Hop Bottom – Fred N. Hardy, formerly a successful high school principal of Susquehanna county, has enlisted and is now with the Signal Training
Corps, at Camp Chilcothe, Ohio. ALSO On The evening of Dec. 7, at the Loomis Hall, there will be an old fashioned Methodist shake-down, character songs, etc.

Gibson – N. H Wilmarth is a recent purchaser of a Maxwell automobile.

Susquehanna – A building company is to be formed for the purpose of erecting at least 100 houses.  Susquehanna is greatly in need of desirable houses.  There is not a vacant house in town and the demand for residences is keen.  Over 250 Erie employees are obliged to live at Hallstead and Great Bend. ALSO The Blue Ridge Works here are rushed with orders for their line of work, and a night force is to be added to speed up their orders. Also the many departments of the Erie shops are hustling day and night to keep up with the vast quantities of work passing through the hands of the hundreds of workmen employed. ALSO Susquehanna is having trouble to get coal, and sugar is exceedingly scarce, only a small amount being allowed to any customer and many stores being unable to supply it at all.

Gibson – About fifty persons, most of whose birthdays come in the month of November, assembled at the home of Mr. and Mrs. R. H. Estabrook, Nov. 17th, to celebrate their birthday anniversaries together. Numbers representing the day in November on which they were born, were pinned on the persons. The oldest person present was Mr. Louise Guild, on whose exact birthday this party was held, she being 77, and the youngest was Mitchell Jesse, aged 7.

Brooklyn – The Tiffany Brothers, sons of M. C. Tiffany, who believe there is money in the tilling of the soil, finished digging their potatoes on Friday.  They raised about 1000 bushels and although they were obliged to pay 30 cents per hour for help to dig the tubers, they will make their farming pay a big profit this year.

Hallstead – We learn that Miss Margaret Dougherty, of this place, is the bride of Bert Shafer, an enlisted man at Augusts, Ga.  Mr. Shafer formerly resided in Hallstead and was an employee of Demer Bros. Co.  The bride is the daughter of Conductor and Mrs. Henry Doherty.

West Harford – Several from here attended the corn husking at Earl Ellsworth’s, Friday evening, and report a fine time.

Montrose – Frank Jagger, the gentlemanly salesman at the Fancher grocery, has returned from an extended trip in the west, having visited his brother, Ashley, at Poynette, Wisconsin, and other relatives in Madison and Jaynesville, Wis., Chicago, and other places.  Frank was greatly impressed with the large scale on which farming operations are progressed in the west.  On a farm he visited, the plowing was done by an eight-ton tractor, drawing a gang of eight plows, the tractor having an arrangement for practically guiding itself. ALSO The coal situation here, like many other places, is very acute, with no immediate prospect of relief in sight. Pepper & Birchard informed us yesterday that two cars of coal had been shipped to them, but they didn’t show up.  Many families are out of coal and are having a hard time, some burning up wood when it can e secured, others borrowing a hod or so of coal to just “keep ‘em goin” and nearly everyone shutting off every room that can be dispensed with and hovering over the reliable old kitchen range, around which the social life of the town centers now-a-days.

Thompson – Sunday evening, as Roscoe Washburn and family were on their way to church, their car stopped suddenly and after investigating and getting things properly adjusted, their son, Charley, in cranking up the machine, was dealt a heavy blow on his right arm with the crank, sustaining two fractures.  He was taken to Dr. McNamara’s office and the fractures were reduced before returning home. ALSO Mrs. Sarah Slocum of Jackson street, was tendered a genuine surprise, when friends and neighbors to the number of 18, marched into her home loaded with vegetables of all kinds, groceries, meat, butter, canned fruit and various other things too numerous to mention, and also bringing everything in the culinary line thereby serving a sumptuous dinner and after spending the day with her repaired to their several homes leaving her in good spirits and with a heart overwhelming with gratitude that no words can express.

Forest City – The Family Theatre will have as attractions this afternoon and evening, “The Son of Erin,” with Dustin Farnum as the star.  Also special Fox comedy and Pathe war news.  “The Son of Erin” is an Irish production in five parts. ALSO During the week the Soldiers Good Will Committee sold certificates at ten cents per to raise a tobacco fund for our boys at Camp Meade and those to go in December.  Did you “set ‘em up” for the boys? ALSO Brant McLaughlin’s icehouse is being repaired.  It was badly wrecked in a storm a few weeks ago, making it necessary to build one side new and to reroof the building.  The old building will be enlarged.  More room was needed so that the supply of ice would be enough to meet the demands.  This year Mr. McLaughlin ran shy of ice and had to have a large quantity shipped in.

News Brief: Ruth Law has applied to the war department for a commission in the aviation section of the signal corps.  Miss Law holds the American non-stop flight record, and has participated in Liberty Loan drives by dropping “bombs” in various cities.  She wears a regulation officer’s uniform under special permission said to have been granted by the war department.   [After the United States entered World War I in April 1917, she campaigned unsuccessfully for women to be allowed to fly military aircraft. Stung by her rejection, she wrote an article entitled "Let Women Fly!" in the magazine Air Travel, where she argued that success in aviation should prove a woman's fitness for work in that field. Wikipedia.]

Copy of the 200 years ago Centinel for this week is not available.

Brian Shore is an inmate in the State Correctional Institution (SCI) at Albion, Pennsylvania.  Shore had a number of photographs (43 in total) mailed to him which the SCI personnel would not allow him to have because the pictures contained nude images.  The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections does not allow inmates to possess any photographs depicting nudity.  Upon receiving notification that the SCI would not release these nude photos, Shore filed an internal grievance, which the Superintendent denied because he determined that the photographs contained “nudity and exposed genitalia.”  Shore then filed an administrative appeal outside of the SCI itself, which was again upheld on the basis that the photographs contained “nudity in the form of bare breasts, vaginal and anal areas.”

Shore was not deterred and he then filed a petition for review in the Commonwealth Court contending that the SCI’s refusal to release these nude pictures violated his constitutional rights.  Shore contended that the SCI was improperly imposing “individualized benchmarks of morality” upon him.   Shore also argued that the SCI was violating his First Amendment rights by withholding the photographs from him.

The Commonwealth Court noted that the First Amendment includes the right to communicate through the mail service.  Prisoners, however, have very limited First Amendment rights and the SCI has the ability to place reasonable limitation on these First Amendment rights provided there is a “sufficient penological justification” for any such restrictions.  In this regard, the Court noted that the SCI had a reasonable justification to support its refusal to allow inmates to possess pornographic materials, namely, fostering the rehabilitation of inmates, discouraging inmates from objectifying people, and minimizing the risk of inappropriate sexual behavior between the inmates.  As such, the Commonwealth Court concluded that Shore could not demonstrate any constitutional violation based upon the SCI’s refusal to hand over his nude pictures.

Shore also contended that the procedure to withhold the nude photographs was unfair because Shore was not permitted to see them, i.e., he could not verify the veracity of what the Department of Corrections was telling him.  Shore argued that he could not make any arguments regarding why he should be permitted to have the photographs where he did not even know what the photographs depicted.  Shore contended that he was denied procedural due process through the refusal to allow him to view the photographs even briefly because he then lacked the ability to make any argument as to why the photographs did not constitute impermissible “nudity.”

The Commonwealth Court noted that Shore’s argument had potential merit but found that Shore had failed to make any request during his internal grievance procedure to actually view the photographs.  Given that Shore had never requested the Department of Corrections to allow him to view the photographs, the Commonwealth Court concluded that he could not now argue that he was denied the opportunity to do so.  Shore could not contend that the SCI had denied him procedural due process where in reality no denial occurred because Shore did not make any request.

Shore’s petition for an appeal was dismissed by the Commonwealth Court in its entirety – and Shore will not be permitted to possess the 43 nude photographs that had been mailed to him.  In the future, if he continues to receive nude photographs that are the SCI refuses to release, Shore could make a request of the Department of Corrections to view them briefly in order to verify that they are contraband or provide him with sufficient information so as to argue why those photographs do not depict “nudity.”

Why do I need an ID to buy Sudafed?

Kristin came into the pharmacy and asked where the Sudafed® was because she has a cold. The pharmacist said that he keeps it behind the counter and that he would need to see a picture ID if she were to purchase it. “I don’t get it,” Kristin said. “I thought it was over-the-counter.” Many allergy and cold sufferers have likely encountered the barriers put in place to purchase Sudafed®. Pseudoephedrine (PSE) relieves sinus pressure and congestion and is an ingredient in several products that end in “D” which stands for decongestant, such as Claritin-D®, Zyrtec-D®, and Mucinex®D. PSE is also an ingredient needed to produce methamphetamine, a treacherously strong and highly addictive central nervous system stimulant that is used mainly as a recreational drug. Over the years, the abuse of illegally and clandestinely produced methamphetamine has mushroomed dramatically in the US.

Methamphetamine (aka meth, ice, crank, etc) is manufactured in covert laboratories. Meth can be ingested by swallowing, inhaling, injecting or smoking. The side effects of this drug include irritability, nervousness, insomnia, nausea, depression, and brain damage. Overdose effects include agitation, life-threatening fever, hallucinations, convulsions, and death. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, approximately 7,600 people died in 2016 as a result of meth abuse, a 7-fold increase over 2001. If you want to see how meth can destroy lives, the HBO series Breaking Bad is a memorable orientation.

To restrict illicit access of PSE, federal laws have been put in place to comply with the 2006 Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act. These restrictions include having to request PSE from a pharmacy employee, present a photo ID and require that this information is entered into a database to track the amount a person purchases. Buyers must be 18 years or older. The law limits a person to no more than 3.6 grams of PSE per day and 7.5 grams per month without a prescription. Although the law allows for a sufficient amount to be purchased in a 30-day period, a person may go over that amount if they are also buying PSE products to be used by another person in the household. Individuals may obtain a prescription for a PSE product if their doctor feels they need an excess of the legal limit. 

Also, manufacturers have reformulated several products to contain an alternate nasal decongestant that does not require a photo ID, such as Sudafed PE™, which replaces the PSE with phenylephrine, an effective decongestant that shrinks blood vessels in the nasal passages, to make breathing easier.

Monitoring PSE sales recently got even easier. The National Precursor Log Exchange (NPLEx) is a real-time electronic logging and compliance system that tracks sales of OTC cold and allergy medications containing PSE. NPLEx is utilized by 33 states to comply with meth precursor legislation, with more states expected to sign up. NPLEx not only tracks the amount of PSE individuals purchase but can also automatically block the sale of PSE. To date, NPLEx has been instrumental in obstructing the sale of 29+ million grams of methamphetamine precursors, nationwide. By electronically tracking an estimated 80% of PSE transactions throughout the US, NPLEx is a valuable tool for law enforcement, making it possible for the authorities to intervene at the point of sale. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist if you have any questions about what type of nasal decongestant will correct your symptoms.

Ron Gasbarro, PharmD, is a registered pharmacist, medical writer, and principal at Rx-Press.com. Read more at www.rx-press.com