Paddock Family Reunion

Paddock Family Reunion—June 18-24

No matter how far we travel, Colorado will always be home for us. There is a very good chance we will be buried in Kansas, but Colorado will always be home. We still have family there and it is not possible to undo 45 years of living there.

Arletta let it be known that it was time for a family reunion. Her concern was for grandchildren that are growing up and leaving home. She felt that this year might be the last year we could get everyone together in one spot. Grand Junction is the logical place. That is central to California where Becca is and to those of us who live in Oklahoma and Kansas. Vicki was able to get good prices on tickets from Alaska, so Grand Junction was a good spot for her as well. The Paddock children took on the responsibility of planning and organizing the entire event and did a great job.

Our activities began Thursday night with an evening visit at Tad's. Our newest great-granddaughter, Ollie, was there and we delight to see her and the other members of the family who had driven or flown in. My evening was spent trying to locate a lost hotel reservation. Holiday Inn had my confirmation number but no room or hotel to match the number. Bottom line—no place to stay. But a humble servant of Holiday Inn somewhere in Pakistan found us reservations in a brand new hotel in Grand Junction. He did ask if I were depressed or suicidal because they were looking for truck drivers. When we got there it had been open all of three days.

The big excitement began on Friday when we caravanned out to Highline Lake near Loma, Colorado. We used to joke about the Loma Mall which was basically a country store. We also joked about the Loma International airport. A favorite story of mine about the airport goes like this: They were testing a new jet plane larger than the 747. (In fact, the Russians went on to build this plane. You can see it online). They fired up the plane and it started down the runway with a huge cloud of black smoke billowing out of the engines. All of a sudden the engines died and the plane came to a stop at the end of the runway. The engineers for the Loma Institute of Technology ran down the runway to find out what happened. The pilot rolled down the window and his voice boomed out over the desert—"Ran out of coal."

When we lived in Colorado in the 1970s and 80s the Highline Lake was a large puddle in the midst of sagebrush with a sand fringe around the edge. We had a lot of fun at the lake, but it was no paradise. By 2009 some dramatic changes had occurred. Grass had been planted, trees grown up, restrooms, and outdoor tables and shelters all over the place. It even boasts a nice campground for overnights. At 10:00 am the campground was full. The day was cool and the water cold. Still the children enjoyed playing in the water while the older generation sat around, ate and talked over old times. We stayed until 5:00 pm at the Lake and then retired to Tad's for the evening.

Saturday morning found us again at Goodpastures for another great breakfast. We took the Mercedes with a Hemi to a great car wash that took 9 minutes to do the wash, but when it was done the car was spotless. We had picked up a good deal of road crud on the trip from Denver to Grand Junction. Eventually we were back to Tad's for more visiting and final preparations for the Family Picnic at the Long Family Memorial Park near Central High School. Several years ago William Long gave the county the acreage for a huge park next to Central High School. The park is ½ mile long and a quarter mile wide. But the catch to the gift was simple. The county had three years to develop the park or the land reverted to the family. The county got on the ball and built a beautiful park complete with walking paths, sports' facilities, and picnic shelters.

The guest list at the family picnic included all of our children, their spouses, and grandchildren, except for one spouse and two grandchildren. Of course we had our first great-granddaughter there. All of my sister's children (Susan died several years ago) were there. Some of the Linscotts live in the Grand Junction area and one daughter, Debbie, drove in from Oregon. We had a chance to catch up on the lives of these nieces and nephews. We also met some of the new additions to this part of the family. All were doing well. My only brother, Doug and his wife Tommye were there. Arletta's older sister, Chrissie, came with some of her children. One of Marty's old buddies, Scot Bell, came to visit. And then a great surprise, Chris Clark, came to the reception. We were glad to see him again. It was a cold day in Grand Junction even in June and we finally went home around 5:30.

Sunday was the highlight of the reunion for me. We went to church at the Clifton Christian Church. My spiritual roots are in that church. We saw a few old friends including Eleanor Burckhalter who invited me to church in 1957. I owe her a huge debt of gratitude. In church I had my entire family, including most of the grandchildren. It was a powerful moment.

Sunday afternoon Tad fired up the grill and did his usual great job of grilling steaks. We took family pictures and then the party began to break up. Marty and Alisha and their crew started for Kansas. Arletta and I left for Moab Utah to spend time with my brother.

I want to offer a special thanks to our children for putting together a wonderful time. It was the greatest gift they could have given.

CO2 and Global Warming--Christian Science Monitor

Don't treat C02 as a pollutant

From higher energy bills to lost jobs, the impact of carbon regulations will hurt us far more than CO2 itself ever could.

By Mark W. Hendrickson

from the June 23, 2009 edition

Print this Letter to the Editor Email and share E-mail newsletters RSS

GROVE CITY, PA. - A few days before this year's Earth Day, America's ideological greens received a present they have been desiring for years: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – responding to a 2007 US Supreme Court ruling – officially designated carbon dioxide (CO2) as a pollutant. That spurred Democrats in Congress to push a major climate change bill. In the next 25 years, their massive cap-and-trade scheme would, according to a Heritage Foundation study, inflict gross domestic product losses of $9.4 trillion, raise an average family's energy bill by $1,241, and destroy some 1,145,000 jobs. Democrats want it passed by July 4.

Get ready for a veritable Pandora's box of complications.

A generation ago, it was considered great progress against pollution when catalytic converters were added to automobile engines to change poisonous carbon monoxide to benign carbon dioxide. Now, CO2 has been demoted.

The EPA's characterization of CO2 as a pollutant brings into question the natural order of things. By the EPA's logic, either God or Mother Nature (whichever creator you believe in) seriously goofed. After all, CO2 is the base of our food chain. "Pollutants" are supposed to be harmful to life, not helpful to it, aren't they?

Of course, it is true (although environmentalists often ignore it when trying to ban such useful chemicals as pesticides, insecticides, Alar, PCBs, and others) that "the dose makes the poison." Too much oxygen, for example, poses danger to human life. So what is the "right" concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere? There is no right answer to this question. The concentration of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere fluctuated greatly long before humans appeared on Earth, and that concentration has fluctuated since then, too.

The current concentration is approximately 385 parts per million. Some scientists maintain that 1,000 parts per million would provide an ideal atmosphere for plant life, accelerating plant growth and multiplying yields, thereby sustaining far more animal and human life than is currently possible. Whatever standard the EPA selects will be arbitrary.

"Forget about the plants," say the greens. "What we're trying to control is how warm Earth's atmosphere gets." To which I reply, "With all due respect, are you kidding me?"

As with a "right" concentration of CO2, what is the "right" average global temperature? For 7,000 of the past 10,000 years, Earth was cooler than it is now; mankind prospers more in warm climates than cold climates; and the Antarctic icecap was significantly larger during the warmer mid-Holocene period than it is today. Are you sure warmer is bad or wrong?

And how do you propose to regulate Earth's temperature when as much as three-quarters of the variability is due to variations in solar activity, with the remaining one-quarter due to changes in Earth's orbit, axis, and albedo (reflectivity)? This truly is "mission impossible." Mankind can no more regulate Earth's temperature than it can the tides.

Even if the "greenhouse effect" were greater than it actually is, the EPA and Congress would be powerless to alter it for several reasons:

1. Human activity accounts for less than 4 percent of global CO2 emissions.

2. CO2 itself accounts for only 10 or 20 percent of the greenhouse effect. This discloses the capricious nature of the EPA's decision to classify CO2 as a pollutant, for if CO2 is a pollutant because it is a greenhouse gas, then the most common greenhouse gas of all – water vapor, which accounts for more than three-quarters of the atmosphere's greenhouse effect – should be regulated, too. The EPA isn't going after water vapor, of course, because then everyone would realize how absurd climate-control regulation really is.

3. Even if Americans were to eliminate their CO2 emissions completely, total human emissions of CO2 would still increase as billions of people around the world continue to develop economically.

Clearly, it is beyond the ken of mortals to answer the metaquestions about the right concentration of CO2, or the optimal global average temperature, or to control CO2 levels in the atmosphere. I feel sorry for the professionals at the EPA who are now expected to come up with answers for these unanswerable questions.

However, I do not feel sorry for the political appointees, like climate czar Carol Browner, because it looks as if they are about to get what they evidently want – the power to increase their power over Americans' lives and pocketbooks via CO2 emission regulations.

From higher energy bills to lost jobs, the impact of CO2 regulations will hurt us far more than CO2 itself ever could. Let's nail shut the lid on this Pandora's box before it swings wide open.

Mark W. Hendrickson is an adjunct faculty member, economist, and contributing scholar with The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College, where this essay was first published.

John Grisham’s The Appeal

I am a faithful John Grisham fan. I have enjoyed every book he has written. That holds true for his book The Appeal. I would encourage you to read the book in background for the article that I am putting into this post on my blog. What John Grisham reminds us is that justice is being bought and sold in our country just like every other political aspect from the presidency to the local commissioners. If I really want to have a voice in government then a nice campaign gift opens the door to my opinions and if necessary, my protection in legal matters. But read the book. John Grisham does a much better job of telling the story than me.

Here is the article from Associated Press, dated June 8, 2009. Dateline: Washington [D.C.]

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that elected judges must step aside from cases when large campaign contributions from interested parties create the appearance of bias.

By a 5-4 vote in a case from West Virginia, the court said that a judge who remained involved in a lawsuit filed against the company of the most generous supporter of his election deprived the other side of the constitutional right to a fair trial.

With multimillion dollar judicial election campaigns on the rise, the court's decision could have widespread significance. Justice at Stake, which tracks campaign spending in judicial elections, says judges are elected in 39 states and the candidates for the highest state courts have raised $168 million since 2000.

The West Virginia case involved more than $3 million spent by the chief executive of Massey Energy Co. to help elect state Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin. At the time, Massey was appealing a verdict, which now totals $82.7 million with interest, in a dispute with a local coal company. Benjamin refused to step aside from the case, despite repeated requests, and was part of a 3-2 decision to overturn the verdict.

"Not every campaign contribution by a litigant or attorney creates a probability of bias that requires a judge's recusal, but this is an exceptional case," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court.