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4B Daily News ��� Saturday, December 22, 2012 Opinion Denied shelter DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF TEHAMA COUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U NTY S I N C E 1 8 8 5 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 letters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All 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 cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submitted will be considered for publication. Letters will be edited. 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I can volunteer at the shelter, but can���t be a part of the transitional program even though three beds are open because it would require me to work at the store where the person with the restraining order is. A board member had told me I can do my volunteering in other places, but now I���ve been told I can���t be in the transitional living program. If I can���t be in the transitional living program, I should be able to be in their shelter. Darrell Daniel, Red Bluff Culture of death Editor: My wife and I watched and listened as President Obama addressed the nation during the prayer vigil Sunday evening and we were deeply moved and can only say, ���Amen��� to the sentiments that he expressed. However, we don���t believe that the problem lies in gun control as a solution but we believe that we must look much deeper to find the root causes behind such a tragedy. I am 84 years old and my wife is 82. Looking back over our lifetimes, we can���t believe what has happened to change our society from a culture of life to a culture of death. We are well aware that there has been a strong presence of evil in the world and that there has always been that 10 percent that never gets the word, so to speak, but we used to be a country that revered human life and human life was enshrined in our Constitution as being sacred. That all changed in 1973 when the Supreme Court ruled that individual preferences would take precedence over the life of a pre-born infant. We are not trying to start a fire-fight, but to encourage a deeper look at the nation���s past actions in the hope that we can reverse the course the country has taken and just perhaps, recover that culture of life that has been lost. How do you think that fact Look back at the last 40 years and ask how our society affects a child���s thinking? We would pose the question, has benefited by the taking of 50,000,000-plus innocent pre- how does it advance the civility of our country to have unreborn babies? I know that there is a strong strained violence bombarding abortion advocacy group but our little ones on TV and with how much thought has been video games where a sense of given to the fact that approxi- reality is lost and you can kill and kill and kill again mately 50 percent of and go back the next these victims were litday and do it again? tle baby girls? Your Do you really We fail to see how believe that children this advances the can make this distinccause for women's tion without being rights. We believe that no woman adversely affected? In the wake of the tragedy can undergo an abortion and come away unscathed. It is so that took place in Newtown, against the natural order to Conn. the nation is forced to destroy your young that this look deeply into what has hapaction will take its toll physi- pened within our society that cally, mentally and spiritually would bring about such an that they become walking atrocity. We hope and pray that this wounded. Our hearts go out to any letter might cast some light of woman, young or old, who has reason into the discussions that to live with such a burden. We have already begun as to how are reasonably sure that we to prevent a reoccurrence of aren���t the only ones who have Newtown in a different location. to live with such a burden. We are not gun owners but We are reasonably sure that we aren���t the only ones who we definitely believe that guns have pondered the fact that only kill when people shoot every person under the age of something. We are a conflicted 40 is an abortion survivor. nation. We are the world���s We���re quite sure that most chil- biggest arms merchant and dren are going to be aware of another gun law will be about this fact by the time they reach as affective as another drug law. Robert Meurer, Red Bluff the age of 10. Turn 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: governor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ��� Wally Herger (R), 2595 Ceanothus Ave., Ste. 182, Chico, CA 95973; 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; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 2240454. Commentary For Whom the Bell Tolls My wife came home from the gym a week ago Friday morning while I was working on the computer upstairs; she called up to me that we had to turn on the television right away. I came downstairs to the family room, and I found myself riveted to the screen watching the coverage of the school shooting in Newtown, Conn. I had trouble swallowing, and my eyes began to tear up. This event immediately absorbed us along with millions of other Americans from coast to coast. In the spring of 1966 we were living in Parkmerced, a large apartment complex in the southwest corner of San Francisco, near Lake Merced and San Francisco State. One warm evening we found ourselves standing with other neighbors, many of whom we did not know, all wondering how a security guard, who was armed with only a flashlight and a clip board, could be shot to death, apparently interrupting a car break-in in our parking lot. We were all stunned and at a loss for words. There have been other acts of violence that have similarly absorbed us; probably none more so than the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. What is it that binds us together in tragedy? Why do we react like we do when others are innocently taken? What part of our nature connects us to strangers? Why, when we are not directly involved do we feel so overwhelmed? It may be that in the midst of our everyday lives, the loud bickering of public arguments, the concerns about peace in the world, the worry about our environment, and our mundane decision making, we forget that at the core we are all human and that we share a humanity that includes a susceptibility to life���s hurdles. It may be that tragedy reminds us who we are. One reason we live in communities is that we cannot live in isolation; none of us can do all that is needed for us to live healthy lives. Even the hermit who resides on the proverbial mountain top can only do so if he/she has a stable food supply, clean air to breathe, and external security. That hermit relies on the rest of us to contribute to his/her well being, whether admitting it or not. Political thinkers have written much about the ���social contract.��� The theory of the social contract essentially is that we band together, giving up some of our individual power and freedoms to support our ruler, our government, or the rule of the majority so that we can all benefit from the security and prosperity that our support and sacrifice bring and which maintain the balance of our freedoms. Social contracts have been inherent in human groups since before history, and they were assumed, not written. They existed in the clans and tribes we created to find food and defend our territories eons ago; the social contract exists today in ���social contract��� or have come the United States where we have to understand the necessity to recognize ���interdea written Constitution pendence���, I believe with the purpose to crethat implicit in the ate a ���more perfect complex relationships union.��� that we have created The ���social conboth to bond ourtract��� implies a need for selves together and to order and cooperation; create order in our that need becomes lives, is an emotional more and more apparconnection between ent as the size of our us which is latent clans, tribes, and now most of the time. We countries has grown can be empathetic exponentially. We no Joe because at some level longer live in what has we always know that been called a ���state of we are all human. nature.��� We live in large That is why we look groups. The developeach other in the eye ment of the global village, the emergence of post when we have serious things to colonial countries, and the discuss; that is why we hug; that growth of international trade is why we cry both when we are have increased the growth of happy and when we are sad. John Donne, the early 17th cooperation and agreed upon rules of behavior. We do not century metaphysical poet, said it have a worldwide social con- well in one of his meditations: tract, and whether or not we ever ���No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the will is uncertain. Steven Covey, the author of continent, a part of the main; if a The Seven Habits, believes the clod be washed away by the sea, highest state of living is the state Europe is the less, as well as if a of interdependence. For Covey promontory were, as well as if a the fully developed person goes manor of thy friend's or of thine through three phases of develop- own were; any man's death ment: dependence, indepen- diminishes me, because I am dence, and interdependence. involved in mankind, and thereBabies are dependent on others fore never send to know for whom to survive. As toddlers grow the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.��� through adolescence, they assert Joe Harrop is a retired their independence. Mature adults understand their interde- educator with more than 30 pendence with others and live years of service to the North State. He can be reached at accordingly. Whether or not we have a DrJoeHarrop@sbcglobal.net. Harrop