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4A Daily News ��� Saturday, February 23, 2013 Opinion It���s not a dollar store 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 An occupational hazard of working for a newspaper is that you frequently serve as a reference desk for what���s happening in the community and beyond. Makes sense. After all, we spend most of each day trying to keep track of local happenings. Those times when we don���t know the answer become opportunities to write a story about something readers want to know about. At least a few times each week I get calls from readers and non-readers asking everything from ���what time does the Super Bowl start?��� to ���what���s going on with the railroad tracks?��� Lately I���ve been asked repeatedly what���s being built at Walnut and Jackson streets in Red Bluff and what���s happening at the former Holiday Market on Antelope Boulevard. In this case, the answer to both questions is the same ��� the locations will soon feature Dollar General stores, as we have stated in prior articles. The reaction to this news is typically disappointment that new businesses coming to our town are nothing more than dollar stores, until I explain that Dollar General is a chain of more than 10,000 variety stores that just happens to have ���dollar��� in the name. While the stores do offer competition for Walmart and dollar stores, they sell items priced as high as $60 and most items are considered discount goods. Some even offer a limited selection of groceries. Based on the number of people who missed the news stories about the stores, I don���t expect this column to silence future queries about the new businesses. But enough people asked about it, I thought it would be worth tossing this out there. For those who wish to debate community, I was the value and deleteriimpressed by the ous effects of dollar variety and professtores and national sionalism of the small retail chains, knock and not-so-small yourselves out. I���ll businesses in attenpass. We���re all adults, dance. make our own choices A tip of the hat to when shopping and Chamber President typically get what we Lisa Hansen and the pay for. staff at the chamber *** for putting together Sticking with a busisuch a successful new ness theme, I quite event. enjoyed the inaugural Chip *** Business Expo And By the way, the Mixer Thursday Thompson evening hosted by the 545 Diamond Super Bowl started at 3:30 p.m. Pacific and Red Bluff-Tehama Ave. the recent work on the County Chamber of railroad was routine Commerce at the Elks replacement of ties. Lodge. After having to park near Chip Thompson can be the street due to an overflowing parking lot, it���s safe to reached at 527-2151, Ext. 112 by email at assume a whole bunch of you or editor@redbluffdailynews.com. did, too. him on Twitter In addition to seeing a lot of Follow smiling, familiar faces from the @EditorChip 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 Bionics, extraterrestrials and mindsets There has been a lot for me to think about recently. Those things range from new discoveries in astronomy, to Steve Austin, aka the bionic man, to creepy ���cybercrawlers.��� I am not sure if that last term is a real word, but that hasn���t stopped me from thinking about it. Extraterrestrials According to an article in the Redding Record Searchlight there may be billions of other planets within our own Milky Way Galaxy, each with Earth-like dimensions, located an appropriate distance from their home stars to actually have Earth-like conditions. This reminded me of the theological debates we had in the late 60's and early 70's about whether or not human beings were unique in the universe, and, from a Christian perspective, if our Creator would have sent a savior to other creatures on distant worlds as well as to us on Earth. We asked questions about whether or not those other worlds would be fallen, that is, living in the consequences of sin and in need of second chances. It may seem irrelevant these days when fictional characters can skim across the universe at "warp speed" between commercials, when they can assume an avatar role in the life of other species, and when they can travel in time, but in the early years of the space age we were intrigued by the possibilities that we were not alone. We wondered about the hubris of thinking we were exceptional and what our role in the greater universe might be. We may even have thought there might be some intelligent life somewhere in the universe. I still think that these ideas are still interesting things to ponder, but I am now convinced they should not have any impact on how we live the life we have been given here and now. The Bionic Man Lee Majors played the role of Steve Austin, The $6 Million Man, in the mid 70's television series. Austin was "rebuilt" after a terrible accident and was made better than ever through the science of bionics. He essentially had almost the equivalent of "super powers" in a mortal body. My pacemaker recently reached the end of its life expectancy, and I found myself feeling weak and gray, unable to cross the room without needing to sit down, and lacking energy. The generator for the pacemaker had lasted over 7 1���2 years; fortunately it was replaced recently, and I feel more like myself than I have in a long while. When I asked my wife what would have happened a generation ago if I had the same symptoms, she essentially said I would have wound down and passed on. I have been reading the Massie Dobbs series of mysteries that take place in the post World War I era, following Downton Abbey, and also reading the Proud Tower, an excellent history of the period prior to that war. Medicine was far less sophisticated, and antibiotics only on the horizon; it wasn't until 1928 that Alexander Fleming discovered the antibiotic properties of penicillin. Since then, medicine has made startling advances, and we have benefited from those advances. There are many of us who wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for the progress in medicine, myself included. I think about our ancestors who survived without the benefits of modern medicine, and how vibrant they must have been. Some critics have postulated that modern medicine has diluted the gene pool, breeding a weaker version of mankind. For me, however, I have learned an even greater appreciation of this gift of life, and I want to make sure that I use this gift in a positive way. Creepy Cyber-crawlers I am in the habit of printing out interpreted by their sponsors. The my columns from the Daily News creepy devices trigger a response online; I place them in a binder. to the words or phrases found; depending on the sponIt���s probably a vanity sor of the search the thing, but I like being message may be inane, able to re-read them irrelevant, or even crypfrom time to time. tic. Sometimes I wonder One wonders the why I said what I did and mindset of those who scratch my head. Other feel the need for such times I just laugh, and covert operations in an every so often I actually open society. It brings enjoy re-reading someup images of Orwell's thing I have written. 1984. For me, however, Recently I wrote a it is a reminder of a commentary on the Joe scene from the Fantashooting in Newtown sticks. New neighbors last December 14; in that have moved next door, piece I mentioned a and the new to the shooting incident that neighborhood husband took place in the spring asks his neighbor who of 1966 in Parkmerced, a rental community in San Francis- is doing some gardening, ���Tell me co where we first lived after we what are the people in this area were married. When I called up like?��� The man interrupts his garthe column, right next to it on the dening and asks in reply, ���What right side of the screen was an were they like where you came advertisement about rentals avail- from?��� The newly arrived neighable now in Parkmerced. This bor replies, ���They were positive, seemed pretty innocuous, but it did honest, trusting, and friendly.��� The surprise, and it certainly would not man on the other side of the fence have convinced me to move back replies, ���I think you���ll find they are that way here too.��� there. Later in the afternoon the wife My younger son gave me a book entitled, The Joy of X; it���s of the new neighbor asks the garabout mathematics and the book dening man over the fence the goes all the way from simple addi- same question. He responds the tion to calculus, linear algebra, and same way, and she says, ���They statistics. One chapter discusses in were gossipy, jealous, and backbitlay terms how the algorithm for ing,��� to which he responds ���I think Google works. Because comput- you���ll find they are that way here ers work so rapidly millions of cal- too.��� Although we are conditioned culations can be executed in almost no time at all. Internet by circumstances, we do have a search algorithms perform such choice about how we view the kinds of large calculations to world and our own lives. As obtain their seemingly instanta- Voltaire said, ���God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourneous results. There are organizations that use selves the gift of living well.��� what I call ���creepy cyberJoe Harrop is a retired educator crawlers��� to search cyberspace for with more than 30 years of service specific targets, like ���Parkmerced.��� Some such operations to the North State. He can be at are geared up to correct any ���mis- reached interpretations��� of the "truth" as DrJoeHarrop@sbcglobal.net. Harrop