Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/772140
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 Ispenttheentiretyoflast week's scintillating column sharing details associated with purchasing, restoring and operating the 70-year-old his- toric State The- atre. Because of ar- bitrary and ca- pricious word limits imposed by Daily News higher-ups, I was unable to complete my dissertation regarding the good, the bad and the ugly as- sociated with providing di- verse top-notch programming in a community limited in population as well as wealth. I shall do so now. ••• The most complicated part of operating the State Theatre centers on the decision-mak- ing process regarding who will appear on the Haleakala Stage. Let me share with you issues associated with bring- ing a couple dozen concerts to the theatre every year. There are 725 seats in the State Theatre. After allowing for complimentary sponsor seating, promotional seating and entertainer-allocated seat- ing, 650 seats remain for sale. Obviously, it is our hope to fill all 650 seats for every State Theatre-sponsored concert. A portion of the eighteen member State Theatre Board of Directors sits on a program committee. That committee's job is to identify potential en- tertainment to bring to the State Theatre. Frankly, their job is not as easy as it might seem. Let me tell you why. If I were to ask you if you would like us to bring Garth Brooks to the State Theatre, you would likely say heck, yes. If we contact Garth's people, they will tell us he will come for $150,000. By the time we add promotional expenses along with required rider add- ons and other expenses, the to- tal cost will be $180,000. To break even, we will need to charge $325 per seat and fill every seat in the house. Ain't gonna happen. Experience has taught us that, from a demographic standpoint, the North State community is most supportive of country music concerts as well as big band and orchestra related programming. We have had the Glenn Miller Orches- tra at the State on three differ- ent occasions, and have drawn a good audience each time. If I were to list the con- cert performers who have ap- peared on our stage over the past few years, you would rec- ognize most of the names. For the most part these folks are either on their way up the charts; or folks who have achieved a significant level of success in the past, but no lon- ger command Garth Brooks- level compensation. Our excellent Front of the House Manager Linda Bullock normally handles the rubber meets the road negotiations concerning concert compen- sation, conditions, etc. We at- tempt to book performers who are being routed up and down Interstate 5. If they are trav- elling from a concert in Port- land to a concert in San Di- ego, they have to sleep some- where—and oft times they will stay in Red Bluff and are will- ing to entertain at a greatly re- duced rate. A typical name brand per- former will likely cost some- where between $10,000- $20,000. By the time we ad- vertise on television, radio, papers, flyers, posters, etc., feed and house said performer we will have invested $15,000- $25,000. A $15,000 concert with ticket prices set at $40 per ticket will require that we sell 400 seats, just to break even. A $25,000 concert requires that we sell all 650 available seats at $40 per ticket just to break even. We also attempt to bring en- tertainment to the theatre fea- turing extremely talented art- ists who may lack national name recognition, allowing us to set ticket prices at a more affordable $15-$25. Unfortu- nately, we sometimes find the community will not turn out unless they are familiar with the artist. We also try to bring folks to the theatre who may have a narrower following, such as classical artists, bluegrass art- ists, brilliant pianists and oth- ers. Unfortunately while the talent is amazing, such con- certs often fall short in terms of attendance. ••• Operating a performing arts venue in today's faced-paced, entertainment-filled world is a difficult proposition. Very few theaters are able to survive based solely on proceeds from their box office. Because of this amazingly generous little com- munity, the State Theatre con- tinues to prosper beyond any reasonable expectation. Our membership program is healthy and growing every day. When we roll out a seat replacement program, folks stand in line to participate. We currently have fourteen Performance Series Sponsors, each contributing from $2,500 to $25,000 to help underwrite State Theatre-sponsored pro- gramming. The bottom line is, that while the State Theatre is in a very healthy financial posi- tion, it saddens us when we bring quality entertainment to the Haleakala Stage and there are far too many empty seats in the theatre. Come on down to our next concert, or the con- cert after that. If you don't en- joy yourself, we will give you your money back and a box of free popcorn as you head out the door. ••• Speaking of quality enter- tainment let me tell you about our next concert to be held at the State Theatre on January 24. One of the things we al- ways hear is about entertain- ers such as Tennessee Ernie Ford and Patty Page who ap- peared on the State Theatre as part of the world famous Red Bluff Bull Sale in the 1950s. Well guess what, we're back. In cooperation with Adam Owens and his Bull Sale Com- mittee, the State Theatre will be hosting the Roots and Boots Concert on Tuesday, Jan- uary 24 of Bull Sale week, fea- turing county music icons Pam Tillis, Collin Raye and Sammy Kershaw. At $55-$65, tickets are going fast, so get on down to the Tehama Visi- tor Center and get your tick- ets now. This one is going to sell out. If that's not enough, the State Theatre is presenting eight-time CCMA Entertainer of the Year Terri Clark on Feb. 2. More information will fol- low in next week's column. ••• Don't forget to honor some- one or something special in your life by participating in the State Theatre seat replace- ment sponsorship program. Call 529-2787 for additional in- formation. 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 Pickingactsfortheater a delicate balance Cartoonist's take Get this: The U.S. Treasury says that America's debt grew by another trillion dollars in 2016. If you're like me and you find it difficult to grasp how much a trillion really is, econ4u.com, an educational proj- ect of the non- profit Employ- ment Policies Institute, offers a mind-blowing illustration. "Let's say someone told you to wait for something. If you waited one thousand sec- onds, it'd only take about sev- enteen minutes. If you waited one million seconds, you'd have to wait about 11 days. But if you waited one trillion seconds, you'd have to wait 31,688 years." Heck, I remember the old days when a billion used to be a number so big nobody could comprehend it. One billion hours is equal to more than 114,000 years — which would take us back to the Stone Age. Not long ago, we measured our national debt in billions of dollars. Now we do so in tril- lions of dollars — numbers that are extremely difficult to com- prehend. Consider: One trillion is equal to 1 thousand billion. If you had $1 trillion in cash, re- ports econ4u.com, you could buy 282 billion Big Macs, or 3.1 million Ferrari 599 GTBs, or 769 new Yankee Stadiums, or 28,571 flights into space as a tourist, or 66.7 billion copies of Oliver Stone's "Wall Street." If you had $1 trillion in debt and paid it back at the rate of $10 million a day, it would take you 273 years — on an interest- free loan. Our federal deficit has been averaging nearly $1 trillion a year since the collapse of 2008 — causing us to rack up around $8 trillion in new debt during President Obama's administra- tion. To cover our nearly $4 tril- lion annual budget, the U.S. Treasury spends about $1 bil- lion every two hours — accu- mulating $1 billion in new debt about every eight hours. Still not comprehending how much $1 trillion is? Then you'll like this description by Bill Bryson, one of my favorite au- thors, from his book "Notes from a Big Country." Bryson asks his readers to guess how long it would take to initial and count 1 trillion $1 bills if you worked without stopping. "If you initialed one dol- lar per second," writes Bryson, "you would make $1,000 every seventeen minutes. After 12 days of nonstop ef- fort you would acquire your first $1 million. Thus, it would take you 120 days to accumu- late $10 million and 1,200 days — something over three years — to reach $100 million. After 31.7 years you would become a billionaire. But not until after 31,709.8 years would you count your trillionth dollar." We all understand that very large numbers are OK so long as they add up. So long as we have trillions of dollars coming in to the government to bal- ance out the trillions of dollars we have going out, we should be OK — but we haven't been OK. Regardless of what you think about President-elect Donald Trump and our new, Republi- can-controlled House and Sen- ate, you'd better hope their pol- icy changes unleash the pent-up economic vitality of our coun- try. You'd better hope we dou- ble Obama's 1.9-percent average growth rate so that we can gen- erate the government receipts we need to pay our debts and meet our obligations. Hey, our national debt is al- most $20 trillion, for goodness' sake — that's 20,000 billion dol- lars. If you still can't comprehend how big our debt us, consider this slightly modified illustra- tion from econ4u.com: If the U.S. government printed $1 million bills, "a whole bathtub's worth of them wouldn't equal a trillion dol- lars." And 20 bathtubs full of $1 million bills still wouldn't be enough to cover our national debt. Tom Purcell, author of "Misadventures of a 1970s Childhood" and "Wicked Is the Whiskey," a Sean McClanahan mystery novel, both available at Amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Send comments to Tom@TomPurcell.com. Tom Purcell A trillion reasons why US debt is incomprehensible Operating a performing arts venue in today's faced-paced, entertainment- filled world is a difficult proposition. Very few theaters are able to survive based solely on proceeds from their box office. Tom Purcell Bill Cornelius Last week, as the mainstream media continued to obsess over the CIA's evidence-free claim that the Russians hacked the presidential election, President Obama quietly sent 300 U.S. Marines back into Afghanistan's Helmand Province. This is the first time in three years that the U.S. military has been sent into that conflict zone, and it represents a final failure of Obama's Afghanistan policy. The outgoing president promised that by the end of his second term, the U.S. military would only be present in small numbers and only on embassy duty. But more than 8,000 U.S. troops will remain in Afghani- stan as he leaves office. When President Obama was first elected he swore that he would end the U.S. presence in Iraq (the "bad" war) and in- crease U.S. presence in Afghani- stan (the "good" war). He ended up increasing troops to both wars, while the situation in each country continued to deterio- rate. Why are the Marines needed in the Helmand Province? Be- cause although the foolish and counterproductive 15-year U.S. war in Afghanistan was long ago lost, Washington cannot face this fact. Last year the Tali- ban controlled 20 percent of the province. This year they control 85 percent of the province. So billions more must be spent and many more lives will be lost. Will these 300 Marines some- how achieve what the 2011 peak of 100,000 U.S. soldiers was not able to achieve? Will this last push "win" the war? Hardly! The more the president orders military action in Iraq and Af- ghanistan, the worse it gets. In 2016, for example, Pres- ident Obama dropped 1,337 bombs on Afghanistan, a 40 percent increase from 2015. Ac- cording to the United Nations, in 2016 there were 2,562 con- flict-related civilian deaths and 5,835 injuries. And the Taliban continues to score victories over the Afghan puppet government. The interventionists in Wash- ington continue to run our for- eign policy regardless of who is elected. They push for wars, they push for regime change, then they push for billions to re- construct the bombed-out coun- tries. When the "liberated" country ends up in worse shape, they claim it was because we just didn't do enough of what ruined the country in the first place. It's completely illogical, but the presidents who keep seeking the neocons' advice don't seem to notice. Obama — the "peace" candidate and pres- ident — has proven himself no different than his predecessors. What will a President Trump do about the 15 year failed na- tion-building experiment in Af- ghanistan? He has criticized the long-standing U.S. policy of "regime-change" and "nation- building" while on the cam- paign trail, and I would like to think he would just bring the troops home. However, I would not be surprised if he acceler- ates U.S. military action in Af- ghanistan to "win the war" once and for all. He will not succeed if he does so, as the war is not winnable — no one even knows what "winning" looks like! We may well see even more U.S. troops killing and being killed in Afghanistan a year from now if that is the case. That would be a terrible trag- edy. Ron Paul is a former Congressman and Presidential candidate. He can be reached at the RonPaulInstitute.org. Ron Paul Will Obama's 'good war' in Afghanistan continue? OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Wednesday, January 11, 2017 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4