The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/921149
The Press-Dispatch Wednesday, Januar y 3, 2018 C-11 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 The year 2018 has arrived, and many wonder what the future will hold. Doris Day would respond with the Spanish quip, Que Sera Sera- "whatever will be, will be." What is on the horizon for 2018? Here is what to keep an eye on [in no particular order]. Late-night hosts [radio and T V] will continue to have their comedy routines written for them by reverberations of gropergate. The "neverTrump" movement shows no sign of surrender or re- ceding, so expect more harangu- ing and threats of impeachment. Politically, the midterm elec- tions will be a free-for-all with Indiana senator Joe Donnelly's seat in the crosshairs for Repub- licans. The hue and cry will be "it is a mandate against Trump." Recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, leaving the Pal- estinians out, will not end well [Read Zechariah 12:2]. Immigration reform and poli- cy for the 'Dreamers" will come to the forefront. Millions of "ille- gals" will not be sent home. The "Wall" between the US and Mexico will still not be fund- ed. The fifteen or twenty-two wars/conflicts no one is talking about will continue without UN action. Rocket Man in North Korea and Dotard in Washing- ton, D.C., will contin- ue to trade insults and threats of war. If war comes, it will not end well for the region. Urban areas will continue to experience high murder rates with everything blamed, except the root cause. Russia and China will continue to oppose Washington and NA- TO's unipolar power policy, both militarily and economically. International terrorism is not going away. The US and its allies are not leaving Syria anytime soon. The US will continue to assert that Iran is a sponsor of terrorism and is secretly rebuilding its nu- clear capabilities. Iran is not Syr- ia or Iraq. Black Lives Matters. Communism in Cuba is near- ing total collapse with Raul Cas- tro stepping down. Obamacare is not going away. Senator Al Fran- ken, of Minnesota, will finally resign and at exit will take aim at President Trump. The Stock Market will continue to gain value until it goes down [I always like to hedge my bet]. Few people with IQs under 150 will understand the frenzy over Bitcoin, much less how to use it. Indiana liquor lobby will con- tinue to control the Statehouse, which is proof that the political good-ole-boy system is every- where. AND finally, ALF will leave pri- metime television. The only sit- com of the 80s besides Mama's Family that baby boomers under- stood. In other words, in the foresee- able future, there will be no let- up of evil, corruption, hedonism Minority View by Walter E. Williams The Weekly by Alden Heuring Educational rot Points to Ponder by Rev. Ford Bond Que Sera Sera – No Exactamente A tax cut for America Heritage Viewpoint by Edwin J. Feulner Most of the gifts exchanged at this time of year are opened on Christmas Day. But this time around, a big one arrived a few days early: the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. You'd never know that if you lis- ten to the grinches in the so-called mainstream media, of course. They poured the usual amount of derision on it, insisting that it's nothing more than a robber-bar- on's roundup — a grab bag of good- ies for the rich and no one else. "A Win for the Wealthy, the En- titled and the Irresponsible," read the headline of The Washington Post's editorial. The New York Times, meanwhile, went with "Tax Bill Lets Trump and Republicans Feather Their Own Nests." Other media outlets followed suit, vent- ing outrage at what they insist is nothing more than a sell-out and a scam. It isn't. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act isn't perfect, but it offers re- al tax relief to Americans up and down the income scale. President Trump's opponents are so fixed in their class-warfare ways that they seem oblivious to how beneficial it will really be, to ordinary work- ers and to the economy as a whole. Several high-pro- file businesses — ones with no ideologi- cal ax to grind, unlike many in the media — seemed to realize this. They immedi- ately followed the an- nouncement of the Act's passage with a few welcome an- nouncements of their own: bonuses for their employees, and plans to create more jobs. AT&T said it plans to give a $1,000 bonus to more than 200,000 employees, and to invest $1 billion in the economy. Boeing announced a $ 300 million investment. FedEx said it'll hire more workers, as did CVS — 3,000, to be specific. Com- cast reacted to the tax bill and to the repeal of net neutrality by say- ing that 100,000 of its employees will get a $1,000 bonus. There were others — and more to come, you can be sure. "This is just the first wave of many such stories," tax expert Adam Michel told The Daily Signal. "These an- nouncements show that business- es across America will put their tax cut to good use." This flatly contra- dicts the convention- al, ahem, wisdom at many media outlets. Trickle-down eco- nomics doesn't work, they insist. But ac- tions speak louder than words, and the actions of many busi- nesses shows how tax relief can help all Americans, di- rectly or indirectly. As the saying goes, a rising tide lifts all boats. Will the rich benefit more than lower-income Americans? It de- pends on how you look at the num- bers. The rich pay the lion's share of the tax burden, so they will see the largest dollar value in benefits. However, the middle class sees the largest reduction in taxes paid: up to a 56 percent tax cut for some people. Is this what the media means by Trump's "tax cut for the rich? " News flash: Under this leg- islation, the wealthiest people in America will actually pay a larger My recent columns have fo- cused on the extremely poor ed- ucational outcomes for black stu- dents. There's enough blame for all involved to have their fair share. That includes students who are hostile and alien to the education- al process and have derelict, un- interested home environments. A fter all, if there is not some- one in the home to ensure that a youngster does his homework, has wholesome meals, gets eight to 10 hours of sleep and behaves in school, educational dollars won't produce much. There's another educational is- sue that's neither flattering nor comfortable to confront. That's the low academic quality of so many teachers. It's an issue that must be confronted and dealt with if we're to improve the quality of educa- tion. Most states require prospec- tive teachers to pass a certification test. How about a sample of some of the test questions. Here's a question from a re- cent test given to college students in Michigan planning to become teachers: "Which of the following is largest? a. 1/4, b. 3/5, c. 1/2, d. 9/20." Another question: "A town planning committee must decide how to use a 115 -acre piece of land. The committee sets aside 20 acres of the land for watershed protec- tion and an additional 37.4 acres for recreation. How much of the land is set aside for watershed protection and recreation? a. 43.15 acres, b. 54.6 acres, c. 57.4 acres, d. 60.4 acres" (http://tinyurl.com/ y7mtpfhk). The Arizona teacher certifica- tion test asks: "Janet can type 250 words in 5 minutes, what is her typ- ing rate per minute? a. 50wpm, b. 66wpm, c. 55wpm, d. 45wpm." The California Basic Education- al Skills Test asks the test taker to find the verb in the following sentence: "The interior tempera- tures of even the coolest stars are measured in millions of degrees. a. Coolest, b. Of even, c. Are mea- sured, d. In millions" (http://ti- nyurl.com/yd85kv3n). A CBEST math question is: "You purchase a car making a down payment of $ 3,000 and 6 monthly payments of $225. How much have you paid so far for the car? a. $ 3225, b. $4350, c. $5375, d. $ 6550, e. $ 6398." My guess is that these are ques- tions that an eighth- or ninth-grad- er with a good education ought to be able to answer. Such test ques- tions demonstrate the low bar that states set in order for one to be- come a certified teacher. Even with such low expectations, col- lege graduates have failed these and similarly constructed teacher certification tests. Recently, New York, after being tied up in court for years, dropped its teacher lit- eracy test amid claims of racism (http://tinyurl.com/je3spmw). A 2011 investigation by WSB-T V found that more than 700 Georgia teachers had repeatedly failed at least one portion of the certifica- tion test they were required to pass before receiving a teaching certifi- cate. Nearly 60 teachers had failed the test more than 10 times, and one teacher had failed the test 18 times. There were 297 teachers on the Atlanta school system's pay- roll who had failed the state cer- tification test five times or more (http://tinyurl.com/ycvzrlxq). With but a few exceptions, schools of education represent the academic slums of colleges. They tend to be home to students who have the lowest academic test scores – for example, SAT scores – when they enter college. They al- so tend to have the lowest scores when they graduate and choose to take postgraduate admissions tests – such as the GRE, the MCAT and the L SAT (http://ti- nyurl.com/h57ngzy). Professors at schools of education tend to have the lowest level of academic respectability. American educa- tion could benefit from eliminat- ing schools of education. You might ask: Without schools of education, how would teachers be trained? I think that we ought to adopt a practice whereby teachers are hired according to their under- graduate major. I learned this talk- ing to a headmistress of a private school. She said she doesn't hire education majors. She said that if she hires a teacher to teach chem- istry, math, English or any other subject, the person must have a Turning two Start 2018 with a healthy plan Continued on page 12 Continued on page 12 Winter is coming. And with it, the "terrible twos." Flannery turns two this week- end. We are not prepared... But we're getting there. This is a big year: we have to find places to poke all the Christmas pres- ents so we can sweep the floors, make food, establish longstand- ing birthday traditions, and if we get around to it, teach Flannery what a "birthday" is on a funda- mental conceptual level. So to begin with, we need to make some space. I'm hoping to find a secret trap door in our new house that opens into a cor- ridor of indefinite size and loca- tion, wherein I can store all man- ner of useless things, only to find them rearranged and subtly dif- ferent in their atomic properties each time I re-enter the corridor. Failing at that, we'll probably just shove a bunch of stuff into the basement. There's no time like "later" to deal with having too much stuff! The biggest difficulty is she's hit that age where all her best toys are huge or have lots of parts. Her godfather got her an indoor castle tent that takes up most of our living room. The rest of the living room is taken up by the slide we got her. Then there's the Duplos, the waffle blocks, the puzzles, the baby doll with matching accouterments...as you might imagine, we haven't seen our floor since Christmas. Next we'll sweep the food and make floors. This all seems self- explanatory so I'll leave it at that. ...What do you mean you don't sweep food? More importantly, we need to figure out what our family birth- day traditions will be. Flannery may not remember much from this year, but if we practice now, we can hit our stride when she's three or four and throw totally flippin' awesome birthday par- ties for our tiny children. Jill's family always lets the birthday boy or girl pick a special dinner, so we're going to give that a go. Except Flannery can't really tell us what she wants to eat yet... we'll probably end up at Hacien- da since she likes chips and sal- sa and quesadillas. We're also go- ing to put her presents out in the middle of the night for when she wakes up in the morning, which will be a real joy this year be- cause she has a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe coming her way (anoth- er huge toy!). And... you know... there will probably be other cool stuff, too. This is why we need multiple years to practice! Finally, we want to find a way Continued on page 12 Continued on page 12 Continued on page 12 My Point of View by Dr. H. K. Fenol, Jr., M.D. Happy New Year. Another 365 days have passed. I'm sure a lot of us have had memorable and not-so- memorable experiences this past year. Usually, we tend to remem- ber the not-so-good aspects of our lives. However, and thankfully, we also have the capacity to recall the positive aspects of our journey of life, like birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, births, vacations, holi- days, promotions, etc. Since each new year brings new hopes, new dreams and new plans, we hope and pray that the year 2018 will be filled with such. Year after year, we make resolu- tions – that kind of stuff you prom- ise to try to do or accomplish, and hope that each year becomes better than the last one, or at least work on improving aspects of our lives that need a tune-up. As I have do- ne a fair amount of reading on this Pursuit of the Cure by Star Parker Trump gets real about the UN Following the U.N. General As- sembly vote condemning the Unit- ed States' recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and Ambas- sador Nikki Haley's bold speech to that body following the vote, Haley has announced that the 2018 bud- get for the U.N. will be cut by $285 million. According to the Council on For- eign Relations, the United States contributed $10 billion to the U.N. in 2016, about 25 percent of its to- tal budget. So $285 million is not a game- changing sum. But this is a signif- icant step to put the U.N. — and the world — on notice that Pres- ident Donald Trump means what he says. "We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of or remain unchecked," said Haley. One hundred and twenty eight nations in the General Assembly voted to condemn and annul the U.S. decision on Jerusalem and on- ly nine voted to support the Unit- ed States. As Haley pointed out, this vote had implications beyond this one, albeit critically important, issue. It was about American values, the co- incidence of American values with the United States' support of Isra- el, and a reassessment of the Unit- ed States' role in the U.N. The United States and Isra- el stand for the "ideals of human freedom and digni- ty that the United Na- tions is supposed to be about," said Ambassa- dor Haley. Looking at the par- ticular realities of the U.N., it's hard to see coincidence between these American val- ues and what is going on there. Freedom House in Washing- ton, D.C., issues an annual report in which it reports on the state of freedom in 193 nations around the world. Each nation is evaluat- ed in terms of political rights and civil liberties, and then is given a score. According to this score, nations are then broken out into three categories — free, partially free and not free. Of the 128 nations that vot- ed this week against the United States move on Jerusalem, only 55, or 43 percent, are rated by Free- dom House as free. The rest have serious problems regarding polit- ical rights and/or civil liberties in their country. The U.N. operates on very strange logic. That somehow a democracy of un- free countries voting — one vote for each country — produces a result that has some- thing to do with the value of freedom. It's somewhat akin to trial by jury where most of the jurors are convicted criminals. What, after all, can be the meaning of despotic nations like North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Iran and Venezuela voting to express their opinion of the legitimacy of the United States recognizing Je- rusalem as Israel's capital? Adding further irony, Israel is rated by Freedom House as one of the freest nations in the world. In the Middle East/North A frica re- gion, there are two nations out of 18 that are free. One is Israel. Yet, Israel is regularly condemned by the U.N., whereas the 16 despotic