Viewpoints

by Dick Schilling, "Editor Emeritus"

... that current debate about what constitutes real news or fake news convinces me that my chosen profession, journalism, has undergone a major change since my university education.

A major factor in that thinking is that I know Jim Acosta’s name.

I should not.

He is the CNN White House correspondent.

And as such he frequently reports on his beat to his network news shows. Which is as it should be. But I don’t spend a lot of time watching the evening news on that channel, and yet his name is perhaps best known of all network beat reporters.

Why?

Because his open antagonism to the current administration plays out in Shakespearean tragedy at every White House news conference. As a result, he often not only gets air time on his own network but his name is repeated on others as well.

A journalist should never allow that to happen.

To the Editor:

Mr. Engle missed the point of the book How Democracies Die and my letters. The book examines the manner in which democracies around the globe have transformed into authoritarian states.  Neither the authors nor I said Trump was Hitler.  The book points out Hitler was a member of the political fringe when he was asked by the President of Germany to form a government as Chancellor, combining his extreme right wing party with more moderate conservatives in order to break a political stalemate.  Once   Hitler was brought into power, he used his position to turn the country to totalitarianism. Trump was also viewed by the Republican Party as an outsider who was unfit to lead the country.  Mitt Romney, for example, in March 2016 in a speech at the Hinckley Institute of Politics saw Trump as a danger to the party and the country, calling him a “fraud” and “having neither the temperament nor the judgment to be president”.

by Dick Schilling, "Editor Emeritus"

... that Nature and Nature’s creatures are much more active in warm weather than in cold, especially in this area which is on the migration route for many of them.

Those of us who have lived here for many years are familiar with sights and sounds of local residents and most of the temporary visitors.

But there are exceptions.

One recent night, before midnight, during one of my frequent nighttime sleep interruptions, I heard a creature making a very loud and totally unrecognizable sound. I have no idea what it was. I tried to look out the window but could see nothing, nor even very accurately divine the exact location.

I had recently watched a segment on TV about “howler” monkeys, and there was a little bit of that in the howl. But unless it was a zoo escapee, there are no monkeys in northeast Iowa.

Please meditate on 1 Kings 19:4-8, Ephesians 4:30-5:2, John 6:41-51.

In these scriptures, we hear about bread-food. We hear at least in the Gospel, about people who are grumbling, actually the word used today is murmuring, as in, “The people started to murmur in protest because He claimed, “I am the bread that came down from Heaven.”

Jesus confronts the murmuring head-on. He says, “Stop your murmuring.”

Jesus is a lot like us, isn’t he? He doesn’t like grumbling, murmuring or whining any more  than we do. All three of these words are onomatopoetic (good to remember this word for crossword puzzles). The word sounds like the meaning of the word. Grumble, grumble, grumble. Mur-mur-mur-mur-mur. Whiiinne, whiinne, whiinne.

All very unpleasant sounds, aren’t they?

Is that any way to behave toward God? Making unpleasant sounds? You don’t do that, do you?

To the Editor:

Mr. Hill claims in his Letter to the Editor dated August 1 that his original letter contained pure fact from the book “How Democracies Die.” Wrong. He claims that the authors of the book are respected scholars and diligent researchers who carefully documented all the points in their book. They may be.

I repeat, Democracy did not die in Peru. Surely it did in Venezuela at the hand of an outsider in the form of a military coup followed by a sham election to install communism. I doubt that either of the authors or any of their researchers ever spent a minute in Peru or Venezuela. They twisted facts to meet their own objective.

To the Editor:

Thank you, Mr. President.

On behalf of corn, wheat and soybean farmers across America, I thank you for this 12 billion dollar, one-time bailout.

Your tariffs on soybeans and pork have caused financial loss to soybeans, wheat and corn amounting to 13 billion dollars in June, 2018 alone.* That is one billion dollars more than the “bailout”. And that is only June.

According to University of Illinois and Ohio State University research, China’s 25% tariff on soybeans could cost Illinois midsize farms 87% of their income, and a $500,000.00 loss in net worth, per operation.* That’s per farm family.

Kalena Bruce, a fifth generation Missouri rancher, states that hogs are down 20% and lean hog futures by 14%.

by Dick Schilling, "Editor Emeritus"

... that as this is being written, forecasters were saying northeast Iowa could have a high temperature in the low 70s later this week, the last full week of July.

We were due for some relief from the heat, and can probably expect a return to heat and humidity sometime in August.

The thought of atmospheric conditions was perhaps partly prompted by the news of those widespread fires in Yosemite National Park.

I have not heard how that fire started, but it brought back memories.

The Ark Encounter and the Door

As I am returning home from a trip to visit Noah’s Ark and the Creation Museum in northwestern Kentucky, I’m pondering the fact that I’ll probably never be quite the same. It’s like going to Israel and seeing and experiencing the land where Jesus walked and the places you read about in the Bible. It makes the Bible, even though you believe in it, come to life in a new way.

To the Editor:

I am responding to Mr. Engle’s letter (July 18) criticizing my earlier letter (July 5). I am afraid Mr. Engle has fallen down the rabbit hole into the post truth world of Donald Trump where shutting your eyes tight, putting your fingers into your ears, and yelling as loud as you can “It is not true” will make any unpleasant elements of reality disappear. Sadly, the real world does not operate that way.

The authors of the book How Democracies Die are respected scholars and diligent researchers who carefully documented all the points they make in their book. In my brief letter I did not have space to cite all the supporting evidence for their arguments, which is substantial.  All the statements I made in my letter are correct.

by Dick Schilling, "Editor Emeritus"

... that the reception, or really rejection, that President Trump experiences in appearances in foreign countries pretty much matches what his casual appearances here in cities in the United States evoke.

Apparently it is just as easy in large foreign cities as in America to call to arms protesters of various stripes to turn out to heckle the president.

Governments, and the people who elect people to run governments, from international to national to state and local, have a lot in common.

As someone who was news editor for Waukon newspapers for 36 years, 1962 to 1998, I can think of several instances locally when boards hired administrators or other professionals to do pretty much what President Trump was elected to do, that is, shake things up, and hang the personal consequences.