charged with hunting wild animals without a license. that the costs were as much as 2,400 times greater than its benefits. Fortunately, the U.S. Su- preme Court in Michigan v. EPA held that the agency did need to consider the costs of the MATS rule. The left will try to limit the reach of that case and quash any efforts that require the consider- ation of both costs and bene- fits, and any related transpar- ency efforts. Anything that could prevent the agency from doing whatev- er it wants is deemed a threat. The second example deals with the EPA's science trans- parency rule, which hopeful- ly will be finalized this month. The left loves to talk about the importance of science, of- ten slamming conservatives for supposedly ignoring it. Yet, the left doesn't care about science so much as "science" that supports its causes. The left's opposition to the science transparency rule is "Exhib- it A." The EPA has been work- ing on ensuring that the pub- lic (including experts) can properly evaluate the scientif- ic studies being used by the agency to support regulations. There has been long-standing, bipartisan concern about the adequacy of the science used by agencies. President Barack Obama stated in a 2009 memoran- dum about scientific integrity across the government: "The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy deci- sions." Yet, when the Trump ad- ministration's EPA tries to in- crease the public trust by im- proving the science used in rule-making and disseminat- ed by the agency, the left goes on the attack. In limited circumstances, there may be some legitimate concerns regarding privacy and related issues connect- ed to making underlying da- ta and models available from studies. But the solution is to address this narrow problem, not to use this narrow problem as a pretext to block the pub- lic from being able to assess the science. The EPA has made it con- sistently clear throughout the rule-making process that nothing in the rule would vi- olate privacy, confidentiality, and confidential business in- formation protections. The left's likely talking point, regardless of whether it will be true regarding the fi- nal science transparency rule, will assert the rule allows the agency to ignore some scien- tific studies. Agencies, howev- er, ignore studies all the time based on an evaluation of their merits. If someone writes a report drawing "scientific" conclu- sions, but has no support for the conclusions, should the EPA use the report anyway? Of course not. As it is, the EPA's final rule might not impose any require- ments on the agency that would require it to exclude studies. If that's the case, it would be unfortunate. In the rare situation when underlying data and models can't be made publicly avail- able in some fashion due to genuine concerns, the agency should, at a minimum, place less weight on those studies. But in instances where there's no genuine basis for not pro- viding the necessary under- lying information, the agency should exclude those studies. Getting rid of junk science and relying only on sound sci- ence might not appeal to some on the left, but for everyone else, it's a must. Right now, some on the left are opposing efforts to pro- mote transparency and to in- crease the credibility of the science used by the EPA. That's the real story that should be getting reported. Daren Bakst, a Senior Re- search Fellow in Agricultural Policy, studies and writes about agricultural and environmen- tal policy and property rights, among other issues. LOCKDOWN Continued from page 4 and-mortar stores. For once, liberals are spot on. Lockdowns are crushing the little guy. Even so, it is the Democrats who are push- ing this anti-freedom agenda. Here are the 10 states list- ed by The New York Times with the strictest lockdown orders: California, Connecti- cut, Illinois, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Washington. What do they have in common? Dem- ocratic governors. Liberals love to talk about following the science, but all evidence of the last nine months points to the scien- tific conclusion that lock- downs do not work to re- duce deaths. Contact-trac- ing studies show that about half of those infected with the coronavirus got it despite staying at home. Only 2 % of the transmission comes from restaurants, and almost none comes from outdoor dining, which is now idiotically pro- hibited in California. The states that have not locked down their econo- my have lower death rates than New York and New Jer- sey. The unemployment rate for service workers in these states has skyrocketed to as high as 10 % . In contrast, the red states, such as Utah and Florida, that are still open for business have unemploy- ment rates for service work- ers as low as 4% . Yet lockdowns are support- ed by politicians, universi- ty professors, journalists, technology executives, gov- ernment employees, preach- ers, teacher unions and wealthy suburbanites. Their incomes are not in jeopardy. They won't wait in lines for a meal. Would teachers sup- port school closures if they weren't getting a paycheck? How many people get tenure like six-figure salaried uni- versity professors who have been inoculated from the lockdowns they cheered on? I don't see Yentel or ma- ny other "low-income advo- cates" protesting the lock- downs; do you? They think a government stimulus pro- gram of $1 trillion will solve the problems of the poor and the unemployed. Handouts are no substitutes for jobs and paychecks. Millions will fall through the cracks in any case. There is an old joke about a boy who kills his parents and then throws himself on the courts' mercy because he is an orphan. The modern-day version of that story is lib- erals who have helped burn down the house and then pi- ously complain about rising homelessness. Arthur Laffer, Walter Wil- liams, Milton Friedman and so many other great econo- mists have always warned us: The poor and minori- ties are the first victims of anti-growth and bonehead- ed public policies. Tragical- ly, we are once again learn- ing that lesson. So, why is the left all in for lockdown policies? These policies are doing just the opposite of what they preach: "rewarding wealth, not work." Perhaps the answer is that the left cares a lot more about power than the poor. Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foun- dation and an economic con- sultant with FreedomWorks. He is the co-author of "Trum- ponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive the Amer- ican Economy." CALL (812) 354-2150 611 Main St., Suite 120, Petersburg DowntownTerrace@flco.com Happy New Year! FROM: Flaherty & Collins Thank you for a great year and here is to another great one to come! How do you prepare for Je- sus? Just as you are! To "Be Prepared" means now that Christmas has arrived, re- ceive Him; not as you envi- sion Him to be for your ideas and motives, but for His pur- pose to save you from your sins! Think about it and have a Happy New Year! -