Page 3 - Sanger Herald 11-1-18 E-edition

Random thoughts Not even one snarky comment about local politics or politicians ...
The trip gave me an opportunity to visit Macomb, the little Oklahoma town near where I was born.
It was the first time I'd been back since the family left for California in the late 30s.
My brother and I rode with what furniture and other belongings we could carry in the back of a Ford Model AA stake truck. My mom and dad and two sisters rode up front in the cab.
Macomb had a population of 32 people, according to the 2010 census. But when I was
SANGER HERALD 3A THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018 EDITORIAL & OPINION
By Dick Sheppard
For the first time in a very long while I missed a city council meeting and an Apache football game.
I took a week off to go to my daughter in law, Petra's retirement ceremony at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City.
Dick Sheppard
there a couple of weeks ago it looked like there were probably fewer than 20 people and maybe twice that many stray dogs.
Macomb had a population of almost 400 in its heyday. It even had a newspaper, coinci- dentally named the "Herald." Then Macomb became part of the "Dust Bowl." There were no crops and no jobs and many residents did what my family did, headed out on Route 66 to California.
My mom and dad thought of California as the land of opportunity. It was also, we soon discovered, the land of farm labor camps and discrimination against the wave of poor immigrant Okies.
Nowadays, Macomb has a small elemen- tary school with a mini mart and gas station across the street. The mini mart is the only store in town. We stopped to take a photo at a community center where one of the town's many stray dogs came over to say hello and welcome me home.
There is a "cash only" cafe where your
meal will be cooked to order right after you find and rouse the owner and pay for the meal in cash.
A rusted metal building on Main Street was, I believe, at one time an auto repair shop where my dad sometimes worked.
As some of my Okie kin might say, "It don't look like nobody in Macomb is livin' right high on the hog these days."
At a nearby cemetery we found a head- stone for my oldest sister, Louanna's grave.
On the way back to Choctaw, where we were staying, we stopped in Shawnee to reconnect with another part of our heritage at the Citizen Potawatomi Nation's Cultural Center. A tribute in the center to the late Richard Johnson of Sanger merged my past with my present.
There is very spotty cell service in and around Macomb. On the day my daughter, my youngest son and I toured what's left of the town, three nearby cemeteries where so many of our ancestors are buried and the cul-
tural center, we found a cell service "hotspot" on top of one of the many rolling, tree cov- ered hills. The weather app on my phone said the temperature was 35 degrees with a wind chill making it feel like 19 degrees. I checked and it was 80 something in Sanger.
Bad idea.
That just made it feel colder.
•••
I enjoyed visiting the area where I was
born - but maybe not as much as I enjoyed getting back to Sanger, my adopted home town.
•••
By the way, I just won a six-pack bet that
I couldn't write a column less than a week before the election without making snarky comments about local politics and politicians.
It was tempting.
Comments, complaints and suggestions may be emailed to sangerherald@gmail.com or may be made by calling 875-2511.
GUEST local commentary Adjusted thermometer taxes
In my OPINION
The economy is growing and jobs
are back and it's all Trump's fault
By Robert Brown Jr.
Sanger’s long hot summer may have passed.
Fresno baked with a record string of 100-plus degree days.
This past month the U.N.
came out with a new report
predicting the calamities of
global warming. The report covered in the Washington Post warned we must reduce carbon emissions. Following the U.N. report, an L.A. Times editorial recommended a new carbon tax over our California cap and trade policy.
Yet, Sanger thermometers did not move very much. An understanding of temperature can be complicated. A struck matchstick
can have a much higher temperature but far less total heat than a warm cup of coffee. The details are best left for Sanger Science Fair students. As taxpayers we know that when the red line of a thermometer is high, conditions are sweaty. And when the red line is low, we shiver.
Sanger has not had a new summer monthly high since 1955 according to the Intellicast web site temperature list. This site might be considered ideal for taxpayers because it is so easy to use.
On July 21, Fresno’s record run toward 100-plus degree days was stopped according to one TV weatherperson. He cautioned there could be a revision by the National Weather Service. Sure enough, the maximum was revised upward from 99 to 100.
Forty-nine capitol cities within the continental U.S. did not experience a new summer monthly high this year according to the Intellicast list. Legislators can pass new taxes and reduce lifestyles in these capitol cities. For 10 years there have been no new summer monthly highs at our capitols.
On June 28, the N.W.S. tweeted that Denver tied an all time record of 105 degrees set on four previous dates. The Intellicast
Denver list does not acknowledge these record days.
Per the N.W.S., about 2:20 p.m. on June
28 an upward three degree spike happened between hourly temperature samples. The KDEN station measures temperatures
next to runways and taxiways. A couple of electronic personal weather stations upwind of the Denver Airport did not show this three degree spike.
When a new temperature ties an old record – the old date is erased for the new date. Even with this forward time shift, the capitol charts show an unseemly zero new summer monthly highs for ten years.
Temperature lists in the U.S. were scientifically “adjusted.” At the time of this adjustment, the hottest year on record for the U.S. moved from 1934 to 2012.
The latest U.N. temperature list, named HadCRUT4, contains several errors according to one expert reviewer named John McLean. Adjustments to the lists appear imperfect. He also calls into question the spending of billions of dollars on climate issues without a proper audit of the historical temperature lists.
For Sanger, perhaps the best temperature list can be found in old newspapers. These ink on paper numbers are not adjusted. Sanger residents need not buy into support of new carbon taxes or reduced lifestyles because of questionable temperature lists.
Our government cannot be trusted with a thermometer. Why should we pay taxes on adjusted numbers that do not reflect actual thermometers or on numbers that have not been audited for several years?
Robert Brown Jr. moved to Sanger about eight years ago after retiring from a lifetime career as an electronic technician. He is frequently at city council meetings and meetings of the Measure S Citizens Oversight Committee. He can be contacted by email at robertbrownjr@att.net
By Fred Hall
“We will take America without firing a shot...we willburyyou! Wecan't expect the American people to jump from Capitalism
to Communism, but we
can assist their elected
leaders in giving them
small doses of Socialism,
until they awaken one day to find they have Communism. Wedonothavetoinvade
the United States, we will destroy you from within.” Thisquotewasexcerptedfroma speech delivered by Nikita Khrushchev to Western ambassadors at the Polish embassy in Moscow on November 18, 1956.
With that in mind, it appears to us that the ugly face of socialism is beginning to overtly appear with the latest rendition of young candidates announcing for public office. Through the years since Mr. Khrushchev's speech these people maintained a more covertoperation. Theirinitialintrusionwas into our educational system because young mindsareeasiertomoldandshape. The universities, especially since the 60s, have produced millions of graduates with a liberal bent in their politics.
Once the process has begun and as profes- sors of that day grew older and retired, the next generation of instructors were ready andeagertoassumethepositionscreated. The process was as simple as reloading ... to a point, with tenure and other considerations, it has become so entrenched as to be almost uncorrectable.
The Republican party, for some reason, either neglected or ignored the university system as a means of moulding the next gen- erationofvoters. Thepartycededcontrol
of the educational process to the Democrats. Today, we find ourselves reaping the results of the seeds which were sown over the period of a couple of generations.
The tilt toward socialistic government programshasbeenincrementalbutsteady. More welfare options and governmental give- aways reached a crescendo when Democrats and president Obama pushed through a form of socialized medicine with ObamaCare on a straight-line party vote.
We now seem to have produced so many young socialists over the years that they are out in the open about what they propose and expect to become the norm in the United States. Notonlynationalizedhealthcare
and a guaranteed income are some of the ideas being offered for our consideration. Consideration may be too soft a word to use because they don't seem to care whether you agree or it makes any sense economically. It'swhattheywanttohappen. Sofarnoone has offered any suggestions as to who would
pay for such a monstrosity. There are always the taxpayers—remember you would be sub- sidizing a guaranteed income for everyone.
I realize that most of you are astute politi- cally, but I would remind you that the path toward socialism on which we have been placed has been tried elsewhere and has always been a dismal failure. The most recent example would best be represented by that which is currently happening in much of South America.
Increasingly Americans are forced to be more critical thinkers. Our university sys- tems continue to politicize the educational process rather than truly teach during the allotted time for their classes; media types have become so left-leaning in espousing their opinions instead of reporting without bias on events; the newly minted social media has no standards of conduct on their “report- ing” and political posturing by the deep state speaks for itself. We need to accept no one's word for granted and peel back the layers to reveal the real truth.
No amount of lies and distortion can cover the fact that, although we still have problems, things are better in America than they have been in a long time. The economy is grow- ing at a good strong, steady rate; poverty is down; employment rates are down—more people, including minorities are working
than ever before—income is up and taxes have been lowered which helps create more jobs. Thereareproblemsoverseas(there always have been) but as a general rule we, as a nation, enjoy more respect and a greater position than we have in quite some time.
What's not to like?
Don'tgetmewrong. Americaisnotlost but it will require more in-depth reading and rationalization of all the increasing infor- mation we are being fed on a daily basis to guard against this slouch toward socialistic governance.
But, as always, that's only one man's opin- ion.
This week, I would like to leave you with athoughttoponder: TheUnitedStateshas become a place where entertainers and pro- fessional athletes are mistaken for people
of importance. There are times when I've needed a doctor...I've needed a teacher...I need a farmer every day...I've needed an auto mechanic, a plumber, a house painter and a lot of other everyday people.
But ... I have never, not even once, needed a pro athlete, a media personality or a Hollywood entertainer for anything!
In addition to the Sanger Herald, Publisher Fred Hall oversees two other Mid Valley Publishing newspapers - Reedley Exponent, and Dinuba Sentinel. He can be contacted by phone at (559) 638-2244 or by email at fred@ midvalleypublishing.com.
Robert Brown Jr.
Fred Hall
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