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4A Daily News – Thursday, August 29, 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 Chlorination Editor: I read the Daily News editorial about the need for chlorinating Red Bluff's water system and the comments by city resident Joe Harrop. First and foremost, both the editor and Dr. Harrop endorse the concept of treating the symptom and failing to treat the problem. The problem is the old, leaky water pipes in Red Bluff. Water rates were raised after several years of City Council refusing to raise them to replace the aged system. Secondly, Dr. Harrop stated that the city had been cited by the state for failing to pass water tests. That is simply untrue. Random samples have been taken which detected an indicator that there might be a problem. For nine months out of the year, the city's tests show nothing. In the three wettest months of the year, an indicator of a potential problem is detected. These results are sent to the state as required by state code. Red Bluff has a problem with antiquated pipes in its water delivery and sewer systems. Fix the pipes and solve the problem. As my Uncle Charlie would say, "Don't build a second story on your house to fix the termite problem in the kitchen." Robert Jackson, Red Bluff Women's vote Editor: While several notable anniversaries were being observed recently, another was largely unnoticed. August 26, 1920, was the date when the nation's women received the right to vote. To be sure, California and Oregon were among the few where women's suffrage had already passed, but the rest of the nation joined them with the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution. It's taken for granted now, but it had been a long, hard struggle. The earlier Fourteenth Amendment gave black suffrage. Later the 24th Amendment abolished poll taxes, and the 26th enfranchised 18-yearolds. But women's voting probably affected most of all. The right to vote is another instance of freedom is not free. It came only after hard work and determination, often in the face of fierce opposition. Value your right to vote. June Quincy, Red Bluff in to a spray bottle and patients spray it in their mouths. Shares of Sativex are being sold, soon this prescription drug will be in every pharmacy. So learn what is coming and stop making ordinances that don't Your Editor: work. Danger comes Now I have been from an ordinance reading many stories that makes citizens talking about medical against patients. So marijuana. Some are write your federal for it and many don't under- senators to make them do their stand why patients need this job, by passing laws to help citdrug cannabis or marijuana. izens. Or call your President at And I want everyone to 202-456-1111 and tell him to know that cannabis saved my change the schedule of life from a Oxycontin opiate cannabis equal to oxycontin so death that so many are seeing patients can have real medicine. in America today. But soon a Even if it is called Sativex new prescription drug will made with cannabis for the first change the way doctors give time since 1936. California has out pills, this new medicine in had state law since 1996 for marijuana in a spray called patients to use marijuana as medSativex. icine, the same year Oxycontin Since May 1 many Ameri- hit American patients everycans have bought medical where. cannabis stocks in this compaWho control the marijuana ny called GWPharma, they plant now? GWPharma is sellhave 32 patents on the marijua- ing shares of this marijuana na plant. This cannabis base medicine called Sativex since prescription drug will help May 1. Since May some citimany, the first is cancer pain zens have made 20 percent on patients, then MS pain patients, the dollar with this new medithan chronic pain patients. cine coming soon. This medicine is made with John Prinz, Cottonwood marijuana and alcohol, then put Marijuana available in pharmacies Turn 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 The perils of loquacity WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama's foreign policy dream - cordial relations with a Middle East tranquilized by "smart diplomacy" -- is in a death grapple with reality. His rhetorical writhings illustrate the perils of loquacity. He has a glutton's rather than a gourmet's appetite for his own rhetorical cuisine, and has talked America to the precipice of a fourth military intervention in the crescent that extends from Libya to Afghanistan. Characterizing the 2011 Libyan project with weirdly passive syntax ("It is our military that is being volunteered by others to carry out missions"), he explained his sashay into Libya's civil war as preemptive: "I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action." With characteristic self-satisfaction, Obama embraced the doctrine "R2P" -- responsibility to protect civilians -- and Libya looked like an opportunity for an inexpensive morality gesture using high explosives. Last August, R2P reappeared when he startled his staff by offhandedly saying of Syria's poison gas: "A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized." The interesting metric "whole bunch" made his principle mostly a loophole and advertised his reluctance to intervene, a reluctance more sensible than his words last week: Syria's recidivism regarding gas is "going to require America's attention and hopefully the entire international community's attention." Regarding that entirety: If "community" connotes substantial shared values and objectives, what community would encompass Denmark, Congo, Canada, North Korea, Portugal, Cuba, Norway, Iran, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Poland and Yemen? Words, however, are so marvelously malleable in the Obama administration, the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of "coup" ("a change in the government carried out violently or illegally") somehow does not denote what happened in Egypt. Last week, an Obama spokesman said: "We have made the determination that making a decision about whether or not a coup occurred is not in the best interests of the United States." So convinced is this White House of its own majesty and of the consequent magic of its words, it considers this a clever way of saying the law is a nuisance. Section 508 of the Foreign Assistance Act forbids aid to "any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup" until the president determines that "a democratically elected government" has been restored. Secretary of State John Kerry was perhaps preparing to ignore this when he said something Egypt's generals have not had the Kosovo campaign. It was a big effrontery to claim -- that the stretch, given the actual facts -but Obama can't even coup amounted to take advantage of this "restoring democrasame desperate expecy." dient, since Congress Perhaps Section has appropriated no 508 unwisely funds for the Libyan abridges presidential war. The president is discretion in foreign simply using money policy, where presiappropriated to the dents arguably Pentagon for general deserve the almost purposes to conduct unfettered discretion the current air camthey, with increasing paign." aggressiveness, assert Obama is as dismiseverywhere. And per- George F. sive of red lines he haps if Obama were draws as he is of laws not compiling such a others enact. Last remarkable record of indifference to law, it would be week, a State Department sensible to ignore his ignoring spokeswoman said his red line regarding chemical weapons of this one. But remember Libya. Since was first crossed "a couple of the War Powers Resolution was months ago" and "the president passed over Richard Nixon's took action" -- presumably, veto in 1973, presidents have at announcing (non-lethal) aid to least taken care to act "consis- Syrian rebels -- although "we're tent with" its limits on unilater- not going to outline the inventoal presidential war-making. ry of what we did." The administration now Regarding Libya, however, Obama was unprecedentedly would do well to do something cavalier, even though he had that the head of it has an irreample time to act consistent sistible urge not to do: Stop with the Constitution by involv- talking. If a fourth military intervening a supportive Congress. As Yale Law School's Bruce Ack- tion is coming, it will not be to decisively alter events, which erman then argued: "Obama has overstepped we cannot do, in a nation vital even the dubious precedent set to U.S. interests, which Syria is when President Bill Clinton not. Rather, its purpose will be bombed Kosovo in 1999. Then, to rescue Obama from his the Justice Department's Office words. of Legal Counsel asserted that George Will's email address Congress had given its consent by appropriating funds for the is georgewill@washpost.com. Will