Sunday, December 23, 2018
Coulter’s art of deflection
Columnist Ann Coulter’s offer of a free excerpt from her book, made in her Dec. 17, column in The Vindicator, was pretty near worth her asking price. Pity the remaining 36 column inches devoted to her pricy column wasn’t as valuable. As she seems fond of Star Trek metaphors, I’d like to say her column raised more “deflector shields” than Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock did, combined, throughout the run of that TV series.
Coulter’s claim that a boring fact that proves a boring crime somehow lessens the impact of the crime makes as much sense as bringing a battle axe to a laser fight, and clings on perfectly to a Trumpian universe where alternative facts and untrue truths rule.
My hope is that conservative Republicans will get off their knees and cut the Donald J. Trump albatross from around their necks and help, with Democrats, to steady the ship of state before the president walks the plank through impeachment or electoral drubbing.
About the last thing our country needs in the next few years (other than Hillary Clinton as candidate) is a vengeful DNC trying to even the score for GOP abuses under the spell of Trump. That will only lead to a liberal version of lying for profit whilst blowing your own horn of which we have had more than enough in the past two years.
If I were not such a fan of free speech, I would suggest The Vindicator drop expensive national flame-thrower columnists before they go off in a theatre. However, I believe in free speech, and will therefore catch up on Ms. Coulter’s thoughts in tabloids scanned while waiting in checkout lines. Perhaps there – the truth of an alien probe poking her brain along its usual route caused her to believe a boring truth that proves a boring crime is not sufficient reason to distrust a public official – will be revealed.
Jim Cartwright, Canfield
Prevention of child obesity must start with parents
This may be a topic that many people may not be comfortable talking about, but it is a very important aspect for our society today. We have too many incidences of childhood obesity.
Obesity is considered a body mass index greater than 30. There are many causes to obesity, such as diet, exercise, and many children being accustomed to a sedentary lifestyle. One much less talked about effect on childhood obesity is whether the child was exclusively breastfed during the first six months of infancy. Many studies have found that the exclusively breastfed infants have a lower BMI score compared to those children who were only bottle-fed, or even those children who had mixed feedings. Although breastfeeding does not have a connection with satiety (the feeling of being full), it does have a very strong correlation with children staying within a healthy weight (in one study a 95 percent correlation). Along with breastfeeding comes the importance of introducing solid foods at six months of age, which is recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
It is important to understand that the prevention of childhood obesity starts with the parents. The influence and diet they provide for a healthy diet will forever impact the children they are raising.
There are many places mothers are able to look up information on breastfeeding and its benefits, such as research articles on the internet and the hospitals and clinics in their area. The public libraries around here also carry books that can be used as educational resources. It is so important to be educated, and with the promotion of learning in our area, maybe we can all help in decreasing the incidence of childhood obesity and increasing the amount of babies that are being breastfed in our area.
Alexis DeSantis, Canfield
No respect for the dead
On Nov. 19 on Inter- state 680 in a funeral procession to Calvary Cemetery, I could believe that at least five people cut in the procession.
Kudos to the drivers who pulled over. Thumbs down to those who cut in.
Do people not respect anything anymore? What a disgrace.
I hope they’re proud of themselves.
Irene Junkin, Youngstown
State-run news network has no place in America
A state-run news net- work is President Donald J. Trump’s latest idea. Sounds like he has no clue of the difference between dictator and president. I’m not surprised as his lack of education, no matter how many schools his parents placed him in, is apparent to anyone with a thinking brain.
I have news for him. This is America, not one of his favorite dictator-run countries. If he wants to move to any of those nations I say go for it, and take all the people you have appointed in cabinet jobs that are killing our country. Don’t forget your family and the vice president’s too.
You bragged your plane was better than Air Force One so climb on board and take off. There will be plenty of cheers and no tears when you are all gone.
Every day we have to listen to him bragging he is rated an A+ or higher. That every word that comes out of his mouth is one the American people should be hanging on and taking for the truth when it’s all lies.
Now a news network so we won’t know what he’s doing at the border to the women and children trying to enter America and asking to be allowed here.
Now he’s after those coming from Mexico and countries where thugs and killers run their countries, but how soon will it be before he comes for someone else? Will it be the people from a country where your ancestors left to go to America for a better life? Remember at one time we didn’t want the Irish, the Polish, the Slovaks, even though we needed them to work and build this country.
Darlene Torday, Berlin Center
Human beings hastening the extinction of species
Consider if the human population were disappearing 10 or 100 times faster than the normal death rate. Would we not take extraordinary measures? Would we not cry, “something is killing us!”
Well that is in fact the situation Mother Nature finds herself in. Although extinction is a normal part of nature, before humans took over the planet, generally only two to three species would go extinct annually. Now it’s several a day. The current overall extinction rate is over 1,000 times faster then it has been for millennia. It is a fact that the diversity of life forms on earth are disappearing at a rate not seen since the mass extinction of the dinosaurs!
But it’s easy to ignore from our modern perspective. We don’t collect dead animals from the lawn every morning. Nature dies in silence one generation after the bulldozer, or the chemical spill or the deadly proliferation of DDT.
The question of whether to build on the Howland Woods wetland adjacent to the Eastwood Mall was discussed at a public meeting at Howland High School. Dozens of citizens, neighbors, biologists and ecologists listed concerns which negatively effect the entire community as reasons for their opposition to construction. The wetlands contain high quality pristine bio-diverse zones. Wetlands are nature’s incubator for new life, they purify the water, (nature’s kidneys) and in this particular case prevent flooding in and around Mosquito Creek .
The need for development and jobs is not mutually exclusive with doing the right thing for our long-term survival, i.e. ecology. But it’s not going to happen if our leaders do not take the warnings seriously into account.
Leave what’s natural and complex and ultimately life sustaining to thrive. Those areas of the woods, around the proposed construction, which are most pristine, are currently protected, but they will vanish quickly with the construction at their borders. We see it all the time.
Tom Cvetkovich, Youngstown