Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/501282
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@ redbluffdailynews.com Fax: 530-527-9251 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 Weenjoyedwatchingthe Round-Up parade on Satur- day; the parade did not seem to live up to past Round-Up parades, but it was still enjoy- able. I was sur- prised to see so many parents smoking with their small chil- dren so close at hand, in some cases sitting on their laps. I also did not real- ize that so called "e-cigs" were so prevalent. Of course, it may not have been a representative sample of people, and maybe I shouldn't generalize. A couple of floats proclaimed the need for better representa- tion for the North State. "Repre- sentation" is one of those words that can have several meanings depending upon with whom you speak. As my old boss, Pat Murphy, would say, "It depends on whose ox is being gored." I was recently working with a church that felt it did not have adequate representation within its denomination, and therefore no impact on deci- sions its denomination was making, decisions they felt un- comfortable with; it was a very small congregation and it felt left out. They felt there was no simple solution to satisfy their concern if they remained in the denomination. For the North State "repre- sentation" may have another meaning based on political his- tory. In the "old days" each county in California had no more than one senator in the state legislature, much as each state, no matter its population, has two senators in Washing- ton, DC. Those US senators rep- resent their state, but if "repre- sentation" means each person has an equal value in govern- ment, or that each voter has equal weight, then the US Sen- ate is not a representative body. The result of the California Constitution was that in the old days, that is pre 1968, the Sen- ator from Los Angeles County represented over 900,000 peo- ple, or 600 times more peo- ple than in some of California's least populated counties. Now all state senators represent over 900,000 people. The US Constitution was set up with an "unrepresenta- tive" Senate for a variety of rea- sons, one of which was to pre- vent the tyranny of the majority, another to give smaller states some extra leverage, and an- other to make sure that things were well deliberated before de- cisions were made. The Found- ing Fathers must be turning over in their graves as they see just how slowly our federal gov- ernment can actually work. On top of that there is the system of checks and balances between the executive, legislative and ju- dicial branches of the Federal government. We do not have the direct election of our President; we have an electoral system in which each state has a number of electors based on the num- ber of US Senators they have, two, plus the number of Con- gressional representatives — for small states this means three electors; the District of Columbia has three as well. There are 538 total electors; it takes the vote of 270 to win a presidential election. On av- erage the national ratio of elec- tors to the population is one for 592,671 residents. For the eight smallest states plus the District of Columbia there is one elector per 256,594; for California, the ratio is one to 705,500. If electors were based strictly on population, Califor- nia would have 10 more elec- tors, and those smaller states would have only 10 electors, far less than the 24 they have now. To add even more "non-rep- resentation," to the process, the vast majority of states have a "winner takes all" provision. If a Presidential candidate wins by one vote, he or she gets all the electoral votes. If there were a State of Jef- ferson it would be the least populous state, with fewer than 425,000 residents; neverthe- less, it would have three elec- tors, two US senators, and one Congressional representative. That would be one elector for each 140,000 residents, more than four times the average representation nationwide. Within Jefferson, Tehama County would have some 15 percent of the population; which may or may not be re- flected in the hypothetical state's legislature, and which means we will still be a minor- ity. Therefore, it appears that Tehama will continue to be in the minority whether or not it actually becomes part of the proposed State of Jefferson. Perhaps the reason those seek to join that dream state has more to do with hoping to be part of a general population that they feel they agree with them on issues rather than ac- tually having "true represen- tation." Whether or not there would be relative unanimity of opinions within the paradise of Jefferson is subject to human nature and circumstance. Some issues, such as water conserva- tion, might become very con- tentious, causing disruptions to the utopia some envision. Each of the 40 Califor- nia State Senators represents around 931,000 residents; Te- hama County contains about 6.7 percent of the population in its State Senate District; we are a small minority in our senato- rial district. One solution, or at least a step forward, would be to cre- ate a unicameral state leg- islature; eliminate the State Senate, and use the current number of 120 senators and assembly members, each rep- resenting some 323,000 resi- dents. William Faulkner once said that California was the state "where the sun shines and nothing happens." Nothing can replace participation in govern- ment; big money has figured that out, but as an electorate Californians seem rather blasé or apathetic. We are entering an age where fewer people are participating in civic events. Voting turnout in Califor- nia was embarrassingly low in the primary election last year; statewide turnout was only 25.1 percent of registered voters. It should be noted that of the around 24 million eligible vot- ers, only about 17.7 million are actually registered to vote. If we calculated the voter turnout as a percentage of eligible vot- ers, it would have been 18 per- cent, or fewer than one in five. In Tehama County our turn- out was much higher than the statewide average, but percent- age of eligible residents who have even bothered to regis- ter to vote is still only about 74 percent, which is also the state- wide average. In the primary last year over half of our regis- tered voters turned out at the polls; nevertheless this means that less than 38 percent of us determined what happened for all of us. The iconoclast, Ambrose Bierce once said: a Congress- man is a "member of the lower house in this world, and with- out discernible hope of promo- tion in the next." Maybe he was saying we get what our lack of participation gets us. If we want better government and better representatives, we will have to work for that. JoeHarropisaretired educator with more than 30 years of service to the North State. He can be reached at DrJoeHarrop@sbcglobal.net. Joe Harrop Do we want true representation? Cartoonist's take Indefense of the Round-Up Editor: I am writing this letter to- day in response to a recent opinion that was written on April 23. As I reflect back on the per- formances of the 2015 Red Bluff Round-Up, I have no complaints. This committee puts on a heck of a rodeo. My wife and I travel to this ro- deo from out of state — 1,800 miles away — and as a current director of a Circuit Finals Ro- deo in my home state, I under- stand all the countless hours, dedication and hard work that go into hosting a rodeo. This rodeo does attract top name athletes, however due to no shows, turnouts and likely possible injuries, there were a few contestants that were un- able to attend, which is not the fault of the committee. I understand (the letter writer) may have seen certain acts in the past however by us going to all three of the rodeo performances, we did not see the same act twice. They were different each day. As part of a committee myself, we watch not only the rodeo but we watch the contract acts even when they are not in the spot- light. Airtime is hard when two of the best rodeo announcers in the world are present. Juan Carlos — the remote control car — is just one more thing to take away from airtime from the barrel man, however he in- teracted with this as well and the fans, all 3 days, loved it. I can't say much about the food booths other than I did find myself a pretty good burger along with a tri-tip sandwich, so maybe (the let- ter writer) managed to miss the booth. This may have only been our second visit to the Red Bluff Round-Up, but we feel it is second to none and will continue to travel our 1,800 miles to support this success- ful rodeo. We feel it does great things for the county and community, not to mention Tough Enough to Wear Pink. — Allen Volk, North Dakota New landfill office Editor: I'm writing in regards to the building of the new land fill agency office. It seems bending the law and avoiding the needs of your constituency is a continual agenda for our Board of Su- pervisors. A 3,000-square-foot build- ing at the tune of $900,000 to house three office personal, why? Because they can. We're going to do whatever we want, seems to be the con- sensus of the Tehama County Board of Supervisors. It would also seem our Board of Super- visors has forgotten or just don't know its job description. So $900,000 is going to be spent on a building for three people because the Tehama County Board of Supervisors wants to. What about the drought? Large job sites use large amount of water. Red Bluff al- ready has two large projects in the works, Walmart super cen- ter and the new court house. Obviously ego is overpow- ering common sense. That $900,000 could do a lot of road work, don't you think? Now with this new sales tax in place, maybe, it's a big maybe, the city council can now address the extreme dis- repair of Red Bluff streets and sidewalks? Just a thought. — Joseph Ostrowski, Red Bluff Revive corporal punishment for kids Editor: Even thought I'm not Catho- lic, I say bravo to the Pope for coming out in favor of spank- ing. He should have gone fur- ther and told parents they must spank their kids, espe- cially the boys, as the bible makes it clear in many places, old and new testaments, that sons are to be chastised. I read about a Catholic school in Louisiana that was about the last one to still use the paddle and they were go- ing to retire it. The parents and the teenage boys loved the corporal punishment be- cause it motivated them to be- have and be on time, and they rallied to prevent the change, sadly to no avail. I well remember in the late '60s the junior high school I attended, a public school, not only the principal but all the teachers had big wooden pad- dles and used them often. I know because my butt was on the receiving end one time in Miss Bland's math class for talking. Let's just say I learned well not to talk in class after that. And the school's discipline was heartily backed up by the parents. If you got paddled at school, the parents were noti- fied and "Junior" usually got another, even bigger spanking with the belt at home when his dad came home. I was spanked and pad- dled countless times grow- ing up, often on my bare be- hind, and I'm very thankful, as I greatly benefited and have never been to juvenile hall, jail or been arrested, have never had sex outside of marriage, done drugs or pot or smoked or been drunk, and I learned how to property treat women and girls. No verbal of phys- ical abuse. And at the age of 15 it led me to read the bible cover to cover and accept Je- sus as Lord and Savior. Spanking is not abuse, as so many stupid morons claim, but rather controlled and di- rected to the well-padded but- tocks only — use of pain to punish and correct bad behav- ior. Parents for thousands of years have been spanking boys with much success and ben- efit, but in the '50s this id- iot moron Dr. Spock came out against spanking and sadly many stupid parents lis- tened to him. Thankfully mine didn't. I guess he thought he was wiser and smarter than God and countless generations of parents before him who used chastising with the rod with great success. The damage Dr. Spock did to America was tremendous, starting in the '60s with the mind bending drugs, open re- bellion against authority and the military draft and the po- lice, burning the flag and draft cards, gross sexual im- morality, with slogans such as "if it feels good, do it," and girls used for sex objects and pleasure outside of marriage, so called sexual liberation. Just the same old ancient lust and fornication, no self-con- trol or restraints because of no spanking of those boys as in times passed. Many may remembers the infamous Ted Bundy, the se- rial rapist and murderer who was thankfully executed in Florida many years ago. I read about an interview with him in prison and he said he got started down his evil path with pornography and compulsive masturbation. If only a responsible parent or guardian had soundly se- verely blister-spanked his bare behind with a paddle or strap as often as necessary to break him of his lustful, sin- ful activity as a boy when he started. If they had, not only would he but all the many precious, sweet, young girls he raped would be alive today. So sad and tragic. I say it is high time Amer- ica bring back and use the rod of correction on our boys' bare behinds, for pornogra- phy especially, as the flood of pornography is directly re- lated to the huge rate of rapes of our precious, sweet daugh- ters, women and girls. — David Gates, Red Bluff Your views Joe Harrop OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Saturday, April 25, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4