Page 4 - Dinuba Sentinel 3-28-19 E-edition

Opinion
A4 | Thursday, March 28,, 2019
In My Opinion
EWulogy for an old friend of ours
e’re sad to say that one mandatory air bags. of this country’s greatest Finally, upon hearing defenders of freedom, about a government
Fred Hall
plan to ban inhalers from 14 million asthmatics due to a trace of a pollutant that may be harmful to the environment, C.S. Was declared code blue. The final straw came when a
Fred Hall - Publisher Rick Curiel - Editor
justice and constitutional guarantees passedawayrecently. Hispresence
as a leading force in the struggles to keep America great were fought so predictably and quietly that the efforts went essentially unappreciated in the main stream media and today’s “I want it right now and free” generation. Common Sense was seen as a basic part of the American experience until recently it wasn’t.
Common Sense died of a broken heart, quietly and alone after a generation of poorly educated and spoiled Americans began to chip away at his very reason for existing. The following is a modified reprint of Common Sense’s obituary:
Today, we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend Common Sense, who had been with for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. Known affectionately to close friends as Horse Sense and Sound Thinking, he selflessly devoted himself to a life of service in homes, schools, hospitals and offices, helping folks get jobs done without a lot of fanfare, whooping and hollering.
Rules and regulations and petty, frivolous lawsuits held no power over C.S. A most reliable sage, he was credited with cultivating the ability to know when to come in out of the rain, the discovery that the early bird gets the worm and how to take the bitter with the sweet.
C.S. Also developed sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you earn), reliable parenting strategies (the adult is in charge, not the kid), and prudent dietary plans.
A veteran of the industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, the Technological Revolution and the Smoking Crusades, D.S. Survived sundry cultural and educational trends including disco, the men’s movement, body piercing, whole language and new math, C.S.’s health began to fail in the late 1960’s when he became infected with the If-It-Feels- Good, Do-It virus.
In the following decades, his waning strength proved no match for the ravages of overbearing federal and state rules and regulations as well as an oppressive tax code. C.S. Was sapped of strength and the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband, criminals received better treatment than victims and judges stuck their noses in everything from Boy Scouts to professional sports.
His deterioration accelerated as schools implemented zero-tolerance policies. Reports of 6-year-old boys charged with sexual harassment for kissing classmates, a teen suspended after using Scope mouthwash after lunch, girls suspended for possessing Midol and an honor student expelled for having a table knife in her school lunch were more than his heart could endure.
As the end neared, doctors say C.S. Drifted in and out of logic but was kept informed of developments regarding regulations on low-flow toiled and
GPuest Column
Paper receipts may be next plastic straws
29-year old ex-bartended who the people of New York elected to the United States Congress declared the world would end in 12-years unless we spent 93 trillion on asinine fixes and Democrats throughout government joined her.
Common Sense was preceded in death by his wife, Discretion, one daughter, Responsibility, and one son, Reason. He is survived by two step-brothers, Half- Wit and Dim-Wit.
Memorial contributions may be sent to the institute for Rational Thought. Farewell, Common Sense. May you rest in peace.
The preceding is a modified, excerpted version of an essay, which was originally written by Lori Bergman back in 1998. It is a relatively easy extrapolation to see just how ridiculous this has become since it was first penned. Political correctness, gender identification and hundreds of other examples of liberal interpretations have so clouded the thinking of today’s society as to become patently dumb— there is no other description.
Although, simply reflecting on the results of this shift in public attitude, it becomes even scarier for those of you reading this column here in California.
California has become the very paradigm for stupid ideas across this entire nation. Want an example? Over the decades, California has passed more than $149 billion in water bonds and now the state is toying with the idea of taxing our drinking water. Water is an essential in life. The state should have no control over it. We wonder what they will do when they discover the human body is, on average, about 60 percent water. Will that water contained in your body be another source of taxation?
Your next question would be, what about the air we breathe? Too late! There are already 35 air districts in California as well as the Department of Motor Vehicles and an unknown number of miscellaneous others who tax and control the air we rely on for life.
People who are here illegally, according to the state, are entitled to drivers licenses, public welfare, medical care and, we believe, the ability to vote. Their presence costs California taxpayers about $25 billion a year and the Democrat party wants the border open to allow even more access to the freebies that citizens are expected to provide. Where in the world is the common sense in that?
But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.
Fred Hall is publisher of the Dinuba Sentinel.
Guest Column
I e real college admissions scandal n what’s being called the largest college admissions program, Fisher cited affirmative
scam ever, a number of wealthy parents, celebrities, action as the reason why she was and college prep coaches have been accused of denied. In other words, she claimed
offering large bribes to get rich students into Ivy League schools, regardless of their credentials.
The parents facing charges allegedly paid up to $6.5 million to get their kids into college.
Shocking as it is, this is hardly a new phenomenon in higher education. Wealthy and privileged students have always had an upper hand in being accepted to prestigious universities.
They’re called “legacy preferences.”
“Many U.S. colleges admit ‘legacies,’ or students with a family connection to the university, at dramatically higher rates than other applicants,” The Guardian explains, because “they are widely seen as a reliable source of alumni donations.”
Some of our countries most prominent figures have benefited from legacy preferences. When applying to Harvard, future president John F. Kennedy noted that his father was an alumnus. And although his academic record was unspectacular, he was admitted into the Ivy League school.
The same can be said for George W. Bush, whose father and grandfather graduated from Yale. Despite his “lackluster grades,” The Guardian reported, Bush was accepted.
This overt — and legal — preference for the wealthy and powerful goes back at least a century. Yet when the children of middle class families are denied admission, some families have laid the blame on affirmative action programs for students of color, who’ve historically faced discrimination.
As the college admissions process becomes more competitive, campaigns against affirmative action have revved up immensely. In 2016, Abigail Fisher challenged the University of Texas at Austin’s race-conscious admissions program after being rejected when she applied for a university program designed for the top 10 percent of her class.
Despite not having the credentials to get into the
she was being discriminated against because she was white. Her case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that affirmative action is in fact constitutional and doesn’t hurt white students.
In fact, even with programs like affirmative action, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics, racial divides
at universities still remain. While college enrollment is increasing across the board, it found that enrollment rates for college-aged white students (42 percent) remain higher than for both black students (36 percent) and Hispanic students (39 percent.)
Meanwhile, a 2018 analysis of Harvard’s admissions process found that legacy applicants were accepted at a rate of nearly 34 percent from 2009 to 2015. That’s more than five times higher than the rate for non-legacies over the same six-year period: just 5.9 percent.
It’s clear that students like Abigail Fisher are picking the wrong fight when it comes to discrimination in the college admissions process.
The high-level of corruption of legacy admissions hurts the majority of students, regardless of race. So too do
the parents spending millions on bribes. But that’s how inequality thrives.
Today’s college admissions scandal is just another illustration of the rich encouraging working- and middle- class people to turn against each other — and blame people of color — while they quietly rig the game for themselves.
Instead of pointing the finger at each other, the victims of these manipulations should come together to take the monster of economic privilege down.
Jessicah Pierre is the inequality media specialist at the Institute for Policy Studies. Distributed by OtherWords. org.
Jessicah Pierre
aper receipts are a habitual end exist in all corners to retail transactions. But their of our daily lives. usefulness is questionable — Tackling disposable
they can be tossed out within minutes of being printed, or go on to line the bottoms of our bags and wallets.
In an increasingly digital world, it may seem that paper receipts are in decline, but new data from Grand View Research shows the opposite to be true. Every year, paper receipt use is increasing worldwide — including in the U.S., where 256,300 metric tons of paper receipts were consumed in 2018.
These small pieces of paper can
have a huge impact. Millions of trees and billions of gallons of water are consumed to create them, generating tons of waste and greenhouse gas emissions. Most thermal paper receipts are also coated with Bisphenol A (BPA) or S (BPS), endocrine-disrupting substances that we absorb through contact, posing exposure risks for workers and customers. But there may be changes coming soon.
In California, a proposed “skip the slip” bill would require businesses to offer a digital receipt option by 2022 throughout the state. The bill would switch the role of paper receipts from being automatically printed into being provided upon customer request, changing it from an opt-out process to an opt-in.
It wouldn’t ban paper receipts. It would simply prevent people from automatically getting paper receipts they may not want.
The bill is part of a larger movement to reduce waste. Receipts are one of many single-use disposable items that
Beth Porter
items, like receipts or straws, is leading to increasingly major shifts in public awareness of waste, which can lead to widespread demand for more systemic
solutions.
Reducing paper receipts and other
disposable items can be good for business. Market analysis shows the cost of thermal paper used for receipts is going up, due to a critical shortage of leuco dye, essential for producing thermal paper.
In 2017, Chinese manufacturer Connect Chemicals, a major supplier of leuco dye, was shut down due to exceeding limits of hazardous fine particulate matter in its emissions. This cut leuco dye production by
an estimated 80 percent, which led to drastically higher prices. That’s why reducing paper-based receipts can save businesses money over the long term.
California has the opportunity to
be the first state to “skip the slip”
and reduce the impacts of receipts
on the environment and human health. The proposed bill in California is an opportunity to open the door
for implementing more sustainable solutions and shifting society away from unnecessary waste.
It’s a model the rest of the country should study carefully.
Distributed by OtherWords.org.
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