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4A Daily News – Friday, October 11, 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. Woeful week with wayward web Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone. This week has been a good reminder to not take certain things for granted, specifically the tools we rely on every day to put out the newspaper. We work with some pretty antiquated computers here in the newsroom. We're used to receiving emails we can view, documents we can't open and websites we can't visit — because all were created with technology from this millennium, while our old Macs hail from the late 20th century. Perfect example, the spell check feature doesn't recognize the word Internet. Monitors blow up, keyboards take early retirement and power supplies don't live up to their name, but we've gotten pretty adept at making repairs on the fly. Having the newsroom staff cut so drastically in recent years means we have a closet full of machines from which to pirate replacement parts. Like a lot of journalists there are many things our machines aren't good at, but they do a fine job putting together a newspaper each day. Recently, we each received a new laptop from the company. These are most welcome and the days of files we can't open and sites we can't visit are behind us. Problem is, these laptops are useless when it comes to building pages for the paper, so we use both computers and the techies in the company have set them up so they can sort of communicate with each other. Until Friday. lem — we had told the That's when the company much soonInternet went down er, but its technical for the entire building. service folks just By Monday we had assumed we must be a work around for the doing something laptops and most of wrong. the rest of the building By late Wednesday using hot spots. But we were back on line. nothing for the old The new computers Macs. I gained a new still aren't talking to appreciation for the the ancient ones, but things the dinosaurs I'm told that is in the could do. works. But it's a big The next few days Chip step back toward norinvolved an intricate routine of transfer- Thompson malcy and we're breathing much easier. ring files between machines using a 545 Diamond Chip Thompson can flash drive dozens of Ave. be reached at 527times each day, and 2151, Ext. 112 or by the tasks that normalemail at ly keep us jumping each took editor@redbluffdailynews.com. nearly twice as long. him on Twitter By Tuesday our Internet Follow @EditorChip. provider realized we had a prob- 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 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 time has come, the walrus said, to speak of many things A first! TIME magazine has promoted a woman to the position of Managing Editor. She is Nancy Gibbs, has a lovely signature and promises to maintain the high standards of the magazine. There was a time (no pun intended) when this would not have been a popular choice. For a "woman's" periodical such as Vogue, Vanity Fair and Cosmopolitan, yes. For Newsweek, Esquire and the like, no. But now women with their influence have moved forward to the extent that we no longer think it odd that they can run big companies as successfully as men. In fact, are we not aware they can run the country as well? That said, it is time for a woman President of the United States. And why not? What is uniquely gender specific for the job? That we have always voted men to run the ship of state is not a valid answer. Women have served in congress, in cabinet positions (and now appointed to head the Federal Reserve) while our country has suffered from the decisions of men in the high office for as long as I have voted and not voted (abstaining in the last election). Will it matter how much money a female candidate can muster, or the extent of her knowledge of foreign affairs? After the pathetic partisan lack of action by Congress…and the Presidential threat to meddle once again in sovereign nation disputes, a woman's level headed approach to the matter would be just the ticket for our nation's voters. Overseas we have witnessed a women in Great Britain at the helm, and in Germany and Brazil as well. Now, all we have to do is find a level headed lady to lead us. Shouldn't be all that hard. TIME found one. *** Richard Dawkins is described as an evolutionary biologist and puts things in understandable context for all except the intelligent design folks. One such designer confronted him with the query, "Given how little we know about the universe, how can we possibly be sure there is no God?" Dawkins replied, "There are all sorts of things we can't be sure of...we can't be sure there are no leprechauns and fairies. Science in the future is going to be revealing all sorts of things which we have no idea of at present, but it's extremely unlikely that it would happen to home in on an idea from a Bronze Age tribe in the desert." state of California will fail. Best to keep the *** The New Yorker magazine often has, at system we have and work to better it with superior non partisan representathe conclusion of an article, an tives. added paragraph that illus*** trates their metropolitan Last week's quiz was sophisticated take on life. first answered by B. JackSome are typos, some son (who, incidentally, excessive use of metaphors also submitted the from other sources. One Beethoven joke...much to such reproduces an article the dismay of anti-punfrom the La Crosse (Wis.) sters the world over) who Tribune under the caption knew that the word "typehead "Dept. of Managed writer" can be spelled Expectations" and reads, Robert (lower case) all on the top "Plagued by alcohol abuse, row of same, and that the obesity, and mental illness, words such as easy and increasing economic insebeady have in common curity and limited access to with the alphabet in that, health care, child care and by saying them aloud they public transportation, resisound out letters of the dents of the Coulee Region alphabet....easy is e z, beady is b d and so say it's a great place to live." "A great place to live" is our city slogan forth, and that a naked grizzly is a bare bear as well, but perhaps without the above dis- and an equine with a sore throat is a hoarse horse. claimers. This week's quiz: Divide the circumfer*** Temple Grandin is described as an expert ence of a pumpkin and what do you get, and in animal welfare and safety. A movie was how many four letter words can you get out recently released about her and her life with of the word "stop"? *** autism. All well and good. However, in a Boudreau, always caught more fish out of recent news release, the reporter mentioned her innovative ideas regarding the handling the bayou than anyone else. This made the of livestock. One such was the idea of a game warden suspicious, so he told curved holding pen to be installed in the Boudreau he wanted to go fishing with him. ramp leading to the entrance to a slaughter Boudreau drove them out to his favorite plant, which Ms. Grandin stated would spot, anchored, reached under the seat and allow the animals to move forward and not pulled out a stick of dynamite. He lit the fuse balk if encountering a conventional straight and tossed it into the water. Boom! Lots of pen leading to the kill floor. As Ms. Grandin stunned fish began to surface and he was born in 1947, she would not have been scooped them up with his net. The game warden was horrified and privy to our plant, burned and rebuilt in 1946...which contained just such a curved began to lecture Boudreau about how this holding pen. Perhaps her other ideas were was an illegal method of fishing, even in Louisiana. As he continued his rant, more original and ground breaking. Boudreau reached under the seat again, took *** David Little is editor of the Enterprise- out another stick of dynamite, and lit the Record. He writes that the proposed state of fuse. He handed it to the warden and said: Jefferson movement is well underway. "Are you gonna talk, or fish? Siskiyou County Supervisors have signed on Robert Minch is a lifelong resident of and chatter is strong in Humboldt, Trinity, Lassen and Butte. However, in my book, it Red Bluff, former columnist for the Corning ain't gonna happen. Like the Tea Party Daily Observer and Meat Industry movement, it will make for interesting read- magazine and author of the "The Knocking ing during the dark nights of fall and winter, Pen." He can be reached at but, as in 1961, the move to secede from the rminchandmurray@hotmail.com. Minch I Say