THE NEWS SUN
SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 2013
kpcnews.com
Killing Giggles Global average temperature has been flat for a decade. But frightening myths about global warming continue. We’re told there are more hurricanes now. We’re told that hurricanes are stronger. But the National Hurricane Center says it isn’t so. Meteorologist Maria Molina told me it’s not surprising that climatologists assumed hurricanes would get worse. “Hurricanes need warm ocean waters,” but it turns out that “hurricanes are a lot more complicated than just warm ocean waters.” Computer models have long predicted nasty JOHN effects from our production of greenhouse gasses. STOSSEL But the nasty effects have not appeared. As far as hurricanes, more hit the United States in the 1880s than recently. Why do people believe that global warming has already created bigger storms? Because when “experts” repeatedly tell us that global warming will wreck the Earth, we start to fit each bad storm into the disaster narrative that’s already in our heads. Also, attention-seeking media wail about increased property damage from hurricanes. And it’s true! Costs have grown! But that’s because more people build on coastlines, not because storms are stronger or more frequent. Also, thanks to modern media and camera phones, we hear more about storms, and see the damage. People think Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,800 people, was the deadliest storm ever. But the 1900 Galveston hurricane killed 10,000 people. We just didn’t have so much media then. Climatologist Patrick Michaels, director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, says humans don’t have as much impact on global temperature as the doomsayers feared. “Forecasts of global warming — particularly in the last two years — have begun to come down,” he says. “We’re seeing the so-called ‘sensitivity’ of temperature being reduced by 40 percent in the new climate models. It means we’re going to live.” Michaels is tired of dire predictions. “I have lived through nine end-of-the-world environmental apocalypses, beginning with (the 1962 environmental book) ‘Silent Spring,’ and, you know, we’re still here.” As a consumer reporter, I fell for dire predictions about cellphones, Y2K and pesticides. Maybe the new scare will be killer bees, flesh-eating bacteria or bird flu. The media always hype something. Since this is hurricane season, let’s at least debunk one specific myth about preparing for hurricanes: the idea you should use masking tape to put X’s on your windows. Government brochures did recommend that in the 1930s, but now the National Hurricane Center calls it a mistake. It won’t stop glass from shattering, says Molina, but “now you have larger pieces of glass — potentially deadlier pieces of glass — flying around. … What you should be doing during a hurricane is be in a room with no windows and in a lower part of your home.” I’m a global warming skeptic not because I don’t believe the world will get warmer. It may. Climate changes. It always has. Man’s carbon output might make it worse. But just because humans sometimes damage the environment doesn’t mean government is competent to fix the problem. That’s the biggest myth of all. Government is the same institution that takes over forests to “protect” them — but then builds logging roads into forests to cut down trees that unsubsidized, private roads might never have reached. The forests end up smaller, but people still assume they’re safer in government hands than in greedy private hands. Government is the institution that puts itself in charge of caring for wildlife but recently sent a dozen armed agents into a Wisconsin animal shelter to seize and kill a baby deer named Giggles who was being nursed back to health there, since Giggles wasn’t in the right type of approved shelter. When government screws up, we’re supposed to say, “They meant well.” When individuals pursuing their own interests screw up, we’re supposed to feel ashamed of industrial civilization and let government punish and control us all. If we let it do that, government will do to the economy what it did to Giggles.
Letter Policy • The News Sun welcomes letters to the Voice of the People column. All letters must be submitted with the author’s signature, address and telephone number. The News Sun reserves the right to reject or edit letters on the basis of libel, poor taste or repetition. Mail or deliver letters to The News Sun, 102 N. Main St., P.O. Box 39, Kendallville, IN 46755. Letters may be emailed to dkurtz@kpcmedia. com. Please do not send letters as attachments.
Voice Of The People •
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JOHN STOSSEL is host of “Stossel” on the Fox Business Network. Visit his site at johnstossel.com.
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Constitution takes a beating To the editor: When the degeneracy gang up on the defenseless and continue pummeling until long after unconsciousness, this is the same as is happening to the U.S. Constitution. The bullies who call themselves politicians and bureaucrats care only about their position on that ladder of governmental achievement and influence. If they refer to the Constitution at all, it is in a condescending, beguiling way that magnifies the ignoramuses they are. Of the 537 elected citizens who become politicians, is it even possible that 50 of them can define, let alone defend, the Constitution that they took an oath to serve and protect? A president whose lip service of the Constitution constitutes bypassing that document whenever possible. A House of Representatives incapable of productive engagement among themselves or with the Senate. A Senate incapable of productive engagement. A Supreme Court that
is unquestionably the most anticonstitutional body of robes ever to gavel there. An unmanagement bureaucracy under(?) government that communist countries would love to have at their disposal. Oh well, continue the pummeling.
provided the vision screenings, and the dental screenings were done by Dr. Dennis Lamp and Dr. Doug Jansen. Kindergarten physicals were completed by Dr. Mansfield, Dr. Frazier, Dr. Corbin and Dr. Lane. Noble County Health Department provided Monty Strawser immunizations for the children. CANI was LaGrange on site to help enroll families for Hoosier Healthwise. A thank you to the Lions Club for Community helps with providing pizza through Pizza Hut kindergarten health day and pop and to Parkview Hospital for purchasing supplies to make this event To the editor: On Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2013, the annual possible. Everyone’s involvement was greatly kindergarten health day was hosted at South appreciated and contributed to its success. Side Elementary School. We would like to extend a special thank you to everyone who We had several administrators in the school corporation volunteer their time along with helped. Over 118 students received vision, hearing and dental screenings and physicals ENHS Key Club students. Approximately 118 students benefited in many different to meet school entrance requirements. ways. Once again, a heartfelt and sincere We would like to thank the Avilla and Kendallville Lions clubs and their members thank you to the community. East Noble School Corporation nurses. for setting up the vision and hearing screenJessica James, Peggy Draper, Ronda ings and for volunteering their time to help. Huff and Casey Hardisty Dr. Matt Will, Dr. Roush and Dr. Geiger
It is time to leave one home for another I hang up the broom knowing I have swept up most of the sand from my Mad Mag Studio. I leave a farewell note to myself on the chalkboard and pull shut the old wooden door with the lace curtain. Just one more task completed before the journey begins. The purple satchell is packed and it is time to go. I hum a bit of “Home is an Island,” sung by Rob and Sundae, and toss the bag in the car. The five-hour journey toward the Amtrak train station takes me across the Hatteras Inlet and eventually through the Chesapeake Bay. Land now takes precedence over sea letting my Ocracoke summer slip away. A short night’s rest and it is time to board the train. We, the strangers, stand shoulder to shoulder as we show our boarding passes and take our seats. I find my seat and settle in. Some folks go right to sleep. Others pull out laptops to complete work and some text constantly. I sit like a perched eagle watching and listening to conversations. One young girl is on her way to college. Her dad helps her get settled into her seat, hugs her goodbye and leaves the train. He leans against the brick wall of the Amtrak station, but comes back onto the train. Tears are streaming
down his face as he tells his daughter farewell once again. I bite my bottom lip so I don’t cry as well. I remember those days. He leaves again, puts his sunglasses on and waves until we are gone. I am also numb with my normal confusion on this trip. “Where you headed?” they ask. “Home,” I say, “Indiana.” “Where LOU ANN have you they HOMAN- been?” ask. “Home,” SAYLOR I say, “Ocracoke.” We ramble and sway down the tracks past old American towns. We pass these towns that have seen firsthand battles of the Revolutionary and the Civil wars. My seat mate is a Civil War re-enactor and he tells me about his summer adventure. I am happy to learn that which I do not know. By mid-afternoon we arrive in Washington D.C. I pull my camera out to get a photo of the Capitol Building. We come to a final halt at Union Station where I have a three-hour wait. I
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set my bags down inside the station and enjoy the bustling activity. This is not Ocracoke or Angola, I muse to myself. I watch closely for Senators or reporters or movie stars. I happen to be close to the shoe shine station. A gentleman resembling Harrison Ford (but is not) climbs up into the chair for his shoeshine. He is dressed impeccably … hair, clothes … and his reading material is “The Wall Street Journal.” When his shoes are shined, he hands over his credit card and then is on his way. All this time he does not make eye contact or speak to the boy. I watch intently wanting him to acknowledge him with a glance or a nod, but he does not. We board the Capitol Limited two hours late, but that is what makes it a journey. I take dinner in the dining car with a woman traveling with her granddaughter. We break bread together and tell stories as rain streaks our train window. Another gentleman joins us and shares stories of his trip to Italy. His voice is steady as he takes us to the Coliseum and to Venice. I have traveled there once upon a time, but I do not interrupt his stories with mine. He is entertaining. It is late when we say
farewell and go back to our own seats. Sleep does not come easily to me on this night of travel. At 2 in the morning the folks surrounding me turn on their lights and munch on cereal and chocolate. It seems as if we are circled around the hobo campfire in those dark hours. I recite Sandburg because I must, and I hear my own voice trailing off into the distance. By early dawn we travel through Cleveland, Toledo, and into Indiana. I squint through my window until I finally see the corn of August. Shadows of pink bounce off morning fields where the chores have begun, and I am home. Grass clutches at the dark dirt with finger holds. Let it be blue grass, barley, rye or wheat, Let it be button weed or butter-and-eggs, Let it be Johnny-jump-ups springing clean blue streaks, Grassroots down under put fingers into dark dirt. — Carl Sandburg LOU ANN HOMAN-SAYLOR lives in Angola at the White Picket Gardens where you can find her gardening or writing late into the night under the light of her frayed scarlet lamp. She is a storyteller, teacher, writer, actress and a collector of front porch stories.
What Others Say • Vaccinating for HPV is lagging In Afghanistan, the Taliban has murdered United Nations health workers attempting to administer the polio vaccine in rural villagers and has convinced villagers that the vaccine is a Western plot to infect Afghan children. While U.S. health workers aren’t being gunned down, misguided, backward thinking also has prevented American families from taking full advantage of a vaccine that could
prevent thousands of cases of cervical cancer each year. Researchers believe that the Gardasil vaccine to block infection by the human papillomavirus could prevent up to 70 percent of all cervical cancers and 90 percent of genital warts. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last week that immunization rates across the nation have stalled over the last year. … HPVs are the most common cause of sexually transmitted infections. More than half of people who are sexually active
become infected with one of the more than 40 types of HPV that are known to spread during vaginal, oral or anal sex, according to the National Cancer Institute. The viruses are responsible for nearly all cases of cervical cancer and most cases of anal cancer. The viruses also cause more than half of the cancers in the middle part of the throat and about half of vaginal, vulvular and penile cancers. But the vaccine can practically eliminate that risk, especially if
it is administered to teens before they become sexually active so their bodies can develop immunity. Since 2006, the Advisory Committee on Immunization practices has recommended routine vaccination of adolescent girls ages 11 or 12. The need to inoculate children against HPV remains no matter who pays for it. We shouldn’t let superstition, ignorance — or false economy — deter us from ensuring that as many as possible receive this lifesaving vaccine. The Herald, Rock Hill, S.C.