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Issue Home December 1, 2010 Site Home

COLUMNS:
100 Years Ago
From the Desk of the D.A.
The Healthy Geezer
Library Chitchat
Rock Doc
Earth Talk
Barnes-Kasson Corner


100 Years Ago

FRIENDSVILLE: Born, to Mr. and Mrs. Harry Hotchkiss, a son. This is the first boy in the family, and while our stage driver’s friends think there are no girls quite like his, the advent of a boy brings untold joy.

NEW MILFORD: Friends were shocked to hear the sad news that the 14 year old son of Mr. and Mrs. Frank J. Jennings, former residents of this place, was killed on the O & W tracks at Dickson City, Sunday morning. He was on his way to Sunday school, and the track being blocked by a coal train, he crawled under the cars. Both legs were cut off below the knees. He was hurried to the Moses Taylor hospital, but died at 3 o’clock p.m.

SPRINGVILLE: A large timber was drawn to the Chase quarry, last week, for use on one of the derricks. The length was about 68 feet and it required four horses to get it from the woods on the Sutton farm to its destination. ALSO There seems to be an incipient “coal famine” in this section for chestnut coal at any rate. There is none here or at Dimock. The sudden coming of winter has sent coal westward before the freezing up of the great lakes, according to the papers.

LYNN: Hiland Taylor is the new barber, having become successor to Donald Tiffany, over Greenwood’s store.

HOP BOTTOM: A Thanksgiving dinner was served at the M. E. church, the proceeds being $20, which will be used to secure better light for the church. ALSO, we understand that the family of the late D. S. Quick received a check from the D. L. & W. Railroad Company of $250. It will be remembered that Mr. Quick was killed a few weeks ago while crossing the tracks near Hop Bottom

BENNETT CORNERS (AUBURN TWP.): Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone and we have all had a good time, I hope. The writer spent the day among near friends and how good it is to gather once a year around the festive board and feel the kindness of those who prepared the dinner. ALSO, some one left “ye scribe’s” family two rabbits on Thanksgiving. We appreciate the gift. We were spending Thanksgiving away from home and the cats got in ahead of us, but we thank them all the same.

RUSH: Dr. A. L. Hickok, having disposed of his personal property and having sold his dwelling house and lot to Mrs. Abbie LaRue, he and his wife will leave next week for Denver, Colo., where it is hoped that Mrs. Hickok may be improved in health.

MONTROSE: Wilbur Rifenbury returned from Potter county during the week, bringing with him a live wildcat, which he caught in a trap. The animal is large, although a young one, and is too lively to permit about the house. Residents of Cherry street may be pleased to know that Mr. Rifenbury has it safely caged. It is an object of some curiosity and interest and has been gazed upon at a safe distance by many.

AINEY (SPRINGVILLE TWP.): M. E. Card was bitten on the arm last Sunday morning trying to secure a dog belonging to Irwin Johnson. The dog was thought to be mad and was shot by its owner.

HOWARD HILL, LIBERTY TWP.: The little children from the orphanage at Brookdale, who stayed at O. B. Howard’s, I. H. Travis’ and J. N. Austin’s during the yearly convention of the Pentecostal Mission, returned home Tuesday.

PLEASANT VALLEY, AUBURN TWP.: Mrs. Belle Helicker, of Kansas, Jay Rifenbury of Oklahoma, and Ulysses Rifenbury and six children, were called here last week on account of the serious illness of their mother, Mrs. J. C. Rifenbury. Jay arrived only a few hours before his mother’s death.

UNIONDALE: There are some of our boys who know a fine horse when they see it, and attended the big horse sale in New York city last week; the result was that Dan Gibson, Will Morgan and Tile Hankinson each purchased a horse. They are fine ones. Hang on to the ribbons boys. ALSO, the Thanksgiving entertainment passed off very nicely through the painstaking efforts of our teachers, and the scholars need their share of praise for their part they did so nicely. Yes, let us all give thanks and be thankful; your writer says many a word that he doesn’t get thanked for, neither does he look for it. He says that kind from the mouth, not from the heart, so sift out that kind that you don’t like and throw it away.

GREAT BEND: Edward Day, who thoroughly understands the business, has taken the contract to erect the new concrete cut glass factory.

SOUTH HARFORD: Daisy Conrad, Julie Booth, Russell Carey, June and Jennie Carey, are spending the week with their parents, Harford school being closed on account of an epidemic of colds and whooping cough.

BRIDGEWATER TWP.: Horton Reynolds, Bridgewater’s well know lumberman, was engaged in business in Montrose yesterday. He recently purchased the timber on a portion of the old Theodore Reynolds’ farm.

BROOKLYN: S. J. Bailey has entered into a contract with the Nicholson Board of Trade to take his trunk slat factory from Brooklyn and locate it there, says the Nicholson Examiner. The demand for Mr. Bailey’s products has outgrown his factory at Brooklyn, and he goes to Nicholson to secure better railroad facilities. The papers have been signed and the work of removing the factory will begin at once.

FLYNN, MIDDLETOWN TWP.: J. E. Lane killed his flock of geese for Thanksgiving, which averaged thirteen pounds each. ALSO Miss E. Fletcher is to teach a class in the art of dancing in the near future.

HEART LAKE: The Mountain Ice Company is making repairs on their building at this place.

NEWS BRIEF: Automobiles have been taking another airing after being snowed in for several days and are running quite old fashioned again, the roads being in quite good order for them.

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From the Desk of the D.A.
By District Attorney Jason J. Legg

Over the past few days, I have been thinking about a criminal case from several years ago. In that case, the police officer stopped a motorist for a variety of different traffic violations and then discovered that there was an outstanding warrant for the driver’s arrest. There was a passenger in the car and the officer asked both of them to step out of the car. The driver was placed under arrest and gave the police officer consent to search the motor vehicle. Prior to conducting the search, the police officer conducted a frisk search of the passenger for safety purposes. In other words, the police officer did not want to get shot by the passenger when he had his back turned while conducting the vehicle search. During the course of the frisk of the passenger, the police officer found 5 baggies of marijuana and the passenger was charged.

The defense attorney filed a motion to suppress the evidence. The defense attorney argued that there was no lawful basis for the frisk search of the passenger. If there was no lawful basis for the frisk search, then the results of the search, i.e., the bags of marijuana had to be suppressed. If the court suppressed the marijuana, then there would be no evidence against the passenger and the case would be dismissed.

The police officer countered that he has the right to conduct a safety pat down of vehicle occupants prior to conducting a vehicle search. The police officer did not want to put himself in a dangerous position, i.e., he had just arrested the driver, the passenger was unrestrained, he had no knowledge as to whether the passenger posed any immediate threat to him, but there was the potential that he could be harmed by the passenger in an attempt to aid the driver in avoiding incarceration or arrest. The police officer testified that he has been trained that officer safety is the first priority in these types of situations.

The court determined that the police officer did not have the right to detain and/or search the passenger and the suppression motion was granted. Generally speaking, the law only allows for a “frisk” search when the police officer can articulate reasonable grounds to believe that a suspect is armed and the frisk search is necessary to assure officer safety. Without a specific basis to form a reasonable suspicion, a police officer cannot simply stop a citizen and frisk them for weapons of contraband. The case was dismissed.

I have been thinking about that case recently as I have read about the searching procedures that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has been conducting prior to allowing passengers to board airplanes. The intrusiveness of the new TSA search policy exceeds the pat-down or frisk search that law enforcement traditionally utilizes to assure their safety in the field. While it is important to assure the safety of airplanes, there are still constitutional constraints that should restrain arbitrary governmental intrusion. At what point do constitutional considerations outweigh the security interest relative to assuring a safe flight?

In terms of police officers, we know that the courts have struck a balance to allow police officers to conduct limited searches (pat down) searches provided a police officer can articulate a reasonable basis to explain why such a search is necessary and proper, i.e., why the officer feels threatened. The Fourth Amendment does not prohibit all searches; rather, it prohibits unreasonable searches. Thus, the touchstone of any governmental search comes down to whether it is a reasonable exercise of governmental authority given the competing privacy interests against the security interests. Of course, what is reasonable is always open to debate and it depends upon from whose perspective you are looking at it. There is a certain irony in the current public debate as those who one lampooned the Patriot Act are now lining up to defend the new TSA search procedures as reasonable, and vice versa. As one wise person once quipped, it all depends on whose ox is being gored.

As a person who works with law enforcement officers, I want them to be safe and take precautions in the field to make sure that they get home alive. From my perspective, a safety frisk search to make sure that they are not going to be shot in the back is reasonable. The courts, however, have not given law enforcement officers that much latitude in the field and require more than general safety concerns to justify a frisk. The courts want the officer to explain why he or she feels unsafe as particularized to this specific individual - not simply a blanket policy that requires frisk searches of every person the officer encounters.

As this TSA search issue continues to grow, it will be interesting to see how the courts balance the different competing interests that are at stake - and how the resolution of this issue spills into other areas of the law. The courts could determine that safety frisk searches of airline passengers are reasonable given the nature of the threats involved to air travel - and this general acceptance of safety frisks may spill into other areas of law enforcement and thereby expand the scope of governmental authority. On the other hand, the courts may simply fall back on the decades of case law that suggests that the government needs some reasonable suspicion of criminal activity afoot to allow for even a limited search of a person’s body.

Please submit any questions, concerns, or comments to Susquehanna County District Attorney’s Office, P.O. Box 218, Montrose, Pennsylvania 18801 or at our website www.SusquehannaCounty-DA.org or discuss this and all articles at http://dadesk.blogspot.com/.

 

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The Healthy Geezer
By Fred Cicetti

Q. Pop-Pop, don't feel bad that you gave me a cold in my eye. It wasn't your fault, was it?

This question came from my seven-year-old granddaughter, Maggie. She got conjunctivitis - known colloquially as “pink eye” - a week after I did. Subsequently, Maggie's mother and grandmother also got nasty cases that required multiple visits to an ophthalmologist.

Conjunctivitis is an infection of the transparent membrane (conjunctiva) that lines the eyelid and part of the eyeball. The infection creates swelling of the eyelids and a reddening of the whites of the eyes.

Pink eye is caused by bacteria, viruses and allergens such as pollen. Pink eye from bacteria and viruses can be highly contagious for as long as two weeks after symptoms begin. Allergic conjunctivitis is not contagious.

In addition to swelling and discoloration, pink eye also makes your eyes itch and water. Often, you feel like you have sand or an eyelash caught in your eye. The infection clouds your vision. When you sleep, a crust forms on your eye and makes it difficult to open. Your eyes become light sensitive.

My experience with pink eye should be instructive.

I am allergic to all kinds of pollen. These allergies usually irritate my eyes, especially in the fall. When I had mild symptoms recently, I assumed it was the pollen in the air. I exposed everyone in my family before my eye worsened and I discovered I had a viral infection.

If I had gone to a doctor immediately for a diagnosis, I might have been able to prevent the infection from spreading by being more careful about contact.

Next time I have any kind of watery, itchy eyes, I will be much more careful. Sorry, Maggie.

My family physician gave me antibiotic eye drops in case the infection was bacterial. I was instructed to see an ophthalmologist in two days if there was no improvement. No improvement would indicate that I had a viral infection. My eye didn't get better, so I went to an ophthalmologist who gave me steroid eye drops to help relieve the symptoms. Only time corrects viral conjunctivitis - two to three weeks.

Maggie had a minor case of pink eye that disappeared in days. Her mother and grandmother suffered the way I did. Pink eye has a quaint name, but it doesn't describe what the adults in my family contracted. The three of us looked like we had been repeatedly jabbed in the face by Muhammad Ali. My left eye was so bad that it made my ophthalmologist actually said, “Yuck.”

While suffering from pink eye, there are ways to deal with the symptoms. Warm compresses help if you have viral or bacterial conjunctivitis. Cool compresses are better for allergic conjunctivitis. Non-prescription artificial tears are soothing.

To prevent the spread of pink eye, wash your hands often and avoid contact with others. Don't share washcloths or towels. Change your pillowcase often.

If you have a question, please write to fred@healthygeezer.com.

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Library Chitchat
By Flo Whittaker

No Library Chitchat This Week

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Rock Doc
By Dr. E. Kirsten Peters

Running Your Car On Air Alone

Kids delight in blowing up a balloon and letting it go. The air inside is under mild pressure, and when a youngster lets go of the neck of the balloon, air rushes outward. The escaping air propels the balloon forward like an erratic jet.

Remarkably enough, a car powered by the same energy source - compressed air - may be coming to a road near you. At least one innovative auto company is investing in a small “air car,” as these vehicles are known. Air cars have some wonderful advantages compared to our traditional internal combustion engine - like the complete absence of air pollution coming from a tailpipe.

The idea of an air car is not so farfetched as it may sound. Your commuter car, my 1987 pickup, and a farmer’s diesel tractor actually all run on a broadly similar idea.

Work with me for a moment, and I’ll explain.

The internal combustion engines common around us look like they are powered by heat from burning fuel. But all the heat actually does is to increase the pressure of gases in the engine’s cylinder. It’s the high pressure that pushes on the piston. Then the piston’s motion powers the vehicle.

The heat isn’t crucial, it’s the pressure inside the cylinder that’s the key.

Now imagine you could simply add highly compressed air into a car’s cylinder to drive the piston. You wouldn’t need heat, so there would be no need for gasoline or diesel fuel. And you could drive all day with no stinky fumes coming out your tailpipe.

For several decades, engineers have tinkered with the possibility of using air under high pressure to power the pistons of automobiles. The system can be made to work, especially if the air is under extreme pressures. (Those who know trucks will note that compressed air powers big-rig brakes and starters. So large trucks have a bit of airpower in their designs already.)

The pressures that are useful in a piston are generally much higher than those in a car tire. In scientific labs we often use very high-pressure tanks, as do welders and others in particular industries. If you work near an enormous tank of this high-pressure variety, and if it ruptures, your troubles are over. But I’ve never known that to happen.

If you’ve ever moved a high-pressure tank, you know they are heavy enough to give you a hernia. Indeed, the steel “fuel tank” of compressed air in old test vehicles was so heavy it created real trouble for the engineering goal of powering a car on air alone.

But much lighter-weight materials based on carbon fibers that can hold air at high pressure are now on the market. So visionaries are taking another look at the “air car,” and carmakers overseas are exploring options of bringing such cars to market.

But, of course, there is the question of where the compressed air will come from. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and the cost of running the air car is partly the cost of energy to compress the air. As Popular Mechanics points out, it’s generally electrical energy that’s used to compress air. So air vehicles are essentially electric cars using the compressed air as a way of storing energy.

On the positive side, pollution that’s created generating the electricity used to compress air could be distant from our cities. That’s a real plus. (Although we geologists are fond of the smell of spilled gasoline and the choking fumes of exhaust on a hot day, normal human beings prefer to avoid all that filth.)

A lot of innovation is on the table these days in the car world, with major manufacturers investigating better electric cars, hybrid vehicles, and natural gas vehicles ala what T. Boone Pickens advocates.

These are tough economic times, but interesting, too, and some folks are going to take advantage of entirely new ways of doing things to help move us forward.

I’m for that.

Dr. E. Kirsten Peters, a geologist trained at Princeton and Harvard, is a native of the rural Northwest. Questions about science or energy for future Rock Docs can be sent to epeters@wsu.edu. This column is a service of the College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University.

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EARTH TALK
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: I work at a fast food place and I am appalled by the amount of unpurchased food we throw away. The boss says we can’t give it away for legal reasons. Where can I turn for help on this, so the food could instead go to people in need? -Ryan

Many restaurants, fast food or otherwise, are hesitant to donate unused food due to concerns about liability if people get sick after eating it - especially because once any such food is out of the restaurant’s hands, who knows how long it might be before it is served again. But whether these restaurants know it or not, they cannot be held liable for food donated to organizations, and sometimes all it might take to change company policy would be a little advocacy from concerned employees.

A 1995 survey found that over 80 percent of food businesses in the U.S. did not donate excess food due to liability concerns. In response, Congress passed the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act, which releases restaurants and other food organizations from liability associated with the donation of food waste to nonprofits assisting individuals in need. The Act protects donors in all 50 states from civil and criminal liability for good faith donations of “apparently wholesome food” - defined as meeting “all quality and labeling standards imposed by Federal, State and local laws and regulations even though the food may not be readily marketable due to appearance, age, freshness, grade, size, surplus or other condition.”

While homeless shelters, elder care organizations and boys and girls clubs are frequent beneficiaries of food donations, the most common recipients are food banks and food rescue programs. Food banks, according to California’s CalRecycle website, “collect food from a variety of sources, save the food in a warehouse, then distribute it to hungry families and individuals through local human service agencies.” They usually collect less perishable items like canned goods, which can be stored and used any time. In contrast, food rescue programs typically trade in perishable and prepared foods, distributing it to agencies that feed hungry people, usually later that same day. Mama’s Health, a leading health education website, maintains an extensive free database of food banks and food rescue programs state-by-state.

Unused or even partially eaten food waste can also be utilized even if it’s not edible by human standards. The U.S. Department of Agriculture approves of food businesses giving or selling food waste to local farmers for use in composting or as animal feed. If such food contains or has come into contact with meat, it should be boiled for 30 minutes to reduce the risk of bacterial infections in the animals that eat it. Many states have complementary laws on the books regulating the donation of food waste at the local level.

Many cities and town are now expanding curbside pickup programs to include kitchen scraps and yard waste and then diverting the food waste into profitable compost. Still, some 6.7 percent of the solid waste going into landfills consists of food discards, reports the North Carolina Division of Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance. Diverting food waste to feed hungry people or for animal feed or compost is a winning scenario for all concerned parties as it not only provides relief to overburdened landfills but also helps meet social welfare, agricultural and environmental needs. Also, those restaurants, grocery stores and other businesses that donate food will likely reap the additional reward of saving money on their actual waste removal bill as their trash bins and dumpsters won’t be filling up quite so fast.

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk®, c/o E - The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. E is a nonprofit publication.

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Barnes-Kasson Corner
By Cara Sepcoskiw

No Barnes-Kasson Corner This Week

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