Show It) than through any kind of aMecSon" Ic — Judge LsemeS Hand American JurM (1S7MSS1) 1 The Herald Journal Logan Utah Page 25 Sunday July 19 1998 Our viow It’s not too serious he only shot his wife heard to crack Okay pop quiz: Which b the more serious crime shooting somebody or bilking them out of their money? Without much hesitation most of us would say shooting somebody is the greater crime After all money canbereplaced The reason for the Taylor’s lenient sentence? First District Judge Clint Judkins said he didn’t want him ettinp mixed up with career criminals in prison By that logic maybe we shouldn't send anybody there Perhaps the judge could sympa- But in the Cache County justice system that doesn’t seem to be the case Jim Lance Taylor a man convicted of felony aggravated assault in connection with the April shootwas sentenced ing of his Monday morning He got probation to include a year in the county prison senjail The (me- - to tence that comes with the crime was stayed The same day a man convicted of setting up a fraudulent business and bilking people out of money got more than a year in prison “Maybe I’ll go home and shoot my husband” one reporter was ex-wi- fe 15-ye- ar thize with someone wanting to Who hasn't at shoot his one time or another? But once you follow through it’s a crime the same crime as shooting a perfect stranger And it ought to be punished as such We agree with County Attorney Scott Wyatt: “Any time a person intentionally shoots another human being they should go to prison for ex-spou- se the maximum sentence If they shoot someone they supposedly love in her own home even more so should they go to prison for the maximum” crimiAnd as for the white-collnal? He should go to prism too To the editor Utah's state school superintendent wants to extend the school day and add more high school graduation require- ments On the surface it sounds good more time should mean more learning However studies show that time is leu relevant to student succcu than quality instruction and extended time not only loweh'ttaAingbfliCiettcy tatllsd riiA r"' ' theftUsitttion fcvrt Achievement in our public schools is lower than in private schools or schools in other countries Many European schools are in session only from 8 am to 1 pm (no school lunch) yet student scores are higher Forty years ago American scores were substantially higher and the school day wu no longer then Students in another state missed 8 weeks of school during a teacher strike and their achievement didn’t suffer at alL In Utah school weeks also showed no drop in scores Before we spend big bucks to lengthen the school day or year maybe we should do something about the time already spent in 4-d- ay school! When children spend their best waking hours with peers they use other children role models and rely oo them for com- u panionship affirmation and love yet what they get is an immature example and mostly negative responses That's why peer dependency contributes to negative behavior gangs drug use early sex and even suicide Our children become alienated from family and com- munity when “incarcerated” for long periods Some working parents may be grateful that children are taka care of longer but other parents may have to go to work just to pay the higher taxes The cunent movement to nationalise education and include all children under the government umbrella will also relieve parents of their ability to have any say in what their child will be taught By Ted always remember it afterward Since I'm packing up for a trip to my Pease ar I any prison time In response to your article July 13 about Jim Taylor in Logan justice wu definitely not served I sat in that court room and listened to Judge Helen Judkins give his reasons for no prison ing One of them wu that Jim came from Maclnnes John such a “good" family Another wu that LeCani Agatha You Christie prison would expose “Poor Victim” Jim to know them if unfavorable conditions and would have a you’re a junkie ive effect on his life (Tm sure the too I took the habit feet iff being shot hasn’t been a positive one ja Teresa’s lifg) He wu given with me when I credit ior the three mqqjgs he spent in went away to colprison lege My freshThis time wu spent under evaluation man roommate at the University of and not with the general population Our Washington wu a dorky engineering Justice system sends people to prison for major named Bruce already engaged to his high school sweetheart Sharon — possession of controlled substances which is very serious Picking up a gun neither of them got it at alL seriIt got really ted later after I went to and shooting someone seems just New York I just couldn't get enough ous if not more so It wu the commute that did it really I The fact is Jim Taylor knew his wu coming to me apartment she mean when you spend that much time had called him and told bun He (ricked — three hours on a good day — you up a gun loaded it waited in the dark for pretty much need it I did anyway All I her to come home Then he pulled the could get John Grisham Sue Grafton Pat Contrigger It is a sad day in our country when a roy Michael Crichton Robert B Parker person can shoot someone be convicted Patricia Cornwell Dick Francis Even by a Jury and not go to prison One year I'm embarrassed to admit Robert Lud-luand Ibm Clancy A regular at every in jail is not sufficient punishment for someone who chooses to point a gun at corner used book store I make my another person and attempt to take their furtive exchanges after hours scrounglife ing spare change from the car upholstery What kind of message is being sent to to score a brown paper grocery bag fix society? I guess if you come from a of limp paperbacks My name is Pease “good” family who might be able to and Tm a pulp fiction junkie Is there a have a positive influence on you then pregram far me? It’s a shameful confession for a former you donl necessarily have to do the time If you commit the enme I had the monkey English lit major but ‘ u ex-wi- fe m 12-st- ep Mechele Homer Roy Utah Planners pull heads out! your To the ' on my tecLI te recovered but my habit is under control Now when I read recreatknally I almost er bus-subw- stuff plus the lawyercrime category espionage and private eyes (I new up on James Bond after all) ami j hpyfteqjassioiiate about a small number of people — Arthur C Clark Frank Herbert Ursula LeGuin GS Lewis Robert A Heinlein My vacation sanitarium destination this week is the family house on an island off the coast of Maine where we have been hoarding books the great and for more than 40 years the less-s- o Being there will be an orgy of rediscovery and rereading Jumbled among the ' nautical and maritime (A Cruising Guide to the New England Coast for example the opposite coast David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars Inland I liked Nicholas Evans' The Horse Whisperer at least until Robert Redford got ahold of it and Howard Rank Moser's stuff from northern Vermont starting with A Stranger in the Kingdom is excellent I'm looking forward to John Irving’s reemergence with A Widow for One Year touted as his best since Garp and Owen Meany both of which fit somewhere up there And high among my perennial rereadable Top 10 is always JRR Tolkien — The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy I'm not sure it's on my favorites list but I just read Edward Abbeyls Monkey ‘Wrench'Gang for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed it But let’s leave the serious stuff and talk about some serious pulp In the courtroomlawyer category there are the obvious names — John Grisham Scott Throw etc — to which I would add the names Richard North Patterson Steve Martini John T Lescroart and William J Coughlin In the detectivecrime category I like Peter Freuchen’s classic Book of the classic Dick Francis of course and there's only one Elmore Leonard For Seven Seas and a 1937 edition of ILA quirky there’s no one like Carl Hiaasen Calahan’s Learning to Sail ) is an archeoLeonard Hiaasen and humor columnist logical dig of my literary lifetime from Dave Barry combined with a dozen other childhood Hardy Boys to adolescent submarine and World War II fixations to the mystery novelists recently each conremnants of high school and college lit tributing a chapter of the really silly classes to a veritable treasure trove of Naked Came the Manatee Nelson DeMille is good — try his latest Plum trash For what it's worth since everyone Island 1 recently picked up something called Who in Hell Is Wanda Fuca? 0 else seems to be dishing out their lists here are some of my top picks about a Pacific Northwest PL which was to satisfy your reading urges noble and worth the 80 cents I paid for the title alone But for my money the best otherwise Since it’s Maine EB White's One smartest most convoluted thriller writer is Thomas Gifford beginning with The Man's Meat first published in 1938 remains on my list Continuing in the maritime theme one of the best See PEASE on Page 26 top-10- best-ev- er Wrong way to spend a budget windfall once-mo- st ex-wi- really good stuff in my teg I thought I might be able to um turn some of you on to some of the best of my paperback pulp fiction habit My wife says I'm a paperback whore It is true that there is almost nothing I won't read After years on the circuit commuting with the rest of the dull-cye- d hordes I'll prop anything up in front of what passes for my brain And because I rarely actually pay attention I can read the same thing again a year later and derive the same benefits For optimum mindless aimless passing of time I tend toward detectivemys-ter- y Othor views editor As a follow-u- p to their Big Boulevard Bungle some heavy thinkers in the Office of Logan Traffic Manipulation By Scrtppt Howard News Service have now applied their magic to the intersection of 400 North and 700 East Ruth Lehehbauer used entrance to arguably the Logan Vsoagress should tell us what we the campus iff Utah State University It need to hear not what it thinks we like to seems some has determined Wife-shooti- ng “planner” trial that a simple left turn is not as efficient heat Wba! we need to hear is that now is in terms of traffic flow than traffic lights not the time for huge tax cuts Emboldened by a booming economy y stops and a series iff left and for which bears To die editor little responsibility it right turns to accomplish the same thing and an In a time when there are commercials impending budget surplus which This decision has nothing to do with traftook it totally by surprise Congress is on television telling women not to put up fic flow but appears to be a continuation with or stay in a violent relationship it is of some love affair with talking about a massive tax cut — $1 planner's trillion over 10 years unbelievable that a man convicted of would not receive House Speaker Newt Gingrich talks shooting his See YOUR VIEW on Page 24 grandly of slashing the capital gains tax outcome unbelievable new books I've read this year is Sebastian lunger's true story iff fishermen and the sea The Perfect Storm For more nautica add Annie E Proulx’s Pulitzer-winnThe Shipping News and from summer sanitarium and loading some know I'm a junkie I don’t make any excuses about it anymore I've always had the habit — my parents gave it to me Always pushing stuff on me — Try this! What about this one? This is sooooo good You'll like this I wu hooked early Let me run a few names by you tair MacLean Ngaio Marsh Ian Flem- - Your viow Longer school day? Try better schooling Paperback junkie confesses four-wa- fe repealing the inheritance tax reducing the income tax oo Social Security recipi- ents and eliminating the "marriage penalty” All that would be fine if we could afford iL We cant Gingrich’s grandiose plans are based on the latest Congressional Budget Office estimate of the budget surplus for the year ending Sept 30 — a serendipitous $63 billion That’s a forecast of an event only 10 weeks away longer range forecasts are notably unreliable In January for example the forecast was that the year would end with a $10 billion deficit When it looked like foe budget surpluses for the next few yean might not amount to much foe Clinton administration and Congress informally agreed on the best course: the unsexy business (although Clinton dressed it up as “saving Social Security”) of paying down the SS7 trillion national debt One day the good times win end and when they do one of Congress most effective weapons is a tax cut If Congress passes a massive tax cut now and the economy goes sour or those anti-recessi- surpluses don't come through then it will be unable to cut taxes when doing so is in the national interest Go ahead Congress tell us what we need to hear We can take iL Mallard Fillmore Herald Journal Geo 9 The Herald Journal welcomes tetters to tie J Opinion page Is intended to acquaint vritfi a variety ol vwwpositB on matters of pubfcc Importance and provide members of Via communrty with a forum tor Via views madam fbes k Jvlite'Swas ABE puspnite Hte WfesO'1 f&xrate sxjsiyn RsrsorM columns cartoons and Mists tom readers reflect Vie opeuone of tier writers end creators Eddorials under the hearing lOur represent sis mews or via tieraia Journal rid board Members otic editorial board: BRUCE SMOHpubSahar CHARLES McCOLLDMmanaghgedhor MIKEWENNERGREMtttyedtor CWDY YUKTWeatures edRor PolinliiVfMouioro(linilvilM9fi be puMshed however and tie edRor teeenreeffie tight toed al letters to conform wU not to the length and style requirements of the Letters should be: wTypewriUew and double spaced w No more Vian 450 words in length Addressed and include daytime phone fMfifrtr fnf pwpoot of vtrtfkmion Signed by ffie author Indhnduala am Imbed to one pubCehed M-twiden any period Address Mere to hjMtorOfiiriiwecom Guest commentaries are also mstoome and ate run at Vie edBor's discretion 30-da- |