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

The Reedley Exponent A4 Thursday, April 4, 2019 Editorial & Opinions
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Fred Hall — Publisher
In my OPINION
Jon Earnest — Editor / Sports Juanita Adame — Panorama Editor Budd Brockett — Editor Emeritus
QUOTE
“A prose writer gets tired of writing prose, and wants tobeapoet.Sohe begins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing prose.”
Samuel McChord Crothers
Although it may seem counter-intuitive, the dedicated service of our police and law en- forcement officials is all that stands between us, chaos and anarchy. Yet, it seems that poli- ticians continue to pass inane legislation that effectively handcuffs law enforcement. Obvi- ously, California would be a primary example of that with Propositions 47 and 57 as well as mak- ing this a sanctuary state. Beside weakening or even neutering law enforcement, politicians have appointed political operatives to head up enforcement agencies instead of professionals.
Business survey report highlights promising developments for city
Fred Hall
The March 26 Reedley City Council was relatively brief, but contained some important feedback from city and Fresno County repre- sentatives who worked on the 2018 Reedley Business Survey Report.
A half hour-plus workshop told the council about the survey, con- ducted in late 2018 to identify exist- ing business need and get feedback on how happy or unhappy the public was with city and Greater Reedley Chamber of Commerce services. The report also stressed developing a strategy and action that will continue to support economic development.
The three speakers — Amanda Bosland from the Fresno County Economic Development Commis- sion, Erik Valencia from the Great- er Reedley Chamber of Commerce and Rob Terry, Reedley Community Development Director — all told of highlights from the 46-page survey and report. While there was much optimism and potential for the city, they also mentioned deficiencies like more support needed to the Spanish- speaking business owner community and more social media updates.
Valencia shared one major piece
of news — that the chamber is in the process of bringing the Reedley Downtown Association under its um- brella and will coordinate on annual events starting with the upcoming Reedley Rummage Sale and Street Faire. It’s a big step in getting the city’s business leaders working on a shared vision.
You can check out the 2018 busi- ness survey report by going online to bit.ly/2018reedleybizreport.
•••
I haven’t done a column for a
couple of weeks, since before the state basketball finals. Despite a 60- 49 defeat at the hands of the power- ful Ribet Academy Fighting Frogs, the Immanuel High Eagles still can proudly call themselves Northern California Division 4 boys basketball champions. No small feat, given the hundreds of schools (and 32 premier qualifiers) competing at that enroll- ment size.
While the team loses two key se- nior starters in leading scorer Jor- dan Rodriguez and post player Kaleb Daglish, there still remains a strong nucleus of young players who were key contributors to this year’s un-
precedented play- off run for the pro- gram. The future, indeed, is bright for the Eagles.
••• Reedley High
School volleyball
players of multi-
generations hon-
ored longtime coach Glenda Mor- gan back in late 2016 for her many years of coaching, guidance and leadership. Now, many of those for- mer players who went on to play at Reedley College are planning to honor coach Shirley Gustafson, who led the Tigers from 1974 to 1995.
A reunion of players and coach is planned for Saturday, May 18, from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Reedley College cafeteria. Players, family, friends and anyone who would like to honor “Mrs. Gus” are invited to attend.
Deadline to reserve a spot at the event is Wednesday, May 1. For more information, contact Nobi Kitaoka at (559) 593-1912 or email to nobi.kitao- ka@reedleycollege.edu.
Nothing undermines democracy more
quickly or assuredly than the corruption of the laws and the enforce- ment of those laws which govern man’s interaction. Sad to say, we are currently witnessing an acceleration of scofflaws and a double standard of justice at all levels of our society.
I’m not a young man, but my first recollection of the perversion involves Ted Kennedy, who killed Mary Jo Kopechne on a summer night on July 18, 1969 by driving his car off a New England bridge. Kennedy, who allegedly was drunk at the time, left Ms. Kopechne in a submerged car to drown while he returned to his hotel — not reporting the event to anyone who might have been able to render aid. Enter Joseph Kennedy Sr. — renowned scotch whisky bootleg- ger who built a fortune on the illicit trade — who put the powerful political machine to work, making the whole thing go away. We all know that Teddy’s political fortunes weren’t impacted as the people of Massachusetts looked the other way and he was continuously elected until his own death.
A double standard under the law? Common sense surely offers the definitive answer to anyone open minded enough to examine the awful details.
Interestingly enough, the next example of political perversion of the law involves another Kennedy spawn. In 1975 Michael Skakel, nephew of Robert Kennedy, was suspected in the Pinseeker golf club bludgeoningdeathof15-yearoldMarthaMoxley. Politicalinfluence on behalf of the Kennedy clan once again prevailed, and charges were never filed. Charges were finally brought in 2002 — 27 years later — resulting in a three-week trial in which he was convicted of her murder. The verdict was overturned shortly thereafter. Was that a double standard of the administration of law based on family clout?
On Good Friday, March 29, 1991, William Kennedy Smith was accused of raping a young woman in Florida at the Kennedy family compound. The judge would not allow women who claimed to have been previous victims of Kennedy Smith to testify. Once again, Ken- nedy political muscle prevailed. On Dec. 11,1991 a Florida jury, after deliberating only 77 minutes, found Kennedy-Smith not guilty.
Not long thereafter, Roy Black, lead Kennedy-Smith’s attorney, married one of the jurors, Lisa Haller. Obviously no chance of mal- feasance was involved in that decision. Another member of a celeb- rity, political family escapes the reach of justice. Just maybe, that could there have been a double standard.
There is no attempt here to pick on the Kennedy family. Politi- cally powerful and people of celebrity have thumbed their nose at the law for decades. The Clinton (crime) family have ignored and skated around the law ever since they came on the public scene. They always seem to have minions in the press and on their staff who work on public opinion while lawyers on their payroll make things go away that you and I would serve serious jail time for their commission.
O.J. Simpson and his ilk from Hollywood have escaped justice repeatedly, simply based on their celebrity status. Prosecutors who seem more interested in fame and fortune than in getting a convic- tion are often part of this ugly process with famous musicians and actors. Media and a selection of jurors from the Facebook generation are eager and willing accomplices to this travesty of a miscarriage of justice. If we weren’t constitutionally guaranteed a trial by a jury of our peers, perhaps we might take a look at feeding all the infor- mation into a computer and let it weigh all the evidence without any emotional attachment.
The most recent occurrence would be the Jussie Smollett mess in Chicago.
Smollett was indicted on 12 felonies by a grand jury after ex- amining the evidence presented by an exhaustive Chicago Police Department investigation. After all those hours of human endeavor, the entire thing was made to go away after a simple phone call from Michelle Obama’s former head of staff to Kim Fox, Chicago’s state’s attorney. Not only was everything expunged, but records were sealed as well. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything like it.
Charges in the above cited case were serious enough in the na- ture of accusations by Smollett that this could have resulted in civil disorder or even race riots.
In case you might have forgotten, Jussie claimed he was attacked by two white men wearing “Make America Great Again” caps. Smol- lett is a gay, black man. Turns out the perps were two black men whom Smollett had hired for the job as a publicity stunt to elevate his profile and salary.
Although the examples are far from being a complete catalogue of the miscarriage of justice through the years due to celebrity status or political power, they do lay the predicate for most of what we see happening all around us today. Entire cities and states escape Federal judiciary scrutiny over many of their inane declaration of sanctuary provisions for illegal aliens in their boundaries. This example is so brainless that the state actually shows a preference for the illegal over the legal. The actual safety of American citizens is jeopardized.
Only the American people hold the power to stop this perversion of justice! We can no longer accept a dual system of law enforce- ment where the rich and powerful receive preferential treatment nor where select groups are declared off limits to members of law en- forcement. Acountrywithdualstandardsandpreferentialtreatment is hell-bent on becoming a third world country and it won’t take long!
Jon Earnest
But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.
Preventing genocide is my World War II
By John Coyne
Guest columnist
Rep. Alexandria Oca- sio-Cortez made headlines when saying that the imper- ative of addressing climate change is “our World War II,” adding that the world is in big trouble within 12 years if we don’t. Her anal- ogy to World War II really struck me.
In addition to history books, much of what I’ve learned about World War II comes directly from vet- erans and the stories I’ve overheard them retelling. When I was a teenager I worked at a fast-food res- taurant. One of my favorite memories was listening to the group of World War II veterans retell war stories as they enjoyed their coffee together Monday through Friday, 6:30 to 9 a.m., like clockwork.
I never asked them why they fought in the war, or what they thought they were fighting for. I didn’t need to. Their stories made it clear. At least from my interpretation, fighting for freedom and liberation, fighting for their country- men, and fighting to pre- vent genocide, were some of the main reasons why these men risked their lives.
I would love to hear from those men today about Ocasio-Cortez’s bold state- ments. I can only assume they would not appreciate comparing their cause and life-changing experiences
Other Opinions
to climate change, or using the-world’s-going-to-end-in- 12-years timeline as a fear- mongering tactic, but I will never know. Most of them are probably now gone.
What I do know is that I can quickly identify very real and pressing issues that could perhaps be more ap- propriately deemed as “our World War II:” sex-traffick- ing, terrorist attacks, ongo- ing civil rights struggles, and attempted genocide are just a few that quickly come to mind. I could pro- vide statistics related to each of these issues, but I want to focus on the issue of genocide. Actually, I want to address a certain type of neglected genocide.
March 21 was World Down Syndrome Day. My college, Grove City College, brought in a guest speaker, Kurt Kondrich, to speak to our students. I was abso- lutely devastated to learn about the facts associated with Down Syndrome indi- viduals.
Through prenatal ge- netic screening, individu- als can learn if they are at risk of having a child with Down Syndrome. 67 percent of pregnancies in the United States end in abortion when there is a positive test result for Down Syndrome (some studies suggest that number could be higher). And yet, America isn’t nearly as bad as some other countries. The same statistic is almost
100 percent in Iceland, 98 percent in Denmark, and approximately 90 percent in Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland, England, and Belgium.
It seems as if we’ve de- veloped an efficient national and international system designed with the potential to identify and eradicate those who may be born with Down Syndrome. We have the medical technology and governmental policies (a scary combination) that work together to create a genocidal situation for un- born babies who test posi- tive for Down Syndrome.
I know hindsight is 20/20, but I’m left puzzled as to how we can look back at what the Nazis were at- tempting to do — namely, eradicate certain categories of people, including those with intellectual and physi- cal disabilities — and allow the eradication of those who may be born with Down Syndrome. Aren’t we also guilty of playing God and trying to create the supe- rior human race, free from anything we consider to be defective or not perfect?
In 1973, the U.S. Su- preme Court legalized the termination of unborn chil- dren. The same year, the United States also enacted the Endangered Species Act to protect endangered plants and animals. In other words, in the same year we said you can go to prison for transporting the egg of an endangered animal species,
we also said you can legally kill an unborn child.
I love, admire, and re- spect God’s creation. My family enjoys the outdoors, my children are both inquis- itive and love animals, and we try to educate them on a biblical view of cultivation and care for the environ- ment. But, I have too much respect for our veterans and the men and women currently serving in our military to compare climate change to World War II.
And, I have too much respect for human life to not speak up. I want to look back on my lifetime and see legislation to protect God’s creation, but it needs to be all of creation — the unborn child included.
I’m sorry, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but you don’t speak for me. Knowing what I now know, largely thanks to Kurt Kondrich and others who have made it their work to advocate for life, I can say that prevent- ing this form of genocide is my World War II.
John Coyne is the As- sociate Dean of Student Life, adjunct faculty mem- ber in the Management & Marketing department, and advisor of the Grove City (Pa.) College men’s club volleyball team. He also partners with the Vision & Values ethics and character formation working group to bring speakers to campus and foster dialogue within the campus community on these topics.
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