Opinion

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.

Aug. 23, 2011 — Recently, the board of Supervisors has been tackling a bevy of issues that has been distracting the elected body from doing the work constituents elected it to do.

It is not unusual for a new member of an elected body to have the drive and excitement when he or she sees a problem for the first time and wants to tackle it head on. What is disconcerting is when the elected supervisor thinks he is the only one who can fix a problem that has too many ifs, ands and buts to it by chastising his fellow board members or taking on the issue single-handedly.

Aug. 16, 2011 — As we approach the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we are reminded not only how resilient Americans are, but also how al Qaeda has opened our eyes to the realization that its objective is to destroy the United States.

That fateful day shook all Americans to their very core and just as older citizens can remember where they were when President John F. Kennedy was shot and how they felt when they heard the news, we can remember where we were and how we felt when the attack on America began. We can remember when the first plane hit the first Twin Tower in New York City, then the second. We remember how we felt when the Pentagon got hit and when the plane crashed in the Pennsylvania field.