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Bureaucracy not only answer
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By
JIM STREET Ed
& Pub Do we really
need still another bureaucracy? The proposed “financial reform” bill seeks to
create a new “watchdog” agency to make sure people don’t get ripped off by
“greedy” investment firms on Wall Street. Meanwhile, in
what had to be a masterpiece of bad timing – or was it really good? – came
word that some top employees of the Securities and Exchange Commission were
using their government computers to scan porn sites, some as much as eight
hours a day, rather than doing their jobs. We already
have seven, count ‘em, seven agencies charged with looking after the
financial industry. If there are cases of the existing bureaucracies not
doing their jobs, perhaps we should look there for solutions rather than creating
still another bureaucracy. OPINION And what’s
worse, this bill would empower the government – without even getting approval
from Congress – to take over any company deemed by these bureaucrats to be “too
big to fail” and in danger of default. We hear about
the “greed on Wall Street” as causing the collapse but the real cause was a
ton of “sub-prime” mortgages backed by Fannie May and Freddie Mac, two
agencies not even mentioned in the proposed rules. Government-backed
mortgages were forced on the banks by the government in a devastating scheme
to advance home ownership to those who had no way of paying back the loans. Why shouldn’t
people speculate wildly on these instruments? They were backed by the government.
You can’t lose. Many of these
mortgages were bundled and sold as derivatives and other instruments and I
guess there can be some blame laid on Wall Street for some of these schemes. But clamping
down on “derivatives” could actually increase risk in the market, rather than
the other way around. “Derivatives”
cover a broad area but their main function in a free market is to reduce risk
for the buyer and/or seller of the instrument. A key aim of
the new rules is to end what President Obama called “enormous, irresponsible
risks.” But risk is a
necessary part of the market. If there were no risk, all stock prices would
remain constant and there would be no opportunity for profit. The “sin” of
selling short, which Goldman Sachs is accused of, is a tool that has been
used for years to allow investors to profit from a falling market. He “bets”
the market will go down and benefits if he is right. He could be wrong and
lose. Keep in mind,
it is “greed” and “risk” that drive the market. Investors buy stocks in hopes
of making a profit. By purchasing shares, they contribute to the bottom line
of a business, allowing it to buy more tooling to make more profits – and to
hire more workers. As in jobs.
Heard that discussed lately? That’s the
real welfare. Put people to work and they’ll support the government, rather
than the other way around. And the
“riskier” an investment is, the greater potential there is for profit. I have told
these stories before but they illustrate what is wrong with so much
bureaucracy. In a cab
riding into downtown Washington, DC, many years ago after an absence of
several years, we passed a huge building about eight stories tall occupying
an entire block. At the cross street, the building went up and over and continued
for another full block. “The Bureau of
the Fisheries,” a sign on the corner said. What in the
world were all those bureaucrats doing? I wondered. Why do we even need a
bureau of the fisheries? Many years
later, I was in senior management at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. The
director of administration thought it would be a good idea to circulate the
table of contents from the federal Daily Register to the directors every work
day. He had to
quit. People complained they didn’t have time to read all the new verbiage. Keep in mind,
this was not the Daily Register. It was only the table of contents. Each line
represented a brand new law we all had to obey and virtually none of them was
passed by elected representatives. One of these ran
about 6,000 words. About 1,000 words deep it said its purpose was to carry
out the orders of President Carter to simplify the language of the federal
government. And it took
6,000 words to do it. Somebody was paid a huge salary to write all those
words. By comparison,
this opinion will run a little less than 800 words. Do we really
need more bureaucracy? I don’t think
so. The
chicken lady of Carterville “I’m the chicken lady,” Helen Wilkerson
said. “My son in law calls my house the chicken coop.” Helen lives at
Carterville just north of Garden City and collects porcelain chicken
figurines. “The very
first chickens I got were from a friend of mine when I got married,” she
said. “I really like chickens so I’d keep bringing a chicken or two in and
finally my husband said ‘if you bring another chicken in this house I’m
leaving.’ “So I quit for
a few years and decided he wasn’t going to leave so I started again,” she
said. “I have around 4,000 now.” I told her she
can never move. “I know that,”
she said. “And I’m getting older. “I’ve wondered
what in the world I’m going to do with all these chickens,” Helen said. “It
would take a moving van just to move the chickens.” Each of her
chickens is numbered and referenced in a book to tell where it came
from. Her collecting is on hold now. “I ran out of
space. I had to quit,” she said.
“There’s no place to put another chicken.
I look at them longingly when I see one I don’t have, but so far this
year I’ve been able to pass them up.” Helen has
bought a lot of the chickens but her friends and family give them to her
because they know how much she likes chickens. One wall of
her house has been converted into a display area for her collection. “These are
shadow boxes that I have put together and painted,” Helen said. “I really
enjoy looking at them. A woman saw my collection and told me there was
medication for people like me.” The wall full
of chickens is eight feet by twelve feet.
It takes a while to dust her chickens. “Well over two
days,” she said. “That’s the only thing about my chickens I don’t like. I have to take a cloth and take each one
out of its little compartment and dust it, dust the compartment and put it
back. “It takes a
long time,” she said. “I have to stand on a ladder to reach the top ones.” Helen’s house
has pictures, doilies, place mats, cups, aprons, shirts and robes all in a
chicken motif. Chickens make her
happy. During our
visit, she laughed every time she said something. “Everything in
my house has to do with chickens,” she said.
“My sister and I travel a lot together and everywhere we go we try to
get a chicken. “That’s fun to
look at them and remember when we were on the trip and where we got them,”
she said. Her favorites
are some salt and pepper shakers called nodders. They’re like bubble heads that nod up and
down. Building
a Home They bought a
little piece of property at 6,000 feet elevation and started clearing. They both work
so they cannot give full time to the project and, when they can, they save a
little money when they purchase building materials. His wife found
a beautiful white wood for the ceiling and purchased it with her extra money.
He has worked
with iron and sheet metal so that is what the main structure is made of. They have
large windows that allow them to see the mountains. They also have
a small covered patio and it was so neat to eat Sunday dinner out there with
them in the cool mountain air. No, they are
not finished with it yet and it will be a while but it is being built slowly
but securely. That couple
working together and building their home remin-ded me of something in the
Bible. A wedding
takes place in a relatively short time but to have or build a good marriage
takes a lifetime. First, to
build a home or marriage that lasts it must be on a good foundation (Luke
6:46 to 48.) The best
foundation is for both husband and wife to be committed Christians (Ephesians
2:20, Titus 3:1 to 7.) Use good
materials, not worldly things (2Timothy 2:19, Titus 2:12.) I love to look
at old homes but many are dilapidated and in shambles while others are in
excellent shape, beautiful and still standing. See you in
Church next Sunday. Brother J Happy
20th birthday, HST Sunday, April
25, marks the 20th anniversary of the much-anticipated deployment of the
Hubble Space Telescope by Discovery space shuttle astronauts in 1990. Then, to the
dismay of scientists and the public, it was quickly found that the HST had an
optical defect that seriously degraded its views. However, once
corrective optics were installed in 1993, the magnificent telescope has been
revealing a universe never before known in such depth and grandeur. In 1609-10,
Galileo and his new telescope revolutionized astronomy by revealing a cosmos
humans had scarcely imagined, much less seen, and altered our understanding
of our place in the universe. Then, in 1924,
a young American astronomer, Edwin Hubble (1889-1953), again revolutionized
astronomy. The
then-prevailing theory was that our Milky Way galaxy constituted the entire
universe. But using the
then-largest telescope in the world, the 100-inch Hooker Telescope on Mount
Wilson near Los Angeles, he discovered the universe to be vastly larger than
had been imagined and that our galaxy is but one of billions of galaxies. Many argue
that the HST, named for Edwin Hubble, has been no less revolutionary. It has enabled
astronomers to determine the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years and
confirm that super-massive black holes reside at the center of most galaxies.
It has enabled
scientists to better understand how stars and planets are formed and has
detected organic molecules beyond our solar system, increasing the
possibility for the existence of other organic life in the cosmos. In its 20-year
history, data from the HST has generated more than 7,500 scientific papers,
making it one of the most productive scientific instruments in history. Although not
the largest telescope in the world, HST's 94-inch-diameter mirror is larger
than McDonald Observatory's original 82-inch telescope, which is still in
use. At 43 feet
long and 14 feet in diameter, our Toyota 4Runner and 23-foot travel trailer
could park inside the body of the HST. It also has
two rectangular solar panels, each 8.5 feet by 23 feet. If you want to
see the HST in the night sky, the Web site www.heavens-above.com provides
exact viewing information on many Earth-orbiting satellites, including the
HST. You'll need to
register – for free – and enter your viewing location the first time you use
the site. But then you won't need to do it again.
Sunday
evening, April 25, Venus passes near the Pleiades (Seven Sisters) star
cluster low in the west at dusk. Wednesday,
April 28, the full Moon is called Egg Moon, Grass Moon and Easter Moon. During the
early evenings of May, the Milky Way lies flat around the horizon, making it
seem to disappear. Saturday, May
1, May Day and Beltane, a cross-quarter day celebrating the middle of spring. Early evening,
Monday, May 3, Venus passes to the right of the star Aldebaran, the "red
eye" of the Taurus the bull, low in the west at dusk. Wednesday
morning, May 5, the Moon is at third quarter. Naked-eye Planets. The Sun, Moon,
and planets rise in the east and set in the west due to Earth's west-to-east
rotation on its axis. Evenings,
Brilliant Venus is low in the west with much fainter Mercury to its lower
right. Mars is high overhead and Saturn is high in the southeast. Mornings
before dawn, Saturn is setting in the west as Jupiter is rising in the east. Stargazer appears every other week, space
permitting. Paul Derrick is an amateur astronomer who lives in Waco. Contact
him at 918 N. 30th, Waco, 76707, (254) 753-6920 or paulderrickwaco@aol.com. See the Stargazer Web site at stargazerpaul.com. ‘Clash of the Titans’ Hades has an agenda of his own, go become leader of all the gods and reign hell on man. To the rescue comes Perseus, played by Sam Worthington, the heroic Jake Sully from “Avatar.” Perseus is the unknowing illegitimate son of Zeus. The action begins when
Perseus begins his quest to defeat the Kraken
and send Hades back to the depths of darkness. There are great action scenes that will have you white knuckling the
armrest of your theater seat. Sam Worthington as Perseus gives a visual feast of action scenes throughout the movie. Medusa, played
by an unknown, Natalie Vadianova, will strongly
repulse and captivate simultaneously with her head of undulating snakes. The computer graphics are superb and border on the quality we saw in
Avatar. A PG-13 with no nudity and no vulgar language, the plot may have
been weak but, then again, this is a mythological story. So far,
grossing in at $125-plus million, I'm sure we'll see more
mythology movies. Who knows what Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon or Aphrodite will be up to
next? If you like action movies, go ahead, see or rent this one. You won't
be disappointed. Ed's rating is three and a half stars. «««1/2 ‘Date
Night’ funny “Date Night”
is a very funny, if not hilarious, movie. Rated PG 13, I was a little uncomfortable
with the numerous sexual innuendos and double-entendres. There was no
nudity and negligible foul language, which, I'm supposing makes the
sexual dialog more acceptable. I can only say
I wouldn't take my 13-year-old daughter to this movie. I felt it should
be PG-17. Having said
that, as an adult, I enjoyed the movie. Phil and
Claire played by Steve Carell (The Office, The Forty Year Old Virgin) and
Tina Fey (Saturday Night Live, Sarah Palin impersonator) depict an ordinary
couple from the New Jersey "burbs" who become involved in a case of
mistaken identity. The premise is
formulaic but this movie makes it work. The mistaken identity results
from them stealing a restaurant reservation. The adventure
begins while they're enjoying their dinner, thinking they've been busted when
two thugs approach them and ask them to step outside. Well, that’s
not quite what happens. They end up being chased by mob thugs and corrupt
police. The ensuing
chase and evasion scenes become the hilarious mainstay of the movie. You will laugh
at the mishaps and turn-arounds that occur. There is an
obligatory car chase that has a new twist and will leave you holding your
stomach in uncontrollable, raucous laughter. The Hollywood
staple, Mark Walberg (Four Brothers), makes a surprise appearance as a by-
chance person who reluctantly assists them out of their potentially fatal
situation. I enjoyed the
Phil and Claire characters. Steve Carell and Tina Fey work well together and
played out the mayhem superbly. I'm recommending
this movie as a PG-17. I give it three and a half stars out of
four. Enjoy. «««1/2 |
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