Sweetwater Reporter (Sweetwater, Tex.), Vol. 114, No. 006, Ed. 1 Tuesday, January 24, 2012 Page: 4 of 10
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Viewpoints
Page 4 ■ Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Sweetwater Reporter
DEDICATED TO PROUDLY DELIVERING LOCAL NEWS SINCE 1881
1—x Sweetwater 1
Reporter
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Sweetwater, Texas 79556
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TA
MEMBER
2010
TEXAS PRESS
ASSOCIATION
Ron Midkiff
Publisher
Gloria Rudel
ad director
Oanica Dickson
business mgr./
circulation mgr.
Tatiana Rodriguez
managing editor
Pablo Rodriguez
composing
Rleu Reyes
production mgr.
EDITORIAL POLICY
The editorial section of the newspaper is a forum for
expression of a variety of viewpoints. All articles except
those labeled "Editorials" reflect the opinions of the writ-
ers and not those of the Sweetwater Reporter,
Edwin
Feulner
MOT MUM
Top ten,
but ailing
If you were to rank the countries of the world in
terms of economic freedom, where would the United
States fall? First, or at least in the top three? The top
five, surely.
Guess again.
Because there is, in fact, a resource that ranks every
country by this measure — the 2012 Index of Economic
Freedom, and the United States comes in at No. 10.
That's right: the nation that is supposed to lead the
world in liberty finishes behind nine others, includ-
ing Ireland, Chile, Switzerland and
Canada. Even the small African nation
of Mauritius beats us.
And while this ranking represents a
new low for the U.S., which was ninth
last year, it's part of a recent trend. As
recently as 2008, the U.S. ranked sev-
enth worldwide, had a score of 81 (on a
0-100 scale, with 100 being the freest),
and was listed as a "free" economy.
Today, the U.S. has a score of 76.3 and
is "mostly free," the Index's second-
highest category.
Now before we explain why, let's
back up and briefly touch on how
the editors of the Index — published
annually since 1995 by The Heritage Foundation and
The Wall Street Journal — figure out the scores. Each
country is evaluated in four broad areas of economic
freedom:
1)Rule of Law. Are property rights protected through
an effective and honest judicial system? How wide-
spread is corruption — bribery, extortion, graft, and the
like?
2)Regulatory Efficiency. Are businesses able to oper-
ate without burdensome and redundant regulations?
Are individuals able to work where and how much they
want? Is inflation in check? Are prices stable?
3)Limited Government. Are taxes high or low? Is gov-
ernment spending kept under control, or is it growing
unchecked?
4)Open Markets: Can goods be traded freely? Are
there tariffs, quota or other restrictions? Can indhidu-
als invest their money where and how they see fit? Is
there an open banking environment that encourages
competition?
For the most part, of course, the United States does
very well on these measures. Finishing 10th out of 179
countries, after all, is impossible if you don't have a
large degree of economic freedom, and the U.S. is very
free. Property rights are strong. Our court system is
independent. Business start-up procedures are effi-
cient. The labor market is flexible.
But in certain key areas, the United States is lagging
badly. A big one is government spending. The U.S. now
ranks 127th in the world in this category. Spending by
government consumes 42.2 percent of gross domestic
product. Total public debt is now larger than the entire
economy.
Taxes are another problem. The U.S. score isn't
helped by the fact that the U.S. tax structure relies so
much on taxes on capital and investment, which restrict
growth. Regulations continue to grow in number, mak-
ing it harder than necessary for our economy to recover.
How bad is it? More than 70 major rules have been
imposed since 2009, and they cost Americans nearly
$40 billion last year.
The deterioration of the U.S. score on freedom from
corruption is especially troubling. Blame the govern-
ment (read: taxpayer) bailouts of troubled industries
such as automakers. These create the perception of
corruption. As far as many Americans are considered
, it's politically well-connected companies and special-
interest groups who get the breaks. They see the more
than 1,100 companies that have won exceptions to
Obamacare, and they can't help but wonder if some
form of cronyism is involved.
We can't hope to create the number of jobs we need
under these conditions.
That's why we have to get serious about cutting gov-
ernment down to size, overhauling our tax system, and
transforming costly entitlement programs. Otherwise,
the United States has just completed its last year as a
top-io finalist in the Index.
Ed Feulner is president of The Heritage Foundation
(www.heritage.org ).
UNKNOWN SOLDIERS
athers and Sons
Almost every American
sports fan has heard of
Hickory, Ind., which was
immortalized in the 1986
film "Hoosiers." Yet many
who recite the movie's unfor-
gettable lines think Hickory
actually exists. It doesn't,
although some real-life towns
come close.
The northern Indiana
town of Hamlet is about 100
miles from New Richmond,
where most of "Hoosiers"
was filmed. Like the fiction-
al community that Hickory
High unites on its way to an
improbable men's basketball
state championship, Hamlet
is tiny, with just 300 house-
holds full of fathers and sons
who love Indiana sports.
Spc. Robert Tauteris III
just returned to the Hoosier
State from Afghanistan,
where he was serving with
the 713th Engineer Company
of the Indiana National
Guard. Instead of a welcome
home celebration, though,
the 22-year-old soldier came
back to the United States for
a Jan. 8 dignified transfer
ceremony.
The soldier escorted the
flag-draped casket carry-
ing his father, Spc. Robert
Tauteris Jr., home from
Afghanistan. On Jan. 6,
alongside Staff Sgt. Jonathan
Metzger, 32, Spc. Christopher
Patterson, 20, and Spc. Brian
Leonhardt, 21, the elder
Tauteris, 44, was killed by
an improvised explosive
device planted in the volatile
Kandahar Province, accord-
ing to the Pentagon.
Surrounded by his fam-
ily, the grieving son spoke to
reporters on Jan. 11. Quotes
from the news conference
are provided by WSBT-TV
reporter Clifton French, an
Iraq war veteran.
"It was an honor being able
to escort my father and the
other fallen soldiers home
from Afghanistan," Tauteris
said. "It's something I'll never
forget, and I'm more honored
to do that than I have been to
do many things in my life."
THE GREEN TEAM
Since spring is going to be
here pretty quickly, we will
soon be reminded of a fact
of life in West Texas, I mean
other than drought. Rains
come, and rains go (mostly
go), heat and cold rises and
falls, in fact in winter the
only question is how cold,
and summer, it's how hot,
but the one depend-
able, year to year cli-
mate factor is wind.
While we can have
windy days any time
of the year (as I
write this, the wind
is absolutely howl-
ing), in West Texas,
the spring winds
are as dependable
as, well, spring. On
second thought, last
year we pretty much
went from winter
to summer with no
in between, so I'm
going to have to say
the "spring" winds are actu-
ally more dependable than
spring. If I had been given a
choice, I would have skipped
the winds and enjoyed mild
weather instead, but unfor-
tunately, nature didn't con-
tact i
While
articles talking about the
immediate effects of wind
on tree structure, or even
regarding how wind topples
trees, what I want to look
at this time is the long term
results of a steady prevail-
ing wind on tree growth and
shape.
By the way, I have spent
considerable time in a region
that gets a lot more wind
than we do in West Texas,
and what few "trees" were
able to grow there, reflected
the windy conditions in their
shape. Trust me, more wind
is not better, and experienc-
ing wind like that doesn't
make our West Texas "spring
blows" seem more pleasant.
The one weather factor that
I've never heard anybody say
they like is wind, and I'm
not expecting that to change,
ever.
While I'm confident say-
ing that neither you nor I
enjoy wind, we do have the
option of getting out of it
at some point. Trees on the
other hand, have to stay out
in the winds, whatever they
are, 24/7. This means that
whatever forces winds gen-
U.S. Army carry team transfers the remains of Army Spc. Robert J. Tauteris Jr.,
of Hamlet, Ind., at Dover Air Force Base, Del., Jan. 8. Tauteris was assigned to the
713th Engineer Company, Indiana National Guard, Valparaiso, Ind.
Long before the father
and son served together in
Afghanistan, the younger
Robert and his brother,
Matthew, looked up to their
dad.
"He stood up as our boy
scout leader from the time
we were very young to being
too old to be in boy scouts,"
the soldier said.
Gen. Martin Dempsey,
Chairman of the Joints
Chiefs of Staff, stood and
saluted in the darkness of
Delaware's Dover Air Force
Base as fellow troops carried
each flag-draped casket onto
the soil of the nation they
died for. Maj. Gen. Martin
Umbarger, adjutant gen-
eral of the Indiana National
Guard, called on Americans
to recognize the enormous
sacrifices still being made in
Afghanistan.
"We have no more solemn
obligation than rendering the
proper respect, honor, and
tribute to these faithful war-
riors and to provide the full-
est possible support to their
families during this difficult
time," Maj. Gen. Umbarger
said.
Tauteris reminded report-
ers that while his dad was a
dedicated soldier after enlist-
ing at age 40, he was a father,
first and foremost.
"I can't stress enough how
much he cared about me and
my brother," the soldier said.
"It was the most important
thing to him; it was like his
meaning in life was to be a
father."
America's post-9/11 con-
flicts have touched many
fathers and sons. In May
2010, Chief Warrant Officer
Michael McHugh boarded a
plane in Iraq, where he was
deployed, to meet the flag-
draped casket of his fa ther,
Col. John McHugh, 46, who
had been killed alongside four
fellow troops in Afghanistan.
Just days after Col.
McHugh's death, the Kansas
City Royals honored the fall-
en hero by asking his griev-
ing son to throw out the first
pitch before a home game.
"Ilostmybestfriend," Chief
Warrant Officer McHugh
wrote to the Unknown
Soldiers in 2010. "The first
<jgi * 7"
Bruce
Kreitler
me about my wishes.
Virile I've written several
erate, it is going to hit trees
and they are going to be
affected by it. The results of
that force are going to show
up in canopy.
Most of us are familiar
with trees which either lean,
or have a bit of a lopsid-
ed canopy due to the wind
pushing on them with some
force from a heavily
prevailing direction.
Trees where the
branches have been
bowed, or pushed
enough by the wind
to the extent that
they grow more
towards one side
of the tree than the
other, are especially
obvious in the win-
ter when the leafy
canopy doesn't hide
the interior struc-
ture.
As I said, the vis-
ible influence of
a prevailing wind is easy
enough to see, however;
those visible differences are
the end result of years of
moving air. What isn't so
readily discernable is how
the plant has resisted the
wind and what the internal
changes are that allow the
tree to adapt to excessive
wind forces. As someone
who has spent time in tree
canopies when the wind is
blowing, I can tell you that
however much "push" you
think wind creates on trees,
you probably are not think-
ing high enough. Anybody
who works on trees for a liv-
ing should spend some time
in a leafy' canopy (carefully)
on a windy day to help them
understand the forces they
have to be able to withstand.
Anyway, the way that
trees withstand the contin-
ual influence of a steady pre-
vailing wind, is by growing
stronger wood in response
to that wind. While they may
indeed be warped or bent
somewhat because of the
steady nature of wind, the
very force that pushes on
them is also the catalyst for
branch and trunk strength-
ening which allows them to
withstand it.
Since trees have many bio-
logical mechanisms which
serve more than one pur-
pose, what they do is develop
the same kind of reaction
wood in response to wind
movement as they do to sup-
port branches and trunks
that are growing larger and
heavier. Basically, in coni-
fers, the side of the branch
or trunk opposite the push
grows stronger and this is
called compression wood.
In other trees (by the way,
the two categories are actu-
ally gymnosperms and
angiosperms, but the differ-
ence between them would
be another column, so here
we will just say conifers and
"others"), the wood that is on
the side being directly sub-
jected to stress grows stron-
ger and that is called tension
wood. Just as an aside, these
two types of wood are why
branches make poor lumber.
The same thing happens in
trunk wood, but single grow-
ing trees which are subjected
to enough wind to grow a
lot of reaction wood in the
trunks are rarely harvested
for lumber. There are other
reasons besides "it's where
the trees are", that loggers
prefer to work in wooded
areas.
Another place where trees
are affected by prevailing
winds is in the root system.
Just as the trunk and canopy
develops reaction wood, the
roots also have a method
for dealing with prevailing
winds. What happens in the
root system is that they will
tend to grow larger and/
or more numerous roots
on one side of the tree as
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pitch at Kauffman Stadium
was such an honor, and we're
grateful to the Royals for
doing that for our family."
Like Michael McITugh,
Robert Tauteris III is an
American soldier — but also
a son who lost his dad.
"He is a hero," Spc. Tauteris
III said of his father. "I think
what made him who he is ...
is how much he cared about
his children and his family."
One of the most touch-
ing moments in "Hoosiers"
comes when Hickory's assis-
tant coach, played by Dennis
Hopper, is thrust into lead-
ing the team after the head
coach, played by Gene
Hackman, is ejected. After
the play he drew up wins the
game in dramatic fashion,
he is approached by a player
who is also his son.
'You did good, pop," he
said. "You did real good."
To find out more about
Tom Sileo or to read features
by other Creators Syndicate
writers and cartoonists, visit
the Creators Syndicate web-
site at www.creators.com.
Spring Winds
needed to keep the plant sta-
bilized. Unless you have a
heavily surface rooted tree,
this additional "bracing" will
not be visible to you.
It's easy to think of trees
and how winds act on them
when the wind is blowing
forty miles an hour, and tree
branches and trunks are
whipping around. What isn't
quite so apparent is that the
steady prevailing winds, with
the occasional (in spring a
little too frequent for my
tastes) forty mile an hour
blow is what gives our trees
the "exercise" they need to
develop the strength and
structure to withstand all
but our worst wind storms.
Barring tornadoes, usually
when we suffer our worst
damage, it is because we
had a high wind from some
other direction besides the
Sou th and since our trees are
not normally "pushed" from
those directions, they have
developed much less capac-
ity to withstand high winds
from directions other than
the South.
If you have any landscap-
ing. landscape maintenance,
or tree questions you would
like answered in this column,
submit them care ofeditor@
sweetwaterreporier.com or
info@BrokenWillow.com.
Correction Policy
Editorial:
As a matter of policy, the
Sweetwater Reporter will
publish corrections of errors
in fact that have been print-
ed in the newspaper.
The corrections will be
made as soon as possible
after the error has been
brought to the attention of
the newspaper's editor at
236-6677.
Advertising:
Publisher reserves the right
to reject, edit or cancel any
advertising at any time with-
out liability. Publisher's liabil-
ity for error is limited to the
amount paid for advertising.
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Sweetwater Reporter (Sweetwater, Tex.), Vol. 114, No. 006, Ed. 1 Tuesday, January 24, 2012, newspaper, January 24, 2012; Sweetwater, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth229670/m1/4/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Sweetwater/Nolan County City-County Library.