Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/110766
6A Daily News ��� Thursday, February 21, 2013 Opinion 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. Letters are published at the discretion of the editor. Mission Statement We believe that a strong community 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 vehicles. The Daily News will reflect and support the unique identities of Tehama County and its cities; record the history of its communities and their people and make a positive difference in the quality of life for the residents 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 Hissing contest Editor: There goes Mr. Merhoff again, still with a condescending attitude and the lofty comments. I can agree with Mr. Merhoff, in his condescending way, that there was no agony and stress in the cutting of ferns, sorting and bundling the 3 to 4 feet tall ferns. The agony and stress came when they were stacked on a back-pack and carried out of the dark, shaded, spring fed canyons where they grow. Now compare that to the agony and stress of pumping gas and washing windshields at the local Standard Station. I did not work nights but I did work weekends and from morning to well into the night for many years. Whether or not I am familiar with multiple syllable words isn���t the issue, maybe some of the readers are not. Is it his intention to leave them out of the conversation by talking down to them? I made no claim he referred to racism, I said ���Even to the casual observer that would imply racism of which the Tea Party is often falsely accused.��� His Merhoff now accusing the Tea Party of being intent on destroying the union? If that is his belief he has been indoctrinated by the liberal media. There is a large number of Tea Party members that are veterans that have served in combat to defend the Constitution and some of them may not have a handle on the vast vocabulary that he has. The most decorated war hero of WW II was Audie Murphy who dropped out in the fifth grade to help support his family. He received the Medal of Honor plus he earned and received every decoration for valor that this country had to offer plus 5 decorations presented to him by France and Belgium. Having not completed the fifth grade and lied about his age (16) to enlist in the army, he most likely could not pronounce some of Merhoff���s multiple-syllablewords let alone know what they mean but he certainly wasn���t stupid. Besides being a successful actor he did quite well in business. Which goes to show, not Texas, to attract companies everybody with a higher educa- with low taxes, and less damtion and a large vocabulary is aging regulations. intelligent and not ln the late 1980s everybody without a my employer, PeterYour higher education and bilt Motors, closed a large vocabulary is their Bay Area stupid and we should assembly operations, treat them as such. along with many Merhoff���s scorns other truck compothe misinformed and zealous nent manufacturers. Denton, advocacy this group represents. Texas offered a non-union The Tea Party advocates, ���Lim- work force with less damagited Government, Fiscal ing regulations, and lower Responsibility and Adherence taxes. The Corporate offices, to the Constitution.��� What does including engineering moved Merhoff advocate? to the Texas plant site in the Les Wolfe, Red Bluff early 1990s. The unionized Tennessee Peterbilt plant was moved to Texas last year. The reality is most states offer equally skilled salaried and hourly employees, but with lower taxes, a non-union work force, and fewer effiEditor: ciency damaging regulations. Proposition 30 sends a To remain competitive, clear signal to manufacturing California legislators need to companies that it will pay recognize the need to vote for them to leave California for right to work laws, school tax and regulation friendly vouchers, and an end to colstates. Gov. Brown ignores the lective bargaining for public lobbying being done by employee unions. responsible states, such as Joseph Neff, Corning Turn It makes sense for companies to leave California Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN ��� Dan Logue, 1550 Humboldt Road, Ste. 4, Chico, CA 95928, 530-895-4217 STATE SENATOR ��� Jim Nielsen, 280 Hemsted Dr., Ste. 110, Redding, CA 96002, 530223-6300, Fax: 530-223-6737, senator.nielsen@senate.ca.gov GOVERNOR ��� Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 5583160; E-mail: governor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ��� Doug LaMalfa 506 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-2253076. U.S. SENATORS ��� Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 3930710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224-0454. Commentary I don���t think we���re in Gerber anymore, Toto The term ���small talk��� could apply to social media on the basis that most of the time a user is limited in the amount of characters they can type in a given message. But on Tuesday social media small talk merged with the version those of us who remember looking another person in the eyes during a conversation are more familiar with. When a tornado touched down near Gerber it quickly became the first topic on people���s minds. The newsroom was flooded with phone calls and emails of readers submitting photos and video of the funnel cloud ��� most taken with a cell phone. A quick check of Facebook and Twitter also showed a spike of activity for Tehama County and the communities of Gerber, Corning and Red Bluff. All the way south to Sacramento the aforementioned photos of the twister were being posted, retweeted and forwarded. One outbuilding���s roof appeared to have been damaged by the weather, but other than that all of the Dorothys and Totos in the area escaped unharmed. Because of that, I can look back at Tuesday and chuckle about everyone���s fascination with the tornado. Growing up back east tornadoes were a lot more common occurrence and nobody would bat an eye them about unless something severe happened. For instance I remember the day the Challenger exploded, my kindergarten class in Michigan spent the morning inside the boys bathroom because of a tornado warning in the area. I was living in North Carolina in third grade, when my teacher lost her house to a tornado. They���re just a part of life in that section of the country. To be fair, a few years ago my family back east blew up Facebook when a earthquake struck Virginia and some reportedly felt tremors hundreds of miles away. Tremors most in California would compare to standing too close to a passing train. As Sports Editor Andre Byik pointed out following last week���s cosmic event, imagine if we lived in Russia. *** There���s a scene near the beginning of ���Goodfellas��� where Paul Cicero congratulates a teenage Henry Hill for accomplishing his first act of becoming a wise guy with a rather crude expression. Editor Chip Thompson didn���t use the same phrase, but he had Paulie���s enthusiasm the other day when a piece of mail came to the newsroom directed toward me. Someone had cut out one of my columns and scribbled across it with black pen that I should stop crying over my parking ticket and get a pacifier. Chip said it���s a right of passage for columnists to receive a torn out copy of their own work with words of let���s say, ���encouragement��� added to it. The point of the column was to point out how most people are babies when a cop hands them a don���t want to brag about their ticket and therefore most people children���s success so we never find out. have negative interacI assured her there tions with law are many people in enforcement. I then this community stuapplauded the Red dents have come Bluff Police Departacross, from teachers ment for doing a comand coaches to friends munity survey so it and former coworkers, could create a more that would be interestpositive dialogue with ed in knowing about the public. their success. I mean I can lead a The mother said horse to water... she just didn���t want A few days later, I her child to be embarstumbled upon an Rich rassed. Internet blog that menI can relate to that. tioned another one of I certainly would be my columns and embarrassed if my referred to me as a own mother wrote to my ���bloated snot-nosed kid.��� newspaper to I must be getting pretty good hometown inform them her snot-nosed at this writing thing. Another reader once referred baby had managed to survive a to my opinions as ���passive- tornado even without his pacifier. aggressive.��� But I assured the mother, as A tip to all the young writers out there: Thin skin leads to I do all readers out there, that writer���s block and those who we want your submissions. Our Community Page found call you names do so because they have nothing to say them- on 2A is a great collection of small talk starters for those in selves. Keep writing. the community not on your *** As I was writing this week���s Facebook Friends list. We always need submiscolumn a woman called inquiring how one places an sions, it could be years before announcement that a local stu- another tornado comes to town. dent has made a college Dean���s Send your best insults to this List. columnist at I explained that some universities submit that informa- rgreene@redbluffdailynews.co tion, but most of the time the m. Torn columns can be sent newsroom has to rely on some- back to the columnist c/o Snotty one who knows the student Nose, PO Box 220, Red Bluff, emailing it to us at clerk@red- 96080 or verbally lodge a complaint at 527-2151, ext. 109. bluffdailynews.com. Jumping to the right conclu- Don���t forget to leave a phone sion, I told her a lot of parents number. Greene