Rocky Mount Telegram from Rocky Mount, North Carolina • 4

4A Rocky Mount Telegram MONDAY, AUGUST 3, 2015 www.rockymounttelegram.com Established 1910 Mark Wilson, Publisher Jeff Herrin, Editor Jon Noel, Advertising and Marketing Cooke Communications North Carolina LLC TELEGRAM Opinion U.S. should define relationship with Turkey States is the creation of a safe zone along the Syrian border to which some of tory. The 28 NATO countries promised Turkey their full support OTHER OPINION not support the separatist PKK, but PKK forces have been effective in combating the Islamic State, now considered Ameri-. ca's number one enemy in the Middle East Perhaps even worse, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan indicated that the 2013 truce between his government and the PKK is over, with negotiations no longer possible. Witivall of these moving parts, the conflict has become more complicated for America Washington would do well to refine its policy and its role.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Turkey's alert to NATO while increasing its involvement in the Syrian war threatens to drag the United States further into an already complex Middle Eastern conflict Citing a threat to its "territorial integrity, political independence or security," Turkey called an emergency meeting Tuesday of NATO in Brussels. It was only the fifth such meeting in the alliance's 66-year his- Turkey's first objective was to obtain NATO's sanction of its bombing of Islamic State group targets in neighboring Syria, which began last week. The United States supports the Turkish bombing and was pleased to receive Turkey's assent to carry out U.S. attacks from Incirlik Air Base. Another Turkish goal backed by the United the estimated 2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey could return.

Unfortunately, the new game plan gets complicated for the United States as Turkey seeks indirect NATO approval of its air attacks against Syrian Kurdish forces and elements of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party, the PKK, in Syria. America does Trying to find moderation for exhausted superkids TODAY'S COLUMNIST There are several passages in the new book "Overloaded and Underprepared" that fill me with sadness for American high school students, the most driven of whom are forever in search of a competitive edge. Some use stimulants like Adder- as "sleep ambassadors," all to promote shut-eye. The school even held a contest that asked students for sleep slogans. The winner "Life is lousy when you're drowsy." Sleep ambassadors? Sleep rhymes? Back when I was in all.

Some cheat But the part of the book that somehow got to me most was about sleep. It's a prerequisite for healthy growth. It's a linchpin of sanity. Before adulthood, a baseline amount is fundamental and nonnegotiable, or high school in the 1980s, in a setting considered intense in its day, the most common sleep problem among my peers was getting too much of it and not waking up in time for class. Now the concern isn't how to rouse teens but how to lull them.

And that says everything about the sible. Those students almost certainly need more sleep. In a study in the medical journal Pediatrics this year, about 55 percent of American teenagers from the ages of 14 to 17 reported that they were getting less than seven hours a night, though the National Sleep Foundation counsels 8 to 10. Tve got kids on a regular basis telling me that they're getting five hours," Pope said. That endangers their mental and physical health.

Smartphones and tablets aggravate the problem, keeping kids connected and distracted long after lights out But in communities where academic expectations run highest, the real culprit is panic, about acing the exam, burnishing the transcript, keeping up with high-achieving peers. Tve talked with many parents in these places. They say that they'd love to pull their children off such a fast track, but wont the other children wind up ahead? Succeed." But it has expanded with particular velocity of late. "How to Raise an Adult," by Julie Lythcott-Haims, came out last month. "The Gift of Failure," by Jessica Lahey, will be released in two weeks.

There's a unifying theme: Enough is enough. "At some point, you have to say, 'Whoa' This is too Pope, a senior lecturer at San-ford, told me. Sleep deprivation is just a part of the craziness, but it's a perfect shorthand for childhoods bereft of spontaneity, stripped of real play and haunted by the "pressure of perfection," to quote the headline on a story by Julie Scelfo in The New York Times last week. Scelfo wrote about six suicides in a 13-month period at the University of Pennsylvania; about the prevalence of anxiety and depression on college campuses; about many star students' inability to cope with even minor setbacks, which are foreign and impermis J- i extracurricular. Apply to all eight Ivies.

Lose a few winks but never a few steps. "Overloaded and Underprepared," published on Tuesday, was written by Denise Pope, Maureen Brown and Sarah Miles, all affiliated with a Stanford University-based group called Challenge Success, which urges more balanced learning environments. The book looks at homework loads, school-day structures and much more. And it joins an urgently needed body of literature that pushes back at helicopter parenting, exorbitant private tutoring, exhaustive preparation for standardized tests and the rest of it This genre goes back at least a decade and includes, notably, Madeline Levine's "The Price of Privilege" and Paul Tough's "How Children FRANK BRUNI The New York Times should be. But many teenagers today are so hyped up and stressed out that they're getting only a fraction of the rest they need.

The book mentions a high school in Silicon Valley that brought in outside sleep way childhood has been transformed at least among an ambitious, privileged subset of Americans into an insanely programmed, status-obsessed and sometimes spirit-sapping race. Take one more Advanced experts, created a kind of sleep curriculum and trained students Placement class. Add another CARTOON NATION STEVE BENSON DOONESBURY 1984 GARRY TRUDEAU AXS.SIR! Wf, LOOm AIL ft som, sir, Burnt poKrvmwuum hwtbw mexxJUfWi yam, I Eimmuma coulvnt NIWSIR? SLEEP. TOO VMissiouzom onwom Nemus ABOUT V.y speech m. ohm? LETTER TO THE EDITOR Never mind gender or ethnicity choose best person for the job in '16 illegal funding issues with the Clinton Foundation.

Not a pretty picture. Please think seriously about your presidential vote. We dont need to make history with our vote we need to use it intelligently. There may be a candidate who can actually polish our country's image, maintain our status as the leader of the free world and protector of freedom. We should vote for the candidate who is best for our country not because of name, ethnicity, skin color or gender.

Let us elect the best person forthe job. To all my Democratic friends the following information is provided for your careful consideration prior to voting for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election; As a 27-year-old lawyer, Hillary Rodham Clinton worked for Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat who was chief counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate hearings. When the hearings were over, Mr. Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation.

According to Mr. Zeifman he fired her because "she was a liar." "She was an vote in a Democrat-controlled Congress no less. The vote never happened. This boondoggle cost taxpayers approximately $13 millioa President Clinton gave Hillary another shot make some recommendations. She recommended former law partner Web Hubbel for the Justice Department (Hubbel went to prison); Vmce Foster for the White House staff (he presumably committed suicide); and William Kennedy for the Treasury Department (he was forced to resign).

Questionable characters all! Hillary's ineptness continued Bet you didn't know that unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality." Hillary was quoted "I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision Here's a quote from Margaret Sanger "Colored people are like human weeds and need to be exterTninated." Think about THAT for a minute! While Bill Clinton was president, he appointed Hillary to develop a health care reform plan. A rough row to hoe she had to resort to intimidation and threats trying to get her plan to a not long after leaving the White House, Hillary and Bill were forced to return an estimated $200,000 in White House furniture, china and artwork. How did that happen? Oh yeah, that's right, they were destitute upon leaving office and needed help from taxpayers to furnish their new multi-million dollar home(s). Hillary had many more opportunities to prove her mettle such as Travelgate," her endorsement of Janet Reno for attorney general, the Russia re-set button, the Benghazi debacle, damage control of Bill's many dalliances, missing emails and her persistent WAYNE ABERNATHY Rocky Mount 1 MAIL BOX NOTABLE QUOTE SPEAK UP Call us st 407-9945 1 Fof the life of me, 1 cannot believe that lawyers would start a brewery here in Rxky Mount with the crime rate and CVls that we have in ttiis area.

They have to defend us, why would they want to start a brewery seSing alcohol? Im like (spitting) all the time when the water washes on me. It's the worst place. I've never seen a place so dirty. The water-is black." Eiartca Kanehsa Olympic wind surfer from Spain, who termed the water in Guanabara "really bad in of the 2016 Summer Garnes in Rio de Janeiro. The Rocky Mount Telegram welcomes letters to the editor by mail, fax or email Submissions are subject to editing for length, grammar and content Please include a name and daytime phone number.

Send to: Letters to the Editor Rocky Mount Telegram P.O. Box 1080 Rocky Mount, NC, 27802 Or emaS: jrntrmtetegrarricom. Ot send by fax to (252).