Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/151335
6A Daily News – Wednesday, August 14, 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 Highway 99E Common core Editor: Highway 99E between Dairyville and Vina is a particularly deadly stretch of road. In recent memory there have been six fatalities. Count them, two in Dairyville, three in Los Molinos — since the state "fixed" the highway through town — and one in Vina. Speed and sometimes carelessness have been the cause of some of these accidents, but two in Los Molinos occurred when a person was trying to turn left onto Sherwood from the southbound lane. My suggestion is to close off Sherwood. Put in a cul-desac. People needing access to Sherwood can more safely use the left turn lane at Palm Street. The speed limit on 99E is 55 mph. The speed limit in Los Molinos is 35 mph. Nobody gets slowed to 35 by the time they reach the radar speed signs located at each end of town. They need to park a deputy at each of those and start writing tickets. Make the Los Molinos "speed trap" famous across the land. The highway patrol needs to get busy too. Those double yellow lines in the middle of the road signify a passing zone right? How many more must die? Fred Boest, Red Bluff Editor: As a long term public education taxpayer, I am skeptical of ambitious reforms that change the measurements of student performance or promise better tests. Each decade the schools of education reform their failing methods with revisions that don't improve student academic performance. The latest reform is called Common Core and is a watered down agreement between representatives of a majority of states. Without school choice, our nation will continue downward academic performance compared to the best globally. For poor performing schools the Common Core may improve academic performance but for the half that are high performance, there are no benefits and many risks. Improved standards for poor performing schools are only one small piece of the academic success story. The most important part of academic success is parental involvement and motivation, and students who want to learn. Another important part is teachers who have the passion and have mastered their subject matter. Credentials and union seniority are a minor part of mastering knowledge. Most parents kid themselves with grading almost all teacher's as outstanding when repeats itself, because four the mix is actually about one decades later, the Pentagon in quarter failing, one half aver- its infinite wisdom, has age, and a quarter outstand- decreed that $7 billion worth ing. Every teacher receives of heavily armored vehicles outstanding pay and benefits in Afghanistan will have to be no matter their academic per- destroyed prior to our withformance. Because of union drawal in 2014, because it is ownership of public too expensive to schools, we pay and ship back. Your benefit teacher's Tell that to the about one-quarter growing throng of more than their peers our poor, unemin other non techniployed and homecal fields, and we less, who are suffershould expect outstanding ing a similar fate as disposperformance. able human beings. Our competition has for Joe Bahlke, Red Bluff more than a half century has been globalization, and we need to insure that parents, Editor: teachers, and students match Since growing and selling or exceed their global peers. marijuana is against federal This does not require dumping even more money on pub- law, why don't we call in the lic schools but demanding National Guard to wipe out maximum productivity from gardens like those being already overfunded public grown at Rancho Tehama and other local areas where growschools. Joseph Neff, Corning ers are trashing our areas, ruining creeks and ground water with chemicals, etc.? Naturally we can't expect our local Water Control offiEditor: Some of us old timers cers to take on this job probably remember a scenario because they are not trained of incredible waste during the in this type of law enforceU.S. withdrawal from Viet- ment. Our taxes pay to train and nam which included footage, somehow missed by govern- support our National Guard ment censors, of helicopters so let's use them to clean out and other expensive military these areas. Just a thought. equipment, being tossed into Carolee Straughan, the ocean. Redding Alas, it is true that history Turn Just wondering Waste 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 Why I sometimes long for the Cold War I've been thinking about the sorry state of American culture, and that made me reminisce about the Cold War. You remember the Cold War. It brought us espionage, alliances with cheesy dictators and a devotion to making bombs. And throughout it all, we lived in constant fear that the Soviets were going to blow us up. Ah, the good old days. The fear of nuclear holocaust had its upside. It drove us closer to our God and to our families. We paid our bills on time. We treated our fellow man with more respect. We did the things people are likely to do when they worry that, at any moment, they may be meeting their maker. The economy wasn't bad, either. Thanks in part to the buildup of arms under President Reagan, everyone had a job, even my college buddy Faz. He graduated with the lowest mechanical engineering grade-point average in Penn State history, yet he got work designing shell casings for torpedoes at a Virginia plant. Our love lives were better. During the Cold War, most women didn't want to be shipped to faraway places to lie on their bellies and get shot at by communists. They wanted men to do that. And when President Reagan called the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire," American men were getting dates in unprecedented numbers. Sure, the Cold War had a few drawbacks. The Bay of Pigs was no picnic. And most people got tired of letters to the editor from nutty guys who wrote: "Why don't we build a large pair of glasses and set them across our great nation? Then we can say to the Russians: You wouldn't fight a country with glasses, would you?" For the most part, though, the Cold War was about a constant fear that kept us in check. But things took a bad turn in 1985 when Gorbachev turned the Soviets into a bunch of softies. He talked about freedom. His government stopped telling the press what to write. By 1989, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, and that ruined everything. Without a great enemy to unite us, America turned its focus inward. We began to squabble among ourselves. Environmentalists formed truly great importance — debt, powerful organizations to make deficits, spending and inability to address all three — us feel guilty for drithat may soon be our ving our cars and undoing. heating our houses. Were we a more Animal activists made thoughtful and reasonus feel awful for eatable people, we might ing dinner. Other make the intelligent groups told us we decision to set aside were racist anti-multipetty matters and culturalists. come together to Women turned on focus on the real probmen. Now, we never lems. That would take know — after we leadership, however, compliment a woman which we are badly — whether we'll be Tom lacking these days. greeted with a smile or That's why, in a lawsuit. these divided times, I Today, we are more long for the simplicity divided politically and culturally than at any time in of the Cold War. How grand it my 51 years. We have 24/7 was when worried children media fanning the flames of were taught to huddle under our discord to gin up ratings their desks and adults were kept and ad revenue. Nobody is get- honest by genuine worries. Boy, we could use another ting along. We're so blinded by our Cold War about now. inwardness, we overlook the Tom Purcell, a humor fact that the Earth is still filled with evil forces, and we are columnist for the Pittsburgh still but one nuclear explosion Tribune-Review, is nationally away from utter chaos and syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper worldwide unrest. Free of such real worries, syndicate. Visit Tom on the Web we've elevated matters of small at www.TomPurcell.com or ehim at importance into great affairs as mail we have downplayed matters of Purcell@caglecartoons.com. Purcell