Page 4 - Reedley Exponent 1-31-19 E-edition

The Reedley Exponent A4 Thursday, January 31, 2019 Editorial & Opinions
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Fred Hall — Publisher
In my OPINION
Just as when one is in Las Vegas playing
blackjack, there are times in life when it is
entirely proper and well-advised to “double
down” on one’s position on certain issues. Last
week, I wrote, at some length, about today’s
“journalists” lack of ethics in agenda-driven
reporting vis-a-vie rush-to-judgment methods
of reporting on preconceived notions of the
event they are covering. Fact checking and
reliable sources be damned! We even went so
far as to identify five stipulations of that code Fred Hall of fair practices for journalists.
Since that original column was penned, an internet “news site” named Buzz Feed broke a story about the president telling Michael Cohen, his attorney, to lie to the Mueller investigation as well as Congress. Although the report named no sources or featured any quotes, it was quickly parroted by the “usual suspects” in the main- stream media. Robert Mueller’s investigatory group quickly af- firmed the report was “untrue,” but it didn’t make any difference.
The word impeachment, by talking heads in the media, ap- peared approximately 200 times during the following 24 hours before cooler heads began to prevail. That only counted CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC and CBS. Adding to the travesty were The New York Times, Washington Post and various other members of the print press.
This past weekend, a small snippet of video of small-town Ken- tucky Catholic high school boys in Washington for a pro-life march resulted in calls for everything from their being punched in the face to their being killed arose on the internet. Mainstream media pounced without questioning any of the details. It appears, now that everyone has had access to the facts, they were the ones be- ing assaulted by the Black Hebrew Israelites and a drum-beating Native American who reportedly was a Vietnam war veteran. That has since been debunked. We understand the boys were waiting for a bus to pick them up after the rally when they were confronted. Release and review of the entire video showed everything in con- text.
All appearances are that their greatest sin was wearing “Make America Great Again” caps while being white. Until we, in the journalism business, get past this hate Trump we will continue winding up with egg on our face. There can be little doubt that many will continue along this mind-numbed path!
When one is growing older, it’s really difficult to isolate any benefits associated with the aging process. Setting aside the dis- appearance of physical prowess and the ability to perform tasks which once seemed so simple, we generally continued to be blessed by God with the experience and wisdom accumulated over a life- time. Older, generally wiser people, tend to still be able to make rational considerations based on that experience.
With many today, the enemy du jour seems to be Pacific Gas and Electric Co. with their highest-in-the-country power rates. They are in the process of going into Chapter 11 bankruptcy amidst the emotional wrath of a consumer base and state govern- ment blaming them for the wildfires last year. It’s really easy to hate a big company like this, especially after pulling stunts like paying big bonuses to executives and allowing those checks to clear before they took the same action a few years ago.
While one’s emotions can be extremely powerful, it’s often wise to stop and examine the facts, trying to locate real culprits. No one can argue with the facts that, at first blush, it’s difficult to understand why they charge so much for their product which is essential to all of us. My personal (at home) bill for power ranges anywhere from $300 to $700 per month!
All of this anger is compounded by the power company’s use of a “base-rate” system which seems to vary from house to house and no one can explain. Couple that with their incestuous relationship with California Public Utilities commission which has been little more than a rubber stamp on rate increases.
As usual, the first place anyone should look to as a basis for something that is inexplicably ridiculous would be the gang which we elect to represent us in Sacramento. When our lawmakers pass legislation requiring that certain percentage of our electric power comes from renewable sources such as wind, solar and steam, little or no thought is ever given to the cost of those sources which are astronomical compared to traditional sources such as coal. Special interest groups and environmentalists have “snowed” our elected representatives to the point they have 100 percent buy-in with the global warming theory.
We’ve reached the point in California where it’s either Donald Trump or global warming that is at the heart of all our problems — according to those who claim to be much wiser than we. Setting our system of public schooling aside, we hope everyone is smarter than that.
Pacific Gas and Electric would not make my list well-run, ad- mirable companies but they are indicative of what happens when, increasingly, government is becoming a “partner” in all of our businesses. Their rules and regulations — especially from people who have never signed a paycheck or run a business — have be- come stifling to free enterprise in this state which once so glow- ingly represented what was good about America.
A pronounced loss of freedom by the private sector is inher- ently harmful to an entire populace. It even drives up the cost of the basic utilities which are the engine of a robust economy.
Jon Earnest — Editor / Sports Juanita Adame — Panorama Editor Budd Brockett — Editor Emeritus
Initial Town Hall event makes a good first impression with community
QUOTE
“If all the rich people in the world divided up their money among themselves there wouldn’t be enough to go around.”
Christina Stead (1903-1983) “House of All Nations” (1938) ‘Credo’
If attendance is the gauge, the monthly Reedley Town Hall events appear to have a bright future.
More than 60 community mem- bers — leaders, business owners and every day residents and neighbors — came to the Reedley Community Center’s Senior Room the evening of Jan. 28 to listen to a presentation and voice their opinion about the city’s homelessness problem. Nicole Zieba, city manager, was joined by three Reedley Police Department of- ficials — Chief Joe Garza, Lt. Marc Ediger and Sgt. Gary Kincaid — to give information on the new state and federal mandates that limit en- forcement of homeless. They also fielded questions from the public — neighbors who have or currently live near some of the nearly 30 home- less around the city, more recently moved to tree-filled areas along the east bank of the Kings River.
I attended a portion of the meet- ing to shoot photos and get a feel of the community’s interest. With the homeless situation, the interest defi- nitely is there among residents and particularly business owners. One concern shared by Zieba that could directly affect property owners is the possibility that state law could pass that may allow the homeless to camp out on private property. An example of these would be privately- owned business or shopping center parking lots.
What should be encouraging to Reedley residents is that the city is committed to continuing to enforce any laws being broken by the home- less. But as Garza often has stated, the police also will enforce and re- spect people’s rights.
If you missed attending the first Town Hall, the next one will be on Monday, Feb. 25 at 6 p.m. And it’s another provocative topic — “Why Don’t We Have a Target Yet?” As the title implies, the topic will be about economic development facts and myths when it comes to the city. Since many in Reedley have strong opinions about the business climate, it should make for interesting dis- cussion.
•••
Another event I went to shoot
photos at earlier this week was the Reedley College candidates forum on Jan. 29 in the college’s Student Center. There, presidential finalists Donna Berry and Jerry Buckley each spoke and answered questions for an hour with students, college officials and community leaders in attendance. Berry — longtime vice president of administrative services at the college, has served as interim president of RC since July when San- dra Caldwell left to become execu- tive director of the Wyoming Com- munity College Commission. Buck- ley also has held leadership roles as assistant superintendent for the
Santa Clarita Com- munity College District.
The brief por-
tions I heard from
both Berry and
Buckley show-
cased highly qual-
ity candidates,
both capable of Jon Earnest leading the college
to continued success and achieve- ment. We’ll publish highlights from the forum in the Feb. 7 issue, or you can also check out livestream of the event on YouTube.
•••
I just received word this week
from David Gonzalez with the Reed- ley Community Garden that the or- ganization’s annual Gleaning Day event is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 9. Volunteers will gather at the garden on the southwest corner of Manning and Crawford avenues in the morning to harvest garden or- anges and vegetables.
Gonzalez said volunteers are in- vited to come visit and pick a bag for yourself or a bag or more for hunger. Volunteers later in the morning will visit a nearby orange orchard where Gonzalez said the land owners gen- erously have donated oranges to the organization to pick.
More details are on the garden’s website at communitylifegarden.org.
But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.
Sadly, eugenics flourishing in modern America
By Gary Welton
Guest columnist
The modern eugenics movement is attributed to Sir Francis Galton (1822- 1911), a half-cousin of Charles Darwin. Perhaps better known as the Father of Psychological Testing, Galton argued that the hu- man gene pool could be improved, natural selection explicitly facilitated, and the evolution of the human race accelerated, by reduc- ing the number of children born to “below average” humans and increasing the number of children born to “above average” humans.
As a result of his think- ing, more than 30 of our states adopted legislation aimed at compulsory ster- ilization of certain individu- als. Margaret Sanger found- ed Planned Parenthood with the explicit goal of encour- aging contraceptive use for poor and immigrant women, hence helping to realize Gal- ton’s goal of improving the human gene pool.
The other means of altering the gene pool, be- yond the number of births from parents with differing genes, would be to take ac- tive steps to cleanse the hu- man race of existing “inferi- or” peoples. This, of course, defined the Nazi regime of
Hitler, in which he targeted individuals he deemed to be inferior, sometimes on the basis of mental ability, and other times on the ba- sis of his racial and ethnic stereotypes. Indeed, Hitler’s operationalization of eugen- ics convinced society that such steps were inhumane, unethical, and totally unac- ceptable. Eugenics had seen its height and would quick- ly decline. Or so we like to think.
Since the Roe v. Wade decision by the U.S. Su- preme Court on Jan. 22, 1973, more than 60 million babies have been aborted in America. This dwarfs the number of Jews ex- terminated by Hitler. This dwarfs the number of So- viets murdered by Stalin. Realizing her dream of altering the gene pool of the human race, Marga- ret Sanger seems to have facilitated her goal, given that these abortions are not evenly distributed across the American population.
The 2010 U.S. Census indicates that 72.4 per- cent of residents indicated that their race was “white alone;” 27.6 percent indicat- ed some minority racial/eth- nic status. The distribution of abortions in America, however, are dramatically
Other Opinions
different. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, summariz- ing data from 36 states (14 states did not report, did not report by race, or did not meet reporting standards), approximately 50.5 percent of abortions in the United States in 2014 were obtained by white women, and 49.5 percent were obtained by women of minority racial or ethnic status. When I crunch these numbers, I learn that minority fetuses are more than two times more likely to be aborted in America than white fetuses. The most vulnerable and op- pressed group in America (the unborn) are not being treated with equality. This, by another name, is the practice of eugenics.
As Ian McEwan wrote in The Child in Time, “Chil- dren are our greatest re- source.” For most people, it is very easy to become a parent; it is very hard to be a parent. The decision to be- come a parent is a decision to accept the toughest job in America. The decision to abort a baby is a decision to put one’s convenience ahead of another’s life.
I know many Christians who are living out their
faith by adopting one or more babies. Many of these adoptions today involve international handicapped children, in large part be- cause American babies are not available, given the practice of abortion.
I regularly hear the ac- cusation that conservative Americans don’t care about the poor, racial equity, or social justice (and certainly, we can do better). Neverthe- less, I argue that among the largest oppressed group in America, the unborn, there is no equality in support of minority opportunities for life. There is no social jus- tice when racial and ethnic minorities are being abort- ed at a rate more than 200% higher than white Ameri- cans. The liberal support of abortion is the ultimate evi- dence of racial and ethnic inequality in America. It is the ultimate denial of social justice. It is time to put eu- genics to death.
Gary L. Welton is assis- tant dean for institutional assessment, professor of psychology at Grove City (pa.) College, and a contrib- utor to The Center for Vision & Values. He is a recipient of a major research grant from the Templeton Founda- tion to investigate positive youth development.
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