Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/423785
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 You and I are so lucky to live in America. Many things are bigger and better here. We have a bet- ter standard of living, better grocery stores, better movies and even the tallest building at ground zero in New York is open again for business. Those are just four easy ex- amples why everything is bet- ter here. What a country. Un- fortunately, money is also big- ger in our political system. Earlier this month I was viewing one of my favorite news programs, NBC's Meet the Press, when the new host Chuck Todd called on his col- league Luke Russert to tell us how much money is in pol- itics and being used to in- fluence us. Russert started by telling us that the same amount of money in twenty British general elections is equal to what was just spent in our mid-term election on November 4th. Wow. Trag- ically, you probably no lon- ger have to wonder if our de- mocracy is being bought and sold. To some degree I think it is both. Only six years ago in the 1998 mid-terms $1.6 bil- lion dollars was spent try- ing to convince you to vote for this or that person or is- sue. That figure has risen now to $4 billion in 2014. One always wonders where so much money comes from. That's where the special in- terests come in. Also, more recently lots of the money comes from billionaires like the right wing Koch brothers and that left wing environ- mentalist named Tom Steyer. Steyer pledged $58 million to support candidates who sup- port his favorite issue, cli- mate change. $50 million was given to candidates who want more effective gun con- trol. What is really disturb- ing is that many of those con- tributions go through what are called independent com- mittees. By law those com- mittees are not allowed to have direct and coordinating contacts with the candidates involved. Feels like a smoke screen to me. Many of those organizations are even pur- posely called by good sound- ing names like "Americans for Prosperity." Do they think we are chumps or what? Dollars are of course not worth as much today as when I first ran for the California Assembly back in 1976. Even then my candidacy brought in $108,000 in contributions. I wish I did not have to tell you now that amount could be considered not nearly enough, or at the worst, it is chump change. In '76 my opponent raised $131.000. Nonetheless, I got to enjoy a landslide victory when I got 57% of the vote. I think money in politics had much less impact then. Last week a friend of mine, highly respected Los Ange- les Times political columnist George Skelton, wrote about an after the election fund- raiser Governor Jerry Brown just held. It was legal, but he wrote it was unnecessary and a turnoff! Boy, did George hit another bull's eye on that. Even after Brown beat his op- ponent Neel Kashkari, he still had $21,000,000 of unspent campaign cash left. I myself don't fault ambition, but he should be satisfied with his legacy already. He will have served California as Governor for a total of 16 years by 2018. That's plenty, Governor. You have my permission to stop your fundraising now. Apparently our Governor is going to raise campaign contributions during non- election times and use that money to promote his ideol- ogy. Or maybe he still wants to run for President again. It won't be long before we will know more about his plans as we examine his future ex- penditures. I will do my best to keep you abreast of what he plans. Please give me your pre- dictions and opinions on the Governor's fundraising. StanStathamserved1976- 1994 in the California As- sembly and was a television news anchor at KHSL-TV in Chico 1965-1975. He is presi- dent of the California Broad- casters Association and can be reached at StanStatham@ gmail.com. My take Theinfluence of money in politics In '76 my opponent raised $131.000. Nonetheless, I got to enjoy a landslide victory when I got 57% of the vote. I think money in politics had much less impact then. Cartoonist's take "I've gotta get it right the first time. That's the main thing. I can't afford to let it pass." — Billy Joel. "Graco recalls almost 5 mil- lion strollers in the U.S. due to fingertip amputation hazard." "Craigslist founder dodges ques- tions on recall policy." "Safety agency admonishes Chrysler for handling of Jeep recall." And that's just a sampling of recent newspaper headlines. Some combination of poorly trained or lackadaisical work- ers, unreasonable production schedules and careless mis- communications keep the con- sumer safety folks on constant alert. For years there has been a rule of thumb about "never buy a car made on Monday or Fri- day" (because of the danger of either hangovers or preoccupa- tion with the upcoming week- end), but in 2014 (whether we're talking about pharmaceuticals, toys or appliances) we seem to be tiptoeing through a mine- field. Granted, "stuff happens," no one is perfect and good help is hard to find. But given the fre- quency and magnitude of re- calls, I doubt I'm alone in thinking that recall notices should be less cookie-cutter am- biguous. We want you to name names (and salaries), elucidate on how things went wrong, re- veal punishments and correc- tive measures and let us know if we need to donate service dogs to a company where (hy- pothetical situation) people can design, test, manufacture, package, store and ship out five gazillion widgets that may cause spontaneous combustion in Caucasians under six feet tall and nobody notices until they hit the store shelves. Remember the old Ford Motor Company slogan "Quality is Job One?" Now workers at whatever company (commenting off the record) will say, "Quality? Oh, that's the department where the boss's nephew is always flirting with the receptionist." Remember when R&D stood for "Research and Develop- ment," not "Rushing and Dis- memberment"? (When my wife the college bi- ology teacher was in manufac- turing, she became persona non grata because she wouldn't rub- berstamp approval of behind- schedule products that hadn't been properly tested yet.) Craftsmen used to "measure twice and cut once," mindful of their reputation. Mass manufac- turers are more worried about the reputation of their liability lawyers. Henry Ford famously stated that the consumer could pur- chase any color of vehicle he wanted — as long as it was black. Modern manufacturers promise, "You can purchase any color of car you want — as long as you don't sue if the engine catapults out." Don't you wish manufactur- ers had something more like the Hippocratic Oath ("First, do no harm...") instead of a mantra like "First, get this new cat toy to the stores before the compe- tition no matter what, or Arma- geddon will strike, you morons"? Sometimes a recall notice leaves us sighing, "Yeah, I can see how that mix-up happened," but other times the errors go above and beyond the call of duty. ("We regret that Yeti hair and out-of-date wine from the Holy Grail somehow got mixed in with our infant formula.") At least there's a certain amount of karma involved. Cor- porations may try to sweep bad news under the rug, but they wind up using a defective broom that severs an artery. "What could possibly go wrong," should not be a cheerful rhetorical question, but a chal- lenge to examine every contin- gency. It's time for zero tolerance of incompetence and subterfuge. Let's bring some real penalties to bear on those who foist stupid mistakes upon the public. Please join me in petitioning President Romney on this important mat- ter. Danny Tyree welcomes reader e-mail responses at tyreetyrades@aol.com and vis- its to his Facebook fan page Tyree's Tyrades. Danny Tyree Let's get serious about poor quality and product recalls Another view WINSLOW, ARIZ. "I was stand- ing on a corner in Winslow, Ari- zona, and such a fine sight to see: it's a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowin' down to take a look at me." When the Ea- gles first sang that in the folk- rock anthem "Take It Easy" back in '72, they were enthusing about a vibrant town on Route 66, the iconic American highway. Soon after, Interstate 40 cut Winslow and places like it out of the loop. The dusty town got really quiet, really fast. Some four decades later, two notable things have survived. One is a small park commemo- rating the song, on a corner in the center of town. It features a bronze statue of a guitar player and a mural depicting the girl in the Ford. Tourists who wan- der off the Interstate sit on the park bench for a photo and then cross the street to the gift shop for t-shirts and other Route 66 memorabilia. The other thing that survived is pluck. Unemployment here is dou- ble the national average, yet the rate of serious crime is remark- ably low. The largest remaining employers, BNSF Railway and the Winslow State Prison, offer modest pay for hard work. Winslow's character is chron- icled three times a week in The Scoop, a publication that just barely qualifies as a newspaper but neatly reflects the spirit of this place. Printed mimeograph-style in black ink on both sides of brightly colored legal-size sheets and stapled in one cor- ner — looking like a school handout in pre-digital days — The Scoop is delivered for free to 4,500 homes and businesses. It's glue that holds the commu- nity together. In a recent issue we see that the Falcon Restaurant has a pork chop and egg breakfast for $6.99. If you're able to pay cash, alfalfa can be had at The Corner Feed & Tack for $12.00 a bale. Sue at Whimsical Walls is available to paint festive de- signs on your windows in time for the holidays. There's an item about how Winslow's public schools are struggling because of a 22 per- cent cut in state funding. Forty percent of kids here live in households where income is be- low the poverty level. Yet, 92 percent of students complete all four years of high school, giv- ing Winslow one of the highest graduation rates in Arizona. The Scoop reports that a BBQ Sandwich Benefit Dinner will raise money so 2-year-old Tristan Black can travel to Chil- dren's Hospital in Boston for treatment of a heart condition. There's word of a chili din- ner to benefit the high school's honor society. It's also reported that a "5K Glow Run/Walk" will raise money for the cross-coun- try team. St. Paul's Church is having a free "Rice & Beans" distribution. The annual food drive is Wednesday, and members of the Rotary Club and Winslow Elks are again going door-to- door to collect non-perisha- ble food for the poor. The com- munity blood drive is set for Thursday. And so it goes, page after rainbow-colored page, in The Scoop. It's Clarissa Anthony's 15th birthday. Len is celebrating 45 years of marriage to Beth, his "best friend." Kallam and Kayla Kruse of Winslow proudly an- nounce the birth of Jenny May Kruse at the hospital in Flagstaff. One telling statistic about this place is that the population of just under 10,000 is remark- ably stable. Few people care to get on Interstate 40, or board Amtrak's Southwest Chief when it stops here each day, and move away. That's something that Win- slow, Arizona, has in common with many of America's inde- pendent, easily forgotten small towns. It's what the lords of the Interstate probably didn't understand, but the Eagles seemed to sense. "Lighten up while you still can; don't even try to under- stand. Just find a place to make your stand, and take it easy." Peter Funt is a writer and speaker. His book, "Cautiously Optimistic," is available at Am- azon.com and CandidCamera. com. Easy does it in Winslow, Ariz. Stan Statham Peter Funt OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Thursday, November 27, 2014 MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6