Ogden Valley News | 2013-01-01 | Page 2

Page 2 The Ogden Valley news Volume XX Issue XVIII January 1, 2013 The Ogden Valley news Staff: Shanna Francis Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] Cell: 801-791-4387 E-Mail: [e-mail] Jeannie Wendell Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] E-Mail: [e-mail] [e-mail] Opinions expressed by advertisers, columnists or letters to the editor are not necessarily the opinions of the owners and staff of The Ogden Valley news. guidelines for Letters to the Editor Letters should be 300 words or less. Letters must be signed and the address of the writer submitted. The Ogden Valley news reserves the right to edit or decline printing of any submissions. Announcements Sought As a community service, The Ogden V alley n ews will print local birth, wedding, obituary, anniversary and missionary farewell & homecoming and Eagle Scout announcements free of charge. We invite residents to send their announcements to: The Ogden Valley news PO BOX 130 EDEN UT 84310 If you would like your submitted items returned, please send a stamped, selfaddressed envelope. The Ogden Valley news , while respecting all property received, will take no responsibility for lost or misplaced items. Please remember to keep a copy for yourself. Invitation for Articles The staff of The Ogden Valley news welcomes the submission of articles by our readership. We invite you to submit local historical accounts or biographies, articles pertaining to contemporary issues, and/or other material that may be of interest to our readers. We also invite you to submit to the paper, or notify the staff of local events. Awards that have been earned by the reader, family members, neighbors or friends are also sought. While the staff of The Ogden Valley news invites the submittal of information and articles, we reserve the right to select which material will be considered for publication. All material, to be considered, must be submitted with the full name, address and telephone number of the person submitting the material. The OgdenValley news’liability on account of errors in, or omissions of, advertising shall in no event exceed the amount of charges for the advertising omitted or the space occupied by the error. The Ogden Valley news does not endorse, promote or encourage the purchase or sale of any product or service advertised in this newspaper. Advertisements are the sole responsibility of the advertiser. The Ogden Valley news hereby disclaims all liability for any damage suffered as the result of any advertisement in this newspaper. The Ogden Valley news is not responsible for any claims or representations made in advertisements in this newspaper. The Ogden Valley news has the sole authority to edit and locate any classified advertisement as deemed appropriate. It also reserves the right to refuse any advertising. Note: The contents of The Ogden Valley News are copyrighted. To protect this publication and its contributors from unlawful copying, written permission is required before any individual or company engages in the reproduction or distribution of its contents, by any means, without first obtaining written permission from the owners of this publication. The deadline for the OVN January 15 issue is January 1. Letters to the Editor Family Asks for Community’s Help in Locating Missing Dog On Monday, December 10, 2012, our two dogs were accidentally let out and then ran off and only one came back. We have been searching for the missing dog ever since. We have left notes on peoples doors, drove many hours, called animal control, and taken off work to find her. Her name is Lua; she is a black border collie with white on the front of her. She had/has a red collar on her. We are asking for anyone who may have seen or heard anything of her, Lua, to let us know. She is a big part of our family. Our 4-year-old calls her his “hunting dog,” and our one-year-old insists on feeding her everything from her high chair. She may have been getting into trouble and we understand others rights and know that she may have been shot with all the farm animals near our house; either way, we would still like her back. Please call if you have any information. Her information and address is also on her tags. The Lewis Family, Huntsville 801-388-0338 or 801-391-3496 Photo of Lua, the family dog, who is missing. Republican Senators Lack Compassion for Those with Disabilities in the World I was stunned when our senators decided to vote against ratification of a treaty that encouraged the world to adopt standards that would help ensure access and nondiscrimination to the world’s population of individuals who have disabilities. The Republican Party struggles with the post-election fact that it did poorly among virtually every group currently identified as a protected class, and they may now add those with disabilities to that list of voters who will never consider voting Republican. When the U.S. passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, I was proud to watch as we undertook the task of installing curb cuts, making public buildings accessible, assuring access to public transportation, and helping to guarantee that those with disabilities would be protected against employment discrimination. In America, we saw a problem and resolved to correct it. Other countries have not been so forward thinking. I don’t understand why 38 Republican senators, including our own, would fail to ratify this treaty, which constitutes no threat to our national sovereignty. The purpose of the treaty was to help assure that some of the benefits we enjoy in the United States are available to those in the rest of the world. The ratification failure seems to reinforce the perception that the Republican Party has little or no concern for minority and disadvantaged communities. I wish our senators had shown a modicum of compassion for those in this world with disabilities. I also hope their world view does not reflect the general feeling of the majority of their constituents. Harold R. Stephens, Liberty Acts of Kindness Recently a friend and our wives were discussing a troubling subject that has been on almost everyone’s mind—the tragic violence at Sandy Hook Elementary School. We agreed that the deaths of innocent young children doesn’t just break your heart, it crushes it. Your whole being is repulsed at the thought of these children and their teacher/protectors being brutally murdered. The grief of families, friends, and a whole nation is hardly fathomable. Our president and other leaders have spoken compassionately about the tragedy and called for effective changes. The question is, what do we change and how? Our friends agreed that stricter gun laws alone won’t fix the problem; the roots of the problem must be known and dealt with. We blame the state of our mental health system, the lax security in schools and public places, poor parenting, and an uncaring public. These all are in the mix of secondary causes; the root cause is seldom mentioned or understood. The sickness in our society is, in large part, due to a fascination with violence, which is purveyed and promoted through various “entertainment” venues—from television shows, movies, and music lyrics to multiple gaming devices and programs. We ignore the truth of the axiom “evil begets evil and violence begets violence” and turn our heads to the fact that violence can be taught through simulation. Simulation is a useful teaching tool. Law enforcement and the military use it all the time. We use it to learn to fly an airplane, to learn a new language, to sell a product, and to learn medical techniques. Why then would you expect a different result from those who feast on “games” that simulate mass killings and blowing people up with explosives or science fiction weapons? There are ideas and plans being formulated right now to restrict guns, improve mental health care, and increase security in schools and other public places. No doubt some of these ideas will find their way into our legal codes; some people will feel a little safer, lawmakers will congratulate themselves on having done something, and life will go on—until the next tragic event. Unless we take action to work on the root causes of a national sickness, progress will be elusive. Attempts to place meaningful restrictions on violence will meet with formidable responses from the entertainment industry; cries of First Amendment violation will be heard from everyone who benefits from infecting our youth with the virus of violence addiction. Lobbyist will be paid huge sums of money to influence lawmakers and the sickness in our society will go untreated. This may sound like a hopeless cause, and it is—unless you and I are heard from; unless our voices speak loudly to our government officials; unless we demand an end to the unfettered access to our youth by those whose only motiva- tion is to benefit from the promotion of violence simulation. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this will be an easy or quick battle; it will not. The chances of failure are high given our lack of concentration or purpose in a frantic society. It may be that we have not reached the saturation point of violent behavior; time will tell. We may become like the people of some Middle East countries who have lived with suicide bombings, genocide, and killing of innocents on a much larger scale and for a longer period of time than what we have experienced at Sandy Hook and other places. Perhaps we will become as desensitized as they are to our own mass murders that occur all too frequently. As long as we continue to train the youth of this country through the process of violence simulation, we will have more real-life incidents that eventually desensitize us all. It has been suggested that acts of kindness are useful in countering violence. Our friends come to visit us on a regular basis. They are always kind and caring, even though they both work full time and have busy lives. They make a difference in our lives. If you have friends like this, then you, too, are lucky. And maybe, if practiced enough, the truth of this suggestion will bear fruit. John W. Reynolds, Pleasant View