Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/304293
Get this: People are becoming addicted to their smartphones. Accordingtoareportfrom Flurry Analytics, says The Washington Post's Style Blog, the average mobile consumer checks his phone 150 times a day. A "mobile addict" is de - fined as someone who launches apps more than 60 times a day — 10 times as often as the aver- age smartphone user. The number of addicts is growing rapidly. Flurry Ana- lytics said there were 79 million mobile addicts in March 2013. By March 2014, the number had soared to 176 million. Mobile ad - dicts are growing at a rate five times that of regular users. And that is causing many people a bit of grief. A smartphone, for those of you over 55, is a cellphone that is also a mini-computer. It al - lows people to search the web, run a variety of applications and text (the act of pressing both thumbs against a minia - ture keypad to bastardize the English language). According to Psychology To- day, "Many suffer from anxiety if they lose their phone, even if only for a few minutes. We rely on it to do everything from say - ing 'I love you' to breaking up, from checking bank balances to investing, from sharing pho- tos of the grandchild to sexting. We can carry out a plethora of daily tasks, right from the palm of our hand." So important have smart - phones become, psychologists have coined a name for the fear of being without them: nomo- phobia. Psychology Today cites a list of symptoms: You are anxious whenever your phone is not in your possession. You constantly check your phone for texts and feel compelled to respond im - mediately. You are halfway to the store, realize you forgot your phone and turn around to go get it. Some people are suffering from phantom cellphone vibra - tion. This is when they think their phone is vibrating and it turns out to be a false alarm. Haven't we all encountered a person who is sitting right across from us, but is so fo - cused on checking Facebook or texting friends, he or she doesn't hear a word you say? Don't get me wrong — tech- nology has brought about awe- some improvements to my life. I have quick and easy access to tremendous amounts of in- formation. Thanks to my com- puter and smartphone, I'm able to make a good living from my home. But as we continue to gain mastery over our physical world, maybe we need to refo- cus on our emotional and spiri- tual worlds. I think about the way my grandfather lived in the 1920s and '30s. Houses were close to - gether then. Large porches were built on the front, and peo- ple sat out at night and talked. On Saturdays, my grandfather and his sisters strolled over to their mother's house. They played cards, sang and told sto - ries. But today, we shut ourselves inside air-conditioned homes. Our garages are in the front and our porches are hidden in the back. Heck, many neigh - bors in transient neighborhoods don't know each other or even say "hello." And thanks to our smart - phones, we further isolate our- selves in the vacuum of cyber- space — communicating elec- tronically with cyberfriends far more often than we do in per- son. The Style Blog summarized the problems of smartphone ad- diction with a quote from Nich- olas Carr, author of "The Shal- lows." "The smartphone, more than any other gadget, steals from us the opportunity to maintain our attention, to engage in contem - plation and reflection, or even to be alone with our thoughts." Technological innovation is a wonderful thing, but we just need to keep an eye on it be - fore it allows us to become dull, detached and less able to en- joy genuine interaction with our fellow human beings. TomPurcell,authorof"Misad- ventures of a 1970s Childhood" and "Comical Sense: A Lone Hu- morist Takes on a World Gone Nutty!" is a Pittsburgh Tribune- Review humor columnist. Send comments to Tom at Purcell@ caglecartoons.com. TomPurcell Phone addiction not so smart So important have smartphones become, psychologists have coined a name for the fear of being without them: nomophobia. GreggCohenneedstogo Editor: Having extensive bitter expe- rience with Tehama County DA Gregg Cohen, I feel compelled to share it with your readers before his potential reelection June 3. First, after I endured $500,000 in injuries by an intox - icated career felon, Cohen ne- glected to charge him with a third strike. This would have prevented him from wreaking further havoc on citizens for 25 years to life. Now he'll resume his life of crime in as little as seven years. Second, Cohen declined to en - sure I receive crime victim com- pensation. After the state pre- cluded me from working by ef- fecting the confiscation of my vehicles and work tools for my injuries, I've been forced to en- dure nearly a decade of severe and debilitating financial hard- ship. Astonishingly, a woman in- jured in the same collision whose injuries and hardship paled in comparison to mine was granted assistance. Third, despite my years of phone calls, faxes and emails begging Cohen to coordinate with Sheriff Dave Hencratt to ef - fect an abatement of my neigh- bor's loose, noisy and threaten- ing dogs as mandated of him by California Penal Code, he did not. This resulted in sheriff's deputies arresting and assault - ing me for my offending neigh- bors' allegation that I shot one of their dogs after it accosted me on my property. In this assault I endured whiplash injuries and a possibly broken neck for which nearly six months later, I'm still enduring chronic swelling and pain. Further, my associated in - carceration precluded me from completing my defense against the hijacking of my real estate firm's internet domain name. Fourth, despite my innocence and that my being accosted by a vicious dog was the result of his own negligence, Cohen charged me with two felonies and a mis - demeanor for allegedly shooting it. This is despite that had I actu- ally done it, such would have con- stituted lawful self-defense un- der California Food and Agricul- tural Code, California Civil Code and People v. Lee. Fifth, for Cohen's charging me with these crimes, he'll likely cost Tehama County no less than $40,000 for prosecuting me and a similar amount for my public defender. If he succeeds, I could be incarcerated several years. I'd accordingly be unable to receive restitution for my 2005 injury or start accruing interest thereon until at least 2017. My inability to pay my HOA fees from jail would also likely cause me to lose my home and all my possessions. When an off-duty Highway Pa - trol officer shot two dogs that ac- costed him as he was jogging on Jan. 28, Cohen didn't charge him with any crimes. On Nov. 9 the Daily News reported Co - hen falsely caused three inno- cent boys to be jailed for close to three weeks on a false allega- tion that they attacked another boy with a knife. On May 10, Co- hen had a mother arrested for al- legedly killing her baby 8 months earlier. Ten months after that he dismissed these charges for lack of evidence. Why is Cohen seek - ing warrants for these fishing ex- peditions, and why are judges granting them? It seems from all these cases, including my own, that Cohen's a loose cannon - arresting all pos - sible suspects now and not both- ering to determine if they've ac- tually committed any crimes until later. In so doing Co- hen's causing innocent Tehama County residents to wrongfully endure tens of thousands of dol- lars in legal fees and loss of their jobs, homes, possessions, civil rights, reputations and peace of mind. I pray your readers will send a message to Mr. Cohen on June 3 that the residents of Tehama County will no longer tolerate his negligence and indifference and elect Larry Olsen as District At - torney instead. — Nathan Esplanade, Corning Are you happy with business as usual? Editor: I have a question for both Di- ana Thompson and David Janott regarding their opposition to Measure A. Are they happy with their cur - rent California government? Do they like the high taxes and ram- pant expansion of fees that we are paying? What about our ed- ucational rating of near bottom nationally? Do they think our De- partment of Education is doing a great job or even really needed? What about the more than $400 billion debt and the state em - ployee retirement and medical coverage being billions of dollars underfunded? How about our current legisla - ture trying to dismantle prop 13 that protects all of us from spi- raling property tax increases? Have they looked at their Home Depot receipt lately when buy- ing lumber? They'll find a sepa- rate tax on every piece of lumber since 2012. The state of California is in serious debt and is looking for ways to get us to pay for it. Sure we can contact our rep - resentative and complain, but we in the North State have little voice in Sacramento. Thanks to a court ruling in 1964, representation is based on population, not by territory. So guess who calls the shots in Sac - ramento? That's right, San Fran- cisco Bay Area, Southern Cal- ifornia and Sacramento tell us what we need or don't need. The state of Jefferson is a movement to form a new state by splitting off from the out of con - trol California. That means state assets and debts proportional to the size of the new state would be transferred to the new state. It would be foolish to spec - ulate that the new state would eliminate anything during this transition, especially police, fire, schools, etc. We the people would determine what we need and don't need. — Gary Niskaia, Red Bluff Your opinions Cartoonist's take Earlier this month, CIA-oper- ated drones killed as many as 55 people in Yemen in several sep- arate strikes. Although it was claimed that those killed were "militants," according to press reports at least three civilians were killed and at least five oth - ers wounded. That makes at least 92 U.S. drone attacks against Ye- men during the Obama adminis- tration, which have killed nearly 1,000 people including many ci- vilians. The latest strikes seem to con- tradict President Obama's re- vised guidelines for targeted kill- ings, which he announced last May. At the time he claimed that drones would only be used against those who posed a "con - tinuing and imminent threat to the American people," that there must be a "near certainty that no civilians will be killed or in - jured," and that safeguards to prevent civilian casualties were at "the highest standard we can set." None of these criteria seem to have been met. In fact, the threshold in Yemen is consid - erably lower than the president claims. In 2012 President Obama approved "signature strikes" in Yemen, a criteria for attack that is not based on actual or sus - pected wrongdoing, but rather on a vague set of behaviors that are said to be shared by mili- tants. This means that the individ- uals killed in the most recent drone attacks were not neces- sarily terrorists or even ter- rorist suspects. They were not proven to have committed any crime, nor were they proven to have been members of al-Qaeda or any terrorist organization. Yet they were nevertheless tar - geted for attack, and the sover- eignty of Yemen was violated in the process. Some may claim that we need to kill suspected terrorists over - seas so that we can be safer at home. But do the drone at- tacks in places like Yemen really make us safer? Or are they ac- tually counter-productive? One thing we do know is that one of the strongest recruiting tools for al-Qaeda is the U.S. being over there using drones against peo - ple or occupying Muslim coun- tries. How can we get rid of all the people who may seek to do us harm if our drone and occupation policies continually create even more al-Qaeda members? Are we not just creating an endless sup - ply of tomorrow's terrorists with our foolish policies today? What example does it set for the rest of the world if the U.S. acts as if it has the right to kill anyone, any - where, based simply on that indi- vidual's behavior? We should keep all of this in mind when the U.S. adminis- tration lectures world leaders about how they should act in the 21st century. Recently, the U.S. administration admonished Russian president Vladimir Pu - tin for his supposed interfer- ence in the affairs of Ukraine, saying that violating the sov- ereignty of another country is not the 21st century way of con- ducting international relations. I agree that sovereignty must be respected. But what about the U.S. doing the same thing in places like Yemen? What about the hundreds and even thou - sands killed by U.S. drones not because they were found guilty of a crime, but because they were exhibiting "behaviors" that led a CIA drone operator safely hidden in New Mexico or somewhere to pull the trigger and end their lives? What about a president who regularly meets in secret with his advisors to determine who is to be placed on a "kill list" and who refuses to even discuss the crite - ria for placement on that list? Is this considered acceptable 21st century behavior? The Obama Administration needs to rein in the CIA and its drone attacks overseas. They make a mockery of American val - ues and they may well make us less safe. Ron Paul is a former Congressman and Presidential candidate. He can be reached at RonPaulChannel.com. Ron Paul Obama's drone wars undermine American values GregStevens,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 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@red bluffdailynews.com Phone: 530-527- 2151ext. 112 Mail to: P.O. 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