Page 4 - Mid Valley Times 11-5-20 E-edition

Thursday, November 5, 2020 | A4 | Mid Valley TiMes Editorial & Opinions
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
Fred Hall — Publisher
In my OPINION There should be no room
for mischief with elections
Deadline constraints are the things that present one of our greatest prob- lems when working on a community- based weekly newspaper. Those dead- lines require that this column be sub- mitted for publication before the gen- eral election ballots have been counted and the results are known.
Transportable charging units next step for electric planes in Reedley
Rick Curiel — Sanger Editor Jon Earnest — Reedley Editor Dick Sheppard — Editor Emeritus
Those results, given the convoluted
mess that has been created by Demo-
crats for voting, potentially could not
be known for days. Remember the last election and how ballot harvesting played in its outcome locally? That questionable activity managed to turn election day re- sults on their head days later. Amazingly, officials con- tinued to find uncounted ballots for several days after the polls had closed. Do you believe in coincidences?
We can only hope that this year the results will not carry the same dark cloud as 2016, but there rears the possibility that something even more ugly may very well transpire. Lawyers already are lining up to challenge results on the slimmest of causes. We don't particularly enjoy the courts helping to determine election results, but that's not as bad as the potential for Antifa and Black Lives Matter burning, looting and rioting.
More than one of our local races was surprisingly changed when all of those harvested ballots were count- ed in 2016. I seriously question the legality of ballot har- vesting — especially since there is no chain of command for those votes. Every one of those ballots should be given directly from the voter to a disinterested third party responsible for counting them. There should be no room for mischief with elections — and yet it seems that Democrats, in particular, want to pass laws which loosen contemporary regulations and requirements for casting a legitimate vote.
Legislators continue with the mantra that they are go- ing to make voting easier, yet at the same time fail to no- tice the need for identification for each individual. They say that the need to identify oneself would place an unfair burden on the poor and under privileged. That thinking prevails while, at the same time, we need identification for virtually everything else in our lives. Free and fair elections are an American staple — even if it takes a little thought and effort to involve everyone legitimately.
The best hope for socialism and all its varied irrational forms lies with a public that is ill-informed and behaving like lemmings in their attachment to a political party to a point where there is little or no questioning of the media's darling. There can be little doubt that the media-blessed candidate is, more often than not, probably a Democrat. We can only hope that we have more sophisticated voters who have have looked beyond whether the candidate has an “R” or “D” by their name on the ballot.
The last thing one should fear in the world's greatest democracy would be riots and disorder in the wake of an election. That remains the realm of third-world coun- tries. How sad is the statement sent by merchants board- ing up their store fronts and hiring extra security guards in an attempt to protect their life's work? Rumors are the illegitimate spawn of social media but in this case there is reason for concern. The major players on the internet are supporting Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Those two groups already have begun stashing bags of rocks and other projectiles in certain cities just as they did with pallets of bricks and baseball bats during riots this past summer.
Representative of many of these Democrat-run cities is the fact that their local attorney general, city council and mayors refuse to enforce the law. Their penchant for ending police forces presents a dark view of the future.
These anti-American groups share one thing in com- mon in that they have been funded and underwritten by George Soros. Far too few people pull all the levers of government while too few impacted citizens have real, genuine input into that which impacts their daily lives. Common sense is the short answer.
Fred Hall
On the surface, it didn't dif- fer from the other couple of times I've had the privilege of watching the new-age Pipestrel Alpha electric airplane take flight. On Oct. 29 at Reedley Municipal Airport, the small two-seat craft — piloted by Jo- seph Oldham — quietly lifted into the sky, made a pass above the runway and then descend- ed in for a quiet landing.
However, on this occasion there was a sense of history. For the first time, an electric plane with the Sustainable Avia- tion Project made a flight pow- ered fully by solar after being charged on site. A new Beam Global EV ARC solar-powered charging unit, installed the eve- ning before in a short matter of hours, hooked up to the plane and had it fully ready for short travel. Perhaps the best way to describe it is to use Beam global's own marketing words — "Flying on Sunshine."
While they may be consid- ered baby steps, they're steps definitely tilted forward in not only making electric flight a re- ality, but the solar aspect can al- so make it a wave of the future. As the company itself touts, the unit can deliver off-grid, sustainably generated, locally stored energy. Desmond Wheat- ley, CEO for Beam Global, was
present to watch the flight and shared his excitement at the company being in the forefront with the aerial achievement.
"Whether it haas two, four or 18 wheels, a propellor or four rotors, Beam is develop- ing sustainable solutions to de- livering clean mobility to all," he said in a news release. "An important differentiator for us is that our products can charge any form of transportation, en- abling us to take advantage of growth across this massive but diverse sector."
Oldham also shared his hopes and goals with the ad- vent of the new technology just before taking his short flight. The plane was powered by Beam's EV ARC 2020 unit, which is equipped with two Enel X JuiceBox Pro EV char- gers and one 15kW aircraft charger. The unit is capable of charging two vehicles and one electric plane, and that's what we charging before the flight — a car, motorcycle and the Pipestrel Alpha plane. By being off the grid, the unit re- quires no permitting, no actual construction and no electrical work, and it generates no util- ity bill. IT's designed to fit in a standard parking place, and does not disrupt airport plan- ning efforts.
It's another
step in the pro-
cess to make the
Reedley airport
one of the cen-
ters for the Sus-
tainable Aviation
Project, a part-
nership between
Reedley and Mendota and fund- ed by Measure C funds through the Fresno County Transporta- tion Authority's New Technol- ogy Reserve Grant Program. Eventually, the project will open the door for aviation careers for local students in Fresno County, particularly at Reedley College, by lowering the cost of flight training with the electric air- craft and the network of local airports and charging stations.
•••
What's the best part about
Election Day 2020 finally trans- piring? The welcome end of the seemingly endless barrage of paid political ads airing on local television, primarily in the 21st and 22nd congressio- nal district races. It's almost obscene having to sit through constant re-airing of the same handful of spots and allegations – although I imagine those local stations have no problem pock- eting the money.
Jon Earnest is Reedley edi- tor for The Times.
Jon Earnest
But, as always, that's only one man's opinion.
GOP is bulwark defending true freedom of speech
We should be thankful for teachers like Carl Buxman, who taught high school history for a decade with his aim of teaching his students the facts, warts and all, of our nation's history and especially of the values that informed that his- tory without inserting his own political views into the process — a restraint sadly missing in too many of our contemporary high school and college class- rooms.
Mr. Buxman described him- self as a "lifelong Republican", but he displays a historical blind spot and political naiveté when he characterizes his deci- sion to vote for Joe Biden as a decision to "vote for America, not the man." True, Mr. Trump seems unaware of the impor- tance of occupying the White
House with the traditionally dignified decorum appropriate to the county's highest elec- tive office. (One might ask if Biden's complicity in the influ- ence peddling of his son, Hunt- er, during Biden's time as VP is in keeping with presidential decorum).
However, from the stand- point of policies that are in step with the basic principles that have made this republic the most envied in the world because of its dedication to en- lightenment democratic ideals and the consequent ability to produce wealth and security for all its citizenry as well as the military strength to sup- port those ideas, Trump passes muster. There, he us far more aligned with presidential cus- tom and tradition than Biden, who has chosen a running mate far to the left of America's founding principles and who,
by so doing has demonstrated his servitude to the extreme left wing that now dominates the spirit of the Democratic Party.
One hopes that Mr. Buxman at least voted Republican on the down ballot choices, be- cause the Republican Party is the only bastion standing be- tween a democracy — wherein private enterprise is allowed to create wealth unfettered by misguided government regu- lations — and a heavy-handed centralized government whose main motivation is to increase its power over states, localities and individuals. At present, the GOP is the bulwark defending true freedom of speech from the "cancel culture" that char- acterizes the totalitarian ten- dencies of the "woke" social justice warriors of the left.
Michael A. Freeman Sanger
Letters from readers
Letters Policy
MID VALLEY TIMES invites letters from the public on any topic of local relevance. We reserve the right to edit letters for clarity or brevity, and we reserve the right to NOT publish them if they could be deemed libelous or profane. Letters should be 350 words or less, and bear the author's name, address, and phone number. Letters can be mailed, emailed, submitted via our website, or personally delivered to: Editor, Reedley Exponent, 1130 G St, Reedley CA 93654.
QUOTE
“My life has no
purpose, no di- rection, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy.
I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?”
— Charles M. Schulz (1922-2000)
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