Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/488059
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 By Jason Stanford Where is Leslie Knope when we need her? Indiana's "Religious Free- dom Restoration Act," which purports to protect Chris- tians from being forced to apply the Golden Rule to gays and lesbians at work, resists sober interpretation. The only way to under- stand it is as government- sponsored fan fiction for NBC's recently departed "Parks & Recreation." For those of you who don't like fun things and may have missed the show, "Parks & Recreation" depicted the go- ings-on of a city government department in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana. Amy Poehler played Les- lie Knope, who started out as the deputy parks director and ascended in the series finale to a two-term gover- nor of Indiana. She would've vetoed this, and we know this because she once presided over the marriage of two boy pen- guins. The local moral gen- darmes took offense, first demanding that Knope an- nul the penguins' marriage. When she refused, arguing that the penguin wedding was "cute," they demanded she be fired. If you are the sort who doesn't like the idea of mak- ing fun of clenched-hearted scolds who see a gay pen- guin wedding as a sign of the apocalypse, then do yourself a favor and don't watch "Parks & Recreation" on Netflix. Just to clarify, two pen- guins of the same sex can- not legally marry in Indiana, but two humans of the same gender have been able to get hitched in the Hoosier State since 2014. This freaks out the kind of people who would get up- set at a gay penguin wed- ding, and right now they control the Indiana legisla- ture. That's how we ended up with a law allowing busi- nesses to refuse service to gays and lesbians if doing so would conflict with their re- ligious faith. Apparently some peo- ple are so busy loving their neighbor that they don't have any time for dudes who love dudes. As far as I know, this reli- gious protection does not ex- tend to other sins listed in the bible. For example, there is no state-sanctioned dis- crimination against those who bear false witness, but that could just be the politi- cians carving out a loophole for themselves. For those of us who loved the good-hearted characters who formed the core of that show for seven seasons, the idea of Leslie Knope taking on Gov. Mike Pence begs for a reboot of the television se- ries. He is behaving like a comic foil for Knope, insist- ing, "This bill is not about discrimination" while sign- ing it into law in private. When asked, he could not name one actual wrong that this law would have righted. We're only slaying hypothet- ical dragons here. One imagines what sport "Parks & Recreation" would have made of this. Would the Pawnee City Council have debated installing "gay- dar" at city hall? Would Tom Haverford, played by Aziz Ansari, have been refused service at The Glitter Fac- tory because he didn't look straight enough? We have political fiction to tell the stories about gov- ernment and politics in a way that the news can't cap- ture. The newspaper can tell me about the companies that are canceling investments in Indiana. ESPN can tell me Charles Barkley wants the NCAA to pull the Final Four from Indianapolis. The nightly news can show me the thousands of protestors outside the Indiana state- house. But only Leslie Knope can dramatize the shameful absurdity of this situation. Instead, all we have is ourselves. This law puts the power of the government be- hind a dime-store version of Christianity. We don't need a television show to tell us that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act is a joke. The problem is that it's just not all that funny. Jason Stanford is a regular contributor to the Austin American-Statesman, a Democratic consultant and a Truman National Security Project partner. You can email him at stanford@ oppresearch.com and follow him on Twitter @ JasStanford. Commentary Discrimination hiding behind religious faith Cartoonist's take With great fanfare, as re- ported in the Daily News, March 28, our Guv'ner "Brown signs $1B water plan" dedicated to "infrastruc- ture spending amid the worst drought in a gen- eration, although much of the plan was drawn with future dry years in mind." (AP) Just to briefly summarize the areas of fund- ing: In this initial installment of the multi-billion dollar bond passed by voters last Novem- ber, we are told that the first and, apparently, highest prior- ities for the monies are "aid to residents hurt by the drought" while "the vast majority is expe- dited spending on water infra- structure." Let's just back up and de- scribe the situation a bit more accurately. Nature has deliv- ered California several "dry," "very dry" or even "exception- ally dry" years. California and the Western region are prone to extreme variations in precipita- tion. The native flora, fauna and indigenous people adapted, mi- grated and engaged in limited existences based on what could be sustained over the years and centuries of natural variation. Before European migration, ac- tivities and settlements arrived, water and fire were the forces that maintained balanced eco- systems that plant life, as well as animals, simply lived (or died) with. What species survived up to and through the recent past did so without environmental reg- ulations, the EPA, CEQA (envi- ronmental quality rules), and in spite of years, even decades, of dry conditions. Did some plants and animals go extinct? Well, not the ones that survived— that may sound trite but it illus- trates that nature is far more resilient than we give it credit for. Native tribes moved during winter months in nomadic fash- ion from mountains and foot- hills to lower, more hospita- ble climes. They set fires to cre- ate meadows and an abundance of edible foliage to entice, even guarantee, deer populations a menu to thrive on until find- ing their way onto the aborigi- nal menu. These same tribes were well aware of the tendency for floods great and small in the flat val- leys in winter, even informing the Sutters and others that they were foolishly building what is now Old Sacramento below flood level. The basements of those buildings are testament to the ingenuity, determina- tion and, yes, foolhardiness of the gold miners and business builders of that time. European- Americans used those same qualities to raise the street grade level and build what would have been the second floors for those occasionally flooded structures; that testifies to the intelligence and abilities of the soon-to-be-predominant migrants from the east. Environmental and cultural arrogance, let alone abomi- nable mistreatment aside, the spirit of the newer inhabitants forged ahead into the 20th cen- tury. It is an objectively praise- worthy thing of technological, engineering and creative won- der that the most precious, of- ten scarce but essential element for humans to thrive in abun- dance—water—has been mar- shaled, directed and saved from uselessly (for the most part) flowing into the Pacific Ocean. So, in mid-century Califor- nia's leaders saw no serious or intelligent impediment to build- ing dams to capture runoff in winter, for the inherently laud- able purpose of serving the wa- ter needs of a growing residen- tial and agricultural state. How- ever, beginning in about the 1970s, an absolutist environmen- tal movement worked its way into public policy planning with the result that water infrastruc- ture became incomprehensibly discouraged, postponed and of- ten stopped cold. In the greens' quasi-religious fervor, reason- able human needs took a back seat to poorly thought-out and marginally reasoned substitutes: water conservation for critters and, for the most agriculturally productive land on the planet, rationing and cutoffs. Hence, a hardly unprece- dented series of dry years—snow surveys from Donner Pass go- ing back to the late 1800s show similar minimal snow pack conditions in the 1880s, 1930s and 1970s—have now demon- strated the paucity of foresight and commitment to human wa- ter needs. To the extent that these dry winters constitute a "drought" (no rivers or streams are yet drying up), it is a hu- man-manufactured "drought." Sites Reservoir has been known about, planned and capable of construction for decades for a fraction of the money it will now require; same goes for at least one other reservoir location. Delta smelt are a completely manufactured crisis that should never have become a cause or pretext for depriving farmers of water for crops and orchards. Drought relief payments to those suffering in economic de- privation are, therefore, simply guilt money that acknowledges reality: people have created lu- dicrous policies that are kill- ing large parts of the agricul- tural sector. Paying for "flood control" as part of "drought re- lief" is simply an asinine shift- ing of money voted for the pur- pose of water storage toward pet projects. Senator Jim Nielsen nailed it: "the plan provides no over- sight or accountability to en- sure that the moneys would be spent as they were intended… The drought is being exploited to give sweeping and puni- tive powers to the Department of Fish and Wildlife to impose fines of up to $8,000 per day, per violation…(and) creates a new government entity—the Of- fice of Sustainable Water Solu- tion—without identifying the size, scope or funding source." Jim favored the water bond be- cause he had worked admirably to put ironclad commitments to increasing storage; I expressed doubt that Democrats and their enviro constituencies could be held to those commitments. We are now seeing the anything- but-more-dams crowd predict- ably shift money and priorities to what they do best: hand out money to those hardest hit by anti-human agriculture policy; and fund favored, but largely irrelevant "flood control" and conservation projects. Solution: For a fraction of High Speed Rail cost, sewer wa- ter could be recycled for yards, crops and pools; desalination plants could be placed around coastal cities for drinking water. Don Polson has called Red Bluff home since 1988. He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@ yahoo.com. The Way I See It Fighting over water supplies For example, there is no state- sanctioned discrimination against those who bear false witness, but that could just be the politicians carving out a loophole for themselves. Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. Stay in the house then, there is a general risk of any activity. The only way to remove the risk of falling limbs from trees is to remove all trees from the city limits. But I remember the fight to save just one tree so Walmart can't build. This is part of what's wrong with this country, sue happy and making lawyers rich.... Robert Walstead: On woman who is suing Red Bluff a er a limb fell on her at farmers market Really? (Shaking my head) please tell me she won't win this law suit. There is a reasonable risk of falling limbs when sitting under any tree. It's always gotta be someone else's fault. Brad Beecham: On woman who is suing Red Bluff a er a limb fell on her at farmers market Don Polson StateandNational Assemblyman James Gallagher, 150Amber Grove Drive, Ste. 154, Chico 95973, 530895-4217: http://ad03.asmrc.org/ Senator Jim Nielsen, 2634 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530879-7424: senator. nielsen@senate.ca.gov Governor Jerry Brown, State Capital Building, Sacramento 95814, 916445-2841, fax 916 558-3160: governor@governor. ca.gov U.S. Representative Doug LaMalfa, 507Cannon House Office Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Francisco 94104, 415393- 0707, fax 415393-0710 U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, 1700Montgomery St., San Fran- cisco 94111, 510286-8537, fax 202224-0454 Local Tehama County Supervisors, 527-4655 District 1, Steve Chamblin, Ext. 3015 District 2, Candy Carlson, Ext. 3014 District 3, Dennis Garton, Ext. 3017 District 4, Bob Williams, Ext. 3018 District 5, Burt Bundy, Ext. 3016 Red Bluff City Manager, Richard Crabtree, 527-2605, Ext. 3061 Corning City Manager, John Brewer, 824-7033 YOUR OFFICIALS OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, March 31, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6