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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 Areyoulookingforsomeone without a lot of political ex- perience to become President of the United States? Three of the Republi- can candidates for President are in that category, Ben Carson, the Donald and Carly Fiorina. They re- cently topped polls in the crit- ical state of Iowa. By the end of next year, I hope to discuss all the 17 candidates in this Thursday column. Most of us seem to be rather angry at our govern- ment right now, even though it is the best form of govern- ment that has been invented so far. We vote for our repre- sentatives and give them big bucks to solve our challenges. However, they don't seem to be finding better solutions to the problems right now. They seem to spend most of their time blaming each other. However, we all know there are solutions that are out there. So what's the big deal? I personally love Mr. Ben Carson's demeanor. I think our media is starting to love him as well. Let's examine neuro- surgeon Ben Carson. At the young age of 33, Mr. Carson was already the director of Pe- diatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins and had already au- thored half a dozen books. In one of his books, "Gifted Hands," he writes and admits that while he was in the ninth grade (14 years old), he had a violent temper and on one oc- casion almost stabbed some- one over and argument they had about a radio station. I found that hard to believe since in the few times I have watched him on television he seemed quite controlled. There has even been a TNT movie about his life. It was released in 2009 and titled "Gifted Hands, the Ben Car- son Story." His lack of political expe- rience has served him well so far. One could argue that his lack of time in the political trenches is even refreshing. What Dr. Carson has talked about from time to time is America's need for problem solvers. He is already that kind of person. He states further that Washington, D.C. is so "complex, corrupt and compli- cated" that one has to spend a decade or so inside the system to begin to get things done. Carson promises to concen- trate on how the system is sup- posed to work. He says he has learned many things in run- ning for President. Among them, the fact that you can- not use certain situations and phrases, because that is all people will hear and remem- ber. As an example, Dr. Car- son once stated that most of the people in Germany in the 1940s were unaware of what Adolph Hitler was doing. He got in trouble for that, even though it was for the most part true. The fact of the matter is that Ben Carson has already spent a good deal of his life solving very complex prob- lems. Without extensive edu- cation, even I know that brain surgery is a bit more compli- cated than just opening a re- frigerator door. Just imagine the Donald doing brain sur- gery. I feel quite certain that if he had to, the good Dr. Carson would teach himself how to re- pair any situation, including government. Mytakeonthemovies I saw "Unsullied," starring a beautiful, young new star named Murray Gray. However, I would not recommend this film. The title alone should have warned me away from buying a ticket. The film has no signif- icant redeeming value, except when we get to view the bad people getting it in the end. After all, you can always find violence somewhere else these days. Try watching just about any television news pro- grams. 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 On presidential candidate Ben Carson One could argue that his lack of time in the political trenches is even refreshing. What Dr. Carson has talked about from time to time is America's need for problem solvers. He is already that kind of person. Viewing waste as an asset Editor: "We have a major prob- lem that we don't even see." In these words, author Jon- athan Bloom is referring to the nation's food waste crisis. According to a recent USDA study, 31% of the 430 billion pounds of the available food supply at the retail and con- sumer levels in 2010 went un- eaten, amounting to 429 pounds of food loss per Amer- ican. The estimated value of this food loss is $161.6 bil- lion. While Americans may be blind to the problem, the prob- lem isn't limited to food waste. More importantly, it doesn't have to be this way. The problem lies in how we value our waste. As we casu- ally toss our discards aside, we give no thought to where it may end up. Our only desire is that it be taken away. Unfortu- nately, waste never goes away. It has two options: to be re- covered for reuse, recycling, or composting or be disposed of in our landfill. Ideally society would oper- ate within a closed-loop sys- tem, recognizing waste as a re- source and viewing solid waste management as more of a re- covery operation rather than end-of-life material handling. This consumption and recov- ery model promotes a much more sustainable future, espe- cially considering the declin- ing quality and availability of natural resources, energy-in- tensive mining and processing methods, increasing transpor- tation costs and greater con- sumer and manufacturing de- mand. It defines waste as an asset, an alternative source of desirable natural goods, rather than a price we pay for the cost of living. However, the reality of the situation is that, generally, we don't place this value on our waste. This lack of value can be observed by looking into your own garbage and re- cycling cart. Instead of see- ing the worth of a glass jar or metal food container and treating it as such, materials are habitually downgraded to garbage, soon to be someone else's problem once it is taken "away" during weekly collec- tion. Many times, recyclable commodities never make it to our blue carts as the effort to separate the items is too great and the overall effect of a sin- gle person on the recycling and waste stream is perceived to be quite small (despite it be- ing otherwise). In other circumstances, the items that do make it to our recycling cart are contami- nated with food, liquids, non- recyclable materials like dis- posable diapers and household hazardous wastes, or other de- bris, forcing the otherwise re- cyclable material to eventually be landfilled, anyway. As such, our professed closed-loop sys- tem is quite actually bleeding valuable assets at every turn- ing point in the path. Luckily, the infrastructure for change is already in place. All that is missing is commu- nity by-in and the realization that each individual has a pro- found effect on our County's waste management results. In- stead of hiding in shame, we can learn from our mistakes and understand that our waste has more value than to be bur- ied in a landfill and forgotten forever. Have pride in the ma- terials you put out for recov- ery. By keeping the commodity stream clean of contaminants, the materials will have more value at market and don't have to be downcycled. Remember to rinse your re- cyclables and keep non-recy- clable materials out of your re- cycling bin — contact the Te- hama County Solid Waste Management Agency at 528- 1103 for a complete list of ac- ceptable recyclable materials. After all, recycling doesn't just recover resources. It cre- ates jobs in California by pro- viding quality materials for manufacturing facilities and promotes a healthy environ- ment for the community and future generations. It's time we assign it the respect it de- serves. — Rachel Ross, Red Bluff Be aware of scam phone calls Editor: Twice in the last two days my wife has received tele- phone calls from someone who identifies himself as our adult grandson. Each time he is looking for money, this last time saying he was in jail and needed bail money. He knows our grandson's name seems to be familiar with our family. The second call my wife put him off telling him to call back in 20 minutes. She then called our grandson, who by the way lives in Maryland, and he was home asleep. I told her to call the Sher- riff's Office and report the scam, as we live in the county. The lady there told her to call the FBI, as they don't handle these type of things. My wife asked for a telephone number for the FBI and the lady at the Sheriff's Office said she didn't know. We would have to look it up. It would appear that we are on our own in this type of crime so I would like to at least try to warn others that this scam is going to continue in Tehama County. If you receive such a call all you can do is hang up. As for those who fall for the scam, it would appear you are on your own. — Barry LaVette, Red Bluff Your opinions Cartoonist's take According to Gizmodo, re- searchers at the California In- stitute of Technology (Caltech) have discovered the oldest, most distant galaxy ever detected by earthlings. The scientists have dubbed the galaxy EGS8p7. That doesn't sound very prosaic compared to the Crab Nebula or the Clouds of Magellan; but it beats let- ting Kanye West name it, or go- ing with a mysterious anony- mous suggestion (delivered by Secret Service agents) to name it Mount McKinley. According to the research- ers, light from EGS8p7 has been traveling for 13.2 billion years, which caused one scientist to ex- claim, "Wow! Tom Bodett was right! Motel 6 really does leave a light on for you!" News reports are ebullient that the galaxy formed "only" 600 million years after the Big Bang. I know that gap sounds like a long time, but remember that it's roughly comparable to the length of time you'll have to wait for your ungrateful grand- children to write you a "thank you" note for those birthday sweaters. Before I go any further, don't shoot the messenger. Scientists and journalists rather blithely toss about these mind-boggling ages, with no respect for those with a more traditional view of Genesis. In fact, to add in- sult to injury, one chemist re- cently crowed, "For our next trick, we're going to turn water into wine. Ouch! It's counterin- tuitive, but we've learned that when you turn water into wine, it also produces lightning. Ouch! Ouch!" The articles I've read go into excruciating detail about how redshift and the Doppler Effect are used to gauge the distance and age of heavenly objects. We are fortunate that we have sci- entist fellers to figure out these things for us, because I quizzed my co-workers and the majority of them think you determine the age of a galaxy by cutting it in half and counting the rings. Yes, most of us are lucky to recognize the Big Dipper and Orion's Belt. Although, to be fair, my correspondent Chauncey also picked out Ori- on's Vest and Orion's Dancing Shoes and Orion's Thong and... (It probably won't surprise you that Chauncey was overjoyed by a certain recent Supreme Court decision.) Caltech researchers bristled when citizens demanded practi- cal, tangible applications for the years of research. They defended basic (versus applied) science, explaining, "Mankind is better off for the knowledge that phys- ics has rules, for the knowledge that patience pays off, for the knowledge that our paychecks will continue as we search for EGS8p7's older brother..." There really are practical re- percussions of the research proj- ect. For example, the discovery of EGS8p7 will have a tremen- dous impact on the pharmaceu- tical business. Because when the scientists keep gushing about "reionization," "Lyman-alpha lines" and "impartial hydrogen atoms," their partners are go- ing to need a whole truckload of "little pink pills" to get in the mood. Coincidentally, at around the same time scientists were con- firming EGS8p7, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy Brookhaven National Labora- tory were producing tiny drop- lets of the primordial state of matter that existed in the split- seconds immediately follow- ing the Big Bang. Said one re- searcher, "My trendy roomie has been really annoying with his collection of vinyl records, so I had to find some way to out- retro him." I understand that the lab would've produced results with the building blocks of Creation even sooner; but some team members were holding out for the Chutes & Ladders of Cre- ation or the Wooly Willy of Cre- ation. Danny Tyree welcomes email responses at tyreetyrades@aol. com and visits to his Facebook fan page Tyree's Tyrades. Danny Tyree The oldest galaxy has been discovered — why it matters Stan Statham OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Thursday, September 10, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6