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4A Daily News – Saturday, February 4, 2012 Opinion D NEWSAILY RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U N T Y S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Planned Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes let- ters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All let- ters must be signed and pro- vide the writer's home street address and home phone num- ber. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submit- ted will be considered for publi- cation. Letters will be edited. 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How to reach us Main office: 527-2151 Classified: 527-2151 Circulation: 527-2151 News tips: 527-2153 Sports: 527-2153 Obituaries: 527-2151 Photo: 527-2153 On the Web www.redbluffdailynews.com Fax Newsroom: 527-9251 Classified: 527-5774 Retail Adv.: 527-5774 Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Business Office: 527-3719 Address 545 Diamond Ave. Red Bluff, CA 96080, or P.O. Box 220 Red Bluff, CA 96080 parenthood Editor: The following is a letter to the President and Board members of the Susan G Komen foundation: Regarding the decision by the Susan G. Komen Foundation to demand that its state affiliates terminate a successful five-year relationship working with Planned Parenthood clinics to increase access to breast cancer screening for low-income and uninsured women. Why has the world's largest breast cancer advocacy organi- zation hired senior staff people and elected to its board individu- als who are allied with those who misrepresent, medical and public health evidence of causes of breast cancer? It would seen imperative that your organiza- tion hire staff and elect board members who uphold the high- est standards of science and medicine without regard to per- sonal ideology. Yet Komen has done just the opposite. You have hired a known anti-choice politician, failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel, as your Senior Vice President for Policy, a woman who misrepresented facts about government funding of Planned Parenthood as part of her core campaign strategy, and who also supports the spread of misinformation about public health and individual conse- quences of abortion care, out- right lies that have been soundly refuted by medical health experts. The foundation of Han- del's career and political candi- dacy is an ideology based on misrepresenting scientific, med- ical facts. Isn't that damaging to an organization that claims to be the world's largest donor to sci- entific research on breast can- cer? Why would an organization concerned about accuracy in research hire such a person? Please stop the war on women and restore funding to Planned Parenthood. Sharon Young, Red Bluff Tax should equal services Editor: Too many believe that their payment of taxes fully covers their state and federal services received. The reality is half of all citizens pay no Federal income taxes and in fact many receive a welfare check for working. The average public Note interest rate to determine the present value of your invest- ment. Most career workers pay much less than the Social Secu- rity plus Medicare payments received. The average Federal deficit Your Turn school cost is $10,000 per year or $130,000 for each child's K through 12th grade public school education. Do you pay $10,000 yearly in Fed and State taxes. The average Medicaid cost is $5,000 yearly per child from birth to age 18. Do you pay this amount? To determine if you have fully paid for your Social Secu- rity or Medicare take the annual 15.2 percent of salary for the 45 year work career, and compound that insurance payment by the 5.7 percent average Treasury per worker is now $325,628. Have you paid suffi- cient Federal taxes to cover this deficit plus your current annual federal and state sub- sidies? If you voted for a member of Con- gress, the Senate, or President who increased deficit spending you have a responsibility to pay for these deficits. A fair tax would be every worker paying 15 percent of their income for Federal tax plus 5 percent for state income tax and 7 percent for state sales taxes. There should be no deduc- tions for charity, employer sub- sidized health insurance, mort- gage interest, or your child's public school costs. That would be a fair tax. Joseph Neff, Corning Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Jim Nielsen (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 6031 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 319-2002; Fax (916) 319-2102 STATE SENATOR — Doug LaMalfa (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 3070 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 651-4004; Fax (916) 445-7750 GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 558-3160; E-mail: gover- nor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Wally Herger (R), 2595 Cean- othus Ave., Ste. 182, Chico, CA 95973; 893-8363. U.S.SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 393-0710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224- 0454. What's new? Commentary Most of us grew up thinking there were very few other plan- ets in our galaxy, and perhaps in the universe. Recent evidence from new telescopes and more accurate measurements indi- cates that there might be even more planets than stars in our own galaxy. This is a radical departure from the "truth" we had been taught in school. We cannot help asking the question, "What if there are other sentient beings on some of those plan- ets?" Theologians shutter when forced to think about extrater- restrial sentient life forms. Some religions do not have room to accommodate a Creator who would not limit the pinna- cle of that creation to a single planet. Perhaps their Creator is too small. Comedians, of course ask, "Are there even sentient beings on Earth?" At this time of the election cycle it seems less like- ly that there are, but I still hold out hope that mankind on Earth has a chance to get its act together. Science fiction has thrived on the assumption of other intelli- gent life forms throughout the universe, inventing Star Trek- like "warp drives" to exceed the speed of light in order to over- come the vast distances that separate us from one another; in the best selling science fiction series Dune, the space ship pilots who have consumed large quantities of the sand worm byproduct called "spice" use their enhanced mental powers to guide their vessels through the "folds" of space. Astronomers have also recently viewed the formation of galactic clusters; since light travels at a known speed, they can calculate that these clusters were in the formation process 13.5 billion years ago. The vast- ness of this kind of time scale is really incomprehensible. A sci- ence teacher I worked with said his students had lost their sense of wonder; they watch televi- sion shows where heroes jump from one end of the universe to the other, all between commer- cials. Most of us cannot com- prehend the vastness of our uni- verse. In contrast to the sciences of cosmology and astronomy, sci- entists using microscopes are learning more about less. The lowly flat worm, the planarian, is able to reproduce itself if cut in half. If you cut off the head, the head regenerates a new tail. Likewise the tail regenerates a new head. I suppose in this way it can divide and conquer. The peculiar thing about the planari- an is that its cells do not contain a key structure found in the cells of every other living animal— the centrosome. (In cell biology, the centrosome is an organelle that serves as the main micro- tubule organizing center (MTOC) of the animal cell as well as a regulator of cell-cycle progression. It was discovered by Edouard Van Beneden in 1883.) Centrosomes are required for survival of an organism according to scien- tists. This discovery about the pla- narium poses a conundrum for scientist who had assumed that the centrosome was a necessary ingredient to a cell. It creates a puzzle for those scientists who are working in the field of regenerative medicine; most research now has focused on stem cells. It is unclear where the discovery about the lowly planarian will lead us. Never- theless, its discovery will require a reexamination of many accepted notions of life. These new discover- ies are part of the slow growth of basic sci- ence; progress in basic science does not hap- pen with great rapidity, but it evolves over time as new generations of scientists build upon the work of prior gen- erations, often using new technologies to observe the complex creation where we live. Sometimes this progress is rather smooth increments; in many cases, however, it happens haphazardly as new evidence about our creation is discovered. For centuries we believed the Joe Harrop sun revolved around the earth, and despite some clues that now seem obvious, we assumed the world was flat. Once a spherical earth became common knowl- edge we gave little thought to the possibility of a flat earth. Technology, the application of science to the real world evolves at a far faster rate than basic science. Most of us have lived through several great leaps in technology. We take for granted the power of our cell phones, but less than 50 years ago the computing power in our hand held phones would have taken up an entire air condi- tioned room. We almost take that kind of progress for grant- ed, and once our fingers and minds have absorbed the new technology we embrace the new conveniences it provides. Just look at all those people walking with their heads down, thumb- ing their cell phones. While we embrace new tech- nologies because they often make our lives simpler, new dis- coveries in basic sci- ence are often disarm- ing because they can conflict with long held views we have about the world around us. This con- flict creates what is called cognitive disso- nance. As one expert put it, "This [cogni- tive dissonance]is the feeling of uncomfort- able tension which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time." Another has described it this way: "Cognitive disso- nance is the mental conflict that people experience when they are presented with evidence that their beliefs or assumptions are wrong." Those who embrace a literal interpretation of the Bible, for example, experience stress when told that science has discovered that the Bible is not scientifically accurate. When we experience cogni- tive dissonance we really have three choices: change our behavior or thinking, justify our behavior or thinking by ratio- nalizing it, or dismissing what- ever causes the dissonance. Over the long span of time humankind has had to overcome cognitive dissonance and view the world differently. I am opti- mistic that will continue. Joe Harrop is a retired educator with more than 30 years of service to the North State. He can be reached at DrJoeHarrop@sbcglobal.net.