Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/15746
4A – Daily News – Thursday, September 2, 2010 Opinion D NEWSAILY RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U N T Y S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Why is the Legislature wasting its time on AB 155? This editorial was originally published in the San Jose Mer- cury News: 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 let- ters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All let- ters must be signed and pro- vide the writer’s home street address and home phone num- ber. 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 submit- ted will be considered for publi- cation. Letters will be edited. Letters are published at the discretion of the editor. Mission Statement We believe that a strong com- munity 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 vehi- cles. The Daily News will reflect and support the unique identities of Tehama County and its cities; record the history of its com- munities and their people and make a positive difference in the quality of life for the resi- dents 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 The California Leg- islature has enormous problems to solve — closing the deficit, fix- ing public schools, maintaining the safety net. So why are Senate Democrats still wast- ing precious time on Assembly Bill 155? The bill would require local Editorial What do you think? Let us know governments to jump through hoops in the state bureaucracy before filing for bankruptcy — not to protect taxpayers but to make it more difficult for labor union contracts to be voided in bankruptcy court. Only three municipalities have ever filed for bankruptcy in California. This is not a prob- lem that needs to be solved. Nevertheless, Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, last week resurrected the bill from the “inactive file,” where it had deservedly sat since June. It was approved Aug. 24 by a Senate committee and is expected to pass the full Senate in the next week. If that happens, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger must veto this bill. It is terrible public policy. AB 155 originally would have required local govern- ments to get approval from an obscure commission before filing for bank- ruptcy. An amend- ment added another option: Allowing the state auditor to exam- ine the books instead. Neither remedy is needed. Federal bank- ruptcy courts have a perfectly fine system in place. It worked well when the most recent city to go belly-up, Vallejo, filed in 2008. AB 155 aims to deter local governments from considering bankruptcy, even when it's war- ranted. Worse, it could create new hurdles for cash-strapped cities: What happens if they run out of money while awaiting an audit? How should they respond when financial markets learn of a potential bankruptcy filing through disclosure requirements the law could trig- ger? Senate Democrats have some nerve trying to insert the state — whose budget is now 56 days overdue — into the fis- cal affairs of local govern- ments. They ought to stop pan- dering to labor unions and get to work solving problems that actually exist. Diversion dam Editor: I think it’s time for a reality check. I picked up some brochures on the Red Bluff Diver- sion Dam at the Discov- ery Center the other day. The project is funded through this year. If the project, (pumping sta- tion) is not completed on time,150,000 acres of crops are at risk. That’s $250 million in crops; over half of which are per- manent crops, with a $1 billion annual economic impact. There is no way, if the dam is needed to feed the Corning and Colusa canals in 2012 that we can in good conscience not allow that agricultural need to be fed. Be serious. You know what we need to do? we need to have a big party on the mall in Washington D.C. and burn the Endangered Species Act. Our obligation to the plant and animal life on this planet is hus- bandry. Look that up. It means fru- gal and sensible management of resources. Does that sound like you let X thousands of acres of trees die because you've run up against a deadline? Your Turn Recovery and Reinvestment Act) CVP-OCAP (Central Valley Pro- ject Operations Criteria and Plan) and a BO (Biological Opinion), agreed to by the Bureau of Recla- mation, all under an Environment Impact Report under CEQA (What the hell is CEQA?) signed off by Reclamation on a Record of Decision under NEPA (and what's that one?), on July 16, 2008. Try to wrap your brain around that sentence One brochure said the Red Bluff Diversion Dam gates “will no longer be operational” after 2011 Apparently, the gates will be non-operational due to bureaucrat- ic decisions involving an alphabet soup including agreements among the TCCA (Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority), ARRA (American One more thing to be serious about. I have heard that the plan is to remove the Red Bluff Diver- sion Dam when the pumping sta- tion is established. I can think of no reason we would pay to take the dam out only so that later on we could discover that elimina- tion of the striped bass from these waters resolves the salmon spawning situation and normal runs of salmon and steelhead become reestablished. This looks to me like one boondoggle piled on top of another boondoggle because nobody did the due dili- gence in the original investigation of what was impacting the salmon population. What we had was a bunch of special interest groups each offer- ing their own explanation for the loss of salmon and none of them ever finding out about Livingston Stone introducing an invasive species of fish (striped bass) into the delta. Fred Boest, Red Bluff Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Jim Nielsen (R), State Capitol Bldg., Room 4164 P.O. Box 942849, Sacramento 94249; (916) 319-2002; Fax (916) 319- 2102 STATE SENATOR — Sam Aanestad (R), State Capitol Bldg., Room 2054, Sacramen- to, CA 95814. (916) 651-4004; Fax (916) 445-7750 GOVERNOR — Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 558-3160; E-mail: gover- nor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Wally Herger (R), 2635 Forest Ave. Ste. 100, Chico, CA 95928; 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; (415) 403-0100. Fax (202) 224- 0454. A burning question: Extremists on 9/11 Commentary In case you missed some of the lowlights of the 20th centu- ry, one charismatic pastor from Florida is trying to bring them back. Yes, Pastor Terry Jones of Gainesville is planning a Koran burning for the ninth anniver- sary of 9/11. His church, the ironically named Dove World Outreach Center, plans to show its contempt for the Islamic holy book, a tome the pastor admits he’s never read, by using it as fuel for a bonfire. While the debate about books by those who read had been centered on the iPad ver- sus the Kindle – Dove World’s debate is the bible versus the kindling. Which makes blood- letting suddenly seem forward thinking. If you thought the Twilight series cornered the market when it came to a lack of literary sub- tlety – think again. Here we are in 2010 talking about burning books. So what if a small religious group is on a quest to quash copies of other religious books? Why is that such a big deal? This biblio-barbecue will be covered by the international press because it’s a train wreck of a bad idea; therefore, Pastor Jones will be our face to the world. Mine, yours – Americans in general. Yes, a preacher to a flock of nearly 50 will be the guy who Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Atheists from all over the world will identify with America. Everything about our country is about to be boiled down to a picture of a heap of Korans smoldering. Shock and awww. It’ll be, "Americans burned the Koran." And it’ll be true. Never mind that we have sol- diers on the ground in two Mus- lim countries. Remember in 2005, the first scandal of Guan- tanamo Bay involved the alleged desecration of detainees’ Korans by guards. That caused outrage across the globe. Way to support the troops, buddy. Other than a pointless, smoke-filled flip off to the sec- ond largest faith in the world, does the torching of media these days do what its purveyors want it to do? The Ancient Library of Alexandria was burned by Julius Caesar in 48 B.C.E. The loss of its contents arguably set back technology and culture for millennia. The conquistadors destroyed Mayan codices of their history and religion, obscuring the ancient Mayan culture indefinitely. The Mon- gol invaders massacred the Library of Baghdad, resulting in the death of a massive "house of wisdom." These events forever altered history, mainly because they took place before the print- ing press. After the printing press and the creation of multi-copied media, book burning becomes just a showy homage to the brutes of the past. Libricide is an act of overt hostility. While Pastor Jones told the New York Times that he hopes this event won’t lead to violence, he’s planning a violent act. Author and profes- sor Rebecca Knuth studied book burnings in Germany, Bosnia, Kuwait, China and Tibet. She concludes libricide often precedes genocide. Needless to say, this is not an act of "furthering the dialog." You don’t exactly make the case for how your religion is the one of peace while you’re light- ing things on fire. Maybe Dove World has tapped into the conventional wisdom that you can never go wrong blaming the media – a literal shooting of the messen- ger. A book is a symbol. So the tactic preferred by the Nazis and Conquistadors alike is still alive as a tone-deaf attempt at cultur- al criticism. John Lennon said his band was more popular than Jesus, so Beatles representations were treated like 17th century witch- Tina Dupuy es and burned at the stake. In the 1980s metal albums were thought to bring 1980s teenagers to Satan so they also were torched. Harry Potter books have met a similar fate. Did this eradicate the subjects? No. Do public displays of pitchforks and torch- es make them any less popular? No. On the contrary, since the creation of copies and more recently the Internet, Dewey Decimal Demolitions and Album Atom Rearrangers seem to make the subject more popular and maligned the source of the spark. So as all Muslims are appar- ently judged by their extremists who on 9/11 crashed planes into buildings – all Americans will be judged by our extremists who on 9/11 burned Korans into ashes. Muslim-Americans are in an awkward position. But most notably it means the Muslim world and Ameri- cans are about to have more in common than they thought. Tina Dupuy is an award- winning writer and the editor of FishbowlLA.com. Tina can be reached at tina@cagle.com.