Page 4 - Mid Valley Times 9-23-21 E-edition

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 Consequences of recall
election results coming
Sadly, it's quite possible that the Sept. 14 recall election may well have been a requiem for the two-party sys- tem and common sense in California.
Flores weekend celebration wraps a beautiful bow on Hall induction
Fred Hall — Publisher
Jon Earnest — Editor
Dick Sheppard — Editor Emeritus
Thursday, September 23, 2021 | A4 | Mid Valley TiMes Editorial & Opinions
State government is in the hands
of one party — Democrats. In terms
of registered voters, they outnumber
Republicans two to one. The governor
should not be boasting about his margin
of victory but instead be humbled by
the number of voters who think he has done a poor job.
It never ceases to amaze me just how easy it is to buy loyalty and votes when one is in a position to send out checks to constituents
Like many of you, I watched the tabulation of votes while tribalism was triumphing over good government. Under Gavin Newsom's watch, California has “gone to hell in a hand basket.” Statistically, the state is at the bottom or near the bottom of all 50 states in terms of quality of life indicators.
Even though California is a classic example of be- traying public trust and mismanagement, issues which impact all of us were never discussed during the cam- paign. Campaign mud slinging was so rampant that one would be forgiven if they were to think that Donald Trump was on the ballot. The Los Angeles Times ran an editorial which should be an embarrassment to anyone in journalism. The writer claimed that Larry Elder was “the black face of white supremacy.” That was so dumb and biased that it should have been painful!
The most worrisome thing about this vote would be if Gavin Newsom looks at his “victory” as a mandate to continue with his wrong-headed approach to state gov- ernance. The result, which we already indicated, was based largely on tribalism with the two to one Demo- crats voting to keep “their man” in office without ever considering the issues which brought about the recall in the first place. Admittedly, I have no answer, but at some point we have to figure out a way to combat coastal California vs. the rest of California.
Briefly analyzing the vote tabulation, it becomes readily apparent that Newman won with San Francisco, Los Angeles and those counties and cities which border the ocean. The “yes” vote and Larry Elder would seem to have prevailed in the balance of the state. That leaves us, in this area, to be ruled by big city liberals and the wealthy who live their lavish life styles along the beau- tiful California coastline. We'll soon know if the man is chastened or feels empowered to do as he pleases.
There is fire everywhere in California, homelessness is rampant, crime is out of control, cost of housing is astro- nomical, cost of fuel and utilities are highest in the nation and taxes are oppressive. Knowing all of that, the following is a list of bills which go to the governor for his signature.
• SB 81 — Reduces felony criminal sentences by re- quiring judges to dismiss enhancements including fire- arm and gang activity.
• SB775 — Allows people who murdered or aided in murder to be re-sentenced under state law, possibly re- sulting in a lesser or no sentence or no sentence at all.
• AB 124 — Requires courts to reduce sentences if trauma to a defendant contributed to a defense.
• AB333 — Narrows gang enhancements sentencing, in turn reducing sentences for crimes committed on be- half of gangs.
• SB339 — Green lights a path for a statewide per mile traveled gas tax.
• AB1346 — Bans the sale of gas-powered lawn mow- ers, generators, chainsaws and leaf blowers after 2024. This certainly doesn't represent all the damage Sac- ramento has done while ignoring the real issues faced by California. They only require the signature of the governor. We'll soon see the true being of the man we
kept in office last week.
But, as always that's only one man's opinion.
There can be no doubt that 2021 is one of the greatest of Tom Flores' 84 years on this planet. Sure, the years when he got married, his children were born, and when moved up the ranks in his athletic and sports career, both as a player and coach, were special. Those two seasons, 1980 and 1983, al- so especially cherished as they ended in Super Bowl triumph.
But this year has to be right near the top. Flores' ultimate dream, induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, finally became a reality in February. Then the actual induction in early August give him an ad- mitted feeling of "euphoria." This past weekend, he had the opportunity to share his ac- complishment in his childhood hometown of Sanger (which briefly included Del Rey, which he pointed out). On Sept. 17, he tossed the ceremonial coin flip before Sanger High's game in his namesake stadium.
A day later, before at least a couple of thousand people
jamming the intersection of 7th and N streets, he receive the ultimate love from the city in the form of a large painted mural at the southwest cornier of the intersection, throngs of people chanting his name and "Raiders," and finally a surprise announcement that a portion of 7th Street would be renamed "Tom Flores Boulevard."
"Well, I'm very humbled by the outpouring and the size of it," he said while being inter- viewed on the stage by George Takata. "Look at this, they didn't have this many people in the whole town when I was [growing up] here," as the crowd laughed and roared. And even larger ovation and cheers came when an emotional Flores — his voice cracking — said "But it's a wonderful thing, and this sign brings tears to my eyes. My mom and dad would be proud of it."
Flores shared how he ini- tially disappointed his mother a bit in his post College of the Pacific years, when he turned
down a teaching
job in Fresno to
take a shot at
the new profes-
sional league
— the Ameri-
can Football
League — with
the team his
parents called the "Oklahoma" Raiders. He ended up play- ing the entire first decade of the AFL from 1960-69 with the Raiders, Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chief before retir- ing as an active player. He then worked his way up the coach- ing ranks with the Raiders, be- coming the first Hispanic head coach in pro football in 1979.
"I said I'll give it one more shot," he said about trying out for the Raiders. "That was 61 years ago, and I'm still here."
Congratulations to Tom, and we'll try to run more photos of his special weekend in next week's issue.
Jon Earnest is news-sports editor for The Times.
Fred Hall
QUOTE
“You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.”
— John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006)
Jon Earnest
IP rights waiver mars medical breakthroughs
By Sandip Shah and Deep Patel
Guest columnists
The Biden administration re- cently announced that it would back a proposal by South Africa and India at the World Trade Organization to nullify Ameri- can innovators' intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines.
While the proposal's adop- tion would not increase the number of global vaccine dos- es available, it would dissuade investment in innovation — ef- fectively inhibiting the next generation of medical break- throughs and hurting patients in the process.
To understand the impor- tance of intellectual property, look no farther than the CO- VID-19 vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. They discovered that by taking advantage of the body's own molecular devices, mRNA can teach our cells how to make a protein similar to that of a given pathogen — which triggers an immune response.
mRNA technology could cre- ate an entire new class of medi- cines. Once scientists have the genetic sequence of a targeted virus or disease, they can equip mRNA with the means to fend it off. This new approach of cus- tom-made mRNA has the poten- tial to address a host of diseases ranging from cancer and heart disease to Alzheimer's and mul- tiple sclerosis.
Moderna and fellow bio- tech firm Merck, for instance, have seen promising results for an mRNA-based therapeu- tic vaccine to treat cancer. Each treatment arms mRNA with a unique code to fight the partic- ular mutations in an individual patient's tumor cells.
These experimental vac- cines and therapies could soon help millions of Americans live longer, healthier lives. That is, if our innovative ecosystem main- tains the incentives necessary to fund them.
Pharmaceutical research and development is inherently risky. Most experimental treat- ments and vaccines meet dead ends, despite the billions of dol- lars invested.
Intellectual property pro- tections help assure innovators that they have exclusive rights to their medical inventions for a period of time.
Without that sense of secu- rity, innovation would come to a standstill. Investors would have to expend resources elsewhere as development ventures -- even those pursuing new applications for technology as promising as mRNA -- simply won't be finan- cially feasible to pursue.
That's precisely why it's so concerning that the Biden ad- ministration has decided to sup- port the intellectual property waiver that South Africa and India are pushing.
Administration officials like- ly felt pressured by the waiv-
er's proponents, who claim that stripping protections is neces- sary to ramp up global vaccine access. But there's no evidence in support of that.
Giving away intellectual property rights will not expand supply because the real bottle- neck lies with the logistical chal- lenges of scaling up production. It takes time to retrofit manu- facturing facilities so that they are capable of safely and effec- tively producing high-tech vac- cines. Not to mention there is a worldwide shortage of the vac- cines' essential raw materials.
The WTO proposal is not a policy option to adopt and abandon when it inevitably proves ineffective in achiev- ing its purported aim. There are real-world consequences of continuing down this path. If intellectual property is no lon- ger protected, patients can say goodbye to future treatments and cures.
Those who recognize the value of American innovation can — and must — push back on this disastrous proposal before it's too late.
Sandip Shah, a visiting pro- fessor at Rutgers, is founder and president of Market Access So- lutions, which develops strate- gies to optimize patient access to life-changing therapies. Deep Patel works at Market Access Solutions. This op-ed originally ran in the Orlando Sentinel.