The Charlotte News
Friday, June 12, 1959
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Geneva that Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko had opened a drive in the Big Four foreign ministers conference this date to break the Western link between the present meeting of foreign ministers and a subsequent summit conference. Mr. Gromyko's attack might have foreshadowed a final refusal by the Soviet Union to yield on its West Berlin demands, even under heavy Western pressure. He had told the three Western foreign ministers that their insistence on a link between the present conference and a summit conference was artificial and "altogether invalid". In effect, he had argued that even though there was a failure in Geneva to ease the Berlin tensions and make progress toward East-West agreement, there ought be a summit meeting nevertheless. The President had said that he would not attend a summit meeting under such conditions, and at the moment, that was the basic policy of the West. The Western powers had demanded that Russia stop threatening them with a separate East German peace treaty, and get back to the negotiations for ending the West Berlin crisis. At the outset, Mr. Gromyko had appeared to soften the threat but not to end the campaign to force U.S., British and French garrisons out of Berlin. Mr. Gromyko assured the Western powers that he had not intended his proposal for the one-year deadline on Western occupation of West Berlin as an ultimatum. He said that he could not understand what all the excitement was about, that he had urged the Western ministers to stop using the terms "dictate" and "ultimatum". He spoke at a semi-public meeting in the Palace of Nations after Secretary of State Christian Herter had called on him to state for the record what he had told Mr. Herter in a secret session on Thursday. Mr. Herter and his Western colleagues, British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd and French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville, had declared the conference to be on a day-to-day basis at present, continuing their attack on the Soviet proposals for an interim Berlin settlement through the final three-hour session of the current fifth week of the conference. They had threatened to break off the conference the following week unless the Soviets retreated during the weekend from their position. Agreement had been reached to hold a secret session on Monday.
Columnist Jack Anderson reports from Washington that the President had settled the feud regarding the nation's air defense by keeping both the Army's Nike-Hercules missile and the Air Force's rival Bomarc missile. He had accepted a compromise plan which would continue production of an "improved" Nike-Hercules but would cut in half scheduled Bomarc production. The compromise, drafted by Pentagon missile czar William Holaday, had been presented to the President on Tuesday by the top military brass and had been spelled out in a 2 1/2 page document labeled "The Holaday Plan" and stamped "top-secret". After minor modifications, the secrecy label had been removed and the plan would be presented on Friday morning to the Senate Armed Services Committee. In addition to favoring the Nike-Hercules over the Bomarc, the Holaday plan also would delay production of the Air Force's F-100 jet interceptor until the 1961 budget. The Air Force, however, would be permitted to build prototype models earlier from its research and development fund.
In Washington, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller visited with the President for half an hour this date without a break in his claimed role as a man who was not running for anything. He had been touted by admirers as a potential Republican nominee for the presidency. He had come to Washington the previous day for the announced purpose of doing state business and attending a Republican party at a club he helped to found. The visit turned into a five-hour "flow of high-octane charm aimed at party bigwigs." But it had done somewhat less than nothing to change the minds of people who thought that Mr. Rockefeller might enter the presidential race and become a tough competitor. He continued to insist, however, that he was not a candidate and was concerned only with the affairs of New York as its Governor. Newsmen thought that they had caught some ambitions in his fast-handshaking progress around town, but in reply to questions, he would say nothing other than that he would cross that bridge when he came to it. As he emerged from the meeting with the President, a newsman asked if he had "crossed any bridges this morning", and with a smile, he replied that he had not. He said that the President was always generous in his interest in what was going on in New York and that he had a continuing interest in organizational problems in Washington. He noted that before becoming Governor, he had served for five years as a member of the President's Commission on Government Organization and that for a time had been an advisor to the President on psychological warfare. Twice, reporters had asked whether he and the President had discussed politics, particularly the potential rivalry for the presidential nomination between him and Vice-President Nixon, and twice the Governor had replied that politics had not been discussed. He said that the subject of the discussion had been "mutual legislative problems" and that he had come only to pay his respects to the President. He had entered the White House by a side door and expressed surprise when he found two photographers and a reporter waiting for him.
In Boston, it was reported that police were hunting for a "mad bomber" this date after an explosion which had shattered a rapid transit train station 30 feet above a busy Boston intersection on Thursday, seriously injuring three people. They also sought a picture of a man who was accused of having threatened to bomb Cuban leader Fidel Castro when the latter had visited the country recently. That man had reportedly fled to New York's Bellevue Hospital. The picture would be shown to victims and to others who were in the area when the device had exploded during the afternoon. Three agencies, the Boston police, State detectives and the Boston fire department were investigating the matter. The FBI, which had agents on the scene the previous day, indicated that at present it had no active interest. A hospital spokesman, meanwhile, had reported improvement in the condition of the three most seriously injured persons in the blast. None were in critical condition. Police probed through the ruins and found 6 dry-cell batteries near some shattered fragments of metal lockers. The batteries, they said, were covered with a sulfide residue, indicating that they were part of a bomb. Police said that the bomb might have been activated by an incoming train. Two detectives said that tests by police chemists of bits of the wreckage and parts of a smashed locker had indicated that a bag of powder weighing between 20 and 25 pounds had caused the explosion. Investigators said that the bomb had gone off with the explosive force of a 500-pound Air Force bomb during World War II. The blast had blown apart the big 58-year old pagoda-type waiting room on the elevated station of the Metropolitan Rapid Transit Authority. It had caught several persons within the waiting room and on the outdoor station platform, some of whom had been blown 30 feet to busy Canal and Causeway Streets below. Six had been injured as they sat in a train approaching the station. The blast had stopped the train 20 feet away from the station and only three seconds later, the train would have been in direct line with the explosion. Others had been injured on the street below from the concussion and flying debris. Windows had been broken in buildings as far away as 100 feet and as high as the 14th story. The scene of the blast was directly across the street from the North Station railroad terminal which also housed the Boston Garden sports arena. Eight hours after the explosion, the switchboard operator at the North Station had received an anonymous telephone call indicating that a bomb had been placed in that 14-story structure, the operator indicating that the caller had also said that the afternoon blast had been "meant for McGinnis."
In Tallahassee, Fla., it was reported that a sheriff's deputy had testified this date in the trial of four white youths charged with raping a black Florida A&M University coed on May 2. The officer had told the all-white male jury that he had talked with the youngest of the four, 16, shortly after his arrest and had asked him whether he had intercourse with the 19-year old freshman coed, and that at first he had denied having done so, saying that the other three had, but when he had asked him again if he was sure, he admitted that they all had. The defense fought bitterly but vainly to prevent introduction of the statements taken from the four after their arrest, but the judge had allowed the State to proceed with the statements. The deputy then testified that another of the four, 20, said that he did not know exactly what had happened, that he was asleep in the backseat. He then quoted the eldest of the defendants, 23, as having said that two of the youths had intercourse with the coed but that he did not know which two it had been and that he was not one of them. The defense already had admitted in opening statements to the jury that the oldest of the four had relations with the coed. The deputy had not testified regarding admissions by the fourth defendant, 18, because the deputy was not present when that youth had given his statement. He estimated that the statements had been made in the wee hours of the morning of May 2, 3 to 4 hours after the alleged rape. He said that after he had arrested the four defendants and was taking them in his car to the jail, "they were laughing and joking and I told them that that was no time to be joking, that they could be facing the electric chair." Absent a jury finding of mercy, a finding of guilt would automatically result in the death penalty. The four defendants were claiming that the sexual relations with the coed had been consensual.
In Guymon, Okla., it was reported that an Ohio woman had dashed into police headquarters in the town at about midnight and said that she had just escaped from a man who had kidnaped her in Albuquerque, N.M. The police chief quoted the 25-year old woman of Akron as having said that she had been hit in the stomach and forced to accompany the man and another couple. The woman, the mother of two children, had been sought since a hastily scrawled note appealing for help had been found in a service station restroom at Tucumcari, N.M., the previous day. The chief said that the woman had stated that she slipped out of the motel in Guymon to report the abduction. Police then arrested the man whom she identified as having kidnaped her. The other couple had been arrested in a separate room. FBI agents had been trying to establish the true identities of the three persons. The alleged victim told the chief that she and her husband had been separated for two weeks. The chief had been informed that their two children had been placed in the custody of the State of Arizona. The search for the woman had begun the previous day after the hastily scrawled note had been found, written on the back of a personalized check, saying: "I've been kidnaped. Help please." She signed the note and added, "Headed for Amarillo." A 27-year old woman from San Francisco said that she and the alleged victim and the two children had left Akron by automobile on May 29 for San Francisco and had stopped in Albuquerque about two weeks earlier, having remained there since, sharing a small apartment. The two women had worked for several days in an Albuquerque tavern. The woman's husband said that she had left on vacation.
Jerry Shields of The News reports that a man with a great will had a way to go to Raleigh to attend the golden anniversary celebration of his old school. To most people, it would not be a problem, but for the man in question, who was blind and paralyzed except for the use of one arm and a hand, it had been difficult. He had been blind since his youth and was so afflicted with arthritis that he had not been able to walk for 22 of his 52 years. Gradually, he had lost the use of all parts of his body except for his right hand and arm. When some of his friends learned that he wanted to attend the reunion at the North Carolina School for the Blind in Raleigh, they started looking for a way to transport him there. The Charlotte Lifesaving Crew had volunteered an ambulance for the purpose and the driver. They had left early during the morning with the man on the way to Raleigh and would return this night, bringing him back to the Providence Nursing Home where he resided. He said that he would get to see a lot of people he had not seen since 1936. "I say 'see' because I'm in the habit of it. I won't really get to see them, but I can talk to them." He had been reading "The Upper Room" in braille. He said that he used to read a lot but that he needed two hands to read braille well and that two years earlier, he had suffered a blood cot on the brain which had paralyzed his left arm and hand, but still tried to read a little each day to keep in practice. It was not his first trip from his bed, but it was the longest one. He had been carried to his hometown of Cherryville and back and he had attended the Lions Club's annual picnic for the previous five years. When told by the driver that it would be a long trip to Raleigh and back, he said it was all right, that he would enjoy it all.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that golf balls were made to hit straight, slice or hook, but not to cut, that cutting into the heart of a golf ball could be dangerous. Two local youngsters were able to provide uncomfortable testimony to the fact during the week. A 12-year old boy had cut into an old golf ball the previous week with his Boy Scout knife and had hit the heart of the ball, causing a white substance to shoot out and damage his eye. He would be all right, but the accident could have been more serious. The same thing had happened to another youngster. The substances used in the heart of golf balls were apparently not too dangerous, but the pressure within the ball was. An expert on such things with E. J. Smith and Sons in Charlotte had told the newspaper this date that there was 2,000 pounds of pressure per square inch packed in the heart of a golf ball. That much pressure, when released at once from a knife or nail puncture, could do abrasive damage to the skin or an eye even if the substance in the heart of the ball was just plain water. Golf ball manufacturers, he said, used syrups, sugary substances, castor oil and other liquids for the centers of the balls. The substance was usually frozen and the ball wrapped around it, and then the substance melted, giving the ball a liquid center. No acids were used in American golf balls and so he did not believe the substances were harmful, except for the pressure under which they were encased. A doctor who treated one of the youngsters said that he believed that a warning was in order, that the cases thus far had been minor, but a serious injury could result under some circumstances. He had not determined what the substance was in the golf ball which his patient had cut into, but apparently it was not an acid. Some balls did contain a small amount of silicon. The expert offered another warning, that some balls used solid centers and if those centers were cut, the solid substances could become a fast-moving projectile under the 2,000 pounds of pressure. He advised leaving golf balls for pop to cut up on the course. The kid in the photo looks threatening. Is he threatening us? You better not. We'll go get a club.
Mr. Scheer again reports of the attractive Danish woman who was the temporary receptionist and PBX operator for a law firm located in the Johnston Building in Charlotte, as he had the previous day. He says that the newspaper should not have provided all of the details, however, including the phone number, which people had been calling just to hear the 19-year old answer the phone. For as soon as the newspaper had hit the street the previous day, the phone had started ringing and had not stopped since, with everyone interested in hearing her voice, asking her to lunch, asking her out on dates, digging up reasons to drop by to see the lawyers in the law firm. She would end her substitute job this date and would leave soon for New York City for a modeling job. One partner of the law firm said that she would be remembered as they had not gotten much work done the previous day, but had not lost their sense of humor. The calls had come through at several per minute the previous day and the young woman was tired when she had gotten off work and gone home to Kannapolis. "Home to her husband—you wolves!" Well, they watch "77 Sunset Strip", wherein the French receptionist is not married and lives with her sister. What would you expect? Désolé, seulement une rediffusion ce soir.
Speaking of the MTA, a "mad bomber"
On the editorial page, "A Fine War Cry but a Bad Argument" indicates that if the debate over the tax withholding plan of Governor Luther Hodges could be capped as a gas well and piped off as fuel, it would heat Charlotte for a year. Not since the April minimum wage dispute had political rhetoric been so carelessly expended in the State House.
Foes of the proposal had attacked it continuously based on the claim of "double taxation", but as an argument against the pay-as-you-go system, it was misleading. No one would be taxed doubly if the plan were to go into effect, even if during the first few months of withholding citizens might be paying taxes for the previous year.
Mecklenburg's Representative Frank Snepp had charged that it was "a vicious type of increased tax", but in fact the plan would not increase automatically anyone's taxes except those of a person presently evading state income taxes. Instead, it would raise revenue needed to maintain the state without raising taxes by eliminating much of the present evasion and would also act as a great convenience for most taxpayers. Any disadvantage outweighed the advantages.
The withholding plan might make it easier to hike income tax rates at a future time simply because the tax was fairer and not so burdensome on individuals. It would have administrative costs attached to it, but alternative costs of improving income tax administration, such as comparisons with Federal returns or with employers' books, were equally costly and less efficient.
The State Revenue commissioner estimated that there were some 32,000 North Carolinians who were dodging their taxes and who would have to begin paying their fair share of the cost of State Government once the pay-as-you-go system would be installed. It was estimated that withheld taxes would net the state an additional one to two million dollars per year, costing only about $100,000 to $150,000 to collect.
It indicates that the pay-as-you-go plan had been tried with success in a dozen other states, with Massachusetts having during the year become the 13th state to adopt the system, and it urges that it ought remain in the revenue bill presently before the House and ought be made a permanent part of the state's revenue machinery.
"Geneva: Waiting for a Break To Come" indicates that the Western delegates at Geneva were wise to put up an iron hand against the new Russian offer of a year to clear Western allied troops from West Berlin. As Secretary of State Herter had told Andrei Gromyko on Wednesday, the West was in West Berlin by mutual agreement and not by any "rights which the Soviets can cancel, assign, or modify."
As a tactic, the refusal to budge, it finds, would likely work, but there remained a dreary prospect that the world might sit on the brink of war regarding Berlin for a generation. The West's legal position was sound, while its military position was perhaps otherwise.
If the Russians were to provide East
Germany the instruction to blockade Berlin, the West probably could
not salvage it by only a limited engagement. Military experts doubted
the ability of the West to mount another airlift and an effort by
West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's forces to cut through the
corridors across East Germany with armored columns, might leave the
West with another Dien Bien Phu, the French debacle in French
Indochina in 1954—incidentally, the prior month, by coincidence, the Ho Chi Minh
It suggests that the Russians, confronted with a solid refusal to leave Berlin by the West, might lose interest in the issue, then joining Quemoy and Matsu off mainland China as a sore spot which could flare up any time the Kremlin masters wanted to put forth a major threat of war. Unless the West wished to play the game of threat and counter-threat, it might be forced to work changes in Berlin which would make it appear less a fortress of the West in the Communist front yard, without compromising West Berlin's freedom.
Some insiders at Geneva said that the diplomats had sketched their plans for a summit conference and filed them away for late summer, that a "necessary prelude" of a foreign ministers talk was an amiable piece of make-believe. Even if that cynical estimate were true, Mr. Gromyko, Mr. Herter and the other foreign ministers were presently candid enough to admit that Berlin was on everyone's mind and that neither East nor West wanted to be harassed indefinitely by the worry of a potential hot spot during a cold war.
Speaking of the Army, because this night marked the end of the four-season run of the "Phil Silvers Show", here is the only episode
"There Is Room Here for a Little Pride" indicates that Charlotte could be proud of the sharp decrease in juvenile crime recorded during the early months of 1959. It finds that it would be improper to reach sweeping conclusions, however, from the figures which had been released the previous day by the Police Department.
Juvenile delinquency in the city was already subject to public misunderstanding, fanned by folklore, myths, fad prescriptions and exploitation. But there was nevertheless something comforting in the statistical evidence of decreasing mischief in an era of increasing population. Much of the credit for containing the problem belonged to the department's Youth Bureau, headed by Lieutenant J. R. Hall. Since its organization in 1951, the Bureau had made measurable progress. There had been intra-governmental riffs and sometimes a lack of coordination among different agencies attempting the same ends. But slowly, misunderstanding had been healed and better relationships had been formulated.
It finds that great progress could still be made, that the problem to be resolved required constant vigilance and a bold, imaginative and flexible attack of sufficient scope to exert a real impact. The Bureau was not the only instrument which the community had to combat juvenile delinquency, and there always had to be cooperation among the courts, schools, churches, correctional institutions, youth organizations, child and foster care agencies, information media and the parents themselves. Even so, a trained Youth Bureau was a vital weapon and ought be preserved and occasionally strengthened to do its part of the overall job.
A piece from the New York Herald Tribune , titled "A Cow Is Never a Pessimist", indicates that school was not yet out but lucky cows were "out to grass". "A cow is able to scorn all knowledge except that gained from pages of pastures. In classrooms, mathematics still have multiplicities and history has its dates. But a cow is engaged in the simple task of seeing that potential butter can be spread on toast and that cream is poured over morning oatmeal. Science is clever and electronics astounding, but there is no way to convert acres of grass into quarts of milk except through the calm munching of a cow."
It finds it difficult to know what was going on in the mind of a cow and that some cows were much cleverer than they appeared. A lot had been said about contented cows and it finds that a cow was never a pessimist. "No Schopenhauer could argue gloom into a cow in a May pasture when clover is headed toward June in a steady pace. With a whole green summer ahead, a cow has little to worry about but how to keep flies away."
A cow was not disturbed by intense manifestations of men in motion, such as the roar of jet planes overhead, only with the ancient timing of the sun and showers. "Milk will go on being made as it always has been in a less attractive electronic world and among unfissioned clover. Let men keep on fussing with rockets that leap or fail to leap from launching pads. There is a lot of successful launching accomplished by a frog at the edge of pasture brook. A philosophic cow, abiding the question, would undoubtedly decide that for children rolling by in a school bus there is more to be gained from milk than from missiles."
The pastoral contrast of the piece with the modern age is not without its poignancy, as land was being leased from farmers by the Government to implant in the ground missile silos in various parts of the country.
Drew Pearson, still in London serving as a delegate to the Atlantic Congress, has his column written this date by his assistant, Jack Anderson, who indicates that evidence had been uncovered that the Agriculture Department's decision to purchase surplus frozen eggs might have been leaked in advance to commodity speculators. Five days prior to the official announcement, in Augusta, Ill., a poultry producer had written to a select list of clients advising them to watch for important announcements to boost the egg market, that the "big boys" were ready to run the market up, and if they could get a good profit, to take it, and alert their friends. Although the Agriculture Department had put out the opposite information, the poultry producer's prediction turned out to be accurate.
Mr. Anderson provides the chronology, starting on May 26, when the Agriculture Department notified House Agriculture Committee chairman Harold Cooley of North Carolina that there was little likelihood of an increase in Federal egg purchases, causing the price of eggs futures to reduce from 30 to 28.5 cents during the ensuing two days. On May 28, despite the Agriculture Department's official word, the poultry producer had advised his clients to purchase egg futures and predicted a new announcement which would boost the price by one or two cents. On June 1, the Agriculture Department then announced that it would start purchasing frozen eggs. On June 3, egg futures had hit a high of 31.4 cents, and those who had followed the poultry producer's advice had made between two and three cents per dozen, a tremendous profit if they had speculated in great volume.
The poultry producer denied to the column that he had received any "inside" information. Congressional investigators wanted to know more, however, about the "big boys" who were "ready to run the market up". Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, a strait-laced Mormon apostle, was also checking to see whether any subordinates had leaked the information.
Despite the uproar over the private fund collected by California businessmen to help then-Senator Nixon pay off his 1950 Senate campaign expenses, which had nearly bumped him off the ticket in 1952 when it had come to light, were now raising a similar slush fund for his California colleague, Congressman Don Jackson. Contributions had been solicited by C. D. McCarron, an insurance executive, who had turned over the money directly to the Congressman's office.
Doris Fleeson tells of "Rocky in '60" campaign buttons having been passed out at the recent Republican state dinner in New York. The other noteworthy aspect of the week had been the adroit exploitation of the young Republican Lochinvar from the West, Governor Mark Hatfield of Oregon. As with Nelson Rockefeller's victory in New York in 1958, he had recaptured a formerly Democratic state house. He was young at 37, personable and moderate.
She indicates that nothing so obvious as a spectacular or partisan stage had been set for Governor Hatfield in New York. Instead, he had flattering private conferences with key figures, including Governor Rockefeller, while press attention was focused on his potential for adding geographic balance to a ticket headed by Governor Rockefeller. She thus finds that evidence was mounting that while Governor Rockefeller might not have fully determined that 1960 was his year, he was determined to suggest in the many ways open to him that he was not out of the running.
More of the same understated planning was observed in Governor Rockefeller's appearance in Washington during the week at the only forum which was both purely social and partisan, the Capitol Hill Club, a Republican organization which he had helped found when serving in the Eisenhower Administration. He was coming alone, without even a press secretary to handle the inevitable news coverage of his visit. Further emphasizing the soft sell, leaders of the Congressional movement to draft the Governor had informally agreed to stay away from the reception so that it would not be considered "a political kickoff" for him.
All of it had been the work of George Hinman, a young Binghamton, N.Y., lawyer who had impressed himself on Governor Rockefeller when both had worked on a panel appointed by former Governor Averell Harriman to study possible revision of the New York State Constitution. Among those alerted to the possible shape of things to come in the following year were members and allies of the Republican right wing. For them, Governor Rockefeller was much too liberal and internationalist, and they had surmised that the threat of his candidacy would push Vice-President Nixon in the same direction.
As a result, the Republican Senate and House campaign committees had seized the reins of the effort to elect a Republican Congress, pushing aside the national committee. Also, the far right "For America" group was promoting the candidacy of Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who had won in that normally Democratic state during the midterms against a Democratic tide.
Brig. General Bonner Fellers, one-time public relations expert for General Douglas MacArthur in Japan and presently national director of "For America", claimed to have a mailing list of 10,000 or more supporters among the backers and money men of the late Senator Robert Taft, contending that both parties had been captured by the internationalists.
She finds that the principal problem for the national ticket by such moves was financial. Both the Congressional committees and "For America" had tapped the tills reserved for Republicans. The previous year, the Vice-President had become so exasperated by a similar diversion of the cash stream that he had openly protested it. It tended to produce that which had appeared in Utah, where Democrat Frank Moss had been elected largely because a well-financed "For America" candidate, former Governor J. Bracken Lee, had taken votes from the incumbent Republican, Senator Arthur Watkins.
A letter writer from Monroe finds that the continuing interest in reading material to which children were exposed recalled the book, "Hound Dog Moses and the Promised Land", which the writer's eight-year old child had brought home from the school library in 1956. He indicates that the book, ostensibly the story of a dog at Heaven's gate and his master's successful efforts to admit him, was actually a burlesque of Heaven, containing such phrases as: "I never did nothing to get sent to this sort of place. Hell, I killed them farm foxes… But I never done anything bad… What the devil did I get sent here for Pete?" When the dog's master realized that he was in Heaven, he "looks frightened all at once," and says, "I don't belong here… If you ask me, I think this is a helluva place… I only been in jail twice, but I liked it better than this." He says that after reading the "travesty", he protested the use of public funds to place "such trash" in the grade school libraries of the state. The State superintendent of public instruction had replied that the suggestion that the book be re-evaluated would be welcomed by those who reviewed books and that books ought be evaluated by local people before being placed in school libraries. He finds that it had been necessary for a subcommittee of Congress to recommend that "schools and colleges of the U.S. should require the study of U.S. history" and for the Government to ask servicemen to dedicate themselves "to the principles which made my country free" because of the influence exerted in the selection of books to which children in the schools were exposed. "Counteraction must be taken against this influence if we are to return to the principles that made this country free—the belief that governments are instituted to secure the God-given rights of men—to the belief in self-evident truths—to the belief in the existence of God…"
How some parents can become so exercised over nothing is beyond belief and never-ending, a reflection of having forgotten their own state of mind in actuality when they were children, not nearly so innocent at a young age as their fogged brains seem to recall, unless, that is, they grew up being sheltered under a rock, isolated from other children and the world at large. For the world at large, and most other children, at a very young age pick up on all sorts of things from the world around them, hardly the result of books in the schools, certainly not some story about a hound dog and its owner reaching heaven—which will soon be presented on the tv on Friday night.
And, regarding current events and stupid Congressional hearings wasting taxpayer money with much ado about nothing, if parents don't like exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution, then they should refrain from attending those exhibits, or provide their children with little blinders, which they can slip on and off at will to hide them from the world around them, in which case they will undoubtedly grow up to be neurotic adults ill-equipped to go out into the world and see it with any realistic point of view. But we have dumbbells now in Congress as never before, people who ran bars back in their home bailiwick, wherein the patrons were required to pack guns, surely a fitting image for all children. Just as it was a fitting image for this same idiot to go to a movie with her boyfriend and become very handsy, with many children present in the audience, having to be kicked out of the place much to her consternation which she made no bones about communicating loudly to the management. The level of hypocrisy and stupidity never ceases to amaze in current times. The very worst of the worst role models for children are now being elected with too much routine to the Congress from rude districts across the country, wishing to impress upon the rest of the country their hatred for the Constitution with a big middle finger. That is their right to do under the Constitution, but just because it is a right does not mean that it is appropriate or not completely stupid. We have individual freedom in this country to be stupid as fence posts, and to exercise no judgment whatsoever, but usually those kinds of activities ultimately lead down the path to hell and destruction, to war and rumors of war, which is indeed what we now have, in this fascist Government under Trump's salesmanship.
This dummy of whom we speak wants the Smithsonian to put forward a holocaust-type exhibit dedicated to "millions of aborted fetuses". That would surely be a fit exhibit for children to see. But it is not surprising for a gun-promoting neo-Nazi to suggest such a ridiculous thing.
A letter writer indicates that if the people of Mecklenburg County wanted to preserve their educational system, wanted their teachers to continue to do a fine job and maintain an unusually high standard of teaching, then they would vote against the consolidation measure. He contends that if the voters permitted consolidation, City teachers would eventually be relocating to some of the County schools, resulting in confusion for the children. He urges thinking carefully on June 30 before casting a vote for the bond measure which would enable consolidation.
A letter writer says that she was pleased to see an Associated Press picture of a deaf girl in the newspaper on June 6 using expressive sign language. She indicates that the position of the girl's hands indicated the word "nearer". She corrects the caption, indicating that the girl was from Iowa and not a different girl from Nebraska.
Framed Edition
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