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6 Stateline News Sunday, August 3, 2008
THE WAY WE SEE IT
More to
football than
grass stains
A
s the marathon that is baseball season
heads into the dog days of August,
we’re reminded by the start of NFL
training camps that another exciting football
season is just around the corner.
Thank goodness!
In just a few days, local high school players
will begin practice, as will youngsters in area
youth leagues. It’s a wonderful time of year, as
hundreds of area families prepare for another
thrilling season on the
gridiron.
This may not seem
particularly noteworthy,
except when you
consider that football
is a uniquely remarkable
athletic endeavor.
No sport, arguably, is
more physically and
mentally demanding,
or requires more
YOUR VIEWS
Our view
■ From youth
leagues to the NFL,
players learn the
value of working
together toward a
common goal.
teamwork and individual sacrifice. Not coincidentally,
no sport delivers rewards like football.
For those who embrace the true concept of
team play, success in football can be a defining
moment. Even in defeat, players learn to share
responsibility, while also committing to personal
accountability. Those who are unable or unwilling
to take these lessons to heart cannot be successful
football players. More important, they
exhibit character flaws that might well be crippling
in other pursuits.
On the overarching lessons that football offers,
the great Vince Lombardi said it best: “Football
is a great deal like life in that it teaches that
work, sacrifice, perseverance, competitive drive,
selflessness and respect for authority is the price
that each and every one of us must pay to
achieve any goal that is worthwhile.” Toss in a
whole lot of fun and excitement and you’ve got
the recipe for another fulfilling fall on the gridiron.
Hope to see you at the field.
Lack of sanitation?
To the editor:
Recently, a new business was recognized in a local
paper. I read the article with interest because new
business in Rock County always is a good thing. But
my concern is about the lack of sanitation shown in
the picture.
The person grilling in the picture did not have on a
hair net, gloves or a mustache guard. This is something
I have noticed is a common practice in Rock
County. Do cities or the county not have sanitation
codes in effect?
I have worked in the food industry in Illinois for a
number of years and had a Food Safety Sanitation
Certificate. I will not order food from an establishment
that does not require hair nets or gloves. I also
will not stay in a restaurant that allows a food handler
to also handle money.
If basic food-safety standards are not being followed,
then how am I going to believe that other sanitation
concerns are being addressed? I cannot be the
only person that this bothers. As consumers we need
to speak out against ineffective sanitation practices.
With recent headlines of food illness, can we afford to
ignore this issue any longer?
Lorri Ginn
Freeport, Ill.
OUTLOOK
Environmentalists jump the shark
Some environmentalists are blaming
the recent tomato/jalapeno salmonella
scare on global climate change.
If this keeps up, global warming also
will undoubtedly be blamed for malepattern
baldness, gingivitis, navel lint,
erectile dysfunction, your uncle’s hemorrhoids
and boring public radio.
Has environmentalism finally
“jumped the shark?” Or at least the Al
Gore version of Greenism?
In recent weeks, the enviros found
themselves the butt of jokes and potentially
on the wrong side of a red-hot
political issue: drilling.
All of this comes as a rude surprise
to a movement that is used to being
treated with deference, with its every
proclamation and nostrum regarded
with solemn respect and acquiescence.
We need new low-flush toilets to save
the planet? Of course. Replace our light
bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs?
Certainly. Blame climate change for
the plight of polar bears? They had the
pictures!
Then came this:
A Tennessee think tank recently
reported that Al Gore’s home energy
use surged more than 10 percent and
that the apostle of conservation
“burned through 213,210 kilowatthours
of electricity, enough to power
232 average American households for a
month.” Quite a carbon footprint for a
man who won the Nobel Prize for nagging
us about our carbon footprint.
The reaction to the tomato/jalapeno
story suggests that climate change
alarmism quickly is changing from
great-moral-challenge-of-our-time to
punch line. When a blog for Discover
magazine reported the alleged link
between bad vegetables and global
warming, the site was inundated with
hundreds of derisive comments along
the line of: “This is pure tripe. If you
tree huggers had any sense of reality
you would have learned NOT to blame
every issue on global warming.”
Environmentalists who have pursued
policies designed to drive up energy
prices found themselves in the awkward
position of having to defend policies
that — inconveniently enough —
drove up energy prices.
The Los Angeles Times reported that
environmentalists began to feel the
political earth shifting beneath their
feet. “The environmental movement,
only recently poised for major advances
on global warming and other issues,”
reported The Times, “has suddenly
found itself on the defensive as high
gasoline prices shift the political climate
nationwide and trigger defections
by longtime supporters.”
New polls came out showing strong
public support for offshore drilling to
deal with record-high gas prices.
Up until recently, environmentalists
were able to essentially play political
tennis without a net: they were able to
assume positions of moral superiority
and confer cultural virtue, without ever
having to explain how much all of this
would cost or who would pay the bill.
Four-dollar-per-gallon gasoline
changed all that. When John McCain
and President Bush came out in favor
of lifting the moratoriums on drilling
for the nation’s untapped billions of
barrels of oil, congressional Democrats
pulled out their usual talking points,
only to find that they were channeling
Jimmy Carter.
Wisconsin Congressman Steve
Kagen floated a variety of conspiracy
theories involving grasping, evil oil
companies, denouncing what he called
the policy of “drill and burn.” But, like
other Democratic politicians, he had
little to offer in the way of relief for the
drivers, truckers and middle-class voters
in his district who have no alternative.
There’s a reason for that: liberals
long have supported higher gas and
energy prices; their policies of enforced
scarcity made the price spike
inevitable. Now the bill has come due
and people are noticing.
Recently, Kagen was campaigning in
Seymour with U.S. Rep. Collin
Peterson, D-Minn., who explained that
higher gas prices are “needed.”
Lectured Peterson: “We needed these
higher prices to force us to change our
ways.”
Kagen’s opponent in the fall election,
former state Rep. John Gard, immediately
leaped on the comment, calling on
Kagen to repudiate the endorsement of
$4-a gallon gas. Fat chance. Liberals
have cast their lot with the greens.
But they now are discovering that
the pieties of the environmentalist elite
— unchallenged in the salons of
Cambridge or Madison — will be a bit
harder to sell in the truck stops of
northeast Wisconsin.
What would Washington say?
For the first time since the “don’t ask,
don’t tell” law was enacted in 1993 by
President Clinton, the House Armed
Services Committee has scheduled
hearings to review it. The law disqualifies
gays from serving in the military.
Individuals are deemed gay, according
to this ruling, if they publicly state
so. However, the military is prohibited
from asking. Thus, “don’t ask, don’t
tell.”
Activists now are pushing for change
to allow gays to serve openly.
We can anticipate a technical discussion.
Does the presence of openly gay
soldiers undermine cohesiveness of
units, morale and discipline? How
would retention rates of troops or enlistments
be affected?
We can be sure, though, that a discussion
about the general moral implications
of such a policy will not take place.
Early last year, then-chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace
called homosexuality “immoral.” More
fire and brimstone rained down on him
than fell on the residents of Sodom and
Gomorrah for engaging in this behavior.
Rebukes came from Democrats and
Republicans alike. GOP Sen. John
Warner, a former chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee,
writing his own scripture, challenged
Pace’s view that homosexuality is
immoral.
Although a recent Zogby poll of military
personnel shows more opposed to
allowing gays to serve openly than
favoring (37 percent to 26 percent), the
direction of polling of the general public
favors the pro-gay forces.
When “don’t ask, don’t tell” was
enacted in 1993, an NBC/Wall Street
Journal poll showed 52 percent opposed
CHARLIE HARLIE SYKES YKES
GUEST COLUMN
STAR TAR PARKER ARKER
COALITION ON URBAN
RENEWAL & EDUCATION
to homosexuals serving openly and 43
percent in favor. By 2004, Gallup
polling indicated 63 percent in favor of
allowing homosexuals to serve against
32 percent opposed.
The culture war is like the recipe for
boiling a frog. If you drop it in hot
water, it jumps out. But if you drop it in
cold water and slowly turn up the heat,
you get frog soup.
Concession by concession, traditional
values are being pushed, inexorably, to
the margins of America.
It’s a sign of this moral war of attrition
that each battle is fought with less
and less attention to what it means to
the overall war.
Acceptance of openly gay people in
the military means the next discussion
will be qualification of gay couples for
the same benefits received by traditional
military families.
In all likelihood, we’ll see claims of
discrimination if a gay person gets
passed over for promotion, and intimidated
review committees will become
increasingly politically correct.
But, hey, in the morally relative
world, a glass half empty for one is half
full for the other.
Increasing acceptance of homosexuality
is viewed by many as social
progress. The Seattle Times, for example,
calls for a “modernized” military
that accepts the openly gay.
But for this traditionalist, it’s no acci-
Charlie Sykes hosts a daily show on
620 WTMJ radio in Milwaukee. This column
was distributed by the Wisconsin
Policy Research Institute.
dent that building public acceptance of
homosexuality is coincident with a general
moral unraveling of our society,
with all its destructive consequences.
According to Kevin Hassett of the
American Enterprise Institute, a conservative
think tank located in
Washington, D.C., 32 percent of
American households today are nontraditional,
compared to only 28 percent
that are traditional, with a mother,
father, and children. The remaining 40
percent are households without children.
He points out that children in
nontraditional households have considerably
higher incidences of emotional
and educational problems.
I would argue that most of the major
costs dragging down our society today
— whether it’s poverty, entitlements,
health care or housing — trace to our
diminishing sense of personal responsibility
and the erosion of traditional values.
Our first great general, George
Washington, would be considered politically
incorrect today cautioning against
believing “that national morality can
prevail in exclusion of religious principle”
and admonishing, “virtue or morality
is a necessary spring of popular government.”
Gays in the military is more than a
question of military morale. It’s about
the character of this country that we
have a military to defend.
Who would question what George
Washington would say about this
important issue?
Star Parker is president of the Coalition
on Urban Renewal & Education in
Washington, D.C.
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