Page 4A- 1 ne ARINGD MUUN TAIN REHALU- 1 hursday, June 9, 1994
JIM
HEFFNER ia
Columnist
The brave young men
What do you think about when you consider D-
Day?
I think about all those young men who lost their
lives on the beaches at Normandy that bloody morn-
ing. 1 have no idea how many people were killed on
June 6, 1944, but I know the number was significant.
During the last week, there have been many TV pro-
arams depicting that fateful, and important day in this
country" history. Those young men who survived are
now 50 years older, and their stories are just as riveting
today as they were then. Some of them, in fact, have
kept their éxperiences to themselves all these years.
I saw an elderly man on the news the other night
who said, "the first and last time I ever cried was when
we hit Omaha Beach and my best friend was blown
away."
Many ex-soldiers, even this late in life, cannot dis-
cuss the event without choking up.
I had an uncle in the Second Ranger Battalion who
landed at one of the beaches, and he wouldn't discuss it
for years. Just before he died, he poured out the story
to me. "The landing for me," he said, "wasn't all that
bad, although we took our share of casualties, but
when we got inland it became a lot tougher. The Battle
at St. Lo was the bloodiest I ever saw during the war, a
nightmare. People were dropping like flies. You could
hear the bullets whistling all around you, and all you
could do was eat as much dirt as possible and fire back
when you could."
During the landing, a flat silver dollar-sized stone
somehow got into his boot. He kept it all his life.
Think about their bravery. They advanced in the
face of enemy fire so thick you could almost see the
lead. The bomber and fighter plane pilots supporting
the operation were no more than 22 and 23 years of
age.
Do we still have people in this country that young
with that kind of character?
Scanning the news - I want to know who is in
charge of all the facts they collect in Washington.
Congressman Cass Ballenger of Hickory was in a
helicopter that was forced to land because of a me-
chanical problem in Mexico the other day. He was on a
fact-finding tour. Bianca Jagger was on the same
flight. Was she on a fact-finding tour also? Were they
trying to find the same facts, or are facts separated into
different categories?
Every time a congressman or senator goes out of the
country, they're on fact-finding tours. I'd like to get a
look at some of the facts they find. I'd like to know
which facts they do anything about and which they
cull.
Do some of the facts they find turn out to be untrue,
making them non-facts, or out and out lies? How do
they know when a fact is really a fact? Do you need
special training to find facts, or can anybody do it? Is
fact-finding fun?
I have decided that my wife and I, on our next vaca-
tion, are going to Myrtle Beach on a fact-finding tour.
What I need to know is where do we send the facts we
find when we get back home?
Can anybody tell me what that whole deal with
Coach K was about last week? I call him that because I
can't spell his last name. It looks like an eye chart.
He called a news conference to tell everybody he
wasn't going to quit his job. Was that a threat that he
might consider quitting someday?
I wonder if I could get by with calling a news con-
ference to tell the world I will not quit my job? I won-
der if my boss would fire me if I did that? I wonder if
that was a fact-finding news conference?
Drink green tea and don't get cancer of the esopha-
gus. That's the latest medical story. My question is
how many people get cancer of the esophagus in the
first place?
What next?
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Opinions
Your Right To Say It
President Greets Dixon
GARY i
STEWART
Editor
Kelly Dixon, of Kings
Mountain, was greeted by
President Dwight
Eisenhower at the White
House last week, as the
Kings Mountain Congres-
| sional candidate joined 135
other Republican Congres-
sional aspirants in a two-day
conference to acquaint the
candidates whit GOP aims
and policies.
From the September 8th,
1960 issue of the Kings
Mountain Herald.
Teens want truth about sex
To the editor:
It truly amazes me how many parents, adults, educa-
tors, and others falsely assume that teens cannot con-
trol their sexual drives and are automatically going to
have sex no matter what anybody says. Do we not give
our young people the benefit of the doubt to acknowl-
edge that when they are taught the proper moral val-
ues, that most will accept that guidance and act in a
safe, moral and responsible manner? Children are not
animals. We are talking about human sexuality, where
people clearly have the capacity to make right moral
decisions and abide by them. )
In a 1986 Louis Harris poll, 87% of teens polled
said they did not want comprehensive sex programs in
their schools. Further, 60% did not even want such ser-
vices in the vicinity of their schools. An Atlanta study
revealed that 90% of girls under 16 wanted to learn
how to say no to sexual pressure. The magazine
"Family Planning Perspectives" reported in its
January-February 1990 issue that a poll of 1,000 girls
aged 16 and under found that 84% wanted their
schools to teach them how to say no to sex. What this
shows without question is that today's teens don't want
to be shown how "to do it," they want to be shown
"not how to do it." It is up to the adults in America to-
day to give the proper signal to our teens - show them
the right way - and chances are they will conduct
themselves the right way.
When giving a lecture on the subject of AIDS to
800 sexologists at the World Congress on Sexology in
Heidelberg, Germany on June 19, 1987 Dr. Theresa
Crenshaw, past president of the American Association
of Sex Education, Counselors and Therapists, said
most of the 800 sexologists recommended condoms to
their clients and students, but not even one said they
would themselves use a condom for protection from
the AIDS virus. Consider these facts about condoms:
Fact 1 - The AIDS virus is 450 times smaller than a
microscopic-size sperm. So, if condoms fail on aver-
age 15% of the time in preventing pregnancy, just
imagine what the failure rate is in preventing this tiny
AIDS virus to infect your partner, obviously many,
many times higher. What if the danger was twice as
high? Would you really trust a condom knowing that
maybe three chances in 10 you could die? Do you see
the tremendous need to tell our teens that abstinence is
the only true way to prevent infection from AIDS" All
it takes is one small pinhole, or one little rip. slip or
tear - and you've got AIDS.
Fact 2 - In a study of married couples, 30% of the
people who relied on condoms for protection from
their HIV positive partners caught the HIV virus.
Fact 3 - Nobody knows for sure exactly how deadly
"safe sex" is but we do know that one in five adoles-
cents using condoms is pregnant at the end of a year.
Fact 4 - A boy can only get a girl pregnant one week
a month, but an HIV infected partner can give you the
AIDS virus 365 days a year.
So think about it: Telling someone to put a mere bal-
loon between their healthy body and a deadly disease
is totally irresponsible. It's like telling someone who is
driving drunk to simply use a seat belt.
Parents, citizens, churches, and educators must give
teens the right message. At a meeting in April at Kings
Mountain Middle School Health Education
Coordinator Cindy Borders said that condoms were
basically safe, and that most condom failure was
caused by human error. This type of false message is
what is causing the spread of this terrible disease and
ultimately the death of many students who trust what
we adults tell them. Please think about it. For more in-
formation about teens, AIDS, sex, values, morals and
family please write today to AMerican Life League,
Inc., PO Box 1350, Stafford, VA 22555.
Tom Sees
Organization needed
To the editor:
Concerning the Parks and Recreation Softball
League of Kings Mountain:
As a player I am very disappointed in the way the
league has been organized this year. The Kings
- Mountain League has had no organization all year.
As a player in the league for the past eight years this
has to be the most dissatisfying season of all. This is
the point of view of the majority of players.
The league has some teams playing twice in one
night and other teams playing only. once a week. The
most upsetting day of this young season was this past
Memorial Day. Games were scheduled and players
made arrangements to cut their vacations short. When
players arrived to play ball the Kings Mountain Parks
and Recreation Department had cancelled the games
without notifying the teams in advance. I know that
our company called the Parks and Recreation
Department the week before to verify these games
were still scheduled, and the Parks and Recreation
Department verified we would play.
Our industries have sponsored the teams by paying
entry fees to help out our Parks and Recreation
Department. We want to keep a neat and nice park
complex for all male and female sports enthusiasts. All
we ask in return is some organization.
Duane Brown
Legislative privileges
To the editor:
It is interesting to note that the Florida Governor
and former U.S. Senator, Lawton Chiles, a Democrat,
has been an enthusiastic supporter and lobbyist for the
Feinstein/Schumer semi-auto ban. He was recently
embarrassed when the press reported that he owned
one of the possibly soon to be banned firearms, a
Ruger Mini-14 with a folded stock.
Governor Chiles told AP News that "I've supported
a ban on assault weapons. It's not an assault weapon.
It's a rifle I got for turkey: hunting; it folds up." The
man is either a fool for not realizing that "his rifle"
would be banned, or a hypocrite, figuring to ban ev-
erybody else's guns while thinking that he wouldn't get
caught with his. : j
Big government liberals have long been skilled at
passing laws and regulations which oppress the gener-
al populace, yet conveniently’ exempting themselves
from their odious decrees. Is Ha
Isn't it nice to know that, once the semi-auto ban is
finally passed, the criminals will stay at home and
leave all of us conyeniently disarmed sitting ducks
alone? At the same time, I'm willing to bet that
Lawson Chiles will still have. his Mini-14. Rank and
office to have their privileges.
. Richmond C. Beecher
Increase salaries,
trim legislators
Just a few random iat:
M It didn't take his cohorts in the General Assembly
long to shoot down Kings Mountain Senator Ollie
Harris' bill to increase legislators’ salaries from thirteen
to thirty thousand dollars a year.
With an election just around the corner, legislators
no doubt felt it would be hard to get a ticket back to
Raleigh if the voters felt another squeeze on their
pocketbooks right now.
But, maybe the good ole boys in Raleigh shouldn't
have been so quick on the trigger. Harris’ plan did have
some merit.
Harris said, and we agree, that it is almost impossi-
ble for the regular Joe to run for political office in
North Carolina because of the low salaries in the
House and Senate. Unless you're independently
wealthy or retired you couldn't afford to quit your job
and run for office.
Harris feels that by offering a bigger salary it would
attract a good slate of candidates and result in a better
political system in North Carolina.
We agree, and we have an idea how the General
Assembly can increase those salaries and not cost the
taxpayer one additional cent. Cut the number of legis-
lators to one Representative and one Senator from
each district, and the amount of money saved would
allow the state to increase legislators’ pay to a very at-
tractive level. :
BW Another Kings Mountain legislator is busy filing
‘bills during the early stages of this session. John
Weatherly's first bill this go-round is one we've agreed
with from the first day we heard of it.
Late last year a bipartisan political watchdog group,
North Carolina Taxpayers United, proposed a plan
called the "Taxpayer Protection Act" which would re-
quire the state's future budgets to increase only by the
rate of inflation.
When the General Assembly convened a couple of
weeks ago, NCTU held a press conference on the steps
of the Legislative Building to officially call for intro-
duction of the bill.
Rep. Weatherly is cosponsoring the bill in the
House.
"I strongly support this common sense legislation,"
Weather said. "The annual budget for North Carolina
has grown from roughly $1 billion in 1972 to more
than $9 billion today. The Taxpayer Protection Act ©.
will curb runaway state spending and help prevent ad-
ditional state tax increases in the future.
"Government spending must be curtailed. The most
effective way to do this is to have limitations required
by law." j
North Carolina now has the second highest state
taxes in the Southeast.
Weatherly said the measure is receiving strong bi-
partisan support in both the House and Senate, and he
looks forward to its passage.
The act would not only limit the future growth of
spending to the rate of inflation with an adjustment for
population growth but would ensure that when state
revenues exceed expenditures that excess funds be
placed into an "Emergency Trust Fund." The plan also
would prevent the state government from imposing re-
sponsibility for new programs on local governments
“unless adequate funding is provided by the state.
MW I've figured out a way that the City of Kings
Mountain can eliminate all of its financial woes.
A couple of weeks ago, some citizens from the
Chestnut Ridge area requested city water and were
told that the city would run water lines to their com-
munity for $4,304 per lot.
Kings Mountain must have the best dad-gum water
in the country! At that price it should be bottled and
sold in grocery stores for about $10 per gallon.
MW Lucille Williams recently left the Kings Mountair
(now Cleveland County) Chamber of Commerce after
31 years of faithful service.
It seems her dedication was not enough to secure
her job after Kings Mountain became a branch of the
County C of C. :
But, be assured, Lucille WAS the Kings Mountain
Chamber of Commerce. She did a remarkable job and
her valuable services to the community will be sorely
missed.
Killing split sentence hamstrings judges
Those wonderful political appointees at the all-pow-
erful Parole Commission recently decided to erode
public safety "just one more time." Now they are de-
termined to strip the judiciary of its ability to sentence
criminals to "split sentences." This type of sentencing
is one of the few ways North Carolina judges have to
guarantee that criminals will serve up to six months in
jail. The tool that allows the Parole Commission the
power to strip our judges of one of their last remaining
powers is the prison cap law. This law, passed by the
General Assembly in 1987, limits the number of crimi-
nals in our state's prisons to 25,000 inmates, no matter
how much crime is committed. The blood of the inno-
cent is apparently cheap in North Carolina - at least
when the prisons are overcrowded.
In an internal memorandum from Lynn Phillips,
Director of Prisons, our state's prison officials were in-
structed that "effective immediately, the Parole
Commission will begin paroling and terminating in-
mates serving split sentences.” Prior to this memo,
judges in North Carolina could split a criminal’s sen-
tence by requiring that he serve up to six months of
sontinm Dap bc SA
GUEST COLUMN
THOMAS GOOLSBY
Carolina Syndicated
Columns
+ Hl, )
"active time" in prison and, thereby, allow the remain-
der of his sentence to be served on parole. Although
this may at first sound as if a judge is going "easy" on
a criminal, don't forget that the average criminal only
serves one month of "active time" in prison for every
year of his sentence. By giving criminals split sen-
tences, judges could see to it that criminals served at
least some time in prison. However, thanks to the
Parole Commission, judges have now been stripped of
their last remaining power (0 make criminals serve
some definite amount of time in prison.
What about our "Tough-on-Crime" Attorney
"General, Mike Easley? Has anyone heard from our
"Criminals-Will-Serve-Hard-Time" Governor Jim
Hunt? Where is our "What - Me Worry?" General
Assembly? Ask any of them and they will tell you thi
they took care of the crime problem during the Speci:
Session, Besides, they now have a $1 billion windfall
of our tax dollars that's just burning a hole in their
pockets. Are any of them calling for spending some ¢
the "windfall" on public safety? Of course not. they .
have their own pay raises and increased pensions to
worry about!
What about us - the lonely and abused taxpaying
victims who are simply looking for a safe and peacet
world in which to live? Apparently, we are not to que
tion why. We are simply to pay our taxes and keep ot
mouths shut. along with our judges. who are also bei
effectively silenced and hamstrung by a criminal jus-
tice system that is anything but just. The politicians
can pretend not to hear us, but the blood of the inno-
cent will continue (0 Cry out as our Crime rates soar:
Justice, no peace.
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