The Ennis Daily News (Ennis, Tex.), Ed. 1 Friday, March 1, 2013 Page: 4 of 10
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Opinion
Page 4
Friday, March 1,2013
Ennis Daily News
Stings key
in keeping
youth sa e
Our
Point of
View
Perhaps somewhat strangely we were
glad to see only one convenience store clerk
arrested in the Ennis Police Department’s
most recent sting operation to detect sales of
alcohol to underage buyers.
Such efforts are, naturally important in
the city’s effort to create an environment
that is safe for youth. Especially in a time
like the spring, days from spring break,
weeks from prom and graduation and their
associated parties, keeping tabs on who’s
selling alcohol to minors and stopping them
is a paramount concern.
Alcohol represents a
serious temptation for
many underage children
in our community and
others like ours. It’s also
an immense risk for de-
veloping brains and bod-
ies that we as adults must
take appropriate meas-
ures to mitigate and elim-
inate. Impact Ennis, a local organization
funded by state drug prevention dollars, has
made significant strides in community per-
ception of the “alcohol problem,” and we
commend them for those moves. No small
part of the work has been collaborative with
local law enforcement.
Alcohol is considered by many people in
our nation to be a fairly benign drug, as it is
legal. Unfortunately that couldn’t be further
from the truth. Stories abound about the
negative consequences of the abuse of alco-
hol, and especially significant are the im-
pacts the misuse of the drug can have on
those who are underage. In short, it’s just
never a good idea to give children alcohol,
even if you think you’re doing your child a
favor by letting them drink in the safety of
your home.
The message sent when only one clerk is
arrested in such a sting could be Ennis has
been listening.
The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commis-
sion and local law enforcement have made
their intentions clear, and store managers
must make it clear to their employees. The
extra bucks they can earn by illegally selling
alcohol to minors aren’t worth the risk at all,
and the damage the practice can do in the
lives of those who should be protected can
be too tragic to really express in words.
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sarily reflect the position of the Ennis Daily News.
© Contents copyright 2013 and cannot be reproduced
without the written permission of the publisher.
Tre Bischof ■ Publisher Teresa Watson ■ Office Manager
Nick Todaro ■ Editor Fernev Parra ■ Production Manager
Melissa Honza - Composition Manager
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Internet inequality is real
A few weeks ago at the Ennis
Rotary Club, Diana Freeman
with Ennis ISD spoke at length
about the district’s iPad pro-
gram, and all the good things it’s
accomplished with
our students. I could-
n’t be happier: I think
it’s a great program
that not only accultur-
ates our kids to new
technology, but has
the potential to save
the district money in
the long run. The iPad
program is, so far, a
rousing success of
which the district
should be proud.
However, Freeman
did mention one thing
that concerned me. She said
some students without access to
wireless internet at home were
meeting up together at the Ennis
Public Library or McDonald’s to
use the wireless available there.
On its face, that might seem
harmless. Maybe even endear-
ing. But I worry that it points to
a larger problem. I’m concerned
that students without internet
access at home may be at an in-
herent disadvantage as opposed
to students with it.
Luckily, we live in an age
where more and more homes
have internet access. According
to data from the U.S. Census Bu-
reau, 71.6 percent of homes in
Texas have internet access. Per
a report by Governing magazine,
certain demographic groups are
less likely to have internet con-
nections at home; often the same
demographics who could benefit
the most from an educational leg
up.
The problem isn’t
confined to Texas, un-
fortunately. The same
census data shows
that southern states
lag behind the rest of
the country in inter-
net adoption, with
some rural areas hav-
ing access only
through cellular serv-
ice. Sometimes that’s
not even available.
The United States as a
whole places 16th in
the world when it
comes to broadband penetration,
speed and price, according to a
study by the The Organization
for Economic Co-operation and
Development.
I completely understand why
a family would choose to not
have internet access at home.
For me it was a no-brainer to get
internet within months of mov-
ing into Ennis; I spend so much
time online I might as well jack
an ethernet cable into the back
of my skull. However, I don’t
have kids. If I had to choose be-
tween spending $50 monthly to
watch hilarious cat videos at
home or feeding my children, the
choice becomes clear.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great
that kids are hanging out to-
gether at the library to use the
Wi-fi there. That so many kids
would be hanging out at fast food
restaurants is worrying, espe-
cially given our recent national
push for more fitness and nutri-
tion in schools.
Unfortunately there’s not
much the school can do, in this
regard. Several companies are
experimenting with wide-area
wireless broadband, but none
are coming to Ennis any time
soon. President Barack Obama
has announced plans for in-
creased investment in the na-
tion’s broadband infrastructure,
but his priorities don’t include
rural access, nor are they likely
to be funded in the current polit-
ical climate.
Given how internet access has
changed how we interact with
our employers, our government
and each other.
We can shop, pay our bills,
register to vote, renew licenses
and take college courses via the
internet now. Connecting rural
areas to the global network in a
way that’s efficient and afford-
able should be looked at as akin
to the rural electrification efforts
during years coming out of the
Great Depression. The schools
have gone a long way to put tech-
nology in the hands of our chil-
dren. It’s time we met them
halfway
Phil is a staff writer for The
Ennis Daily News. He can be
reached at phil@ennisdai-
lynews.com.
Musings on mutability of time
For me, the first sign of spring
is the ritual of setting the clocks
to daylight saving time. Unfortu-
nately, I don’t know how to
change the time on most of my
clocks. My thermo-
stats have clocks, as
do the microwave,
the car, the fridge,
the stove, the teaket-
tle, the coffee maker,
the phone and the
printer. My actual
clock changes the
time automatically,
as does my computer.
At least I thought it
did.
We took a trip four
time zones away a
few weeks ago, and I
got out of bed in a strange hotel
room in the dark of night. I did-
n’t want to wake Sue, so I peeked
under the lid of my computer
tablet to check the time: 6 a.m.
Sue wouldn’t be up for a couple
of hours at least, so I got dressed
and went out to get breakfast and
read the paper.
An hour later, I asked the
waitress what time it was, and
she said 4 a.m. Slowly, I realized
that I hadn’t hooked up the com-
puter to the hotel’s Wi-Fi; it still
showed the time from where we
left. Now I’d wake Sue if I tried
to go back in the room. I learned
a hard lesson about how long you
can nurse a cup of coffee in an
all-night diner.
If there’s one great thing
about being stupid, it’s that you
get used to it, whereas smart peo-
ple probably feel all surprised
and foolish when they do dumb
things. Sue was not surprised at
all to hear my story
four hours later.
She’s used to it.
The fact that the
changing of the
clocks comes almost
exactly six weeks
after Groundhog Day
is sheer coincidence.
I don’t know about
you, but I’m finding
that fewer and fewer
people rely on hiber-
nating animals for
accurate weather
predictions.
A week or two after Ground-
hog Day, no one can remember if
the animal saw his shadow or
not. And I find it hard to believe
that a Pennsylvania groundhog
and a Florida groundhog would
be in agreement very often. If
you ask me, the basic flaw in
groundhog meteorology is that
winter is not the same every-
where.
Spring forward, fall back;
that’s the ticket. Simply set your
clocks ahead one hour before you
go to bed on March 9, and you’ll
be enjoying an extra hour of day-
light. Well, not really. There’s
still the same amount of day-
light; we’ve just all decided to
use it differently.
Of course, try telling this to
your pets. They are not getting
the message that the time has
changed. So the dog wonders:
“Why are you going to bed so
early? That’s OK, I’ll just keep
you awake for another hour. Why
aren’t we going for a walk the
same time as yesterday? What’s
with dinner coming an hour
early?”
It takes the dog about three
weeks to adjust to the new sleep
schedule. The cat? He never
learns. I can talk until my face is
blue, but he’s never going to
change things for my conven-
ience.
Nor will the sun. The sun, the
reason we have all reset our
clocks in the first place, will now
be directly in my face on the way
home each night for a month.
Why, oh why, did someone think
making streets that go east and
west was a good idea? Is city
planning really that hard? I can’t
even see whether the stoplight
by the grocery store is green or
red. Now I keep in the glove com-
partment that smoked piece of
glass that I used to watch the last
solar eclipse. It comes in handy
on the drive home.
Sue thinks my theory about
detecting the first sign of spring
doesn’t hold water. “Everybody
knows the first sign of spring is
when the snowbirds return,” she
says. “They’re never wrong.”
Contact Jim Mullen at Jim-
MullenBooks. com.
Jim Mullen
The Village Idiot
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Todaro, Nick. The Ennis Daily News (Ennis, Tex.), Ed. 1 Friday, March 1, 2013, newspaper, March 1, 2013; Ennis, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth771961/m1/4/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Ennis Public Library.