Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/277609
Greg Stevens, Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor Editorial Board How to have your say: 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 no more than two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@red bluffdailynews.com Phone: 530-527- 2151 ext. 112 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FaCEbook.CoM/ rbdailynEwS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @rEdbluFFnEwS Most of you no doubt noticed the calendar in Wednesday's print edition listed events and activities in and around Redlands California. I haven't been to Redlands, but I'm sure it's a nice enough place. Still, there's not much value in listing events for the south - ern California town in our Red Bluff news- paper. More than a few of you were kind enough to spell this out for me over the last couple of days. Of course running the list - ings was unintentional, but I think those who called and wrote to let me have a piece of their minds already knew that. The mistake was mine, and I am sorry. On Tuesday evening I for - got to put the calendar listings into the system before leav- ing the office. On deadline, a de- signer noticed there were no listings and did a search of the system hoping to find them. The designer spotted a file likely named RedCalendar, or something similar, placed it on the page, and the page went to press. One reader wrote that she hoped I was "totally embar - rassed." Rest assured, I am. Will it happen again? Having pages designed and built in a shared design center is a double-edged sword. On the one hand the pages certainly look better. With just three of us here in Red Bluff, it was rare that more than one person would ever proof a page before it went to press – usually the person who built the page, meaning he would be less likely to spot an error. Pages built in the design center get a couple of looks there and we are able to check them late in the evening if we are near a computer. This means there should be fewer errors — the excep - tion being the late addi- tion of a story or element. The down side of being built off site is that the designers don't know Tehama County the way we do. Somebody from Tehama County would likely have noticed, even with a quick glance, that the calendar list - ings and street names weren't for Tehama County. But we are less than two weeks in to this new way of do - ing things and I believe the de- signers and copy editors will build the institutional knowl- edge of the community just as we all did in our first days and months in Tehama County. We are human. We all make mistakes. I can't promise I will never make another, but I can apologize and look for ways to prevent them moving forward. Odds and ends Thanks to readers who pointed out that the solutions for the Saturday puzzles were not appearing in the Tuesday editions. We have corrected the problem and the answers to Saturday's puzzles appeared on page A8 of Wednesday's edi - tion. Another reader requested that the Wall Street report run each day, as it did previously. A quick email to the design center head and the story showed up in the next day's paper. Feel free to let me know whether there are other na - tional and world news features you would be interested in see- ing. I can't promise we'll be able to add them, but it doesn't hurt to ask. Chip Thompson can be reached at 530 527-2151, Ext. 112 or by email at editor@redbluffdailynews. com. Follow him on Twitter @ed - itorchip. 545 diamond ave. Well read but, well, red Cartoonist's take So, we have a new for- mat ergo a new newspa- per. Readers resistant to change will not be happy. Those looking for a more modern format with more news will dig it. The jury is now in af - ter several days of pro- duction. The editor and the publisher of the Daily News will attempt to mollify the discontented. I am one such, but am not about to bite the hand that offers space for me and my dog. We will just put on the table our gripes…and hope that some can be resolved in a civilized manner. The type is too small. It may have been previously reduced prior to the new format, but it seems now more obvious in con - trast…and sometimes requires family assistance to decipher, like Sanskrit. One editor, whose newspa - per is subject to the makeover, was catching flak about the size of the font, and reported that a woman called in and complained about the tiny type, only to call back days later and thank him for enlarging it…even though the font had remained the same. In behalf of the elderly, I say nuts to that. We are not accommodating to it and might have to rely on a magnifying glass or a trip to the optometrist. Two other things have changed for columnist. Our col - umn head photos are now re- duced to dime size which, in my case, means omitting the photo of our faithful dog Murray. This sounds like vanity, but we feel that the two of us set the tone of what is to follow. If push comes to shove, I would prefer that he is in the photo rather than me. The other thing is that these aster - isks, between paragraphs, have disappeared. Separation of sub- jects is essential to the "three dot journalists" wanting to em- ulate (albeit unsuccessfully) the late Herb Caen. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail… and we can get back to style and content. Bravo Rita Daughter M. Konte, in Marin, attended a concert last week in which singer Bobby McFerrin was featured. He has a unique delivery in which he sings and accompanies himself by tap - ping his chest for rhythm and added resonance. His is a clever variation of scat singing... but that is not the story. In the audience that night was singer and ac - tress Rita Moreno, who was in town for some tribute or other. She is 82 and, according to all accounts, full of herself. Anyhow, daughter Melody is sit - ting in the audience, two rows from Miss Moreno, and noticed that she, Moreno, had been doz- ing off from time to time after, no doubt, a long day of accolades. Apparently then, with very bad timing, McFerrin jumps off the stage, dashes up to the dozing actress and says something like, "C',mon, Rita…let's dance!" Ms. Moreno wakes with a start, as - sesses the situation, grabs the portable mike from Bobby, and says, "I know what you are try- ing to do…and it ain't gonna hap- pen!" A befuddled McFerrin, em- barrassed that his ploy had not worked, hurried back to the stage and quickly concluded his act. Melody said Rita stole the show without ever being in it. Tim Conway Tim Conway was probably the funniest actor on the old Carol Burnett show. His sketches were laugh- out- loud bits of comic ge - nius, and that's why I down- loaded his book titled "What's So Funny?"on my new NOOK. The NOOK is a Barnes & No- ble tablet which has many elec- tronic functions, but is particu- larly useful for a new fashion way of reading an old fashion book. I imagine it will go through sev- eral editions labeled a, b, c, d, e until achieving universal satis- faction. For the elderly the Nook has the ability to enlarge the font, and with black print on a white background, it makes for easy reading. However, the Conway book is a disappointment. It is not funny. He has been a visual comedian which is the ingredi - ent missing in the book. How can he impart in print, the routine in which he plays an inept dentist who keeps inadvertently inject - ing himself with Novocain while working on the late Harvey Ko- rman. The audience got the per- forming Conway on television… but Tim's book doesn't get it, in print. Da Pope Our favorite new age Pope Francis has further endeared himself to believers and non-be- lievers by allegedly accidentally uttering an Italian swear word during his weekly blessing cer- emony in St. Peters Square. Ap- parently fallible after all. Da quiz Last week's quiz asked for the composers, music and lyrics, of the popular songs "As Time Goes By", "Take the A Train", "Car - avan" and "Satin Doll". J. Gon- salves, jazz pianist extraordi- naire and retired music teacher, was first in with all the Elling- ton related tunes: "Take the A Train" by Billy Strayhorn, "Car- avan" by Duke Ellington, Irving Mills and Juan Tizol, and "Satin Doll" by the Duke, Strayhorn and Johnny Mercer. John did not of - fer the name of the composer of "As Time Goes By", figuring it was not a hip jazz tune. However, the author was a fel - low with the non hip name of Herman Hupfeld who wrote the music and the lyrics...and helped make the film "Casablanca" a classic. This week's quiz: Define or de - scribe a Gazebo, a Piddock, a Co- tonester and a Breastsummer. Da joke The late Johnny Carson in- terviewed the even later Jimmy Stewart and I caught a snippet of it the other day when Stew- art told one of his favorite jokes. He said a man was standing on a corner along with a big dog. Another fellow came along, and while waiting for the light, said, "Nice big dog. Does your dog bite?" The first guy said, "No," so the second guy reaches down to pet the dog and it bites him! The second guy yelled "I thought you said your dog didn't bite?" And the first guy responds with "Well, you see…he's not my dog." Can't you just see the great Jimmy Stewart deliver that line deadpan? Robert Minch is a lifelong resident of Red Bluff, former columnist for the Corning Daily Observer and Meat Industry magazine and au - thor of the "The Knocking Pen." He can be reached at rminchandmur- ray@hotmail.com. i Say Da paper: Sizing up the changes We are human. We all make mistakes. i can't promise i will never make another, but i can apologize and look for ways to prevent them moving forward. Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. So close to our 150 followers by our 5/1 anniversary in honor of #Castateparks150 anniversary. Can you help us by follow or rT? Thanks! ide adobe: Retweeted by the Daily News was there a specific location downtown that was being looked at? Maybe the article would have been a bit more informative if this had been addressed. randy knox: Facebook comment on story about proposed library locations Robert Minch Chip Thompson By dick Polman National Political Columnist There's a reason why the U.S. Senate has long been nick- named the Cave of Winds. Typ- ically, its denizens are all talk, no action. Consider Monday night's 14- hour talkathon about climate change. It's laudable that 28 Democratic senators morphed into night owls in order to spot - light a science-vetted crisis that's real to everyone except deniers, flat-earthers, trolls, and Republicans. But when sen - ators talk non-stop, it's often a sign of weakness, a virtual ad- mission that nothing substan- tive is in the works. Rhode Island Democrat Shel- don Whitehouse basically said so: "Tonight is not about a spe- cific legislative proposal...We have got a little bit more work to do to open up the political space on this." True that. It's nice that the Democrats' self-described "cli - mate caucus" showed up to talk all night, and buttressed their efforts with a Twitter hashtag, #Up4Climate. But it's more noteworthy that four Demo - cratic senators up for re-elec- tion this year - Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and Mark Begich of Alaska - were absent and silent. All but Hagan hail from states that produce lots of oil or gas. Those red-state Democrats have plenty of company; the last time the Senate tried to pass a bill reducing carbon pollution, 13 Democrats fled for the hills. And even if the Senate ever saw fit to act, there's no way that any substantive law to cut car - bon pollution would pass the Republican House, a notorious hotbed of head-in-the-sand de- nialism. Besides, any Republi- can or moderate red-state Dem- ocrat daring to fight the status quo is likely to be buried in an ad avalanche bankrolled by the Koch brothers - who made their fortune in the fossil fuel indus - try. The warnings are endless. A major re-insurance company concluded in an autumn 2012 report that human-caused cli - mate change "particularly af- fects formation of heat waves, droughts, intense precipita- tion events, and in the long run, most probably, tropical cyclone activity...Nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North America." Column Climate change talkathon a sign of weakness OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Friday, march 14, 2014 » MORE AT FaCEbook.CoM/rbdailynEwS AND TwiTTEr.CoM/rEdbluFFnEwS a6