Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/592671
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 Somesixtoeightweeks ago I wrote about the deplor- able appearance of the East Sand Slough in the aftermath of the Great East Sand Slough Fire of 2013. Even though there had been a previ- ous cleanup ef- fort, it seems to me that its scarred landscape presents an overall negative image of this community to the hundreds of folks passing by on a daily basis. Boy, did many of you agree with me. More than almost any of my amazingly well-crafted, well thought-out efforts, the sand slough column touched a collective nerve in this com- munity. This has resulted in scores of folks volunteering to do anything necessary to assist in removing this blight from our landscape. An ad-hoc committee made up of movers and shakers from various entities within the community quickly as- sembled and began to inves- tigate the who, when, where, how and why associated with cutting down a couple hun- dred dead and dying snags in the slough. After three or four meetings, a dozen or so phone calls, and far too many e-mails being exchanged, what follows is where the is- sue stands today. •••• The East Slough is the property of several differ- ent owners. The slough north of Antelope Boulevard — ad- jacent to Burger King — is comprised of land owned in part by the city of Red Bluff, with the rest belonging to the community-minded pri- vate owners of the Durango RV Park. It is also the portion of the slough with dense veg- etation, which has proved to be a primary nesting area for America's fastest-growing de- mographic: the Homeless Sa- piens. While both the city and the good folks of Durango fully support the removal of the dead and dangerous trees — and maybe especially the homeless encampments — like the rest of us, they are subject to state and fed- eral requirements and limita- tions. You know, those asso- ciated with turning a shovel of gravel, talking to a spot- ted owl, picking an elderberry or, heaven forbid, upsetting a darting snail. To be honest, when our self-important big deal ad- hoc committee realized that obtaining permission to cut down a few trees was likely to be a bit more compli- cated than showing up with a chainsaw, some new work gloves and a 32-ounce bottle of Gatorade, our collective in- terest began to wane. Fortunately, someone at our last meeting had ob- tained a response document prepared by the California Department of Fish and Wild- life. Said document appeared to be a letter to the Resource Conversation District of Te- hama County approving the removal of vegetation as tar- geted by our committee. RCD is a non-regulatory agency whose mission is "to assist citizens with managing, con- serving and improving the natural resources of Tehama County." In other words, RCD is the perfect and appropriate agency to pursue the removal of trees in the East Sand Slough; and it appeared that they had already satisfied all requirements to do so. Long story short, on Oct. 20, a representative of RCD appeared before the City Council and was awarded some $4,500 in support of la- bor and equipment to remove targeted vegetation, includ- ing dead trees and non-native invasive plants. Thank you RCD and city of Red Bluff; a wise decision in- deed. More information re- garding the southern slough will come in a future column. •••• As you read in one of my earlier columns, the Tehama County AB109 work crew un- der the supervision of tal- ented cabinet making Pro- gram Supervisor Mike Shaf- fer is putting the finishing touches on our brand new Bunny's Concession Stand at the historic State The- atre. Mike and the men and women assigned to this pro- gram did an amazing job, and saved us a boatload of money at the same time. Thank you, Mike and crew, and the county of Tehama for sup- porting the State Theatre. •••• A few months back the State Theatre Board of Direc- tors made a decision to re- place the 1950-era stage with a much larger state-of-the-art version that would accommo- date concert performances for decades to come. As with most projects at the theater, support received from mem- bers of this community has been amazing. The new Haleakala stage is beautiful. We thank the following folks for making it a reality: Troy Ingolia of Madera Framing for donating construction materials, Fred Richelieu for donating engi- neering services, Doug Magee and his crew Matt and Mark of Bear Creek Construction for donating labor to con- struct the stage, and Brandon Grissom and John Miller for general construction and cre- ating the beautiful new stage façade. •••• Upon completing the new Haleakala Stage, we received a very generous financial gift from one of our most ardent supporters, with the stipula- tion that the contribution be used to purchase and install a stage curtain system that might be found in only the finest concert halls in Amer- ica. Well, guess what? The curtains are up, and they are absolutely gorgeous. Thanks go to our won- derful benefactor; to STFTA board member Amanda Da- vidson for soliciting bids and recommending our beautiful new system; to board mem- ber Bandon Minch for serving as project contractor, and to volunteers Stan Morgan, Paul Stubbs, Steve Stoufer and Rob Schmid for assisting in the installation process. •••• Lastly, I am pleased to an- nounce that due to a grant re- ceived from our good friends at the McConnell Fund of the Shasta Regional Community Foundation, the State Theatre is now home to a brand new state-of-the-art energy effi- cient heating system. Thank you, thank you, and thank you. •••• Tonight at 7:30, Jake Shimabukuro, the finest uku- lele player in the entire world, will appear in the Lindauer Auditorium on our wonder- ful new Haleakala Stage, sur- rounded by our beautiful new curtains, in the relative com- fort provided by our brand new heating system. Tickets can be purchased at the box office starting at 6:30 p.m. If you are not happy with the performance, I will person- ally return your price of ad- mission. I'll be the exceed- ingly handsome older gentle- man standing next to Bunny's Concession Stand. BillCorneliusisalifelong resident of Red Bluff, a retired Chief Probation Officer, a champion of the State Theatre and an exceptional athlete. He can be reached at bill. cornelius@sbcglobal.net. William Tells Progress in the East Sand Slough Cartoonist's take Americans are abandon- ing the traditional family in big numbers. According to a 2014 Pew Research Center report, "less than half (46 percent) of U.S. kids younger than 18 years of age are living in a home with two married heterosexual par- ents in their first marriage." Compare that to 1960, a few years before I was born, when 73 percent of children lived in tradi- tional families. "Rapid changes in American family structure have altered the image of who's gathering for the holidays," reports Pew. "While the old 'ideal' involved couples marrying young, then starting a family, and staying married till 'death do they part,' the family has become more complex, and less 'traditional.'" Here's another number that is troubling: 41 percent of chil- dren in America are born to un- wed mothers — compared to 5 percent in 1960. Pew says that 34 percent of children are raised by an unmarried parent, usually by their mothers. Most have no fa- ther in the home. I feel bad for these kids. I can't imagine growing up without my dad in the house. And though my traditional fam- ily was far from perfect, I wish every kid could have the wonder- ful experience I had growing up as the only boy with five sisters. One day when I was 12, the neighborhood bully was rough- ing me up. I didn't have a brother to teach me to fight; my sisters taught me. I looked the bully dead in the eye and said, "You are soooooo immature." My father being the sole breadwinner, he was always looking to stretch a buck. He made me wear hand-me-downs. It wasn't too bad most of the year, but Easter Sunday was hu- miliating. I had a heck of a time outrunning the neighborhood bully with my pantyhose bunch- ing up on me and my bonnet flopping in the wind. Until I was 12 in 1974, when my parents added onto our house, all eight of us lived in a modest-sized home with only one full bath. My father never could get in there. As soon as he'd hear the bathroom door open, he'd race down the hall to take a shower — only to hear it slam shut again, another of my sisters locking herself inside for 30 minutes or more. But just as often as squab- bles would break out — because I hogged all of the fresh fruit or failed to change the toilet paper roll — we'd sit around the din- ner table, laughing. I was a fre- quent target of the laughter. My sisters loved to tell stories about their stinky, sweaty, mud-caked brother. It's amazing to me that I'm 53 already, but I am still the ben- eficiary of the traditional fam- ily that I was blessed to grow up in. My mother and father are do- ing grand in their golden years and I am lucky I can visit them Sundays and holidays and have a grand time gathering with my sisters and their husbands and children. My parents, believers in "un- til death do they part," will cele- brate 60 years of marriage next year. We are going to have a big blowout to celebrate that in- credible milestone. My parents' marriage is something I am proud of. Sure, I understand that times change, and I don't begrudge people choosing to raise their children in a non-traditional manner. I'm just saying that I was in- credibly blessed to grow up in a traditional family in a raucous, nutty house filled with charac- ters and drama and a mother and father, committed to each other for life, who put their chil- dren's comfort and well-being far ahead of their own. Tom Purcell, author of "Misadventures of a 1970s Childhood" and "Comical Sense: A Lone Humorist Takes on a World Gone Nutty!" is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Send comments to Tom at Tom@ TomPurcell.com. Tom Purcell The blessings of a traditional family Last week the U.S. House of Representatives called former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to appear before a select commit- tee looking into the attack on a US facility in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. The attack left four Ameri- cans dead, including U.S. Ambas- sador to Libya, Chris Stevens. As might be expected, how- ever, the "Benghazi Committee" hearings have proven not much more than a means for each party to grandstand for political points. In fact, I would call these Con- gressional hearings "too much, too late." Four years after the U.S.-led overthrow of the Libyan govern- ment — which left the country a wasteland controlled by com- peting Islamist gangs and mili- tias — the committee wants to know whether Hillary Clinton had enough guards at the facil- ity in Benghazi on the night of the attack? The most important thing to look into about Libya is Hillary Clinton's e-mails or man- agement style while Secretary of State? Why no House Committee hearing before President Obama launched his war on Libya? Why no vote on whether to authorize the use of force? Why no hear- ing after the President violated the Constitution by sending the military into Libya with UN au- thorization rather than Con- gressional authorization? There are Constitutional tools avail- able to Congress when a pres- ident takes the country to war without a declaration or autho- rization. At the time, President Obama claimed he did not need authorization from Congress be- cause the U.S. was not engaged in "hostilities." It didn't pass the laugh test, but Congress did next to nothing about it. When the Obama Adminis- tration decided to attack Libya, I joined Rep. Dennis Kucinich and others in attempt to force a vote on the president's war. I intro- duced my own legislation warn- ing the administration that, "the President is required to obtain in advance specific statutory au- thorization for the use of United States Armed Forces in response to civil unrest in Libya." We even initiated a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia asking the courts to rule on whether the president broke the law in attack- ing Libya. Unfortunately we got nowhere with our efforts. When it looked like we had the votes to pass a resolution introduced by Rep. Ku- cinich to invoke War Powers Res- olution requirements on the pres- ident for the use of force in Libya, Speaker Boehner cancelled the vote. Why were there no hearings at the time to discuss this very im- portant Constitutional matter? Because the leadership of both parties wanted the war. Both parties — with few exceptions — agree with the ideology of U.S. interventionism worldwide. Secretary Clinton defended the State Department's handling of security at the Benghazi facil- ity by pointing out that there are plenty of diplomatic posts in war zones and that danger in these circumstances is to be expected. However she never mentioned why Benghazi remained a "war zone" a year after the U.S. had "liberated" Libya from Gaddafi. Why was Libya still a war zone? Because the U.S. interven- tion left Libya in far worse shape than it was under Gaddafi. We don't need to endorse Gaddafi to recognize that today's Libya, con- trolled by al-Qaeda and ISIS mi- litias, is far worse off — and more of a threat to the U.S. — than it was before the bombs started falling. The problem is the ideology of interventionism, not the man- agement of a particular interven- tion. Interventionism has a ter- rible track record, from 1953 in Iran, to Vietnam, to 2003 in Iraq, to 2011 in Libya and Syria. A real Congressional hearing should fo- cus on the crimes and mistakes of the interventionists! Ron Paul is a former Congressman and Presidential candidate. He can be reached at VoicesofLiberty.com. Ron Paul Missing the real problem on Benghazi Tom Purcell Bill Cornelius OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Wednesday, October 28, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6