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Show ews A2 • WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 2008 - N E W S - Spanish Fork 280 North Main St. Spanish Fork, UT 84660 Lane Henderson Namon Bills Publisher Editor Dana Robinson . Assoc. Editor The Spanish Fork News is published each Wednesday for $37.50 per year in area and $41.50 out of area by J-Mart, 280 North Main St., Spanish Fork Utah 84660. Email stories to editor@spforknews.com Email ads to ad5@spf0rknews.com Call us at 794-4964 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Spanish Fork News 280 North Main St. Spanish Fork, Utah 84660 The entire content of this newspaper is Copyright© 2008 Spanish Fork News. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the editor or publisher. THE SPANISH FORK NEWS (USPS 024716) is published weekly for $37.50 per year by JMan Publishing, 280 North Main St., Spanish Fork, UT 84660. Periodicals Postage Paid at Spanish Fork, UT. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Spanish Fork News, 42 East 300 North, Spanish Fork, UT 84660. DEADLINES Weddings, anniversaries, missionaries, 1st birthdays, articles, photos, letters to the editor Friday, 12 p.m. Display advertising and classified advertising Thursday, 12 p.m. Covering what matters most To Multiply or Not to Multiply Prepare enormously inconvenient. Are they really worth the Galloping Geezer bother? Gary Davis George Will, one of our most thoughtful contempoPompous academics rary writers, observed, "Bilove being invited to con- ologically, adults produce ferences with high sound- children but spiritually, ing subject matter where children produce adults." they present "papers" that Indeed it is in the bearing will be lauded as ground- and rearing of children that breaking and profound by patience, wisdom, humor, like-minded lemmings in sacrifice, maturity and a overstuffed shirts. Such a hundred other virtues are conference recently took heated and hammered into place in Sydney, Australia, something useful and lastwhere Harvard psychol- ing. My youngest son took ogy professor Daniel Gila job in Northern Califorbert told his listeners that having children will send nia shortly after graduation your wedded bliss into a from college. One day he "downward spiral," and the asked a co-worker about happiness quotient is likely his age if he and his wife to continue heading south had any children. "No, we have careers," as additional offspring are came the condescending added to the fold. "Happiness and its answer. If self-absorption is the Causes", was the vaunted dominant characteristic of title of the aforementioned your personality, you probconference down under. I'm thinking that the good ably should not have chilprofessor has spent way dren, or even get married, too much time breathing for that matter. If your life the common sense depleted must be perfectly ordered and predictable, forget kids. air of academia. Does the marriage dy- If you want to take the dips namic change forever when out of the roller coaster ride children enter the equa- that is life, crumb crunchtion? Well, duh. Is Thomas ers are not for you. Remember the hysteria Monson a Mormon? Gone are the days when you can over the "population bomb" suddenly decide to grab the a few decades back? Milcar keys and take off for lions were going to starve a movie that starts in 15 because we were running minutes. A helpless, totally out of resources, and coudependent soul has entered ples who had more than two your realm, and plans must children were selfish planet now be made accordingly. polluters. I recall a converSpontaneity suffers, sleep sation I had with a woman depravation ensues. There's during that time whose husno question that kids are band was the president of a small liberal arts college in Los Angeles. She ached to have more children but felt it was her moral responsibility to limit her offspring to two. Shame on me for exceeding the limit. Mark Steyn in his book "America Alone" cites some disturbing statistics. Western Europe, Russia, Canada and Japan are facing a population crisis, but the problem is not over- but under-population. In order to maintain a population at its current replacement level, there must be an average birth rate of 2.1 children per female. Japan, Europe, Russia and our neighbors to the north have in fact chosen a slow but certain societial suicide by deciding not have enough children to maintain a healthy, vibrant society. The fertility rate in Spain is 1.1, about half replacement rate. Italy and Russia are 1.2, Canada is 1.5, and Germany is 1.3. So in Spain there are half as many children as parents and a quarter as many grandchildren as grandparents. Each of these countries have enormous, unsustainable social programs which are virtually guaranteed to collapse because there aren't enough new workers to bear the tax load. Fertility rates in the United States are 2.11, with the red states showing 12% higher margins than the blue ones, and Utah being off the charts. The good news is liberals will eventually become extinct. The bad news is Muslims are taking over Europe and Russia. Courtesy photo BABY CRISIS: How many children you may have will have an effect on the overall society. Letters to the Editor Sincere thanks We would like to express our sincere thanks to all the men and women who responded to Jerry's accident in Birdseye early Sunday May 18, 2008. To the Utah county Search and Rescue members, the Spanish Fork EMT's, Spanish Fork Fire and Rescue, and the Life Flight crew. We are especially grateful for your willingness to serve the community. You put your one life in danger to save another. Without your help on the scene and giving Jerry the help he needed, we wouldn't have him here today. So thank you from the bottoms of our hearts. Words cannot begin to show how grateful we are. Many Thanks, Jerry and Christina Haskell Spanish Fork Waiting to ask why I am writing this letter because I don't know what else to do. I don't live in Spanish Fork. However, I do belong to the Spanish Fork Senior Citizens. I participate in many of the tours, enjoying everything I have been able to attend. Everyone seems to work together to make the Senior Center a great place to be. Everyone on the board really cares about making our experiences there special. And you can't find volunteers anywhere better than those who serve at the Senior Center. The cooks make every meal mouth watering delicious. However, there is one concern that I have. I don't understand why the difference of opinion, about tours can't be straightened out before it is too late. Why can't the "powers that be" find a better solution to this problem, than to fire, one of the tour lady's that we all love? Throwing out the baby with the bath water does not make much sense to me. Please reconsider this action. I for one, do not want to see this happen. I have been waiting for someone to do something to rectify this error. Perhaps I have waited much too long, to ask, "why? " Lorraine Underwood Salem No dogs allowed? Each year as Summer arrives and ball season starts, hundreds of people visit the ballparks each night. With these visitors to our public facilities comes the task of formulating rules and guidelines for the parks. These rules are formed for the safety of users and maintenance of the facility. Each park has signs and banners with rules posted on them at the front gate and through out the park. Some of these rules are; No Dogs, No Bikes, No Skate Boards, No Smoking. Each rule is formulated to protect other park visitors, not the targeted rule offender. As the program supervisor of activities that take place in these facilities. I have the challenge of enforcement and also of hiring supervisors to enforce these rules. At times the offender (for lack of a better descriptive word) are easy going and quick to comply. Other times they get upset and difficult to deal with. I write this editorial to hopefully head problems off at the pass. The pass would be the large amount of patrons with dogs who have started coming to the parks this year. The parks I refer to are the ball parks where youth and adults are playing games. These venues are for human recreation and human spectators. Due to these issues of dogs in the parks, the city will start a police enforcement of this rule. Now that I have beat you to the pass (no dogs in the park) let me explain the reasons to those who will be limited by this enforcement. Many of the dog accompanied patrons have a love and parental feeling for their aninial. We do understand that many feel like their dog is part of their family. I grew up with many family pet dogs and can relate to the love and bond with the family dog. It is our belief that every person and animal should have their place; let me explain. The ball park is a place for participants to play, parents and families to watch and cheer while feeling safe. Many of our patrons bring other children with them to the park and let them play at the playgrounds or in surrounding grass areas. These patrons often complain about dogs being in the park and fear of being bitten. Most dog owners say their dog is nice and would not bite. This is not a chance we are willing to bank on. Other dog issues include multiple dogs in the park, posturing and barking at one another. The last thing we need is a dogfight.Then we have the few some ruin it for all who allow their dog to pass waste in the park and then leave it for someone to step in. Not a good practice. The final issue with dogs occurred a few weeks ago when we had a disable young man in the park with a service dog. Service dogs are trained dogs for the blind and special needs individuals. These dogs are trained, marked with a vest and allowed in the park. This young man and his dog found issues when a non- service dog entered the park and becoming aggressive with the trained animal. All in all there is a time and place for everything. The ball park is not the place for the family dog. If your dog needs you every minute of the day, you should stay home with your dog. A few places that dogs are welcome are on the walking trails around the parks, on a leash. On the trails above the reservoir (not at the reservoir), jogging with you around town and in open space mountain areas. Currently dogs are not allowed in any park or grass area owned, maintained and operated by Spanish Fork Parks and Recreation. Future demands may call for a dog park, but currently we are focused on trying to meet the growing demand of our human citizens. It is our hope that everyone can enjoy the parks and understand the need for rules. Matt Marziale Spanish Fork joyfully Ready or Not Dawn Van Nosdol I told you that I would tell you about my learning how to make pita bread this week, but I'm not going to. I have many more mistakes that I need to make andfigureout before I share it with you. I do want to share with you something that concerns me a little though. I was sitting on the front porch of my friend's house just talking when another friend stopped by. The conversation was enjoyable. It was nice to see how we can help each other and relieve each others' burdens in so many little ways, and how all of our lives are intertwined in a special way. However there was one small part of the conversation that stuck with me because it made me kind of sad. One of the women was talking about a preparedness e-mail that she gets every week, but the other woman said that she didn't read it very often because it overwhelmed her and made her a bit depressed. We all started talking about how many preparedness people and preparedness web sites are all about the hard-core survival and so much gloom and doom. They make it sound like the-world is eom-' ing tp tjie end and it can really be kiid of depressing. I hope thai you don't get depressed reading this article or a foreboding sense of gloom and doom. I'm really a very happy person that is stressed just like everyone else with everyday family things, and as much as I store food, buy in bulk and make sure that I have enough water stored. I am not "into" the being afraid of the future. What a waste of time and energy. You could better spend your time filling water jugs. The future is good - in spite of soaring gas prices and rising food prices, it is all good. What being prepared should be is just that, being prepared. You shouldn't be afraid, you should just plan for the worst, hope for the best and live your lives to the happiest, or the fullest - really. Yes, I want to you to store your water and, I want you to have a years supply of food and other necessities because it is the smart and wise thing to do - the prepared thing to do. I have a saying that I tell my kids: "A foolish man doesn't learn from his mistakes, a smart man learns from his mistake, but a wise man learns from others mistakes." Let's be wise. Let's prepare our families by living within our means, learning new skills, evaluating what makes us happy and getting our houses in order. Build your food storage and be prepared - not afraid. What I hope I can accomplish with this article is to give you the confidence, the skills and the desire to give your family peace of mind by preparing yourself. As many disasters as there are going on around the world, we will find that most of our crises will be more intimate - the loss of job, poor health, too much debt and just day to day living. Prepare yourself to be happy, prepare yourself to live well and prepare yourself to take care of your family - no matter what. Now, go get those empty water jugs filled. ** 1 m . \ |