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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 WhileIamnotonetoairmydirtylaundry in public, I feel I should tell someone that I have just about had it with my wife of 48 years. It's not that she is a bad wife or a hor- rible person or anything like that. Infact,ifIhadto rate her, as tacky as that might seem, I would say that, all things considered, Billie Jean has been a good wife, a great mother, and an even better grandmother. She is an excellent cook, and she regularly cleans up after me, complaining only on an occasional basis. My problem, simply put, is her ob- session with Christmas. Don't get me wrong. I like Christmas, too. Many of you might remember that when we lived in town, a drive by our home at Christmas time was an absolute must. While not a braggart by nature, to me at least, the understated elegance of my yard display was for de- cades unmatched anywhere in Tehama County. That said I have to admit that I was re- lieved when we moved to our current home at the very end of a rural road to nowhere. The pressure was off, and no longer would we feel com- pelled to put on the dog for the outside world. Boy was I wrong. Even though there is only the two of us — Billie won't let me get a dog — we added an- other 1,000 square feet or so to the new home; I was ex- cited because it would provide the additional space needed for a brand new ping-pong ta- ble. Imagine my surprise when I discovered my perfect ping- pong table space was to be home to a year-round Christ- mas tree. The wife decorates the tree to celebrate all the major holi- days of the year. On 4th of July she adorns the tree with fire- crackers, American flags and other patriotic stuff. On Hal- loween, it is home to witches, ghosts and goblins. My per- sonal favorite is Caesar Chavez Day when she decorates the tree with little sombreros, tiny plastic burros and little piña- tas filled with Chiclets If looking at a Christmas tree all day long every day of the year isn't depressing enough, sometime after Hal- loween and before Thanksgiv- ing, Billie's Christmas gene re- ally kicks in. That's when she decides that it's time to flood the Cornelius household with Christmas music. At this ex- act moment, as I am typing this column in the solitude of my office, she has once again, and without permission, changed the television chan- nel from The Price is Right to the satellite channel that features Christmas music 24 hours a day. I've heard "White Christmas" performed by Bing Crosby, Little Jimmy Dickens, Rosemary Clooney, Tiny Tim, The Back Street Boys, Brenda Lee, The Doors, and my per- sonal favorite, Morris Taylor. I no longer go to the bathroom during 49ers games lest I will once again be preempted with the sound of "Oh Come, All Ye Faithful" as she changes my channel. Worse yet is her obses- sion with Christmas movies. Do you know that the Hall- mark Channel has televised 93 Christmas movies this year alone? I am pretty sure Bil- lie has seen every single one of them. A few minutes ago I passed by as Billie was eat- ing bonbons and watching a movie titled " Christmas with Ma and Pa Kettle." To each his own, but my personal list of worth- while Christmas mov- ies starts and stops with "Miracle on 34th Street," "It's a Wonderful Life," "Elf" and the "Griswold Family Christmas." I am also pleased to report that for the past sev- eral years we have been the proud owners of a better- than-real 12-foot fireproof ar- tificial Christmas tree featur- ing 2,200 blinking color-coor- dinated lights with a musical option to play jingle bells or have Santa say "ho-ho-ho" ev- ery 30 seconds. The tree is ab- solutely beautiful, as it should be in that it is decorated with a couple hundred individually handcrafted ornaments from all over the world that collec- tively cost more than our very first home. You should see our mas- sive Christmas Village spread throughout the house. You would think you were some- place in New England with all the churches, ice-covered ponds, general stores, tiny people, tiny dogs, tiny cats and horse-drawn sleighs and buggies. It's truly amazing what one can create by hav- ing taken advantage of the af- ter-Christmas sales at Fran's Hallmark year after year af- ter year. You should see our out- door display with hanging ici- cle lights, a live manger scene, a half dozen lighted reindeer on the roof, a blow-up Santa Claus, a blow-up Grinch, and a magnificent Christmas wreath that adorns the property gate designed to keep the rest of the world away from our front door. And you should see our Christmas flatware, glasses, cups, napkins, sheets, paja- mas, underwear, stockings and toilet paper that, individ- ually and collectively, fill me with so much Christmas cheer. If there is a silver lining to Christmas at the Cornelius', it is that hauling all this Christ- mas crap down out of the attic every November only to make 20 or 30 trips back up to put it away again in February keeps me in great shape and allows me to look about 20 years younger than I really am. I better get back out to my couch before she turns off my basketball game in fa- vor of some sappy old Christ- mas movie. Merry Christmas to you all. •••• This Friday, Dec. 18 the Te- hama County Concert Series will be bringing the highly popular North State Sympho- ny's 2015 Holiday Chamber Concert to the historic State Theatre. As a special treat our good friends at Dignity Health will be holding a pre- show reception in the the- ater lobby with complimen- tary hot chocolate, cider and a variety of Christmas good- ies. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and $30 tickets are available at the box office. This special holiday concert is not to be missed. 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 The ghost of Christmas perpetuity Cartoonist's take Open enrollment is making me miserable. Like millions of self-em- ployed Americans who have been buying their own health insurance for years, my pol- icy, which I had liked and wanted to keep, has nearly doubled in cost since Obam- acare became law. What a fine policy mine was. I purchased it in 2005 when I moved back to Pittsburgh. It gave me broad access to lots of doctors and my maximum out- of-pocket cost could not exceed $1,500 a year. But Obamacare mucked it all up. First, I got a letter telling me my policy was canceled for fail- ure to meet Obamacare guide- lines. "If you like your insur- ance, you can keep your in- surance" my eye! A few weeks later, though, the policy was re- instated for reasons neither I nor my insurer could ever fig- ure out. For the moment I was happy. Sure, the premium had gone up 35 percent, but at least I got to keep the policy. But for 2016, the premium jumped an- other $100 per month. Obam- acare will "cut the cost of a typ- ical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year," said the Presi- dent. Yeah, and I am the King of England. So, for the past two weeks, I've been logging many hours searching for lower-cost alter- natives. I went to the Obamacare ex- change and entered my infor- mation. The good news is that there are lots of plans that have monthly premiums lower than my current plan. The bad news is that the deductible costs are about $6,500 a year — $5,000 more than my current arrange- ment. In fact, to find a policy sim- ilar to what I have, I'd have to purchase the "gold" level, which is $200 to $300 more than the high premium I am paying now. So I looked into non-profit healthcare cost sharing minis- tries — faith-based organiza- tions through which members voluntarily share each other's medical bills. Rather than pay a monthly premium to an insur- ance company, members send in a monthly "gift" at signifi- cantly less cost. Consider: A bronze plan for UPMC in Pittsburgh has a $6,500 deductible and a $300 monthly premium. A bronze plan for Christian Healthcare Ministries has a $5,000 deduct- ible and a $45 monthly cost — that's right, only $45. There is no foolproof guar- antee that such ministries will cover a member's medical costs — they are not required to keep a reserve — and they don't cover preexisting conditions or the outcome of non-Chris- tian behavior, such as out-of- wedlock pregnancy. However, they've been around for decades and members report extremely high levels of satisfaction. If I go that route, I may also consider accident and indem- nity insurance for added pro- tection. An accident policy would pay a fixed amount if I suffer an injury to cover the cost of an ambulance ride or a hospital stay. An indemnity pol- icy would cover me in the event of a serious health ailment, such as a stroke or a heart at- tack — both of which are likely now that Obamacare is legal. The truth is I'm not sure what I am going to do, but it ag- itates me to no end that I, and millions of others, have to work so hard to devise an affordable health insurance strategy. Obamacare has completely upended a system that the vast majority of Americans were happy with — drastically in- creasing our costs — in order to expand insurance coverage, says Forbes, to only 2.7 percent more Americans. That's madness. We could have expanded coverage to the small number of newly insured — the poor and those with pre- existing conditions — without disrupting one-sixth of the U.S. economy. That's why open enroll- ment is making me miserable. It's more like open season on healthcare consumers. 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 Open season on healthcare consumers Bill Cornelius Tom Purcell Judging by his prime-time speech last week, the final year of Barack Obama's presidency will be marked by increased militarism abroad and authori- tarianism at home. The center- piece of the president's speech was his demand for a new law forbidding anyone on the fed- eral government's terrorist watch list from purchasing a firearm. There has never been a mass shooter who was on the terrorist watch list, so this pro- posal will not increase security. However, it will decrease lib- erty. Federal officials can have an American citizen placed on the terrorist watch list based solely on their suspicions that the in- dividual might be involved in terrorist activity. Individuals placed on the list are not in- formed that they have been la- beled as suspected terrorists, much less given an opportunity to challenge that designation, until a Transportation Secu- rity Administration agent stops them from boarding a plane. Individuals can be placed on the list if their Facebook or Twitter posts seem "suspicious" to a federal agent. You can also be placed on the list if your be- havior somehow suggests that you are a "representative" of a terrorist group (even if you have no associations with any ter- rorist organizations). Individu- als can even be put on the list because the FBI wants to in- terview them about friends or family members! Thousands of Americans, in- cluding several members of Congress and many employees of the Department of Homeland Security, have been mistakenly placed on the terrorist watch list. Some Americans are placed on the list because they hap- pen to have the same names as terrorist suspects. Those mis- takenly placed on the terror- ist watch list must go through a lengthy "redress" process to clear their names. It is likely that some Amer- icans are on the list solely be- cause of their political views and activities. Anyone who doubts this should consider the long history of federal agencies, such as the IRS and the FBI, using their power to harass political movements that challenge the status quo. Are the American people really so desperate for the illusion of security that they will support a law that results in some Americans losing their Second Amendment rights be- cause of a bureaucratic error or because of their political beliefs? President Obama is also pre- paring an executive order ex- panding the federal back- ground check system. Expand- ing background checks will not keep guns out of the hands of criminals or terrorists. How- ever, it will make obtaining a firearm more difficult for those needing, for example, to de- fend themselves against abusive spouses. Sadly, many who understand that new gun control laws will leave us less free and less safe support expanding the surveil- lance state. Like those promot- ing gun control, people calling for expanded surveillance do not let facts deter their efforts to take more of our liberties. There is no evidence that mass surveillance has prevented even one terrorist attack. Ron Paul is a former Congressman and Presidential candidate. He can be reached at VoicesofLiberty.com. Ron Paul If you want security, pursue liberty OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Wednesday, December 16, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6