Crestview schools are back in session starting Wednesday, so please drive carefully to ensure our students have a safe year.

Judging by the weather, summer is still in full swing; it is still hot and humid outside. Unfortunately, summertime pests are still with us: flies, mosquitoes, ants and copperhead snakes, as is the two-legged type of snake — scammers looking for ways to defraud and steal our hard-earned money.

I have lived here many years and still haven't figured out the solution to summer flies. Unfortunately, I am not quick enough to kill them with a fly swatter, so I rely on sticky fly strips and my husband, Jim, to swat them.

Imagine my popularity with Jim when we found ants in our bed, courtesy of my feeding the cats their canned food on the bed and then putting the used cans in a bag next to me on the floor to take out the next day.

It didn't take the ants long to find those seemingly empty cans, nor did it take them long to begin to bite me in earnest. (Note to self: put the empty cat food cans outside in the trash if you don't want to be a yummy treat for the ants.)

I really itch, but at least they aren't fire ant bites.

Here's another warning. Some of our fellow church members who live in the country have been finding copperhead snakes in their yards. Carefully watch where you walk, and be aware of any areas in which your children and pets play. Cautiously walk these areas first to make sure they are snake-free.

About those other "flies": I just received a bulletin from the IRS stating that the summer has brought out scam artists who are once again using robo-calls and leaving threatening messages for immediate payment of back taxes.

Some messages request you call back and verify your tax return information. Do not call them back and give out any personal information.

The IRS never demands immediate payment over the phone and never in the form of gift cards or iTunes cards.

If you receive a threatening call demanding payment or saying an arrest warrant will be issued or some other dire consequence, immediately hang up and call the IRS directly at 800-829-1040.

Janice Lynn Crose, a former accountant, lives in Crestview with her husband, Jim; her two rescue collies, Shane and Jasmine; and two cats, Kathryn and Prince Valiant.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: CROSE: Summertime pests are out in force

After watching the two major-party conventions and the aftermath from each, many Americans find themselves wondering how they ended up with these two candidates for president.

It’s simple. They chose them.

Somehow, the candidates other people vote for always seem to become the party’s candidate.

Then, good people who believe in their party more than the other — despite the candidate’s name on the ballot — are left to make excuses for every crazy thing the less unfavorable candidate believes, says or does.

So, with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton dominating their foes, you have to ask why no candidates ran that were better.

Think about it. Would you run?

From the beginning of time, there has been negative campaigning. People even ran a negative campaign against Jesus. Matthew records them saying, “Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”

American politics has also always been rough.

In 1804 — less than three decades after the Declaration of Independence was signed — Vice President Aaron Burr killed former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel after a feud between the two boiled over. The duel helped kill the Federalist Party, too.

Burr’s political career was ruined.

Eighty years later, the country’s political discourse hadn’t evolved much. Republicans of 1884 nominated James Blaine, who had been involved in several scandals and alienated a big portion of his party including the Mugwumps. If his third wife had been featured in a nude lesbian photo shoot, it would have been almost identical to 2016.

His opponent was also scandal ridden. Stop me if this sounds familiar. Grover Cleveland hadn’t destroyed 30,000 emails. However, he had been accused of fathering a child out of wedlock — a child who bore his last name and for whom he paid child support. Blaine’s supporters were instructed to chant “Ma, Ma, where’s your pa?” at rallies and parades where Cleveland campaigned.

When Cleveland won the election, his supporters began responding with “Gone to the White House! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Does that sound familiar for this year’s Democratic candidate? Hillary Clinton’s husband could have fathered a child with another woman while in the White House.

Everyone who knows anything about Bill Clinton knows that nude photos may not exist, but his White House briefings sometimes didn’t happen with him wearing briefs.

As bad as our history is, our present isn’t much better.

Thanks to the internet and a 24-hour news cycle, that negativity has never been more pervasive or more destructive. That’s why you end up with less than stellar candidates. The good candidates don’t want to run and subject themselves to that.

Ted Cruz isn’t even a good person, and I feel bad for him because Trump called his wife ugly and said his father killed John F. Kennedy on national television.

Trump and Clinton are beating each other up constantly. They are doing such a good job that a huge portion of the electorate is wishing they had other options.

However, if you think a large number of people are going to support a third-party candidate, you are wrong.

Yes, Clinton and Trump have massive unfavorable ratings in polls. Because of that, many of your friends on Facebook and Twitter find themselves believing that a third-party candidate like Gary Johnson of the Libertarians or Jill Stein of the Green Party have a real chance this year.

That is not the case.

If either of them developed enough traction even to get included in a debate, they would become the targets of horrible press attacks as well. The money is unlimited, and you would find out things about them you never knew — some of them might even be true.

Everyone knows that Libertarians favor marijuana legalization. That’s kind of their calling card.

How do they feel about harder drugs? Do you know that many Libertarians believe that prostitution is a victimless crime? Trust me, even if your wife is a Libertarian, you better not try that excuse if what happened in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas.

Before the dark money groups were finished, Stein would be called anti-environment and Johnson would be accused of climbing mountains to dodge taxes.

To be a top candidate in 2016 requires a person to be emotionally bankrupt. Narcissism and megalomania are prerequisites to survive the horrific campaign tactics and personal attacks that are now just part of the job.

We shouldn’t wonder how we got candidates this bad. We should wonder how we got any candidates at all.

Kent Bush is publisher of Shawnee (Oklahoma) News-Star and can be reached at kent.bush@news-star.com.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: BUSH: Why would anyone run for president?

Hopefully, for a couple of weeks, Americans can rally behind our athletes and experience unity and national pride.

The teams who do well in Rio de Janeiro will be the teams who are unified. Unity means working together, helping each other, speaking well of each other and to each other.

This means having a good spirit, a good attitude and relaying manners and congeniality. This stuff helps teams win.

Division and animosity divide and defeat. The latter is what we see so much of in America.

Democrats have had their share of diversity with emails, controversies, and the many people who have supported Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton.

The Republican Party takes the cake this year in division. If Trump loses the election — polls indicate that could happen — it will be because Republicans just simply will not find a way to embrace and help each other. Even the Bible teaches us that a divided house cannot stand.

Division has always existed as a part of life. This is certainly one reason we have two major political parties and additional parties such as the Libertarians and others. We are divided and have different ideas. Counties divide over issues, as do states. We divide on healthcare, guns, military, welfare and much more. We divide on religion.

There is too much resentment, finger pointing and hate in religious groups today. However, the churches and groups who have embraced love and unity are doing well.

Division ends multiple marriages today. People find it easier than ever to walk away from marriage. Many people will go through two or three marriages and more before life is over.

While often there is no other way than divorce, generally it doesn't spell prosperity. Many never financially recoup one divorce, and then to add other divorces seldom spells lasting financial security. However, of course, it is better to divorce than to destruct — or so it seems.

Why can't we all just work it out and get along?

We cringe when we see sports teams hassling among themselves; unable to play together and win.

We cringe when we see Trump, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney and these big boys act like babies.

Please get over it and grow up. Pull together, play as a team and at least make your party proud.

There is one key rule to any success in America: unity. Enough people have to pull together to make victory happen. When enough people get on the same team, pulling in the same direction, success and victory will happen.

Glenn Mollette is an American syndicated columnist and author.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: MOLLETTE: What Republicans can learn from the Olympics

In modern politics, party conventions aren’t about selecting the nominee; voters take care of that through primaries and caucuses.

Conventions are for firing up the party for the campaign ahead, and for reintroducing its candidate to voters who haven’t made up their minds.

That’s especially important this year, when both the Republican and Democratic nominees start off with record disapproval rates.

REPUBLICANS’ RESERVATIONS

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump could both use a fresh start with skeptical voters. That may have been what Trump was thinking when reporters from The New York Times asked what he hoped people would take away from his party’s convention.

He responded with uncharacteristic, Willy Loman-esque modesty: “The fact that I’m very well liked.”

But Trump is not well-liked by Sen. Ted Cruz, who seemed to relish not endorsing Trump in his convention speech. Cruz’s act of rebellion brought boos from the crowd and became the kind of headline convention managers hate to see.

It may not have bothered Trump, however, who seems to enjoy picking fights more than ending them.

Trump was well-liked by enough delegates to vote down half-hearted attempts by the “NeverTrump” gang to overturn primary results. But plenty of them have reservations about their nominee. Senior Republicans who took the stage — Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio — were barely able to acknowledge Trump’s success, let alone vouch for his character.

More important are reservations of top Republicans who pointedly stayed from Trump’s convention.

Most notable in that large and distinguished group is Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who didn’t even welcome his party’s delegates to his home state. The Trump gang may not have missed him this week, but they will in the fall. No state is more important to Republicans’ success than Ohio, and it will be hard for them to win it without its popular Republican governor lending a hand.

ANATOMY OF A CONVENTION

A convention is a reflection on its nominee, and the #RNCinCLE suited Trump’s personality. It was light on policy and heavy on rhetoric of fear.

The boycott by former GOP presidents, nominees and other luminaries meant Trump didn’t have to share the spotlight he craves only for himself.

The convention, like its nominee, made little effort to hide its conspiracy-mongering, racist, authoritarian fringe, and Trump’s bare-bones organization failed to check Melania’s speech for plagiarism, focus other speakers on the daily messages it wished to convey or get balloons to fall on cue.

People who pay for GOP conventions and campaigns were absent. Big lobbies like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have split with Trump over his anti-trade and anti-immigration policies.

Corporate defections left the convention with a $6 million budget gap, and a last-minute appeal to billionaire donor Sheldon Adelson to bridge the gap went unanswered.

Trump, allegedly a billionaire, wouldn’t pony up the cash either, so his convention was lacking in big-name entertainment and other frills.

But Trump is certainly well-liked by his family. Convincing the country of that must have been a top goal, since one or two Trumps gave speeches every night of the convention.

Their endorsements may have helped humanize him for voters, and they gave supporters a reason to praise him.

‘YOU CAN’T FAKE GOOD KIDS’

Vice presidential nominee Mike Pence, a former Cruz supporter whose well-received acceptance speech was overshadowed by the Cruz drama, said it was Trump’s children who convinced him to join the ticket.

“You can’t fake good kids,” he said.

“Any man that has those four kids on stage is not a risk to anybody anywhere,” Ron Kaufman, the longtime GOP operative who chaired the Massachusetts delegation, gushed. “And anybody who’d be smart enough, lucky enough to marry that gracious, elegant woman who in my opinion, as a Massachusetts guy, is an image of Jackie Kennedy as far as grace and elegance and decency, is a home run.”

Having someone else vouch for you is one good way to reintroduce yourself, and Trump’s family was more convincing in their endorsements than most of the GOP politicians who took the stage.

But at the end, the candidate speaks for himself. Trump’s acceptance speech, which should have been his crowning moment, was dark, disjointed and too long.

It appealed to fear and resentment, not aspirations. The speech had no humor, no grace, no new ideas or even new phrasing. It’s as if Trump decided he’d win over undecided voters by saying the same things, only louder.

THE HILLARY CHALLENGE

Now it’s Hillary Clinton’s turn to reintroduce herself, and her challenge is even tougher. Voters have known her for 25 years, and many decided long ago they can’t trust her, an impression reinforced by the FBI’s blistering report on her handling of emails as Secretary of State.

Clinton will build lots of themes into her convention in Philadelphia: The struggles of the middle class, the virtues of experience, the fear of Trump.

She’ll have a lineup of political all-stars to vouch for her — Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren — and her own family members, Chelsea and Bill.

She’ll need others to vouch for her as well. I imagine a video presentation featuring a dozen people — a 9/11 survivor, a soldier, a refugee, a mom, and Beyonce, for instance — taking turns explaining a problem Hillary helped solve or a cause they worked on together. They can say how well Hillary listened, how hard she worked, how much she knew and how effective she had been.

Then they could take the trust issue head-on, with lines like “I’ve known Hillary Clinton for 30 years. I’d trust her with my money and I’d trust her with my kids. Most of all, I’d trust her with my country.”

Can a production like that make voters see Hillary in a new light?

Maybe.

The Republican convention didn’t introduce us to a new, more presidential, Donald Trump. Now the Democrats will try to give us a new, more likeable, Hillary Clinton.

Rick Holmes writes for GateHouse Media. He can be reached at rholmes@wickedlocal.com.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: HOLMES: Will Clinton’s reintroduction be more successful than Trump’s?

In the aftermath of the horrific slaughter of patrons at an LGBT club in Orlando — the worst mass shooting in American history — we have learned that the homicide rate in major cities across the country also rose dramatically in 2015.

The homicide increase in the nation’s big cities in 2015 “was real and nearly unprecedented,” according to a newly released National Institute of Justice report.

The report’s author, criminologist Richard Rosenfeld of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said “homicide rates in a sample of 56 large U.S. cities rose by an average of 16.8 percent last year over 2014.”

This is not just a big-city problem. Last year, The Atlantic reported that guns now kill more people under age 26 than automobile accidents. Couple that with the 353 mass shootings in the United States in 2015 — depending on the definition you use — and the crisis comes into focus.

According to the Dallas Morning News, using any definition, the likelihood of being caught in a mass shooting is exceedingly rare — but getting shot is not as rare as one might think. Each year in the United States, more than 32,000 people are killed, and more than 67,000 are injured by firearms.

As a result of Orlando’s catastrophic event and these alarming statistics, the American Medical Association has called gun violence a “public health crisis” and urged that Congress fund research into gun violence.

The AMA said this week it will press Congress to overturn 20-year-old legislation that blocks the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from conducting research on gun violence.

That lack of research is attributed to language in a 1996 appropriations bill that the CDC, lawmakers, and the media interpret as blocking the agency from research on firearm deaths and injuries. Some suggest that while Congress put constraints on the CDC, it did not ban the study of gun violence. Instead, they say, senior CDC brass made the choice to restrict gun research, rather than risk political retribution. Whatever the reason, research is lacking and people are dying as a result.

Dr. Steven Stack, AMA president, told Reuters, “Even as America faces a crisis unrivaled in any other developed country … Congress prohibits the CDC from conducting the very research that would help us understand the problems associated with gun violence and determine how to reduce the high rate of firearm-related deaths and injuries.”

Why should every American be concerned about gun violence?

There is a real and growing problem with gun violence in this country. Ten big cities produced two-thirds of the homicide increase in 2015; they also experienced a far larger percentage increase than the 56-city sample. The percentage increases in the top 10 ranged from a frightening 90.5 percent increase in murders in Cleveland to a more modest, yet alarming, 12.9 percent in Philadelphia.

The average homicide increase over 2014 in the top 10 was 33.3 percent, compared with a 16.8 percent rise for the sample as a whole.

According to the report, one-year increases of this magnitude in the nation’s large cities, although not unknown, are very rare.

The increase in 2015 was greater than 95 percent of the yearly increases these cities had experienced during the previous three decades. The report suggests that these increases, “If not unprecedented … certainly (deserve) further scrutiny.”

The AMA’s Stack sounded the alarm: “With approximately 30,000 men, women and children dying each year at the barrel of a gun in elementary schools, movie theaters, workplaces, houses of worship and on live television, the United States faces a public health crisis of gun violence.”

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C.

You can reach him at mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter, @MatthewTMangino.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: MANGINO: America faces ‘public health crisis of gun violence’

Higher education — because it is largely government-funded — has become an overpriced, failing proposition, full of left-leaning political cronies. And bloated colleges with tenured professors who seek to indoctrinate, rather than educate, diminish our country.

Higher education fraud is built on student loan debt. Since any 18-year-old who can fog a mirror can now get a Sallie Mae loan, our nation has more student loan debt than credit card debt ($1.2 trillion, with 7 million debtors in default). Parents’ basements are full of millennials with tons of debt, and employers in a weak job market are unwilling to hire knuckleheads. If free market economics’ tenets were applied to education, kids would not be tenants in their parents’ basements.

When you graduate from many colleges, it just means your check cleared. If you get into an Ivy League school these days, it generally means your parents — or affirmative action — got you in. Trump saw something missing in this racket of a government-funded education system: he wasn’t getting a cut. He tried to get into the business, doing a better job at it than most universities for a lower price. The students — including the lead plaintiff in the politically motivated case against his Trump University — gave him positive reviews.

Partisan prosecutors in NYC blast Trump University as a scam. Say what you will, but a degree from Trump U is worth more than a Gender Studies degree from Wellesley.

The media don’t tell you how the Clintons, smelling money, shook down the “higher education” system.

The Daily Caller — and a few other organizations still willing to practice journalism — offered a detailed report on how Bill Clinton was paid $16.5 million from a shell company that runs for-profit colleges. Hillary Clinton’s State Department funneled 55 million tax dollars to the Laureate Education Inc. founder’s non-profit in return. Aside from the obvious — Why is our State Department giving money to a college shell company “non-profit” that paid the Clintons millions? — where’s the media on this?

In 2015, Slick Willie abruptly resigned as “honorary chancellor” when the report came out. The con was up.

The Clinton scam was for a for-profit college, Laureate Education’s Walden University. According to Forbes, Walden was the biggest beneficiary of student loan borrowing in 2014, at $756 million. All of this is detailed in Peter Schweizer’s book “Clinton Cash.”

The game is easy. Like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae’s government-backed loans, which caused the great recession and the housing meltdown, easy federal money fuels the disaster. You just get regulators — government cronies — to approve your school. The feds then feed loan money to any stoner whom the college can talk into enrolling. There is no accountability as to your outcome. You keep the money, and the student and government — i.e., taxpayers — take the loan risk.

Laureate’s Walden schools have also been sued for dishonest practices. Trump’s “swing and a miss,” by a private sector businessman with his own money, had better intentions. Walden funneled money to Bill Clinton via the nefarious WJC LLC bank account so it would be hidden.

Laureate has been “ensnared in controversy all over the globe,” says Eric Owens, The Daily Caller’s education editor. The $16.5 million paid to Bill Clinton on the side was for him to legitimize the school and to get the State Department to fund it.

He got his money’s worth; the company has been valued at $3.8 billion. In a Senate investigation of Laureate, the Miami Herald noted that “more than half of Laureate’s online Walden University revenue went to marketing and profit.”

For most colleges, especially Laureate’s Walden University, the school mascot should be a virtual pigeon.

Ron Hart, a libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author, is a frequent guest on CNN. Contact him at Ron@RonaldHart.com or tweet@RonaldHart.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: HART:

●Obama tried to celebrate the fifth anniversary of his "legacy," Obamacare. His staff brought him a rich white chocolate cake with five candles on it. Instead of blowing out the candles, he ordered a DOJ investigation, and then taxed and regulated the candles until they gave up on their own.

●North Carolina, Texas and other Southern states sued the Obama administration on its sudden obsession with, and intrusive guidelines on, transgender "rights." The first black president is having his federal government tell Southerners which bathrooms they can use. To us Southerners, this seems way too much like payback. He knows this type of transgender in-your-face stuff makes the GOP nuts, so he keeps doing it. In Obama's last executive action, I see him making the Village People’s "YMCA" our national anthem.

●Hillary Clinton will not debate Bernie Sanders, so Donald Trump said he would. Some say it’s a promotional stunt and that Trump is getting way ahead of himself. The debate will take place at the Donald Trump Presidential Library, Golf Resort and Casino in Atlantic City.

●Obama continues pursuing his racial bucket list as a lame duck president. He has now officially banned the words "Oriental" and "Negro" in federal documents. The decree briefly caused concern in Atlanta until rap song writers realized they do not write federal documents.

●Hillary takes criticism well — just not of herself — and facts become less and less important to her over time. She got word of a scathing State Department Inspector General's report that confirms the illegality of what she did with her emails. She refused to be interviewed for this federal investigation, and said that, if they want her to speak, they will have to do what everyone else does: pay the Clinton Foundation $350,000 in small, unmarked bills.

●Trump still has not gained traction with Hispanics. Everyone presumes he will not do well with them in November because he wants to defend our borders and build a wall. Latinos even ridiculed him when he reached out to them on Cinco de Mayo with a tweet showing him eating a taco salad and saying he "loves the Mexicans." There might be a mixed message there. A taco salad is just a salad with a manmade wall around it.

●Trump continues to kill it in the ratings. A study said that couples watching TV turn up the volume when Trump comes on, because when you are married, turning off the television is not an option.

●Our nation had its first penis transplant last week in Boston. It was reported that the recipient is handling it well. No one knows who the donor is, but it is safe to say it’s someone from the Obama Administration's foreign policy team.

Ron Hart, a libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author, is a frequent guest on CNN. Contact him at Ron@RonaldHart.com or tweet@RonaldHart.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: HART: 8 notable moments in recent history

The manufactured debate on same-sex restroom use rights has sunk to predictable lows. This non-issue has been ginned up by the leftist media to corner GOP candidates on a silly, no-win issue. The right shouldn’t have taken the bait.

First, transgendered men who identify as such are only about .2 percent of the population. They have always been about two-tenths of 1 percent, and there have been almost no issues of them molesting girls by using the wrong bathroom.

Second, low-information folks conflate transgender people with pedophiles. Pedophiles are a different union. They lurk in your schools, churches and neighborhoods. Nothing stops them from going into a bathroom.

Third, the GOP is supposed to espouse limited government and fewer laws. Another law on the books that says you have to use the bathroom of the gender on your birth certificate is stupid. Our governments — which are already heavily in debt and tax us way too much — are to place police in bathrooms to check the birth certificates of those who want to enter? Really? Are we to station someone outside each bathroom to whom you must show your genitals?

This is like the left adding another unenforceable gun law after a school shooting. No "gun-free zone" signs at schools, theaters and government offices ever work; those are the places where mass shootings happen. This bathroom law will never work for the same reason.

Our rule should be: If you want a new law, take 10 existing laws off the books.

Like most stupid laws, the federal government will enforce them first. I suggest they name the transgender bathrooms at the FBI Building after J. Edgar Hoover, but given our education system, the irony would be lost on most.

So with a $20 trillion national debt and a government growing while the economy is not, we are really going to focus on bathrooms?

I am a big states’ rights person. But if your state is viewed as anti-gay or discriminatory, it will probably lose business and jobs. If you do not want gays in your state, you will have to suffer the consequences which, as I see them, are a lack of quality hair dressers and few good places to have brunch. And good luck getting your poodle shampooed.

It is funny how, for Democrats, LGBT civil rights issues are suddenly the most pressing of our time. Keep in mind President Obama and Bill Clinton ran both times opposing gay marriage.

Coming late to issues is the Democrats’ legacy. Republicans freed the slaves, founded the NAACP, and overcame Democrat objections to pass the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.  Nixon started the EPA. Showing up late to good ideas and making them worse are Democrat traditions. Hollow gestures define Democrats.

The left flails around creating "tolerance" issues and making themselves their own narrative’s heroes. We have the most tolerant country in the world, yet they seek to continue to divide us on race, gender, income and now bathroom use.

I am seasoned with the Scripture of the South. I understand that this is a Biblical issue for some, and just plain creepy for others. But be aware: the left loves to create these fake issues and rub our faces in them. Do not take the bait. Religion and Jesus were about tolerance and love. With transvestites, realize that God made them; it’s not their choice. Who would choose to complicate his life that way? You can hate the sin, but love the way the handbag and shoes match.

Remember the "turn the other cheek" manner in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  handled issues. By his religious beliefs, he set an example that made others reexamine theirs.

His “I Have a Dream” speech spoke to this transgender issue. He would say today, "Judge a man by the quality of his character, not the contents of his walk-in closet."

Ron Hart, a libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author, is a frequent guest on CNN. Contact him at Ron@RonaldHart.com or tweet@RonaldHart.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: HART: Unneeded restroom laws divert attention from real issues

“An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth…,” is a useful starting place for discussion of the influence of Pope Francis, a remarkably active and activist leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

To modern readers, the Biblical quote (Exodus 21:24) may seem brutal, but the Old Testament sentiment actually meant revolutionary progress.

Ancient warfare involved unrestrained killing and pillaging. By contrast, this Hebrew law codified proportionality and restraint. Historically and currently, the Vatican has played an important role in restraining and restricting warfare.

The Roman Catholic Church historically also has given priority to humanitarian relief, an essential point often overlooked in the economically advanced economies and our increasingly secular societies. The inherent tension between the Vatican and modern capitalism tends to be downplayed by the media.

The essential Christian message emphasizes compassion, and the Catholic Church over centuries has played a vital role in relief of poverty and human misery and in promotion of human rights.

The cumulative positive impact is profound among the approximately 1 billion Roman Catholics currently on the planet, and well beyond.

Pope Francis’ April 8 letter on marriage and the family should be viewed in this context. Media commentary emphasizes Rome’s reiteration of commitment to traditional marriage, which is hardly news. The letter emphasizes tolerance for those who do not accept Catholic doctrine; that marks a change, important if overdue.

Both developed and developing economies are growing, but poverty and war have not been abolished.

Last year, Francis celebrated a Catholic mass in Revolution Square in Havana, Cuba. Long-term Vatican efforts to pressure Cuba could prove to be profound.

During the Cold War, Pope John Paul II provided historic leadership in foreign policy. He supported Solidarity, the successful trade union-based reform movement in his native Poland. That, in turn, contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union and satellite states. 

Today, hunger and poverty have been overcome for the great majority in industrialized nations, and political controversies there now generally focus on other topics.

Francis is with political reformers on the left regarding the environment and capital punishment; with political conservatives in opposing gay marriage. Single-issue activists should take note.

Shocking criminal sexual abuse by priests is a principal contemporary challenge. Last year, a Vatican tribunal was established to review and judge cases of sexual abuse. Francis’ predecessor, Benedict XVI, publicly acknowledged the criminal behavior, met with victims and apologized.

Catholic Church emphasis on restraint in war was reconfirmed by vast killing during the 20th century. German Pope Benedict during a 2006 visit to Auschwitz emphasized the grotesque horror of the Holocaust.

Contemporary analysis of ethics and military strategy is spearheaded by Catholic scholars such as J. Bryan Hehir, a senior priest and faculty member at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

During the Cold War, Fr. Hehir guided the U.S. Catholic bishops’ influential report on use of nuclear weapons. Hehir also bluntly criticized his church for mishandling sex abuse crimes by priests.

On April 11, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited the memorial in Hiroshima Japan, commemorating lives lost from the 1945 atomic bomb attack. He is the first holder of his office to do so, and appropriately described the experience as “gut-wrenching.”

War has not been abolished, but global total war has not been repeated.

Relative security for Americans encourages self-preoccupation. Francis rightly pursues wider collective concerns.

Arthur I. Cyr is a Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of “After the Cold War.” Email acyr@carthage.edu to contact him.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: CYR: Pope Francis' leadership underscores Catholic Church's global influence

When democracy was born in ancient Greece they used to vote, just as we will next fall.

There was, however, a significant difference in how they cast their ballots. They would write the name of the candidate they did not want to win on a piece of broken pottery, which they used as their ballot. When the ballots were counted, the candidate with the fewest negative votes won the election.

I’m not exactly sure how that would work in our elections — voting against someone instead of for him/her. But, every time I see another negative commercial, I am strongly inclined to vote against the one who initiated it.

On second thought, the speeches and commercials seem to be encouraging us to do just that.

We have seen a succession of TV commercials where each one seems worse than the last. Most of the time, they provide a long list of the perceived inadequacies of their opponent. They don’t even attempt to tell us anything about what their candidate is for, or what that candidate would do if elected to our country’s highest office.

If anything, the debates have been worse, especially on the Republican side.

It took a dozen debates before we heard the first thing about the issues. If we listened closely, we know which candidate is short, which one is low-energy, and which woman interviewer has “blood in her eye.”

We have heard boasts about accumulated wealth — much of it made on gambling and booze — and even a reference to who has the largest hands.

We have a country that has come through a serious recession over the past several years. Unemployment is only now back to normal. We have been fighting two wars in the mid-east and are considering again sending troops to deal with another manifestation of that festering war that has tortured the region for more than 3,000 years.

In short, we have problems to deal with.

Unfortunately, we have a Congress that has a public image lower than a snake-oil barker and the primary word used to describe that elected body over the past four years is “gridlock.” Absolutely nothing of substance has been accomplished in Congress in recent years. In fact, more than 50 votes have been cast on one issue in the House of Representatives, even knowing that measure won’t pass.

That is a clear case of wasting our time and our money.

Folks, we have dug a deep hole for ourselves and we need to start climbing out of it. Whether it is a child or a country, we must foster growth and development, we must change with new challenges, we must assess current circumstances and handle each problem as it comes.

How we do that should be the responsibility of our best minds elected to lead us. Gridlock is the result of bull-headed, self-centered individuals who seem to think compromise and negotiation are bad words. We should have little patience with those who close their minds and won’t listen to opinions that are not their own.

Elections should be invigorating times. We should have the opportunity to hear new solutions to our continuing problems. We should be able to evaluate the capabilities of our future leadership. Most of all, we should be given the opportunity to see our future through the eyes of the candidates running for office.

Unfortunately, that isn’t happening in this election season. Instead, the sleaze has been so heavy it is hard to imagine it getting worse, but it can and probably will.

Do you remember that old Johnny Mercer song, “Accentuate the Positive?” It told us to “eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative, and don’t mess with Mr. In-Between.”

I am not sure if any of our political candidates can sing, but if they could, “Accentuate the Positive” would make a wonderful theme song.

Dr. Mark L. Hopkins writes for More Content Now and Scripps Newspapers. He is past president of colleges and universities in four states and serves as executive director of a higher-education consulting service.

Contact him at presnet@presnet.net.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: HOPKINS: Memo to the U.S. Congress — accentuate the positive, please