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Cartoonist'stake Toprovetherearemore things to be concerned about than D. Trump and his threat to occupy the White House, we lead off with a dif- ferent dog. MLB Fans Ex- pected to Con- sume More than 19.4 Million Hot Dogs; NHDSC An- nounces Winner of March Madness Contest. The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council estimates that baseball fans will con- sume more than 19.4 million hot dogs and more than 4.3 million sausages during the 2016 Major League Baseball season. Los Angeles Dodgers fans are once again projected to con- sume the most hot dogs, total- ing more than 2.6 million, while New York Yankees fans follow in second with 1.55 million ex- pected hot dog sales. The San Francisco Giants, meanwhile, will serve the most sausages this season, with 475,000 projected sales. St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox fans will eat the sec- ond and third most number of sausages. NHDSC also launched a new guide highlighting pho- tos and descriptions of this season's most unique hot dog and sausage offerings, along with a sampling of classic fa- vorites. ••• However, speaking of the odi- ous Trump, a recent utterance from "the businessman," pur- ports he is predicting a disas- trous stock market drop, and that it will happen very quickly. Is this the kind of utterance and assurance we expect from our leaders? He has no way of knowing this any more than the man on the street. It would be interesting if Trump, to validate his predic- tion, sells short — i.e., sells se- curities not owned by him, or that which he has borrowed — and is so certain of his belief that the security's price will de- cline, it can be bought back at a lower price. That would be an example of Trump's putting his money where his mouth is, as opposed to demonstrating his usual and questionable business acumen by merely blustering. On the other hand, if Trump is predicting a stock market decline if he is elected President, then he is right on. ••• Jean Barton in her always en- tertaining column mentioned Les Hart and his experiences with the Red Bluff Round-Up's Wild Horse Race. Les worked on our loading crew in the evenings and week- ends at our meat plant, and was an entertaining fellow. He was slightly hard of hearing and used this hand- icap to his advantage. When someone would say something sarcastic or humorously de- meaning to Les, he would not respond and if questioned, would state he did not hear well. On the other hand, other topics of conversation were easily picked up by the canny Les Hart. On one occasion we were running late loading our last truck of the evening, and I urged the crew, "Let's get a move on, the driver will be late getting to the city." As Les proceeded to swing under a quarter of a beef car- cass, he said out of the cor- ner of his mouth, "Ain't get- ting' paid no hurryin' wages." I thought it a pretty good re- sponse. As to the Wild Horse Races, Les Hart knew all about them, having participated in them for years. He knew the tricks of the trade to get a horse to hold still long enough to sad- dle him. One trick was for the header to grasp the horse's head with both hands and then get the horse's ear in his mouth and bite down hard. This could cause the horse to concentrate on his ear and forget about the saddle being cinched around his middle. The races were sometimes harmful to man and beast, and it took a lot of courage to en- try the fray. It also took a lot of liquor as well, which appar- ently numbed the participants to horse bites, horse kicks and the trampling of their feet by the unruly unbroken horse. Les mentioned that regular ro- deo participants would not par- ticipate in this event as it was too unpredictable. Sobriety and good sense evidently prevailed for the pros. ••• Why do we cry? Women seem to thrive on it while macho men fight to hold back their tears. What is crying? Jonathan Rottenberg, an emotion researcher and profes- sor of psychology at the Uni- versity of South Florida states, "Crying signals to yourself and other people that there's some important problem that is at least temporarily beyond your ability to cope." Researchers say, in their findings from more than 37 countries, that the main rea- son we cry is from loss or sepa- ration. This can happen at any age and the same from a feeling of powerlessness. However, the graph goes up rapidly from adolescence when we are forced to exhibit em- pathy and sympathy, mortal- ity and sentimentality. Oddly enough, crying from physical pain drops off sharply as we hit middle age. And yet, I have found that the likelihood of replacing tears with curse words can happen when hitting one's thumb with a hammer, at any age. ••• The Presbyterian Church called a meeting to decide what to do about their squir- rels. After much prayer and consideration, they determined the squirrels were predestined to be there and they dare not interfere with God's divine will. At the Baptist Church the squirrels had taken an interest in the baptistery. The deacons met and decided to put a water slide on the baptistery and let the squirrels slide in and drown themselves. The squirrels liked the slide and, unfortunately, knew in- stinctively how to swim. Twice as many squirrels showed up the following week. The Methodist Church de- cided that they were not in a position to harm any of God's creatures. So, they humanely trapped their squirrels and set them free near the Baptist Church. Two weeks later the squir- rels were back and the Bap- tists had to take down the wa- ter slide. But the Catholic Church came up with the best strat- egy. They baptized all the squir- rels and consecrated them as members of the church. Now they only see them on Christ- mas and Easter. Not much was heard from the synagogue, but it's rumored that they took one squirrel and circumcised him. They haven't seen a squirrel on their property since. RobertMinchisalifelong resident of Red Bluff, former columnist for the Corning Daily Observer and Meat Industry magazine and author of the "The Knocking Pen." He can be reached at rminchandmurray@hotmail. com. I say 19.4 million dogs to have their day this season 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. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@ redbluffdailynews.com Fax: 530-527-9251 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS StateandNational Assemblyman James Galla- gher, 2060 Talbert Drive, Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 895-4217, http://ad03.asmrc.org/ 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 Fran- cisco 94111, 510 286-8537, fax 202 224-0454 Local Tehama County Supervisors, 527-4655 District 1, Steve Chamblin, Ext. 3015 District 2, Candy Carlson, Ext. 3014 District 3, Dennis Garton, Ext. 3017 District 4, Bob Williams, Ext. 3018 District 5, Burt Bundy, Ext. 3016 Red Bluff City Manager, Rich- ard Crabtree, 527-2605, Ext. 3061 Corning City Manager, Kris- tina Miller, 824-7033 Your officials Robert Minch PaulRyancanseethefuture.Hecansee that Hillary is going to be the next president. He can see the Republican Party train wreck strewn across the tracks this fall. Ryan's not playing coy or hard to get when he insists he isn't running for presi- dent and doesn't want to be drafted by the GOP. He's not running — not this year. He's seen too much bad stuff happen to Republicans already. He's seen the party's lead- ing nominee calling for the deportation of 11.5 illegal im- migrants, which is impossi- ble. He's seen a frontrunner saying he'd stop Muslims from coming into the U.S., which is impossible. He's seen a candidate who mistreats and insults women. He's seen a guy, a fake Re- publican from New York City, who thinks he's got a right to get the nomination at the con- vention even if, according to the party's rules, he doesn't earn enough delegates to win it. Now Ryan can see two sce- narios, both of which are go- ing to be disasters for the present and future of the Re- publican Party. Trump wins. Hillary wins. Trump loses. Hillary wins. If Trump gets his 1,237 del- egates and becomes the nom- inee without a contested con- vention, he and the GOP will get crushed by Hillary this November. Congress could fall into the hands of the Democrats and Clinton Family Values will be restored to the White House they trashed for eight years. If Trump loses in Cleve- land because he didn't win enough delegates, or because the GOP establishment played by the rules and the author of "The Art of the Deal" didn't know how to, he and his fol- lowers will work overtime to sabotage the Republican Par- ty's chances. Either way, Trump will make sure Hillary wins in November, and both the GOP and the country will lose. The Party of Lincoln and Reagan, whether it nom- inates Trump or Cruz or someone else, is headed for disaster this fall. It's going to get almost no votes from women, Latinos or blacks. Ryan can already see — and hear and feel — the Great Republican Train Wreck of 2016 coming around the bend. He is no dummy. He has no intention of be- coming the engineer of his party's inevitable self-derail- ment. Four years from now, after Hillary is done with us, Ryan wants to become the super- hero who puts the GOP train back on its tracks, resets its guidance system to a conser- vative destination and steers Republicans back into power. Maybe he'll do that while serving as Speaker of the House — if he still has that position after No- vember. Maybe he'll go home to Wisconsin and try to fix Washington from the outside, not the inside. Whatever he does, he's seen how this election is going to end and he's already started running for 2020. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of "The New Reagan Revolution" (St. Martin's Press). Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter. Michael Reagan By Michael Reagan If Trump loses in Cleveland because he didn't win enough delegates, or because the GOP establishment played by the rules and the author of "The Art of the Deal" didn't know how to, he and his followers will work overtime to sabotage the Republican Party's chances. Los Angeles Dodgers fans are once again projected to consume the most hot dogs, totaling more than 2.6 million, while New York Yankees fans follow in second with 1.55 million expected hot dog sales. Paul Ryan's 20-20 vision sees disaster OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Friday, April 15, 2016 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A8