PAGE A2 • MAY 31, 2016
THE POSEY COUNTY NEWS • SERVING THE COUNTY SINCE 1882 • WWW.POSEYCOUNTYNEWS.COM
OPINION
Hard work goes farther than self esteem in real life This is the season of college Commencement speeches — an art form that has seldom been memorable, but has increasingly become toxic in recent times. Two themes seem to J dominate Commencement T speeches. One is shameless F ... self-advertising by people B T in government, or in related S organizations supported by the taxpayers or donors, saying how nobler it is to be in ‘public service’ than working in business or other ‘selfish’ activities. In other words, the message is that it is morally superior to be in organizations consuming output produced by others than to be in organizations which produce that output. Moreover, being morally one-up is where it’s at. The second theme of many Commencement speakers, besides flattering themselves that they are in morally superior careers, is to flatter the graduates that they are now equipped to go out into the world as ‘leaders’ who can prescribe how other people should live. In other words, young people, who in most cases have never had either the sobering responsibility and experience of being self-supporting adults, are to tell other people — who have had that responsibility and that experience for years — how they should live their lives. In so far as the graduates go into ‘public
service’ in government, whether as bureaucrats or as aides to politicians or judges, they are to help order other people around. It might never occur to many Commencement speakers, or to their audiences, that what the speakers are suggesting is that inexperienced young graduates are to prescribe, or help to dictate, to vast numbers of other people who have the real world experience that the graduates themselves lack. To the extent that such graduates remain in government — ‘public service’ — they can progress from aides to becoming career politicians, bureaucrats and judges, never acquiring the experience of being on the receiving end of their prescriptions or dictates. That can mean a lifetime of people with ignorance presuming to prescribe to people with personal knowledge. However well-educated the students might be in particular narrow fields — and, in too many cases, they have not gotten even that — what the graduates might have, at best, is a foundation for acquiring the real world experience necessary to complete their education and fulfill the ancient admonition, ‘With all your getting, get understanding.’ Presumption is not understanding. It is the antithesis of understanding. It was my personal good fortune never to have been present at a college or university
Commencement speech until I was 46 years old. In my earlier years, my college and postgraduate degrees had been mailed to a forwarding address that I left behind when I took leave of the campus at the earliest opportunity. At age 46, I was a Commencement speaker, and had to be told and shown how to wear the regalia. By the time I actually heard someone else give a Commencement speech, I was in my 50s — and knew enough by that time to be appalled, rather than inspired. It was also my good fortune not to have gone to college until I was several years older than most people. At an age when too many young people have been told too often how brilliant and exceptional they are — presumably to promote ‘self-esteem’ — I was working at unskilled labor jobs and struggling to buy food and pay my room
rent. Having to start work at the bottom was a blessing in disguise — and extremely well disguised at the time. I learned the hard way that the good grades I had earned before dropping out of school were of no use to me in my low-level jobs. No one told me how brilliant I was. They were too busy correcting my mistakes. It was painfully obvious that adults around me understood much more about their work — and about life. This taught me inescapable lessons and respect for people who had no academic pretensions but a lot of common sense. It would take a lot more than lofty Commencement speeches to undo those lessons. We all have windfall gains and windfall losses. But, all in all, I feel lucky compared to those graduates who are so vulnerable to slick Commencement speakers.
Guest Editorial: Tom H. Hastings, PeaceVoice Field report from the Dick Cheney Hunting Instruction Manual I live in a town of suspenders. The police chief is the current best example. He was just suspended for shooting his buddy in the back and then lying about it. They were out hunting-well, sitting drunk in lawn chairs blasting at squirrels. One wonders if the Harney County sheri, Dave Ward, should check suspended Portland Police Chief Larry O’Dea’s cell phone and email records—perhaps O’Dea had just gotten o a call with Dick ‘Nothing to Apologize For’ Cheney before opening ďŹ re on his pal. ‘Gun safety’ might be in line for the Oxymoron of the Millennium Award when police chiefs can’t handle weapons safely. Was the victim causing the chief to fear for his life so the chief felt obligated to shoot him in the back? The victim was armed, no doubt, so that could be it. Was the victim African American? Then no gun would be needed; Portland
police join many other urban police bureaus in routinely shooting unarmed black males. You remember Dave Ward? He was all over the national news last winter as the local sheri trying to resolve the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge by some far right armed wingnuts. He was patient with everyone and, with the exception of one armed occupier who repeatedly proclaimed his right and intention to shoot any and all with his openly carried weapon, Ward got everyone through the situation without bloodshed. He must be truly astonished that people keep coming 300 miles from Portland to commit mayhem in his previously sleepy county. I think we can all see his eyebrows arch as he was initially told that the victim of the April shootingwho was taken by medical helicopter to the hospital in critical condition—shot himself in the back. Riiiiiight. Did the victim sneak up on
himself too? Other sage advice from the likes of Dick Cheney helped O’Dea decide to try to cover it up. Seriously? Chief, did you think that we wouldn’t ďŹ nd out? Yes, it took a month for it all to spill into the news, but a helivac to an ER? Interviews by deputies of all parties? You were the Chief of Police, for goshsakes. It’s time. Time to repeal the Stupid Second Amendment so the citizens of the US can slowly lose their lethal ďŹ rearms and police will not have as much justiďŹ cation for packing guns everywhere they go, shooting everyone who might make them twitch. Time to retrain police to resolve conict without violence. Time to begin to disarm more and more oďŹƒcers. Time for Harney County Sheri Dave Ward to catch a break and stop having to deal with armed loonies. Tom H. Hastings is Founding Director of PeaceVoice.
Guest Column: Indiana Coalition for Human Services Hoosier children need CEP There has been much recent media attention paid to the National School Lunch Program. President Truman signed the program into law in 1946. The program subsidizes paid, free and reduced cost meals in public and private schools across the country. The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is the part of the program receiving the most attention and has been misconstrued. Congress included CEP in the 2010 Child Nutrition Reauthorization package with bipartisan support. CEP allows school districts that are located in high poverty areas to oer free meals to all students without requiring individual eligibility determinations. This provision, strongly supported by school administrators, reduces administrative eort and cost. As a result, CEP improves student achievement, and behavior things that we can all agree are important to ensuring our students’ success. The media and Members of Congress have described incorrectly the participation threshold for CEP. For the ďŹ rst time in the 2015-16 school year, schools and districts were eligible if 40 percent of students were ‘directly certiďŹ ed.’ This means, students were automatically enrolled for free meals because the student’s household was already certiďŹ ed for SNAP, Head Start or, TANF, or the student was homeless or in foster care. This does not mean that a school with ‘only’ 40 percent of students eligible for free and reduced lunch can participate in CEP, as has been reported. Income eligibility for free and reduced lunch is broader than is eligibility for SNAP, Head Start and TANF. Thus, at schools with 40 to 60 percent of directly certiďŹ ed students, there is a much larger percentage of students who are eligible for free or reduced price lunch. Also, data shows that many eligible students are missed when schools must individually certify students. In the Lafayette School Corporation,
where ďŹ ve schools meet the 40 percent threshold for students directly certiďŹ ed for free lunch, the actual rate of free and reduced lunch eligibility ranges from 65 to 82 percent. Last week the House Committee on Education and Workforce passed a new reauthorization package that not only signiďŹ cantly restricts CEP participation but would also severely limit the ability of school sta to reach out to families who may be eligible for free and reduced price lunches, and it would increase the amount of veriďŹ cation paperwork (and associated administrative costs) schools will need to perform. These new provisions will prevent eligible, hungry, Hoosier children from accessing school meals. Is this really what we want for our kids? By eliminating the administrative costs associated with determining individual student’s eligibility, managing payments, and monitoring lunch accounts, it is simply more cost eective to serve all students. Under this bill, many schools with a high rate of children living in poverty would be ineligible to participate in CEP. Child hunger is a serious problem in Indiana and should be given serious regard. Schools are places that our children go to be nourished - intellectually, emotionally and physically. School meals are a vital part of that equation. About Indiana Coalition for Human Services (ICHS): ICHS is a nonpartisan advocacy coalition of almost thirty organizations that educates decision makers and the community on fact-based human service policy which emphasizes quality outcomes for Hoosiers, and ultimately the State of Indiana. We invest in, protect and advocate for children, people with disabilities, senior citizens and hard-working families who are trying to make a better life for themselves. www.ichsonline.org
An ounce of prevention Let’s say you and your neighbor have lived next to each other for twenty years. He helped you coach your son’s Little League team. You and he risked your lives cutting down a large oak tree that had blown halfway down across the prop- GAVEL erty line between your GAMUT backyards. Your wives conspired frequently to BY JUDGE make sure the two of JIM REDWINE you did not spend your weekends playing golf or watching football or doing anything they hadn’t planned. About every other year either you or he or sometimes both of you dutifully attended a play, graduation, wedding or birthday party involving one of your children or his. Then, you decided to build a fence between your houses because your wife saw a picture in a magazine and told you via ‘female speak’ you needed to build such an ‘improvement.’ Because you put the entire fence well on your side of
the property line you saw no need to consult your neighbor first. After all, he didn’t check with you before allowing his twelve-year-old son to take a shortcut to school across your back yard. The first thing that happened was, because his twelve -year-old boy could no longer traipse across the back of your yard to get to school, he and his buddies started climbing over your new white picket fence to keep their shortcut. Your wife, who was unamused by a path through her new flowerbeds by the fence, demanded that you, “Do something!â€? Because you have watched every episode of every television legal show from Perry Mason to Judge Judy you run to the County Clerk’s office and file a lawsuit seeking a million dollars in damages and an injunction against the boy. Or ‌ You call your best friends and neighbors of twenty years and invite them over for bar-b-q where you agree that you and he will build a gate in your fence and your wives agree to replant the flowers. Then your wives head to the mall together while you and your buddy finally get in a round of
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golf where he shoots 110 and writes down 88 and after you see his score you also write down 88 instead of the score you quit keeping after you hit a ball out of bounds on the third hole. Everybody’s happy. The lawsuit would’ve cost you and him enough money to furnish game-day beer for the rest of your lives. It also would’ve languished in court for months or even years before it was settled on about the same terms you four friends worked out by yourselves. Which seems more rational? That is, which reminds you less of the present presidential campaign? Of course, to resolve matters before suit is resorted to, someone has to swallow their pride and start the talking process. Based on my experience as a judge for thirty-five years I have decided most lawsuits could have been avoided if someone had just picked up the phone and started a conversation. The remaining legal matters may require some help from the legal system. If you are not busy ‘Mending Walls’ between you and your neighbors, maybe we can move to this next stage next week.
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The Posey County News - USPS 439500 is published weekly for $39 in-state and $48 out-of-state by Pearmor Publishing LLC, PO Box 397, New Harmony, IN 47631. Periodicals postage paid at Mount Vernon, Indiana Editor: Dave Pearce Postmaster: Denise Howard Send address changes to: The Posey County News, PO Box 397, New Harmony, IN 47631