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Show A10 Wednesday, July 20, 2005 pita Public Forum Letters to the Editor What is your opinion? The Vernal Express welcomes letters from its readers concerning any subject pertinent to the Uintah Basin. There are no restrictions on contents, if not libelous, vindictive vin-dictive and in good taste. The letters need to be a reasonable length, two typewritten double spaced pages. Letters must be submitted exclusively to the Vernal Express and bear the writer's writ-er's full name, signature, phone number and address. Letters for the sole purpose of expressing express-ing thanks to individuals or groups will not be printed in the forum. Letters may be mailed to P.O. Box 1000, Vernal, Utah 84078, faxed at 789-8690 or through email at editorvernal.com. The name or names of the persons submitting letters must appear on all published letters. All letters let-ters are subject to condensation. Letters express the opinion of the writer and are not necessarily necessar-ily thopinion of the Vernal Express Editor. A difference Dear Editor, My husband and I have a 12-year-old daughter daugh-ter who finished the 6th grade at Vernal Middle School last year, and there is a teacher there that deserves some recognition. Stephen Borton is the 6th grade Science teacher there. He is an excellent teacher who goes the extra mile to make science an exciting learning experience for our children. Not only does he teach during the regular school year, he also conducts a Bugs and Guts class at the beginning of the summer through the Recreation District. This is a wonderful won-derful way to let the kids experience dissecting dissect-ing bugs like real scientists. I would highly recommend this class. My daughter's words to describe Mr. Borton were, "He just has a way of making learning fun.'' What prompted me to write this letter is yesterday we received an envelope in the mail from Mr. Borton. It was a really nice note and a "Super Nice Science Student Award 2004-2005" 2004-2005" for our daughter. Needless to say, she was thrilled. Remember, it's mid-July and I'm sure Mr. Borton is busy doing fun summer activities activi-ties with his family and friends just like the rest of us. This is his time off and he still took the time to send her this award & note. His teaching teach-ing skills have made an impact on my daughter, daugh-ter, and I'm sure many other students. In fact, I have fond memories of when he taught me. He has not only taught her science, he taught her that hard work can be rewarded even when you least expect it. Thank you, Mr. Borton, some people do make the world a better place. You have made a difference. Doug and Jill Henrie Human Slavery and Pornography, at Home and Abroad by Nathan Tabor Dear Editor, Did you know that human slavery still flourishes flour-ishes worldwide? "Trafficking in human beings is nothing less than a modern form of slavery," said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in June as she released her department's fifth annual 'Trafficking in Persons" report. According to the report, somewhere between 600,000 and 800,000 human beings are trafficked across international borders every year. Of these, fully half are children and 80 percent are female. The report says that poverty, corruption and poor education are among the factors that allow human trafficking to flourish. The victims are often used to supply the growing global demand for cheap or slave labor, conscripted soldiers, forced prostitutes, and child sex objects. All of this is bad, especially the idea of unwilling unwill-ing women being kidnapped and forced into prostitution, but that last part about the child sex victims is what bothers me most. When grownups most often perverted older men exploit innocent children for their own predatory preda-tory sexual gratification, that depraved conduct clearly crosses the line beyond what any civilized civi-lized society should tolerate. Unfortunately, the problem of child sex abuse is not something that just happens in some remote, backward corner of the globe. Right here in America, an estimated 400,000 children are sexually exploited every year (not to mention men-tion the millions of women abducted or lured into prostitution). What fans the flames of this wildfire of sex slavery and child sex abuse? I personally think it's the combined influence of the American entertainment and pornography industries. According to the Rand Corporation, standards of decency are falling throughout the American popular culture, and much of the blame for that goes back to the entertainment industry that both glamorizes the notion of recreational sex without consequences and also normalizes aberrant aber-rant behavior. "If everyone's talking about sex or having it, and something bad hardly ever comes out of it, because it doesn't on TV, then they think, "Hey, the whole world's doing it, and I need to," the Rand report explained. Adding readily available pornography to that already relaxed moral climate amounts to throwing gasoline on a grassfire and producing a full-fledged raging forest fire. Pornography is just as addictive as any narcotic drug, as serial sex killer Ted Bundy notoriously admitted just before his execution. Numerous other sex offenders have bolstered Bundy's testimony, as has clinical scientific research. "Pornography triggers a myriad of endogenous, endog-enous, internal, natural drugs that mimic the high from a street drug," reports Judith Reisman, PhD., an acknowledged expert in the field of pornography and sex addiction. "Testimony from victims and police commonly common-ly finds pornography to be an on-site-sex-abuse manual." Just as drug addictions start small and escalate esca-late until they are out of control, so do sexual perversions triggered by pornography. I believe we will see an increase in violent sexual crimes so long as the addictive narcotic of hard-core pornography is readily available on newsstands and TV and the Internet. So there you have it. The greedy purveyors of pornography are creating more and more sex addicts whose depraved desires ultimately result in carnal crimes against women and children. Their insatiable demands stimulate amoral slave-traders to increase the supply of helpless victims. The sinful cycle of fleshly lust and greed feeds upon itself and grows. Yet amazingly, pornography has gone mainstream main-stream within the last few years. Pretty porn starlet Jenna Jameson appears on Larry King Live as the new public face of porn. Another XXX-rated actress, Mary Carey, recently joined President and Laura Bush at a big G.O.P. fund-raising fund-raising dinner in Washington, D.C., along with her boss Mark Kulkis, a porn distributor who also contributes big bucks to the Republican Party. We judge drug traffickers, and especially so-called so-called kingpins, deserving of more severe criminal crimi-nal punishment than casual drug users precisely pre-cisely because their personal greed produces so many human victims. We used to take the same approach toward nomographers, before some misguided "free speech" zealots distorted the original meaning of the First Amendment. It's time we come back to common sense before more irreversible damage is done to countless human lives. If that means "censorship" "censor-ship" of Hollywood movies and stiff prison sentences and heavy fines for those who appear in, produce and distribute hard-core pornography pornogra-phy so be it. Copyright 2005 by Nathan Tabor Nathan Tabor is a conservative political activist based in Kernersville, N.C. He has his BA in psychology and his MA in public policy. He is a contributing editor at www. theconservativevoice.com. Contact him at Nathannathantabor.com. Recreation Dear Editor, A couple of weeks ago an editorial was printed print-ed that talked about the recent dismissal of Al Stone from his position of county recreation director. The editorial took a negative slant toward Mr. Stone. I am writing to support Al. I'm sure that among the readership of the paper there are many people who experience extreme difficulty as they face life. It seems to , be a part of life. Without diminishing what we all face I thought it was appropriate for me to say publicly that Al is facing his with integrity and strength. If any of you feel sympathetic enough to put yourself in his place consider your future from this perspective: You have a growing family with children ranging from 6 years old to age 20. You expect marriages and missions and baptisms and graduations, grad-uations, but you don't know when your participation partici-pation in those things might end because of an unexpected and seemingly incurable illness. It has already taken much of your strength and impacts your life every day. Then an unexpected unex-pected surprise takes your employment. The only thing offered to replace your chance to provide for your family is a one-time payment of $50,000.00. This sum seems large, (the previous previ-ous editorial called it two years salary), but you see it as a paltry amount compared to the benefit of being able to work and provide steady income with health benefits and retirement security. You know that because of the illness another employer won't take you on and so you can't replace what you lost. You also know that $50,000 won't last until your six-year-cld is graduated grad-uated from college. This event adds to the difficulty diffi-culty of your life, increases your stress level and your health continues to deteriorate. I know Al Stone well. I consider him to be one of my best friends and I know him to be a man of integrity and honor. He is kind and honest and I do not doubt that he will meet this problem as well as anyone could meet it. I will be beside him and he is seldom missed in my prayers and the prayers of my family. I cannot speak to the merits of the decision made by the board to let him go. I only can think that it is unfortunate that it came to this. I wonder if there was a better way to resolve whatever problems existed and I have no personal per-sonal knowledge of those problems. I care about my friend and his family and I don't want any of you to think that he is anything less than a man of high quality. Delmer Hyde Vernal :rr" Roy Gin's Gems Tax reform proposals create dilemma By Virginia Harrington Express Writer I have long been an advocate of eliminating taxes for the basic necessities of life: food, water and shelter. Granted, some of us can afford to pay taxes on these items, but many cannot, no matter how many jobs they work, because of low wages. The Utah Tax Reform Task Force is currently considering a reform that would create a refundable refund-able grocery tax credit for low-income citizens. On the surface, this sounds like a move I would support. Digging a little deeper, I'm not so sure about that. A refundable tax credit sounds to me like the taxes would have to be paid at the check-out stand and then be returned to low-income families fami-lies at some later time, probably with the usual income tax refund. While that would help out poor families once a year, it would do nothing to help on a day by day or week by week basis. The children in low-income families are hungry today, not just at tax time. The solution to that problem, of course, is to eliminate taxes on groceries for everyone. This is a solution that is not likely to happen as the state would lose well over $100 million if the tax on groceries were removed entirely. That revenue would have to be made up by some other means. One proposal is to tax more services, excluding services such as health care, education, attorney fees and banking services. Just what services would be taxed has not yet been decided. As I examine these proposals, I anticipate unexpected problems popping up if they are implemented. Most of these problems would impact not only low-income families, but middle-income middle-income families as well. For example, let's take a look at a tax on hair cuts, a service most people use. It seems like a logical service tax to implement as hair cuts are not an essential part of life. However, they may be an essential part of getting and keeping a job, especially for men. They may also be necessary for promotions and pay raises if the employer sets a code for dress, hygiene and appearance. Depending on the rate of the tax, these employees may find it necessary to postpone getting a hair cut. This could mean postponing getting a job, a raise or a promotion. For school children and especially teens, hair cuts are a part of self-image and the confidence needed to do well in school. A tax on this service would naturally increase the price. With Utah's typical large families, getting those hair cuts for six children at the start of the school year could prove unduly expensive not just to low-income families, but to middle-income families as well. If this increase in cost results in fewer people going to the barber shop or the beauty shop, the barber and the beautician will see a drop in income. Would that be enough to push them into low-income status and qualify for the refundable grocery tax credit? I can't answer that question, but it certainly seems possible. Hair cuts are not the only example. Auto repair comes to mind. With little or no public transportation in our area, getting and keeping a job requires a vehicle. Low-income and lower middle-income people already struggle to maintain main-tain a car. They usually have to buy older vehicles vehi-cles that frequently need repair. Taxing that service ser-vice would make their lives more difficult than they already are. Speaking of transportation, many elderly individuals indi-viduals rely on taxi service to get their groceries, go to the doctor and other essential errands. A tax on taxi service could make it impossible for the elderly who live strictly on their fragile and limited Social Security benefits to leave their homes. So it seems I've put myself in a dilemma. I don't want a tax on groceries. I don't want services servic-es taxed. I do want roads, health care for the poor and a variety of other services from our various levels of government. I don't have the total solution to this dilemma but I have a good suggestion as to where to start: eliminate wasteful spending at all levels of government gov-ernment from the city up to the federal budget. ProtectSno the kid T; 57 W f if v Bill O'Reilly by Bill O'Reilly Here's the stark truth in the land of the free: Many American children under the age of 10 can no longer play on their front lawns unsupervised for fear they may be abducted. Time after time we read about young kids being snatched, raped and murdered by known sexual offenders, and our society seems powerless pow-erless to stop the mad ness. The latest is the horrific case of Joseph Duncan, a convicted child rapist who apparently murdered two adults, a 13-year-old and a 9-year-old boy in Idaho. When police arrested Duncan, he was having hav-ing breakfast with the murdered boy's 8-year-old sister, who told authorities Duncan had brutally molested her for weeks. Duncan was free to do this because of Minnesota Judge Thomas Schroeder. Last March, Duncan stood before Schroeder charged with yet another child molestation. The monster had already served 16 years in Washington State for raping a 14-year-old boy and admitted to 13 other child rapes. He even talked about them on this website. Yet Judge Schroeder set Duncan's bail at just $15,000. A friend of Duncan's gave him the money, Duncan paid the bail and then skipped town. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports Judge Schroeder was aware of Duncan's past, and even if the judge didn't know, he could have easily found out by having the prosecutor call the FBI's Crime Information Center in Washington. Schroeder has no excuse. He's a disgrace. But there are many disgraceful judges, either too lazy or too apathetic to protect children. The solution to the problem is to take the power away from the judges altogether. It is not a hard thing to do. First, every state in the union must pass a criminal statute like Florida's Jessica's Law. That calls for a minimum 25-year-to-life prison term for a first offense sexual assault conviction against a child. And second, if these predators do manage to leave prison, they have to register their addresses with the federal government so a national data base can track their movements. Any failure to do this 10 years in federal prison. Basically, that would take sentencing discre tion away from the judges, but the nation would have to depend on prosecutors to aggressively pursue those involved with child molestation. Something that has not been done in Jessica Lunsford's case. So the solution is there for everyone to see -r-why then do our elected officials fail to enact it? Only 13 states currently have mandatory prison sentences of 10 years or more for convicted child sexual offenders. The other 37 states are mostly chaotic in the way they adjudicate these cases. My staff contacted all 50 governors, and their interest ranged from intense (Gov. Rick Perry of Texas) to ho-hum (Gov. Don Carcieri of Rhode Island). The bottom line is that Jessica's Law could be and should be enacted quickly in every state. There is an urgency to this. And if your gover nor doesn't get the urgency, give him a call and let him or her have it. Enough is enough with the brutalizing of American children. Every one of us must hold the lawmakers accountable and demand protection for the kids. Veteran TV news anchor Bill O'Reilly is host of the Fox News show "The O'Reilly Factor" and author of the book "Who's Looking Out For You?' To find out more about Bill O'Reilly, and read features fea-tures by other Creators Syndicate writers and car toonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com. This column originates on the Web site www.billoreilly.com. COPYRIGHT2005BulOReiUy.com. b |