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6A – Daily News – Saturday, April 2, 2011 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 Grateful Editor: On Friday March 25 after a har- 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. Letters are published at the discretion of the editor. Mission Statement We believe that a strong com- munity newspaper is essential to a strong community, creating citizens who are better informed and more involved. The Daily News will be the indispensible guide to life and living in Tehama County. We will be the premier provider of local news, information and advertising through our daily newspaper, online edition and other print and Internet vehi- cles. The Daily News will reflect and support the unique identities of Tehama County and its cities; record the history of its com- munities and their people and make a positive difference in the quality of life for the resi- dents and businesses of Tehama County. 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 We live in a connected global village, never out of reach to our friends and families. The telephone and the Internet allow us to stay in contact constantly. As has been said of many things, “this is a blessing and this is a curse.” We recently experienced both the blessing and the curse of con- nection. Our vacation with the grand- sons had been going well. We woke up on Monday morning, greeted by sunshine and crisp weather. Our grandson ate a hearty breakfast, and we were preparing for an adventure; we checked our email on our laptop just before we were going to go out on our “adventure” with Sam. There were three emails which forwarded to us a message they had received pur- portedly from us; two were from the east coast, one from the Mid- west. The message said we were stranded in London without any money, credit cards nor passports. We replied that this was not so, we were in Wisconsin where we did not need a passport, nor were we stranded. However, on second thought it would be easy to be stranded in London where the streets replicate an enormous labyrinth and it is only the gargan- tuan memories of the cabbies that make it possible to navigate from one end of town to the other with- out a GPS and constant distraction from driving. Wisconsin, on the other hand, is laid out on a grid, and it is far less easy to be stranded. Then came the west coast emails, delayed by the two-hour time difference. There were too many to count, but we rowing two days trying to get out of Reno to Sacramento to catch our plane home to Virginia, we found daylight and dry ground at 7:30 a.m. on Highway 36 at a view point 24 miles out of Red Bluff. My husband was trying, unsuc- cessfully, to remove the chains, as we do not use them in our part of the country. An older couple, as are we, was in a dark green pickup, waiting for their daughter to come down from Westwood, and the man kindly helped us. It took about half an hour and we were very grateful. He would not accept any money and his wife said “pay it forward.” We will do that, but wanted Red Bluff and that man, whom we hope will read this and recognize himself, to have our public thanks. We are very grateful. Tamra Gotchef, Vienna, Va. Conservative Christian? Editor: The idea that the terms Christian and Conservative are synonymous must be chal- lenged. I realize that the word conservative means many dif- ferent things to many people, but conservative as it pertains to modern economic and social ideals is primarily secular by definition. Therefore, a Christ- ian embracing Secular Conserv- ative ideals and branding them Christian is paradoxical at best and heretical at worst. One can not read the Gospels of the New Testament and rec- oncile them with the tenants of modern American Secular Con- servatism. I feel that those that promote Conservatism to Chris- tians as a morally superior eco- nomic and social philosophy are disingenuous. For example, Secular Con- servatives, in general, are pro- rich, pro-war, pro-corporation, anti-poor people, anti-disabled, anti-tax and anti-union. Yet, they are pro-life. Therefore, the Christian must embrace secular conservative values or they are, by default, supporting a pro- choice platform. This is a deception of Biblical propor- tions. Millions of Christians will often automatically vote for and support the most Conservative candidate or policy. They do so out of some misguided loyalty to a supposed pro-life stance. To do otherwise can leave a Christian feeling conflicted about their role in our Democ- ratic society. Chris- tians do not, by default, have to vote Conservative. In fact, in most cases they would be going against the basic ten- ants of their faith by doing so. Jesus, I think it is fair to say, was squarely in the corner of the down trodden of society. I sim- ply can’t see Jesus calling the poor lazy, or the disabled slack, or calling for aggressive mili- tary campaigns and bloated defense budgets, or calling for more tax breaks for the rich while simultaneously calling for cuts to social welfare programs and education. These positions simply fly in the face of Biblical Christianity. For decades now Conserva- tive political candidates can count on one vote above all others — that is the Christian vote. This simply shouldn’t be an automatic position for the Christian any longer. Sec- ular Conservative principles Your Turn have infiltrated the Church to the point that Christians actu- ally use the term Conservative and Christian as one and the same. They are absolutely not the same and the Christ- ian need not be con- flicted about it any longer. There are ways to be pro-life without embracing the cold-hearted self- ishness of Secular Conser- vatism. Think about it. Robert Springer, Red Bluff Terrorism Editor: Has anyone considered that the rise of democracy in the Arab world means the end of terrorism as we know it? Terrorism is supported by the petty dictators and secret party sponsors. If these nations become democracies, this will be impossible and these new states will investigate them as criminals. This uprising might even be in reaction to terrorism as the Arabs might be reluctant to have their culture highjacked by extremism. Michael Hagen, Red Bluff 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), 2635 Forest Ave. Ste. 100, Chico, CA 95928; 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; (415) 403-0100. Fax (202) 224- 0454. Connected Commentary soon discovered that our entire contact list had been lifted from our account and that everyone on that list had received an email ask- ing for money so we could come home from London. It took us most of the day to take care of the problem. We had to change the password to our account, have the computer checked out by a local service shop, and then try to rebuild our contact list as we answered emails sent to us out of concern. One of the features of Wauke- sha is the lack of street signs; even the natives complain. We had got- ten directions to the computer ser- vice shop, but without a GPS we had to try several different streets until we came to a street sign. This made a 10 minute trip extend to 45 minutes. Sam wasn’t sure that this was such a great adventure. I am sure the telephone compa- ny benefited from the hack; the son of a friend called his mother in Red Bluff from South Korea; a friend of my daughter called her in Madison from Germany; a friend in Chico called our son in Philadelphia; there were many messages on our answering machine at home and several voice mail messages on our cell phones. We tried to return all calls and emails. I was most con- cerned about my 100-year-old aunt who had called; she didn’t think it was a real plea for help, but she called just in case. Most everyone else called to warn us what had happened. The positive side to this hacking was that we had lots of friends and acquaintances who took time to let us know they were concerned. The other upside was that it appeared everyone knew this was a scam. The technician at the computer shop said this particular scam comes from Nigeria, most likely in a comput- er café. He indicated that once this hacker has grabbed onto someone’s email address he can use the power of his comput- er to search through dic- tionaries to find words that may work as your password. The dictionar- ies are for many lan- guages. When I was Dean of Education at Simpson University we were required to change our email password on a reg- ular basis; there were certain mini- mum numbers of letters and num- bers. At the time I probably thought it was a nuisance, but I complied with the rules and wrote down my new password in an easy to find place in case I forgot it. Now days I have trouble remem- bering where I wrote things down, but usually I can remember pass- words. I now realize why the uni- versity had those protocols. My wife was the first to make sure we used different passwords on different accounts; our pass- word on Amazon will not work on the History Book Club, or the bank, or other places. It makes life a little more complicated, but the likelihood of someone getting into your account is far less than using one password for all. Unfortunate- ly our old password for the one email account that was hacked was only six letters and could be found Joe Harrop in a German dictionary. I have been reading a book by Sherry Turkle called Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. Her premise is that tech- nology may connect us to many other people, but it tends to enable us to objectify them. We dash off instant mes- sages, Tweets, Face Book posts, or text mes- sages, avoiding the eye to eye contact so critical in interpersonal relation- ships. This trait is partic- ularly true of adoles- cences who use these recent technologies con- stantly. Turkle describes the many who enter virtual worlds with their own avatar and live an imaginary life that seems better to them than real- ity. She writes about the aversion to using the telephone because it is too time consuming and too inti- mate. I will write more about Turkle’s book in future columns, but this example of all the people who took time to call and email us about our hacked email runs counter to her generalization and shows that peo- ple do consider the plight of others even on line and at great distance. We are a connected species, and that connection can be reassuring. We will never take it for granted. 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.