04 - The Unger Memorial Library - MyPlainview.com

Page 6A - Sunday, September 4, 2011 - Plainview Herald www.MyPlainview.com
Herald
OPINION
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Thoughts on Plainview water
To the Editor:
We may all see that, in
the near future, our city will
no longer be able to furnish
enough water for irrigation
of our lawns, or certainly,
only at a greatly-reduced
rate. There are a few things
that may be done in anticipation
of that time.
First, change that Bermuda
grass to buffalo grass. It can
be attractive on much less
water than Bermuda and, if
necessary, can survive with
President Obama has
nominated Princeton
University Professor Alan
Krueger to be chairman of
the White House Council
of Economic Advisors.
Saying that “I have nothing
but confi dence in Alan as
he takes on this important
role,” Obama described him
as one of the nation’s leading
economists.
Nonsense! Washington
needs to stop listening to
these allegedly high-minded
academics who have helped
get us into this fouled-up
economy.
“Cash for Clunkers”?
Please! Enough with
academics from Princeton,
Harvard, Chicago and Yale
who have never run a business
nor created a single
private sector job. It is long
past time for us to put a
business person in this post,
someone who has actually
Mallard Fillmore
no irrigation at all (except,
maybe, this year.) It also can
do fairly well in the shade.
Also, if we feel that we
must irrigate, we can pipe
the water from our eaves to a
cistern which can be drilled
in our backyards. We probably
will not save enough in
our lifetimes to pay for the
expense, but the value of
our property should increase
when we resell it.
Harold Kidd
Plainview
Snyder councilman addresses ‘scum’
To the Editor:
I am sure there are a lot of
very good people in Plainview.
As with any small city,
there are people who, as my
mother used to say, “Are the
salt of the earth. The best
kind of people you would
ever want to meet and get
to know. Honest people.” I
wish I could talk about those
people, but, unfortunately,
this is not so in this incident.
In this letter we are going
to have to talk about the scum
of Plainview.
On Aug. 16, my wife was
traveling from Snyder to
Amarillo, via Plainview. She
always stops at one of the
local stores and, as she was
preparing to leave to go on
to Amarillo, she dropped her
purse in the parking lot and
didn’t realize it. It contained
approximately $800, her
driver’s license, Social Security
card, keepsake pictures,
insurance card, address
labels, a full book of stamps,
etc. Whoever found it most
likely took the money and
stamps and tossed the rest in
the trash.
I bring up what was in the
purse to tell you there was
plenty of money, postage
stamps and address labels.
They could have easily
mailed the purse back to my
wife, if they were honest,
which they weren’t.
Losing the money was bad
enough, and replacing the
license and Social Security
card, which we will have to
do at our own expense, is a
hassle. But the pictures and
other personal treasures was
the real killer. It was not anything
of any value to anyone
— except her. This is what
hurt me so bad, to see her
grieve over those personal,
irreplaceable items.
One of your own policemen
told my wife, “You
will probably never see your
belongings again. This is the
worst town for thieving in
Texas!” His words, not mine.
To the person/people
who found her purse: I’m
sure you probably bought
yourself a lot of beer, maybe
cigarettes, food and some
dope. Anyone who would
do what you did is just the
type of heathen who would
get drunk or high, then laugh
about your perceived stroke
of good luck. I suppose I
could say to you, “Someday,
you will have to answer to
God for your dishonesty.”
But if you are the kind who
would take advantage of
someone like this, you probably
do not have a personal
relationship with God anyway.
I pity you!
Enjoy yourself. Laugh
about the incident and your
supposed good fortune. My
guess is none of the money
you stole is left. I would
imagine you blew it all on
trivial, worthless things and
have nothing to really show
for it, but maybe a hangover
or some other form of
aftereffects. A person who
would do this is not much
of a human being. You are
more of a parasite on society.
What you don’t realize is
you have brought a curse
on yourself that you cannot
escape, the effects of which
will far outweigh the benefi ts
you think you gained by your
dishonesty.
As I have heard said in so
many old westerns, just before
they put some criminal
to death, “May God have
mercy on your soul.”
Lanny Covey
City Councilman
Snyder
created jobs.
This has got to stop. No
more liberal professors
getting top administration
jobs! If you must have an
academic, however, why not
try someone on the faculty
at Eureka College where
my dad, Ronald Reagan,
got his degree in economics.
It worked for him and
it worked for the good old
USA!
Krueger, 50, described
as a “labor specialist” who
served in the Treasury
Department earlier in the
Obama administration, will
succeed Austan Goolsbee,
who has now returned to the
University of Chicago. According
to Obama, Krueger
is “a key voice on a vast
array of economic issues
for more than two decades.
Alan understands the diffi
cult challenges our country
faces, and I have confi dence
Camps lacked ‘haimish’
Recently, I did a little
reporting from Kenya and
Tanzania before taking a
safari with my family. We
stayed in seven camps. Some
were relatively simple, without
electricity or running
water. Some were relatively
luxurious, with regular
showers and even pools.
The simple camps were
friendly, warm and familial.
We got to know the other
guests at big, communal
dinner tables. At one camp
we got to play soccer with
the staff on a vast fi eld in the
Serengeti before an audience
of wildebeests. At another
camp, we had impromptu
spear-throwing and archery
competitions with the kitchen
staff. Two of the Maasai
guides led my youngest
son and me on spontaneous
mock hunts — stalking
our “prey” on foot through
ravines and across streams.
I can tell you that this is the
defi nition of heaven for a
12-year-old boy, and for
someone with the emotional
maturity of one.
The more elegant camps
felt colder. At one, each family
had its own dinner table,
so we didn’t get to know the
other guests. The tents were
spread farther apart. We also
didn’t get to know the staff,
that he will help us meet
those challenges as one of
the leaders on my economic
team.”
Fox News reported
Monday that, according to
one administration offi cial,
“Krueger’s job will be to
provide policy prescriptions
on ways to spur employment
. . . [he] has worked
on several analyses at Treasury,
including the impact
of tax incentives to encourage
employers to hire, the
‘cash for clunkers’ program
to expand vehicle purchases,
the Small Business
Lending Fund and Build
America taxable municipal
bonds.”
He was previously
employed as the chief
economist at the Labor
Department during the
Clinton administration, and
has published studies on job
growth, the minimum wage
DAVID
BROOKS
who served us mostly as
waiters, the way they would
at a nice hotel.
I know only one word to
describe what the simpler
camps had and the more
luxurious camps lacked:
“haimish.” It’s a Yiddish
word that suggests warmth,
domesticity and unpretentious
conviviality.
It occurred to me that
when we moved from a
simple camp to a more
luxurious camp, we crossed
an invisible Haimish Line.
The simpler camps had it,
the more comfortable ones
did not.
This is a generalized
phenomenon, which applies
to other aspects of life.
Often, as we spend more on
something, what we gain in
privacy and elegance we lose
in spontaneous sociability.
I once visited a university
that had a large, lavishly
fi nanced Hillel House to
serve as a Jewish center on
and the economic backgrounds
of terrorists.
Impressive. But this nation’s
phenomenal growth
in a mere 200 years from a
collection of British colonies
to the world’s leading
fi nancial colossus was hardly
the result of the labors of
college economics professors
working in government
jobs. It was ordinary
Americans, most without
college degrees or even high
school diplomas, who rolled
up their sleeves and built
the world’s most advanced
nation from the plains and
forests of a largely undeveloped
new world.
Academia was not the
engine that created 21st
Century America — it was
a passenger riding free in
the caboose. The salaries
and other perks available to
members of the professorate
are paid with funds resulting
from the sweat and grit of
ordinary Americans whom
the academics routinely demean
as being beneath their
notice, except when they are
campus. But the students
told me they preferred the
Chabad House nearby,
which was run by the
orthodox Lubavitchers. At
the Chabad house, the sofas
were tattered and the rooms
cramped, but, the students
said, it was more haimish.
Restaurants and bars can
exist on either side of the
Haimish Line. At some diners
and family restaurants,
people are more comfortable
leaning back, laughing
loud, interrupting more and
sweeping one another up in
a collective euphoria. They
talk more to the servers, and
even across tables. At nicer
restaurants, the food is better,
the atmosphere is more
refi ned, but there is a tighter
code about what is permissible.
Hotels can exist on either
side of the Haimish Line.
You’ll fi nd multiple generations
at a Comfort Inn
breakfast area, and people
are likely to exchange
pleasantries over the waffl e
machine. At a four-star hotel’s
breakfast dining room,
people are quietly answering
email on their phones.
Whole neighborhoods can
exist on Haimish Line.
David Brooks is a columnist for the
New York Times News Service.
Professors don’t have all of the answers
MICHAEL
REAGAN
reaching for their paychecks
or grants.
It is not surprising that
former academic Barack
Obama should turn to the
groves of academia to fi nd
appointees to key government
jobs. It’s where he
hails from; it’s where he
was comfortable, free of the
cares and competitions of a
dog-eat-dog economy.
I don’t have anything
against Professor Krueger.
As far as I know he is
fully qualifi ed for his new
job. It’s the job itself that
bothers me; the marriage
of government and the
professional economics
community that makes me
uncomfortable. The two are
not compatible, one being
devoted to the commonweal,
the other to more
esoteric pursuits.
I guess that’s what you
end up with when you elect
an academic with no reallife
experiences in the world
of cash and carry, where the
majority of us live.
Read more: www.
foxnews.com/
politics/2011/08/29/
obama-to-nominateprinceton-professor-ashead-economic-advisersteam/#ixzz1WdGBAaef
Michael Reagan is the son of
President Ronald Reagan, a political
consultant and the author of “The
New Reagan Revolution.”
Reagan@caglecartoons.com
Page 6A
Sunday, September 4, 2011
MyPlainview.com/opinion
BILL
O’REILLY
Political
feuds
Political feuds are entertaining,
especially when
they involve presidential
contenders. Thus, the alleged
bad blood between
Texas Governor Rick Perry
and former Massachusetts
Governor Mitt Romney is
worth examining, because
those two guys are currently
the frontrunners to
challenge President Obama
next year.
According to the reporting
by the Boston Globe,
there are two issues in
play. First, back in 2002
when Mitt Romney was
rescuing the Salt Lake
City Olympic games from
chaos, Rick Perry wanted
the Boy Scouts of America
to be named the offi cial
volunteers of the games.
Romney said no because
most scouts are under 18,
the minimum age required
to work at the Olympics.
Perry, however, thought
there was a gay component
to Romney’s decision,
since the scouts do not accept
declared homosexuals
as Scoutmasters. Romney
denied that.
Then, in 2006, Romney
traveled to Texas as the
Chairman of the Republican
Governor’s Association.
He met with Perry,
who was furious that a
man named Alex Castellanos
had been hired as
an advisor by Romney. It
seems that Castellanos was
also advising Carole Keeton
Strayhorn, who was
running against Perry for
governor. It was a chilly
meeting.
On paper, those incidents
look small, and they
are. But now Romney and
Perry fi nd themselves in a
“high noon”-type situation;
soon they will have a
showdown, most likely in a
debate situation. At the end
of the primary season, only
one will be standing tall.
I say that because there
is not much chance that
Michelle Bachmann, currently
running third in the
polls, will gain enough
traction to threaten the
governors. The Congresswoman
is waging an
energetic campaign, but
big money Republicans are
looking for “gravitas” this
time around, not ideology.
Those running the GOP
well understand that economics
will decide the next
presidential election.
Both Romney and Perry
are well positioned in the
economic area. While
Romney was governor of
Massachusetts, a liberal
bastion, state bonds received
an upgrade by Standard
and Poors, the agency
that just downgraded the
USA.
Perry’s economic
story is solid as well. Texas
leads the league in job
creation in the teeth of a
stubborn recession, and tort
reform has attracted major
medical concerns and
personnel to the state. So,
on balance, both governors
match up well with Mr.
Obama in the economic
arena.
Perry is counting on his
conservative credibility
to hold his poll lead over
Romney, who is suspect in
some right-wing precincts
because of the Massachusetts
health care law.
You may remember that
President Obama gave
Romney credit for passing
the law which, of course,
was like putting a nail in
the governor’s shoe.
The Romney-Perry
matchup should be interesting,
especially if it gets
vicious. Both men are
capable of slinging some
mud. And with the hair
situations they both have,
that could get messy.
Veteran TV news anchor Bill O’Reilly
is host of the Fox News show “The
O’Reilly Factor” and author of the
book “Pinheads and Patriots: Where
You Stand in the Age of Obama.”