The Monahans News

Area Newspapers

ARCHIVES
Archives 98


Links to News Photos


|

Weekly Newspaper and Tourism Guide for Ward County Trans Pecos, Big Bend of West Texas

Opinion

July 23, 1998

Monahan's Well

By Jerry Curry


Anti-tobacco federal and state bureaucrats are angry. They're mad
enough to spit. Once more, they have been caught lying.

The poor dupes who consider every statement from the anti-tobacco
hysterics to be the Word of God are confused. Some dupes reportedly are
beginning to think. Thinking is dangerous. Thinking scares those who
have bilked and milked millions of dollars in taxes and donations to
finance the continuing balderdash barrage on tobacco use by consenting
adults.

What has caused this stuttering response by the bureaucrats, personified
by Carol Browner, director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency?
The answer: A judge holds the EPA 1993 Second Hand Smoking Report is
not worth the paper on which it is printed.

Carol Browner does not like U.S. District Judge William Osteen of North
Carolina. She says the federal government will appeal. She says,
according to the Associated Press, "The decision is disturbing. We
believe the health threats to children and adults from breathing second
hand smoke are very real."

Browner took part in establishing the lie which she, apparently, now
believes.

A lot of people don't like Osteen this week. These people include those
making big bucks from enforcing all those spurious rules and
regulations prohibiting smoking in the work place, in public buildings,
in private businesses, in restaurants, in airplanes.

Donna Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services, commented in an
interview on the Fox News Network: "No one wants to go back to smoking
on airplanes, smoking in restaurants; .No one wants to go back to
polluting indoors." Shalala does not claim the judge's ruling is
wrong. She does not defend the 1993 Second Hand Smoking Report because
she knows it is a lie. She says what she believes and assumes everyone
else agrees.

That 1993 report concluded second-hand tobacco smoke is a major
carcinogen Anyone who wandered by a dumbbell science class in junior
high and who reads the document knows this: The report is mostly
fiction seasoned with fantasy, especially when it says second hand
tobacco smoke caues more than 3000 lung cancer deaths a year.

Now Judge Osteen rules the EPA report is bad science based on bad
data and the aggressive bias of those who prepared it.

This report was used to bolster anti-smoking regulations based on a
federal law whose official title is The 1986 Radon Gas and Indoor Air
Quality Research Act. The judge says this law cannot be used to
enforce dictates against second hand smoke even if evidence existed,
which it does not. This law is about radon, proven in replicated and
valid studies, to be a danger. This law does not speak to tobacco,
carboxyhemglobin, nicotine or hobgoblins. The judge says the
bureaucrats "publicly committed to a conclusion before (second-hand
smoking) research had begun."



Horse show dollars well spent


David Tucker of the Monahans Quarter Horse Association was making a
point about the Monahans Quarter Horse Shows scheduled this weekend at
the Ward County Coliseum and Arena.

That point is the 70 horse stalls at the show grounds are not enough.
In addition, the stalls that do exist are not adequate for the horses
stabled in them. Some, built originally for much smaller animals,
simply are not large enough to provide for the larger quarter horse of
today. Tucker says there needs to be major renovation at the Ward
County Coliseum and Arena to provide better and more space for the
quarter horses that come to Ward County for the quarter horse shows.

Of course, that costs money, maybe $100,000, and one way in which that
money can be found is the Ward County general fund. Ward County
commissioners currently are in the midst of budget workshops, as are
other governmental bodies, preparing budgets for the next fiscal year.

Tucker says, and we agree, a few dollars need to be found in the county
budget to upgrade and enhance the horse stalls at the coliseum out on
Fort Stockton Highway.

Pearson Cooper of MQHA has made this point in the past. Tucker, who is
the show manager at the MQHA horse shows this weekend, wants to
underline what Cooper repeatedly has noted.

The Monahans Quarter Horse Association shows bring riders, animals and
money to Ward County. The larger the numbers of people and animals the
larger the return to Monahans area business. County dollars spent on
upgrading and expanding horse stalls at the coliseum will be returned a
thousandfold. Such an effort will allow the horse shows continuing
expansion, attracting more competitors who will spend more money.
.

Mayor out-stares TU Electric


Executives of TU Electric cut a deal with the Ward County Appraisal
Review Board and now TU will pay a few dollars less in taxes. It can be
argued legitimately TU blinked because Monahans Mayor David Cutbirth
rattled the saber of annexation . For those of you who asked, yes, the
mayor meant what he said. Cutbirth warned it was time the city of
Monahans annexed the land on which the TU Permian Power Plant is
located. After annexation comes city property taxes to add to those
already collected on the TU land by the schools and county, Cutbirth
noted.

Now this TU Electric tax protest firefight is over. TU Electric was
and remains a valued community asset. The utility's county-school
district tax bill still totals more than $2 million.



Search Entire Site:

Copyright 1998 by Ward Newspapers, Inc.
Joe Warren, Publisher
107 W. Second St., Monahans TX 79756
Phone 915-943-4313, FAX 915-943-4314
e-mail monnews@ultravision.net

Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium.

Copyright 1998 by Ward Newspapers Inc.