Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/246352
6A Daily News – Wednesday, January 22, 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. 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 Supervisors raise Editor: As a concerned resident of Tehama County and in response the the article "Supes move to put salary on ballot," I find it difficult to understand how the supervisors can justify a salary increase when contracting a salary to the County Chief Administrator, who earns $120,000 per year plus added stipend pay. I believe that the Supervisors of Tehama County definitely deserve an increase in salary, however Tehama County should follow in Glenn County's footsteps and restructure and omit the Chief Administrator position. The Chief Administrators contract in Tehama County should not be renewed, thus allotting the Chief Administrator salary to the Board of Supervisors giving them the power of their elected positions. Rosie Flores, Corning Slow down Editor: Can we get these people running Tehama County to slow down for a minute? They want to move the library so they can build a new jail annex and probation reporting center. Also, they are moving the Superior Court to Walnut Street, and they want a new tax to cover the police and fire department shortcomings. In today's police reports in your paper there were seven arrests. Six of them were for "possession." I've been watching this section for some time now and more than half of all arrests are for "possession." Every day. Soon, as in within the next couple of years if not this year, marijuana is going to be legal here in California. I submit at that time half the people in your jail will be released because they're incarcerated for a now nonexistent crime. Half the cops on the police force will be laid off so all the moneys for their salaries and pensions will just go away, you won't need a new jail or building for your probation reporting activities, and the city council can quit screaming the sky is falling and hire an auctioneer to dispose of that fleet of vehicles you won't need. Not only that. With the revenue from the new marijuana tax you will find yourself with a surplus of funds and will be looking around for some place to spend it. I suggest the PATH shelter is being funded without the city council's efforts as I write. And just maybe Red Bluff can get around to fixing the streets. Fred Boest, Red Bluff Kelly-Griggs Editor: For 40-plus years our Board of Directors successfully managed the Kelly-Griggs House Museum with enormous amounts of dedicated time and money to its benefit. Is Eric Frey in his letter to the that aggression into hard work and editor disparaging them? The current Board of Directors elbow grease and bring our beautihas managed the museum for little ful museum back to our communimore than six years and it has been ty. Gerry Wolfe, Red Bluff in steady decline since. That is what his letter states and I believe it, you can tell from the exterior. Where is the new paint job the community paid for? Also, there is debate Editor: about the touted founThe Feds have dation problems found Your mandated automated by their chosen contractrain stopping systems tor — while they were by 2015 to overcome yet Kelly-Guides withthe lapses by the heavout the knowledge or ily unionized train authorization of the then official operators. I will not use the board of directors — who was able to locate problems for which word engineers because they are not degreed engineers. they were looking. Instead of four operators, on Previously, the foundation the New York City ovespeeding under the museum was stated to be safe as is any of the houses of crashed train, reduce the operathat era that line Washington and tors to one with automation. In Jefferson streets since they are all Australia, large 200 to 300 ton made of the same material and as mining ore trucks are operated autonomous you can see they are all still completely standing today. I'm sure their between the mine surface and owners would be unhappy to the crusher, without operators. learn their foundations are sus- Decreasing the number of pect according to this contractor's union train operators from four to one would allow an increase evaluation. The original contractor the in safety with the 2015 mandate museum board hired before they of autonomous computer decided on the best building to detected and activated safety house the museum certified it per- systems. It would be feasible today to fectly safe to that board. Our conreduce the commercial airline tractor also stated it was perfectly safe in a letter to the membership. piloting crew from 2 to 1 with So you see, there are at least available autonomous systems two different professional contrac- now used on drones. It might be tors that declared the museum per- necessary to add a dog to bite fectly safe. There is debate and the pilot or train operator in the Mr. Frey may be incorrect. In my event he or she operates the controls. opinion, he has a lot of nerve. Joseph Neff, Corning I suggest he channel some of What value are train drivers? 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 Forward and back with the iPhone The Huffington Post is onto something. In a recent report, the website listed seven things that the iPhone, first released to the public only seven years ago, has made obsolete — though there are surely plenty more than seven. Up first, says the website: roadmaps. Thanks to Google Maps, which anyone can use on his or her cellphone, nobody uses paper maps anymore. I can't begin to imagine how much stress this is saving vacationing families. Pre-Google-Maps horror stories were legend when I was a kid in the '70s: Neighbors who thought they were heading east to the beach unwittingly headed west and had no idea of their error until they hit Indianapolis. I remember being lost for hours in our station wagon, several maps sprawled across the dashboard and front seat, my father grumbling to my mother, "I knew we should have hung a Louie at Breezewood!" Yeah, good riddance to paper maps. That brings us to another item made obsolete by iPhone innovation: the alarm clock. Every cell phone has an alarm app now. I use mine all the time — particularly on the road. Though the website didn't mention this one, the wristwatch has also been made obsolete. Since I always have my cell phone nearby, clearly displaying the time and date, I stopped wearing watches years ago. In fact, the only time I missed having a watch was last week. I was out of the country on business and deactivated my cellphone for the week. Lacking a clock of any kind, I was perpetually late, or way too early, for the bus I took from my hotel to my client's office. Cellphone technology has also made obsolete most cameras and music devices, such as the iPod, which made CDs obsolete just a few years ago. Many phones can store thousands of songs and come with high-resolution cameras — which, in my opinion, are making modesty, compassion and good judgment obsolete. Hey, just because your cellphone has a camera doesn't mean you have to use it — you don't have to take "selfies" while drinking adult beverages without your shirt on. And you know who you are, seemingly90-year-old Geraldo Rivera. The selfie is enabling human nature to display its ugliness at never-before-imagined depths— such as the lady who away city or state? How did we so quickly included in her selfie a disdescend from the traught suicide victim invention of the typeabout to plunge from a writer keyboard, a bridge, or the coy stugrand 19th-century dent who selfied himadvance that efficientself as his pregnant ly transfers thoughts to teacher was having paper using multiple contractions in the fingers, to bastardizbackground. ing the English lanOur attention spans guage using only our have also been made thumbs? obsolete by iPhone That's the odd thing innovation, says the about human invenwebsite, and isn't that tion. For every step we the truth. Why, that Tom take forward, we seem reminds me of, um — to take a few backoh, never mind, I can't ward at the same time. remember what I was As much of a going to say. One thing I can remember is visionary as Apple founder that it's impossible to have a Steve Jobs was, I wonder if he serious, face-to-face conversa- doubted his own inventions at tion with anyone under age 30 times — which he surely might without him or her obsessively have, had he still been alive pressing both thumbs against a when Geraldo Rivera tweeted small keypad while making his selfie. intermittent eye contact with Tom Purcell, author of you. That is because, says the website, another victim of the "Misadventures of a 1970s Childhood" and "Comical iPhone is table manners. How much longer will it be Sense: A Lone Humorist Takes before entire extended families on a World Gone Nutty!" is a Tribune-Review gather for Thanksgiving dinner Pittsburgh — three or four generations sit- humor columnist and is syndicated ting side by side — and nobody nationally is talking, but each is texting exclusively by Cagle Cartoons someone at somebody else's Inc. Send comments to Tom at Thanksgiving table in some far- Purcell@caglecartoons.com. Purcell