Opinion

April 2, 2013 — Sometimes my morning gets off to a really steamy start, and my blood pressure soars right off the chart. I generally begin my day at the Times with a quick review of items reported by several news outlets — regional and national — just to get a feel for what’s happening out there in the real world beyond Susanville. Last Tuesday was no exception.

Then I came across a story from the Redding Record Searchlight regarding a townhall meeting the night before featuring our congressman Doug LaMalfa at the Destiny Fellowship Church that really got the veins on my forehead bulging. According to the story, the Redding Tea Party had arranged the townhall meeting with the congressman and then announced its membership had adopted rules regarding what the media could report.

April 2, 2013 — For the past two years I’ve been participating in Lassen County’s Lit Jam by holding a travel writing workshop, one of many workshops offered during the one-day event.                 

Last year I was new to Lit Jam and didn’t really know what to expect. This year I found myself looking forward to it, and wasn’t disappointed last Wednesday, March 27.

It’s probably no surprise writing is a practice near and dear to my heart, and it’s stimulating to be around so many people who love words. Reading through the workshop descriptions alone was enough to ignite the creative spark and I wish I could have attended some of them.

April 2, 2013 — Lassen County District 2 Supervisor Jim Chapman and local forester Phil Nemir have been pressing the Lassen County Fire Safe Council for more information regarding its financial statements at recent board meetings.

At its March 26 meeting the board, by a 3-1 vote approved sending a letter to the Fire Safe Council seeking additional information relating to how Title III grant money in Lassen County was spent.

The board found the original draft of the letter a bit intimidating and made several corrections including making its request to the Fire Safe Council and not Tom Esgate, its executive director who also serves as a contractor and a grant writer.

March 26, 2013  — I received many responses from both sides of the issue to the two pieces I wrote last week about the TEA Party meeting where the dangers of the United Nations’ Agenda 21 were discussed. One was straight reporting; the other was opinion. Some folks loved them, and some folks didn’t. No one seemed to be on the fence.

For example, I found an email waiting for me first thing Tuesday morning that contained the subject line “Plllleeeeaaaassssseeee.”

On Wednesday, an elderly woman called and subscribed to the paper because of the TEA Party story. Later that day an elderly man called and praised me for the freedom of speech stance I expressed in the My Turn I wrote.

Another reader called and said he couldn’t believe the era of “censorship” at the newspaper had ended and it was finally printing “the truth” about this important issue. He referred me to a website that just today (March 21) outed Obama as “the head of Al Qaeda worldwide.” (I couldn’t locate the story he wanted me to read — something about armed Russian guards in American military uniforms protecting an United Nations Agenda 21 preserve in the southern United States).