Page 4 - Dinuba Sentinel 11-29-18 E-edition

Opinion
A4 | Thursday, November 29,, 2018
Fred Hall - Publisher Rick Curiel - Editor
In My Opinion
'Journalism did not die of natural causes'
All those wondrous smells that so filled our homes this past week during the preparation
of Thanksgiving dinner have long since faded and assuredly any and all leftovers have since been consumed
in front of the television set watching football or some other diversion. The page has now been turned and all our surroundings are suddenly filled with a special kind of hustle and bustle that is a signal to all that Christmas is just around the corner. Even at my age, there is still a real love for the holidays.
The chime of bells, the crisp mornings and evenings and the sound of Christmas music and carols can leave little doubt about the joyous season into which we are headed.
It provides an environment where everyone’s spirits are inevitably lifted. Scrooges among us are shunned and forced to step aside from casting a shadow over the joy and festivities.
Now, if you have even a small smile on your face, I would advise you to avoid turning on your television set and risk being exposed to the negative spin being given politics, the recent elections, crime and immigration being spewed by the nattily dressed reporters and talking heads. They are the individuals who truly believe that the world is breathlessly awaiting their pronouncementswhennothingcould be further from the truth.
I hate being repetitious but, as I have said many times before, journalism did not die of natural causes, it committed suicide. Advocacy and young reporters coming out of our colleges with limited skills and no understanding of the difference in a web blog and real journalism have landed a fatal blow
to a once honorable profession. All of the unvetted blather appearing on blog sites, Facebook, Twitter and others occupying the social media sewer may claim to be publishers of the “news” but nothing could be further from the actual truth.
There was a time when if one saw it in a newspaper, one could bank on it being true and factual. That is no longer a fait accompli with the advent of advocacy journalism. People who call themselves “journalists” have joined the political battles with thinly disguised opinions being offered as news.
We once took the time and we took the effort to verify the veracity of what was being reported. The opinion of the reporter was never a factor. Not
so much in today’s “new” journalism. We used multiple sources and never anyone who was anonymous. Now, thanks to the New York Times, even writers of opinion pieces are allowed to remainanonymous. Howfarwehave fallen!
Television and radio weren’t always the best sources because of the pressure to “get it on the air” first. Even those people are more concerned about how they look on the new high definition television screen and look for ways to make the story about
Guest Column
Don't let Amazon take away from C your local small businesses
Fred Hall
themselves as has Jim Acosta with CNN.
During the coming weeks
and months, one should watch for
a full-on attack
on the electoral college by Democrat politicians and
the media. Keep in mind that our Fore Fathers declared this country a republic and established our Electoral College to maintain equality among all the states, demographic areas, and major cities. If every decision made by our governing bodies provided a pronounced edge to hugely populated states and cities, smaller locations would soon have no voice at all. States like New York, Texas and New York would be able to dictate to all of us.
Democrats in overwhelmingly “blue” areas proclaim they have
been cheated because of one unified political persuasion of voting in lock step for a single party. Traditionally, densely populated locations tend
to have more minorities and “immigrants” who tend to buy into the liberal agenda of more government and cradle more to the grave entitlements. Republicanstendto believe in individual accomplishment and avoid the agenda du jour of
class warfare and envy or those who are successful. Refreshingly so, the recent mid-term elections indicated what appears to be the beginning
of a full-on change of allegiance by minority voters to the Democrat party. Having been taken for granted for far too long, these individuals are seizing on issues which impact the lives of themselves and their families and discovering they have some real options to the old straight line party vote.
Without successful people who believe in a strong, rich America, who would operate the businesses that
are the very engine of the American economy? Without them and the
hard working people who go to work every day who would provide the governmental largesse for those on the dole? Politicians are, or seem to be, destroying the very work ethic of self- reliance which has made America great again. Do your part to maintain that greatness.
This country is probably more politically divided than at any time in our history. Citizens must be acutely aware of the shenanigans of those
in power who seek only to embellish that power. We can’t afford to throw away the very basics handed down to us through the Constitution, thereby allowing any entrenched politician to further spread their roots.
But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.
Fred Hall is publisher of the Dinuba Sentinel
Guest Column
e remedy for California res goes far beyond 'raking'
C
many more are missing. The Camp Fire also destroyed more structures than any fires before in our history.
To a large extent, the fires are natural. But there are a few ways in which human mismanagement contributes to them.
First, we spent decades suppressing fires instead of allowing them to burn. That
led to a build up of fuel that’s only being gradually depleted as wildland fires are allowed to burn today. We don’t let all of the fires burn, but naturally caused fires that don’t threaten human structures are now allowed to run their course.
alifornia’s in the midst of the deadliest fire our state has ever suffered. As I write, there are 79 confirmed dead, and that number may grow as
An even larger area within the state is suffering from the smoke the fires are generating. It’s not just unpleasant to breathe — it’s toxic.
I know that Donald Trump’s expertise is not forest management, or California’s ecosystems, or anything related to California’s catastrophic wildfires. I know that he’s spent his life on the other coast, so he’s unfamiliar with our way of life out here.
That said, the man’s got advisers.
No president is an expert in all things. A good president is skilled at choosing the right advisers and knowing when to weigh on them for help.
Trump isn’t doing that. Thus far he’s appeared to offer logging and raking as solutions to forest fires.
To non-Californians, let me provide a bit of background. Near the coast, we have chaparral and sage scrub ecosystems. Chaparral is sometimes referred to as “elfin forest” because it consists of shrubs that, to an elf, would look like a mighty forest.
You don’t log chaparral or sage scrub. There are no trees. The closest thing to logging is when people harvest manzanita, often as decorative branches to put in parrot cages.
You can’t really rake it either. It’s too woody. Also, why would you? Why would anyone take a rake to millions of acres of wild lands?
Our ecosystems evolved to burn. Native Americans used fire as a management tool regularly. Some species need fire to germinate. Many species remain alive underground during a fire and then re-sprout afterward.
During the long, dry season, the plants go dormant
and many look dead. It’s basically kindling. When it rains again in the winter, they become green and lush with new growth.
Jill Richardson
Second — and this is a big one — there’s climate change.
As the planet grows warmer, more moisture evaporates, creating drier and more combustible conditions. Years of drought exacerbate this. Given that we’ve already rectified our old fire suppression policy to eliminate fuel build up, climate change is the biggest threat we must tackle now.
My hunch is that Trump isn’t actually interested in raking all of California. He sees California as a big blue state, a political enemy, and he’s taken an opportunity he sees to score points against it.
This is heartless and dumb. It’s heartless because we’ve lost lives, homes, and businesses. The town of Paradise lost everything.
It’s dumb even on Trump’s venal terms, because catastrophic wildfires don’t only happen in blue states. Reliable red states like Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming burn too. Glacier National Park in Montana just suffered a destructive fire this past summer.
Getting wildfire and climate change policy right at the national level helps all of us, red and blue states alike. Trump needs to stop making idiotic comments about raking and start listening to advisers on this before more property and lives are lost.
OtherWords columnist Jill Richardson is pursuing a PhD in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lives in San Diego. Distributed by OtherWords.org.
yber Monday gives us an more shoppers come in to try out opportunity to get out there bikes and get advice, yet not buy
and buy stuff! anything. Instead, their smartphones
You don’t actually have to “get out there” anywhere, for this gimmicky shop-shop-shop day lures us to consume without leaving home, or even getting out of bed. Concocted
by Amazon, the online marketing monopolist, Cyber Monday is a knock-off of Black Friday — just another ploy by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to siphon sales from real stores.
Seems innocent enough, but behind Amazon’s online convenience and discounted prices is a predatory business model based on exploitation of workers, bullying of suppliers, dodging of taxes, and use of crude anti-competitive force against America’s Main Street businesses.
A clue into Amazon’s ethics came when Bezos instructed his staff to get ever-cheaper prices from small- business suppliers by stalking them “the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle.”
John Crandall, who owns Old Town Bike Shop in Colorado Springs, is
one who’s under attack. He offers fair prices, provides good jobs, pays rent and taxes, and lives in and supports the community.
But he’s noticed that more and
scan the barcode of the bike they want, then they go online to purchase
Jim Hightower
it from Amazon
— cheaper than Crandall’s wholesale price.
You see, the cheetah is a multibillion-dollar- a-year beast that can sell that bike at a loss, then make up the loss on sales
of the thousands of other products it peddles.
This amounts to corporate murder of small business. It’s illegal, but Amazon is doing it every day in practically every community.
So, on this Cyber Monday, let’s pledge to buy from local businesses that support our communities.
For information, go to American Independent Business Alliance: www. amiba.net.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. Distributed by OtherWords.org.
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