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The ADVANCE, January 19, 2022/Page 6A
allie Ahumtce
A free press is not a privilege but
organic necessity in a great society.
—Walter Lippmann
COMMENTARY
out of
CONTEXT
A compilation of quotations on a variety of
issues by national, state and regional writers,
well-known personalities, just plain everyday
people and from various publications
collected by the editors of THE ADVANCE.
Quotes for our Times:
William Sullivan, writer for American Thinker:
What issue was really at the heart of the Civil
War, and is it relevant today?
Again, if the people of a state surmise that
the federal government is pursuing policy which
compromises the liberty and prosperity of its citi
zens, does that state have to conform to what
is perceived Py the people of the state as un
constitutional oPuse of power, or can it express
its autonomy and liberty without the prospect of
Peing attacked Py the federal government for
having done so?
Ted Noel MD, retired Anesthesiologist/lnten-
sivist who podcasts and posts on social media
as DoctorTed and @vidzette: Leftist Supreme
Court Justices abandoned the law and made
up facts.
The President is not a king. He does not get
to rule with a pen and a phone, and if our Su
preme Court values our RepuDlic, he'll get
slopped down. Again. If they don't, then every
thing our Founding Fathers fought and died for
is likely to Pe lost, because there will no longer
be any defining rules.
Guy Benson, Townhall.com's Political Editor:
Savage: Romney shames Biden, rips democrats'
filibuster hypocrisy.
In short, Biden is abandoning his own
long-held stance on the filibuster, insisting that
Democrats change Senate rules in order to
fundamentally uproot American election ad
ministration, all with zero Republican input, in
a tied Senate. Democrats seek to supersede
state-level laws across the country, eliminate
popular voter ID laws, and enshrine fraud-invit
ing 'ballot harvesting 1 practices, among other
toxic provisions. And if you disagree, President
Unity intones, you're throwing in your lot with Bull
Connor. What an ugly, disgusting speech. What
an abject failure of a presidency.
Greg Gutfeld, host of Gutfeld! and co-host
of The Five: The out-of-touch media should be
glad Americans haven't caught on to them.
Jon. 6 was just one example. While CNN
and others gushed endlessly about their own
PTSD, the rest of America was like, what?
It's the same reliable hysteria they applied
to collusion, Covington, Kavanaugh. Remem
ber the classics — that perfect phone call was
worse than Watergate? Climate change means
the Earth dies in eight years. Jon. 6 is Pearl Har
bor all over again.
You see the disconnect between them and
you, and it's this gulf between their claims and
actual reality that mirrors exactly the gulf be
tween the press and the public they don't un
derstand. And if you listen to CNN, well, it's got
to be America's fault.
Tucker Carlson, host of FOX News Channel’s
Tucker Carlson Tonight. Biden's speeches reveal
what he thinks of Americans.
Just hours before Joe Biden spoke, the De
portment of Justice announced the formation
of a new domestic terrorism unit.... It's designed
to hunt down and punish anyone who opposes
the federal government or is otherwise "anti-au
thority." Anti-authority? Who's that? Well, pretty
much at this point, all thinking people who aren't
directly on the federal payroll. That means you.
It means all of us got the message? If you
think voters ought to show I.D. at the polls, you
could be hearing from the FBI because you're
a threat. On the other hand, speaking papers,
you should know that your COVID papers are still
mandatory, and becoming more so because
vox cards are not at all like driver's licenses at
polling places, they're not racist. Vox cards are
holy and they're essential.
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The Idiocy of Vaccine
Mandates for Kids
The old legal maxim is that
everything which is not forbid
den is permitted. Many public-
health experts apparently have
their own version of this rule
— whatever is not forbidden
must be mandated.
It was less than three
months ago that the Food and
Drug Administration approved
the COVID-19 vaccine for chil
dren on an emergency basis,
and already there are debates
whether schools should man
date it and jurisdictions pro
hibit unvaccinated kids from
engaging in activities.
California, Louisiana and
Washington, D.C., have sched
uled mandates to take effect
when the FDA fully approves
the vaccine for kids. Los Ange
les and Oakland have mandates,
although they’ve been delayed.
New York City mayor Eric Ad
ams says he’s weighing a man
date, and bills in the New York
State legislature would imple
ment one statewide.
When the FDA advisory
panel met last October, several
experts said they hoped the
move wouldn’t lead to man
dates. FDA official Peter Marks
pooh-poohed the possibility,
evidently underestimating the
irresistible urge of officialdom
in blue areas toward pandemic
coercion.
The decision whether kids
get vaccinated or not properly
belongs to parents. Yes, other
vaccinations are a condition of
attending school, but COVID
vaccinations aren’t going to
eliminate COVID, the way, say,
Jonas Salk’s miraculous innova
tion eliminated polio. With the
advent of omicron, it’s not even
clear childhood vaccinations
will do much to dent the spread.
On top of this, COVID is rela
tively mild in children, whereas
polio was a dread childhood
disease.
If the case for adults getting
vaccinated is extraordinarily
strong, it is much less so for
minors, especially for healthy
younger kids who tend to be at
the least risk.
Why, parents might think,
take any chances with a new
vaccine if is it protecting from a
minimal threat (or their kids
already had the virus) ? Even if
you believe this is the wrong
call, it’s not obviously unrea
sonable.
The medical news outlet
Stat reported on an FDA model
that looked at the risk to boys
ages 5-11 from myocarditis, a
heart condition that can affect
boys in particular after getting
vaccinated. According to Stat,
the FDA analysts concluded
that although “the vaccine
might trigger slightly more
myocarditis-related hospitaliza
tions in boys than Covid-19
hospitalizations it would pre
vent in the same population,
the benefits still might out
weigh the risks, given that Co-
vid cases that require hospital
ization are generally more se
vere than myocarditis cases.”
Rather than trust parents
to weigh such considerations
on their own, places like Los
Angeles want to bring down the
hammer. The school board
there wanted students 12 and
older to be vaccinated by Jan.
10. Then, unvaccinated kids
would be relegated to remote
learning. When the school
board realized that 30,000 stu
dents weren’t vaccinated, a
number that would overwhelm
whatever dubious capacity the
district has for remote learning,
it backed off.
The calculus here makes
Please see Lowry page 11A
GRITTY
Dusting off
Dr. King’s
Great Message
We celebrate Dr.
Martin Luther King,
Jr., Day on the third
Monday of January
— this year, Jan. 17.
On Aug. 28,
1963, King delivered
one of the great
speeches in Ameri
can history, popularly
known as the “I Have
a Dream” speech. It is a speech that must
be dusted off and studied anew today, be
cause it contains the very message that our
nation sorely needs to hear and digest now.
A message that has been tragically lost and
buried and replaced with great and de
structive distortions.
Two things jump out when reading
through that speech.
One is how this Black preacher cap
tured in his words that day the heart and
soul of America.
Second, how King’s great message that
day stands in total contrast to the rhetoric
peddled by today’s progressives as the rem
edy to our racial strife.
The indictment of the woke move
ment is that America is the problem.
King offered up America as the solu
tion.
He talked about the “magnificent
words of the Constitution and the Declara
tion of Independence.”
“I have a dream that one day this na
tion will rise up and live out the true mean
ing of its creed: We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created
equal.’”
The problem, as King explained, is not
Please see Parker page 8A
By Star Parker
Locker Room, Indy
—
\ r \
*9 0
by
Loran Smith
Last Monday night in
Indianapolis, I watched the
Georgia football team qui
etly enter the locker room
and go through their rou
tine of pre-game prepara
tion.
Although I had expe
rienced that exercise many
times through the years,
I had not done so lately.
Owing to COVID 19, ev
erything involving the ra
dio broadcast takes place
in the press box instead of
the field. I was struck poi
gnantly by what I saw.
Today’s locker rooms
are a microcosm of our
world with different at
titudes. There is no en
mity, no jealousy, no finger
pointing and no fault find
ing, especially pre-game.
You see big guys
like Jordan Davis at 340
pounds and small guys
such as Ladd McConkey
at 185 pounds. There are
black kids and white kids
who really do like one an
other. They would literally
go to war for their friends
and companions.
There is brotherly love
in sports today, especially
when a championship is
on the line. If only our so
ciety, and especially the
United States Congress,
could adopt the attitudes
of our sports teams, maybe
— just maybe — we could
somehow or other lock
arms and sing kumbaya.
The origins of the
word, kumbaya, date back
to slave times in the coastal
areas of South Carolina
and Georgia. In the Gullah
language, the term means,
“come by here.” Joan Baez
recorded the song in 1962
and it became a big hit.
Kumbaya my Lord,
kumbaya,
Kumbaya my Lord,
kumbaya,
Somebody’s singing
Lord, kumbaya,
Somebody’s praying
Lord, kumbaya,
Kumbaya my Lord,
Kumbaya.
Enslaved people came
together in song, to endure
the hardships of a blight on
our country’s history. Even
in bondage they became a
team to survive.
Kumbaya became
something of a theme song
for the teams of Bill Parcels
with the New York Giants
as they won two Super
Bowls in the eighties.
A locker room is pop
ulated with an amalgama
tion of teenagers, young
adults and heavy-lunged
coaches. There are trainers
and managers who func
tion as valets, wait staff
and confidantes. If a player
is moved to make his uni
form look spiffier, there is
somebody eager to accom
modate. There is privacy
but there is openness.
There are shouts by
some among the many
who just sit quietly in med
itation. Many nod rhyth
mically to the beat coming
through their head phones.
They are serious, they are
focused and selfless — all
for one and one for all per
meates locker rooms and it
is as real as shoulder pads
and helmets.
Some kids prefer their
ankles to be taped a certain
way. No problem.
There are sports
drinks, protein snacks and
nutrition bars. There is
the humility of the Lord’s
prayer and the salty lan
guage that comes with ath
letic competition.
If you hark back to the
sixties, the integration of
the school systems was a
challenge, especially in the
South, but it became man
ageable because of sports.
By rallying around the
sports teams, the notion
of the team concept won
everybody over. White
kids came to appreciate
the abilities of black kids.
A white kid makes a block
that enables a black kid to
score the winning touch
down. The kids bought in
which moved the parents
to buy in.
If the football teams
and the basketball teams,
which were the focal points
of most school activities,
could get along, then that
influenced the entire stu
dent body to take note.
Leadership makes a
difference in any organiza
tion and Georgia has re
markable leadership with
its coaching staff, but it
would have been for noth
ing, had the players not
bought in.
Isn’t there a leader in
Congress who can get oth
ers to buy in to doing what
is best for the country?
Just imagine if Kirby Smart
and his coaches found fault
with every team mistake
and shouted epithets with
the players.
If football teams acted
like the Congress of the
United States, college foot
ball would collapse in a
lifeless heap.