Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/559046
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 Ifyouhavenotheardbynow,elephants,rhi- noceroses, leopards and countless other living things are on headed for the endangered spe- cies list. I learned last month that an elephant is killed on our planet every 15 minutes, al- most always for its valuable ivory tusks. Ifthatcontinuestherewill be no elephants left on our planet in just 15 years. A great deal of this kill- ing is caused by trophy hunters. Late last month, Minne- sota dentist Wal- ter Palmer killed Cecil because he wanted to kill another trophy. Cecil was a prized lion in Zim- babwe living and enjoying his life inside an animal preserve. Authorities claim that this protected animal was lured away to be killed as a trophy. Dr. Palmer claims he did noth- ing wrong. I once knew a big game hunter named Ed Foss. He lived in Yreka near the Oregon border and was running the Siskiyou Daily News then. In my travels from the capitol in Sacramento, I would occasion- ally spend a night in his home. He would always take me to his den, which was filled with his animal trophies. It was not an appealing ambiance for me. Many conservationists con- tinue to recommend we ban trophy hunting imports to the United States. Wayne Pacelle, President of The Humane Society, has stated that we should "shame these trophy hunters. Their be- havior is not acceptable in this day and age." However, some hunting ad- vocates claim there would not be half the lions there are now if trophy hunting did not exist. Many say hunting is an animal management tool. It is probably not the right thing I should tell the fine peo- ple of Tehama County, but I think hunting should not be for fun. I have no problem with hunting for food, but even that is still not my thing. I prefer to do my hunting at the Safeway or Holiday markets. Were I forced to live on my 20 acres of forest land east of Redding and required to live off that land, I know I would become a hunter and enjoy venison and some wild turkeys. In the meantime, murdering a beautiful deer is not what I consider fun or even a sport. Well known Director Emer- itus Jack Hanna of the Co- lumbus Zoo, who has worked to protect animals for over 40 years, stated that dentist Palmer probably knew more than he is willing to admit during his murder of Cecil. Hanna pointed out that when he was born in 1947, there were 450,000 lions. Today, there are less than 30,000 on Earth. For 15 years Cecil was well aware of people. He was stud- ied and filmed constantly. Cecil may have been lured out of his national park. Those same laws exist for endangered animals throughout America. Zimba- bwe is now asking that Amer- ica extradite Palmer to face a trail there. He could receive a large fine or even jail time. At least one good thing has already resulted from Palm- er's action. On July 3 Delta Airlines adopted a policy that will prevent and stop animal trophy shipments to America. They will no longer transport them. Good work, Delta. Mytakeonmovies My latest movie recommen- dation: Get ready to laugh only a little if you go see "Va- cation." This film is tailor made for puberty-ridden 14- to 16-year- olds. It is often funny, but even more often it is crude. It is a remake of the Chevy Chase vacation movies. Chevy makes an appearance in the last few minutes. Help yourself to this film. I would suggest you save some money. StanStathamserved1976-1994 in the California Assembly and was a television news anchor at KHSL-TV in Chico 1965- 1975. He is past president of the California Broadcasters Association and can be reached at StanStatham@gmail.com. My take Trophy hunting is in the crosshairs Were I forced to live on my 20 acres of forest land east of Redding and required to live off that land, I know I would become a hunter and enjoy venison and some wild turkeys. In the meantime, murdering a beautiful deer is not what I consider fun or even a sport. Stunt boggled reader's mind Editor: I saw something yester- day that absolutely boggles my mind. I didn't think a person that stupid could even drive a car, let alone pull such a bone- head stunt. On highway 99W at Dairyville there is a gas station mini-mar- ket. As such there is a left turn lane to facilitate access and egress from the area. Just north of the market there is a curve to the left at Okla- homa Avenue and the left turn lane services traffic both east and west. The speed limit in this area is 55 mph. Yesterday, I watched a north- bound midsize white pickup use the left turn lane as a passing lane. Nuff said? Let me draw you a picture of the carnage that would oc- cur if a car, going either north or south were sitting at that inter- section waiting to make the turn onto Oklahoma and this moron came around the comer. No time for anybody to react; just time for people to die. Look, stupid, if you want to die, get a gun, go off by yourself, put the gun in your mouth and shoot. No need for you to take innocent people with you. No need for you to leave a mess in the house for your wife to clean up, just gitter done. — Fred Boest, Red Bluff Danger of smaller lot sizes Editor: In the Daily News article "Te- hama County moves forward..." of July 29, Tehama County Building Official John Stoufer complained that a man bought a 20-acre parcel in El Camino and wants to leave it to his grandsons as two 10-acre par- cels. However, because of parcel size restrictions for that area, he cannot. Stoufer calls these restrictions "bad political decisions," that are "not fair to the gentleman who worked hard all his life to not be able to leave the two par- cels to his grandsons." I suspect Stoufer's real, short-sighted, mo- tivation is to increase the tax base for the county. I'm a former real estate bro- ker living in Rancho Tehama. Owing largely to the small par- cel sizes here — many as small as one acre — and their associ- ated affordability, the commu- nity attracts a substantial num- ber of non-English-speaking Mexican, asocial and often drug- using and drug-dealing resi- dents that are unaware and un- caring about U.S. laws and so- cial norms. This, combined with both Rancho Tehama's and Tehama County's failure to perform code enforcement, is causing it to quickly become a noisy, un- sightly, unsafe rural ghetto with low property values. These prob- lems would likely have never developed had the minimum lot size been set and kept at 20 acres. Allowing owners to split their lots is unfair to adjacent lot owners. This is because their decision to purchase their lots was based on an expectation of a quality of life and retention of property values associated with living in a community of larger lot sizes. Accordingly, subsequently al- lowing owners to split their lots constitutes an unlawful bait- and-switch against every other owner in the subdivision. — Nathan Esplanade, Rancho Tehama Ittakesmorethanlandto buildasuccessfulelectriccar Editor: An Aug. 5 Daily News arti- cle stated that Tehema County will woo an electric car manu- facturer. Our county desperately needs small businesses to pro- vide economic growth and good paying jobs, but don't get too ex- cited about building an electric car in Tehema County. Vehicle manufacturing is one of the more costly capital expenditure businesses. It re- quires hundreds of millions in investments, nearby builders of component parts, high tech en- gineering and quality control facilities and geographic close- ness to the market. The cen- troid of US auto manufactur- ing is the non union Midwest and Southern states, and Mex- ico for lower profit compact cars. There is a reason why Nis- san, Mercedes, Kia, Honda, Toy- ota, VW, Subaru and BMW all located their US engineering, manufacturing, sales and mar- keting facilities in the Mid- west and Southwest close to the many interstate highway inter- connects, low cost electricity, availability of skilled workers and the many distribution cen- ters along the Interstate high- ways. California has a long his- tory of being an anti manufac- turing, pro union, high tax and high electricity cost state. The new Tesla battery plant for elec- tric vehicles is in Reno, not Cal- ifornia. Tesla survives in a tiny portion of that facility by be- ing a compliance company. They build costly electric cars for the wealthy and through the sales earn carbon credits, that are then sold to other manufactur- ers who create emissions. Car sales to earn carbon credits, meets California's mandate for some auto sales in California to be zero emissions. Energy cred- its are issued to those auto com- panies that meet the state tar- gets. Credits are bought by com- panies that don't meet the zero emission target. I hope Tehema County can find niche product companies to build or maintain products that do not require significant capital, but high value products needed by North State farmers. Our county lacks businesses to build or repair ag equipment. Electric cars bought only by a tiny 1 percent of vehicle buy- ers, is not that manufactur- ing niche. Be realistic and use common sense when spending our tax dollars to attract busi- nesses. — Joseph Neff, Corning Your opinions Cartoonist's take Will I finally be better equipped to deal with the hordes of the Terminally Obliv- ious? You know what I mean. You're having a conversation and sud- denly ambulances, fire engines, gear-shifting 18-wheelers or Harley-riding opera singers go by, rattling your teeth for a pro- longed time. Unmindful of your body language, your chat part- ner keeps droning away, without increasing his volume, refining his mushy diction or waiting for the noise to abate. A startup company called Doppler Labs may have the an- swer, with a product called Here. It's an oversized ear bud that filters and alters the sounds of the real world, for instance sharpening conversation while drowning out annoyances such as barking dogs, snoring part- ners or wailing babies. Doppler predicts that within 10 years "everyone" will be wearing the buds 24-7. One sell- ing point is that they are fairly inconspicuous and don't look geeky. But do we really want geeks walking among us unde- tected, like ticking time bombs? Inevitably they'll be sitting in a darkened, crowded movie the- ater, stand up, pull out a pistol and scream at the unsuspect- ing patrons, "This hand-crafted plastic model is exactly like the real pistol J.R.R. Tolkien's po- diatrist almost purchased at a flea market in September of 1953." Doppler is initially aiming its product at live music lovers. By adjusting volume, bass and ef- fects such as reverb, concert-go- ers can enjoy an optimized ex- perience from any location in the venue. An optimized audi- tory experience, that is; there will still be "haves" and "have nots" in other aspects of music appreciation. ("Wow! With Here, I could hear your nose bleeding up there in the cheap seats! And cut back on the burritos, man.") Who am I kidding? Music afi- cionados will doubtless be ec- static. ("It's so intimate! I felt as if every F-word and N-word was directed right at me!") Later versions of Here (or its imitators) may offer automated language translation, ostensi- bly making foreign language courses obsolete. But do we re- ally need more temptations to give up self-reliance and let our brains atrophy? Granted, the translators will bring people to- gether; when the ear buds mal- function during a billion-dollar business deal, people from dif- ferent cultures will develop uni- versal gestures for what the in- ventors can DO with their piece of junk. If we can tap into frequen- cies that only dogs can hear, per- haps someday we'll hear that lit- tle voice that cajoles, "Yes, yes, your master bought that white suit just to match your muddy paw prints!" In a coup for old hippies, we may someday be able to "hear" colors. ("Black may be beautiful, but it sounds like Gilbert Gott- fried and Fran Drescher's love child!") Before long we'll have pre- mium ear buds that activate a tiny defibrillator at the first sound of "By the way, my mother is coming to stay for a month." Whether you're ready or not, devices such as Here will revolu- tionize where people are willing to work and buy real estate, as folks learn to tune out unpleas- ant parts of the environment. ("I was able to move closer to my job by purchasing a lovely 2-story near the railroad tracks. I simply had to tune out the roaring freight trains. All was well, until I was surprised by a tornado that sounded just like a freight train. Oh, well — it isn't over until the fat lady sings. Say, is that a Harley-Davidson in the distance?") Danny Tyree welcomes email responses at tyreetyrades@aol. com and visits to his Facebook fan page Tyree's Tyrades. Danny Tyree Is mankind really ready for super hearing? Stan Statham OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Thursday, August 20, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6