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Show Sun Advocate 4A Tuesday March 1 6, 2004 Stan editorial Whose problem is this whole drug thing, anyway? By RICHARD SHAW Sun.4JK te Most of us get so many requests from someone who wants something from us that any new ideas on more things to contribute to or care about either grate on us or we are so numb to them that we don't hear them anymore. That has resulted in a public that many see as apathetic, but I think apathy is the wrong word. I think the word should be "inundated. People have such busy lies, and so much in their own lives to worn- about that while most aerage citizens really do care about others, they seldom do much about what they hear or see presented to them unless it directly affects them. In the past few weeks have been in ol ed in a series of meetings involving the setting up of a new system to handle drug offenders w ho really have a desire to get themselv es straight. But understand that many w ho have drug problems in our society are like the small child in your house who does things he isn't suppose to, and then 1 when he gets caught you find he really just needed your attention and help to change his ways. In some ways the temi I couldn't help myself appies to these individuals; once siarted down the path of drugs, particularly in the realm of methamphetamines, it is almost impossible for them to dig themselves out of the hole it causes in their lives and personalities. The Carbon Drug Coalition has been set up to get the general public to realize how big a problem drugs are in our county and yes, it is also another plea to you, the common citizen, to help. But the kind of interest and commitment it will take is different than someone asking you to decorate a float for the St. Patricks Day parade or to spend a few hours working as a volunteer maning an information booth at International Days. This commitment will be a lifetime, 24 hour a day, time and action donation. It means v igilance and it means continued education. (Continued on page 54 ) Guest editopial The advancement of eavesdropping By KEN LARSON Sun iJvtK'are publisher Modem technology continues to amaze me and I am sure that anyone w ho considers themselv es a baby boomer or older remembers the days before microwaves, telev isions, fax machines and computers. Technology continues to adv ance. It became obv ious Sunday afternoon sitting at the Phoenix airport waiting for my plane that we are living in the day of the cell phone. I swear that half of the people waiting in lines at the airports have their ears glued to the cell phone and while I was sitting their try ing to read a book I realized I was hearing way more information than I needed to or w anted to. are replete with such details as w eath-e- r I set the book dow n and thought back trends, profiles of cities, and lists to earliest memory of the telephone. my of tall buildings. The FBIs language The is faint because I was was blunt, if not exactly sparkling: five memory very and we lived on a ranch about 60 The practice of researching potenmiles from the nearest town. We were on tial targets is consistent with known a party line that connected about a dozen methods of al Qaida and other terrorist families and I got in trouble because as organizations that seek to maximize soon as my mother would go outside to the likelihood of operational success do shores and feed the cattle I would get through careful planning. on the phone and talk to the neighbors. If Good grief. Asa World Almanac I remember correctly it wasnt an occaeditor pointed out about the Septemsional visit that bothered the neighbors, ber 11 terrorists: They certainly it was my long conversations and the fact didnt need the Almanac to locate that I was tying up the line for hours. the Tw in Towers. We moved to another community when With Bushs budget hike, maybe I was six and it was there that I remember the agency can focus attention on starting school and having the telephone. people who use phone books and Our extension, if you w ill, was two long dictionaries, too. Who knows what and two short rings and everybody rings kind of subversive stuff such people on the line knew everybody else's rings. might be looking up? One can only The word eavesdropping became a pasimagine what the FBI would have time for but never when my mother some, done to Benjamin Franklin, the pubwas in the house. She would never listen lisher of Poor Richard's, America's to the other neighbors conversations but first almanac. But, then, he was a submy brother got me started. A couple of versive. the girls he liked were on our line and as Hey, George, your job is not just to soon as their lines would ring he would be secure the homeland, but to secure to the girls plans and who their listening our Bill of Rights, as well - and to latest boyfriends where. I grew up w ith stop agencies from so grossly wastthe party line and it wasn't until I was ing our tax dollars. 16 that we got our own private line and telephone number. We survived the days of the early phones, later the message machine, cordless telephone and now we are in the middle of a cell phone revolution. a hero to the many who w ere content Sitting there in the airport Sunday, to live in their moral cesspools with this time not because I had any desire to no desire to be any more than w hat eavesdrop a young teenagers converthey w ere. sation, but because they were talking so How long are .we going to sit loud and there were so many of them I still and applaud those forces that heard way more than I wanted to. One are determined to destroy the moryoung lady was talking to her boy friend als and freedom of our youth? That and filling him in on her plans for the next great American William Penn once several months. To the left of me another said, A man must be governed by girl was telling her sister how to raise the God or he will be ruled by tyrants. children and just across the aisle a college The forces around us are constantly age girl was doing homework with someone else on the other end helping her out. moving us closer to a completely immoral and godless society. It all reminded me of being on the party When you father gives you a line back in grade school where someone gift, you say thank you How elses conversation seemed terrible impormuch more thanks should we give tant to me. to the supreme father of us all who Technology might be advancing and gave us the greatest nation the world things moving along faster than we can has ever knowm with all of its freekeep up with them, but bottom line, some doms. Immorality and godliness young people are still talking about dating has destroyed more nations than and boys and homework and plans and all of the wars. A nation is never the rest of us are still listening, one way destroyed from without until it is or another. first destroyed from within. To say, this could happen to us would be & putting it in language as thin as skim milk. Some time ago on television, a famous retired athlete, Charles Barkley, was asked about an undesirable incident in a bar in which he was involved. He said, Dont make me a role model for anyone, that is a parents job. What he w'as saying was pay me millions for playing basketball, buy the products that I endorse on television but dont ask me to be For the past week have been runresponsible for my influence. ning a poll with the following question. For many years we have met Now that it is all said and done, do you those things that would destroy us think the Utah State Legislature, as a with a few raised eyebrows and whole, did a good job this year, or a even applause. Some parents think that what they do wont affect their poor one? You can respond to this poll kids. But the fact is, no one can w alk bygoing to our going to our website at sunad.com across wet cement without leaving their footprints. 65 In America we have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values. We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative life style. In the name of choice we have killed the unborn, we have U polluted the air with profanity and under the Good Poor pornography heading of freedom of expression. All of this job job in the name of moral pluralism. You can still respond to this poll, by going America is worth saving and only to our website at sunad.com. we can save it. C. Calvin Campbell Due to technical error, the results have been reset If vou hjve already voted on this poll you can vote again he above results Price were calculated belore the was reset. The FBI's almanac alert By JIM HIGHTOWER Inuitc Man Media My job is to secure the homeland, proclaimed George W. as he announced major budget increases for homeland surveillance, and that's exactly what we're going to do. To make us all feel secure, he has hiked the FBI's budget above $5 billion a year - a 60 percent increase since Bush took office. Good! Now maybe the agency will have the d resources to redouble its effort to protect us homelanders from the obvious danger posed by people w ho carry: almanacs. The almanac threat first came to public notice last Christmas eve, when the FBI's Intelligence Bulletin went out to 18,000 police organizations, urging Americas vast network to be on alert during traffic stops and other investigations for anyone carrying almanacs. Yes, like the World Almanac, or the Old Farmers Alkeen-eye- always-suspicio- manac. The agency bulletin noted that these deviously deceptive documents Letters Editor: Missing them Where have all the flags and v ribbons gone? Our soldiers are still away, in a land far from home. Their families still miss them. ..in our hearts they stay. Never far from our thoughts as constantly we pray. Please bring them home safely, back into our life. Help them to be ever watchful in that land filled with strife." Twas their choice to soldiers- - our protectors- - our guides. Though theyd rather be home, their duties wont slide. Lets show them we still miss them w ith yellow ribbons and a flag to wave while re el-lo- w to the membering that we live in the land of the free, because of the brave. Carolyn A. Randall Elmo Editor: There are few lessons in life more meaningful than those we learn from nature. From nature we learn that, "as the twig is bent, so grows the tree." How closely this is related to parental guidance of kids in the formative age. Rodney Turner made this statement, Our moral environment is far more polluted than our physical en editor vironment. It seems as though good and evil are being homogenized out of existence by a generation led by foolish and blind guides. What was once whispered in shame is now electronically shouted from the housetops as the famous and foolish appear on television to parade their sins like so many metals before laughing and applauding audiences. Years ago I was in a city in eastern Canada where there was a so called Christian preacher who usually started out his sermons with Do as I say, not as I do. He seemed proud to expose his immoral sins to the world. I le was considered to be quite Letters to the editor should focus on public issues rather than or entities. All submissions must be verified prior to publication. The paper reserves the right to edit letters not only to satisfy space constraints, but potential liability concerns. All letters must have a phone number attached for verification and must be signed by the author of the letter. Web Poll w-- n ni6 Its gotta be Martha . . . look at how evenly spaced and a I beautifully tied the knots are. rsrsvw vI ".vs"'. 'Ti' -f- n |