Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/503391
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: 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 Tomorrowismy birthday, and Friday is our granddaugh- ter Samantha's ninth birthday. Birthdays are funny. Sometimes a birthday passes with little fanfare, and sometimes a birthday means much more than it re- ally should. I remember very little about my birthdays until I was seven or eight years old and began attending birthday parties. I particularly remember a third grade birthday party for friend and classmate Garry Fish. About a dozen of us went to Godfrey Humann's model rail- road museum in Gerber, and it was just about the coolest birthday party I ever attended. At the time I thought Garry Fish was one of those rich kids. I later found out that his dad was a plumber, meaning that he was just kind of rich. I remember how excited I was when I turned 13. I was now a teenager and old enough that girls might actu- ally look my way. The fact that I was a skinny little snot-nosed 80-pound teenager really didn't matter; I was a teenager just the same. I remember how excited I was to turn 16. After driver training with Carl Coleman, I received my driver's license. It didn't really matter that neither I nor anyone else in my home actually had an automobile. I had my license just the same. Reaching my 18th birth- day was one of those good news-bad news deals. While I was officially an adult, fully in charge of my own destiny, I was also required to regis- ter for the military draft in the midst of the Vietnam War. I somehow avoided the draft, while a friend and unlikely sol- dier by the name of Wendell Chatfield headed off to 'Nam and died in a rice paddy de- fending you and me. I think of Wendell often; a better man than me. Turning 21 was one of those two-for-one deals because with that birthday not only was I qualified to vote, I was finally old enough to consume alcohol. Legally. The fact that I was more excited about being able to enter a bar than I was about being able to enter a voting booth says more about me than I care to admit. A few years later my focus on birthdays transferred to my children. Who among us doesn't have a photo of a tod- dler with head, hands and other body parts fully im- mersed in a triple-decker Ger- man chocolate birthday cake? Who among us doesn't remem- ber our children's birthday parties where they and their bratty little friends ran rough- shod through our homes with a water balloon in one hand, a slice of pizza in the other, and a ex- tra large piece of fresh dog poop attached to the bottom of their sneaker? I am blessed to have four beautiful grand- children, ages 10 and younger. While I am certain each is cuter, smarter and more ath- letic than yours, today we are discussing birthdays. In the past 10 years I have attended a total of 29 birthday parties for grandchildren, and each and every one of them is big- ger and better than the one before. In today's birthday party world it is apparently a requirement to rent a thou- sand square foot bouncy house equipped with a 12-foot water slide even if the kid has yet to learn how to crawl. I remember the year my son hired a guy to bring in a string of ponies so kids could ride them around in a cir- cle. I guess the more things change the more they stay the same, because that year ev- ery kid at the party ran rough- shod through the house with a water balloon in one hand, a piece of pizza in the other, and a big old piece of fresh pony poop attached to the bottom of their sneaker. I have come to the conclu- sion that birthdays are mostly for the young. My 50th was important because at 50 I could retire if I chose. Number 62 meant I qualified for Social Security and number 65 al- lowed me to have my prostate examined compliments of Un- cle Sam. Tomorrow I turn 70, and frankly I am not sure how I am supposed to feel about turning 70. As a young person I always assumed that turning 70 likely meant you were dead. I am told, "you are only as old as you feel," and "70 is the new 50." I guess that's all true—at least until I move, think, blink, breathe or get out of bed three or four times in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Happy birthday Sam. Grandma and grandpa love you very much. ComingtotheState Theatre May 9— Anthony Kearns, pre- sented by the Tehama Concert Series; May 30— The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, sponsored by Haleakala Ranch and Mill Creek Ranch. BillCorneliusisalifelong resident of Red Bluff, a retired Chief Probation Officer, a champion of the State Theatre and an exceptional athlete. He can be reached at bill. cornelius@sbcglobal.net. William Tells Remembrance of birthdays past Cartoonist's take One of the great ironies of American politics is that most politicians who talk about help- ing the middle class support policies that, by expanding the welfare-warfare state, are harmful to middle-class Amer- icans. Eliminating the welfare- warfare state would benefit middle-class Americans by free- ing them from exorbitant fed- eral taxes, including the Federal Reserve's inflation tax. Politicians serious about helping middle-class Americans should allow individuals to opt out of Social Security and Medi- care by not having to pay pay- roll taxes if they agree to never accept federal retirement or health care benefits. Individu- als are quite capable of meeting their own unique retirement and health care needs if the government stops forcing them into one-size-fits-all plans. Middle-class families with college-age children would ben- efit if government got out of the student loan business. Govern- ment involvement in higher ed- ucation is the main reason tu- ition is skyrocketing and so many Americans are gradu- ating with huge student loan debts. College graduates en- tering the job market would certainly benefit if Congress stopped imposing destructive regulations and taxes on the economy. Politicians who support an interventionist foreign policy are obviously not concerned with the harm inflicted on the middle-class populations of countries targeted for regime change. These politicians also disregard the harm U.S. foreign policy inflicts on Americans. Middle- and working-class Americans, and their families, who join the military certainly suffer when they are maimed or killed fighting in unjust and un- constitutional wars. Our inter- ventionist foreign policy also contributes to the high tax bur- den imposed on middle-class Americans. Middle-class Americans also suffer from intrusions on their liberty and privacy, such as not being able to board an airplane unless they submit to inva- sive and humiliating searches. Even children and the physi- cally disabled are not safe from the Transposition Security Ad- ministration. These assaults are justified by the threat of terror- ism, a direct result of our inter- ventionist foreign policy that fosters hatred and resentment of Americans. Some "military Keynesians" claim that middle-class work- ers benefit from jobs in the mil- itary-industrial complex. Mili- tary Keynesians seem to think that the resources spent on militarism would disappear if the Pentagon's budget were cut. The truth is, if we reduced spending on militarism, those currently employed by the mil- itary-industrial complex would be able to find new jobs produc- ing goods desired by consum- ers. Even those currently em- ployed as lobbyists for the mili- tary-industrial complex may be able to find useful work. Few things would benefit the middle class more than ending the Federal Reserve. The Fed- eral Reserve's inflationary pol- icies erode middle-class fami- lies' standards of living while benefiting the financial and political elites. Middle-class Americans may gain some tem- porary benefits from Federal Reserve created booms, but they also suffer from the inevi- table busts. As I write this, the dollar still reigns as the world's reserve currency. However, there are signs that other economies are moving away from using the dollar as the reserve currency, and this trend will accelerate as the Federal Reserve contin- ues to pump more fiat currency into the economy and as resent- ment toward our foreign policy grows. Eventually, international investors will lose confidence in the U.S. economy, the dol- lar will lose its reserve currency status, and the dollar bubble will burst. These events will cause a ma- jor economic downturn that may even be worse than the Great Depression. The main victims of this crisis will be av- erage Americans. The only way to avoid this calamity is for the American people to force Con- gress to free them from the bur- dens of the warfare state, the welfare state, taxation, and fiat currency. Ron Paul is a former Congressman and Presidential candidate. He can be reached at VoicesofLiberty.com. Ron Paul The real war on the middle class Another view Legal rights for ani- mals? Not so fast. A few weeks ago, says the New York Post, Manhattan Su- preme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe "inad- vertently bestowed hu- man status on two chimpanzees being used for biomedical research at Stony Brook University on Long Is- land." The chimps, Hercules and Leo, were granted habeas cor- pus — a legal action through which human detainees can seek relief from unlawful im- prisonment — in response to a lawsuit filed on their behalf by the Nonhuman Rights Project. The lawsuit requested that Hercules and Leo be moved to a South Florida sanctu- ary. Justice Jaffe ruled that the university must estab- lish cause for holding the two chimps (to be reviewed at a May 6 hearing). Well, the Nonhuman Rights Project people quickly claimed that the initial ruling "implic- itly determined that Hercules and Leo are 'persons,'" which could, potentially, open a big door to granting legal rights to animals. An angry Justice Jaffe said she had no such intention and quickly amended her court or- der by crossing out the words "Writ of Habeas Corpus" — which means Hercules and Leo do not have any human rights at all. The issue of legal rights for animals has been a source of debate for some time. According to Science Mag- azine, some legal schol- ars take issue with the current legal system that treats animals as prop- erty and not independ- ent beings. Cases like that of Hercules and Leo are intended to call at- tention to the matter and eventually grant some le- gal rights to animals. Other legal scholars ar- gue that apes and chimps and other creatures that are fairly well advanced should have rights similar to those of a hu- man child. According to The Washing- ton Post, legal scholar Stephen Wise, a longtime advocate for legal rights for some animals, said that "Certain species are capable of complex emotions, can communicate using lan- guage, and have a sense of self. I don't see a difference between a chimpanzee and my 4 -year-old son." That may be so, but per- haps your son could use a shave? Wise said that chimps, for instance, have complex social interactions. They use tools, count, do sign language (at a 4-year-old human's level) and demonstrate an idea of the fu- ture, while remembering the past. Well, so do members of Con- gress, but we don't want to grant more special rights to them. Wise said that when you give a mirror to an orangu- tan, he uses it to explore parts of his body he can't see other- wise. This indicates a sense of self, according to Wise. It's also a sign that orangu- tans have a lot of free time on their hands. In any event, advocates who want legal rights for animals want to give animals "basic rights of bodily integrity and bodily liberty," said Wise. If animals have some legal rights, for instance, zoos and carnivals would not be able to detain and use them for en- tertainment and medical labs would not be allowed to use them for testing. Maybe there is something to be said for that. Perhaps a ma- jority of people will look back in the not-too-distant future and think it barbaric that ani- mals were caged in zoos or pa- raded around carnival tents for so long. We should treat all of God's magnificent crea- tures with dignity and re- spect (though, admittedly, I intend to keep eating the tast- ier ones). Still, it must remain clear that, though humans and some animals may have sim- ilarities, our differences are significant. Only humans have moral capacity, the free will to choose right or wrong. We are, said Mark Twain, "the only animals who blush — or need to." Tom Purcell, author of "Misadventures of a 1970s Childhood" and "Comical Sense: A Lone Humorist Takes on a World Gone Nutty!" is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Send comments to Tom at Purcell@ caglecartoons.com. Legal monkey business Bill Cornelius Tom Purcell OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Wednesday, April 29, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6