Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/384313
Themediahavebeen preoccupied with the behavior of NFL foot- ball players, the conse- quences for misbehav- ior off of the field, and, more specifically how those players treat the "little woman", to use a term attributed to the NFL. It may seem like we have set standards too high for our professional athletes who are merely human, but the stan- dards we set for them are far lower than those we set for high school athletes. Reading Tuesday's article on the Spartan trouncing by An- derson underlines that fact. The Spartans were depleted by 19 players due to injury sus- pensions, and grades. Maybe the NFL might want to hold the highly paid prima donnas whose bodies are sacrificed un- der its employ to at least high school standards. On the first day of my orien- tation at Crown Zellerbach in 1965 each of the new employ- ees were told "we can never pay you what you are worth because we are a for profit cor- poration." I was happy to have the job and was not in a point of my life where I would think about profit motives. "Profits" of course are what drives investments, and invest- ments drive innovation, and innovation drives progress; hopefully these things bene- fit all us. A corporate value of "profit" is normally ethical, but some- times corporations slip over the line, exploiting their em- ployees or deceiving their cus- tomers. For example, the drug company, Perdue Pharma that created and marketed Oxy- contin misled doctors and oth- ers about the addictive impact of their drug. It was only after they had profited by the billions of dollars that they pled guilty in May 2007 for misleading the public about Oxycontin's risk of addiction, and agreed to pay over $600 million in penalties. Whether or not that amount will contribute to repair of the damage they caused is subject to debate. We see such corporate un- derstatements every day. Sometimes there are suc- cessful overstatements if a business can target someone who doesn't think that some- thing is too good to be true. Carlo Pietro Giovanni Gug- lielmo Tebaldo Ponzi, com- monly known as Charles Ponzi, enticed investors by promis- ing a 50 percent return in 90 days. His scheme was imitated by Bernie Madoff who conned folks for $65 billion and re- ceived a 150 year prison sen- tence for his efforts. We are constantly bom- barded with commercials and advertisements that want us to see the world through those proverbial rose colored glasses; these messages also exhort se- rious corporate values. A mature attractive spokes- woman dressed in white tells us that we have a "clean" fu- ture because of our own do- mestic oil and natural gas re- serves and our domestic pro- ducers. No mention is made of fracking, a scientifically con- troversial process that has be- come a political football. A re- cent study indicates that the process of fracking itself may not be the culprit in water contamination, but the poor equipment used by the petro- leum frackers allows for leaks into the local water supply. The jury is not in, and "clean" is subject to debate. Similarly a woman in a hard hat and without an English ac- cent tells us that British Petro- leum's projects in Alaska cre- ate jobs in the lower 48. She re- minds us of BP's commitment to America and jobs. I am not sure the residents of the Gulf area would understand that a British company would be committed to America, given the ecological disaster the firm caused. You do not have to go far to get a good perspective on cor- porate attempts to preach to us, to ask for our money, and to utilize an obvious strategy. Right here in Red Bluff are ex- amples that point to universal themes in cor- porate messages, imag- ing, and "values", aka enticements for custom- ers. On Walnut Street the Dollar General Store has a large sign pro- claiming cheap, I mean low price, tobacco. From a cost benefit perspective cheap to- bacco may be a short term benefit for some individuals by saving them some money, but health studies have proven that on a long term basis it is not a cost savings to society and in- dividuals. Does Dollar General really believe it can boost prof- its with low price tobacco? Perhaps Dollar General un- derstands the rate of adult smoking in Tehama County is half again as high as the state rate, and it is using its market research to target smokers lo- cally. Maybe it hopes smokers might buy other items while in the store. National data re- veals, however, that the pro- portion of smokers is higher among those who have less income. Based on that their bright yellow banner with bold letters will likely gather more wind than profits for Dollar General. In sharp contrast to Dollar General's approach to profits, CVS Pharmacy has eliminated tobacco sales and developed a program to help smokers end their addiction to nicotine. It proclaims tobacco sales were in conflict with its primary mission to provide support for good health, and CVS no lon- ger sells tobacco products. Like Win River Casino CVS most likely expects some profit from this move; whether they have that result or not, they seem to be doing something healthy for all of us. Almost daily in the Record Searchlight there is a half page or full page advertisement, mimicking the appearance of a regular news article, touting some amazing breakthrough in medicine or medical treat- ments that is too good to be true and available for bargain prices. The sponsors of these come-ons most likely are try- ing to spare us the tedium of reading medical journals. Even our politicians have a message for us; one of the mes- sages on Doug LaMalfa's signs contains the word "Liberty". Who can be against that, what- ever it might mean? How can a lowly junior member of Con- gress impact whatever our lib- erty is? His hope, of course, is that we will have a positive as- sociation with liberty and that our positive association would transfer to him in the voting booth. Congress can't use "Progress is our most important prod- uct" for at least two reasons. The first is it would be face- tious. The second is it was used by our former California Gov- ernor for his sponsor, General Electric which just went out of the appliance manufactur- ing business and will concen- trate on investments, technol- ogy, and transportation; it has a new slogan, "Imagination at work." Imagination, of course, may be a dubious quality when investing. I haven't forgotten about the NFL. The league is rapidly grasping at straws to set its image into a new focus. It has hired a group of well regarded women to investigate and rec- ommend solutions to its prob- lems; it has even called a foul on the 49ers' quarterback for "inappropriate language". Per- haps it is on its way to improv- ing its standards to those of high school after all. In the meantime a Senator has introduced legislation that would repeal the nonprofit sta- tus for the NFL. It is hard to think of a nonprofit organiza- tion that pays its CEO $44 mil- lion, a CEO who cannot even uphold high school standards for his players. JoeHarropisaretirededuca- tor with more than 30 years of service to the North State. He can be reached at DrJoeHar- rop@sbcglobal.net. JoeHarrop Corporateimagesandvalues JeffersonStaterhetoric doesn't add up Editor: Fires and drought, along with a changing ecosystem and reforestation just ain't what it used to be. The Jeffersonian boast about renewable resource forever sounds like what we used to hear in a previous century. The promise of reforestation's lon- gevity no longer exists. There's no guarantee of renewable any- more. However, telling that to the Jeffersonians might disturb their sweet dreams of living in the 1900s again. — Janice Stout, Los Molinos On debate over Palestine Editor: In response to Orval Strong's letter responding to Mr. Tamag- ni's letter of July 16, Orval's let- ter is based on his opinion and is more lacking in evidence than Tamagni's letter. To paraphrase Genesis in the Old Testament; God creates the world, then Adam and Eve. God gives man dominion over all his creation but man proves to be negligent and God destroys his world with a flood. After the flood man proves to be equally negligent but God does not de- stroy it, he calls on Abraham to be the seed of its salvation. God commands Abraham into the land of Canaan, given to him by God, where he dwells, as does his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob. Jacob's name was changed to Israel and with his son Joseph the chil- dren of Israel go into Egypt and God promises them a future of greatness. Genesis ends with Israel in Egypt, ready for the coming of Moses and the Exo- dus. God had a special relation- ship with one people alone — Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob. Jews have maintained this special relationship, their an- cient national identity and cul- tural heritage from their pa- triarch Abraham, who in cov- enant with God was given the Promised Land to he and his descendants forever. This cove- nant abides to this day through their national identity which has never been lost or forsaken throughout the ages, and their cultural heritage which, in fact, identifies them as the modern day inheritors of the promise. The Jews have an unbroken line with their patriarch Abraham. None other than the Jews can claim this unique distinction. It is the cultural heritage of the Jews that has benefitted the whole world. It is their be- lief in God that has civilized the free world as we have known it. There is a great social dispar- ity in the Middle East. However, there is richness in Israeli dis- coveries, research and inven- tions in the field of medicine and hygiene. Israel is on the front line whenever humanitar- ian aid is required, anywhere in the world. Orval points out that the Old Testament prophet recognized a land called Palestine 800 BC, Dr. Thomas McCall points out the those tribes both the Ca- naanites and the Philistines (Palestinians) no longer existed, they became extinct by 586 BC. The present day Palestinians have no cultural heritage or na- tional linage to link them to the extinct tribes mentioned by the Old Testament prophet. — Les Wolfe, Red Bluff The 13 Tribes of Israel Editor: This is not to continue beat- ing a dead horse but to explain to Biblical illiterates my remark about ancient Israel consisting of 13 tribes. Any Christian or person that reads the Old Testament should know that Jacob, who later changed his name to Israel, had 12 sons. One of those sons, Jo- seph, had two boys whom Israel adopted as his own. And so the first chapter of Numbers lists and names 13 Tribes and they are: Reuben, Simeon, Gad, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim, Manasseh, Benjamin, Dan, Asher, Naphtali and Levi. — Orval Strong, Gerber Welfare programs have exploded in cost Editor: Public welfare programs have exploded in costs from 2000 to current. Fourteen million re- ceived food stamps in 2000 ver- sus 46 million today. Since President Lyndon John- son started the war on poverty, the cost of the 80-plus public welfare programs has increased 16 fold. Half of all US citizens and those here illegally now re- ceive more in welfare subsidies than they have paid in federal income taxes. These programs include aid to dependent children, food stamps, housing subsidies, fed- eral public school funding, earned income tax credits, Medicaid, ObamaCare, disabil- ity payments under Social Secu- rity, farm subsidies, commodity subsidies and on and on. Since votes for Democrats in power are bought with ex- panded welfare programs, it is unlikely that our mad drive to- wards socialism will end, even though it destroys nations, as evidenced by Greece, Italy and Spain's near bankruptcy. In the 1930 to 1960s era, there were no public welfare programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, subsidized housing, aid to de- pendent children, earned in- come credits or college subsi- dies, yet that group of citizens departed poverty to create a great economy and jobs. It is important to dramati- cally cut corporate taxes to the world standard of 15 to 20 per- cent instead of the highest in the developed world 35 percent. The US needs a fair 15 percent across the board tax to fully support our US economy, in- stead of being takers. Job growth will be the result of tax cuts through fairness. — Joseph Neff, Corning Too good to be true Editor: I thought you would like to know now I am 79 years old and would be a millionaire if I answered all the mail and pay a so-called little fee. In my mailbox today were four letters giving me a total of $9,184,495 for fees totaling $88. How wonderful. Every day in the mail I get from two to five of these won- derful deals — the one who is making money is the post of- fice because I never see anyone saying they got all this money. Maybe it's not publicized be- cause somebody gets it but chooses no publicity. Have you ever heard of anyone getting a chunk of money? Are these scams or have I been passing millions by not sending a small fee? I did get one letter from a third grade student from long ago when I was teaching. She has been a Marine for 15 years. I guess the Postal Service does deliver some wondrous letters. I do like the rural Postal Ser- vice, they are great. But the people who use the service in a way of getting money are sort of like the group in Jamaica that got our telephone number and called telling us of the won- derful prize we won and all we had to do was send money for a reservation and everything else was paid for. My answer was no but they called for weeks. Finally they gave up and we have telephones now that show the incoming number and we just don't an- swer. No wonder the Post Office is going broke. People have com- puters and telephones that have pictures and people can com- municate face to face. — JoAnne Landingham, Corning Your opinions Cartoonist's take GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIAL BOARD How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. 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Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS Joe Harrop Assemblyman Dan Logue, 150 Amber Grove Drive, Ste. 154, Chico 95928, 530 895-4217 Senator Jim Nielsen, 2634 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 879-7424, senator. nielsen@senate.ca.gov Governor Jerry Brown, State Capital Building, Sacramento 95814, 916 445-2841, fax 916 558-3160, governor@governor. ca.gov U.S. Representative Doug La- Malfa, 507 Cannon House Of- fice Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202 225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Fein- stein, One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Francisco 94104, 415 393- 0707, fax 415 393-0710 U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, 1700 Montgomery St., San Francisco 94111, 510 286-8537, fax 202 224-0454 Contact your officials OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Saturday, September 20, 2014 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4