Opinion

                  Ah, I love the smell of “off the record” in the morning. It smells like … journalism! Well, sort of.

                  Last week in this space I took exception to the Redding Tea Party’s establishment of rules that would not allow the Redding media to report on the question-and-answer session during its townhall meeting with U.S. Congressman Doug LaMalfa. They said that portion of the meeting was “off the record.” I also wrote the Redding media and the congressman should not have gone along with the Redding Tea Party’s attempt at prior restraint — that is controlling a news source’s content before it is published or broadcast.

                April 9, 2013 — Lassen County residents who follow our local judicial system and are interested in witnessing spectacular developments in local politics firsthand should have an interesting couple of days at the courthouse next week. The court’s decision in one case could allow a recall election of District 5 Supervisor Jack Hanson to move forward. And the court’s decision in a second case involves the risk of at least $1 million of taxpayer money.

                  First up is the matter of a request for a writ of mandate filed last summer by South County resident Tom Hammond seeking an order from the court to compel the Lassen County Clerk to accept 70 pages of recall petitions the county rejected because the clerk said the proponents used a form that had been previously rejected. The clerk is adamant she clearly rejected the form, directed the recall proponents to make corrections and told them they could not use that form.

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.