Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/785733
ChipThompson, Editor 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 Werecentlyhostedarecep- tion for family members and out of town friends of a de- ceased friend af- ter the celebra- tion of his life. About 25 people attended, and we had a good time reminiscing and catching up. One of my friend's granddaughters is an eighth- grade student, and very mature for her age. She made a great pun, and I complemented her on it. She said, "none of my eighth-grade classmates would get it." I asked her to tell me about eighth graders; she told me they didn't listen to each other, they only cared about themselves, they didn't know appropriate social behavior, and they were prone to put others down. It was depress- ing, she said, and she looked forward to high school when students would be more con- siderate and attentive. I hope she is not overly optimistic. Her remarks reminded me of our "eighth grade like" President, because in many ways he does act like a typ- ical eighth grader. He bul- lies, brags, and struts. He puts himself first. For example, he went on vacation after less than two weeks in office, tak- ing time going to his estate in Florida, perhaps to get away from the growing protests. He got no reprieve from the pressure of protestors, how- ever, and seems to be reacting rather than listening. Another example of his ju- nior high behavior is his call- ing out of Arnold Schwar- zenegger about the drop in ratings of the Apprentice; he did this at a very inappropri- ate venue, the National Day of Prayer breakfast. He clearly demonstrated the eighth- grade trait of inattention to social surroundings. An additional example of his "eight-gradedness" was his abrupt and rude hang up on the leader of Australia. Then he "kidded" about the "bad hombres" in Mexico, demon- strating his insensitivity to others, like a typical eighth- grader. When a federal judge stayed his controversial immigration order, he showed his imma- turity by calling the stay "ri- diculous" and the judge a "so- called judge." A mature Pres- ident would have suggested there are nuances of the law the judge may not have consid- ered, used measured language, and emphasized the impor- tance of making sure the judge had carefully considered the matter. Our current President chose to blurt out in typical eighth-grade fashion. He ushered in Black His- tory Month like an ill prepared eighth grade student trying to read some scribbled notes with what he thought were proper names to drop; his ro- botic, dreary, unenergetic de- livery might have reflected his true feelings about Black His- tory Month, but one cannot be sure. He did not use his nor- mal phrases, like "so good" or such, but he mentioned Fred- erick Douglass several times without mentioning who he was or why. Today (February 6) he main- tained a straight face while speaking to the Central Com- mand as stating, "You've seen what happened in Paris, and Nice. All over Europe, it's hap- pening. It's gotten to a point where it's not even being re- ported. And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn't want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that." If that isn't eighth-grade rea- soning, I don't know what is. Now his counselor who pro- claimed a massacre that did not happen questions why news people who do not like the president's policies have not been fired. And White House spokespersons have said that, at least for now, no spokespersons will appear on CNN, allegedly because of all the fake news. Speaking of fake news, the eighth-grade Tweeter told us on his favorite medium "Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election." Surprisingly, at this point, he has not Tweeted about the commercial that claimed we were looking ahead to four years of bad hair. And of course, his spelling, at least on some of his Tweets does not meet adult standards. For example, he used "unpres- idented" instead of "unprec- edented," probably because like most eighth-graders he was thinking of himself first. Other rushed spellings have included spelling "attacker" as "attaker," leaving the "r" out of "San Bernadino," Tweeting "I am 'honered' to serve you" af- ter the inaugural; maybe he meant he had been honed and was sharp and ready to go? My thanks to an eighth- grade young woman from Peachtree City, Georgia who gave me the inspiration of this column. JoeHarropisaretired educator with more than 30 years of service to the North State. He can be reached at DrJoeHarrop@sbcglobal.net. JoeHarrop Tales of an eighth-grade VIP He showed his immaturity by calling the stay "ridiculous" and the judge a "so-called judge." Thankaveteran Editor: I am a very proud American and I will thank a veteran ev- ery time I see a veteran wearing a ball cap or other symbolic in- signia showing he or she served our armed services. My father was a Navy belly gunner in an airplane in WWII. Luckily he was able to re- turn safely to home and fam- ily. My brother enlisted in the Air Force right after graduation from Red Bluff High School and ended up in Vietnam in 1966 and later died from complica- tions from Agent Orange in 2011. Both my dad and brother served our country proudly and they never spoke of the war and what they endured, but were both honored to protect our country and what it stood for. On Sunday, Feb. 6, at approx- imately 2 p.m. I was in Food Maxx when I passed an el- derly gentleman and his wife. I stared at him because I could not read what all was on his cap. I met them one aisle over and it turned out he is a Pur- ple Heart recipient and I was told by his wife he was also a wounded combat POW in WWII. This man was most humble and said it was his plea- sure and honor to serve coun- try. I lost it. I was crying at that point not knowing a Pur- ple Heart recipient even lived in our community. Please always thank a vet- eran. Whatever your politi- cal thoughts or beliefs are, it's because of them, you can say thank you for our freedoms. — Johnelle Begbie, Red Bluff Doesn't understand Democrats Editor: I have been trying to fig- ure out just what is the mes- sage of the Democratic Party. It appears, to the common cit- izen, their message is violence against their fellow citizens with a different opinion. They are so terrified of free speech they are willing to break out in violent riots destroying prop- erty and physically attacking and harming anyone that gets in their way. It's obvious the rioters be- lieve they have the support of the Democratic leadership, es- pecially in liberal communities like Chicago, Detroit and more recently in Berkeley where the UC Berkeley College Republi- cans were set for speaker Milo Yiannopoulos, the gay conser- vative editor of Breitbart News. When violence, backed by a pro- gressive charity that is in turn funded by George Soros, broke out, the event was cancelled but the mayhem continued with the destruction of property and Trump supporters being beaten and kicked senseless. After all the lawlessness, the destruction of property and physical harm, all caught on video, there was just one ar- rest and in a place where free speech is supposed to be held high in regard. Were all 1,500 protesters rioting against a gay conservative homophobe? For the last eight years the then President of the United States of America pressed his lips on the hips of dictators and despots, released terror- ists from Gitmo, traded five ter- rorist for one deserter, raised the debt, depleted our military, trashed our Constitution, weak- ened national security, opened our borders to anybody and ev- erybody the result our once great nation in jeopardy, then gave millions of illegals govern- ment money to get them kick- started until their government check and medical care started. How could so many citizens of this country support an ad- ministration that would give medical care to illegal immi- grants and neglect our wounded warriors and give more money to the same illegals than some natural born citizens and men and women that served this country loyally in the military. Many served in combat and worked hard to support their families and paid into Social Se- curity. For service to this coun- try and being constructive citi- zens received as much as $300 less in Social Security than his favored illegal immigrants. Why in the Syrian refugees were there more Muslim refu- gees than Christian refugees when it is Christians that are persecuted, being beheaded and hands chopped off. We now have a president that has kicked political correctness to the curb and is keeping his campaign promises, says what he means and means what he says. Trump has an uphill bat- tle with the drive-by media, ev- ery liberal columnist, Holly- wood and the whining, sniv- eling, lying and signifying Democratic leadership. — Les Wolfe, Red Bluff Non-drinking celebrities Editor: Following are notable public figures that, according to Wiki- pedia, are or were teetotalers. That is, they either stopped or never started drinking. Buzz Aldrin, Muhammad Ali, Prince Andrew, Alec Bald- win, Joe Biden, John and Annie Bidwell, Pearl S. Buck, Warren E. Buffett, George W. Bush, Eric Clapton, Tom Cruise, Freder- ick Douglass, Neal S. Dow, Rob- ert Downey, Jr., Thomas Alva Edison, Craig Ferguson, Henry Ford, Mahatma Gandhi, Jane- ane Garofalo, Kathy Griffin, Ad- olf Hitler, Anthony Hopkins, Crazy Horse, Ice-T, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Thomas Stone- wall Jackson, Elton John, Ste- phen King, Robert E. Lee, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Abra- ham Lincoln, Rob Lowe, Norm Macdonald, Nelson Mandela, Dr. Phil McGraw, Eddie Mur- phy, Carrie Nation, Friedrich Ni- etzsche, Bill O'Reilly, Kelly Os- bourne, Donny Osmond, Marie Osmond, Al Pacino, Jimmy Page, Natalie Portman, Prince, Chris- tina Ricci, Anne Rice, John D. Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers), Mitt Romney, Linda Ronstadt, George Bernard Shaw, Sarah Sil- verman, Gene Simmons, Ringo Starr, John Travolta, Donald Trump, Henry David Thoreau, Shania Twain, Mae West, Mal- colm X and Frank Zappa. — Nathan Esplanade, Corning Your opinions Cartoonist's take Shattered. Splattered. Scat- tered. Battered. Tattered. Skew- ered and plattered. Barely mat- tered. That was the Democrats af- ter November's election. But surely in the months since, they'd come together to stand aligned in the face of the flaky impe- riousness of our so-called President. You'd think. And ripe bananas make a fine masonry grout. The Democrats have lost their direction so completely they need a compass to blow their nose. Incontestably, incontrovertibly and incredibly... useless. We are not speaking of a trifling of use- lessness here. "Totally and ut- terly and unconditionally use- less" barely scratches the surface. The exact extent of the uselessos- ity exhibited by Democrats right now is breathtaking in its magni- tude. Mythic. Destined to be im- mortalized in song and dance. During last year's campaign they skirted the periphery of worthless and ineffectual and futile and just plain lame, but the degree of uselessness they have recently achieved is best measured in AUs, astronomical units. As evidenced by their re- action to Donald J. Trump's first unstable weeks in office. Or lack of reaction. They make listless look downright rigid. Limp is their rock. As useless as an ejection seat in a helicopter. Mudflaps on a turtle. Pistol range in a bouncy house. Costume designer on a porn flick. Solar powered night scopes. An ashtray on a Harley. Glass pinatas. Triangular wheels. Oh sure, they strut and pose and squawk and stamp their lit- tle impotent feet but so far have accomplished nothing. Less than nothing. Negative nothing if that's even a thing. And no, you're right, it isn't. Our new president celebrates Black History Month by compar- ing himself to MLK. He goes to a National Prayer Breakfast and asks the assembled to pray for Arnold Schwarzenegger's rat- ings on the television show he produces. He picks a fight with Australia. Australia for crumb's sakes, home of the koala bear. We're about to go to war with koala bears. Come on, America, that's not who we are. Falling back into their famil- iar role as punching bag in an abusive relationship, the Dem- ocrats' squeaks of protest can't be heard over the sound of the body blows being absorbed. In- stead of trading punches, the left responds with splenetic po- ems and pussycat hats. They think they're going to change the world through rhyming cou- plets and creative crochet. Nancy Pelosi displays a look of perpetual surprise, but can't bring herself to do anything but wag her finger and shake her head. Bernie Sanders? Zero. Zip. Nada. Nothing. He hasn't even threatened to give the President a stern look. Okay, a sterner look. Barack Obama has left the building. No, really. He's gone fishing. In Chicago or Hawaii or Kenya or somewhere. Hillary Clinton is no help at all, she just keeps laughing. John Lewis and Elizabeth Warren are the only isolated voices in the wilder- ness, two lonely figures fighting on the balustrade trying to wave away swarms of raptors. Get- ting the same support from their compatriots as bulls get from squirrels. Heads need to roll. Hurdles must be leapt, rivers portaged and careers sacrificed. Loins girded. Photos of administra- tion members in flagrant de- licto with livestock have got to go viral. It's time for Democrats to kick off the Birkenstocks and strap on some football cleats. Lose the mandolin music and download Led Zeppelin. Once more unto the breach, dear friends. Snarling. Will Durst is an award- winning, nationally acclaimed columnist, comedian and former short haul truck diver of plaster molds. For a calendar of personal appearances, visit willdurst.com. Will Durst Democrats are completely lost and completely useless Joe Harrop Will Durst OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Saturday, February 11, 2017 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4