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Opinion

  • Bishops, abortion and life issues

    The Perry County News is to be commended on its willingness to bring life issues to the attention of its readers. A Nov. 17 editorial reported a group of bishops saying that opposing abortion is of first importance among the life issues.

    One might rightfully ask: How does this group of bishops have the authority to make this evaluation? Suppose someone else were to think that capital punishment is of first importance? Indeed.

  • Thank you soldiers, families for...

    A moment hasn't gone by for family members of Indiana National Guard soldiers based at the Tell City armory when they didn't think about their loved ones deployed to Iraq.

    Wondering if they're safe from enemy fire; wondering when, and if, they will see their soldiers' smiling faces, and children asking when their mom or dad is coming home.

    But all of the worrying has come to an end. They're home. Indiana's citizen-soldiers — fathers, mothers, sons and daughters — are now safe and sound on United States soil.

  • Don't lose your holiday spirit

    The trampling death of a man inside a Wal-Mart the day after Thanksgiving should give us all pause on what the holidays are all about, or at least what they shouldn't be about.

    Perry County is a long ways off from the Valley Stream, N.Y., Wal-Mart where temporary worker Jdimytai Damour was trampled by an oncoming 5 a.m. rush of shoppers. Damour was killed as he tried opening the store's doors. Some shoppers tried to help him but many others stepped over his body en route to bargains.

  • U.S. Treasury's capital...

    Many banks are getting a boost through the U.S. Treasury's Capital Purchase Plan, in which the U.S. Treasury is investing $250 billion in banks that are approved by their primary regulators and the U.S. Treasury to participate.

    In addition to helping banks, the American consumer also will realize a significant benefit from the program.   

  • Open letter to President-elect...

    Hope was mentioned now and again as you campaigned for the office you will assume in January. We have some hopes we’d like to see you fulfill once there.

    This is not simply a wish list. Failure to pursue honorable courses of action threatens this nation in ways most of us don’t care to imagine. We don’t care to forecast, for example, what might become of our country if our largest banks and other companies tuck our hundreds of billions of dollars in bailout money into their pockets and walk away, leaving many of us without homes and jobs.

  • Plenty to be thankful for

    I wasn’t always kind to Thanksgiving. For the first two-thirds of my 41 years, I under-appreciated the holiday. As a child, the event seemed best suited for grownups, who like to chat around the kitchen table eating turkey and pumpkin pie.  

    For me back then, Thanksgiving was a welcome four-day weekend away from school and the signal that Christmas was near.

  • The roots of our Thanksgiving

    Editor’s Note: This text of President George Washington’s Oct. 3, 1789, national Thanksgiving proclamation was printed in The Providence Gazette and Country Journal and is printed with original spellings, capitalization and punctuation.

    It was submitted by Freewill Baptist Church in Cannelton to commemorate Thursday’s observance of the holiday.

  • Literacy fund honors local teacher...

    When the Donna Fenn Literacy Fund was founded in 2005, her husband and family wanted to establish a way to honor her commitment to early childhood literacy.

    An endowment was created for the benefit of the school where she taught, William Tell Elementary, with a mission to promote literacy-skills development.

  • Other life issues are equally...

    The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 2007 “Faithful Citizenship” guidelines took a strong stand against abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty and embryonic-stem-cell research and also brought up other issues for voters to consider, such as social justice, the economy and opposition to unjust wars.

    But last week several bishops said abortion should be the main issue Catholic voters should look at when deciding which candidates to back.

  • County well-positioned for growth

    During the past several months, our conversations have been laced with new terms such as housing bubbles, gas prices, market swings, Wall Street meltdown, recession and others that do not bode well for our national economy.

    Our government leadership has taken unprecedented steps to instill confidence in our financial markets and has provided equity to be injected into the most troubled areas.

  • Help others enjoy the holidays

    The upcoming holidays are a time when most of us go out of our way to give to others, whether it’s to children, parents, nieces and nephews or close friends.

    A lot of us mark Christmas by giving to those who are less fortunate, especially children.

    Thanksgiving and Christmas have long been times when we’ve reached out to others. I’m sure that will never change, no matter how commercialized the holidays become, but generosity will be  more of a challenge this year because of the ongoing economic crisis.

  • Remembering the dead

    I head an interesting story recently about how one local church pastor, on the occasion of All Souls Day Nov. 2, invited parishioners to gather in the church cemetery for a blessing of graves.

    Each person was asked to stand by a grave and a few minutes later, with people standing by the graves of relatives, friends and perhaps complete strangers, parishioners remembered the dead.

  • Democracy works!

    Election Day 2008 is, at last, history - but what history was made Tuesday! In the surest sign our nation remains true to its democratic ideals, Americans turned out in record numbers to choose their 44th president.

    Local supporters of Barack Obama and John McCain have every reason to be proud of their candidates and the national dialogue they led on the crucial issues we face: wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, threats to our national security, a struggling economy, health care and even race.

  • A look at the science of aging

    We recognize that human beings do not age at the same rate. Why is this happening? Aging may be described in three different ways, by chronological age, biological age and psychological age.

    It is too late to do anything about your genetic inheritance and your chronological age.

    Biological age is a measurement of how well your physiological systems are functioning. It is the most important component of the aging process.

  • Another peek in the mailbox

    When it comes to their reading interests, Perry Countians' tastes are varied, but I'm grateful this newspaper remains by far the most widely circulated publication in these parts.

    That's no surprise to you, perhaps, but for those of us whose livelihoods depend on putting out a publication people still want to subscribe to, a high circulation offers some solace, especially in uncertain economic times.

  • It's not too late for flu shots

    As the days get cooler, more and more people are spending time indoors, which means being around more people. It also means a better chance at catching influenza. But before you spread it to your family and coworkers, why not try to prevent the flu bug's visit by getting vaccinated?

    Flu vaccines have been available since August and the Centers for Disease Control estimates between 143 million and 146 million doses will be produced for the 2008-09 influenza season. This all-time high supply includes three new virus strains to help protect the public.

  • Government threatens to eliminate...

    What time is it in Perry County? As if that issue hasn't been overly scrutinized in recent years, the federal government wants to toss yet another complexity into the matter.

    We used to be happy in our little now-Central, now-Eastern corner of the world. Then the state imposed daylight-saving time upon us and got us to thinking about whether we should declare a time zone, and if so, which one?

  • Project fraught with concerns

    The Citizens Action Coalition has legally intervened against the construction of a coal-gasification plant proposed by Leucadia to be located in Rockport in Spencer County.

    CAC is a consumer watchdog group of 70,000 statewide members. CAC represents residential ratepayers and homeowners before the Utility Regulatory Commission and the state legislature on energy and utility issues and environmental issues related to energy policy.

  • Working by the moonlight

    Ivan James was a rare gem of a man who inhabited the hinterland of northeast Perry County.

    His occupation was farming, a most noble pursuit he'd been born into. Ivan was a wide-brimmed-hat sort of fellow, blue-denim overalls, handkerchief spilling out the back pocket, whittlin' knife hidden in the front one.

    His hands were out-of-doors worn from a lifetime of hard use, but there was a softness in his eyes that revealed something of his old soul.

  • Vigilance is voters' sacred...

    Our duty in the voting booth is a sacred one even in good times. The gravity of our task is multiplied many times when we're sending our loved ones into the paths of bombs and bullets, and when national and global financial systems are collapsing. For that reason, the trust we place in our voting systems must be absolute.

Copyright © 2013

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