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6A Daily News – Tuesday, August 13, 2013 Opinion DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF The little red hen 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 Once upon a time, there was a little red hen who lived on a farm past the woods. She was friends with a bossy but politically connected pig, a groveling sheep who worked as a flunky for the village and a scared little mouse who specialized in running away and hiding. Hey. Sometimes your friends are whoever lives on the farm next to you. One day the little red hen found some seeds. Since everyone was busy, she planted them and, lo and behold, not long after, a large field of wheat lay right behind the back porch. A funny thought came into her head that she could use the wheat to bake some bread. Lots of bread. Enough bread that she and her buddies could retire comfortably by selling it to animals on the other farms in her village. So she formed an LLC with her friends. After all the papers were signed, and paws and wings and hooves were shook, a party was held and all the animals on the farm attended. The dog got drunk. Finally, it was time to gather the wheat and the little red hen went around to each of her friends to see who would help. Citing confusion over stalled congressional action on the agricultural bill, the pig demurred, maintaining this was not a good time. It was a big farm. The sheep's lawyer, the duck, urged caution, not wanting to offend their good friend, the pig. The mouse was unavailable for comment but the hen heard toenails on the floor of his hole like someone was scurrying away from grave danger. So the hen gathered the wheat by herself. Needing help to grind the wheat, the little red hen once again approached the pig, who declined, not wishing to exacerbate the generally explosive union situation. The sheep couldn't possibly commit without first consulting his foreman, the horse, who was vacationing in Aruba. According to an informed source, the mouse was in conference with the duck and not to be disturbed. So, the hen ground the wheat. sheared the sheep in Sadly, the grinding a hostile takeover, took so long the hen was jailed by the lost the option on an mule who found industrial oven she had moose pellets in the lined up in the valley. crust of the sourWarily, she went to the dough. pig, but he had already The dog scored leased his oven space to big by selling a fica Chinese bakery contionalized script of cern. The sheep was the whole affair to waiting for a similar yet Netflix as a 12-part intrinsically different miniseries in which offer and didn't dare the hen appeared in tie himself up. An Will a cameo as a sexy unnamed staff member yet conflicted FDA intimated the mouse inspector possibly was compiling evisuffering from dence to support a Asperger's Synharassment charge drome. The end. against the cat. The hen eventually got a Five-time Emmy grant from the feds for an alternative production plant nominee Will Durst's new oneand baked many loaves of man show, "Boomeraging: bread keeping all the profits From LSD to OMG," every Tuesday at The Marsh, San for herself. The pig and the sheep sued Francisco. Go to themarsh.org for breach of promise, win- for more info. Or willdurst.com. ning the entire baking opera- And check out the trailer for the tion as a settlement. The new documentary, "3 Still mouse never knew what was S t a n d i n g . " going on. The hen got revenge youtube.com/watch?v=2gYdC of sorts when the pig, who had BlQIEc. Durst Raging Moderate Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Dan Logue, 1550 Humboldt Road, Ste. 4, Chico, CA 95928, 530-895-4217 STATE SENATOR — Jim Nielsen, 2635 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico, CA 95928, (530) 879-7424, 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 Detroit — in fantasy, reality, tragedy Tonight, the Tea Party Patriots will host Christine Stanley from the Wild Land Firefighters Association, 6 p.m., Westside Grange. Considering the seemingly perpetual smoke in our skies (which Barb and I will find upon returning to Odell Lake by the Willamette Pass in Oregon), this is a pretty timely guest. Our extended family, while growing up, ranged from South Dakota, to Minneapolis, to Greensboro, North Carolina, and to Detroit, Michigan, and the family we were usually geographically closest to: the Rippetoes. Aunt Dolores, Uncle Jim and their three boys provided a whirl of activities when we visited; their neighborhood was like so many we lived in and visited growing up in the 50s and 60s. Everyone knew everybody and if you did something wrong, word would get back before you could return on your bike to explain your side. We grade-school cousins would be turned out for the day, after letting folks know our plans, to ride wherever we wished and call on their friends, but were expected back for lunch—or let the adults know who was feeding us. We lived with youthful abandon, occasionally riding out in front of a car that always stopped (whose driver would make sure our parents knew), and had lots of summertime programs at the school a few blocks away. I'll always remember things like playing "Horse" on their driveway with the garage basketball hoop, and their unique way of visiting friends: they'd walk up to the back door and, without knocking, simply yell "Call for Ronny (or fill in name)." One time we got it in our heads to take a bunch of rolls of cap gun caps—the ones with the little round spots of gunpowder on a paper roll—down to the basement and use a hammer to bang as many as we could until an adult discovered the cloud of smoke wafting up the stairs and shut us down. As we got older into junior high school in the mid-60s, our interests changed, along with clothing, hairstyles and the gender of the friends we'd visit. One of Jimmy's buddies had this new hairstyle with a thick crew cut on top but long sides and back—we didn't know it would later be called a "mullet." My brother, sister and I just called it "the Detroit City look." This was a Detroit completely foreign to the Detroit of the last 4 decades. There was little concern for safety or crime; the neighborhood of well-kept two-story, manicured, middle-class homes was convenient to shopping, churches and jobs in offices or factories. Uncle Jim, our Mom's brother, was a cop—not a peace officer or public safety officer—a cop. With Aunt Delores' office job they, like most families, were well provided for. We never visited the Rippetoes after early high school, around 1966, due to subsequent events (i.e. 1967 riots by black residents). However, in retrospect, I can't help but reminisce about, and juxtapose, the life and times we experienced, around Buckingham Street in Detroit, with the subsequent history of that city. For one thing, the "nword" routinely came out of Uncle Jim, the Detroit cop's, mouth (a habit absent from the others); and we never interacted with any black fires set in 1984, and 500 to 800 kids when we were there. We never fires in the three days and nights before Halloween in a saw any black people typical year." Recent because we never drove numbers: 2010—169; anywhere that adults did2011—94; 2012—93. n't take us; I'd had black (Wikipedia.org) friends from elementary Aside from liberal through high school but apologists and hack "normal" was different in defenders of unfettered, their (white) parts of one-party, Democrat Detroit. urban rule, cushy union Since Detroit's bankdeals, wasteful urban ruptcy was first projects and antagoannounced, one part of nism towards businessthe narrative is the role of es and entrepreneurs— race in the rise and fall of Don any objective analysis that once great-anddemise affluent city. Zev Polson of Detroit'sadmit the simply must Chafets' seminal work, "Devil's Night: And The way obvious. Look up "How Coleman Young Other True Tales of Ruined Detroit" (July Detroit," published in I see it 31) and "Detroit and 1990, has received the Rubble of Liberalrenewed references in background discussions. His por- ism" (August 1), at Powerand trayal is unsympathetic to either lineblog.com white or black residents and lead- DonPolson.blogspot.com . George Will, on American taxers. You could say that racism begat racism; black residents payers bailing out Detroit: "There were aggressively kept in "their" you have today's liberalism: parts of the city. After the 1967 Human agency, hence responsibilriots, "white flight" to the suburbs ity, is denied. Apart from the pesky accelerated and radical black matter of 'voting in elections' — leadership, exemplified by Cole- apart from decades of voting to incompetents, man Young, replaced liberal empower white city leaders. His attitude, scoundrels and criminals, and to persona and viciousness toward mandate unionized rapacity — no surrounding white suburbs only one is responsible for anything. reinforced the return of the same Popular sovereignty is a chimera anathema towards the majority- because impersonal forces akin to hurricanes are sovereign." Is this African-American city. What does it say about Detroit's the future for California and its culture and mores that October 30 cities? became a night of major crime and, Don Polson has called Red Bluff notably, hundreds of arsons known home since 1988. He can be as "Devil's Night"? "The destrucby e-mail at tion reached a peak in the mid- to reached late-1980s, with more than 800 donplsn@yahoo.com.