Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/773523
GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIALBOARD 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: Daily News 728Main St., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS ManyCalifornianshaveen- joyed the 17 Mile Drive, a sce- nic road through beautiful Carmel by the Sea that takes you by well- manicured golf courses, ocean vistas, and stately homes. It always reminded me of the Bing Crosby Pro-Am golf tournament, fond memo- ries of entertainment, athlet- ics, and clambakes. A new 17-mile drive made the news recently with the opening of the new super col- lider at CERN in Switzerland. If you have read Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, his practice book before the spectacular best seller, The DaVinci Code, the news may have a familiar ring to it. CERN will be accelerating protons around a 17-mile un- derground circular path and crashing (colliding) them into each other in order to gener- ate enormous amounts of en- ergy. They are doing this, af- ter much expense and effort, in order to make headway into the origin of our universe. The currently accepted the- ory for the last several years is that our universe began with a Big Bang when what has be- come the known universe was compressed into a very small volume and then exploded. The Big Bang theory says that ex- pansion has continued (for over 13 billion years) and that the universe continues to expand. There is controversy about whether that expansion will continue or whether the uni- verse will collapse upon itself again, triggering a new cycle. The controversy hinges on the existence of dark matter, the role of the weak force of grav- ity, and other arcane things. Since light travels at a known speed, and since many objects in our night sky are so far away from us, we actually are looking back into the dis- tant past when we view look at the stars. Those stars are many light years from Earth, how- ever, even with the orbiting Hubble Telescope, we cannot see far enough to understand the origins of the Big Bang. At least one scientist is con- cerned that CERN might cre- ate a mini-black hole, that is, a super dense object with grav- ity so strong that it would be able to pull the entire Earth into it over time. Black holes have been the stuff of sci- ence fiction as well as actual science, and I strongly rec- ommend the book, Death by Black Hole, a light hearted se- ries of essays about that and related bits and pieces of sci- ence, by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Scientists are not the only people who have expressed concerns about the world end- ing; in the United States we have been plagued with a vari- ety of naysayers who predicted the end of the world, or the second coming. The early to mid 19th century was packed full of those who predicted our demise, and they gave rise to many denominations, some of which have survived their founders' dire forecasts. Religious institutions have not been fond of new ideas or new models of scientific de- scription. I say "description," because that is what science does; it describes in human terms what it observes. To do that it creates formulas and theories based on experiments and observations. Religion tries to frame the meaning of our existence. Religious leaders are of- ten upset when science postu- lates new theories or formulas because they forget they are not scientists. Prime examples from history include: When Galileo discovered moons orbiting Jupiter and postulated Earth spinning around the sun When Copernicus calcu- lated the sun as the center of our solar system When Kepler discovered the planetary orbits were elliptical and not God's perfect circles When Darwin postulated the process of evolution and survival of the fittest, and it became clear to most that we have been around lots longer than many had thought When Einstein stretched our ability to interrelate time and space and relativity be- came a dirty word When Planck revealed the quantum nature of the sub- atomic world, and even Ein- stein reacted with "God does not play dice." It may be hubris, but sci- entists have been working on TOE for many years now. TOE, in this case, is not a bal- let term; it stands for Theory of Everything. This was once re- ferred to as GUT, Grand Uni- fication Theory. CERN is an- other step in the direction of cracking the code to our very existence and describing the physical aspects of our being because it may be capable of producing some basic particles that are not otherwise available for observation. Whether or not it can provide an actual under- standing of our being remains to be answered, but I bet not. In my father's lifetime he witnessed much "progress". He took his horse to school, wore no shoes in summer, and had to bring water from a well ¼ mile from his house. He told me he used a bucket with a piece of wood floating on the top to keep it from sloshing over the sides. There was no electricity in his house, and the eight children slept with their parents in a three-room house. By the time he was in his 70s he had become acquainted with all the conveniences we now take for granted, seen men go to the moon and re- turn, visited Disneyland, flown to Hawaii, eaten food he couldn't have dreamt about growing up, and seen his fam- ily take advantage of an educa- tion never available to him. My father was a lifelong learner who kept up with the news, subscribed to the Book of the Month Club for many years, read two newspapers, and one newsweekly magazine. He loved Star Trek; he said it made him think beyond this time and place, and that the show revealed the constancy of human nature. One thing my father in- sisted on, however, was there were some things that science will never understand; he in- sisted that the one thing we have found out over the years, is that however much progress we have made, the more we learn the less we actually seem to know. JoeHarropisaretired educator with more than 30 years of service to the North State. He can be reached at DrJoeHarrop@sbcglobal.net. Joe Harrop The17Mile Drive to nowhere? Cartoonist's take I don't usually live my days according to a particular theme. No planning goes into them, unless I'm cele- brating a birth- day or some other excep- tional event. But every now and then, in a sort of strange ser- endipity, the day comes together around people, places and ideas that have a strange symbiosis. So it was last Tuesday. First, on the radio, there was the confirmation hearing of Jeff Sessions or, as the Democrats insisted on calling him, Jeffer- son Beauregard Sessions, just to make sure we recognized his de- spicable Dixie pedigree. It was similar to all of those conser- vatives who insisted on calling our president "Barack Hussein Obama" to remind us of, well, you know what. It seemed as if Sessions was on trial for his past as a man of a certain age raised in a certain place, during a certain time. If you dig deeply enough into the histories of Southerners who came of age in the 1950s and 1960s, you inevitably find traces of horrible words spoken, trou- blesome associations made, jokes that weren't funny and an insen- sitivity born of the historical mo- ment. Sessions is a product of his past. And yet, others testified to his change of heart, his pros- ecution of racist men in white sheets, his befriending of men and women of color and a color- blind style of mentoring. After that, on the same ra- dio station, I heard that Dylann Roof, a man who murdered inno- cent black churchgoers in an ef- fort to start a race war in South Carolina, had been sentenced to death. Even those who oppose the death penalty had to feel some sense of justice in that. And I do not oppose the death pen- alty. Later that evening, I went with a friend to see the movie "Hid- den Figures," about the Afri- can American female trailblaz- ers at NASA who played a critical — and, until recently, unknown — role in the space program. There is a scene at the end of the movie in which John Glenn basi- cally refuses to get in the Friend- ship 7 capsule until one of those black "computers" played by Tar- aji P. Henson does the numbers in her head and calculates the accuracy of his splashdown. It might have been Hollywood, but it sent chills down my spine. And then I came home, turned on the TV and watched Presi- dent Obama's speech, the one I'd had the presence of mind that morning to DVR. It was moving, as most of his speeches are, and particularly compelling because it was the last major address he'd give the American people as an occupant of the White House. I won't get into the substance because I disagree with so much of his agenda. I did not vote for him, and I'm at peace with that. But he made the attempt, as he usually does, to rise above the partisan labels and talk to us as Americans. Some who were al- ready predisposed to find fault heard him criticizing "us" or "them" and dismissed his words as just another late and final dig against Trump voters. I didn't hear that, even though I abso- lutely heard his disdain for them in the past. What I noted in the speech, and it could have been entirely of my own imagining, was a wist- fulness at how close we Ameri- cans come to perfection and then willfully step away from it. Of course, one man's perfection is another man's Obamacare, but I think that, generally speaking, we spend more time hating than debating, more time whining than shining, more time inciting than uniting. Looking at those attack- ing Sessions, I saw unforgiving avengers who really just wanted to fight the Civil War all over again. Then, when I heard about Roof's sentencing, I saw the real face of racism and understood why some might still be armed for battle. Watching that movie with those gentle, dignified women made me think of my father who, when he went to Mississippi to register black voters in 1967, en- countered courage in the op- pressed and oppression from the cowards. That quiet dignity, steel-backed and patient, makes the coarse, divisive chants of "No justice, no peace" seem like the work of spoiled, embittered chil- dren. Black lives do matter, of course, but so do good manners. Which brings me to Obama. The words of this man, who has been accused of foment- ing racial divisions by people on both sides of the color divide, were reminiscent of the digni- fied rhythms of the past. Tues- day was a day when old racists were challenged and redeemed, when murderous bigots were put down, when hidden figures of historic importance were finally illuminated and when the first black president, with trepida- tion and his own brand of hope, passed the baton. And we, imperfect but with promethean potential, pick it up. And move on. Christine Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, and can be reached at cflowers1961@gmail.com. Christine Flowers Navigating the seas of racial differences Religious institutions have not been fond of new ideas or new models of scientific description. I say "description," because that is what science does; it describes in human terms what it observes. Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. I always enjoy seeing Bud, Elsie and Elizabeth at the Thursday night dinners at the Veterans Hall in Red Bluff. They are good examples of volunteerism. D'Lorah Hurton: On Elizabeth Watson retiring a er 21years of service with STARS Congratulation Elizabeth and thank you for your great service to our community. Best wishes for your next adventure. Randy Gow: On Elizabeth Watson retiring a er 21years of service with STARS Christine Flowers Joe Harrop Looking at those attacking Sessions, I saw unforgiving avengers who really just wanted to fight the Civil War all over again. Then, when I heard about Roof's sentencing, I saw the real face of racism and understood why some might still be armed for battle. OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Saturday, January 14, 2017 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6