Page 4 - Mid Valley Times 9-16-21 E-edition

Thursday, September 16, 2021 | A4 | Mid Valley TiMes Editorial & Opinions
Serving the Readers of the Reedley Exponent, Dimuba Sentinel and Sanger Herald.
A Mid Valley Publishing Newspaper
Founded March 26, 1891, in a two-story building on the corner of 11th and F streets, by A.S. Jones
In my OPINION Time has come for storm
warnings to be raised
We were warned by Ronald Reagan that “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” With this current bumbling mess by bureau- crats and politicians, perhaps it's time for storm warnings to be raised.
Sanger's set to celebrate favorite son Tom Flores this weekend
Fred Hall — Publisher
Jon Earnest — Editor
Dick Sheppard — Editor Emeritus
Fred Hall
It's a weekend Sanger High, Raiders Nation and family and friends have long awaited — the opportunity to celebrate with Tom Flores as he returns to town for the first time as a bonafide Pro Football Hall of Famer.
Barring any unforeseen circumstances, Sanger's most beloved Oakland-Los Angeles (and now Las Vegas) Raider will be coming to town on Friday, Sept. 17, and make an appearance at his namesake football stadium (now officially lengthened to Pro Football Hall of Fame Tom Flores Stadium) as part of the Apaches' "Hall of Fame" night game with Centen- nial High of Bakersfield.
Flores won't be the only Hall of Famer to be honored. Sanger High's athletic Class of 2020 and Class of 2021 in- ductees also will receive the praise and adulation from the crowd in attendance. The Class of 2020 has a variety of sports inductees in the 1951 football
team (the school's first sec- tion champions), Del Beshore, Jaime Garza, Pat Henry, Tony Herron, Scott Jett, Diana Ma- cias-Copeland, Staci Mosher and Mark Wallin.
Then there's the Class of 2021 — Michelle Anderson, Sheri Johnson-Bock, Janelle Odom, Billy Jack Pierce, Er- nie Reese, and Floyd and Lloyd Sanders. There's also one oth- er inductee who didn't play a minute of athletics for SHS but was one of the school's big- gest boosters – the late Dick Sheppard, longtime editor for the Sanger Herald and a much- loved and missed work col- league. Dick definitely would have been thrilled for the expe- rience, but not half as thrilled as to share Tom Flores' special moment.
The fun really begins on Saturday, Sept. 18. There will be a commemorative proces- sion of Flores down 7th Street, a section of which is being re- christens "Tom Flores Boule-
vard." The pro-
cession will fin- ishat7thandN
streets, where
at the south-
west corner a
ribbon cutting
will take place
to formally
dedicate the beautiful Tom Flores Mural.
There also will be the ap- pearance of surprise Raiders alumbu, who will be waving to fans and spectators from the Coors Light RV. There should be plenty of surprised and treats for Sanger residents, out of town visitors and attendees that are expected to number in the thousands. evening fes- tivities run from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m., and you can check out the event schedule by going online to Sanger.org.
Come join the fun and con- gratulate Coach Flores!
Jon Earnest is news-sports editor for The Times.
QUOTE
“An education isn't how much you have com- mitted to mem- ory, or even how much you know. It's being able
to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't.”
— Anatole France (1844-1924)
Jon Earnest
We originally were promised by
officials that COVID-19 restrictions
would last about two weeks to “flatten
the curve.” It's now been a year-and-
a-half and, if anything, President Joe
Biden just made those restrictions harsher than ever. Between Anthony Fauci, the Centers for Disease Control and the president this will go on into perpetuity, with Americans having more and more of their civil rights being unconstitutionally taken away. Remember the re- cent documents that were discovered showing that Fauci was responsible for grant money which helped gain of function for the virus! Incremental socialism, promoted by left wing Democrats, is being installed in America.
Our president seems to believe that his agenda, or that of his puppeteer, supersedes all states rights and those guaranteed by our Constitution. His executive ac- tions are not appropriate, nor do they represent law.
We find ourselves quietly waiting for the State De- partment to write their promised “harshly worded let- ter” to the Taliban to chastise them over holding hos- tages and the formation of their government. Anthony Blinken believes they will have a government of inclu- sion to include women (birthing people), minorities, any of the 39 genders (according to Facebook), gays, lesbians, bisexuals, or transgenders. No one, except this Biden administration, believes that is going to happen.
While we are busy getting ready to pay the Taliban a huge cash ransom — in addition to the military materiel — for the Americans we left behind, maybe the admin- istration can convince the Taliban to enact gun control and proclaim a woman's right to an abortion.
Speaking of the Afghani government, we see that the five terrorists Barack Obama and Biden traded for Bowe Bergdahl — American deserter in 2009 — will as- sume positions as high ranking officials of that govern- ment. Obama made the controversial trade in 2014.
Our government officials are displaying all the na- ivety of a child. These Taliban leaders are the same guys who behead people for little or no reason and burn people alive in steel cages. Anthony Blinken, good luck with your “harshly worded“ letter.
Simple anger is typified by annoyance, displeasure or hostility. Carried to extremes it becomes wrath and crosses the line to become of the seven deadly sins. I find it extremely difficult to avoid being that person but it's really tough to see what is happening then have to listen to administration officials and military brass brag about the smoothness and efficiency of the entire opera- tion. Talk about trying to put lipstick on a pig!
I sincerely hope that what I'm feeling is righteous anger when I see television coverage that shows Tali- ban members in American uniforms with night vision helmets we left behind. These folks in the Biden admin- istration have managed to make a disorganized bunch of goat herders one of the finest equipped militaries in that area. Hopefully, we'll never have to return, but given the nature of these folks and previous history, we probably will have to do so. Then, they will be killing our soldiers with our own equipment. Thank you Joe, can't wait to see your “build by better plan.” Hopefully clearer headed thinking will have gone into it.
While we have often complained about the failure in judgment of American military brass and Biden opting to leave there with everything still in place, it now ap- pears that even more of an egregious move was made. U.S. News and World Report recently wrote about the Chinese Communist government moving to occupy the structure. Strange that the president sees this whole operation as a huge success; saving undocumented Af- ghanis and leaving Americans behind.
But, as always, that's only one man's opinion.
We need to prepare for other pandemics
By Wolfgang Klietmann
Guest columnist
"There have been as many plagues as wars in history," wrote Albert Camus in The Plague, "yet always plagues and wars take people equally by sur- prise." The world was certainly unprepared for COVID-19, but in just a year and a half after the SARS-CoV-2 virus was iden- tified, 5 billion doses of vaccines have been administered —an un- precedented response.
American pharmaceutical manufacturers have been lead- ing the fight. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), has granted approval or emer- gency authorization to three vaccines. Two were developed by U.S. companies and the other by a U.S.-German partnership.
The U.S. leads, in large part, because our government has been wise to resist counterpro- ductive constraints on innova- tion. Successfully developing a drug requires billions in capi- tal, and any firm embarking on such a venture requires the possibility of a reward for tak- ing enormous risk. In recent years, governments in Europe and other parts of the world have introduced price controls on medicines, and their phar- maceutical industries have suf- fered accordingly.
As recently as 1990, Euro-
pean pharmaceutical compa- nies were spending far more on research and development than U.S. firms. But, by 2019, U.S. companies were spending 50 percent more than their Eu- ropean counterparts.
R&D is paying off for pa- tients. The FDA has already ap- proved 34 new drugs this year, including 12 therapies for can- cer and others for conditions such as lupus, schizophrenia and kidney disease.
Unfortunately, however, President Biden has a plan that threatens the U.S. health inno- vation model. On Aug. 12, the President proposed that Medi- care authorities would "negoti- ate" prices with pharmaceutical companies.
In other words, the president wants price controls on drugs.
Setting artificially low pric- es would impede patients' ac- cess to treatments today and discourage companies from investing in the drugs of to- morrow. There's no way to re- duce Medicare drug spending by hundreds of billions of dol- lars without it resulting in less R&D and ultimately, fewer new drugs and vaccines.
Such measures would im- pede our ability to foresee future pandemics. This pre- paredness is essential, because additional health crises are in- evitable. The United States re-
cently recorded four cases of Melioidosis, an infectious dis- ease in several tropical regions, including Central America. And on Aug. 11, 2021 the WHO re- ported that for the first time a case of the Marburg Virus was seen in Guinea in West- Africa, a tropical hemorrhagic disease related to Ebola which had caused smaller eruptions in East-Africa in the past.
Rather than risking such a di- saster, Washington could reform the Medicare insurance system itself. Biden wants to set a cap on "the amount that seniors have to spend on prescription drugs each year at no more than...$250 a month on average. That'd be a game changer." He's right.
Changing the structure of Medicare insurance would not only be fairer for America's se- niors, it would also avoid dis- rupting the innovation model that has already prevented millions of COVID deaths. We can be certain that, as Camus wrote, other plagues are com- ing, but, with a strong system of developing and manufac- turing the best vaccines and medicines, we won't be taken entirely by surprise.
Dr. Wolfgang Klietmann is a former clinical pathologist and medical microbiologist at Har- vard Medical School. This piece was previously published in the Boston Herald.