Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 66, Ed. 1 Tuesday, October 7, 2014 Page: 4 of 18
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4A
Tuesday, October 7, 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.
Questions and suggestions should be directed to the:
Denton Record-Chronicle
314 E. Hickory St., Denton, TX 76201
Phone: 940-387-3811
Fax: 940-566-6888
E-mail: drc@dentonrc.com
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Editorial
Deputy’s talent
valuable to county
eputy Leslie Willingham’s talent gives the Denton
■ County Sheriff’s Office a valuable and unique
weapon, and we’re proud that she’s on our law
enforcement team.
Willingham is the only certified peace officer in the
state of Texas who’s also a forensic artist Among law
enforcement officers, such skills in sketching and sculpt-
ing are rare, making Willingham one of just 32 forensic
artists nationwide to be certified by the International
Association for Identification.
Put in simple terms, Willingham’s work could provide
the key information needed to arrest a suspect or identify
a missing person — not only here, but also in other juris-
dictions.
Working in the crime prevention unit in the Denton
County Sheriff’s Office, she often finds herself assisting in
cases from around the state and the nation.
This summer Willingham made headlines after her
work helped reconnect a family to their 33-year-old son,
whose remains had been unidentified for two years. The
man was found dead in Kent County, Delaware, on Nov.
2, 2012, and because the body was so badly decomposed,
efforts to identify him had been unsuccessful.
Using tools including a CT scan and a 3-dimensional
printer, Willingham spent four months sculpting the
man’s likeness.
Images of Willingham’s facial reconstruction in color
and grayscale were sent to the news media and shared on
social media sites such as Facebook. Eight days after
those images were released, family members were able to
identify the man.
Last month, her composite sketch helped nab an al-
leged rapist in University Park Within four hours of the
sketch’s release, Corsicana police officers notified Uni-
versity Park police that a man they had arrested for a
similar crime looked a lot like Willingham’s sketch of the
University Park suspect.
Officials said that after he was identified, the suspect
confessed to committing the crime near the Southern
Methodist University campus.
Willingham moved to Texas from Wyoming in 1992,
and by 1994 she was working communications in the
Denton County Sheriff’s Office. From there, she said, she
started working in the jail and in 2000 became a deputy.
Next month, Willingham will have her master peace
officer’s license. She thanked her employer for supporting
her continued training and education.
Willingham said forensic artists must continually hone
their skills to keep up with the latest techniques and ad-
vances in forensic science.
“You have to stay on top of your game.... It’s perishable
if not in use,” she said.
This year alone, Willingham has assisted more than a
dozen federal and state agencies with forensic art cases,
according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.
We salute Deputy Willingham and thank her for her
service.
She’s another excellent example of Denton County’s
best — the many dedicated law officers who help protect
us.
This day in history: October 7
Today is Tuesday, Oct. 7,
the 280th day of 2014. There
are 85 days left in the year.
On Oct. 7, 1954, Marian
Anderson became the first black
singer hired by the Metropolitan
Opera Company in New York.
(Anderson made her Met debut
in January 1955 playing the role
of Ulrica in Verdi’s Un Ballo in
Moschera.)
In 1777, the second Battle of
Saratoga began during the
American Revolution. (British
forces under Gen. John Bur-
goyne surrendered 10 days later.)
In 1849, author Edgar Allan
Poe died in Baltimore at age 40.
In 1858, the fifth debate be-
tween Illinois senatorial candi-
dates Abraham Lincoln and Ste-
phen Douglas took place in
Galesburg.
In 1929, former Interior
Secretary Albert B. Fall, one of
the main figures of the Teapot
Dome scandal, went on trial,
charged with accepting a bribe
from oil tycoon Edward L. Do-
heny. (Fall was found guilty and
sentenced to a year in prison; he
served nine months. Doheny
was acquitted at his own trial of
offering the bribe Fall was con-
victed of taking.)
In 1960, Democratic presi-
dential candidate John F. Ken-
nedy and Republican opponent
Richard Nixon held their second
televised debate, this one in
Washington.
In 1979, Pope John Paul II
concluded his weeklong tour of
the United States with a Mass on
the Washington Mall.
— The Associated Press
ENTERPRISE
FumD
ON THE WAND, PEOPLE AREN’T
[)WElNfr ON >bu£ Moofe”/AOAAENT
<50 AfoicH LATELY-*
Parties play small ball
he looming midterm elections, which
will decide whether the U.S. Senate is
I run by Democrats or Republicans,
has been called “the Seinfeld election,” be-
cause so much of the campaign seems to be
about nothing.
But that’s not quite right. The problem is
that the campaign has been about too many
things. In Colorado, Senate candidates are
bickering about birth control, abortion
rights and whether
“personhood” begins at
birth. In Georgia, Sen-
ate candidates are in a
“did so/did not” squab-
ble over whether the
Democratic candidate,
in league with former
President George H.W.
Bush, sent money to
terrorists.
Of course, candi-
dates from the two
parties are also divided on the economy —
especially on how to address the fact that
most Americans’ incomes aren’t growing,
even though we’re in the sixth year of a re-
covery.
What do the two parties propose to do
about that? Republicans are blaming Presi-
dent Obama, as they have for the last six
years, and calling for cuts in government
spending. Democrats are relying on familiar
bromides too, calling for a higher minimum
wage and warning that (in the words of Nan-
cy Pelosi) “civilization as we know it would
be in jeopardy” if Mitch McConnell became
majority leader in the Senate.
But neither side has spent much time or
energy laying out an ambitious and positive
national agenda — like, for example, the
“Contract with America” Newt Gingrich
turned into the blueprint for a GOP House
majority in 1994, exactly 20 years ago.
Instead, both sides are playing small ball
and honoring the adage that all politics is lo-
cal.
It’s easy to see why Democrats are
campaigning that way: They’re stuck on de-
fense. The Senate seats they need to win to
keep the Senate are mostly in states that vot-
ed for Mitt Romney in 2012: Arkansas, Lou-
isiana, North Carolina, Alaska. For those
candidates, wrapping themselves in a na-
tional Democratic agenda would be elector-
al suicide.
And there’s certainly nothing the presi-
dent can do to help them. One frequent re-
frain of Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Ken-
tucky Democrat who’s trying to unseat
McConnell, is “I am not Barack Obama.”
For Republicans, the story is more com-
plicated. They’re energized, but divided be-
tween tea party conservatives and establish-
ment conservatives. And they don’t have a
single national leader who can carry their
message.
Some Republicans are worried that their
party is missing an opportunity. This year —
the sixth year of an increasingly unpopular
Democratic president — was supposed to be
their chance to sweep the country with a
conservative “wave” — but there’s no clear
sign that such a wave is building.
“The way to win is to tell voters what
they’ll get with a Republican majority,” said
David Winston, an adviser to House Speaker
John A. Boehner, R-Ohio. “That’s what
worked in 1994, and it worked again in
2010.”
Winston thinks part of the problem is
that Republican strategists are sticking to a
more cautious strategy, advising candidates
“Don’t tell voters what you would do. That
only gives Democrats something to shoot at.”
Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for
Ronald Reagan, warned in the Wall Street
Journal recently, “If Republicans can’t
make, catch and ride a wave in an environ-
ment like this, they’ve gone from being the
stupid party to the stupid loser party”
The problem for the GOP, said pollster
Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center,
is that while many voters have lost confi-
dence in Obama and his party, “they dislike
the Republican Party even more than they
dislike the Democrats.”
When the Wall Street Journal/NBC
News poll asked voters if they intended their
choices to send a message to Washington,
only 13 percent said they would be voting in
support of Republican policies. An even
smaller number said they would be voting in
favor of Democratic ideas. The largest group
of all, 42 percent, said they didn’t have a big-
ger message in mind at all.
That suggests that except for a few high-
intensity states, we’re in for an apathetic
election with low voter turnout. That will
help Republicans win more close races, and
make it more likely that they pick up the six
additional Senate seats they need to gain a
majority.
If that happens, GOP leaders will claim
that the voters have given them a mandate
— but without a convincing sweep, it won’t
be much of a mandate at all.
So are we having a Seinfeld election? No.
But the November ballot does bring to mind
the title of another television comedy: Curb
Your Enthusiasm.
DOYLE MCMANUS is a columnist far
the Los Angeles Times. His column is dis-
tributed by MCT Information Services.
Doyle
McManus
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.
Which is best?
If your job includes persuading job
search candidates or homebuyers that Den-
ton is a good place for them to live, or your
business depends on selling goods and ser-
vices to people who move to Denton, you
need to have an answer ready when they ask
about fracking and the environment.
Which of the following answers will be
most persuasive?
Which one is best for Denton’s economic
future?
A. It’s Texas. We let the drillers do what
they want and trust them to be “responsible.”
Everything will be OK if you live in another
city with less fracking, drink bottled water
and hold your breath as you go from your car
to your workplace.
B. Fracking? I don’t know much about it,
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
so I’m not worried, but then again I don’t
read the local paper, or look for unbiased in-
formation about it on the Web, or think for
myself.
C * It’s a problem. It causes air, water and
noise pollution. But things are getting better
since the residents of Denton stood up for
their rights and voted to ban fracking within
city limits and we have a progressive city
government that cares about all of its resi-
dents’ health and safety.
*Best answer.
John Murphy,
Denton
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your commentary and your actions.
America’s
latest war
will not be
without cost
m ^oung people may find it hard to be-
lieve, but going to war used to be a big
deal. When the United States started
bombing Iraq in January 1991, Americans
somberly watched President George H.W
Bush address the nation, followed by live vid-
eo of Baghdad being bombed. The Bush ad-
dress drew the biggest audience TV had ever
had.
By contrast, life
went on normally re-
cently as U.S. war-
planes and Tomahawk
missiles destroyed tar-
gets in Syria and Iraq
in a new war, which
has no clear goal or
time limit. As our lead-
ers took us into a con-
flict fraught with peril,
most people yawned.
We’re at war again?
Oh, right — and rain is still wet.
Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S.
has been at war two out of every three years.
Remember Somalia? Bosnia? Kosovo? It’s
hard to decide whether this is our third war
in Iraq or a continuation of our second,
which began when Johnny Manziel was in
the fourth grade. Our fight in Afghanistan
has been going on for 13 years, five years lon-
ger than the Vietnam War.
This one, Secretary of State John Kerry
said, could last two or three years. He doesn’t
appear to worry that the American people’s
patience will run out before the administra-
tion leaves office.
Though they occasionally get weary of
particular conflicts, they rarely evince strong
resistance to new ones.
There are many reasons for that. The
1973 abolition of the draft was a worthwhile
achievement with an unfortunate effect: di-
vorcing most people from the tangible con-
sequences of war.
A lot of parents would be warier of Oba-
ma’s bombing campaign if they had to con-
template that one day, the gods of war would
demand the healthy bodies of their sons and
daughters. Young people would be likelier to
march in protest if they feared being sent to
Syria against their will and returned home in
coffins.
Most of us are even further removed than
the Civil War-era humorist Artemus Ward,
who said, “I have already given two cousins
to the war and I stand ready to sacrifice my
wife’s brother.”
The majority sacrifices nothing notice-
able for the privilege of reminding the world
that we can blow up whatever we want and
kill whomever we want anytime we choose.
For the time being, we don’t even have to put
up any money.
The latest war will cost some of that,
though how much is anyone’s guess. Asked
the likely price tag, White House press secre-
tary Josh Earnest replied, with charming
nonchalance, “I don’t have an estimate on
that.”
Members of Congress show no sign of
weighing the benefits of this operation
against the outlay. Nor do voters, because
they have no reason to. It’s a free lunch.
It hasn’t always been that way. During
World War I, Congress raised taxes twice to
pay for sending an army to France. During
World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt
proposed the biggest tax increase the nation
had ever seen.
Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau
didn’t sugarcoat it: “The new taxes will be se-
vere, and their impact will be felt in every
American home.”
During Vietnam, President Lyndon
Johnson pushed through a surcharge of 10
percent on all personal and corporate in-
come taxes. He justified it as a way to “fi-
nance responsibly the needs of our men in
Vietnam.”
Our government may provide for the
needs of those fighting this war, but not in a
fiscally responsible way. George W. Bush
launched two invasions while cutting taxes,
not raising them. Barack Obama is happy to
let Americans assume the funding for this
war will come off the money tree in the Rose
Garden.
It won’t. It will all have to be borrowed
and repaid, with interest, by us or our chil-
dren. The total cost of Bush’s Iraq and Af-
ghanistan wars will come to at least $4 tril-
lion, according to a study by Harvard scholar
Linda Bilmes.
Had we known that — and had we been
forced to make a noticeable sacrifice with ev-
ery paycheck — we might have insisted he do
things differently.
If Obama and Congress had agreed to im-
pose immediate new federal burdens on
American taxpayers before launching this
latest war, public attention would be greater
and resistance would be stronger. We would
at least have had a real debate.
Nothing would do more to break our ad-
diction to perpetual war than a simple re-
quirement that everyone can understand:
You want a war?
Pay for it.
STEVE CHAPMANS column is dis-
tributed by Creators Syndicate Inc.
Steve
Chapman
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Parks, Scott K. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 66, Ed. 1 Tuesday, October 7, 2014, newspaper, October 7, 2014; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1124912/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.; .