Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/722928
Ihavebeenoutoftownfor over ten days, enjoying the green venue of Wisconsin, its rain, lightning and thunder, and most of all my two grandsons. There was a lot to take in dur- ing those ten plus days, and many of those things begin with "B." First there was the "brat," that is the frat brat. Ryan Lochte, an Olympic hero of sorts, who is just three years short of being old enough, though not necessarily ma- ture enough, to run for Presi- dent. Lochte showed us that he never learned how to be forth- right about his actions, how to tell the truth, or how to apol- ogize when making mistakes. In some ways he just may be in training for running for Presi- dent in 2020 or beyond. His ac- tions do reflect some candidates we see on the news. Of course in Wisconsin there is another kind of brat, one that gets grilled and is thick and juicy, often served with a popular beverage that begins with "B". That would be beer, of course, and we were treated to a wide variety of beers during our stay. We had several vari- ations of shandy, from grape- fruit to orange and to lemon. We had chocolate flavored beer, hearty stout, IPA, Octoberfest variations, lagers and ales. Of course you can't visit Wis- consin on Fridays without par- taking in a fish fry which in- cluded beer battered fish, potato pancakes, and deep fried cheese curds, all served with a wide va- riety of rye breads (another "B" word) and beer. We had several kinds of rye bread, marbled, dark, and salt among others. Another "B" word in the news this last several days has been bigot. It is now being ban- died about by the two ma- jor party Presidential candi- dates who do not seem to know how to get their campaigns out of the gutter. One candidate who wouldn't rent to African American people is now tell- ing that community that things will even get worse for it un- der Democratic leadership. The other candidate points out the obvious flaws in her opponents' opinions and actions, but offers no road forward while she deals with other issues. This whole contest reminds me of another "B" word that goes between slices of bread. Another "B" word in the news was "burkini," a recently manu- factured word that describes a swimming suit Muslim women wear to preserve their modesty. It seems the French, who gave us the bikini, Bridget Bardot, and erotica do not want women of Islamic faith to cover up on the beach. There has been no French reaction to the habits nuns wear, however. The con- cern about the "burkini" alleg- edly had something to do with making a terrorist threat if I understand the "reasoning" cor- rectly, or it may just have to do with male curiosity for all I know. French courts have over- turned the" burkini" ban, but have not erased the embarrass- ment French reactionaries have caused their beloved nation. My trip to Wisconsin started in Red Bluff where I caught an- other "B" word, the Greyhound Bus to Sacramento. I had not been on a Greyhound for many years; and I believe the last time was on a chartered bus that was clean and had good uphol- stery. This bus did not fit that description. The seats were nar- rower than economy class air- plane seats, the floor was dirty, the bathroom was not properly ventilated, and many of the pas- sengers used variations on the "F" word that I had not heard before, even in the Army. Some passengers were going as far as North Carolina, and many would be on the bus for at least two days. I felt good to only ex- perience three hours of mild discomfort. I told my grandsons that the sites and the scents of the bus trip were interesting. We spent some time reading books, another "B" word with our grandchildren. One of the most interesting interchanges was with my 4-year-old, Zach, was about almonds. Zach is fairly comfortable with pho- nics, and he could not help cor- recting me as I pronounced "al- monds" as if it didn't have an "l." Rather than tell him that the "l" had been lost in harvesting, I told him we pronounced some words differently in Northern California just as they do in Wisconsin. His response was, "That's a joke grandpa?" JoeHarropisaretired educator with more than 30 years of service to the North State. He can be reached at DrJoeHarrop@sbcglobal.net. JoeHarrop Therearelots of 'B's' to think about lately Zach is fairly comfortable with phonics, and he could not help correcting me as I pronounced 'almonds' as if it didn't have an 'l.' Anti-Jeffersonletterlacks common sense Editor: Who is Janice Stout? Cer- tainly not a supporter of the State of Jefferson movement, and certainly not someone who understands our movement. Why is she making up all these crazy ideas? Sovereign Citizens Move- ment? I've never heard of it, and certainly not part of Jefferson. She is correct that not all of the 23 counties that have de- clared support for the State of Jefferson have had formal votes of the people in those coun- ties, nor the vote of the county supervisors. No one has ever claimed that. However, when supervisors refuse to discuss the subject or vote on it, as in Shasta County, the people spoke up and voted by virtue of signing petitions to support the movement. Is there something she sees wrong with we the people making their dis- content heard? We don't think so. The constitution was writ- ten to protect the rights of the people from an over reaching government. And yes, we do feel that we are "making the idea of a split from the State of California come across as resembling some kind of lifeboat to rescue the doomed," because the counties of Northern California are doomed if we continue to be controlled by the liberals in Los Angeles and San Francisco, who don't understand rural communities. Our resolve is definitely to create a new, sovereign state that brings control back to our rural counties. Our constitution allows for this. But we are not seceding from the union and so Jefferson would follow the con- stitution, not "tear the entire document to shreds." Undoing democracy? Come on, this is what democracy is all about. It's the Bizarro world in Sacramento that is ignoring rural California and usurping our rights. Instead of all the crazy rhet- oric that Ms. Stout espouses, people should consider get- ting more common sense infor- mation from the "fast talking guy," assuming she is referring to Mark Baird, at SoJ51.net. No doubt, only people who recog- nize common sense will appre- ciate our position, as the phrase common sense was not men- tioned in Ms. Stout's letter. — John Ward, Red Bluff Hope Chest dumping must stop Editor: Once again the Hope Chest Thrift Store is being inundated with garbage. Apparently, some people of Red Bluff do not have garbage service, so, they bring their household waste to our store and dump it in the dumpster. If the dumpster is full, which it often is, they simply dump it on the sidewalk. We go through the bags and look for mail or anything which may identify the culprit. This information is given to Red Bluff Police De- partment for follow up. Why not simply lock the dumpster you say, well, we tried this only to have them remove the hinge pin, flip the lids over the front and gain access that way. We have tried a camera, only to have it stolen during a recent break-in. While we appreciate receiving clean, usable items, we do not need old TVs, couches with no cushions or broken dishwashers. So please, if you are donat- ing, do so during store hours, which are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 4 p.m. Saturday. If items are left by the back door they are often gone through and we find them strewn from the back door to the corner. This all has to be picked up by the workers. We will soon be starting a renovation at the store, which will require us to close the store for about one week around the second week of Septem- ber. Therefore, in order to gain space we will not be accepting donations from about Sept. 1 to Oct. 1, we appreciate your coop- eration during this time. Dates will be posted on both doors and also on Facebook. We truly appreciate your do- nations and patronage over the past 51 years, without our loyal customers we would not be in business. — Lucretia Betts, Red Bluff Easy to predict outcome of election Editor: I'm no prophet even if a fel- low church member was con- vinced that I was a few decades ago. I had congratulated him for fathering a new life. Only thing was, he nor she knew anything about it yet. Well there wasn't any psychic powers involved. I simply over- heard other women saying how his wife looked pregnant. Pre- dicting the sex of his new arrival really convinced him. That just happened to be a lucky guess. It doesn't take any special powers to see the outcome of this presidential race either. Unless she drops dead before election day, Hillary Rodham Clinton will be our new presi- dent. If this was a true democ- racy the outcome would be a mite harder to predict but since we're governed by an oligarchy it's a cinch. This is in no way an en- dorsement, as a matter of fact I would prefer to see Jill Stein of the Green Party put into that of- fice. Unfortunately, our masters only give us two choices, either a psychopathic narcissist or a crooked politician. Since the lat- ter is easier to work with there is no doubt Hillary will reign this next presidential cycle. If you don't think she can rig the next election as easily as she rigged the primaries, you're in la la land. How many criminal acts has she been accused of? And she is still five points ahead of Trump in the polls. — Orval Strong, Gerber Your opinions Cartoonist's take I continually hear that a ma- jor cause of poverty and crime, especially in the poor neighbor- hoods, is fatherless households raising children who will con- tinue to create more fatherless households. Our prisons are full of felons, mostly minorities from ghettos and fatherless households. Those recently released and soon to be arrested children, products, of these fatherless households have inadequate education and no em- ployable skills. Billions of dollars are spent each year on law en- forcement and incarceration to at- tempt to minimize the symptoms of high crime rates caused by fel- ons from fatherless households. But little is spent to eliminate the cause — fatherless households. Fatherless households are of- ten run by single mothers re- ceiving public aid in the form of food stamps, welfare, sub- sidized housing, etc. Should it be found that a man is liv- ing with one of these mothers, she jeopardizes her public wel- fare. Thus, our system unwit- tingly promotes and subsidizes fatherless households. What future is open to a man whose natural tendencies are to want to be a father to his chil- dren and head of his household. Yet he is unemployed and be- ing with his family would cause them financial harm? Could it be gangs or drugs? This seems a little nuts to me. The best option to correct this self-perpetuating curse on our society would be to pro- mote a society of fully func- tional families with fathers. One unfortunate fact we need to consider is that this sit- uation did not evolve in a sin- gle generation. Nobody has taught many these families how to be, or become a functional family, or what it is like to live in a functional family and re- solve differences peacefully. It might take a generation or more to become successful, but clearly if we keep going the way we are going, it will keep get- ting worse, not better. This will happen no matter how much is spent to treat the symptoms. Face it, today is the first day of the rest of our lives. Today is not too late to start eliminating the fatherless household problem. What if men who wanted to change their lives and become responsible fathers would be provided help to do so? Perhaps the necessity of some arrests, court cases, incarcerations and ruined lives? If a man and his family met these qualifications he could live in a household and be considered a part of that family and the fi- nancial aid to the family would not be reduced, except perhaps for a small portion of the man's income, no more than 50 percent. He would need to be drug free, mama too; a combina- tion of employed part or full time, good student or volun- teer and receiving monitoring via weekly parent training and family counseling. I believe it would promote better employment opportuni- ties; family education involve- ment with and for their chil- dren; family community involve- ment and family pride. I am a business man, fa- ther of seven, product of a sta- ble family with a dad. My chil- dren are all functional members of society. Most of what I know of the above I have read about and learned from TV. None the less, though I could write a book on the many things to consider and systems to put in place, put most simply, it just makes sense that fatherless families, and families with dysfunctional fa- thers too, exacerbate the prob- lem high crime and poverty. Thus, our priorities should be to spend our money converting as many fatherless households into functional families as we can. From a financial standpoint, I be- lieve we would save billions in the long run, but most important, save thousands of lives. And re- member, all lives matter. George Sigalas is an insurance broker who lives in Tehama. George Sigalas How to make a difference in our poorer communities GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIAL BOARD 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, 728Main St., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS By George Sigalas Joe Harrop OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Saturday, September 3, 2016 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6