Letters to the editor - 1/9/05
By: Readers of the North County Times and The Californian | ∞
Four to blame for Oceanside council fiasco
It makes me laugh to continually read letters in this newspaper blaming Rocky Chavez and Jack Feller for the special election and lack of appointment, as if Jim Wood and Esther Sanchez had nothing to do with the matter.
Yes, Chavez and Feller voted against Wood's and Sanchez's candidate, Shari Mackin. But Wood and Sanchez voted against Chavez's recommendations. It just gets a little silly when people try to blame one side or another.
I actually blame all of them. In all the years of (living in) Oceanside, I have never seen such a politically driven council. Instead of putting their beliefs aside, all of them went in their own direction.
Wood and Sanchez were wrong for not even evaluating other possibilities. Chavez and Feller didn't give Mackin much of a chance from the get-go.
I just think it is time for all of the council to step up and stop attacking each other. Everyone talks about how bad Terry Johnson was for the city. Well, he is gone now, yet the problems still exist. Maybe it wasn't just Johnson who was bad for the city.
DAVID W. REESE
Oceanside
San Diego's small mayor
The final review of ballots cast in the San Diego mayoral race shows that there were easily enough write-in votes for Donna Frye to have unseated Dick Murphy -- if they had been counted. Technically, of course, those 5,547 votes cannot be counted because the bubble next to the name was not darkened by the voter. Splitting hairs, yes -- but lawyers love that stuff and, of course, Dick Murphy was a lawyer and a judge himself.
What I do find sickening, however, is the interview Dick Murphy gave on local television in which he stated, "How can you know what a voter's intent was if they didn't fill in the bubble?" Come on, Mr. Mayor. What possible intent could the voter have had when they took the trouble to write in Donna Frye's name?
I have no doubt that Dick Murphy will hold on to his job -- but I have to say that a bigger man would have acknowledged the intent of the voters and stepped aside.
ROBERT F. GREEN
Fallbrook
Keep Social Security rock-solid safe
Privatizing Social Security is a just another Bush idea to redistribute this retirement insurance policy away from our working families who've paid into the system and deserve its financial protection and into the pockets of eager Wall Street investment brokers.
This idea seemed to become popular during the stock market boom of the last decade when it was hard to invest and not make a profit. Those days are gone and the reality has sunk in that investing is still gambling. There will be some winners, but probably more losers.
Most people don't have the time or resources to research their investments properly. Will we have to create a new safety net for the ones that go bust? Social Security should be rock-solid safe, not a poker chip.
SCOTT CURRIER
Poway
Eminent domain should be last resort
The possibility that the Escondido Unified High School District may exercise eminent domain to acquire property is an outrage. The people who own homes and property in those affected areas made that choice not only because they wanted to achieve the American dream of homeownership, but also because they wanted to establish a certain quality of life for themselves. One of rural living that is extremely difficult to find in San Diego County.
For the high school district to even consider forcing families from their homes contradicts our society's inherent right to choose. Those families affected made a choice to purchase, build and maintain their homes and property. That land is obviously taken and the district needs to look elsewhere.
While all responsible adults would agree that high schools are a necessity and that we are in need of a new one in the Escondido area, it needs to be realized that the eminent domain process was established as a last resort for property acquisition. It was not established as an option to obtain private property as a cheap resort.
IVAN JOSEPH BENSON
Escondido
We need to ease the plight of illegal parrots
On Dec. 22, a number of illegal parrots were deported to Mexico from San Diego for being illegally smuggled into the U.S. Here is my response to the rights of these illegal parrots. The White House needs to get involved immediately to protect the rights of these illegal parrots.
This nation would not have illegal parrots flooding across our borders if we didn't have illegal parrot immigration laws.
This country needs to have a safe and humane parrot immigration policy so that these parrots do not use forged documents, get smuggled or die flying over the border to experience the American parrot way of life.
We also need to have a program where willing parrots can be matched with willing pet stores to become pets, which American parrots do not want to be.
We need to offer earned legal status for all illegal parrots that now reside in America.
Contact the president. Tell him you want Congress to enact laws that allow illegal parrots from Mexico the same freedoms and rights that American parrots now enjoy.
RAY CARNEY
Fallbrook
Civil right to kill or maim?
I started to read Mr. John Van Doorn's Jan. 5 diatribe against red-light cameras spying and taking pictures of people recklessly barreling through the intersection against the red light.
I stopped reading when he claimed that it was a violation of this person's civil rights. Does Mr. Van Doorn really advocate that it is OK to put anyone in the path of this violator in imminent danger under the banner of the lawbreaker's civil rights? Talk about convoluted thinking.
If any of Mr. Van Doorn's family or friends were to be victims of this exercising of civil rights driver, I venture to say he would be singing a different tune.
PHIL EPSTEIN
Oceanside
Ready to impeach Bush, Cheney
It's never too late to impeach Bush-Cheney
First, the conspiratorial tragedy of Sept. 11, now the second slaughter of Americans unfolds. If you missed it, Osama bin Laden struck again; 1,450 dead Americans, Americans' missing body parts and 20,000 med-evacs. His grand strategy worked. Attacking America's home ground drew a willing naive president into a strategic ambush. Iraq is a killing ground; that's the way ambushes work.
The administration's suggesting the U.S. is winning is preposterous. The quicksand beckons; lives, resources and credibility are being wasted. Osama is winning. Iraq is on the threshold of a civil war.
The president's claim is foolish that America cannot pull up stakes and withdraw, bad only for those who believe it. Evacuating Vietnam didn't stop invading Iraq. How many dead Americans did it take to admit Vietnam was a bad war? A recent Bush interview intimated we have a lot of dead Americans to go. It's not our war. Support the troops, bring them home now.
Who is responsible for killing 100,000 innocent Iraqis? There is no justification for the continued killings in Iraq.
It's never too late to impeach Bush-Cheney.
WILLIAM DREU
Vista
Are two Letters sections necessary?
While I applaud the North County Times for its excellent Letters section -- the largest of any newspaper I have seen -- I wonder about the organization of the selections.
Who determines if a letter is placed in the Faith & Values section or the regular letters? I see letters with blatantly religious messages nearly every day in the general letters section, while letters that are obviously written to provide information to the public at large are relegated to the F&V section.
What are the determining factors? If a mere mention of something relating to religion will send the letter to the back pages, why should something that closely resembles a sermon or testimonial not be placed there?
How many of the readers of the Letters section also regularly read the F&V section? Several years of reading this section reveals that only a few names regularly appear as writers. These writers almost without exception seem to be preaching to one choir or the other. Is it even necessary to have a separate section at all? Does it have all that large an audience? If so, then send the other religious letters there also. If not, why have it at all?
MIMI ROHWER
San Marcos
Who set this new standard for incivility?
The distinction between incivility and hateful name-calling (such as Commie, Nazi, traitor) is obscure, and obviously frustrates an editor.
But taking offense has much to do with perception. Personally, I am not offended by being called a flaming liberal (so was Jesus) or a socialist (much preferred to anti-social), but would be deeply offended by being called a fascist or (god forbid) a Bushite.
It is puzzling what standard Editor Kent Davy had in mind, judging by some of the letters still being printed. Apparently, the line still lies far out in right field. Reading letters such as that by Junious Montgomery of Dec. 14, in which he declares another writer "must be suffering the torture of the damned," one wonders how such a wicked curse is acceptable. The offended responds that "Montgomery suffers the fate of a mephitic Mephistophelian troglodyte."
Civility is disappearing from our society. Dick Cheney set a new standard on June 22, 2004, by cursing Sen. Patrick Leahy on the august Senate floor: "Go f-- yourself." He subverted discourse from the courtly to the Cheneyesque. Civility will return when we drive the vulgar troglodytes from the White House and install enlightened Jeffersonian Democrats.
J. HOWARD CREWS
Fallbrook
This theft almost failed
Had there been massive presidential election irregularities in Ohio in 2004, according to Michael Campbell (Letter, Jan. 2), "the anti-Bush New York Times would have been all over it."
Funny he should mention that. The New York Times wrote on Dec. 24, "From seven-hour lines that drove voters away to malfunctioning machines to poorly trained workers who directed people to the wrong polling place, Ohio has become this year's example for every ailment in the United States' electoral process." The article also reported on Franklin County, which awarded nearly 4,000 extra votes to Bush, and Mahoning County's "improperly calibrated touch screens resulted in an unknown number of votes going to Bush before the problem was caught."
On and on goes the endless fraud and disenfranchisement. Mindless Americans like Campbell accept massive election fraud, but not Ukrainians, who instigated a new election.
Even if all stolen Ohio votes are awarded to Bush, his margin is only 118,000 votes over Kerry, out of 5.7 million votes cast. Further, no sitting president has ever had such a slim "victory" in the Electoral College.
LEW PRITTEN
Carlsbad
Bush just doesn't get it on illegal aliens
During the months before the national election, both President Bush and Sen. John Kerry carefully avoided discussing or debating the presence of millions of illegal aliens in the United States. Now that President Bush has been given another four years, he quickly sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to Mexico to meet with Mexican President Vicente Fox to discuss granting legal status to illegal aliens.
In order to brainwash U.S. citizens, the White House released carefully worded press releases to the news media. A prime example is President Bush's statement that "millions of hardworking men and women are condemned to fear and insecurity in a massive undocumented economy," and the president's key feature in his plan to "provide temporary legal status to the 8 million migrants who live in the United States without U.S. government approval." Makes me wonder what part of "illegal" and "alien" President Bush doesn't understand.
In Arizona, voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative to keep illegal aliens from voting and obtaining some government services. I sincerely hope this rightful trend spreads nationwide.
LEON SMITH
Oceanside
North County loses another environmentalist
I met Joyce Ward in the early '90s. I had just moved to California from the Carolinas, where I had been active in environmental issues. Joyce has been a real inspiration. She was an officer in RiverWatch, a Fallbrook group devoted to protection of the San Luis Rey River.
Along with others, Joyce fought the good fight, attempting to protect Rosemary Mountain from a proposed rock quarry, and Gregory Canyon from the controversial landfill project, which is still involved in litigation. Many of us were distraught when Proposition B, the "Dump the dump" proposition, was unsuccessful. Theodore Roosevelt once said, "It is hard to fail, but even worse to have never tried to succeed." Joyce is a persistent activist.
However, Joyce and her husband will soon be leaving their Fallbrook ranch and moving back to a family home in Ohio.
Sadly, Southern California is losing many of its good people who worked so hard to preserve an environment that, along with the climate, attracts many people who now participate in the bumper-to-bumper freeway traffic and burgeoning residential development. Good luck, Joyce and Harold. North County will miss you.
MARGE WEST
Escondido
Lobbying group should register as a foreign agent
A powerful tax-exempt organization that lobbies Congress on behalf of Israel -- the American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- has been under investigation by the FBI for allegedly receiving classified information from a Pentagon official and using this information on behalf of the government of Israel.
A poll by the Council for National Interests found that 61 percent "strongly or somewhat agree" that AIPAC should register as a foreign agent.
I also agree that AIPAC should register as an agent of a foreign government and lose its tax-exempt status.
The Foreign Agent Registration Act stipulates that anyone in the United States who "acts at the order, request, or under the direction or control of a foreign principal" must make his connections known to the Department of Justice.
ALEX VON STORCH
Escondido
Horowitz was not a 'liberal activist'
A Dec. 26 Associated Press story about the shortage of "conservative" professors referred to David Horowitz as a former "liberal activist." This is not accurate. In the '60s and '70s, Mr. Horowitz was a Communist who detested liberals, blaming them for most of what was wrong with America.
I believe it was the liberal columnist Joe Klein who said that Horowitz used to screech at him from the left, then Horowitz became a conservative and started attacking Klein from the right.
JOHN GEORGE
Carlsbad
Board needs to prioritize humans first
Riverside County residents need to wake up. But more importantly, our Riverside Country Board of Supervisors needs to revisit their values and voting decisions because they're surely not representing the views of anyone I know. How is it that the homeless numbers are growing in Riverside County, and families struggle finding shelter from abuse or natural disasters? Our state struggles on every level, seeking financial recovery from overspending politicians, and still Riverside County leadership has found $740,000 to purchase 40 acres of worthless ground that will provide more space for some birds, butterflies and "endangered" insects.
I am the first one to say we can't forget about nature and how our community's excessive growth affects nature derogatorily across the board.
But, hard decisions have to be made in favor of greater human priorities.
No matter how much wealth our state thinks it has, we're still upside down and robbing "Peter" to pay "Paul" with decisions like this.
There's a few simple down-to-earth facts that our county leadership needs to get their arms around in no uncertain terms. People come before birds, insects or special habitats and conservation expansion programs. There are many health- and community-related programs that could put $740,000 to better use.
We need to make some serious changes on the county Board of Supervisors.
Priority means put values in order, and since we can't have everything, I choose people over animals and insects, even if it means they're lost forever.
GARY GENGLER
Murrieta
Another independent thought
Ronald Hettinger's column "Science behind theory far from settled," Jan. 2, cites the work of Ohio State professor Lonnie Thompson, revealing an abrupt shift in climate 5,200 years ago.
Hettinger extends this natural climate change to dismiss efforts to mitigate our current climate change. Hettinger's conclusions are not supported by Thompson's research. Hettinger also admonishes another writer (Bradley Fikes, Dec. 19) for accepting "without much independent thought the prevailing view of global warming and its causes in human activity." To test Hettinger's independent thought, I asked Professor Thompson to describe the implications of his research. Thompson said, "The real take-home message is: if the (climate) system is sensitive to natural forcings of the past, then it is just as likely sensitive to human-driven forcings like greenhouse gases, and thus we should be very careful how much we perturb the system as the response might be much greater than what climate predictions suggest."
Hettinger is not the first to distort or misunderstand Thompson's work. I can overlook Hettinger's misunderstanding, but his comment that a scientist "who argues against the politically correct point of view will see his grant money dry up, as well as his future if untenured" is audacious. Commenting on Hettinger's words, Professor Thompson said, "I have never seen at the university nor from funding agents a prejudice in funding only research that suggests the climate is warming. In fact, if anything is true, it would be a tendency for agencies not to fund such research due to political pressures from Washington, D.C." I also recommend some publications by the Union of Concerned Scientists on who is politicizing science.
JOHN GARRETT
Wildomar
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