Page 4 - Dinuba Sentinel 8-2-18 E-edition

Opinion
A4 | Thursday, August 2, 2018
In My Opinion
INFL should 'man-up'
t was almost as if a breath seriously deep- of fresh air swept over me seated problems, while watching Major League although some
Fred Hall - Publisher Rick Curiel - Editor
Baseball showcase their annual All- Star Baseball game about two weeks ago. Thestadiumandtheplayers were awash in the national colors. Service members who were medal winners were recognized and honored during the pre-game ceremonies and the players stood proudly with hands or caps over their heart during the playing of the National Anthem. Pride of who we are and where we live was on display everywhere.
Contrast that, if you will, with the sorry state of affairs being displayed by the spoiled young players—and the league itself—of The National Football League. The flap over participants being allowed to show their disrespect and even contempt for the American way will apparently be allowed to continue. It’s a safe bet that this coming season there will be continued sitting, kneeling or other forms of disrespect for the American Flag during all pre-game ceremonies.
Strange thing about these overpaid and as I said earlier, spoiled players,
is that I managed to get through last season without watching a single down of professional football and I survived, quite well!
Television ratings continue to plummet and attendance is sharply off, but they don’t seem to care. One of these days the league will discover that the very folks they are busy turning off each and every week with their antics are the very individuals who help pay their bloated salaries for playing a kids’ game! Theyclaimtheirprotestsare because of perceived inequities in the way Police deal with members of the black community.
The standard condemnation of police brutality is always used by
the soft-on-crime liberals when any physical force is required to subdue the bad guys. Inevitably there
are rare occasions when extreme prejudice (having to use one’s service weapon) is unavoidable with today’s entitled criminal element. Just take a look at the havoc which Californi8a has wrought with the infamous Propositions 47 and 57!
Please don’t resort to the cliched and time-worn arguments that take into consideration “the plantation” because I don’t believe that. America still has
Fred Hall
are occasionally whipped up by “race pimps.” America, as a rule, has moved beyond that. Anyway, there is certainly no indication
that America’s past problems with slavery involved pay rates that ran into the millions annually. National Football League players are, in no way, disrespected or mistreated. Their wounds are self inflicted.
The National Basketball association and Major League Baseball have no problems with presenting a proud patriotic front far more in line with
the feelings of their fans. Why, then is the NFL so opposed? Perhaps if they lived more exemplary lives there would be less negative contact with police departments.
I see it, quite simply, as being symptomatic of the problems that face today’s divided America. Our political class and their number one supporter, the media, have succeeded far beyond their expectations of being able to divide The United States along political and ethnic biases. When one stops
to think for a moment, it becomes abundantly clear that all of which is totally unacceptable under Donald Trump was considered the norm under President Obama.
To the spoiled athletes of the N.F.L., I would suggest that you take some of those millions of dollars earned from inflated contracts for having special skills at a kids game and invest it in providing better quality education
and economic opportunities in the neighborhoods from which many of you came. Put some of your largesse back into the community! I believe the correct, although currently questionably politically correct term would be to “man-up!” The preseason begins in about one week. We’ll be watching to see if these people can
act as if they are grown-ups or will continue to flaunt their position which is, on its face, un-American.
But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.
Fred Hall is publisher of the Sentinel.
Guest Column
Finding the proper relationship between T people and land is a di cult balance
he Trump administration accidentally released What is our land for? Should we graze documents showing that they intentionally it, log it, drill it, and mine it? Or should underestimated the value of national monuments we preserve it, study it, recreate in it, and
while emphasizing the land’s value for logging, ranching, and energy development. Oopsie.
National monuments are federally protected lands
that differ from national parks in a few important ways. Whereas only Congress can create a national park, the president can create a national monument with the stroke of a pen. Many national parks were national monuments first.
The Grand Canyon is an example. You might think the Grand Canyon would be among the most obvious slam- dunk places to make a national park in the United States. Alas, it wasn’t.
Private interests initially prevented Congress from creating Grand Canyon National Park. President Teddy Roosevelt protected the Grand Canyon as a national monument in 1908, and it took Congress 11 more years to make it a park.
The Antiquities Act gives the president unilateral power to create national monuments, and Trump generally loves executive power of all kinds. However, in this case, he likes using his power to shrink existing national monuments.
The Trump administration recently reduced the size of two national monuments in Utah — Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. Bears Ears in particular contains land sacred to Native Americans. The coal and oil industries were behind the decision to shrink the two monuments. The newly — accidentally — released documents show that the Trump administration intentionally hid evidence that would bolster the case for leaving the monuments
at their present size, such as tourism revenue and archaeological value.
At the heart of the matter, in addition to a story about
a corrupt and inept government, is a conflict between Americans about the proper relationship between people and the land.
Jill Richardson
revere it?
Presumably, we need a happy medium
of both.
Unless we find a way to run our
economy without fossil fuels, or the entire nation goes vegan, or we stop using wood and paper, we can’t curtail all drilling,
CNN derangement syndrome
grazing, and logging. And obviously America isn’t going vegan, no matter how much certain animal
rights groups think we should.
Whatever one’s opinion of extractive industries,
they’re the basis for the economy and the way of life in much of the Old West. It’s a way of life that’s rugged and difficult and, increasingly, threatened by a trend of rural gentrification.
On the other hand, nature has intrinsic value. The beauty of our wild lands forms part of our identity as Americans and enhances quality of life. Intact ecosystems contribute to clean air and water, which we all need. And desecrating the sacred land of Native Americans is morally repugnant.
Additionally, tourism to national monuments pumps dollars into the economy and creates jobs.
Both land uses provide jobs and other benefits. Each is valued by a different group of people.
The Trump administration doesn’t appear interested in any sort of reasoned discussion that recognizes the merit of each side. This only serves to anger and entrench each side in the conflict instead of working toward compromise.
Perhaps someday we can find a solution that provides economic prosperity in America’s rural areas but doesn’t destroy the land in the process. Unfortunately, it won’t be while Trump’s in office.
Jill Richardson is a columnist for OtherWords.org.
The following is an editorial from
weirdos attending White House press events.
We have not seen video of the disputed press pool encounter, but
we don’t need to. Collins’s allegedly “disrespectful” questions weren’t
the reason for her disinvitation. The reason was her employer, CNN, which the president regards not merely
as untrustworthy or hostile but as deeply sinister. It’s true that Barack Obama regarded Fox News with open contempt, and that in one instance his staff attempted to exclude FNC from
a press availability with a Treasury official. Fox News anchor Bret Baier remembers it well, and remembers also that other networks—including CNN—refused to attend the availability unless Fox was included. Baier on Wednesday expressed vocal opposition to the exclusion of CNN.
But Obama’s disdain doesn’t compare with Trump’s abhorrence
of CNN. It’s true that CNN programming—from the early morning straight through primetime—is often hostile to Trump. And some of its reporters and anchors—Jim Acosta and Chris Cuomo, in particular—have become caricatures of the kinds of unthinking bias that contributes to the widespread distrust of the mainstream media. But Trump’s obsession with CNN is irrational and his constant
and frequently personal attacks on
the organization and its employees
are regrettable. Every elected official gets some bad press. No one in the world receives more critical scrutiny than an American president. This
is true particularly if the American president makes a habit saying things that are either demonstrably false or deliberately provocative—sometimes both. It’s paranoid and puerile to treat one media organization as uniquely guilty of all that’s wrong with society.
On Tuesday, the president of Fox News, Jay Wallace, said in a statement: “We stand in strong solidarity with CNN for the right to full access for
our journalists as part of a free and unfettered press.” We’re glad he said it. We do, too.
The Weekley Standard is a conservative online news agency.
ThL
e Weekly Standard.
ast Wednesday, White House staff informed a CNN White House reporter, Kaitlan
Collins, that she was not permitted to attend an open press availability at the White House with President Donald Trump and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.
Her offense? While working as the press pool reporter (a small group
of reporters who share information with the wider press corps), Collins didn’t ask questions pertaining to the Trump-Juncker meeting but about Vladimir Putin and the president’s former attorney, Michael Cohen. When the White House later announced the Trump-Juncker availability, Collins was told she wasn’t invited.
The president’s well-known hostility to CNN has intensified in recent
days. Last month he refused to take a question from the network’s reporter in London, and the New York Times recently obtained a White House email that mentioned Trump’s anger at finding an Air Force One television tuned to CNN.
Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered the White House’s version of the kerfuffle: “At the conclusion of a press event in the Oval Office a reporter shouted questions and refused to leave despite repeatedly being asked to do so. Subsequently, our staff informed her she was not welcome to participate in the next event, but made clear that any other journalist from her network could attend.” According to other reporters in the press pool, Collins spoke neither disrespectfully nor loudly.
Banning a reporter from an open- press White House event is virtually unheard of. We can recall only one— Robert Sherrill, correspondent for the Nation, who was denied a security clearance by Secret Service during the Johnson administration because he had once punched the press secretary for the governor of Florida. Probably LBJ just didn’t want him around. Before and since then, presidents of both parties have suffered not just hostile reporters but crackpots and
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