12 NEWS Best columns: The U.S.
GettyQA mysterious man has
been living in the rafters of
an Auburn, Wash., grocery
store, despite repeated
attempts by police to catch
him. Store employees have
often heard the eerie sound
of footsteps above them,
and a startled worker once
saw a man’s legs dangling
from the ceiling. Police have
employed infrared technol-
ogy and K-9 units to search
the rafters, but though
they’ve found evidence
someone has been up there,
the mysterious lodger has
continued to elude them.
“We spent probably 4½
hours up in the rafters trying
to hunt this guy down,” said
a police officer.
QA South African man
has broken his own
world record for pole
sitting. Vernon Kruger,
52, has spent 67 days
so far perched in a
barrel mounted on the
top of an 80-foot pole,
enduring incredible
tedium and even a few
moments of terror when
lightning struck his barrel.
Still, he has no plans yet to
come down. “I’m fed up,
I’ve had enough,” he said,
but “I’ve got to set the bar
higher for the next guy.”
QA British couple have won
a four-year legal battle to
ban their neighbor from
feeding their wandering cat.
Jackie and John Hall were
“upset and distressed” that
their handsome Maine coon,
Ozzy, spent long periods
away from their home, so
they installed a GPS tracker
on his collar. The trail led
to the house of a local
landscape gardener, Nicola
Lesbirel, who they claimed
spent years “grooming”
Ozzy, feeding him, even
changing his collar. The
Halls got a court injunction
banning Lesbirel from feed-
ing Ozzy or taking him into
her house. Lesbirel, who
dropped $26,000 in legal
fees, argued that Ozzy was
“a sentient being” who ate
where and what he liked.It must be true...
I read it in the tabloidsIowa and New Hampshire “should never go first again,” said David
Leonhardt. The first two states to participate in the primaries and
caucuses have an outsize influence over whom the Democrats and
Republicans select as their presidential nominees, even though they
are strikingly whiter, older, and more rural than most states. Iowa and
New Hampshire are “87 percent non-Hispanic white, which is roughly
what the United States was in 1870.” Neither state has a city with more
than 250,000 people. By voting first, these two tiny states play a major
role in winnowing the field and setting the narrative of the race. One
study, in fact, found that Iowa’s and New Hampshire’s voters have up
to 20 times more influence than citizens in later-voting states. In insist-
ing they deserve their exalted status, both states argue that their voters
“take their civic duty seriously.” So, are people in later-voting states
such as New Jersey, Indiana, and Louisiana too dumb or lazy to make
their own choices for president? After this election, both parties should
rotate the first-primary states every four years, mixing both small and
large ones early in the calendar. Iowa and New Hampshire do not
“deserve special treatment forever.”“When does someone become ‘old’?” asked Joe Pinsker. That’s become
a very sensitive question in a youth-oriented society in which “old”
suggests “deterioration and obsolescence.” In a 2016 Marist poll, only
16 per cent of those over 60 said they thought that someone 65—the
traditional demarcation line for senior citizens— qualifies as “old.”
Many of today’s 60- and 70- somethings are vigorous and relatively
healthy, and hate such traditional terms as “senior” and “elderly” and
trite euphemisms such as “golden years.” That’s why the terms “older
adult” and “older people” are becoming the norm by default, mostly
because they seem “to irritate the smallest number of people.” These
terms are imprecise—“older than whom, exactly?”—and there is as yet
no precise age at which someone is deemed “older” instead of middle-
aged. Gerontologists say that it isn’t until the mid-70s that most of us
truly slow down and become more likely to suffer from chronic disease.
People who hate to be called “old” or even “older” aren’t delusional—
they simply “don’t want to be denied their right to have ambitions and
plans for the stretch of their life that’s still ahead of them.”Nearly one out of three Americans has a criminal record, said Nila
Bala. Many of these people will be held back for the rest of their lives
by a single mistake, since employers routinely run background checks
and will not hire someone who’s had a single conviction or even an ar-
rest. Being unemployable perpetuates the “shame and isolation” people
feel when they are trying to turn their lives around after mistakes
made at a very young age. It also leaves them mired in poverty and
dependency. Their children and families are also negatively affected,
continuing the cycle that often leads to another generation turning to
drugs or crime. Tens of millions of Americans are currently caught in
this trap. This is why Pennsylvania enacted “Clean Slate” legislation in
2018, which automatically seals any arrest record that does not lead to
conviction, and most conviction records if a person stays crime-free for
10 years. A bipartisan movement is pushing for other states to adopt
this legislation as well—and conservatives should support it. Stigmatiz-
ing people for life helps no one. But giving them a chance to reinvent
themselves as contributing members of society “supports families, and
makes communities safer.”The absurdity
of letting Iowa
vote first
David Leonhardt
The New York Times
Why criminal
records should
be expunged
Nila Bala
TheAmerican
Conservative.com
At what
age are
you ‘old’?
Joe Pinsker
TheAtlantic.com
“For 75 years, the searing memory of the Holocaust has been invoked with
the reverential words ‘Never Again.’ And for 75 years, ‘never again’ has
repeatedly become ‘yet again.’ Not only in Cambodia and Rwanda and Syria but also in Congo and
Kurdistan, in East Timor and Darfur, in Bosnia and Guatemala, in the North Korean gulag and the
concentration camps of Xinjiang. Murderous ethnic cleansing is underway even now in Myanmar.
The blood of the victims cries out from the ground. ‘Never Again’ is a fine sentiment for Holocaust
memorials. But as a guide to action? Less than useless.” Jeff Jacoby in The Boston GlobeViewpoint