Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/453517
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 YoungAmericanscontinuetoputoffhome- ownership, and that isn't good for anyone. According to USA Today, homeownership for Americans age 35 and under declined to 36.2 percent in the first quarter of 2014, down from 36.8 percent in 2013. Thepercentageis the lowest on record since the U.S. Cen- sus began tabulating home ownership in 1982. Why the decline? The job market is rough and many mil- lennials with college degrees are underemployed. Sizable college loan payments are a factor. And though inter- est rates are at historic lows, new legislation following the 2008 economic collapse has made it tougher to qualify for a loan. This is not good, because few things are better for indi- viduals or their country than owning a home. I bought my first house when I was 35, and boy, was it a fixer-upper. Having just started a freelance writing business, the place was all I could afford. It needed a total renovation. I put my friends, fam- ily and self through hell get- ting the place move-in ready. We painted walls, laid floors, pulled down wallpaper, put up wallpaper. The bathroom renova- tion nearly killed me. We tore down the old tile, then put up wallpaper and a tub surround. We repainted and put down a new floor. All we had to do to was reinstall the commode. And that is when the torture began. You see, both bolts that se- cured the toilet to the floor had broken. I had to buy new bolts and a kit that allowed them to be attached. My fa- ther spent an hour getting the bolts in order. When we at- tempted to reattach the com- mode to the bolts, they were too short. "Son of a ... !" said my father. It took several trips to the hardware store to get the daggone thing working. The only thing that flowed freely were the curse words that came pouring out of my mouth. Once some key renovation projects were in order and I could move into the house, I figured the worst was behind me. It wasn't. One night, I was awak- ened by a loud scratching noise inside the wall next to my bed. I discovered three mice had taken over my house. I set traps, put out poison and even rigged up an elec- tronic device that was supposed to drive them away. It took weeks to get rid of the freeloaders. Then there was the battle with the septic tank. I hired a fellow to dig it up so I could attach an access pipe to it for routine maintenance. I had to go to a wedding that day and I told the fellow to leave the lid in place — under no circum- stances should he attempt to lift it. The moron lifted it, break- ing it in two. I had to purchase a replacement lid but the only one available was much larger. To make room for it, I had to straddle an open septic tank for three days while digging out the ground by hand — the most miserable three days of my life. The point is, homeown- ership is good for individu- als and society. It makes in- dividuals realize how in- credibly hard it is to keep a house in good order. With so many things going so fre- quently wrong, an individ- ual is more likely to save for a rainy day — and spend that money on items such as new air conditioning units, which pumps money into the economy. Homeownership makes a person grumpy and prac- tical. Homeowners are less prone to vote for silver- tongued politicians who promise more government spending that will require higher taxes. So, I hope the economy im- proves — so that millennials will be able to buy their first homes. 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. Tom Purcell Millennials buy into home ownership Cartoonist's take This week, events around the country will highlight the im- portance of parental control of education as part of National School Choice Week. This year's events should attract more at- tention than prior years because of the growing rebellion against centralized education sparked by the federal Common Core curriculum. The movement against Com- mon Core has the potential to change American education. However, anti-Common Core ac- tivists must not be misled by politicians promoting "reforms" of the federal education bureau- cracy, or legislation ending Com- mon Core while leaving all other federal education programs in- tact. The only way to protect American children from future Common Core-like programs is to permanently padlock the De- partment of Education. Federal programs providing taxpayer funds to public schools give politicians and bureaucrats leverage to impose federal man- dates on schools. So as long as federal education programs ex- ist, school children will be used as guinea pigs for federal bu- reaucrats who think they are ca- pable of creating a curriculum suitable for every child in the country. Supporters of federal educa- tion mandates say they are nec- essary to hold schools "account- able." Of course schools should be accountable, but accountable to whom? Several studies, as well as common sense, show that greater parental control of edu- cation improves education qual- ity. In contrast, bureaucratic control of education lowers ed- ucation quality. Therefore, the key to improving education is to make schools accountable to parents, not bureaucrats. The key to restoring paren- tal control is giving parents control of the education dol- lar. If parents control the ed- ucation dollar, school officials will strive to meet the parents' demand that their children re- ceive a quality education. If the federal government controls the education dollar, schools will bow to the demands of Congress and the Department of Education. So if Congress was serious about improving education it would shut down the Depart- ment of Education. It would also shut down all other unconstitu- tional bureaucracies, end our in- terventionist foreign policy, and reform monetary policy so par- ents would have the resources to provide their children with an education that fits their chil- dren's unique needs. Federal and state lawmakers must also re- peal any laws that limit the ed- ucation alternatives parents can choose for their children. The greater the options parents have and the greater the amount of control they exercise over educa- tion, the stronger the education system. These reforms would allow more parents access to edu- cation options such as private or religious schools, and also homeschooling. It would also ex- pand the already growing mar- ket in homeschooling curricu- lums. I know a great deal about the homeschooling curriculum market, as I have my own home- schooling curriculum. The Ron Paul Curriculum provides stu- dents with a rigorous program of study in history, economics, mathematics, and the physical and natural sciences. It also pro- vides intensive writing instruc- tion and an opportunity for stu- dents to operate their own In- ternet businesses. Of course, my curriculum provides students with an introduction to the ideas of liberty, including Aus- trian economics. However, we do not sacrifice education qual- ity for ideological indoctrina- tion. It is no coincidence that as the federal role in education has increased the quality of our edu- cation system has declined. Any "reforms" to federal education programs will not fix the fun- damental flaw in the central- ized model of education. The only way to improve education is to shut down the Department of Education and restore con- trol of education to those with the greatest ability and incen- tive to choose the type of educa- tion that best meets the needs of American children — American parents. For information about the Ron Paul Curriculum go to ron- paulcurriculum.com. Ron Paul is a former Congress- man and Presidential can- didate. He can be reached at VoicesofLiberty.com. Ron Paul Education too important not to leave to marketplace Another view By Tina Dupuy A cyber attack altered your holiday movie choices last year. Sony Pictures was the victim of a massive security breach. Personal emails were revealed, films pirated and employee data leaked. The corporation immediately kowtowed to the terrorists, rumored to be North Korean-sponsored, killing the theatrical release of the third in a trilogy of Seth Rogan and James Franco bromance movies called, The Interview. It was terrorism. And it was terrifying. A major motion picture studio had just been brought to its knees groveling for whomever they upset not to do any further damage. The U.S. has the largest army in the world. We outspend the top 10 militaries in the world combined. We outspend China with the second largest military expenditure by more than three times. Our military budget hov- ers around $650 billion a year. Every year. We are armed! We are ready! We are fighting! Yet companies on our shores and our citizens are totally vulner- able—sitting ducks waiting for the next hacker to take us down. Anyone at any time can take our personal information and wreak havoc. "No foreign nation, no hacker, should be able to shut down our networks, steal our trade secrets, or invade the pri- vacy of American families, es- pecially our kids," said Presi- dent Obama in his annual State of the Union address. "We are making sure our government integrates intelligence to com- bat cyber threats, just as we have done to combat terrorism." So here's a problem with our current situation: The FBI needs people who know the comput- ers and all. And some of these people who are knowledgeable in this cyber hacking stuff, who could maybe thwart another at- tack promising to "keep our kids safe"—not all of them but some—like to smoke pot. This came up last year when FBI director James Comey told an audience at the White Collar Crime Institute conference that the agency was having trouble finding computer crime experts who didn't smoke marijuana. "I have to hire a great workforce to compete with those cyber crim- inals and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview," Comey said. He said he was "grappling" with loosening the current re- quirement that to even be eligi- ble to work at the FBI you must not have smoked pot in the last three years. Then anti-drug Senator Jeff Sessions clutched his pearls and admonished Comey dur- ing a Judiciary Committee fol- lowing those comments. "I am absolutely dead-set against us- ing marijuana," then clarified Comey. "I did not say that I am going to change that ban." And according to the FBI's web- site, as of this writing, the ban hasn't changed. After September 11th, the mil- itary was only able to trans- late at three-quarters capacity. They were unimaginably des- perate for Arabic speakers while discharging linguists for be- ing (wait for it) gay. Don't Ask, Don't Tell—#headdesk. So af- ter the largest terrorist attack in our nation's history, when Amer- icans were willing to give up any civil right for the promise of safety, we wouldn't let openly gay translators in the military? Basically. Even in the throes of hysteria and grief, when we came together as one nation standing resilient—we still man- aged to marginalize homosexu- als, declining their expertise and opting for a gap in competent personnel instead. Yes, we did. And now we repeat a dark, self-defeating and completely stupid policy when it comes to personal drug use. Are we a nation that prior- itizes security and stability in our systems or do we want to just finger wag at sinners? It's puritanical folly that the FBI doesn't just consider candi- dates who want to serve their country and are good at what they do; they must also be can- didates for canonization. Love it or hate it, the war against pot has been lost. It's mostly decriminalized and now in four state people can buy it without even claiming it's med- icine. It's taxed and regulated in those states. It's out in the open. Americans can now ad- mit to smoking marijuana for fun, just like they can drink al- cohol for fun. They just can't work at the FBI (among many other employers). The irony is Seth Rogan and James Franco movies would have no audience whatsoever if not for the consumption of marijuana. So shouldn't the people who could protect their interests be allowed to toke if they choose? Yes. 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. Weed policy over cyber security Tom Purcell OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Wednesday, January 28, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4