Support State of the Union proposals
In his first State of the Union address, President Obama made specific proposals to address some of the problems our country faces in the economy, health care and environment. I hope that Congress will put aside petty bickering and work with the president and one another to make the positive changes that we need.
Laura Johnson
Oceanside
Nude not lewd, so why censor?
At the Friday night reception for the Visual Expressions juried art show at The Mercantile Gallery, I was shocked and dismayed to see that a nude painting accepted by The Arts Council of Temecula Valley was censored from the show by representatives of City Management and the gallery manager. It was accepted into the show as a worthy art piece, and yet it was not allowed to be viewed by the public.
This is sanctimonious censorship. If a breast isn't a family value, I don't know what is. I would rather my child see a breast or hear a cuss word than see the raging, frenzied violence in movies and on TV. "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" is more than 100 years old, and it created a sea change in artistic style. Jeff Hebron, the young artist, used a style reminiscent of comic book art, which may have its own influence in the Comic-Con International art circles and beyond.
Protesting against censorship is a prerogative and an imperative unless we are ambivalent about losing our freedom, especially as an artist.
Beverly Thordarson
artist
Fallbrook
Buy it or leave it
Conservatives oppose formation of liberal corporations to run for political office, but now they need a constitutional amendment overturning the Court that permits corporations to run for political office. The decision by Samuel Alito backfired on conservatives. Unions and even local small-time politicians may begin forming or receiving support from synergistic corporations.
"Third World trajectories" rooted in cohesiveness, controls, lobbying, muted economic class wars and the Court's decision, exacerbated by shortsighted politics, accelerate this. The financial support and root movement created by the Obama election is nothing in comparison. This ruling sets the stage for open class "wars" followed by increasing disdain and the tearing apart of the very fabric of our national foundation of "free elections."
The real corporate America, often politically slanted, can always be easily stopped from excessive political meddling by stockholders' vote or by a class-action lawsuit, from my single shareholder vote, while the liberal corporations cannot. This is a victory for populist causes and foreign lobbyists brought on by one mind's intellectual failure to see the consequential impact.
Conservative causes used to say "love it leave it" during the Vietnam debacle. Now it will be "buy it or leave it." Go see the first liberal corporation running for Congress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHRKkXtxDRA&feature=player_embedded
Edgar Towers
Oceanside
Year zero
The problem of the fictitious missing "year zero" is in the news again. Go back to the first page of most any first-grade arithmetic book and relearn the difference between ordinal numbers and cardinal numbers.
Twelve o'clock noon on Wednesday of this week (Feb. 3) is the end of the twelfth hour in the middle of the third day of the second month of the two thousand and tenth year, all ordinal numbers. It is not the cardinal number of 2010 years and 2 months and 3 1/2 days since the beginning of our calendar.
The ancients who originated our present calendar made no mistake. They used ordinal numbers, which were common in their time. It is we today who make a modern mathematical mistake when we use wrong cardinal numbers on a timeline to correspond with the ordinal numbers on our calendar. If you remember that our calendar uses ordinal numbers (the third day of the second month in the 2010th year, etc.), you can figure out for yourself when the decade and century begin and end, and know you are right without my telling you, and in spite of what the majority of people may wrongly say.
Ed Ehrhart
Escondido
Sedated logic by Gary Gonsalves
I'm not sure anesthesiologist Gary Gonsalves actually feels our pain. His protests against taxation seem grossly selfish, considering that his profession rarely faces cutbacks or layoffs and is very well compensated ...
In his recent column ("Only we can halt government spending," Jan. 31), he shamelessly pimps the passing of our World War II vets to score emotional points for his Tea Party crusade, while criticizing entitlement programs, including VA benefits, as pork-filled bribery and overspending by fiscally irresponsible politicians. His words –– not mine.
We all would like to see our money better spent and be taxed less –– but pork-filled bribes or not, our veterans (including my WWII Purple Heart veteran father in-law) have earned those benefits. Is Gary really advocating that we give him a tax cut by reducing their benefits? Or is Gary advocating that we cut the VA benefits promised to all vets who have served since WWII? I'll bet even Junious Montgomery wouldn't fall for that.
I would like to encourage Dr. Gonsalves to spend a few more hours in the recovery room before he pens his next piece, and to contemplate this: If we start cutting veteran benefits, who will protect Gary's paycheck, much less his freedom?
John Webster
Vista
Inevitable change
Change is inevitable. Change should be for the good of all. Change should not be impeded for political gain. Change should be without unnecessary restrictions.
Change should come quickly. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
Harry Titus
Oceanside
9/11 questioners use selective information
In response to Dwain Deets' likely reply to my previous letter, while Danny Jowenko is a controlled demolition expert, here are some things Deets won't tell you about him: 1. 9/11 questioners don't like to quote him on the Twin Towers because Jowenko disagrees with them; 2. Architects and Engineers for 9/11Truth first shows Jowenko a video of Silverstein's "pull it" quote, which 9/11 questioners constantly — and deliberately — misquote, which would naturally affect his view of the collapse; and 3. Jowenko is only shown select information — when shown a drawing of World Trade Center 7's core column placement, he is not given any information on the "cantilevered section to the north, or the crucial transfer trusses near column 79 — and Jowenko admits he's just guessing (refer to http://www.ae911truth.i nfo/tiki-index.php?page=Dann y+Jowenko), meaning AE911Truth stacked its deck.
Oh, and in response to Bill and Nancy Walker (Letters, Jan. 14), not a single one of Dwain Deets' credentials they mentioned are in the field of controlled demolition or structural engineering. In short, despite their names, the 9/11 Truth Movement, AE911Truth, etc. (and 9/11 questioners in general) are about as interested in the truth as O.J. is in finding the real killers.
Victor Chabala
Oceanside
Disastrous Supreme Court decision
On Jan. 21, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a corporation has the same First Amendment rights as an individual. I believe this to be the death knell for democracy if it is not addressed by Congress. And I believe that considering a corporation's rights as equal to those guaranteed by the Constitution to an individual to be moronic.
A major instigator of the Tea Party protests was Dick Armey's FreedomWorks. Dick Armey's lobbying firm has represented major pharmaceutical companies, and the health insurance industry's trade group (http://thinkpro gress.org/2009/04/14/lobbying-clients-teaparties/).
Armey, with the ready cooperation of the Fox News crowd, whipped up the Tea Partiers into a fear of communism, socialism and fascism — Obama was accused of adhering to all three by these Tea Partiers. It was clear the Tea Partying crowd didn't have a clue there was a difference between these three "isms." It was frightening to see what this sort of corporate manipulation could do to the uninformed.
One can only shudder at what the infusion of corporate money now allowed by the Supreme Court will do for our country. We will soon have a government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.
Margaret Liles
Escondido
Tax dollars at work?
A beautiful day it was after the rains, too nice to be indoors. So I thought I'd drive on our city streets. Did you see the size of those potholes? Good thing I wasn't riding my motorcycle! And where were the city workers patching those 4-inch-deep pits in the asphalt?
Navigating around, zigging and zagging like a drunkard just to save my tires from an early demise. And where are those city workers that I am spending my tax dollar on? There are some potholes a year old, and now there are fresh holes waiting to be filled. I am not asking for a new street; I am asking the city to patch the streets we have.
My question is this: Would it be cheaper filling the potholes or paying for new tires for those of us whose tires and alignment were wrecked because the city forgot who's paying their wages? And let's not forget motorcyclists, who may need chiropractic services for wrenching their spinal cords trying to traverse these craters.
Come on, City Hall, earn your keep. Surprise me and fix the streets.
Nelson Norgell
Escondido
Big players silent on health care
Why have Americans not been told what we need to know on the federal health care plan? We all know not to reinvent the wheel. Canada has had national health care for years. Americans need to know the pros and cons of their experience — both from the people and the providers.
Second, in the United States, the American Medical Association is the heartbeat of health care. Why is their voice being kept silent? The new system cannot work without MDs.
Lastly, what is this rumor that the politicians are making a VIP health program just for themselves?
Charlie McGuire
Encinitas
No, no, no on Merriam Mountains
Why do we keep seeing letters from Merriam Mountains supporters who are so oblivious to its long-term implications?
Supervisorial "no" votes on Merriam Mountains acknowledged that negatives far outweigh any plausible positives — like temporary jobs — regardless of pablum fed to the community by the developer and his subsidiary-buddy, Supervisor Bill Horn.
"Yes, yes, yes on Merriam Mountains" (Letters, Jan. 31) fails to address the long-term major problems that would be caused by this overbearing development, including:
Substantial fire danger: Residents would not head east into the direction of a fire, regardless of Highway 15 proximity. Instead, they would head west, flooding traffic on Twin Oaks and Buena Creek, thus endangering thousands more. That is, if they could even exit Merriam Mountains.
Traffic: Traffic through the already-taxed Twin Oaks and Buena Creek valleys will increase dramatically. The planners have ignored this problem. Horn doesn't care.
Water: Water is in short supply now; will it magically appear for Merriam Mountains? No! What about sewer, public transportation and schools? The list goes on and on.
"Rural" will describe somewhere else. Brain research shows implicational thinking is the highest order thinking skill. It's clear the county planning process is devoid of this ability.
Mr. Roberts, tear down this plan!
Richard Oliver
Vista
When did truth become bashing?
As I read the letter from Eric Parish (Jan. 24) I realized the only bashing/hate that takes place in this Letters section is that toward me.
Question, what is meant by bashing/hate, as used by Parish? I always find it interesting that when the homosexual advocate cannot come up with a quality answer, the first thing he does is bash his opponent, not with facts, rather, with fabrications (hate). Note: The "nuts/bolt" emulation is not a theory, rather, a direct correlation. School-age children can understand, without misrepresentations and superfluous rhetoric, the exact differences in the mechanics of heterosexuality and homosexuality.
As far as where all the new young homosexuals come from, they do not come from anywhere — they are developed! Public school indoctrination/programming aids in the later development of these individuals. Parish forgets that the homosexual advocates have control of the Christian young in public schools — they (the church) have turned them over to these activists, therefore, they do have control of the opposition, the future Christian church (children). The homosexual will eventually win out as these children are transformed into servants of world thinking. The Christian young have been sacrificed as collateral damage.
Frank Lancelotti
Oceanside
