Red Bluff Daily News

October 02, 2014

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GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIALBOARD 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. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS Politicianswritebooksto establish bona fides, earn money, or posit for higher of- fice. A new one by Kirsten Gil- librand, the popular Demo- cratic senator from New York who once had an A rating from the NRA, seems to have the unintended consequence of shooting its author in the foot. "Off the Sidelines: Raise Your Voice, Change the World," has moved quickly onto best- seller lists. It is described in a cover blurb by the journal- ist and commentator Arianna Huffington as, "a handbook for the next generation of women to redefine their role in our world." The premise is noble, and Gillibrand's record since being appointed to the senate seat held by Hillary Clinton is ad- mirable, but the book manages to choke on its own good in- tentions. If, for example, a woman seeks to be taken seriously in a field dominated by men, she might well state, as Gillibrand does: "some people may judge you on how you look or what you wear — that's just how it is — but you should keep your fo- cus on what you say and do." Yet, after writing that in the fourth sentence of her book, Gillibrand goes on to describe virtually every benchmark in her career in terms of what she was wearing. From the "gray wool suit" she donned at her first fundraiser for Mrs. Clinton, to the "blue strapless gown" she picked for a White House Christmas party, to the "cream-and-gold brocade" suit she believes in hindsight was too flashy for Sonia Sotomay- or's Supreme Court confirma- tion, she fixates throughout the book on her clothing and appearance. Then there is a section in which Gillibrand describes bringing her 4-year-old son onto the House floor. "Theo loved pressing the buttons," she writes, describing how the boy handled the mechan- ics of casting votes. "He'd run around voting for anyone who would let him." Presumably, Gillibrand's point is that women can suc- cessfully juggle parenting and work. But allowing her child to romp in the House cham- ber during important business doesn't advance that cause at all. It's arrogant, and it's why the House should join the Sen- ate in barring children from the floor. Foisting kids on your colleagues isn't an appropriate model for young professionals, female or male. Much of the book's early buzz centered on Gillibrand's recitation of crude remarks by male colleagues concerning her weight and appearance. "You know, Kirsten, you're even pretty when you're fat," is a foul quote attributed to a "Southern congressman." Here again, Gillibrand dis- tracts us from what may well be an ugly reality in male- dominated politics and busi- ness by committing an ethical sin. Neither responsible writ- ers nor U.S. senators should toss around volatile quotes without attribution. Are they accurate? Is there another side? We'll never know. Gillibrand might have rea- soned that revealing the names of offending congress- men would punish them be- yond anything necessary to make her argument. Perhaps, too, naming names would have risked losing support for her legislative agenda. The wise alternative would been to paraphrase without using di- rect quotes — but, of course, that would have been less po- tent in marketing her book. Gillibrand's own occasional use of salty language in her memoir is also discomfiting. It comes off as dated, from a time when some women talked dirty just to prove that they could. The push for equality is too important to be muddled as it is in Kristen Gillibrand's ac- count. Her advice to, "speak up, gather strength, support one another," is hardly a hand- book for women. It resembles talk show fodder more than meaningful insight from one of only 44 women to attain the rank of U.S. senator. At one point, after discuss- ing the outfits she wore for a Vogue magazine photo shoot, Gillibrand concludes: "If I have to wear a navy blue suit to work every day to be heard without distraction, so be it." But as her own book makes clear, Gillibrand hasn't had to do that. And a proper message for 21st century women is that they don't have to either. PeterFuntisawriterand speaker. His book "Cautiously Optimistic" is available at Amazon.com and CandidCam- era.com. Peter Funt Gillibrand is offside in new book Neither responsible writers nor U.S. senators should toss around volatile quotes without attribution. Outwiththeold, apparently Editor: Traditional stadium snack bar food has changed drasti- cally since the days of peanuts and a soda. However, I don't think it's too much to ask to have the luxury of enjoying a cup of hot chocolate or hot cof- fee at a high school football game. I think someone is miss- ing the boat when, on a cool Friday night, there's nary a warm drink in sight. Last year, during the coldest games of the season, the snack bar at Red Bluff High School's Friday night football games ran out of, or neglected completely too stock, hot chocolate. This year, it's not even on the menu. As an avid fan, I have at- tended every RBHS football game for several years. I would like to support the organiza- tion that puts on the snack bar, and would hate to have to start bringing my own. I'd like to make the simple request of adding this traditional favorite back into the mix. From an unhappy chocoholic. — Beth Bettencourt, Los Molinos Response to Jefferson critic Editor: Since Kathy Bonner wrote her letter criticizing the recent letters about the State of Jef- ferson, I feel that I have a need and a right to answer her. She seems to think only uni- versity educated, well travelled people are wise enough and in- telligent enough to know what to do about a Jefferson State. I do not know her level of educa- tion of education and it really doesn't matter to me. The highly educated peo- ple in Washington D.C. that are making such a mess of things and stealing our sovereign rights are a poor example of those very educated people. Look who they are: Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clin- ton, John Kerry, Eric Holder, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and countless others of the same kind. With their great educations they are dismal failures. Wanting the United Nations to control America and destroy our sovereignty, our rights and give them an even greater op- portunity to steal our taxpayer dollars for crackpot un-Ameri- can schemes. — Jean Clayton, Red Bluff UC chancellors' pay increased Editor: Those poor UC chancel- lors. How can they get by on $383,160 a year? That's not at all fair when the new hire just came on in July for $750,000. I wonder how many perks are on top of that. I hope that with the meager compensation they can squeak by. — Linda Richards, Cottonwood Continuing the debate over Israel, Palestine Editor: In response to Les Wolfe's Sept. 20 letter I would first like to point out that Dr. Thomas McCall is a frequent contribu- tor to the Levitt letters, whose slogan is, Christianity through Jewish Eyes. So I suspect some degree of prejudice. I would have been a bit more impressed with McCall's doc- torate if it was on anthropol- ogy or archaeology, which deal with concrete facts, instead of theology. Here are a couple quotes I found interesting from the ex- ecutive board of the American Anthropological Association; "Evolution is a basic component of many aspects of anthropol- ogy (including physical anthro- pology, archeology, cultural an- thropology, and linguistics) and is a cornerstone of modern sci- ence, being central to biology, geology, and astronomy;" and, "Religious views are an impor- tant part of human cultures, and deserve a place in the pre- college curriculum, provided that they are not presented dog- matically or in a proselytizing context." As for Mr. Tamagni's July 16 letter, I'm sorry but I don't re- call him giving any evidence at all. If he did, it was so minute I wasn't able to spot it. Now calling the country that borders, I mean occupies, Pal- estine Israel is like calling New York the USA. Yes, New York is part of the United States of America but it doesn't make up the whole country. Judea likewise was a part of Israel. Israel isn't even the home of all of modern Jews. Many have decided not to mi- grate to the promised land. And quite a few are adamantly op- posed to the modern Jewish State. Their reasoning being if God wanted them to come back to their ancestral land, He would have provided a much more peaceful way to do it. And not have to rely on terrorist tac- tics. Whatever their contribution has been to the enrichment of the modern world it no way ex- cuses them for the many de- cades of barbaric treatment of their neighbors, nor amends for even one state sanctioned mur- der. — Orval Strong, Gerber Your opinions Cartoonist's take The hundreds of thousands of "nonpartisan Obama War pro- testers" have been found. As I wrote last week, Obama is waging war with no congres- sional authority and the tens of thousands of left-wing "war protesters" were nowhere to be found. Since then, Democrats and Republicans signed off on sending weapons to "moderate" fanatics and there have been a couple of small protests. So, where were the thousands anti-war protesters? Protest- ing for Climate Change for So- cialism! The Peoples' Climate March. 400,000 protesters spent a lovely, cool day in New York pro- testing for socialism under the guise of climate change. They don't like capitalism or free mar- kets. They're the Occupy crowd, protesting and stomping their feet for the government to give them $35 an hour whether or not they're working, abolish Wall Street and the stock mar- ket, clamoring for free health in- surance, free college education, to eliminate our country's bor- ders, and eliminate everyone's debt right now including mort- gages, car loans, college loans and sovereign debt. That's the short list of de- mands. If you believe the Peoples' Cli- mate March was really about cli- mate change, you don't know what the leaders of the move- ment are saying. First of all, the Climate March slogan was, "#FloodWallStreet Stop Capitalism!" Not much about carbon dioxide in that, is there? The World Socialist Web Site crowed, "Members and sup- porters of the Socialist Equal- ity Party distributed thousands of copies of a statement, "Cli- mate change and the capital- ist system," published on the World Socialist Web Site. The statement explained that the only way to conduct a serious fight against global warming and other environmental disas- ters is through a political strug- gle against capitalism and the nation-state system, on the ba- sis of an international socialist program." Kmele Foster, a reporter for REASON Magazine, a libertar- ian publication, interviewed marchers who spoke enthusiasti- cally to his camera of revolution against big business, creating a socialist society and shared a photo of a banner that read, "Capitalism destroys the planet. We need revolution. Nothing less!" It's safe to assume there was no debate regarding differing scientific studies on the topic of climate change. A panel featuring social- ist Kshama Sawant from Seat- tle and fellow traveler Senator Bernie Sanders spouted phrases that generated much applause such as "A socialist world that will deliver a high standard of living for all." Award-winning reporter and climate hysteria skeptic Marc Morano of ClimateDepot re- ported Naomi Klein, author of the new book "This Changes Ev- erything: Capitalism vs. The Cli- mate" revealed all too readily that "climate change" is just a political lever to fundamentally transform America from a capi- talist, free market society where everyone is entitled to the same opportunities for success to a Marxist state wherein govern- ment bureaucrats decide how successful you are allowed to be. In an exchange with Klein, Morano asked Klein if she would support all the same climate "so- lutions" even if the science was wrong. "Yes, I would still be for so- cial justice even if there was not climate change. Yes, you caught me Marc," Klein answered sar- castically as she abruptly ended the interview. If you're wondering where that "social justice" line comes from, it's a common thread among socialists who believe government is the first, not last, arbiter for what is fair and just, making sure everyone has an "equal outcome" in their finan- cial lives regardless of their ca- reer, not "equal opportunities." Rick Jensen is Delaware's award-winning conservative talk show host on 1150AM WDEL and 93.7FM HD3, Streaming live 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on WDEL.com. Contact Rick at rick@wdel.com, or follow him on Twitter @Jen- sen1150WDEL. Rick Jensen Occupy protesters demonstrate in full force for socialism OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Thursday, October 2, 2014 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4

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