The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/221682
Opinion C-2 Wednesday, December 4, 2013 The Press-Dispatch Observations by Thomas Sowell Random thoughts Random thoughts on the passing scene: They say that man cannot control the weather. But every time I buy photographic equipment, it rains. Who says that there is no difference between the political parties? When Democrats are criticized, they counter-attack. When Republicans are criticized, they whine that they are innocent. We all enter the world knowing nothing but, by the time we are teenagers, we know it all. Sometimes it is decades later before we know enough to realize how little we know. Nothing is called "second-hand" any more, except "second-hand smoke." Why is it not called "pre-owned" smoke? Civil rights used to be about treating everyone the same. But today some people are The spirit of America By Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D. With the annual media coverage of "Black Friday," it's easy to overlook an important fact: There's a lot of giving going on year-round that isn't gift-wrapped—giving that makes a significant difference in the lives of millions. Take the aptly named Spirit of America (SOA), a nonprofit organization that works with U.S. military personnel to provide humanitarian assistance worldwide. It's funded entirely by private contributions. SOA goes to war-torn places from Afghanistan to Guyana, bringing everything from metal detectors, tools and tourniquets, to blankets, soccer balls and radios. It fixes wells and donates computers to help local schools. When the U.S. Army in Mauritania needed to make areas scarred by al Qaedainflicted violence more secure, it turned to Spirit of America. Livestock health, the Army determined, was the primary local need, so SOA went to work providing the training and equipment needed to improve the health of cattle and goats in the region. It isn't just groups such as SOA exhibiting this kind of selflessness, though. Individual Americans contribute millions of hours of their time each year to help and support people and causes, working out to an average of three hours per week per person. Americans give more of themselves and their personal income to assist the less fortunate than all other nations on a perperson basis. Truly, we heed George Washington's call: "Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distresses of everyone, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse, remembering . . . that it is not everyone who asketh that deserveth charity." When natural disasters strike, Americans rally around the flag like no other people on earth. After the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, Americans donated more than $3 billion to rebuild and to aid those who lost everything in the storm. These donations were made even though people understood that the federal government would allocate tens of billions to the effort. Americans' generosity doesn't stop at our nation's borders. Whenever and wherever disaster strikes, Americans are there to help without question. In addition to the military and financial donations our government makes, Americans reach deep into their own pockets when their fellow human beings are in need. After a horrific tsunami hit the Indian Ocean region in 2004, killing more than 230,000 and rendering millions homeless, Americans donated more than $3.16 billion to help rebuild. In the days after the disaster, it was the U.S. Navy (with help from our Australian and British allies) that got water-treatment plants running and delivered emergency aid. In 2010, after an earthquake devastated the Haitian capital of Port-auPrince, killing more than 200,000 and leaving more than 1.5 million people homeless, Americans doContinued on page 3 No spin zone—by Bill O'Reilly The technology of nature Anguilla, British West Indies—So here's the setting: the warm azure water of Maundy's Bay sliding up and down bright soft sand. In the distance, the islands of St. Maarten and Saba can be seen. The blue sky above is dotted with huge white clouds that bob along propelled by a warm breeze. It doesn't get any better than this. Yet on the beach, some human beings barely look up at the incredible vista. Their machines envelope them like Venus fly traps. They are texting, emailing and chatting with folks somewhere else on Earth. Welcome to our brave new world. H.G. Wells wrote a book called "The Time Machine," in which most humans were reduced to a trance-like existence, ruled by bad guys called Morlocks. You should read this book, because we are rapidly heading in that direction. By the way, the Morlocks were cannibals. Texting is addictive. Once you get emotionally involved with constant external stimulation assaulting your brain, it is hard to stop looking at your machine every two minutes. Without rapid-fire words appearing on a screen, you feel bored, not part of the action. It really doesn't matter what is being sent to you; the fact that words are flashing in front of your eyes is hypnotizing. Kids are the most vulnerable to the embrace of the machines. Children today don't really watch TV anymore. I mean, they still sit in front of the set, but they are texting while they're watching. They are multitasking. Thus, their concentration is divided and much is missed, and not only on the tube, but also in life. Nature is a brilliant teacher. But how can you learn if you can't even sit on a beautiful beach without playing with a machine? Forget about thinking. No time for introspection. Nope. There are messages that have to be answered. Stuff is happening and must be acknowledged. There is no question that communication and information flow are enhanced by the high-tech gizmos. Instantly, we can engage anyone in the world if we have their cyberspace information. But again, if we allow the machines to dominate us, we will miss out on real life, which, in order to be fully absorbed, needs to be seen and heard. Machine distractions prevent that. When I tell children that they are far too dependent on their gizmos, they do not deny it, but they really don't care. This is their real life: texting about trivial things, listening to numbing music on their private headphones. The machines block everything out; you create your own little trivial world. Socrates once said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." I concur. The world is a fascinating, difficult place, and in order to take full advantage of what the planet has to offer, we need to see and hear natural things. That is if you don't want the Morlocks to get you. Points to ponder—by Ford Bond Because Someone Cared The Christmas season is upon us and our thoughts turn to giving to others. One of the best gifts anyone can give another is something of themselves. The story of Bill Hodges and Larry Bird is such an example. Seth Davis tells it best in a recent interview about his book "When March Went Mad: The Game That Transformed Basketball; he said "I never realized how close Larry Bird was to not playing college basketball. I go back to the moment when Bill Hodges [from Indiana State University] rolls into French Lick and knocks on Bird's door, and Larry's mom answers. He explains he would like to talk to Larry, and she slammed the door in his face saying "Leave him alone, why don't you all leave him alone, he doesn't want to play." Few outside of Southern Indiana knew of Larry Bird before Indiana State University's march to the Final Four in 1979—but before that he was a recruit for Bobby Knight at Indiana University. Bird was a good ballplayer who had aspirations for playing beyond high school. He was unassuming off the basketball court, shy, withdraw, poor, and backward. As his senior year at Spring Valley was unfolding those around him told him he had to go to Indiana University. Coach Knight liked what A woman's perspective—by Mona Charen A victory for Iran Ninety percent of the American opinion elite will fall for the old "historic breakthrough" conceit every time. The appeal of getting enemies in a room together, where they will shed their animosity and "reason together," is so profound that nothing as tiresome as experience can diminish its allure. Don't talk to Secretary of State John Kerry or President Barack Obama of the League of Nations (which enjoyed such success ensuring world peace) or the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the 1928 treaty that outlawed war as an instrument of national policy. Fifty-four countries, including all the major belligerents of World War II, signed the pact. Don't mention the series of "breakthrough agreements" between the United States and North Korea (Claudia Rosett offers a timely reminder), in which we thrice (1994, 2005 and 2007) offered security guarantees, food aid, diplomatic concessions and cash in exchange for North Korea's promise to discontinue its nuclear program. The very same person who handled negotiations with North Korea for the Clinton Administration, Wendy Sherman, is now heading up the U.S. team and stroking the Iranians. (The George W. Bush administration, more immune than most to the siren call of diplomatic breakthroughs, did fall into the trap with North Korea.) Kerry, denying the Geneva Accord is a naive exercise in wishful thinking, pleads that we need to "put to the test Iran's words and intentions." Any contract requires a meeting of the minds. Kerry keeps saying that we don't need so used to special treatment that equal treatment is considered to be discrimination. Some people seem to think that we live in more "liberated" times, when all that has happened is that one set of taboos has been replaced by another and more intolerantly enforced set of taboos. If people had been as mealy-mouthed in centuries past as they are today, Ivan the Terrible would have been called Ivan the Inappropriate. Sometimes you need a vacation just to recover from all the preparations you made before going on vacation. Why would a boxer agree to a match in Continued on page 3 to trust the Iranians because we will be checking them at every stage. But if the parties do not even agree to what they've just signed in the 18 hours after inking a document, how well is verification going to go? Mohammad Zarif, Iran's chief negotiator, asserted that the agreement takes the threat of force off the table and enshrines Iran's "right" to enrich uranium. Kerry flatly denies both. Nice start. Kerry also challenged Iran to "prove" to the world that its nuclear program is only for "peaceful purposes." Is that a question an adult, far less America's chief diplomat, should pose? Iran controls the world's fourth largest supplies of oil and second largest reserves of natural gas. Are we to believe that Iran is pursuing nuclear power because of concern about climate change? How exactly would Iran's active research on nuclear weapons design and development of ballistic-missile technology suit that explanation? It has been obvious for more than two decades that Iran is determined to join the nuclear club — a goal American allies in the region and right-thinking people the world over view with horror and dread. Five Security Council resolutions have demanded Iran to suspend all enrichment of uranium. The Obama administration itself has repeatedly and starkly declared that Iran's possession of nuclear weapons is "unacceptable." Though, as with so many things, Obama has said this pronouncement is nothing more than a windsock—it shows which way the wind is blowing, but doesn't hold anything. Like the "red line" about Syria's use of chemical weapons, the stentorian injunctions against Iran's nuclear pursuit are also just so much wind. Both Kerry and Obama have repeatedly argued negotiation is the only alternative to war. By blurting this in an attempt to dissuade Congress from passing further sanctions, they completely neuter any implied threat of military force. Iran certainly notices the Obama administration's eagerness for a deal, as well as its rejection of military action. Nor is it correct the only alternative to this capitulation was war. The sanctions this agreement supersedes were working well to force the Iranian regime to come to terms. Their nation is struggling with high prices, shortages and a collapsing currency because of sanctions. This should have been a moment of maximum leverage for the United States and other powers. Yet the deal they've achieved does next to nothing to reverse Iran's march to a bomb, and does a great deal to undermine the fragile, painfully achieved world consensus to impose sanctions. "For the first time in nearly a decade, we have halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear program," Obama intoned. But we've seen this story unfold many times before, most recently with North Korea. Our eagerness for pieces of paper that can be brandished as "peace" trumps cold reality every time. Iran has slipped the sanctions' nooses. It will soon become a nuclear power—not despite our best efforts — but with our tacit acquiescence—We will look back on this agreement with bitterness in the very near future. he saw and Bird got a basketball scholarship. But IU and Bird was not a good fit. Bird was ill prepared for a Big Ten school. Davis writes "Larry thought he was treated badly by some of the team's veterans . . . The philosophy in the old days was, until you prove you're ready to be on the team, then you're just a freshman." Bird received no emotional support from the coaches. One evening he looked up and saw Coach Knight walking toward them. He greeted his head coach with a "hello," but Knight went by without a word. The straw that broke the camel's back came a few weeks later when Bird received a bill to cover a bowling class. Feeling he should not have to pay the fee, he went to the basketball office for a meeting with assistant coach Bob Weltlich about the bill; who abruptly told him that was his problem and left the room—end of meeting, end of Bird at IU. Bird packed his belongings and hitchhiked home to French Lick and took a job with the French Lick Street Department. Bird would say later "I loved that job. It was outdoors, you were around your friends. Picking up brush, cleaning up. I felt like I was really accomplishing something." Bill Hodges, then an assistant coach at Indiana State knew of Bird and thought he could snag him. But first he had to sell playing for ISU to an awkward and solitary young man. Hodges felt that "Indiana State might be a good place for Bird." But this would prove to be a hard sell. As Hodges tried to convince Bird into thinking about ISU, another assistant coach ridiculed his riding on the back of a garbage truck. Bird replied "I like it!" He told Hodges on the way back to ISU "Anybody who'd rather work on a garbage truck than go to college isn't smart enough to play for us." Hodges did not agree; for if he had, Larry Bird would probably never have become an NBA star. On the next visit Bird opened up about playing for ISU and told Hodges "How did you know I was thinking about coming? I didn't," said Hodges, "But I know this is the best thing for you, and you're smart enough to make a good decision." This was the opening of the door for Bird to visit Terre Haute, ISU, and eventually commit to playing basketball there. Bird Continued on page 3 The P Dispatch ress- MR. AND MRS. FRANK HEURING, PUBLISHERS ANDREW G. HEURING, EDITOR JOHN B. HEURING, ADVERTISING MANAGER Wednesday, December 4, 2013 Entered at the Post Office in Petersburg, Indiana for transmission through the mails as Periodical Mail, Postage paid at Petersburg, Indiana. Published weekly. 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