October 17 through 21 is National School Bus Safety Week. Most people do not realize that school bus transportation continues to be one of the safest forms of ground transportation. In fact, a school bus is thirteen times safer than other non-commercial vehicles. This is no accident. It is through the efforts of hard working and dedicated professionals, particularly the drivers, that makes this so.

Our tremendous safety record is due to tough federal and state regulations, extensive school bus driver training and review and our commitment to safety. School busing is a much more complex and demanding job than most people realize or appreciate. It is supported by an extensive network of personnel including mechanics, dispatchers and driver safety trainers. The vehicles are designed, built and equipped for the safety of the children they are used to transport. They are operated during the busiest travel periods of the day and in all types of road and weather conditions.

School bus drivers are justifiably held to a higher standard as professional operators. We feel we attain that goal with superior driving habits and skills. The problem is that our best efforts can only deliver a part of the results. An awareness of the law and behavior of the driving public remains a critical element in the safety of the children we transport to and from school. When a motorist feels they can’t remain behind a school bus and will go through stop signs, make u-turns in the middle of the road or pull directly out in front of the bus because they are in a hurry, they are not doing this just to the bus driver, they are doing this to all the children riding on the bus. These types of actions put the children in unnecessary danger.

Too many times school bus drivers report motorists passing stopped school buses when they are picking up or discharging students. School buses are equipped with an 8-way lighting system. The amber (yellow) lights will begin flashing between 300 and 150 feet before the school bus stops. During this time, the motorist must prepare to stop. When the school bus stops, the red lights will begin flashing and the side-stop arm will be extended. All motorists meeting or following the bus must be stopped at least ten (10) feet from the bus and are not to proceed until the red lights are no longer activated and the students have reached a place of safety. Pennsylvania law is quite simple to remember - a motorist must always stop for a school bus when the red lights are flashing. There are no exceptions. This includes fire engines, ambulances, police cars and funeral processions. If a motorist fails to stop for a school bus, it is an automatic 60 day suspension of their driver’s license, 5 points on their driving record and a $250 fine.

School bus safety is also influenced by activity on the bus. The driver has to contend with weather and road conditions and maintain an awareness of all activity around the bus, driveways, intersections, people, pets and wildlife. While a driver has all this to consider outside the bus, he need not be distracted by misbehavior inside the bus. Rules are provided for students to follow while riding the bus and are there to maintain a safe and orderly environment. Parents/guardians should serve as role models and instruct their children in appropriate and socially acceptable behavior on a school bus as well as everywhere else. The driver should be accorded the respect he has earned and deserves.

Observe School Bus Safety Week every week - it could save a life.

Sincerely,

James M. Ainey

Montrose, PA

When it happens in college football, whichever team they’re cheering, none dare breathe. It’s the final play of the game. And the game’s outcome hangs on the final pass, which has to be high and deep, very high and very deep. What’s more, the completion depends more on heart than mere athletic proficiency. In the parlance of our football commentators, it’s a “Hail Mary” pass.

No doubt, the Republican desire to deny President Barack Hussein Obama junior a second term is so intense as to be incandescent. Maybe, it’s a shame that New Jersey Governor Christie, in the parlance of our boxing commentators, “took a dive.” Maybe, one should feel a little sorry about that situation.

Here I’ll stick my neck out. I’ll say it plain. Pitting any of the current contenders for the Republican presidential nomination against the current president would be tantamount to “cruel and unusual punishment.” None of them can go toe-to-toe with that man.

Here’s where that aforementioned football pass comes into play. At the moment, there’s only one mortal politician, who can do so. And that mortal is the current Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Yes and yes again, she lost to then presidential candidate Obama. However, for all his political acumen and charisma, he couldn’t put her away with a knock-out. He had to do it on points.

Also no doubt, it’ll take a miracle to hand Hillary the Republican presidential nomination. But then, we are informed by Holy Writ that miracles have taken place. Let’s say such a miracle happens, and the lady gets that nomination. It’ll still be a “Hail Mary.”

Sincerely,

A Alexander Stella

Susquehanna, PA

In response to the “Land Owners” write up in the local papers, as to crossing red poll cows with dairy cows, it is my opinion that this purpose is money down the drain. They are also prone to arthritis.

Who am I to speak out about this? I am the former owner of this farm. I milked the herd of dairy cows. I tilled the land, picked the stone and rocks, limed and fertilized the acreages, and seeded the fields. I furnished the so called sweat equity and assistance.

I sold the Greene’s the farm at a price they could never get from a real estate agency.

I’m 76 years old. I was born here and lived my entire life until two months ago when I moved 8 miles to town to escape the harsh winters. I never received a dollar in these programs. I didn’t need it. I worked. I earned it.

As for the buildings, the only building they repaired was the barn, mainly to change it from dairy to beef.

As for the other buildings. The milk house we built ourselves, received the height score given by the state of New Jersey. A 4-stall garage, built it ourselves. A beautiful ranch house, 30’ x 60’, complete with a fireplace - cut most of the lumber from this farm. Except for the cut masonry, electric, plumbing and heating was built by my brother and I.

As for all those fancy fences, these people don’t deserve these benefits. I’ve helped them with work - they would have to lift me by the seat of my pants to get me on the tractor.

Let’s face it, to make a living off anybody’s farm they will have to do a lot on one sweat equity and give this work the credit they so rightly deserve. They have a long way to go.

Sincerely,

Dave Potter

Susquehanna, PA

Well Bob Scroggins, you write a log about our economy, our military, our politics, our gas wells, etc. But, Bob, did you really investigate the websites I wrote to the Transcript on September 28? You have left out so much about the real truth that God is alive, with us now and forever.

The “shroud.com” has so many articles that prove that the shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus. Did you look up the “Sudarium of Oviedo, Spain?” The face cloth that was placed over Jesus’ head while he was taken to his tomb - it was removed and the full shroud was placed over Jesus.

Did you look up the newspapers of Portugal - "O Seculo,” “Ordem,” “O Dia,” “Lisbon Daily?” They have eye witness accounts and pictures of the Miracle of the Sun on October 13, 1917. Did you look up the Tilma of Juan Diego of Mexico City?

You seem to believe that tradition did not belong in the New Testament. Look up 2 tim 2:2, 2 thess 2:15, 1 cor 11:2. The written New Testament Bible was complied and put into writing in the 4th Century. It was put together from writings of eye witness accounts of the time of Jesus, passed down through tradition and became the New Testament in the 4th Century.

Before that time only the Old Testament made up the Bible. Tradition had a major account - people practiced their faith by their families and friends, church and synagogue leaders and examples of teaching. Families have to teach their children about their faith, give them literature of their beliefs, so the Holy Spirit can dwell in them fully.

You wrote about the Pharisees that only Nicodemus believed in the risen Christ Jesus. What about the 12 apostles and the Virgin Mary? All 12 of the apostles (except John) suffered terrible deaths. Christians for centuries after and even in our own times are martyred for their faith in Jesus. The apostles believed and saw the miracles that Jesus performed and died for the faith, but most importantly because Jesus appeared and walked with them after he died, and rose from the dead. Do you think any of the apostles would have suffered horrible deaths is Jesus didn’t rise from the dead? I think not!

Jesus, because he is the Son of God the Father, naturally had no sin. We all, Jews and Christians, inherited original sin because of the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. However, Catholics have to believe as a dogma of our faith, that Mary was conceived without original sin in her mother, Ann’s, womb. We celebrate their feast day on December 8. God the Father wanted his Son to be born of a sinless woman free of original sin - his mother Mary.

Finally, God has been with us a long time. As we humans measure time, our universe has been measured in time with the help of the giant new telescopes, to be about 13.7 billion years old. Two Jesuit priests have wrote and put before us to explain the origins of the universe. The “Big Bang” theory by Father Georges Lemaitre, S. J. that he wrote in 1927 explaining the “red shift” that stated about 13.7 billion years ago and our universe is still expanding. Father Robert J. Spitzer, S. J. has written a new book “New Proof of the Existence of God. Contemporary Physics and Philosophy.”

In closing I would like to say that God the Father has a lot of patience. He witnessed 14 million years or so, the lives of dinosaurs... someone had to be before 13.7 billion years ago and that someone is God! Something cannot come out of nothing. God is infinitely smarter than anyone of us. We don’t know how he did it, but He did, and is doing it today and forever!

Sincerely,

Bruce Moorhead

Susquehanna, PA

Governor Corbett has proposed a Gas Impact Fee. It offers both opportunity and challenge to counties and municipalities to determine and mitigate the impact of gas well drilling optimally for their local needs.

The proposal would allow counties with Shale gas wells to establish a fee of up to $40,000 per gas well initially, decreasing annually to $10,000 for the fourth and subsequent years. A county can vote for a smaller fee or no fee.

Fee revenue goes 25% to the State and 75% to the County. County revenue is split 37% to the municipalities with wells, 27% to all municipalities in the county, and 36% to the county. As more wells are drilled, more revenue is collected. As the wells get older, less revenue is collected.

Two news organizations have estimated Susquehanna County annual revenue could be about $2,000,000 to $6,000,000 based on 2010 to 2011 wells drilled; that is a lot more than the SB1100 Severance Tax would produce. But revenue can only be used to offset new costs of natural gas development.

Some towns are getting very good quality road work done free by the gas companies. If an impact fee is enacted, gas companies may expect that work to be done by the towns instead, which could result in poorer quality roads or more local costs.

So, there is a trade-off between the size of the fee and the quality of free service towns can expect. This trade-off is best understood by the impacted townships. Town and county collaboration seems essential to make the best decision on whether and how much of a fee to enact.

This proposal provides funds and opportunity for local government to make a fiscally responsible policy solution.

How should Susquehanna County respond to the Corbett Challenge?

Sincerely,

Gene Famolari

Montrose, PA

“Curiouser and curiouser,” said Alice about her adventures in Wonderland. An astronomer searching the heavens could say as much.

Gravitational whirlpools called black holes from which not even light can escape; neutron stars so dense that a teaspoon of its matter would weigh 100 million tons, pulsars spinning at an impossible 600 times a second - all witnesses to the curious universe.

But the universe’s greatest mystery is its very existence. Basically, there are two schools of thought that address its origin: one theory states it was a natural consequence of evolution, the other explanation contends it was supernaturally created.

Each theory poses its own knotty question, one for the evolutionists and one for the creationists.

In 1979, Project SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, was launched. It would scan the heavens listening for radio transmissions from intelligent beings on other planets.

Radio, it was reasoned, is a rudimentary step in any developing civilization. It would be an early development on distant planets as it was on ours.

Radio waves propagate outward at the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second. Imaginary ETs on nearby planets just might be listening to “I Love Lucy” finally reaching their planet after traveling through space for 60 years. Likewise, we might be able to listen to their programs (hopefully not sitcoms).

The late astronomer, Carl Sagan, estimated that our galaxy, the Milky Way, alone would have l billion planets with intelligent life.

Now here's the first question, this one to evolutionists, but first a few numbers.

Astronomers tell us that the universe contains 500 billion galaxies each made up of billions of stars. Let's assume that each galaxy has 200 billion stars, half as many as ours. Lastly, let's say that half of these stars have an average of two planets. Doing the math this works out to be 100,000 billion, billion planets.

Of these planets let's say that only 1 in a 100 million have conditions suitable for life. And of these only 1 in a 100 million have developed life. That leaves 10 million life-bearing planets.

Further, astronomers also tell us that the universe is 14 billion years old and the Earth about 5 billion years.

Evolutionary theory assumes that the development of life is a natural, ongoing process throughout the universe. It's reasonable to suppose that the Earth with its star of an average age is also an evolutionary average among these 10 million planets hosting life.

It follows that there would be 5 million planets lagging behind the Earth that have not yet invented the radio as there are planets that have been broadcasting for 5 million years.

Our planet should be awash in extraterrestrial chatter from millions of planets for millions of years.

Yet a recent discovery indicates that this number of radio savvy planets may be far too low.

Some time ago an astronomer trained his telescope on a small patch of sky that was utterly black. For ten successive nights the telescope accumulated more and more light. When the photographic plate was developed it revealed a previously unseen 1,800 galaxies.

The current estimate of the universe's size may only hint at its actual extent.

Surely, we should have heard something. But using the most sophisticated radio telescope in the world, Project SETI (now called Project Phoenix) has heard only the swiss of static, the perplexing sound of silence for 30 years. Where is the alien life that evolutionists predict?

For creationists, their question can be put more succinctly. Why would God create a universe vast beyond all comprehension? Everything God does must have a purpose. Indeed, it may be impossible for a perfect God to do anything purposelessly.

Yet here we are, living specks, on a planetary speck, drifting among a boundless sea of galactic specks. What could be the reason for a creation that is vast beyond any conceivable purpose?

Two questions looking for answers. Perhaps you could offer one or two.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA