Dimock – Dimock had a rather easy time with the Meshoppen High School five last Friday evening, winning in decisive style by a score of 36 to 12.  Mills was in good form, from the 15 ft. mark, scoring 10 of his 11 chances. The guarding of Grant Palmer was a feature in itself, holding Tetsel, Meshoppen’s sensational forward, to a single two-pointer. ALSO The Dimock Library’s report for year ending December 31st, 1915 shows it has been open 313 days.  Two months they had to refuse homes where there were children who had or had been exposed to scarlet fever.  They allowed books to circulate where there was no danger.  They have 130 registered borrowers and are open 70 hours a week, every day except Tuesday.  During the year, 37 books were burned on account of scarlet fever and 8 discarded as unfit.  At the end of the year they had 1401 volumes in good condition. (One of the expenses mentioned was librarian’s salary - $5.40.)

Franklin Forks – The Franklin Forks Alliance, in connection with their regular meeting to be held Wednesday, March 15th, will have a contest for the making of best work apron, fancy towel, ginger cookies and baked beans.  Dinner will be served at noon.  Frances Summers, Sec’y.

Snake Creek, Liberty Twp. – F. H. Southworth and wife expect to move to New Haven soon.  Mr. Southworth has accepted a job clerking in a large tea and coffee store managed by his brother-in-law, A. Lee Tiffany, a former Susquehanna county boy, from Harford.

Harford – At the regular meeting of the Harford High School Literary Society, March 1st, officers were elected.  After installation of officers the following program will be given at the next meeting, March 8th.  Debate, Resolved that Women are more enslaved by Fashion than Men.  Affirmative,  Harry Stearns and William Potts.  Negative,  Alma Carey and Blanche Gay.

ALSO I think it will interest the many friends of Sidney F. Osmun, to know he expects to return East, this Summer.  Five years ago he left here for the West (California).  We reckon “Sid” will be as glad to get back as we will be to see him, too.

Gibson – The commencement exercises of the Gibson graded school will be held in the Gibson Methodist Episcopal church, March 31, Admission 15 and 25 cents.  The valedictory will be given by Anna M. Williams.

Clifford – The marriage of Glenn Wells, of Clifford, and Iva Ridgeway, of Marsh Brook, was celebrated at the bride’s home on Wednesday last, Pastor Musselman, of the Clifford M. E. church, officiating.

Lenoxville - Last Tuesday night, Miss Lottie Wilson and Nelson Marcy were married at the home of Mr. and Mrs. N. F. Marcy, the bridegroom’s parents.  Many guests were present and all joined in wishing them a long and happy married life.

Middletown – Middletown lost another revered pioneer of the Faith in the death of Martin Curley. “He was a just man,” honored and respected by all who knew him and beloved by those intimately acquainted with him.  Mr. Curley was an exemplary Christian gentleman, possessing many noble traits of character. Mr. Curley was born in County Tipperary, Ireland, Jan. 22, 1833.  He was the youngest child of James and Catherine Bergin Curley.  At the age of four years he lost his mother and four years later, in 1841, his father came to America with his family of five sons and three daughters and settled in Middletown, where he died in 1860.  The same year Mr. Curley married Miss Mary A. Murphy, of Silver Lake, and six years ago they celebrated their golden wedding.  Mary died three years later and Mr. Curley resided with their only child, Mrs. Thomas Guiton, where he was most tenderly cared for until his death of Feb. 5th, 1916.  Burial was from St. John’s church in Flynn.

Rush – Found—between Rush and Auburn, Monday morning, two strings of sleigh bells and a hat.  Owner call at Mrs. Cavanaugh’s.

Springville – Don’t forget the fine business proposition of Anna B. Stevens.  A nice millinery store would be a bonanza for a young lady that did not want to teach or take up nursing.  The world is full of these.  Try this fascinating employment for a while.

Marriage Licenses: Nelson W. March, Lenox and Lottie P. Wilson, Clifford; Edward C. Parker, Auburn and Stella Carter, Retta; Washington J. Stevens, Jordan, NY and Ella H. Colton, Syracuse, NY; Thomas M. Oliver, Dimock and Mary C. Lynch, Olyphant; Wm. J. Ryan, Susquehanna and Frances M. King, Susquehanna; Delos S. West, Dolgeville, NY and F. Lillian Thomason, Dolgeville, NY; Leo B. Benson, Susquehanna and Mabel H. Sykes, Oakland Twp.

Williams Pond – The Montrose Granite Marble Works, of which Bosler & Haley, of Montrose, are proprietors, recently set a handsome monument on the cemetery lot of the late Joseph Williams of this place.

Montrose – One of the largest falls of snow of the season fell Monday, when a mantle of “the beautiful,” to the depth of fourteen inches, was dropped on old mother earth in a period of about ten hours.  The day opened clear, with the mercury hovering around zero.  By 10 o’clock, however, the clouds had gathered and snow began falling.  The precipitation was incessant, until about 9 o’clock in the evening.  There was little wind, and the trains were not delayed.

Brooklyn – The High School was closed the first of the week, owing to the illness of Prof. Tewksbury and his assistant Miss Hillick.

200 YEARS AGO – Montrose – By Request, I Notify the people who are interested in having a decent Burying Ground, in or near Montrose, that the ground now occupied for that purpose is owned by individuals and one of them is not willing any more should be buried on his ground, unless the society think it the best, and most suitable, place.  Notice is therefore given that a meeting of the society (or a meeting to form a society) will be held at the house of Chapman Carr, in Montrose, on the 30th inst. And to look out and purchase the best ground for the use of the society.  D. DIMOCK, March 9, 1816.   ALSO   Beware of Villains!! There is in this county, it is believed, a company of base scoundrels whose sole business is, to pass upon the honest and unsuspecting part of community, COUNTERFEIT BANK NOTES, -- thereby to defraud them out of their hard earnings.  Almost half the Notes in circulation in this county are counterfeit.  Why are those villains suffered to remain unmolested? –It is a great and growing evil and ought to be guarded against with as much vigilance as midnight robbery & assassination; for a man that will be guilty of passing counterfeit money, knowing it to be such, would be guilty of any crime that might enable him to get Money.  P.S. Since the above was in type, we learn that there has been nine taken up on suspicion, in this county.  They were examined by Justices Griswold and Bliss, three of which are bound over to court—one has been committed to safekeeping in the gaol in this village—the others discharged,

Jack and Jill were married for many years.  While Jack believed that they were happily married, Jill was dissatisfied and had an extramarital affair with Simon.  As a result of her relationship with Simon, Jill became pregnant.  At that point, Jill regretted betraying Jack, she ended the relationship with Simon, returned to her husband, confessed the affair, and Jack forgave her.  Simon knew that she was pregnant but he lacked the financial resources to support Jill or her child so he did not object to Jack being the child’s father.  Jill gave birth to a healthy girl, Mary, whom Jack raised as his own daughter.

About a decade later, Jack and Jill had some relationship problems, and Jill began to yearn for her Simple Simon again.  Jill and Simon rekindled their romance and decided that the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence.  She told Jack that she was leaving him – and Jack responded by seeking custody of their daughter Mary.  This made Jill quite contrary thinking about Mary with Jack – and she convinced Simon to assert his paternity to defeat Jack’s custody claim.

Jill and Simon provided DNA samples to a testing facility, which verified scientifically that Simon was Mary’s father.  When Jack and Jill appeared in custody court, Jill sought to have the Court dismiss Jack’s action because Jack was not Mary’s biological father.

At this point, Jack raised several common law defenses.  The first was the presumption of paternity, which provides that a child born to an intact marriage is presumed to be the child of that marriage – regardless of any subsequent DNA tests.  The presumption is designed to protect the integrity of the family unit from collateral attack.  This presumption is one of the strongest known to the law – it seeks to protect both the child and the family unit from outside destructive forces, i.e., the jilted adulterer.  But there is a catch – the presumption only applies where its application would preserve the marriage.  The Court told Jack it could not apply the presumption of paternity because there was no longer any marriage to protect – Jack and Jill were divorcing.

Jack then raised the doctrine of paternity by estoppel as his next defense.  This is a common law rule that seeks to protect the child – not the marriage – and essentially provides that where someone assumes the role as the child’s father, and the biological father accepts that position then the biological father cannot later seek to assert his fatherhood.  The biological father is “estopped” from making any paternity claim.

The purpose of this rule is to protect the child from having his or her life devastated with the knowledge that the person who they believed was their father was not a biological parent.  In this case, the 10-year old Mary had never known another father – she believed that Jack was her father, Jack was still acting as her father, and Jack still wanted to be her father regardless of the DNA test results.  Simon was seeking to destroy the father-daughter relationship that Jack and Mary had developed.

Simon accepted that Jack would be Mary’s father.  Simon never sought to establish his paternity when she was born (and likely the presumption of paternity would have defeated his ability to do so).  Simon allowed Mary to grow up thinking that Jack was her father – and indeed Jack had become her father in every sense of the word except for biologically.

For this reason, the Court applied paternity by estoppel and found that Jack was the father – not Simon – regardless of what the DNA tests provided.  Simon was not permitted to assert any claim to Mary – and Jack was allowed to proceed with his action seeking custody of Mary as the law recognized him as Mary’s father.

Do you have a “right” to health care? Think carefully before you answer; thoughts have consequences. The impulse that health care is a “right” courses through the brains of many in America today.

I have many friends and personal acquaintances who hold to that opinion and will not be moved to consider ideas which differ. Astute Readers may already surmise that I do not agree with them.

Here are a few questions Gentle Readers may wish to consider as we proceed with this discussion. If health care is a right, is there not an obligation imposed upon someone (who?) to provide it? Under what terms are medical personnel required to provide health care? To what level, if any, is health care a right, i.e., catastrophic, emergency, maintenance, routine, elective procedures?

Where does this right to health care end?

Are any obligations imposed upon those who are partakers of the health care right, i.e., to proactively maintain wellness, to eat nutritiously, to avoid known hazardous activities, etc? Does one have to be a citizen to partake of the right to health care, or is this right open to all who claim humanity (even if here illegally)?

So obviously questions should be asked (and answered) as to the Collective’s (Society at-large) “right” to prescribe who, where, when, and under what circumstances persons have a “right” to health care.

Would it be fair to assume that a huge bureaucracy would be necessitated to administrate this right?

The above questions to proponents of a health care “right” are only the tip of the iceberg. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wasn’t just being cutesy when she said in March of 2010 (in reference to Obamacare), “We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.” Besides the fact that likely not one single member of Congress ever read the Affordable Care Act (ACA), an infinite--literally, infinite--number of questions concerning health care were left for future decision “as the Secretary [of HHS] shall determine,” as well as to self-replicating boards, commissions, and councils.

What the American people “bought” with Obamacare was a pig-in-a-poke.

Ayn Rand speaks of this phenomenon in her book “Atlas Shrugged,” in relation to the Twentieth Century Car Company, when “altruistic” company owners urge their workers to vote for a health care plan based upon the creed, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

Here’s the revealing passage, as one of the car company workers speaks in “Atlas Shrugged,” ‘We voted for that plan at a big meeting . . . The Starnes [car company owners] heirs made long speeches about it, and it wasn’t too clear, but nobody asked any questions. None of us knew just how the plan would work, but every one of us thought that the next fellow knew it. And if anybody had doubts, he felt guilty and kept his mouth shut--because they made it sound like anyone who’d oppose the plan was a child-killer at heart and less than a human being. They told us that this plan would achieve a noble ideal. Well, how were we to know otherwise? Hadn’t we heard it all our lives--from our parents and our schoolteachers and our ministers, and in every newspaper we ever read and every movie and every public speech? Hadn’t we always been told that this was righteous and just . . . ?’

The story goes on to describe the four years of hell workers underwent until the car company collapsed.

You see, private companies can neither print money nor impose progressively greater taxation (higher prices), unlike governments. Gentle Readers may pick up “For the New Intellectual, The Philosophy of Ayn Rand,” to read the full 16-page passage (quoted from “Atlas Shrugged”) to grasp how destructive is health care when viewed as a “right.”

Obamacare, properly understood, shifts costs from unhealthy beneficiaries to healthy, particularly young and healthy, rate-payers. The Obamacare Masterminds (foolishly) believed they could trick enough healthy people into buying over-priced insurance to finance the costs of health care for the old and unfit. Many young, healthy people--no fools--realized it was more cost-effective for them to pay a fine (defined by Supreme Court Justice Roberts as a “tax”) than to enroll in Obamacare.

But if one peels through enough layers of the Obamacare onion, it becomes clear that Obamacare was never really about healthcare; it was about imposing control over people, and devising a mechanism for the transfer of wealth to the politicians, the insurance companies, and the health care companies receiving special favors. That the scam would devolve into a death-spiral was always understood (by Obamacare Masterminds), but that was a feature, not a bug. And it was no accident that the ruling class exempted itself from Obamacare’s provisions or gave its members exceptional and unrivaled privileges (subsidies).

When it becomes clear that Obamacare will certainly be a failure, two immediate benefits accrue. First, Democratic Party politicians and operatives can blame the Republican Party for sabotaging the “noble program.” (Not a single Republican voted for passage of the hare-brained scheme.) Second, failure will provide impetus to expand Obamacare into universal healthcare (Canadian style)--what big-government Progressives, in both parties, always wanted. The first benefit gives Democrat politicians a powerful appeal to their voting base; the second makes health care infinitely more profitable, since insurance companies can be eliminated and “profits” diverted directly to The Powers That Be (TPTB).

Full universal healthcare is practiced by only two countries on the planet: Canada and North Korea.

Funny how we never hear anyone demanding North Korean-style healthcare!

Canadians have a safety valve, the American healthcare system, where they can legally pay a medical doctor for care. In Canada it is a crime for anyone to pay a doctor for healthcare. Online Readers need only put the search term, “Shona Holmes Canadian Health Care Refugee,” in their search engine to find out the true state of Canada’s health care system. For liberty-loving Americans universal healthcare would manifest as a hard tyranny, more corrupt, more inept, more controlling. But what’s not to like if all are made equally miserable! . . . Except, of course, there will always be some more equal than others in socialist paradise.

Perhaps what confuses those who believe health care is a right is its portrayal as an altruistic impulse. But what is “altruism?”

It is always defined as selflessness, putting others’ benefit ahead of one’s self. Its antonym is thought to be “selfishness.” Since no one wants to be thought “selfish” the almost automatic response is to see or define oneself as altruistic, hence “selfless.” But what if one considers the matter carefully and concludes that the antonym of selflessness is in fact “self-interest”--not selfishness?

Is not “self-interest” the basis of capitalism--the voluntary exchange of goods and services (with each party involved in a better position after the exchange than before)?

Treating health care as a commodity is, in fact, the historical perspective of America before WWII. The Federal government commenced interference with the free markets by imposing wage and price controls during the war. The Federal government’s distortion of the health insurance marketplace during the early 1940’s is the progenitor of health care insurance tied to one’s employment; it was not a development of the free market (capitalism) exchange system.

The “selflessness” of socialized medicine is a façade under which the virtues of each individual, as well as society collectively, are undermined, rotted, and ultimately destroyed. No one seems to consider the answer to this question, “If EVERYONE is to be selfless how is it possible that ANYONE could claim entitlement while simultaneously claiming the quality of selflessness?” While America slept its citizens were infected with the virus of socialism. Americans were sold the delusion that they could live at the expense of everyone else; that “someone else will pay for whatever I need.”

One might note that now the Masters of Delusion are selling the “right” to a college education to young people.

I’m wondering how many other rights they might discover before America awakens.

P.S.:

For anyone who thinks “we” learn from history, read “Facts and Fallacies of Compulsory Health Insurance,” written by Frederick Ludwig Hoffman. The book, originally printed in 1920, can be obtained as a facsimile reproduction at amazon.com. Gentle Readers will be amazed what an insurance actuary made public in lectures given in 1916-1917.