Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/29099
6A – Daily News – Tuesday, April 12, 2011 Opinion D NEWSAILY RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U N T Y S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Ignore apology Editor: After a year of disdain by 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 let- ters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All let- ters must be signed and pro- vide the writer’s home street address and home phone num- ber. 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 submit- ted will be considered for publi- cation. Letters will be edited. 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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 the owners of the Corning pot shop and significant taxpayer cost, the council should treat the apology as an effort to reduce the civil disobedience fine rather than sincerity. Corning does not need this primarily recreational and minority medical pot shop. Voters should revisit the chaos that they created by allowing a Doctors recom- mendation to result in the purchase of recreational pot and the auto accidents and crime that this causes. Medicinal pot should only be available through a phar- macy at the profit markup of any medicinal drug. Autho- rized recreational use should be limited to highly taxed one-ounce purchases provid- ed the user does not operate a vehicle while pot is present in the body. Joseph J. Neff, Corning Planned Parenthood Editor: I am a human sexuality instructor at Shasta College. And no, it is not a class on how to do it. I have a medical back- ground and this class is most- ly about health. The class is about anatomy and physiolo- gy of, yes external, but most- ly internal organs, male and female health, the roles of hormones, genetics, pregnan- cy health, contraception and Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The purpose of this letter is to defend clinics like Planned Parenthood. Yes they provide abortions. That how- ever is only 3 percent of their activities. Ninety-seven per- cent of what they do is STD and cancer prevention- screening (including mam- mograms, cervical cancer and even prostate health!) they also offer sex education and contraception (which, if abor- tion was their goal would constitute a very bad business model). Abortions already cannot be funded by federal money. We already have this law. The funding being discussed now is only allowed to be used the 97 percent noncon- troversial portion of their activities. Why STD is important. One in five teens have a sexual transmitted disease in the US. The problem directly cor- relates with the access stu- dents at middle school-high school have to comprehensive quality sex education. Why don’t we know that STD numbers are so bad in our communities? Most of those diseases are have no symptoms. Most common STDs are Chlamy- dia and HPV. They are unlikely to cause problems for decades. 3,500,000 cases of Chlamydia alone are undiagnosed in the US alone EVERY year. The conse- quences of Chlamy- dia, if untreated are pelvic inflammatory disease, but also increased risk of infertility and potentially lethal ectopic pregnancy decades down the road. One in six couples will struggle with infertility. HPV conse- quences are even more dire. According cancer.org almost all cervical cancers are caused by HPV virus. There is a vaccine that would prevent those 12,000 new cases and 4,000 deaths every year. Your Turn ture war. Good girls don’t have sex; “bad girls deserve to die.” Just a thought to be held by those us walking rounds around on our Relay for life. Maybe this has to do with the value of women in our soci- ety. Just recently a Although, most vaccina- tions such as chicken pox are part of the routine vaccina- tion program, HPV is not. Why? HPV is an STD. There has being constant lobby against HPV vaccination. Mind you, we already vacci- nate against a STD: Hepatitis B vaccine is given to every new born in the country. What are you going to tell your 35-year-old daughter dying of cervical cancer? Sorry darling the country was working really hard to control your sexuality and your dis- ease is just an unfortunate collateral damage of our cul- congressman was reprimand- ed in Florida for using the word uterus. Maybe it is eas- ier to defund programs for prevention of cancer of the uterus if we say that uterus is a bad word. Head start pro- grams have being defunded in Maryland because according the words of two commis- sioners: a woman’s place is married and at home. Should- n’t American women be able to choose their life’s path? One of the side of our politi- cal powers (I will leave you to figure this one out) vote unanimously against equal pay for females only two years ago. Our own congressman voted recently to defund WIC. (Please do not abort your baby, you can work it out, we will take c.., no drop you like a rock.) If you want to diminish the number of abortions you should to work towards pre- venting unwanted pregnancy, not work towards controlling female sexuality. Daniela Sartori, Red Bluff Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Jim Nielsen (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 6031 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 319-2002; Fax (916) 319-2102 STATE SENATOR — Doug LaMalfa (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 3070 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 651-4004; Fax (916) 445-7750 GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 558-3160; E-mail: gover- nor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Wally Herger (R), 2635 Forest Ave. Ste. 100, Chico, CA 95928; 893-8363. U.S.SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 393-0710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (415) 403-0100. Fax (202) 224- 0454. No RX for trips to the DL Commentary I'm no doctor, although I have played one on TV. But as a reasonably qualified baseball fan, I'm having a hard time diagnosing some of the mal- adies suffered by the nation's best-conditioned, highest- paid, and most-pampered ath- letes. One of baseball's top pitch- ers, the Rockies Ubaldo Jimenez, was placed on the 15-day disabled list after suf- fering — are you ready for this? — an injured cuticle. No knock on Jimenez, an all-star last season, but can you imag- ine, say, a construction worker taking a two-week sick leave with an injured cuticle? One week into the new sea- son, Major League Baseball's official injury list showed 119 players unable to participate. This, after five weeks of spring training. The Angels, Padres and Blue Jays share the dubious honor of leading the Majors with six players from each squad already on the DL. Among the half-dozen dis- abled Padres, three are suffer- ing from “soreness.” Around the Big Leagues in early April, 17 players were officially list- ed by MLB has having “strains.” What ever happened to No Pain, No Gain? Fans of the world champion Giants were mystified last month when right fielder Cody Ross was seen on TV taking one step toward a fly ball and going straight to the disabled list with an injured calf. Hey, stuff happens. But with each new season more of these guys are breaking down. This could be called the “Thoroughbred Theory” of modern athletes: the more carefully they are bred, fed and trained, the more fragile they become. I’ve heard several veterans theorize that back in their days fewer players were catego- rized as injured simply because there were fewer cate- gories. I imagine Ted Williams was never shelved with an ulnar collateral ligament strain, because no one had ever heard of such a thing. Then, too, some of the injuries modern baseball play- ers suffer are actually attempts by the front office to avoid a pain in the roster. When pitch- er Brian Wilson was ready to leave the DL the other day, a spot on the Giants 25-man ros- ter magically opened after pitcher Santiago Casilla dis- covered he had an “inflamed right elbow,” forcing him to take Wilson’s place on the 15-day DL. Last year blog- ger Jeff Zimmer- man analyzed data and determined that the number of disabled players increased steadily between 1989 and 2009. Over the last decade, the Kansas City Royals sent the most players to the DL, the Chica- go White Sox the fewest. vers, and others in individual competition, are faced with no-play, no-pay — and seem to suffer fewer disabling cuti- cle injuries. Peter Funt Baseball’s dis- abled list will expand even fur- ther this season as a result of a wise move by MLB to institute a new 7-day DL for players suffering concussions. Yet, the number of routine pains and strains is also on the rise. It’s worth noting that play- ers in baseball and other team sports collect their salaries even when shelved by injuries. On the other hand, pro tennis players, golfers, racecar dri- Then we have slug- gers Adam Dunn of the White Sox and Matt Holliday of the Cardi- nals, each of whom underwent appendec- tomies during the first week of the new season. Neither opted for the DL, vowing to return in less than two weeks — the same gutsy recovery achieved last season by Andres Torres during the Giants pennant race. Clearly players like Dunn, Holliday and Torres believe that in the Big Leagues, as in the beer com- mercial, sometimes you’ve simply got to “Man up!” Peter Funt is a writer and public speaker; he may be reached at www.CandidCamera.com, he's also the long-time host of "Candid Camera." A collection of his DVDs is available at www.candidcamera.com.