Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/434960
ThenumberofAmericanswhochooseto live alone continues to grow. So finds a re- cent Current Population Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau. AccordingtoTheWash- ington Post, the survey found that "the proportion of Ameri- cans who live alone has grown steadily since the 1920s, in- creasing from roughly 5 per- cent then to 27 percent in 2013." The Post reports the num- ber of men living alone dou- bled to 12 percent from 1970 to 2012. Some 15 percent of households are comprised of women living alone. In large urban areas, such as Manhat- tan and Washington, "about half of households have single occupants, and in some neigh- borhoods the proportion is two-thirds..." And why are more peo- ple living alone? Because they want to. The more their eco- nomic means have allowed it, the more people have chosen to get their own digs. As someone who lives alone, I'm just not so sure this is a good thing. I compare the way many single people live today with the home in which I grew up. I lived with five sisters, two par- ents and a dog. Until I was 12, we had only one shower. We had to share and be consider- ate of others. This was during the '70s and '80s, when the shag hair- cut — the long, full Farrah Fawcett hair — was all the rage, which meant my sisters were spending a lot of time washing, conditioning and drying their hair in our only full bathroom. My poor father spent many of his adult years sitting on his bed in his robe, waiting to get a shower so he could go to work or to the store. His bedroom was at the far end of the house, however. No sooner did he hear the bathroom door open and be- gin heading down the hall- way than he'd hear it slam shut again — someone else going in to get a shower. The only way I ever got in was by threatening to use my sisters' toothbrushes. Our house was a chaotic place. Friends, family and neighbors were always com- ing and going. The doors were never locked. If you set any- thing you owned on a table, somebody would relocate it and you'd never see it again. And when something broke, which was about a dozen times every day, my sisters blamed me and everyone was happy. Well, unlike the way I grew up, I live alone now and have total command over my lit- tle world. This is not good. Be- cause there is no one to tell me to clean, I follow the P.J. O'Rourke school of thought: I clean my place about once ev- ery girlfriend. You see, because I live alone, most daily activities are all about me and only me. And because so many peo- ple are living as I do, I wonder whether more of our popula- tion is becoming more isolated and insular. More of us are coming home to orderly little worlds that have not been disturbed by the presence of other people. We don't hear the sound of a baby crying or a stereo playing. We don't know the scent of cook- ies being baked as a gift to us. We don't know the chaos or uncertainty that always occurs when you live with creatures as unpredictable as human be- ings — people who help us es- cape the narrowness of our- selves. No, instead we know an orderly little existence. We have total control over ev- ery piece of furniture, ev- ery ounce of shampoo in the bathroom and every scrap of food in the refrigerator — though I admit I don't toss things out of my refrigerator often enough. Much like comedian Blake Clark, I had one milk carton in my refrigerator so long, it had a picture of the Lindbergh baby printed on the back of it. TomPurcell,authorof"Mis- adventures of a 1970s Child- hood" and "Comical Sense: A Lone Humorist Takes on a World Gone Nutty!" is a Pitts- burgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Send comments to Tom at Purcell@caglecartoons. com. TomPurcell The downside of living alone Because there is no one to tell me to clean, I follow the P.J. O'Rourke school of thought: I clean my place about once every girlfriend. Cartoonist's take The political class breathed a sigh of relief Saturday when the US Senate averted a gov- ernment shutdown by passing the $1.1 trillion omnibus spend- ing bill. This year's omnibus re- sembles omnibuses of Christmas past in that it was drafted in se- cret, was full of special interest deals and disguised spending in- creases, and was voted on before most members could read it. The debate over the omnibus may have made for entertain- ing political theater, but the out- come was never in doubt. Most House and Senate members are so terrified of another govern- ment shutdown that they would rather vote for a 1,774-page bill they have not read than risk even a one or two-day govern- ment shutdown. Those who voted for the om- nibus to avoid a shutdown fail to grasp that the consequences of blindly expanding government are far worse than the conse- quences of a temporary govern- ment shutdown. A short or even long-term government shutdown is a small price to pay to avoid an economic calamity caused by Congress' failure to reduce spending and debt. The political class' shutdown phobia is particularly puzzling because a shutdown only closes 20 percent of the federal govern- ment. As the American people learned during the government shutdown of 2013, the country can survive with 20 percent less government. Instead of panicking over a limited shutdown, a true pro- liberty Congress would be ea- gerly drawing up plans to per- manently close most of the fed- eral government, staring with the Federal Reserve. The Fed- eral Reserve's inflationary pol- icies not only degrade the aver- age American's standard of liv- ing, they also allow Congress to run up huge deficits. Congress should take the first step toward restoring a sound monetary pol- icy by passing the Audit the Fed bill, so the American people can finally learn the truth about the Fed's operations. Second on the chopping block should be the Internal Revenue Service. The federal government is perfectly capable of perform- ing its constitutional functions without imposing a tyrannical income tax system on the Amer- ican people. America's militaristic foreign policy should certainly be high on the shutdown list. The troops should be brought home, all for- eign aid should be ended, and America should pursue a pol- icy of peace and free trade with all nations. Ending the foreign policy of hyper-interventionism that causes so many to resent and even hate America will in- crease our national security. All programs that spy on or otherwise interfere with the private lives of American citi- zens should be shutdown. This means no more TSA, NSA, or CIA, as well as an end to all federal programs that promote police militarization. The un- constitutional war on drugs should also end, along with the war on raw milk. All forms of welfare should be shut down, starting with those welfare programs that benefit the wealthy and the politically well connected. Corporate wel- fare, including welfare for the military-industrial complex that masquerades as "defense spend- ing," should be first on the chop- ping block. Welfare for those with lower incomes could be more slowly phased out to pro- tect those who have become de- pendent on those programs. The Department of Educa- tion should be permanently pad- locked. This would free Amer- ican schoolchildren from the dumbed-down education im- posed by Common Core and No Child Left Behind. Of course, Obamacare, and similar pro- grams, must be shut down so we can finally have free-market health care. Congress could not have picked a worse Christmas gift for the American people than the 1,774-page omnibus spend- ing bill. Unfortunately, we can- not return this gift. But hope- fully someday Congress will give us the gift of peace, prosperity, and liberty by shutting down the welfare-warfare state. Ron Paul is a former Congress- man and Presidential can- didate. He can be reached at VoicesofLiberty.com. Ron Paul All I want for Christmas is a government shutdown Another view Torture is illegal. Period. End of debate. There is no le- gal, moral or probable justifica- tion for torture. It's against the Bill of Rights; it's against the Geneva Convention; it's against United Nations Convention Against Torture (ratified by the U.S. in 1994); it's against every state statute from every mod- ern constitutional democracy and every decent and encourag- ing proposal coming from hu- manity in the last century. President Reagan wrote to the Senate in 1988 urging the ratification of the U.N. Con- vention, saying it "will demon- strate unequivocally our desire to bring an end to the abhor- rent practice of torture." Torture is against every ar- ticle, agreement, protocol and treaty we currently depend upon for civilization. It's univer- sally held as illegal in every in- stance for any reason. Plus it's wrong. All of the free world views it as wrong. It's completely indefensible. It was wrong when they did it to Jesus Christ. It was wrong when they did it to accused her- etics. It was wrong when they did it to Abu Zubaydah. Something this unanimously deplored is not suddenly OK if it's hoped to be useful. If torture is so useful and necessary for keeping us safe— if we can't be safe without tor- ture—if policymakers are so completely comfortable with its implementation—why not use it on all accused criminals to ex- tract confessions and informa- tion? Why? Because it's wrong, it's repugnant and furthermore it doesn't work. There is no evidence save those falsified after the fact by war criminals that shows tor- ture works. In fact, the oppo- site is true. Even Napoleon Bon- aparte knew this to be the case, "The barbarous custom of hav- ing men beaten who are sus- pected of having important se- crets to reveal must be abol- ished," he wrote in a letter in 1798. "It has always been rec- ognized that this way of inter- rogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile. The poor wretches say anything that comes into their mind and what they think the interrogator wishes to know." Or as current CIA Director John Brennan puts it—it's un- knowable. The rationalization is this: We hate terrorists, we like the idea of them suffering, so we found a loophole where we can rectally hydrate them. Torturing alleged terrorists is sadistic catharsis. Full stop. What about our laws? Pres- ident Obama, a leader whose reputation is of a divisive ty- rant, is actually a man who wants nothing more than to make nice with Obama-allergic mouth-frothing Republicans, many of whom have taken to cable TV this week to tout the merits of their poll-tested eu- phemisms for torture. Obama has decided not to pursue crim- inal charges against the archi- tects and practitioners of the CIA's well-documented torture program. We're a nation of ex- ceptions to the internationally ratified rules—a nation of exon- erating human rights abusers for political conciliations. We're a nation of laws with an asterisk. We're a nation that has some senior officials, politi- cians and CIA operatives who'd be wise not to try to travel to Europe, according to some legal experts. Really, we're a nation— according to the United Na- tions Convention Against Tor- ture—harboring international criminals. "I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture, and I'm going to make sure that we don't torture," said then Pres- ident-elect Obama in 2008. "Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world." Now Obama is giving tortur- ers amnesty by executive de- cree. Now every despotic human rights-violating regime from China to Iran, from Russia to North Korea has managed to collectively look down their au- tocratic noses at us and tsk tsk at the Senate Intelligence Com- mittee's report on torture. It's only a matter of time until the photographic evidence will also be released. Then the world will really see what we've been do- ing when we hoped no one was looking. This issue isn't going to get better no matter how many times Dick Cheney goes on "Meet the Press" to obfuscate what is clearly state-sanctioned rape while in the custody of the U.S. Keep your promise, Mr. Pres- ident. Let sunlight and account- ability ensure Salt Pit, COBALT, Abu Ghraib and America's other black site gulags never happen again. End torture. Start prosecu- tions. Tina Dupuy is a nation- ally syndicated op-ed colum- nist, investigative journalist, award-winning writer, stand- up comic, on-air commentator and wedge issue fan. Tina can be reached at tinadupuy@ya- hoo.com. We're a nation of laws 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. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS The Department of Education should be permanently padlocked. OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Wednesday, December 17, 2014 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6