Time to start with diplomacy
The Iraq Study Group”s recommendation for broad regional diplomacy — including with Iran and Syria — is a necessary step toward bringing our troops home from Iraq. This is Bush”s big mistake and where he must change first.
The ball is in President Bush”s court now. He needs to start the diplomacy and soon. Only the president can engage in diplomacy. If he fails to act it will be harder to bring our troops home and the loss of life will get worse.
The United States has always engaged in diplomacy; we talked with the U.S.S.R. all the time during the Cold War. We talked with China. James Baker, the Republican co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, got it right when he said, “you talk with your enemies.”
If President Bush doesn”t act, the new Congress should hold his feet to the fire. Democrats were elected with a mandate to figure out how to bring our troops home. Diplomacy is an essential part of making that happen.
Russ Rubin
Hidden Valley Lake
County is responsible for CSA2”s building moratorium
At the Spring Valley CSA2 meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 12, Lake County”s Special District Administrator, Mark Dellinger, stated that 31 more homes will be built in Spring Valley during the building moratorium that has been in place since Sept. 5, 2006. The moratorium was imposed due to a water emergency that placed the residents of Spring Valley in danger due to Health and Safety reasons.
At the hearing in Lakeport on Sept.15, the Board of Supervisors declared the health danger was due to lack of potable water for the residents, and the safety danger was due to lack of water to fight fires. Now the County is telling us there will be no increased danger if 31 more homes are added to the system. Is there really a danger or not?
Spring Valley property owners are paying hundreds of dollars over their average water bill, due to the punitive surcharge imposed by the County due to the serious nature of the emergency.
In every expansion of the Spring Valley water system until this last one, an automatic building moratorium took place when the last home that could be accommodated was built. No homes would be allowed to be built until the water system was expanded again.
The Board of Supervisors and the Special Districts didn”t do their job. Now they are taking punitive actions against the Spring Valley homeowners, who had nothing whatsoever to do with the issuing of almost 100 building permits that weren”t supposed to be allowed, while taking no responsibility for the situation themselves.
Something else has also happened that appears to be a motive for all this chaos created by the County. The Board of Supervisors just took a vote, and declared themselves to be the owners of the Spring Valley water system, an asset worth at least $25 million, without any documentation whatsoever.
I have stated in writing, and in person that the Board of Supervisors were trying to steal our water system for more than two years. It appears I am right, and this latest action shows that it is very likely the water emergency crisis was contrived by the Supervisors as a cover for the biggest government theft in the history of Lake County.
Don Scott
Clearlake Oaks
Weekly paper isn”t enough
I”m just writing to say that I am upset that the publisher of the Clear Lake Observer*American/Lake County Record-Bee has diminished publication of the Observer*American to one issue per week. It feels insulting that the publisher feels the City of Clearlake is not worthy of more attention than that.
Not only has the number of issues been cut, but so have some of my favorite features, such as the police log.?
I report the daily temperatures, lake level and rainfall amounts for the Observer*American, but my heart isn”t in it because I feel the publisher, by knocking down the issues to one day a week, is phasing out the Observer*American, and soon we will have no newspaper at all. This is not fair to the city of Clearlake at all. Nor is it fair to the local merchants who have had their advertising media cut in half and to the consumers who rely on ads for shopping. Also, our weekly newspaper TV Spotlight is gone. The City of Clearlake has been, news-reporting wise, short sheeted by the publisher.
If you don”t want to be bothered with the Clearlake newspaper, then why not sell it to someone who would give us the time and reporting space we need/want?
Elizabeth Arndt
Clearlake
Editor”s Note: Research by newsroom staffers has determined that the Clear Lake Observer*American was a weekly publication for most of its 70-plus years. The Clear Lake Observer debuted in November 1935 and was published once a week until the mid-1980s. It was published twice a week for approximately 20 years and in May 2006 it resumed weekly publication. Rest assured that newsroom staffers will continue compiling the police log.
Where is the faith in music?
Faith has all but disappeared from popular music. Young people don”t want God in their pop-rock, anymore. Trying to find God on MTV is like looking for a virgin in a brothel. He”s being sectored into Gospel music and church hymnals. God is to go to Church and stay there.
Not too long ago, Americans turned on their radios and could hear God”s name every day. They listened to songs like, “He”s Got the Whole World in His Hands” and enjoyed lyrics of sensational rebels like Joan Baez, “May God”s blessings keep you always,” in “Forever Young.” Simon and Garfunkel found fame singing, “Go Tell It on the Mountain … Jesus Christ Is Born” on popular nationwide tours. The Bryds created a complete hit song from Bible verses of Ecclesiastes, “Turn, Turn, Turn …”
Unfortunately, times have changed. God is no longer wanted in popular music. Nobody knows why. Some say it”s part of a larger trend. The whole country is losing Faith; maybe, the whole world. Increasingly, people don”t want God in their schools, courthouses, newspapers, or work places, anymore. Philosopher Ann Coulter says, everyone is joining the new “godless church of liberalism.” Others blame a growing spirit of the anti-Christ (darkness grows and squeezes God and the Bible out of everyday life).
Whatever their reason, it”s quite clear: Writers and performers of popular music have slid backwards and lost all common decency. Bawdy Janet Jackson bared her breast to 40 million viewers at a Super Bowl half time show. Brassy Brittany Spears coarsely flashed her “baby factory” to the whole world getting out of a limo without underwear. George Michael, Elton John, and many others, are openly homosexual. There”s never been, in one profession, so many immoral women and perverted men. It”s no surprise: They don”t want God in their music.
Darrell Watkins
Kelseyville
Call it low food security,” but hunger is still hunger
The Department of Agriculture recently announced that it would remove the word “hunger” from reports on the nation”s food supply. Instead, it announced that it would use “low food security” or “very low food security” in its reports. I have written to Secretary of Agriculture Michael Johanns to express my displeasure over this change.
Officials at the Department of Agriculture report that the change in labels was not a plot to try to disguise or mask hunger in America. Instead, they claim that “hunger” is too amorphous a phrase to describe “a potential consequence of food insecurity that, because of prolonged, involuntary lack of food, results in discomfort, illness, weakness or pain that goes beyond the usual uneasy sensation.”
However, I believe that most Americans are acutely aware of the meaning of “hunger.” As I said in my letter to Secretary Johanns, “Replacing hunger” with the phrase low food security” degrades the seriousness of the daily struggle with hunger facing millions of Americans and undermines the important work of food banks and homeless shelters in combating hunger.”
Last year, the total number of Americans without regular access to food actually decreased by 3 million, but 35 million still lacked adequate food supplies.
Hunger is still a serious problem in our nation, and changing the name will not change this fact. You can count on me to continue to support good programs such as the Food Stamp Program, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, the National School Lunch Program and the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Program to reduce hunger in our nation.
Barbara Boxer
U.S. Senator for the State of California
