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4A Daily News – Thursday, January 9, 2014 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. Our Red Bluff jewel Editor: Ann John put into words what I had been thinking about the darkness at the Kelly-Griggs House Museum. Festivities there had been highlights of the holiday season. High school singers in Victorian costumes sang by the grand piano. The tall Christmas tree presided over the teddy bear and children's toys of another era. The dining room table was loaded with a veritable feast of sweets and snacks. Champagne punch was ladled. Girls in lacy aprons swished away used cups and plates. Not only are we losing a tradition, but we are in danger of losing the museum itself. Like any average house, it takes constant care, and old deficiencies are showing up. Of most concern are the foundation and the south wall. Without serious repair, the museum may be lost. The museum is the result of real dedication and work by so many people. Ida Webster and Diana Jarvis were central, but not only were they authorities on Victorian homes, they also had the leadership to recruit help. They, collectively, took that fire-damaged hulk of a house and transformed it into a 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 WASHINGTON -- The era of make a positive difference in Gesture Liberalism is at hand. It the quality of life for the resimay be more amusing than condents and businesses of sequential. Americans who exercise conTehama County. sumer sovereignty wherever Barack Obama still tolerates it are constantly disappointing him. For generations they perHow to reach us sisted in buying what he calls Main office: 527-2151 "substandard" policies from Classified: 527-2151 what he calls "bad apple" health insurers. They stopped only Circulation: 527-2151 when he forced them to stop -News tips: 527-2153 when he rescued them from their ignorance by banning their Sports: 527-2153 benighted preferences. Obituaries: 527-2151 Have consumers thanked him Photo: 527-2153 for trying to wean them away from their desire to drive large, useful, comfortable, safe vehiOn the Web cles that he thinks threaten their www.redbluffdailynews.com habitat, Earth? The 2013 numbers tell the tale of their ingratitude. In 2013, for the 32nd conFax secutive year, the best-selling vehicle was Ford's F-Series Newsroom: 527-9251 pickups. This supremacy began, Classified: 527-5774 fittingly, in the first year of Ronald Reagan's deregulatory Retail Adv.: 527-5774 presidency. Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Today's consumers, who canBusiness Office: 527-3719 not get it through their thick heads that they are supposed to want wee vehicles such as Address Chevrolet's Volt, bought 763,402 F-Series trucks. That is 545 Diamond Ave. 740,308 more than the number Red Bluff, CA 96080, or of Volts General Motors sold. P.O. Box 220 In 2010, a GM official carefully said "more than 120,000 Red Bluff, CA 96080 potential Volt customers have already signaled interest in the car." Signaled? How? Not by thing of beauty. But that was almost a half century ago. Many of those people are no longer with us — moved away or died. Others have tried to take their places, but it's a different world today. What used to be done with a smile and a handshake now takes contracts and documentation. One place to start, I suggest, is contacting the old list of members, probably needing updating. It would be a big job to get out the mailing, but just a few people could get it done. And maybe inviting an increase in the membership dues. It was a nominal amount. Another idea is contacting foundations interested in such a restoration — a building products company, paint firm, historical association. As far as I know, no government money has been used yet, but there are other sources that could be contacted with the help of local experts. And how about local contractors and unions? Can they take on something like this? Can someone familiar with use of inmate help utilize their assistance? Every one of these things needs an expert to head it and many others to carry it out, but it can be done if we forget old wounds. June Quincy, Red Bluff letter words towards our children, and the young people of the world. Words like "love," "care," "help," "home," and Editor: "hugs." We have a society that It is our job to put a stop to is without fathers. Yes, it's our the wasting of our resources. job to get young people to trust We are killing and destroying and to talk to us. It is our job to our forests, streams, encourage, admire, valley oak trees and praise, be a friend and Your the wildlife that a father to our chilinhabit them, our dren and the many senior citizens and children that don't now one of our greathave fathers. Let's est wastes is our make it our job to be young people. cheerful and helpful to our We are using chain saws, youth. They will repay us in garbage, guns, alcohol and kind. many other drugs to destroy Don't be angry or abrasive. mankind. Our homeless famiWe need to listen more. They lies are a disgrace. Two hun- are trying to tell us, but we are dred thousand or more children not listening. We as fathers of in the United States are not in Red Bluff, Tehama County, school because of homeless California, the United States, families. the world, need to be tender "So what, that's not my job!" with the young, compassionate It sure is our job. with aged, sympathetic with the We as fathers need to spend striving and tolerant of the more time with our young peo- weak and the wrong. Sometime ple. We, the average fathers, in life, you and I will have been spend about 10 minutes a day all of these. If we as fathers and with our children. Many chil- men are strong and fee! that this dren have never had a father to is our job, we can stop the darkbe with, even 10 minutes. ness that is taking over fast. It is our job as fathers, to Let's try to make it our job to have ears that hear everything, care for everybody; even the soeyes that see all, hands that will called nobodies like to be loved reach out and hold, a heart that by somebody. will break, and to have wants Tomorrow can be a beautiful for our children. sunrise. We have to use more four Ralph Ehorn, Red Bluff Caring is everybody's job Turn Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Dan Logue, 150 Amber Grove Drive, Ste. 154, 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 Liberalism by gesture buying. At the 2013 rate of sales, by 2046 GM will have sold as many Volts as Ford sold F-Series trucks this year. Obama, our Nostradamus, prophesied a million electric cars on U.S. roads by 2015. If so, they will have to outsell FSeries trucks this year. The sort-of-electric Volt -- it is a hybrid -- probably is one of those great ideas Joe Biden celebrated in 2010: "Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive." Government's incentive for Volt buyers is a tax credit up to $7,500. A 2011 study showed that taxpayer-subsidized Volt or Nissan LEAF buyers had average annual incomes of $150,000, and more than half of them owned at least two other vehicles. In 2009, the Obama administration disapprovingly said: "GM earns a large share of its profits from high-margin trucks and SUVs, which are vulnerable to a continuing shift in consumer preferences to smaller vehicles." Continuing? A 2011 Wall Street Journal headline: "Americans Embrace SUVs Again." A Wall Street Journal subhead last week: "U.S. Sales Cruise Back to 2007 Levels, Driven by Fondness for Pickups, SUVs." Building the Volt was bankrupt-and-bailed-out GM's gesture of obeisance to its Washing- ton masters. And causing the saddle of the state. The next item on Gesture Volt to be built was a gesture by those masters to demonstrate Liberalism's agenda is to raise the minimum wage for how much they worry the 23rd time. Less about the climate. The than 3 percent of the climate may not underworkforce earns the stand the importance minimum; more than of gestures. 60 percent of those Today, Little Sisters who do earn it get a of the Poor Home for raise within a year; the Aged v. Sebelius more than half of minmay be the secondimum-wage earners most serendipitously are students or other named court case in part-time workers U.S. history, second to from households with Loving v. Virginia (wherein Richard Lov- George F. average incomes of $53,000. Never mind. ing, who was white, Raising the minimum and his wife Mildred, is a gesture of devowho was black, in tion to "equality." 1967 overturned VirAs is Obama's support for ginia's law against interracial marriages). The Little Sisters are universal preschool, the centerchallenging the Obamacare piece of the agenda of New York mandate that makes them com- City's new mayor, Bill de Blaplicit in providing, through their sio. When, in Obama's first health insurance, contraception, Inaugural address, he vowed to something that offends their "restore science to its rightful place," he evidently meant to faith. This mandate illustrates Ges- exclude social science: There is ture Liberalism: It is unimpor- much discouraging data about tant to the structure of Oba- the efficacy of universal macare. It has nothing to do with preschool. It will, however, mean bilreal insurance, which protects against unexpected develop- lions for hiring more members ments -- car insurance does not of teachers unions, whose dues pay for oil changes. The man- will help elect the likes of date covers a minor expense: Obama and de Blasio. So this Target sells a month of birth component of Gesture Liberalcontrol pills for $9.00. The man- ism is more than just a gesture. date is, however, a gesture affirming liberalism's belief that George Will's email address any institution of civil society can be properly broken to the is georgewill@washpost.com. Will