By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune

You probably saw where scientists have unearthed the skull of the most primitive four-legged creature of all time, with the possible exception of my cat. The picture with the story showed the creature, Ventastega curonica, to be a happy fellow. It shows
him as being green and red, and if you put a little top hat on him, he would look like he was ready to go out on the town, laughing all the way.

The scientists have even made up a story about him. They say he had four stubby little legs, crawled over sandbars, and ate fish.

That seems like a busy life, and it must have been fun. Otherwise, why would he have been smiling? He was not found wearing clothes, but he might have put some on if he had known he was going to be dug up in just 365 million years.

Would he have worn a little tuxedo to go with his little top hat?

Surely, he would have wanted to be known for something other than just scouring sand bars for fish. If he had been found with clothes, or with a small sword, or even a little rusty pistol, the story about him in the journal Nature would have been even more interesting.

He was found in Latvia, which is across the Baltic Sea from Sweden. Latvia, where they pray daily for global warming, has had a troubled history, having been founded thousands of years ago by the Loopys, a band of traveling comedians who had been driven from every other country. They called their new country Loopia, but were soon conquered by the Latvies, a people suffering from chronic depression, and for whom comedy was no Latvian matter. It was they who caused the extinction of the Ventastegas, just to wipe the smiles off their happy little faces.

That part, of course, was not in the journal Nature, but I don’t understand why.

By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune

With gasoline increasing in price to the point that I have to rob a bank before I fill up, I have been reading about hypermilers, those people who get the most mileage they can from a gallon of gas. USA Today says they do things like “coasting for blocks with their car engines turned off, driving far below the speed limit on the freeway, pumping up tire pressure far beyond car and tire makers’ recommendations and carefully manipulating the gas pedal to avoid fuel burning excess.”

They also don’t turn on their air conditioners, open their windows only a crack and park at the far corners of shopping center parking lots so they can drive off without having to back up, what with so much gas being wasted by driving in reverse.

They also drive cars that get about 40 or even 50 miles a gallon in the first place.

I already have several strikes against me. The car I drive only gets about two miles a gallon. It is supposed to get more, but for some reason, gasoline goes through it like Hurricane Katrina went through New Orleans. My car’s carbon footprint looks like one left by Godzilla, with King Kong riding piggyback.

That being said, however, I have tried some of the hypermileage tricks. For example, one day last week when it was about 105 in the shade, I tried driving without the air conditioner on and the windows closed. And for about four blocks, I got about two miles a gallon more than I normally get. But then I had to drive four more blocks out of my way to stop at the drug store to stock up on deodorant.

I also tried coasting to a stop for about three blocks with the engine off and the transmission in neutral, but found I had a problem. The car wouldn’t go straight, because without the engine, the power steering won’t work. Quite a few people were honking and waving with one finger.

Hypermiling may not be for me.

By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune

A lot of politicians are making noises about the price of oil and what they intend to do about it, but all that noise is mostly what my grandmother would have called claptrap — absurd or nonsensical talk or ideas.

This claptrap falls into several categories: (1) We’ve got to stop the oil companies from making what seem like big profits, (2) We’ve got to stop the market speculators from speculating and (3) We need to start drilling for new oil right now to bring down prices.

Wrong on all three counts.

On the first count, punitively taxing oil company profits, as Sen. Barack Obama wants to do, amounts to Marxist gobbledygook. By the same logic, we might as well tax Obama for raising all that campaign money on the Internet. How about a third of it? The treasury could use the money.

Oil companies plow their profits, in the billions, back into new explorations, and would use profits to build new refineries if they could get them approved. Taxing profits would put off expansion and punish investors who risked their money when times weren’t so good.

On the second count, market speculators have very little to do with the current cash price of oil. They deal in future prices (thus the term “futures”), which often are influenced by current cash prices, but hardly ever is it the other way around. Activities of futures traders are carefully regulated in the United States.

Oil prices are where they are today largely because capitalism has worked — formerly poor nations now practicing capitalism need energy, and are entering the market. It’s called supply and demand. Get used to it.

On the third count, yes, it would be good to increase drilling for domestic oil, be- cause we will need it in the future. But if we started drilling today, it would be years before the benefits would be felt.

Although I have never written to a newspaper before your June 18th article, “He’s my only motivation,” about the teenage mother, left me compelled to do so.

Call me harsh but I am absolutely sick and tired of hearing about these young people who make bad choices, have children and are a drain on our society. Getting patted on the back and, God help me, helped with college scholarships while hard-working people like myself get nothing.

I had to leave home at 18, and because of my parents’ income could not receive financial aid until age 23. What was I to do? Have a baby? Go on welfare? Lock some guy into taking care of me? No. I learned a trade.

Now, I’m a 32-year-old truck driver who has never received help from anyone. I wonder if Ms. Fuentes will be one of the many arrogant drivers who cuts me off out there on (state Route) 99 in her Mercedes when she gets her law degree from Fresno State.

Cari Dusek,
Madera

All comments are edited for length and content. Due to content or space limitations some comments may not be published. Please limit your calls to two minutes or less.

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“I would like to thank the father of the kid that broke into my pickup,” began a man. “He did a lot of damage, about $1,400 worth. I wish him a happy birthday. You brought up some good kids.”

A man “read with interest your letters from readers concerning the Avenue 12 bypass.” The caller mentioned one of the letters and asked, “doesn’t he live on Avenue 12? Could it be he wants less traffic by his house and wants to put the burden on somebody else’s street?”

“It is time something is done,” began a man. “Gangs are moving from Fresno because the cops there have had enough guts and the people have had enough with the gang-bangers to crack down on them. They are now moving to Madera. It is our turn. Drive them out and drive them out now. No mercy, no plea bargains. If law enforcement can’t do it then it will be time for decent people to rise up and return decency to this town.”

“This is about gay marriages,” said a woman. “Monday, June 15, 2008, is a day all of heaven was sad. Doesn’t anyone believe in God’s words and his laws? We are now living in an epoch of Sodom and Gomorra. I fear for anyone with the idea that it is okay for men to lay with men and women to be with women. God help us. This is so wrong.”

A woman sarcastically “thanked Pastor Brannon” for a letter to the editor on same-sex marriage. She added, “that is why I gave up organized religion. My motto if I sin (is) let God judge me, and always do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

A woman had “two ideas for a downtown spruce up. One, paint all the buildings facades a neutral color rather than a red, blue and yellow. Number two: build condos or lofts like they do in Fresno, and urge people to live there. Perhaps that would be better for the downtown area.”

An Internet reader, self-identified as “Madera girl,” writes, “Clovis has implemented a color palette, all businesses in the city must comply to this color palette, why can Madera not implement an ordinance like this, have you seen the atrocious colors of some of these buildings?”

A lady said, “they want people to shop Madera, but yet the only place to get craft stuff is Wal-Mart and they are cutting back on their craft stuff. We need to get a shop in here.”

A man asked, “Why leave oil in the ground that has been there for millions of years? We need oil now while we develop alternate fuels. All you … lawmakers … the cost of food, fuel, tires and anything made of plastic has gone out of sight. The ordinary people, the working stiff, are getting murdered out there with prices when it is totally unnecessary.”

A man who works for the graffiti removal team wanted “to give a high-five and congratulations to the police chief and all the officers involved in apprehending these graffiti vandals. They (the police) are doing a real good job. It’s been great and you can see the difference.”

A man “driving into Madera this morning” observed “several fireworks stands going up. Not that he is against private enterprise,” but he has believed “for several years that fireworks stands should be for nonprofit organizations only.”

A man referred to e-mails a few weeks ago about past events involving a family and a sheriff. He said, “(Sheriff) John Barnett, during his time in office lived on South D Street directly behind what was then Madera Theater.”

A man objected to a series of articles on pregnant teenagers. “How you glorify children, girls, having kids by putting them on the front page and making it an episode. That is really not too good for the simple reason that you are making it acceptable. It is disgusting for kids to have babies at 15 or 16 years old and you are glorifying it.”

An anonymous visitor to the Red Line online similarly writes, “Is the objective of this (series) to promote and show that having kids at age 13 and 14 is fine because we have a day-care center at Madera High? … In order to get rid of this title as being the top three in the state in teen pregnancy we need to be promoting abstinence or at least knowing the ramification(s)” of teen sex.

Another Internet reader, self-identified as “A little concerned,” was disturbed that a mother profiled in the last article of the same series had been twice hospitalized for “not correctly managing her diabetes.”

The reader, who claims to also have diabetes, writes, “… in order to care for a child she must first learn how to take care of herself properly. What will she do when she is crippled or limbless or worse because of diabetic complications brought on by her not caring for herself? How will she care for her child? This is something both she, any other diabetic mothers, and everyone else should think of.”

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Thank you for your calls. Remember, the Red Line is open for your messages 24-hours a day by calling 674-4478, or by visiting www.maderatribuneredline.com.

To the caller who said he bet I didn’t know where John Barnett lived: My reply is, “No, I haven’t the froggiest idea,” but I do remember Dr. Ransom’s house.

I especially remember his office that was upstairs on Yosemite Avenue and D. Street. It was there that I started at a high, mahogany, display case that had glass doors and held two specimens floating in jars. Those specimens, I was told, were tails that had been cut off of humans. I was around 6 years old when I beheld that spectacle, but every time I went to his office my eyes were fixed on that display case and those tails floating in those two jars.

When Bill Coate mentioned Dr. Ransom in his history of Madera stories, it brought back to me memories of how important that doctor was to our family.

In 1936, my Aunt Betty Myers came down with diphtheria. There was nowhere to go but the county hospital for treatment. Betty was in bad shape. Infection from the disease had eaten away much of her larynx, and even her windpipe. The interns and county doctors weren’t very wise and they wound up butchering the job of cutting out the infection; besides it was a hard place to treat. Her throat and neck were messed up. Proud flesh was growing in the wound and hanging all over the outside of her neck.

She was around 15 at the time, and this disaster meant she would never be able to sing again, and she loved to sing.

At one point in Betty’s struggle to live, the county doctors closed up the hole (stoma) in her neck, but then she could breath in but not out. A doctor from Dearborn Hospital sped out to the county hospital and took out the stitches. Betty said a sound came out of the stoma like a hissing sound when you press a valve stem on a tire. Her lungs were starting to tear and explode. That was over a mile drive the doctor took to save her life.

Next, grandmother took Betty to see Dr. Ransom. When he saw the condition her throat was in and all the proud flesh that was hanging on her neck, he began to curse those county doctors and called them a bunch of butchers.

Then, he cleaned the proud flesh out of her wound and off of her neck and made her an appointment with a specialist named Dr. Morrison and from that time on, the University of California at Berkeley’s doctors in training called my Aunt Betty “Dr. Morrison’s pet.” Only he would take care of her. She was his special case.

In, all she had around 27 operations on her throat and windpipe. Much of it was all re-construction. It was Dr. Ransom that was our family hero. If it hadn’t been for him, Betty wouldn’t have lived to learn to play the guitar or piano, and finally get enough of her voice back to stand behind a pulpit and preach.

She married a Hoopa Indian who was a Pentecostal preacher and had his own church on the Hoopa reservation. That Pentecostal preacher, Frank Horn, got my son-in-law and daughter and son into the ministry and into the Willow Creek Assembly of God Church, and later the Assembly of God Hoopa Church. He got them launched.

But these series of events wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for Dr. Ransom, who helped Betty.

What really brought things all together was Grandma Myers, who was a prayer warrior and bombarded heaven night and day for her family, and especially for her daughter Betty. God gave her the knowledge to get in touch with the right doctor, Dr. Ransom, who then got Betty into the university hospital and under the care of Dr. Morrison.

When you know how to get in touch with God. He can get you in touch with the person or persons that can help you. You see, God works through people, and God worked through Dr. Ransom to create a miracle.

Our God is an awesome God.

Anyce Ruth Malone Hutchison,
Madera

As I go by, day in and day, out by the fairgrounds, I see new buildings coming up and I remember when there was nothing there in the fairgrounds parking lot.

It also brings me lots of memories from 1947 (61 years ago) when my father and I picked cotton for Mr. Posey right there where Lowe’s store is going to be. And it was also nice to see our grandson, Leonard Ortega, riding the dirt bikes.

Right there at the dirt bike park our grandson had lot of fun going over those dirt hills and I remember seeing lots of kids flying their kites, but now all of my memories will be full of new stores coming in.

Stores like Lowe’s, Walgreens, Petco, Big 5, and some other stores later on which is good for our community in creating more jobs. Especially for our grandkids and great grandkids. As for me, I already worked my 65 years. I would like to Thank Mr. Bobby Kahn, from Madera County Economic Development, Jim Taubert, and the City of Madera for bringing some of this business to Madera.

Eddie Chapa,
Madera

According to the Statement of Faith of the Madera Ministerial Association, “We believe the Bible to be inspired, infallible, ultimate, and authoritative Word of God. We believe that the truths taught in the Bible are relevant and authoritative for all generations.”

God made no provision for same-sex unions of any kind, and throughout His Word He clearly stated that any form of homosexuality is sin and an affront to His holy nature. In the creation account of Genesis, which we take as literal truth, God first created man, then woman, bringing the woman to the man for completion through their relationship that included sexual union. God did not bring a man to a man, or a woman to a woman for such fulfillment.

Sodom and Gomorrah, literal cities in Old Testament times, were destroyed because of the sin of homosexuality. The Apostle Paul states in the New Testament book of Romans, chapter 1, that when mankind defies God and His Word, that God then gives them over to shameful lusts including homosexuality as they come under His wrath. Paul also includes homosexual offenders under the category of the wicked who will not inherit the kingdom of God in 1 Corinthians 6:9.

It should be noted that God does not isolate homosexuality from other sins, for all sin separates us from the glory of God and calls for repentant faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who died for man’s sins and sinfulness, and rose from the grave to give us eternal life in His name.

It must be understood that Christ demonstrated His love toward all sinners when He died in our place on the Cross. Thus His loving desire is for homosexuals to repent of their sin just like anybody else and to place their total (faith) in the Lord Jesus for salvation from sin.

With these thoughts stated, it is incumbent upon every Christian to reach out to the homosexual with the love of Christ without condoning their sin just as they would reach out to any other person lost in sin, separated from God.

Our desire as ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to call all people out of sin, and into a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. We care for the homosexual, but do not condone his or her practice, as it is totally contrary to God’s nature and His Word.

Any form of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, bestiality, incest, fornication or adultery are perversions of God’s gift of sexual intimacy. Thus, although the Legislature, court, or people may “legalize” such marriages and unions, this does not legitimize them in the eyes of God, who is our Creator, Redeemer and absolute Lord.

Pastor Randy Brannon,
president of the Madera Ministerial Association

I was born and reared in Madera. My father was the postmaster in Madera. When I married my husband, Larry Deaver, we built a house in Dairyland. Now that we’re retired, we moved to the Greenhills gated community in Chowchilla.

I have heard my husband tell this story over the years and thought it might be newsworthy, a part of Madera history.

I enjoy reading your articles every day. I’m going through the same things you are. But of course they are funny stories when you write them. I love it.

Here is the story told by my husband: The Japanese spy

During World War II, as a young boy, my husband, Larry, grew up on the Sayre Ranch in Madera. His father, Clarence Deaver, was the ranch foreman. Clarence was an excellent welder and had made a pony cart for Larry’s pony to pull him around the large ranch.

Larry’s cousins, Guy and Dennis Parker and Gerald and Kenneth Mattox, who lived on the same ranch, would ride with him. They liked to ride down to the tank house to play; it was a mile down the road from the ranch.

One day they all jumped out of the cart and went running up the stairs to play. In the tank house was a Japanese spy with a butcher knife. He chased the boy down the stairs. They were able to jump into the pony-drawn cart and race all the way back to the ranch headquarters.

The men were all out working in the fields and the only adult was a woman, Larry’s aunt Betty Sweeney (Deaver). She was 18 at the time, and married to Charlie Deaver. The rest of the wives were all in town shopping.

When the boys told her about the Japanese spy, she of course didn’t believe them. After much begging, she finally drove them back to the tank house in her 1934 Ford coupe with a rumble seat. When she arrived she got out of the car and climbed to the top of the stairs and there was the Japanese spy with the butcher knife in his hand.

He then chased her down the stairs. However, she was able to hustle it back to the car. She sped into town to the Sheriff’s office and told them what had happened. The Sheriff’s office immediately drove out to the ranch and arrested him.

Now the reason the Japanese spy was there … this was a large ranch, and during the war, the government had placed two or three stashes of explosives in various parts on the ranch.

Years later his aunt came to visit us. I asked her if she remembered the day of the Japanese spy, she said, “I certainly did, and I had received several death threats after that incident.”

Sarah Deaver,
Chowchilla

By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune

One of the biggest misconceptions in politics is that the so-called policy “flip-flop” on the part of a presidential candidate is undesirable. That isn’t necessarily so.

Let’s examine what a flip-flop is: a change of mind, an abrupt reversal of ideas on policy.

Let’s say you are a cat lover, and forbid dogs from coming into your house. Then, one day, you meet a dog that you love. You decide to give it a try. You bring it home. It becomes your loving pet — all because you were willing to change your mind about dogs.

The cat might have to get used to it, but you wouldn’t bring home a dog that would hurt your cat, if you loved the cat. Your mind changed for a reason.

One day, you are a Raiders fan, the next day you’re in the 49er camp. A flip-flop, but perhaps with good cause. Maybe the Raiders are losing, the 49ers winning.

If a political candidate takes a position, and then changes it because he believes his former position was either wrong or not as good as the new position, how is that necessarily a bad thing?

You may remember that Richard Nixon, the staunchest of anti-Communists, eventually engaged in detente with China and withdrew the U.S. from Vietnam.

One of the classic logical fallacies is that of “either-or,” which purports that only two positions can be held can be held in an argument. In fact, in most arguments, several positions are possible, and changes of mind are frequent, either through compromise or the introduction of new facts.

When you hear the candidates accuse each other of flip-flopping, ignore it, unless they are talking about going around with rubber thongs on their feet.