I was unable to go to the town meeting in New Milford on March 14th. I was frying fish for the Lenten supper.

I did however, spread the word to others to go to this very important meeting. The meeting was a beginning to see if folks are interested in having natural gas piped into our homes and businesses, as an alternative to the wood, coal, and foreign oil we currently have access to.

I cannot think of a better use for homegrown resources. My goodness, we are sitting on a lot of gas and if my lessons of earth science do not escape me, after gas, is oil, then coal, then diamond.

I was told that there doesn't seem to be an anchor. I truly was puzzled, as we aren't being asked if we want a strip mall, we are being asked if we want to have access to the natural resources of this area. My understanding is that the "anchor" would be an entity that could kind of guarantee a certain amount of gas usage to cover profit and expenses.

I have to agree that a mid-point "anchor" is the Blue Ridge School Campus. What I didn't expect, BRSD, doesn't know that. Really? This group is supposed to be the educated portion of the population, and they do not agree to have gas as a heating source for the students?

Why one day last week there was early dismissal, due to a power outage. Gosh, with gas in place, there is heat, and some might argue, a viable source of light. I say this as in the western part of Pa. the towns, and private businesses, homes, still feature gas fixtures. A back-up, so not to be held hostage by the electric companies.

Now is the time to barter an agreement with the Leatherstockings. Get in on the ground floor. Barter pricing and maintenance. I think as long as that building educates a child, the price etal, stays fixed. Should the building serve another pupose, then re-negotiate.

What is astonishing to me here is a chance for a child to get real world education, in the gas industry, and a opportunity to lower land taxes to the students' parents, and it isn't listed on the school boards’ agenda.

Then what is exactly on the school boards' agenda?

Maybe that is a meeting the locals should go to. Don't forget one must call first to get on the agenda, and that's a good place to start.

Imagine that, a school board not considering a natural resource for the benefit of its taxpayers and students. I understand the wood boiler, and the relative newness of the equipment. I also understand how much replacement parts cost. With gas, the infrastructure is buried and bedded. Less chance of destruction that way. And for my environmental friends, gas isn't smoky.

I would request that the Blue Ridge School District School Board members seriously consider the benefits of gas coming to the school.

I look forward to the press printing the meeting addressing this. I will attend.

Sincerely,

Cynthia Allen

Summersville, PA

The human brain is wired to find order even where there isn't any. We see the Virgin Mary in a burnt slice of toast, animals in the clouds, or faces in a Jackson Pollack painting. This craving for order is linked with inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning takes specific information to form a broad generalization.

For example, you leave for work at 8 o'clock and always arrive on time. Therefore, if you leave for work at 8, you will arrive on time. That's only a maybe; but it provides order and some certainty.

Aristotle is known for inductive reasoning, that is, going from the specific to the general. Sometimes it leads to some pretty silly conclusions. The noted philosopher observed that a child has fewer teeth than a man. Women are smaller than men; therefore all women have fewer teeth than men.

Had he bothered to investigate Mrs. Aristotle's dentition, he would have seen that women and men have the same number of permanent teeth, 32. (Alas, they're not as permanent as we would like them to be.)

We also make comprehensive assumptions, a framework of many beliefs about how the world works; it's called a paradigm. It can be captivating in that it provides order. But if the paradigm is based on a false premise, the repercussions can be anything but silly.

Example. By rigorous observations Aristarchus (~270 BC) concluded that the sun was the center of the solar system not the Earth. Aristotle (~350 BC) thought this was just plain nonsense. If it were true, he thought, then birds flying in the air would be left far behind as the Earth moved away from under them. He verified this by inductive reasoning: birds aren't left behind; ergo, the Earth stays in one place and is the center of the universe.

Nevertheless, the stature of Aristotle was such that the Earth-centered paradigm was thought to be true until Nicolaus Copernicus proved that the sun-centered paradigm was indeed correct. Aristotle's false paradigm retarded astronomy by almost 2,000 years.

In the middle of the 17th century, with the dawning of the Age of Reason, came a new paradigm. It would be a godless worldview. Supernatural explanations about creation would be brushed aside along with all other religious superstitions. Some 200 years later Darwin's persuasive tome, The Origins of Species, gave scientific plausibility to anti-god rationalists and Darwin became the new Aristotle.

Recently, the identification of tissue that looked fresh and young in a T. rex fossil believed to be 68 million years old was discovered. There are two explanations for this: 1) either the tissue is as young as it appears and casts doubt on evolutionary dogma, or 2) it is as old as evolutionists think but has been mysteriously preserved. Evolutionists dismissed the first possibility outright. That leaves many scientists scrambling to find a way to preserve tissue for tens of millions of years.

Dr. Mary Schweitzer, the discover of the supple tissue in the T. rex, thinks she has found a way. This elixir of youth is iron, the type of iron found in all red blood cells and in the disputed fossil. And she's made an experiment that “proves” it.

Schweitzer used ostrich blood enriched with iron and immersed a blood vessel in it. She found that it extended the integrity of the tissue two years. From two years to 68 million years is quite a stretch. So much so that it is more of an attempt to explain away the presence of the incongruous tissue than explain it.

The power of the canonized evolutionary paradigm, like Aristotle's false paradigm, is such that no one has dared question the veracity of the interminable ages required in evolution. Neither has anyone had the audacity to doubt Darwin's theory. They are beyond question and beyond doubt. And therein lurks danger.

Whenever any authority figure be a scientist, a noted author, an ecclesiastical muck-a-muck, or a political potentate is accepted as being above scrutiny, it, in itself, should be a cause for scrutiny.

Truth always welcomes inquiry regardless of intention; falsehood shuns the light and takes refuge in blind faith and martinet obedience. Truth seekers welcome all questions about the presence of ageless tissue in ancient fossils regardless of motivation. So fire away evolutionists, give it your best shot; it's the surest road to truth.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA

The Lenten season is given to us by a loving God to invite us to examine our spiritual life and make an honest effort to wholly return to Christ and His Church. Our Bishop has asked our pastors to make confession more available during Lent and Fr. Cramer has added three more opportunities to avail ourselves of this great Sacrament.

St. Lawrence in Great Bend will have the new Sacrament of Reconciliation at 7:00 P.M. each Monday after Mass. The usual Saturday at 4:15-4:45 will still be available.

St. John’s in Susquehanna will have a new time Sacrament at 7:00 on Sunday and their usual schedule of Saturday after Mass at 5:00 P.M.

St. Martin’s in Jackson has a new time of after Mass on Wednesday at 7:00 P.M. Their usual Saturday Confessions at 3:15-3:35 will also be available.

Fr. Francis Hoffman J.C.D. in the Catholic Answer magazine (May/June 2009 issue) had a very good answer for someone who had been away from the Church for a long time and had broken all ten Commandments. “When you go to confession,” he advised, “tell the priest, ‘Bless me Father, for I have sinned and I really am scared because I have broken all the commandments’. Next tell the priest how long it has been since your last confession, make your confession clear, concise and complete. Don’t be vague. If you have committed mortal sins (serious matter, with full knowledge and full consent), mention them by name, number and circumstance. Yes, this can be embarrassing, but that’s part of the remedy. Humble souls are happy souls.- - - - - Finally, don’t worry about how long it will take. When you are in the confessional, you are the only soul in the world that the priest cares about.”

Sincerely,

Annette Corrigan

Jackson Township