Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 110, No. 55, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 26, 2013 Page: 4 of 34
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Denton County Newspapers Collection and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the UNT Libraries.
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4A
Thursday, September 26, 2013
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
Dawn Cobb
Managing Editor
Les Cockrell
Region Editor
Mark Finley
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
ahbelo.com NYSE symbol: AHC
Editorial
Get Denton
on top 40 list
m^im Phillips, vice president of the Denton Conven-
WfK tion & Visitors Bureau at the Denton Chamber of
1m, Commerce, encouraged readers in her Sunday
column to tell Texas Highways magazine that Denton
needs to be on its list of the top 40 Texas destinations,
and we’d like to second that motion.
The magazine is preparing to celebrate its 40th birth-
day, and in honor of that landmark, it’s asking the people
of Texas for recommendations on the 40 top destinations
in Texas.
As Phillips pointed out, a lot of folks read the maga-
zine — it’s well known as a travel/destination guide —
and a mention in its pages can put a city or town on
many vacation or weekend getaway agendas.
We’d like to see Denton put near the top of the list.
After all, few Texas cities can match us for pure enter-
tainment value — there’s something here for everyone,
and our venues are a lot better value than most Lone Star
destinations.
When you consider the variety and quality of Denton
restaurants, add the wide range of shopping opportunities
and throw in the thriving music scene, you’ve got a total
entertainment package that makes Denton an ideal travel
destination.
Plus, many of the historic homes and sites — including
one of the most impressive historical courthouses in the
state — add a lot of color and personality to the package.
So, how do we get Denton on the list of top 40 Texas
destinations?
First, go to the magazine’s website at www.texashigh
ways.com.
On the homepage, look right and down and click on
“The Texas Top 40 destinations — Nominate Your Favor-
ite Now.”
The 40 cities with the most nominations will win their
way into the guide to Texas Top Destinations between
January and December 2014 in celebration of the maga-
zine’s 40th birthday.
Phillips believes, and we agree, that getting Denton on
the list will result in a lot of tourism, and that’s good news
for everyone. Such a listing could sell a lot of hotel rooms,
meals and everything from fashions to antiques — and
there’s nothing wrong with that.
Last year, Denton made the finals of a national “Best
Small Town in America” contest. Out of more than 750
competing towns, Denton ended up as the second-most
fun small town in the United States. The area is still reap-
ing rewards from that promotion, Phillips stated.
The deadline for nominations in the Texas Highways
project is Oct 15, so make sure your vote counts.
In addition to voting on the website, votes can be regis-
tered through Oct. 15 on Texas Highways’ Facebook page
or Twitter account, and also via e-mail to letters05@
texashighways.com.
A lot of travelers will use the magazine’s list to get trav-
el ideas, so let’s make certain Denton is included and they
know how to find us.
Once they get here and see what we have to offer,
they’ll be sure to book a return trip.
This day in history: September 26
Today is Thursday, Sept.
26, the 269th day of 2013.
There are 96 days left in the year.
On Sept. 26,1789, Thomas
Jefferson was confirmed by the
Senate to be the first United
States secretary of state; John
Jay, the first chief justice; Ed-
mund Randolph, the first attor-
ney general.
In 1777, British troops occu-
pied Philadelphia during the
American Revolution.
In 1892, John Philip Sousa
and his newly formed band per-
formed publicly for the first
time, at the Stillman Music Hall
in Plainfield, N.J.
In 1914, the Federal Trade
Commission was established.
In 1918, the Meuse-Argonne
offensive, resulting in an Allied
victory against the Germans, be-
gan during World War I.
In1937, the radio drama The
Shadow, starring Orson Welles,
premiered on the Mutual
Broadcasting System.
In 1955, following word that
President Dwight D. Eisenhow-
er had suffered a heart attack,
the New York Stock Exchange
saw its worst price decline since
1929.
In 1960, the first debate be-
tween presidential nominees
took place in Chicago as Demo-
crat John F. Kennedy and Re-
publican Richard M. Nixon
faced off before a national TV
audience.
In 1962, Maury Wills of the
Los Angeles Dodgers stole his
100th base during a 13-1 victory
over the Houston Colt .45s.
— The Associated Press
U.S. culture paves way
for violence to erupt
k
Froma
Harrop
o the rising pile of shooting rampages,
Americans can now add the rapid-fire
I murder of 12 people at the Washing-
ton Navy Yard. It is a sign of our remarkable
times that this horrid deed seems to pale
next to the massacre of 20 schoolchildren in
suburban Connecticut
last December.
Behind virtually ev-
ery one of these slaugh-
ters is a loner who had
shown signs of being
mentally ill.
The Navy Yard sus-
pect, Aaron Alexis, had
complained to police
in Rhode Island of ene-
mies passing vibra-
tions through hotel
walls. He was questioned in Fort Worth for
firing a bullet into an apartment ceiling and
in Seattle for shooting out a car’s tires.
Though every incident pointed to a sick
mind, none was serious enough to raise a
flashing red flag. Worrisome how many un-
balanced people fly below the official radar.
It’s hard to believe there are more men-
tally unwell people in America than else-
where. But there are more of other troubling
things in this country: isolation, a mesmeriz-
ing parade of violent images and easy access
to weaponry.
I’m not going to dwell here on the gun
control issue except to say this: It’s one thing
to want firearms for hunting or self-defense.
It’s another to demand a right to own weap-
ons that can murder large numbers in sec-
onds. That reflects a cracked worship of kill-
ing power, especially attractive to the unsta-
ble.
Many argue that mental illness, not the
flow of guns, drives these crimes. They are
not entirely wrong. But how do you keep
killing machines out of crazy hands?
Laws requiring a sanity check for gun
buyers sound sensible, but the guns used by
the slayer of the schoolchildren in Newtown,
Conn., were bought by his supposedly ratio-
nal mother. Adam Lanza’s mother went to
bars to brag about her guns while leaving
them unlocked at the home she shared with
her clearly troubled son.
We learn that Alexis, like Lanza, like the
Columbine High School shooters, spent
long hours hypnotized by violent video
games.
So pervasive have these games become
that the public now shrugs at the likes of
“Grand Theft Auto,” once considered shock-
ing for its anti-social violence. The casual
bloodletting in the new “Grand Theft Auto
V” is said to be oiled by humor and satire,
injecting more confusion into already-con-
fused minds.
There is debate on whether these games
promote violent behavior. The case that they
do seems strong enough to have compelled
one video game maker to hire a crack lobby-
ing firm to stop a Senate bill that would
sponsor research into the possible connec-
tion.
Much research suggests that ordinary
people playing violent video games do expe-
rience heightened feelings of belligerence,
along with higher heart rate and blood pres-
sure.
In his own study, Brad Bushman, a pro-
fessor of communications and psychology at
Ohio State University, found that typical col-
lege students playing violent games for only
20 minutes a day for three days became
more aggressive.
Most players don’t act on their anger, be-
cause they come to the game in fairly good
mental health, Bushman wrote in response
to the Navy Yard massacre. “But what about
players who already are predisposed to vio-
lence?” He added, “Violent video games are
just one more factor that may be pushing
them toward violence.”
America’s mass shootings seem to be
about several things. They’re about a culture
that bombards people with images of casual
homicide, that likes to wave guns, that
doesn’t pay enough attention to mental ill-
ness.
Though mass killings occur in other de-
veloped countries, our especially deadly mix
of factors may explain why they happen here
with grotesque predictability. It’s something
toxic in the air.
FROMA HARROP is a columnist for
The Providence Journal. Her column is
distributed by Creators Syndicate Inc.
Letters to the editor
Issue of common sense
I would like to respond to Larry Beck
[DRC, Sept. 17] regarding his statements
about photo IDs and the privilege to vote.
The statistics that he quotes in his letter in-
dicate that there have “only been 311 accusa-
tions of voter fraud in the state of Texas” and
that of those 311, “only 51 resulted in convic-
tions.”
I wonder if Mr. Beck really believes that
just because there have only been 311 accusa-
tions that were brought to light, that abso-
lutely no one else in the state of Texas cast a
fraudulent vote over that time period.
I, personally, would find that hard to be-
lieve. This 311 number only indicates the
ones that we know about.
The only cases of national voter fraud
that I am aware of implicated liberals/Dem-
ocrats.
Perhaps that is why Mr. Beck is so dead
set against the photo ID requirement.
My take from Mr. Beck’s letter is that in
his opinion and, I assume, the opinion of all
liberals, is that a little voter fraud is OK and
nothing to really be concerned about.
I, on the other hand, believe that even
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
one case of voter fraud is one too many.
I am 60 years old and I know and have
metalot ofpeople in my life. I amgoingtogo
out on a limb here and state that I believe
that every person that I know that is legally
eligible to vote has a photo ID.
Requiring a photo ID is not, in my opin-
ion, an effort to negatively affect legitimate
voters or a Republican/GOP ploy, but it is an
issue of common sense.
Jerry Jeanes,
Denton
Denton Record-Chronicle mission statement
We believe a free society, with all its privileges and opportunities, is partially successful because of
a free press that is supported by the community at large.
Our mission every day is to give you unbiased, wide-ranging news of Denton and the larger Denton
County community. We appreciate your subscription or your purchase of this newspaper. By doing
so, you are supporting an independent look at your community, its leaders, its business people, and
its residents.
Without that, we believe that our communities would suffer from a lack of analysis, a lack of in-
formation, and a lack of oversight of taxpayer money. We want to give you something to think
about every day. We hope those ideas lead you to become involved in your community, both with
your commentary and your actions.
Walter E.
Williams
trust vital
to people,
business
ishonesty, lying and cheating are not
I treated with the right amount of op-
probrium in today’s society.
To gain an appreciation for the signifi-
cance of honesty and trust, consider what
our day-to-day lives would be like if we
couldn’t trust anyone.
When we purchase a bottle of 100 pills
from our pharmacist,
how many of us bother
to count the pills?
We pull in to a gaso-
line station and pay
$35 for 10 gallons of
gasoline. How do we
know for sure whether
we in fact received 10
gallons instead of 9
3/4?
You pay $7 for a 1-
pound package of filet
mignon.
Do you ever independently verify that you
in fact received 1 pound?
In each of those cases, and thousands
more, we simply trust the seller.
There are thousands of cases in which the
seller trusts the buyer.
Having worked 40 hours, I trust that
George Mason University, my employer, will
pay me.
People place an order with their stockbro-
ker to purchase 100 shares of AT&T stock,
and the stockbroker trusts that he’ll be paid.
Companies purchase 5 tons of aluminum
with payment due 30 days later.
Examples of honesty and trust abound,
but imagine the cost and inconvenience if we
couldn’t trust anyone.
We would have to lug around measuring
instruments to make sure that it was in fact
10 gallons of gas and 1 pound of steak that we
purchased. Imagine the hassle of having to
count out the number of pills in a bottle.
If we couldn’t trust, we’d have to bear the
costly burden of writing contracts instead of
relying on a buyer’s or a seller’s word.
We’d have to bear the monitoring costs to
ensure compliance in the simplest of trans-
actions.
It’s safe to say that whatever undermines
honesty and trust raises the costs of transac-
tions, reduces the value of exchange and
makes us poorer.
Honesty and trust come into play in ways
that few of us even contemplate.
In my neighborhood, workers for FedEx,
UPS and other delivery companies routinely
leave packages that contain valuable mer-
chandise on the doorstep if no one answers
the door.
The local supermarket leaves plants, fer-
tilizer and other home and garden items out-
doors overnight unattended.
What’s more, the supermarket displays
loads of merchandise at its entryways and
exits.
In neighborhoods where there’s less hon-
esty, deliverymen’s leaving merchandise on
doorsteps and stores leaving merchandise
outdoors unattended or at entryways and ex-
its would be equivalent to economic suicide.
Dishonesty is costly.
Delivery companies cannot leave packag-
es when the customer is not home. The com-
pany must bear the costs of making return
trips, or the customer has to bear the costs of
going to pick up the package.
If a supermarket places merchandise out-
side, it must bear the costs of hiring an atten-
dant — plus retrieve the merchandise at the
close of business; that’s if it can risk having
merchandise outdoors in the first place.
Honesty affects stores such as supermar-
kets in another way.
A supermarket manager’s goal is to maxi-
mize the rate of merchandise turnover per
square foot of leased space.
When theft is relatively low, the manager
can use all of the space he leases, including
outdoor and entryway space, thereby raising
his profit potential.
That opportunity is denied to supermar-
kets situated in localities where there’s less
honesty. That in turn means a higher cost of
doing business, which translates into higher
prices, less profit and fewer customer ameni-
ties.
Crime, distrust and dishonesty impose
huge losses that go beyond those suffered di-
rectly.
Much of the cost of crime and dishonesty
is borne by people who can least afford it —
poor people.
It’s poor people who have fewer choices
and pay higher prices or must bear the trans-
portation costs of going to suburban malls to
shop.
It’s poor people in high-crime neighbor-
hoods who are refused pizza delivery and
taxi pickups.
The fact that honesty and trust are so vital
should make us rethink just how much toler-
ance we should have for criminals and dis-
honest people.
WALTER E. WILLIAMS is a professor
of economics at George Mason Universi-
ty. His column is distributed by Creators
Syndicate Inc.
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Cobb, Dawn. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 110, No. 55, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 26, 2013, newspaper, September 26, 2013; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1102408/m1/4/?q=food+rule+for+unt+students: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .