The Press-Dispatch
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The Press-Dispatch Wednesday, May 24, 2017 D-1 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 Do we still need the NCA A? The National Collegiate Athletic Asso- ciation wears several hats, but the image it has projected since Ted- dy Roosevelt founded it in 1906 is the guarantor of amateurism in sports. The ideal is the "student- athlete," and it is enforced to vary- ing degrees by NCA A professional staff and member schools. But NCA A staff takes no vow of poverty for itself. The fierce inves- tigators may interrogate teenage athletes about how they could af- ford their shoes and sunglasses, but they are very nicely compen- sated for doing so. The NCA A can afford to com- pensate its staff well. Its 2016 rev- enues were $ 995.9 million, all tax- exempt. It sponsored no national cham- pionships for the first 15 years of its existence, until it mount- ed the 1921 track and field cham- pionships. In the century since that first outing, national champi- onships in major sports have de- veloped into some amazing cash cows, as well as a source of politi- cal muscle. When he was bas- ketball coach at Long Beach State Universi- ty, before UNLV, the late Jerry Tarkanian re- marked that the NCA A played favorites in its enforcement—favored universities tended to get off easier and earli- er than their less glam- orous competitors. This remark was entered into an investigator's notebook, and launched a decades- long NCA A vendetta against Tar- kanian and the schools where he coached. The reason I can say that with- out hedging is that the NCA A notes and confidential documents regarding the Tarkanian vendetta are in the public record. They were disclosed in civil discovery after Tarkanian sued them, and summa- rized by sportswriter Don Yaeger in his book Shark Attack. I wasn't a bitter-end Bobby Knight defender, but when IU president Myles Brand landed a $700 thousand-per- year Indianapolis job atop the NCA A short- ly after firing his in- temperate coach, that stank. Now the NCA A has taken on social causes, mainly gay rights and men's right to enter women's restrooms. It has grown so powerful that it can dictate state legislation over the objections of voters. In Indiana, the Religious Free- dom Restoration Act incurred the wrath of NCA A elites who joined with other businesses to threaten an employment famine unless Gov. Mike Pence backtracked. He did. In North Carolina, the NCA A denounced legislation that pro- A new trend is emerging in com- munities across America. Families are revealing in a loved one's obit- uary that he/she died of a drug overdose and became noticeable in 2015. David Armstrong in Statnews penned a sobering column "52 Weeks, 52 Faces: Obituaries Nar- rate Lives Lost to the Opioid Epi- demic" which describes the men- ace among us. Allow me to describe the typ- ical drug death: he/she lived in [place state and city here], was just [insert age between 15 and 40] years old, dreamed of or was an [attach job/profession here], en- joyed [place favorite sport or event here], and were white. Armstrong writes that about 636 Americans die weekly of drug overdoses. Many of the obituaries con- tained the phrases, "He lost the battle of addiction; it was more than he could overcome; complet- ed rehab several times, but fought on and off; those in the know about addiction must share what they know; or he/she was struggling with the disease of addiction." Parents out of desperation and grief want to alert others that their loved one's death was unneces- sary. Drug addiction though not unheard of in the 1950s was uncommon, and few people knew an ad- dict. Sadly, most of us today know more than one person struggling with addiction. We know powerful painkillers are potent and if used skillfully have enor- mous benefits. Likewise if abused, they has been liken to dancing with a dragon. Noteworthy people who have died of drug abuse begin with Hank Williams Sr., Judy Garland, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and the most recent victim Prince. The cost of drugs on the street as reported by the rehabcenter.net for one hit or high is an eye-open- er: L SD $5, cocaine $10, marijuana and/or heroin $15, and meth $20. Be mindful most of these drugs [except L SD] are ingested multi- ple times a day. Streetrx cites the cost of hydro- codone or oxycodone can be as lit- tle as $1 a pill. The average cost of remaining high begins around $100 a day. With drug use comes crime via gangs/cartels trying to control the distribu- tion or the users try- ing to find cash to sup- ply the habit. That is where the War on Drugs comes into play. It has failed. The solution has been longer prison sentences. The US Bureau of Prisons report that 46.3 percent of inmates are there on drug of- fenses. State prisons in most states follow the national trend. The cost of the War on Drugs in 2016 was 25 billion dollars; an es- timate by CNN [2012] put the to- tal cost since 1971 at 1 trillion dol- lars; the human and spiritual cost is not calculable. The solution? New Jersey just this spring enacted more strin- gent measures that only allows a five-day amount for an initial pre- scriptions for pain-killing opioids. Others call for decriminalization Continued on page 2 Continued on page 2 Continued on page 2 Minority View by Walter E. Williams The Weekly by Alden Heuring Sheer lunacy on campus Points to Ponder by Rev. Ford Bond There is hope Do we still need the NCAA? Lucid Moments by Bart Stinson Paris Climate Agreement needs to go Heritage Viewpoint by Edwin J. Feulner You wouldn't think Al Gore and Donald Trump would have much to talk about, given their political di- visions. Yet that's exactly why the former vice president recently got in touch with President Trump: to urge him not to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. "Paris Agreement" is shorthand for a United Nations pact that the Obama administration joined last year. The agreement requires the countries that join it to submit plans for how they'll cut green- house gas emissions. Not surpris- ingly, Mr. Gore heavily favors what he calls "a bold and historic agree- ment." You might think Mr. Gore's plea couldn't possibly succeed, but Mr. Trump's decision on this issue isn't exactly a slam-dunk. It isn't just Mr. Gore and other environmen- talists who think the United States should stay in the agreement. Se- nior Adviser to the President Jared Kushner, for example, thinks the U.S. should stay. So does Ivanka Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, as well as multination- al corporations such as Starbucks and Exxon Mobil. Some Republican lawmakers also say the United States should remain a par- ty to the deal (albe- it with a weakened pledge to cut emis- sions). The emissions targets aren't legally binding, after all, so why not keep a seat at the table? No point inflicting diplomatic damage unnecessari- ly, they argue. With all due respect, they're mistaken. Mr. Trump should with- draw from the Paris Agreement. Doing so would underscore a sim- ple truth that needs to be said loud and clear: The agreement is a sh- am deal, and no amount of pre- tense or diplomatic wrangling will change that. To understand why, set aside any preconceived positions, pro or con, on the issue of climate change and look at the deal itself. It's an extremely costly and ineffective way to address the is- sue — as even some of its supporters seem to realize. The stated goal of the Paris Agree- ment is to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-in- dustrial levels. The more than 170 coun- tries that have signed on are supposed to do this by re- ducing their carbon-dioxide emis- sions and relying more on renew- able sources of energy. The stated goals for the Unit- ed States, as submitted by the Obama administration, aimed to cut greenhouse gases by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. That's pretty ambitious. And it won't be cheap. As economist Nicolas Loris and U.N. expert Brett Schaefer recent- ly noted, "The U.S. regulations Parents, taxpayers and donors have little idea of the levels of luna- cy, evil and lawlessness that have become features of many of today's institutions of higher learning. Par- ents, taxpayers and donors who ig- nore or are too lazy to find out what goes on in the name of higher ed- ucation are nearly as complicit as the professors and administrators who promote or sanction the luna- cy, evil and lawlessness. As for the term "institutions of higher learn- ing," we might start asking: Higher than what? Let's look at a tiny sam- ple of academic lunacy. During a campus debate, Purdue University professor David Sand- ers argued that a logical extension of pro-lifers' belief that fetuses are human beings is that pictures of "a butt-naked body of a child" are child pornography. Clemson Uni- versity's chief diversity officer, Lee Gill, who's paid $185,000 a year to promote inclusion, provided a lesson claiming that to expect certain peo- ple to be on time is racist. To reduce angst among snow- flakes in its student body, the Univer- sity of California, Hastings College of the Law has added a "Chill Zone." The Chill Zone, located in its library, has, just as most nursery schools have, mats for naps and beanbag chairs. Before or after a snooze, stu- dents can also use the space to do a bit of yoga or meditate. The Univer- sity of Michigan Law School helped its students weather their Trump de- rangement syndrome - - a condition resulting from Donald Trump's elec- tion - - by enlisting the services of an "embedded psychologist" in a room full of bubbles and play dough. To re- duce pressure on law students, Josh- ua M. Silverstein, a law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, thinks that "every American law school ought to substantially eliminate C grades and set its good academic standing grade point aver- age at the B- level." Today's academic climate might be described as a mixture of infan- tilism, kindergarten and totalitarian- ism. The radicals, draft dodgers and hippies of the 1960s who are now col- lege administrators and professors are responsible for today's academic climate. The infantilism should not be tolerated, but more important for the future of our nation are the to- talitarianism and the hate-Ameri- ca lessons being taught at many of the nation's colleges. For example, led by its student government lead- er, the University of California, Ir- vine's student body voted for a mo- tion, which the faculty approved, di- recting that the American flag not be on display because it makes some students uncomfortable and creates an unsafe, hostile environment. The flag is a symbol of hate speech, ac- cording to the student government leader. He said that the U.S. flag is just as offensive as Nazi and Islam- ic State flags and that the U.S. is the world's most evil nation (http://ti- nyurl.com/kjoax3j). In a recent New York Times op-ed, New York University provost Ulrich Baer argued: "The idea of freedom of speech does not mean a blanket permission to say anything anybody thinks. It means balancing the inher- ent value of a given view with the ob- ligation to ensure that other members of a given community can participate in discourse as fully recognized mem- bers of that community." That's a vi- sion that is increasingly being adopted on college campuses, and it's leaking down to our primary and secondary levels of education. Baer apparently believes that the test for one's commit- ment to free speech comes when he balances his views with those of oth- ers. His vision justifies the violent dis- ruptions of speeches by Heather Mac Donald at Claremont McKenna Col- lege, Milo Yiannopoulos at UC Berke- ley and Charles Murray at Middlebury College. Baer's vision is totalitarian nonsense. The true test of one's com- mitment to free speech comes when he permits people to be free to say and write those things he finds deeply of- fensive. Americans who see themselves as either liberal or conservative should rise up against this totalitarian trend on America's college campuses. I be- lieve the most effective way to do so is to hit these campus tyrants where it hurts the most - - in the pocket- book. Lawmakers should slash bud- gets, and donors should keep their money in their pockets. Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason Uni- versity. Baby builder (and a reading list) PUZZLED ABOUT WHAT TO READ? ..and you will have your solution. subscribe to 812-354-8500 My daughter, Flannery, has been showered with building blocks as part of her coming-of- age into toddlerhood, and they've rapidly become one of her favor- ite hobbies...just as planned. I've been saving about 90 gallons of LEGOs in my parent's basement just in case I ever produced a child, and now it's all coming to- gether. We spent a recent morning building together. Flannery want- ed to make her tallest tower ever. She was stacking blocks as fast as she could, but she got frustrat- ed when the tower was taller than her wingspan. I helped her finish it – a column of bricks taller than her. Then it fell over and cracked apart. We rebuilt it, it wobbled, rebuilt again, and eventually we both de- cided it was more fun just to take it apart ourselves so we could put it back together. Flannery has picked up the concept of how the bricks fit together so fast. When we first brought the bricks out, she could only take them apart. Now she makes patterns and sim- ple structures and sorts the bricks out by shape. A fter all the excitement of building the tower, she got sleepy and dozed out on the couch, her tower laying around her in three large segments. She could proba- bly entertain herself all day with just those couple dozen square bricks that we used to make her tower. That's what continues to amaze me about her – she doesn't get bored of things. Only a distrac- tion (and I admit she is easily dis- tracted) can pull her away from something she's set her mind to- wards – left to herself she'll repeat the same activity over and over, al- ways surprised that it worked out the same way yet again. I wish I still had that childlike determina- tion. That's my story for this week, but I have plenty of stories for you this summer – a whole summer reading list worth, in fact. Try these books on for size as you're basking in the sun or shade: The True History of Tea (Mair and Hoh) Manalive (Chesterton) Ancient Worlds (Scott) Utopia (More) Purr-fect Crime ( Various) These aren't paid endorse- ments (gosh I sure wish though), just some books I'm enjoying or plan to enjoy this summer. And if that's not enough for you, try these oldies but goodies that I've read before and would read again, given infinite time: The Three Musketeers (Dumas) Journey to the Center of the Earth ( Verne) Twelfth Night (Shakespeare) Roughing It (Twain) Oryx and Crake (Atwood) Do you already have a reading list for this summer? I'd love to hear, er, read it at my email, aheur- ing@sgstartimes.com. And as al- ways, have a great week!