Agriculture business disappearing

A response to Gail Chatfield's "Water crisis or disaster?" March 30: A phrase that can be applied to the cause of this impending water crisis is the following: immediate convenience. Obviously, what is most convenient now won't be in the long run, but it is so much easier! We are definitely going to be feeling the repercussions of our "immediate convenience" this summer with the probability of water rationing. It appears the farmers will be feeling it full force. Placing these so-called "water-wasters" into a binary of "good guy"/"bad guy" is far too simplistic, knowing there are still families to be fed.

My father owns a couple of nurseries in San Diego, and the 20-gallon challenge that the city is asking does not seem doable for a farmer. Farmers will be forced to cut their water use by 10 to 40 percent. It scares me to think that the agricultural business (the only thing my father and many others know how to do) is disappearing right in front of them.

Amadea Arce

Vista

State forces some onto aid programs

I'm a 43-year-old woman. I am on COBRA. I am disabled with a genetic immune defect and spinal cord tumor. As a mother of four, I spent 26 years at home raising them.

I am now divorced and disabled. I qualify for Medi-Cal, Social Security Income and Social Security Disability Insurance, but can't get it. Why? Because being home raising children, I didn't pay into the fund to collect SSDI.

I qualify for SSI; however, they say I have too many assets. #(COBRA costs me $450 for my medication and doctor co-pays are $100.

Because I don't have affordable health care, I will be out of money and going to the government years sooner than if I had affordable health care. COBRA is almost over, and I then go to HIPAA at cost of over $650.

California forces me to run out of money and suck off them. Frankly, I will be better off, and there is something wrong with that. SSI is $800 per month, plus I would get full medical benefits and food stamps. … Offer affordable health care. People with small savings in the bank aren't rich; they are trying to survive so you don't have to support me.

Theresa Carlson

Vista

Mobile-home park tenants can't pay more

Whilst some mobile-home residents may have no problem with increased fees, they are, in my opinion, in the minority. Figure it this way: Mostly people have perhaps $25,000 annual income from retirement. Even the least learned person can then deduct obvious costs to find out what is left over. Simply put, the reason for rent control is to prevent outrageous charges to the tenant, which a mobile-home owner/renter is.

Rather than task the issue of dog food over hamburger for dinner (maybe the only meal the person can afford), why not either reduce the city's obvious largess or have the more affluent homeowners suck up the balance. I know -- the more affluent owners have a more powerful lobby, and the city has no largess.

William Elder

Oceanside

Magical end to state budget problem

It's not that hard to figure out -- it just takes will and a scuttling of political correctness to end the California budget problem:

1. Drill for oil off the coast -- the technology is leakproof.

2. Give nothing to non-U.S. citizens -- nothing!

3. Elect people who favor Nos. 1 and 2!

It's magic, easy and can be done in six months -- you can't be such an idealist that you destroy your own way of life!

Richard Cole

Encinitas

Kennedy's serious character flaws

The photo of Ted Kennedy in triumphant pose and Mr. Paul Kirk's gushing adoration gave me pause ("After year with cancer, Kennedy focuses on legacy," May 17). I am sorry for Mr. Kennedy's brain cancer, and pray for his recovery. But neither illness nor the gilded memories of Camelot should blind us to this man's serious character flaws.

Mr. Kirk noted, again in gushing praise, Ted's reunion at his alma mater, Harvard. But wait -- Ted cheated on a Spanish exam there, and nearly got expelled.

Mr. Kirk then tried to evoke heroic pathos by asserting that Ted knows tragedy. Huh? He has led as plush a life as they come. If he wants to learn about tragedy, he might talk to the Kopechnes, if they are still alive, for his irresponsibility on Chappaquiddick four decades past that took their daughter's life.

Lastly, Ted called himself a foot soldier in his glorious quests. Exactly what does he know about soldiering? He saw neither Korea nor Vietnam.

William Gillespie

Bonsall

Lest we forget

In Iraq since the start of the war, 4,218 military personnel have been killed and 30,182 have been injured. The tragedy is that the war with Iraq never should have been waged at all. Those who died or were injured were the victims of our president, George W. Bush, and his decision to go to war with Iraq. It is my opinion he should be tried as a war criminal.

Bill Wernett

Fallbrook

What's the state going to do now?

Once again, the moronic idiots in Sacramento came asking for more money. Do these brain-dead miscreants have any clue about what's actually going on in the state? Did they actually expect to be rewarded with billions of dollars in additional taxes for their miserable representation of California citizens? It is a shame that needy programs will suffer because of their gross incompetence.

There is no lower form of human life than a government bureaucrat who betrays the public trust.

The numerous layers of waste, fraud and abuse in the federal and our state government are pervasive and entrenched.

Ignore the problem, blame somebody else and then throw money at the problem. So what's new? What is Sacramento going to do now? Is it possible that they might actually make an effort to do what they were elected to do -- represent the best interests of Californians?

I don't know what disappoints me more, the bold arrogant criminality and egregious behavior of our elected officials or the disgraceful apathy of Americans who don't vote and refuse to make the slightest effort to hold government officials accountable for their misdeeds.

John Pendle

Oceanside

Letter was nasty propaganda

Joseph Kraatz's May 1 letter is a nasty piece of propaganda. He calls us conservative Christians "Bible thumpers" and a "wacko fringe element." It takes much nerve to try to marginalize more than 100 million fellow citizens this way (Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (http://religions.pewforum.org/reports).

In previous letters (April 9 and May 10), I have demonstrated Kraatz's ignorance of our Judeo-Christian heritage's vital role in the establishment of American democracy. Exhibit A is the Library of Congress' documentary exhibit "Religion and the Founding of the American Republic" (www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion).

This includes Tocqueville's 1835 observation: "I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion … But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions."

Now I challenge Mr. Kraatz to show what he offers as a substitute for the Judeo-Christian framework that our founders believed to be essential for the functioning of American democracy. The track record of secular world views, such as Rousseau's "naturalism" of the French Revolution, Mussolini's fascism, Hitler's "national socialism," and the communism of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, isn't exactly reassuring to those of us who wish to safeguard our political freedom.

Howard Killion

Oceanside

Even public safety should make cuts

Re: "Firefighters union sues city over position cuts," May 20: The city of Oceanside should certainly be able to cut "management"-level fire captain and battalion chief positions.

Five tax-raising propositions were soundly rejected by state voters, which may mean more state level cuts to the city. Property tax revenues are down. Contract-driven pay increases and organizational structures negotiated during the housing bubble may no longer be sustainable.

Times have changed. We are in a recession. This should mandate that all departments make cuts -- even the sacred cow departments of "public safety." The "rainy day" funds should not be touched. Things could get worse before they get better.

Bruce Oja

Oceanside

Voters sent a message to Sacramento

Hurray for Californians. The voters let our state representatives in Sacramento know where we stand. Cutting monies from the mentally disabled and children is awful.

We know our politicians won't really have a rainy-day fund. They will spend it, like our lottery money that was supposed to go to schools. If that money were going toward schools -- like we were told -- we wouldn't have layoffs of teachers and school staff.

We don't need to be letting someone else run our lottery. Lottery money needs to go back to schools. And there should be a petition for the ballot and get it voted in. We can do it, if all us Californians stand together.

Carol Graham

Escondido

Let prisoners do jobs Americans won't do

As Americans, we are constantly lied to about the government's inactivity regarding closing the borders, verifying voter registration eligibility and the deporting of illegal aliens. The No. 1 excuse is: They do the jobs Americans won't do! It is just that, an excuse.

Constitutional Amendment 13 clearly states: "Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

"Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

Problem solved. Overcrowded prisons will be less crowded during long work hours, seven days a week. Strawberries and grapes will be picked by prisoners, thus reducing the mythical need for illegal aliens, and our country's roads will once again be in constant repair.

Apparently our Founding Fathers had the right idea.

I say to those who would object to this as being too cruel: If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

No amnesty!

Michael Daniels

Oceanside

Just a couple of comments

To Sarah Murphy (Letters, May 19): Mt. Carmel High School is not in Poway. It is in Rancho Penasquitos, which is the community in the northeastern part of the city of San Diego that proudly lays claim to Adam Lambert.

To Jim Gibson (Vista School board trustee), Maj. Gen. Glen Shaffer (an intelligence director at the Pentagon) and Fisher DeBerry (former Air Force football coach): What makes you think your positions give you the right to become missionaries for your religious views?

Finally, to Roy Leo (Letters, May 20): Although I agree wholeheartedly that we should use any technology we can to fight wildfires, I must disagree with using military assets. The military has a mission, and it is not to supplement our fire departments, border patrol or law enforcement.

I worry that in our present financial state, Sacramento will become more and more tempted to tap the military for all kinds of things to cut their public safety budgets. I agree that using military helicopters in coordinated drop efforts has merit, but moving troops and tactical equipment into the path of an out-of-control and unpredictable firestorm in adverse weather conditions is probably not a good idea.

Don Peck

San Marcos

Spending, socialism, secularism, patriotism

Margaret Liles is twisting the facts (Letters, May 21): From Social Security being socialism, to TEA party protestors (her 30 percent didn't protest because many pay far less or no taxes), to claiming massive government spending brought us out of the Great Depression.

Massive spending during the early 1930s recession resulted in the Depression. Three million military "jobs" and war production on the home front finally brought us out, after 1945.

Robert Watson and Harold Weber are being dishonest (Letters, May 17) when ignoring Democrats' culpability in this financial mess by promoting bad mortgage loans, blaming only Bush, and ignoring Obama's massive debt being placed on our grandchildren. Gary Gonsalves correctly refutes their claims ("Nation's leaders have failed us," Perspective, May 17), as well as Tony Miguel's pointing to Reagan's responsibility for an American demise (Letters, May 16).

That trigger event would be Obama's introduction of socialism.

McShame? Patriot McCain honorably served his country, and consequently was imprisoned and tortured. The shame is rightfully reflected in Watson's mirror. …

Michael Campbell

Rancho Penasquitos