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4A Daily News – Monday, November 14, 2011 Opinion Our era of the extreme D NEWSAILY RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U N T Y S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes let- ters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All let- ters must be signed and pro- vide the writer's home street address and home phone num- ber. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submit- ted will be considered for publi- cation. Letters will be edited. Letters are published at the discretion of the editor. Mission Statement We believe that a strong com- munity newspaper is essential to a strong community, creating citizens who are better informed and more involved. The Daily News will be the indispensible guide to life and living in Tehama County. We will be the premier provider of local news, information and advertising through our daily newspaper, online edition and other print and Internet vehi- cles. The Daily News will reflect and support the unique identities of Tehama County and its cities; record the history of its com- munities and their people and make a positive difference in the quality of life for the resi- dents and businesses of Tehama County. How to reach us Main office: 527-2151 Classified: 527-2151 Circulation: 527-2151 News tips: 527-2153 Sports: 527-2153 Obituaries: 527-2151 Photo: 527-2153 On the Web www.redbluffdailynews.com Fax Newsroom: 527-9251 Classified: 527-5774 Retail Adv.: 527-5774 Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Business Office: 527-3719 Address 545 Diamond Ave. Red Bluff, CA 96080, or P.O. Box 220 Red Bluff, CA 96080 Seems to me that American life is too often punctuated these days by extremes – too much political partisanship, too wide an income gap, too many climate irregulari- ties. Much of my concern is like- ly due to my choice of perspective and profession since hard facts are difficult for a liberal engineer to ignore in this information age of Tea Party patriotism. Perhaps I would be well advised, as one reader recently suggested, to stop acting "like a precocious child" and spare the world the excess of my liberal viewpoints as I seek to balance the views of my colleague below the fold – fat chance of that! There has always been a healthy difference in opinion among the American electorate and their representatives but it is safe to say that extremes of rhetor- ical vitriol and legislative intransi- gence are translating into extreme disgust for politics or at least the politicians at the wheel. While President Obama's approval rating approaches a low of about 40%, that of Congress is less than half that, with fewer than one in five believing they are doing an ade- quate job. It's no wonder that con- demnations of government are gaining traction particularly as conservatives do all they can to maintain deadlock and economic misery so as to increase their chances to oust Obama come 2012. What a sad sell-out of the American people as they fuel the fires of our discontent by continu- ing ineffectiveness. Historically Americans have respected the wealthy by admiring people who bootstrap their way up by working hard and being cre- ative. But the playing field isn't level with income inequality widening to record excesses. Basically it takes money to make money and the top 1 percent of Americans now gets 25 percent of the nation's income, up from 9 percent in the late 1970s. The top 10 percent gets 50 percent while the average corporate CEO earns 300 times what his or her average employee makes. In California, according to a report issued on the first of this month by the nonpartisan Califor- nia Budget Project, between 1987 and 2009 more than one-third of Californians' income gains went to the wealthiest 1 percent and almost three-quarters of the gains went to the top 10 percent. The average inflation-adjusted income of the top 1 percent increased by half during that period, from $778,000 to $1.2 million annually, while that of the top 10 percent increased by nearly one-third. Meanwhile, the average incomes of 80% of Californians decreased. Shouldn't be any surprise that super-rich conservatives are pay- ing politicians to keep their taxes low, forcing middle- income citizens to bear the brunt of the reces- sion in increased unem- ployment, higher col- lege tuition fees, sky- rocketing health-care costs, failing schools and declining govern- mental services. What surprises me is that so many actually believe that their wealth will trickle down, once they remove our evil Presi- dent to further widen the income gap. As one Occupy Wall Street poster expressed, "I don't mind you being rich, I mind you buying my government!" Per- haps this is why an astonishing 66 percent, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, say the nation's wealth should be dis- tributed more evenly and that the rich should pay more in taxes. Moving to the weather, freak- ish disasters from the sudden October snowstorm in the North- east U.S. to the record floods in Thailand are striking more often. And global warming is likely to spawn more similar weather extremes at a huge cost according to the Nobel Prize-winning Inter- governmental Panel on Climate Richard Mazzucchi Positive Point Change. They conclude there is at least a 2-in-3 probabili- ty that climate extremes have already worsened because of man-made greenhouse gases. This marks a change in cli- mate science from focusing on subtle changes in daily aver- age temperatures to concentrating on the harder-to-analyze extreme events that grab headlines, cause economic damage and kill people. To high- light these temperature extremes consider that in the United States from June to August this year, blistering heat set 2,703 daily high temperature records, compared with only 300 cold records during that period, making it the hottest summer in the U.S. since the Dust Bowl of 1936. Some might believe that these extremes are the nonsense of a lib- eral columnist not worthy of your concern, without considering that they are based upon empirical facts of great significance in our era of the extreme. Richard Mazzucchi makes his home in Los Molinos. He can be reached at living-green@att.net. Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Jim Nielsen (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 6031 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 319-2002; Fax (916) 319-2102 STATE SENATOR — Doug LaMalfa (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 3070 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 651-4004; Fax (916) 445-7750 GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 558-3160; E-mail: gover- nor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Wally Herger (R), 2595 Ceanoth- us Ave., Ste. 182, Chico, CA 95973; 893-8363. U.S. SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 393-0710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (510) 286- 8537. Fax (202) 224-0454. Occupy: 'Lord of the Flies' mob-ocracy Commentary My Sundays often start with old Laurel and Hardy movies. They're preemptive mood-lifting material to brace my funny bone against the coming onslaught of tragedy and liberal political propaganda on morning broadcast news and talk shows. Just last week a bit of plot dia- logue seemed to spoof the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) encampments. After Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy frantically ran past a police- man, another officer approaches and asks the first one: "Say, Kelly, did a couple of lunkheads come through here?" The first officer: "Yeah, a couple just ran in there, why?" The other officer: "Well, they was in the park and they had put a couple of benches together so they could have twin beds and when I asked them to move on, the little fella tips his hat and says 'yes ma'am'. That's what I'm sore about!" Parks, dear readers, have curfews; the OWS encampments flout such laws from the get go. All parks, public or private, that are "Occupied," become unusable by other citizens and taxpayers. First, you are not informed about the movement's activities by the news shows; you must have access to a source for collecting the many local stories, such as Instapundit.com, OWSexposed.com and, closest at hand, Polecat News and Views (DonPolson.blogspot.com) in the blog section of the Daily News. The nearly-90 articles, with pho- tos, videos, links to sources and commentary, began on October 9 with a predictive piece titled "Tea Party envy; be careful what you wish for, liberals," followed in short order by "Letter to NYC pro- testers: you are not 99 percent of America," "Stinking up Wall Street: protesters accused of living in filth," "Sex and drugs on tap … protesters make love, class war," and "Sorting Out the 'Extremists': The difference between Wall Street protestors and the Tea Party." While some polling shows peo- ple sympathizing with the Occupy movement, and its nebulous mes- sages about economic inequality and corporate "greed" ("quotes" because they're adamant that cor- porations are not people but greed is a human, personal fault), Quin- nipiac polled 2,300 voters and found the Occupy image suffering. The Occupy movement had slight- ly lower approval than the Tea Party (30 percent to 31 percent) and lower disapproval than the Tea Party (39 to 45 percent). Given the barrage of Democrat/media attacks, character assassination and vilification directed at the Tea Party, it's unsurprising their image would suffer. However, Quinnipiac also found that independents have a somewhat higher opinion of the Tea Party than OWS: 34 percent to 29 percent. Both groups have high- er negatives. While the "Occupy Red Bluff" folks should not take any of this as a reflection on them, or as my crit- icism toward them, note that some- one took the effort to spell out "OCCUPY" in the chain link fence at the lot between US Bank and B of A. They didn't own the fence and the words disappeared at someone else's hand. Occupy, indeed. Last Monday, we found out that Allen Smith, who was arrested near Castella for firing at officers and deputies, and who was shot in the return fire, had far more of a connection to left wing rhetoric and the Occupy movement (he recently visited Occupy Medford) than the Ari- zona killer, Jared Lough- ner, had to right wing and Tea Party rhetoric (as in none). In spite of insist- ing that he wasn't really trying "to shoot any- body," Smith shot at deputies, hitting patrol cars and a police dog, injured but alive. "It's just with every- thing going on; people have been talking to me. Something's going on with Obama and everything, sit-ins and occu- pied …" He said he's been asking a lot of questions about this coun- try but has not received any answers. Redding PD investigator Michael Woods asked him, "What kind of questions are you asking?" Smith: "This country is bad." He's charged with 26 criminal counts, including 11 counts of attempted murder. Credit to reporter Jim Schultz. One way or another, the guy's loony. Denials from Occupy spokespersons count for little, as they routinely issue blanket denials over anything, like when people are killed in or near Occupy encampments (Oakland, Salt Lake City, Vermont), or when they are instructing no one to go to the Don Polson The way I see it police over sexual assaults. Parts of some camps are considered too dangerous for others to wander into. Tuberculo- sis has broken out in one camp (Atlanta); a condition called "Zucotti lung" has spread at the OWS camp in NYC as a result of dampness, smoking (of whatever) and mold. The Associ- ated Press could not ignore it all and wrote, "Patience tested over waste, crime at protest sites" (October 26). In the last few days we note arrests for: Molotov cocktail in stairwell (Portland), violent melee (SLC), gun possession, assault on city worker and trespassing (SF), and a drug overdose (Port- land). Other mob-ocratic thuggery: assault on citizen journalist (San Diego), obstruction and intimida- tion – an old lady and others pushed down stairs and injured – at an Americans for Prosperity event (DC), attempted shut down of con- servative Blogcon event (Denver). Read more about the devolution of the Occupier movement at my blog. Tea Party Patriots welcome Bev Ross, Cleark-Recorder, and Den- nis Garton, Supervisor District 3, at 6 p.m. at the Westside Grange. Don Polson has called Red Bluff home since 1988. He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@yahoo.com.