Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 73, Ed. 1 Tuesday, October 14, 2014 Page: 4 of 18
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4A
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
OPINION
Denton Record-Chronicle
Denton Record-Chronicle
Published by Denton Publishing Co.,
a subsidiary of A.H. Belo Corporation
Founded from weekly newspapers,
the Denton Chronicle, established in 1882,
and the Denton Record, established in 1897.
Published daily as the Denton
Record-Chronicle since Aug. 3,1903.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Bill Patterson
Publisher and CEO
Scott K. Parks
Managing Editor
Les Cockrell
Region Editor
Mark Finley
City Editor
Mariel Tarn-Ray
News Editor
PAST PUBLISHERS
William C. “Will” Edwards
1903-1927
Robert J. “Bob” Edwards
1927-1945
Riley Cross
1945-1970
Vivian Cross
1970-1986
Fred Patterson
1986-1999
Editorials published in the Denton Record-Chronicle
are determined by the editorial board.
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Denton Record-Chronicle
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Phone: 940-387-3811
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Editorial
Tiger band learns
life lessons
jb nyone who doubts that the arts can be used to
motivate students to achieve excellence in other
areas could learn a thing or two from McMath
Middle School’s jazz program.
McMath’s Tiger Jazz Band has won the Foundation for
Music Education’s top honor for middle school jazz for
the second time, and we congratulate each of the students
on this achievement.
For McMath band director Travis Harris, the honor
wasn’t so much a trophy as it was a fulfillment of the
philosophy he shares with his young students.
Harris started the jazz band six years ago, when he
took the position at McMath Middle School, which is
named for a musician. Harris said the band program has
doubled in size since he started, and the jazz band has 18
musicians this year.
The jazz band is a premier ensemble at McMath, Har-
ris said. Musicians audition each year. Harris said he
looks for musicians who display a budding professional-
ism and a slight streak of independence during auditions.
The returning eighth-graders were in the band that
recorded the music that earned the band the second na-
tional honor. The Tiger musicians were among 35 en-
sembles who submitted recordings to the contest.
Harris said he wouldn’t have the jazz band without the
support of McMath’s administrators. He credits Principal
Debbie Nobles with eliminating a 45-minute advisory
period from the school day so that the schedule could
accommodate an eight-period day. That made room for
Harris to teach the jazz band.
Nobles said the jazz band has been a teaching tool that
crosses into other curricula.
“He really teaches the genres, which means he’s teach-
ing these students American history” Nobles said. “He’s
teaching them Texas history’’
Nobles said former Denton school district Superin-
tendent Ray Braswell and his successor, Jamie Wilson,
have supported schools using the arts to supplement
language arts, social studies and mathematics.
Nobles praised Harris for his rigorous curriculum and
his teaching skills. In addition to founding the current
jazz band, Harris and associate director of bands, Kelsey
Gaskill, have led the program to superior ratings in mid-
dle school University Interscholastic League contests.
The UIL measures school performance in arts and
academics according to size classification, and then rates
school performance through expert judges.
“High expectations breed high expectations,” she said.
“He expects the students to prepare for class, and he ex-
pects them to perform in class. And they meet his expec-
tations. So many people are surprised when they hear the
jazz kids play and then find out they’re in middle school.”
The success of McMath’s Tiger Jazz Band is a point of
pride for the district and community and it sounds to us
like the young people involved are learning as much
about character and responsibility as they are about mu-
sic.
Those are lessons that they can fall back on throughout
their lives.
This day in history: October 14
Today is Tuesday, Oct. 14,
the 287th day of 2014. There
are 78 days left in the year.
On Oct. 14, 1964, civil
rights leader Martin Luther
King Jr. was named winner of
the Nobel Peace Prize. Soviet
leader Nikita S. Khrushchev was
toppled from power; he was suc-
ceeded by Leonid Brezhnev as
first secretary and by Alexei Ko-
sygin as premier. Inventor Rob-
ert Moog presented his proto-
type electronic music synthesiz-
er to a meeting of the Audio En-
gineering Society in New York.
In 1066, Normans under
William the Conqueror defeated
the English at the Battle of Has-
tings.
In 1586, Mary, Queen of
Scots, went on trial in England,
accused of committing treason
against Queen Elizabeth I.
(Mary was beheaded in Febru-
ary 1587.)
In 1890, Dwight D. Eisen-
hower, 34th president of the
United States, was bom in Deni-
son.
In 1908, the E.M. Forster
novel A Room With a View was
first published by Edward Ar-
nold of London.
In 1912, former President
Theodore Roosevelt, who was
campaigning for the White
House as the Progressive (“Bull
Moose”) candidate, went ahead
with a speech in Milwaukee af-
ter being shot in the chest by
New York saloonkeeper John
Schrank, declaring, “It takes
more than one bullet to kill a
bull moose.”
— The Associated Press
r
TWAT'S THE
DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN OUR
SYSTEM OF
JUSTICE^
AND, IN IRAN,
say; criminal
MAN’S. DEFENDANT'S/
AREN'T STONED
UNTIL AFTtt
TME7PIAL'
Politics leave millions
vulnerable to diseases
v m «ith the first diagnosed case of the
mJb# deadly Ebola vims in the United
W W States located in Dallas, Texans
are understandably alarmed. The patient
just died. Gov. Rick Perry has established a
task force to address the Ebola threat.
Not a bad idea but
still a feeble response
coming from a gover-
nor who refused to ex-
pand Medicaid in his
state, leaving millions
of his people outside
the health care system.
About 6 million Tex-
ans are now walking
around without health
insurance. That’s al-
most 1 in 4 residents —
the highest rate of uninsured in the country.
Of course, those without health coverage
are least likely to have a relationship with a
health care professional, someone they
could contact about worrisome symptoms.
And because vomiting and other signs of
Ebola could indicate something far less seri-
ous, these mostly low-income people might
put off going to a hospital until it’s too late.
But Perry was among the large group of
so-called conservative governors deeming it
was more important to stick it to President
Obama than to broaden health coverage in
their states. Not surprisingly, the sharpest
drops in the rates of the uninsured are in
states that went along with the expansion.
The rates remain nearly unchanged in the
23 nonparticipating states.
There was always a humanitarian reason
for supporting the Affordable Care Act. Now
we are seeing the self-interested reasons,
which have been missing in most of the Oba-
macare debate. Covering all is essential to
public health. Even the rich don’t enjoy di-
vine protection from deadly infectious dis-
eases. That the federal government is cover-
ing nearly the entire cost of the Medicaid ex-
pansion makes the excuses for not joining
the program especially ugly.
And this is not just about Ebola. The flu is
a communicable disease that typically kills
30,000 Americans a year, mainly the very
old, the very young and the frail.
The Ebola scare has overshadowed an-
other frightening virus that has been diag-
nosed in hundreds of children since August
— and that has just claimed the life of a 4-
year-old in New Jersey. Enterovirus-6 8 has
been found in 48 states, with significant
numbers reported in Colorado, Illinois and
Missouri. This respiratory illness, which has
been associated with partial paralysis,
spreads the same way colds do, through sali-
va and other bodily fluids.
Controlling these diseases requires early
quarantine of those infected, and how are
you going to find people who would test pos-
itive if they don’t go to a medical facility? Pol-
iticians who irresponsibly passed up an op-
portunity to bring such health services to
their people are currently grasping at useless
proposals.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal thinks the
answer is to “stop accepting flights from
countries that are Ebola stricken.” But what
about the two nurses in Madrid who tested
positive for the virus after treating a Spanish
priest. The priest and one of the nurses have
already died of the disease.
Do we stop accepting flights from Spain,
which has a pretty good health care system,
of course covering everyone? Not unexpect-
edly, the Texas governor opposes the flight
ban idea.
Jindal was inexplicably proud to decline
$6 billion in federal money to expand Med-
icaid coverage in his state. Nearly 900,000
Louisianans currently lack health insurance.
“Expansion would result in 41 percent of
Louisiana’s population being enrolled in
Medicaid,” Jindal explained at the time. “We
should measure success by reducing the
number of people on public assistance.”
There are many ways of measuring suc-
cess in a society, widespread health coverage
being one. Instead, we see a political failure
that has left Americans more vulnerable to a
deadly disease than they had to be.
FROMA HARROP is a columnist for
The Providence Journal. Her column is
distributed by Creators Syndicate Inc.
Froma
Harrop
Letters to the editor
ELECTION LETTERS
The Denton Record-Chronicle wel-
comes letters to the editor pertaining to the
Nov. 4 general election. All regular submissi-
on rules apply. Letters concerning statewide
races and local propositions on the Nov. 4
ballot must be received in this office by 5
p.m. Friday, Oct. 24. None will be published
after Friday, Oct. 31.
Act like adults
In order to provide Denton voters with
both sides of this controversial fracking is-
sue, a public debate has been scheduled by
leaders in the Democratic and Republican
parties, set for today at 7 p.m. at the Denton
County Elections office located at 701 Kim-
berly Drive.
As more information is brought to light
about the erroneous and misleading infor-
mation that Frack Free Denton puts out, sol-
id research by Denton Taxpayers for a
Strong Economy has revealed scientific facts
that disprove FFD’s scare tactics.
But now, the proponents of the ban, who
accepted an invitation to participate weeks
ago, are waffling on their participation un-
less they can dictate who will speak against
the ban.
FFD has stated that there are only two
people who satisfy them as opponents for
the debate, and neither is Richard Hayes, a
SUBMISSIONS
Letters for publication must include the writer’s
signature, address and telephone number.
Authorship must be verified before publication.
The Record-Chronicle reserves the right to edit
letters for length. Letters should be typed or
legibly handwritten and be 250 or fewer words.
We prefer e-mail submissions.
Send to: drc@dentonrc.com.
Otherwise, fax to 940-566-6888, or mail to:
Letters to the editor
P.0. Box 369
Denton, TX 76202
Denton native and community leader who
happens also to be a lawyer and who will be
representing the anti-ban side.
FFD apparently fears that he would be
more than they can handle, so they have re-
neged on their commitment to participate in
the debate. However, the event is still on
even if it becomes an empty-chair debate.
Clearly FFD prefers to advocate, not edu-
cate, and the public is not well served by that
position.
Come on, FFD, you are big boys and girls,
so how about acting like adults and step up
to the challenge issued by Denton Taxpayers
for a Strong Economy: Show up or shut up.
Dianne Edmondson,
Denton
Denton Record-Chronicle mission statement
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about every day. We hope those ideas lead you to become involved in your community, both with
your commentary and your actions.
America’s
word means
less under
Obama
Linda
Chavez
■ t should come as no surprise that Turkey
I so far refuses to put boots on the ground
I to fight the ISIS takeover of Kobane, a
beseiged Kurdish town across Turkey’s bor-
der with Syria.
While there is much to criticize about our
erstwhile NATO ally’s government, Presi-
dent Recep Tayyip Erdogan has clearly made
a calculation that he
can’t trust the United
States — or more accu-
rately, that he can’t
trust this administra-
tion.
And why should he?
The level of confu-
sion, incompetence
and lack of will Presi-
dent Obama has dem-
onstrated in dealing
with the multiple crises
that face us in the Middle East is mind
numbing.
He has ordered airstrikes against ISIS,
too late and too few, but he has refused to
allow the military to do its job well.
Without Special Forces spotters on the
ground, an air campaign cannot be entirely
effective.
In a remarkable breach of protocol, Gen.
Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, made it clear in congressional
testimony in mid-September that we should
not rule out the use of U.S. ground troops,
despite the president’s multiple declarations
that no Americans would fight this war ex-
cept from the air.
The administration is asking Turkish
troops to fight ISIS alongside Kurds, their
traditional foes, but is unwilling to commit
our troops to stand with them?
We have the best-trained, most experi-
enced fighters in the world, but we won’t al-
low them to battle a brutal army that not only
is capturing wide swaths of territory in Iraq
and Syria, but also has announced its aims to
bring jihad to American soil?
What Obama has shown is a willingness
to draw red lines and then allow them to be
crossed, as he did in Syria.
He’s shown himself quite adept at squan-
dering the blood and treasure spent in Iraq
by withdrawing American troops precipi-
tously, which virtually guaranteed the col-
lapse of the country that we are now witness-
ing.
The president’s fecklessness on this has
come under increased scrutiny in recent days
with the publication of a memoir by former
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who lays
bare Obama’s false claim that he withdrew
troops because Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki wouldn’t agree to let them stay.
The president chose to pull out all of our
troops at once rather than personally push-
ing for a status of forces agreement that
would have kept Iraq from coming apart at
the seams.
Obama has put together a shaky coalition
to fight ISIS, but without American leader-
ship — which means our willingness to use
all of the resources at our disposal — how can
we possibly hope that others will do the job
we are unwilling to do?
No one, at this point, is suggesting that
the United States send in battalions of fight-
ers, but it makes no sense that we tie the mil-
itary’s hands behind their backs by limiting
ourselves to airstrikes without the proper
U.S. intelligence on the ground to make
them effective.
Of course, there is always the danger that
once we put Special Forces and military ad-
visers on the ground, we’ll end up needing to
deploy more troops.
But wars cannot be won by announcing
to our enemies what we cannot or will not do
— or the day on which we will withdraw, re-
gardless of the conditions on the ground,
which is what Obama has done in Afghani-
stan.
When asked by Bill O’Reilly recently in
his much discussed interview whether our
enemies fear us, Panetta said, “I think they’re
getting a mixed message as to whether the
United States will stand by its word.”
It is not only our enemies who are getting
mixed messages — which is dangerous
enough. It is also our allies.
Under this president, America’s word is
becoming worth less and less.
It is easy enough to point fingers at those
who should take up the fight against Islamist
extremism, not least those countries and
governments that have helped foster it.
But when the United States cannot be
counted on to fully engage the struggle, no
one else will fill the vacuum.
LINDA CHAVEZ’S column is distrib-
uted by Creators Syndicate Inc.
REACH US
Managing Editor
Scott K. Parks.....
City Editor
Mark Finley ......
....... 940-566-6879
sparks@dentonrc.com
........940-566-6884
mfinley@dentonrc.com
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Parks, Scott K. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 73, Ed. 1 Tuesday, October 14, 2014, newspaper, October 14, 2014; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1124844/m1/4/?q=%22~1~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .