PECOS ENTERPRISE

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OPINION

May 2, 1997

OBSERVATIONS


By Mac McKinnon

Clinton puzzles me;
are you puzzled too?


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What do you think about President Clinton? I'd like people to e-mail
the Pecos Enterprise with your opinion and we'll put your opinions on
the our community page on the Internet as well as some of the opinions
on this page.

That e-mail address is news@bitstreet.com or you can fax it to us at
915-445-4321.

The reason I ask this question is that I'm kind of puzzled about my own
feelings for him as our president. I didn't support him in the election
because of these feelings.

However, I admit he has done many good things. He is of my generation
so I want to support him. He seems to do and say the right things but in
doing so, he seems as cold as a dead fish. I don't see or feel true
emotion. It seems like pure politics.

Of course, he could be like some people accuse me of being in that I
don't seem emotional on the outside although I'm a seething cauldron on
the inside.

Clinton comes across that way. I've not liked his wife as she really
comes across in a grating way to me.

Another reason I'm asking all this is because of the Whitewater scandal
and all that has happened to the many others involved. Hillary really
looks likes she's in it up to her neck and sinking fast.

Of course with the President, there are other allegations including the
fund raising scandals that just keep surfacing since the last election.
Giving him the benefit of the doubt, it would seem that he probably
didn't know about many of the schemes to raise money.

However, he is bound to have known about the contributions that enabled
people to spend the night in the Lincoln bedroom. That is really a
privilege. I'd like free access to the White House myself, as it is such
an historic place, I'd like to see it all.

I took a tour of it once and am scheduled to do so again this summer,
but that's under controlled circumstances. The public tours don't get to
see the living quarters of the presidents.

And of course, there are the scandals involving women with the
president. Men being what we are sometimes don't alway behave in the
best fashion and make mistakes.

However, to do so by using power of a position is in my mind totally
wrong. People in politics have a difficult time resisting this
temptation as do the women who who drawn to power.

I can understand the President for having faults and making mistakes,
which we all do, but there seems to be many too many of such instances.
What's even more puzzling is that the public seems to not care about
these situations.

What has happened to our sense of outrage that was obvious after the
Watergate scandal with President Nixon and problems with other
individuals in public office?

As I said, I'm rather puzzled.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Mac McKinnon is editor and publisher of the Pecos
Enterprise. His column appears on Friday.

YOUR VIEWS

Bogus lien filing may be terrorist act


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Dear Editor:
It is my understanding the Republic of Texas may have a criminal
pattern of filing bogus liens against citizens who disagreed with the
Republic's politics. the Republic's pattern of filing bogus liens
against innocent citizens may constitute a criminal pattern of terrorist
or racketeering activity to further the organization's political
objectives. Please see Title 18 USC, sec. 2331 definition of terrorist
acts.

The Montana Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney failed to allege in
their complaints against the Freeman a pattern of criminal racketeering
to further a political objective.

Instead, Montana and the Federal Government charged the Freemen with
independent garden variety crimes, i.e., Montana freeman classes on how
to create and file bogus liens, write fake cashier checks and other
bogus financial instruments. Consequently, bogus liens filed against
innocent citizens has become a mainstay of extremist right-wing groups.

Will Texas falso fail to include this pattern of alleged crimes in
their criminal complaints against the Republic of Texas?

--Robert Striker
Sacramento, Calif.

YOUR VIEWS

Occasional mistake OK for web site reader


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Dear Editor:
I found your web site a month ago and have enjoyed being able to keep up
with the home town gossip on a daily basis. Thanks.

Terry Metcalf
P.S. I don't mind an occasional mistake.

YOUR VIEWS

KUDOS to Enterprise for hometown website


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Dear Editor:
I work in the telecomm industry and I am so GLAD to see my home town on
the Internet. KUDOS to you who helped to make this happen!!!

Saul Roquemore, Jr.

FOCUS ON THE FAMILY

Teens hate those who love them most


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BY Dr. JAMES DOBSON"

QUESTION: Our 15-year-old son literally seethes with hostility at
home--at his mother and me, at his sisters, and at the world. Believe
me, we have done nothing to provoke this anger, and I don't understand
what has caused it.

But other parents of teens report the same problem. Why are so many
adolescents angry at their parents and families?

Sometimes they seem to hate the people who love them the most!

DR. DOBSON: At least part of the answer to that question can be
explained by the "in-between" stages of teenagers. They live in an era
when they enjoy neither the privileges of adulthood nor the advantages
of childhood.

Consider the plight of the average 15-year-old. All of the highly
advertised adult privileges and vices are forbidden to him because he is
"too young." He can't drive or marry or enlist or drink or smoke or work
or leave home. And his sexual desires are denied gratification at a time
when they scream for release.

The only thing he is permitted to do, it seems, is stay in school and
read his dreary textbooks. This is an overstatement, of course, but it
is expressed from the viewpoint of the young man or woman who feels
disenfranchised and insulted by society.

Much of the anger of today's youth is generated by their perception of
this injustice.

There is another side to this issue of adolescent volatility. I'm now
convinced that the hormonal changes occurring in a developing body may
be more important to feelings than we thought earlier. Just as a woman's
emotions are set on edge by premenstrual tension, menopause and extreme
fatigue, it is entirely possible that the adolescent experience is
largely hormonal as well.

How else can we explain the universality of emotional instability
during these years? Having watched thousands of children sail from
childhood to early adolescence, it still amazes me to witness textbook
characteristics suddenly appearing on schedule as though responding to a
pre-programmed computer.

_
QUESTION: Alright, so my kid feels disrespected and hostile. I still
have to impose some limits and discipline on him, don't I?

DR. DOBSON: Yes, but it is possible to lead teenagers without insulting
and antagonizing them unnecessarily.

I learned this lesson when I was a junior high school teacher. It
became clear to me very early that I could impose all manner of
discipline and strict behavioral requirements, provided I treat each
young person with genuine dignity and respect.

I earned their friendship before and after school, during lunch and
through classroom encounters. I was tough, especially when challenged,
but never discourteous, mean or insulting. I defended the underdog and
tenaciously tried to build each child's confidence and self-respect.

However, I never compromised my standards of deportment. Students
entered my classroom without talking each day. They did not chew gum,
behave disrespectfully, curse or stab one another with ball point pens.
I was clearly the captain of the ship, and I directed it with military
zeal.

The result of this combination of kindness and firm discipline stands
as one of the most pleasant memories of my professional life. I loved my
students, and I had every reason to believe that I was loved in return.
I actually missed them on weekends (a fact my wife never quite
understood).

At the end of the final year when I was packing my books and saying
goodbye, 25 or 30 teary-eyed kids hung around my gloomy room for several
hours and finally stood sobbing in the parking lot as I drove away. And
yes, I shed a few tears of my own that day.

(Please forgive this self-congratulatory paragraph. I haven't bothered
to tell you about my failures, which are far less interesting.)

EDITOR'S NOTE: These questions and answers are excerpted from the book
Dr. Dobson Answers Your Questions. Dr. James Dobson is a psychologist,
author and president of Focus on the Family, a nonprofit organization
dedicated to the preservation of the home. Correspondence to Dr. Dobson
should be addressed to: Focus on the Family, P.O. Box 444, Colorado
Springs, CO 80903.
(c), 1982, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

OTHER VIEWS

Reno defies reason in fund-raising flap


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Can the American people trust Attorney General Janet Reno to conduct a
thorough probe of potentially illegal acts by her bosses in the White
House?

... Nearly 20 years ago, amid the aftershock of Watergate, Congress
correctly concluded that the Justice Department has a monumental
conflict of interest when it comes to prosecuting the president and
other top administration officials.

That's why lawmakers provided for the appointment of independent
prosecutors to investigate wrongdoing by senior government executives.

But the attorney general is curiously - and adamantly - opposed to
seeking a special prosecutor to probe the campaign fund-raising scandal
that has engulfed President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and others
in the White House. Her refusal once again recently to turn the
investigation over to an outside counsel defies a mountain of evidence
that laws were broken in the administration's lust for cash to finance
the president's re-election bid. ...
Roswell (N.M.) Daily Record
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_


Copyright 1997 by Pecos Enterprise
Division of Buckner News Alliance, Inc.
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 915-445-5475, FAX 915-445-4321
e-mail news@bitstreet.com
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