Page 4 - Dinuba Sentinel 6-6-19 E-Edition

Opinion
A4 | Thursday, June 6,, 2019
Fred Hall - Publisher Rick Curiel - Editor
In My Opinion
SInnocent until proven guilty
how me a man (or woman) Mueller stands up who has never made a mistake and says the was and I’ll be able to show you a unable to prove the
person who has never made a decision of any kind or tried anything new! This should be long resolved by
the time you read this piece, but I would like to make a brief comment
on the recent Fresno Grizzly flap
over erroneously showing a picture
of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during a Memorial Day salute at the ball park inFresno. Apparentlytheunfortunate event arose when a Grizzly employee downloaded a tribute to Ronald Reagan from the internet and, after watching
a portion of the video, assumed the entirepiecehadnoproblems.That, unfortunately, was not the case.
In this current politically charged period it appears that simple human error cannot be forgotten, even after
an appropriate mea culpa by team officials. Apparently for a couple of corporate team sponsors an apology was not enough and they immediately suspendedtheirsponsorship. Ihave
to wonder aloud if they, or any of their people, have ever made mistakes. Snap decisions, more often than not, tend to bite one in the backside.
They will tell you that their decision was based on the implication of racism.
We believe that it was strictly for political considerations and had nothing to do with the high dudgeon they profess at a simple mistake by
a young man or woman. Financially we are not in a position to provide financial support to this baseball team which is a treasure to this Valley, but they sure as hell have our personal, spiritual and emotional support. Go Grizzlies, you’re bigger than petty complaints from small minded individuals! The good news out of all of this is that the Grizzlies drew the biggest crowd of the season on Friday night. That is a pretty good statement that the fans have spoken!
At this point, we have to make
a segue from the small, basically insignificant local event to one playing out on the national stage which has far greater implications.
During recent years, we have been witnesses to an American justice system that is being stood on its
head and subverted so badly by its practitioners that we find it difficult tounderstandtherationale. Ithas essentially become corrupt by people who would use it for their own political ends.
In Chicago one man goes to jail for filing a false police report while another—who just happens to be a connected Hollywood actor—doesn’t evengetaslaponthewrist. In another case, this one in Washington with national implications, Robert
Guest Column
Do Dems really want to x
Fred Hall
President innocent and Congress and the media go wild. He must be impeached.
The very core of that statement is a direct affront to American
jurisprudence. Oneisassumedinnocentandany
form of law enforcement must, in a court of law, prove them guilty. We don’t know where this approach came from but recently it has routinely beenusedrecently. Initiallyitwas established by Democrats in Congress when Judge Cavanaugh was asked to prove himself innocent of spurious claims. They were joined by a couple of Republicans.
One of those specious claims which Democrats accepted so unquestioningly was made by an attorney now facing over400yearsinprisonforother
false allegations as well as theft and extortion. How’s that for a reliable source? That just happens to be the same guy whom CNN thought would be a great candidate for President on the Democrat ticket!
How really difficult is it for even the dumbest among us to realize, that it appears to be there are only about 50 Democrats in The House of Representatives plus at least
one Republican (Justin Amash) from Michigan who are bell-bent onimpeachment? Howhardisit
to understand that one is innocent until proven guilty? Having to prove one’s innocence is akin to being forced to prove a negative which is virtually impossible. Lies, innuendo and hearsay make a formidable
case against anything even remotely approachingreality. Sadtosay,those lies and innuendos are coming from professionals in the media and the body politic who once were held in high esteem. Notsomuchtoday!
The so-called deep state obviously does exist and continues to look upon the people of this great country as the “smelly Walmart crowd” and the great unwashed. It’smyfirmbeliefthatthe current Justice department, led by Bill Barr, is on the verge of making the political elite in this country realize that they have underestimated the voters. That silent majority rose up
in 2016 and sent a strong message to those reprobates. We believe they will continue the purge in 2020!
But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.
Fred Hall is publisher of the Dinuba Sentinel.
Guest Column
T e many bene ts of laughing
he last time you walked into a room full of to sleep for at least two hours without
laughing people, you most likely searched the feeling any pain.
room for a visible source of hilarity. You may have • Laughter inhibits the stress
asked someone to explain the joke. Of course, people were too busy laughing to explain it, so they gave you the usual explanation: “You had to be there.”
More often than not, there is no joke at all. Everyday laughter is rarely about comedy and, in fact, all about “being there.” In the words of psychiatrist Robert Provine, laughter is a “social vocalization that binds people together.” It does this in a variety of ways. Laughter can serve as a simple expression of recognition -- for example, the “oh, I know what you mean” laugh that we often share to create a moment of mutual understanding. We laugh courteously, apologetically, self-consciously, and often for completely mysterious reasons. But we rarely laugh when we are by ourselves.
Laughter can come into existence with only the smallest pretext of shared experience between people. There is nothing particularly funny about the time you bumped into your best friend on the sidewalk, but the two of you couldn’t help but laugh. Would you have laughed as hard, or at all, if the person you bumped into was a stranger? Provine has analyzed this “togetherness” trigger that qualifies most laughter. Provine and his students at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, took notes about the everyday laughter they encountered around campus. They recorded information, such as the gender of the person laughing, the gender of the person who caused the laughter, and the comments made just before the laughter started.
More often than not, these comments were just unfunny statements on the surface. “It was nice to meet you, too!” and “Have a nice day!” for example, triggered laughter. Jokes only occurred rarely. Often, it was the speakers who laughed after their own comments to others. As you might guess, the students did not find very many solitary people laughing to themselves. Provine concluded that “the critical stimulus for a laugh is another person, not a joke.”
Here are a few examples of the physical effects of laughter:
• When we laugh, we release feel-good endorphins
that have been found to reduce physical pain. Journalist Norman Cousins, after being hospitalized for a spinal condition, incorporated laughter into his personal recovery program. He found that watching the Marx brothers every night made him laugh so much that afterward he was able
hormone, cortisol, which has adverse effects on immune functioning. Laughter causes the immune system to produce more T cells, immune proteins and antibodies.
• By increasing heart rate, laughter benefits our cardiovascular system in a way similar to exercise. In one
study, 300 participants split into two groups that watched two different movies. Half of the group watched a comedy (“There’s
Something About Mary”) while the other half watched a drama (“Saving Private Ryan”). The group that watched the comedy had a 30 to 40 percent increased dilation in their blood vessels compared with the group who watched the drama.
Cardiologists at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore have found that people with heart disease were less likely to have a sense of humor than their heart-healthy contemporaries. Of the 300 participants surveyed, half had healthy hearts while the other half
had a history of heart disease. The participants answered questions examining the extent to which humor played
a role in their everyday lives. In particular, those who laughed or used humor to cope with stressful situations were less likely to have heart disease.
Dr. Michael Miller, one of the cardiologists involved
in the study, believes that incorporating laughter into a daily routine might be as important for heart health as
diet and exercise. There are numerous “laughing groups” operating in many U.S. cities with the aim of spreading the benefits of laughter to their practitioners. There is even
an entire branch of yoga devoted to communal laughing. Led by a certified instructor, participants of laughter
yoga engage in a combination of physical movements and coordinated, voluntary laughter. The atmosphere builds on the infectiousness of laughter and playful behavior. Even
if you went into the session in a less than elated mood, chances are, by the end, your laughter will have evolved into something genuine.
Adam Johnson writes for Youville Assisted Living Residences, a member of Covenant Health Systems.
Adam K. Johnson
Are Democrats serious about fixing what’s broken in the nation’s healthcare system?
Instead of pushing for a patent- affordable, provider-friendly system in partnership with the health insurance companies, they continue to push for a one size fits all system that doesn’t use market forces to bend the cost curve downward.
To lower government spending on drugs, Nancy Pelosi is pushing for a process that would allow government- appointed arbitrators to unilaterally set the price of medicines and therapies.
Currently, prices are set through negotiations between drug companies, private insurers, and healthcare providers. Under her plan, when
a dispute arises these supposedly independent arbitrators would be empowered to set prices, probably
well below fair-market value under almost any interpretation, because the government bureaucrats who appointed them would apply pressure to bend the cost curve downward.
That’s not good for medical innovation. It costs almost $3 billion and takes more than a decade to bring a drug from the lab to pharmacy shelves.
Companies must recoup costs,
not just for what works but for what doesn’t, in order to stay in business. The stockholders and corporate managers who bring this all about deserve the financial rewards available to them when their risk-taking pays off because it improves the quality of life for us all.
Under the Pelosi proposal, Medicare officials dissatisfied with negotiated prices could ask arbitrators to intervene. Each side of the transaction would be given a chance to justify the price they’re seeking and then the
arbitrator would choose a price. Everyone involved would be legally bound to accept the decision, even if it fell outside the range of what either party had put on the table.
Companies will be less willing
to roll the dice on developing a new drug if they know the government will underpay for medicines.
Just look to Europe to see this idea doesn’t work. In the 1970s, European companies made more than half the world’s medicines. Throughout the decade though, European governments ratcheted up price controls so by
the 1980s, drug development on the continent plummeted.
Today, less than a third of new drugs come from there. Meanwhile, the United States has led the world in drug development for over 30 years.
American companies are currently developing 4,000 new treatments. Among them could be a new cure for cancer, Alzheimer’s, or diabetes.
All of that is put at risk by the Pelosi proposal. If her vision of “binding arbitration” becomes law, these treatments may never see the light of day, which makes her plan worse than the disease she proposes to cure.
Peter Roff is a senior fellow at Frontiers of Freedom and a former U.S. News and World Report contributing editor who appears regularly as a commentator on the One America News network.
health care?
Peter Roff
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