Meaning twisted on sex offender column
The letter from Clay Wilkinson printed in Saturday’s (4/7/12) issue of the Tribune-Star requires a retort. Mr. Ladwig’s column, to which Mr. Wilkonson was reacting, was illustrating the fact that local authorities had condemned a trailer park that provided housing to convicted sex offenders as it was one of the few places that met the criteria of the law. I believe the city was Muncie. He was simply stating that these restrictive laws do little to provide safety to the children but at least it allows the police to better know where the offenders live.
Also, he was stating the economic impact that made it easy for the owner of the trailer park to come to the conclusion that he rid himself of the miscreants.
His concluding paragraph was expressing his dismay that Indiana has such a restrictive policy toward sex offenders that it is most difficult for these people to obtain suitable housing. One does not have to sympathize with these people, but they should have the ability to obtain suitable housing.
For Mr. Wilkinson to twist the column into a liberal-versus-conservative issue is beyond belief. Mr. Ladwig was writing about the unintended consequences of legislation that causes more issues for law enforcement to monitor the activities of these sex offenders. The law enforcement official quoted in the article said exactly that.
Hopefully, Mr. Wilkinson will use a little better judgment in his future writings.
— Raymond E. Broshar
Terre Haute
Microbiolgist differs on view of evolution
I may not always agree with ISU Professor George Bakken concerning some of his views on evolution, but I hope I never stoop to implying that he is a rube and an egghead as he did of me in his letter published on March 31.
In this letter he touched on a subject in which I have some professional experience. I earned three degrees in microbiology, two of them research degrees (with a minor in biochemistry), and I worked for more than 40 years as an industrial microbiologist. So, I think I have some idea how science is conducted.
I have seen many examples of adaptive selection or strain variation in bacteria, but I never observed one kind of bacterium evolve into another, nor has anyone else that I know of. It is well known that bacteria develop antibiotic resistance, but this too is not evolution. The resistant bacteria digress genetically and become defective, having lost the ability to produce certain receptor sites.
One of the points I have tried to make in my letters is that evidence is lacking in factual details that the universe is progressing from a featureless state to higher levels of organization and complexity. Instead it is running down at every observable level toward chaos as stipulated by the scientific laws of thermodynamics. An excellent book that shows how natural selection is impacted is “Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome,” by Dr. J. C. Sanford, a noted geneticist and former Cornell University professor.
Another concern I have is the expression we hear lately that “all of reality is evolution.” This is a total philosophy or worldview that purports to explain the origin and development of everything by natural processes. It not only includes the physical universe and living organisms, but human behavior, ethics, morality and the law. I believe this philosophical Darwinism is behind the social disintegration we are seeing with increasing intensity in our culture.
But the most distressing evidence of the dominance of evolutionism on modern life is that institutional Christianity has largely accepted it and reinterpreted the Bible and theology accordingly. This in spite of the fact that Jesus confirmed Genesis 1:27 when he said of human beings, “But at the beginning of creation God made them male and female.” (Mark 10:6)
It has been said that “evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly ministry was made necessary. Eliminate Adam and Eve as real people, dismiss their original sin as the reason for a curse placed on the earth, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the Son of God. If Jesus was not the Redeemer that died for the sins of humanity and to restore creation then who was he?”
— Dick Wood
Terre Haute
Keep the focus on real issues
Am I the only tea party supporter who doesn’t give a rat’s butt about Dick Lugar’s residency or Barack Obama’s birth certificate?
Richard Mourdock and other tea party supporters at the state and national levels need to grasp ASAP what the real issues are this election year, and the tea party movement needs to get back to the issues that first made it relevant. No sane person can look at the federal government’s trillion-dollar deficit projections and say with a straight face that the government is on a sustainable economic path, and no nation can be governed in a just manner unless the rule of law is respected and upheld. So why are tea partiers allowing themselves to get distracted by peripheral issues while the Constitution is being shredded and the nation dragged ever-closer to bankruptcy by the imperious occupant of the White House?
Dick Lugar’s support of the blatantly unconstitutional provisions of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (you remember — or do you? — the bill signed by Obama that allows military detention of civilians) is infinitely more important than where he has established his residency for voting purposes. Establishing that Lugar is in fact an Indiana resident doesn’t erase his bad judgment on the NDAA, among other bills.
And even though a lot of people are still worked up over whether Obama was actually born in the U.S. and whether his birth certificate is the real thing, who cares? Even if there was rock-solid proof that Obama’s birth certificate is real, that still wouldn’t make him qualified to be president. Well, OK, Obama is at least 35 years old and (allegedly) a native-born U.S. citizen, so he technically meets the Constitution’s requirements for the office of the president. But, to borrow a phrase from Obama, the demands of the job are above his pay grade.
If tea partiers don’t stop haggling over minutiae and miss sight of the bigger picture, we’re going to end up with four more years of Obama and his sympathizers. Is it worth it to win minor arguments but lose our country?
— Chad Steenerson
Terre Haute
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