We always clearly label Opinion Columns to ensure they won’t be mistaken for news. Our Op-Ed writers apply their professional expertise to our community’s unique challenges to promote innovative thought and encourage healthy discourse.
Troy Hawkins, a longtime Redding resident and patron of Club 501, shares some of his poignant memories of the bar many affectionately called “the 5,” and describes what its recent closure means to many of its loyal customers.
Societal issues emerge through a confluence of societal factors shaped by individuals. We exist in communities, we share society, and together, we make America what it is. That’s why effective solutions to the social problem of mass shootings must address the interconnected societal factors that lead to gun violence.
Stigma around abortion ends when we can talk about it like any other health care choice we make for ourselves – a surgery, a biopsy, physical therapy, a pill. Compassion emerges on both sides when abortion is associated with the faces and names of people you know, love, and care about.
Meth gave me the voice that I needed to be heard, the look I needed to be seen, the strength to be fearless, and the power to be strong. I honored and respected meth for what it gave me! Meth controlled every iota of my life. Meth was my mother, father, brother, sister, adviser, friend, and lover. Meth told me where to go, what to do, and how to do. I did not move unless meth said so.
Opinion writer Susanne Baremore says that a recent closed session performance evaluation of Public Health Officer Karen Ramstrom is a form of harassment that is out of line with accepted policy and practice. Drawing attention to how Ramstrom has appropriately fulfilled her role in the county, Baremore calls on the Supervisors to fulfill theirs, by learning to govern as a body, while maintaining their individual perspectives, in service to their community.
Put simply, finding fault is easy. Doing the work you’ve criticized, isn’t.
After losing someone she loves to suicide this fall, Sharon Brisolara reminds the community of the dangers of stigma and the power of acceptance. The words we use, including our choice to use appropriate pronouns, are powerful. Brisolara explains why.
We, the undocumented youth of America are living on borrowed time. We are neither from here nor there. We are wanderers in perpetual purgatory and yet we dream of the highest heavens. But as the well-known phrase goes, “they tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.” And so, we rise.
Connor Yiamkis, a language educator and member of the Pit River tribe, is working to revitalize the Pit River language which the American government and churches tried to strip from his people during the Indian boarding school era. Citing research that language revitalization is centrally important to cultural expression, suicide prevention, and relationships with people and the land, Yiamkis argues that the American government should significantly increase funding for language revitalization.
In this era of information silos and distrust of sources that seem to offer political views different from our own, the purpose of remembrance can also be to assert that events actually happened and that they were significant.
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