Opinion

It has been 10 years since planes carrying Al Qaeda members on a suicide mission put fear in our hearts and changed our routine forever.

Sept. 6, 2011 — I could hardly believe that the newspaper was planning on covering the 10^th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Flight 93.

I kept thinking it couldn’t have been a decade.

But, I have my own timeline living with me. Let me explain — Sept. 11, 1994 I was blessed with the birth of my youngest of three daughters.

Aug. 30, 2011 — It has gotten to the point that everything anyone says is scrutinized to the degree that apologies are expected if someone disagrees or seems offended. What has happened to being allowed to speak your mind without feeling ostracized?

Around Aug. 19, a Florida teacher was suspended by the Lake County School Board for posting on Facebook that he didn’t agree with New York wanting to pass gay marriage laws. He actually said he nearly vomited and if people didn’t like his postbased on Biblical principles to unfriend him. On Aug. 24, the school board reinstated him and exonerated him after a weeklong investigation.

Aug. 30, 2011 — President Obama said after Labor Day he plans to unveil a new jobs proposal. Cautiously optimistic, we hope his plan will include ways to generate new employment opportunities for the more than 8 percent of Americans who are out of work.  It may include an extension of unemployment benefits, which unfortunately too many people have come to rely on to make it from month-to-month.

If anything could get worse, independent sources are now saying that unemployment numbers will stay high until 2014. Lassen County was topping near 12 percent unemployment rates at the beginning of the summer.