Those in charge should lead by example

Re: "One month down, 47 to go," Letters, Feb. 25: I can heartily concur with Lloyd Rochambeau's ire over an $850K salary for a glorified stamp licker. It's small wonder why postal rates are soaring while richly compensating a man with a record of utter failure, as evidenced by department losses.

With all the emphasis being placed on federal cost-cutting and budgetary restraint, how about starting with this idea and course of action:

First, to lead by example, the president should take a voluntary pay cut to $350K per annum.

Second, pass an edict that no federal employee would be paid a salary exceeding that of the president.

Third, any disgruntled honchos should be … presented with the option of retirement or an opportunity to improve their salary disenchantment in the private sector. Good luck!

Fourth, open their former positions to qualified applicants. The line should extend from Pennsylvania Avenue to the New Jersey Turnpike and the said applicants would be hungrier and more motivated.

Fifth, review the federal pay scale for similar belt tightening procedures that their countrymen have been forced to endure for years.

Implement these ideas and we will be back on a roll!

Robert Buck

Oceanside

Another positive experience at Tri-City

The very positive report on Tri-City's life-saving cardiac care by Matt Henken (Letters, Feb. 23) parallels my own. Almost four years later, I still praise their expertise and professionalism!

My slight difference was that my dear wife called 911 and got me a fast ride and my blockage wasn't 100 percent (like his), but I was more than 30 years older than Mr. Henken.

Dr. David Spiegel and Tri-City's Cardiac Wellness Center still keep my statistics steady. I've thanked them often and enthusiastically recommend the doctor and staff!

Neal Gammell

Vista

There is a limit!

Hey, Escondido councilmembers! Please get your thinking straight! Our firefighters, policemen and policewomen put their life on the line every time they put on their uniform to go to work. Do you?

If not, then you don't come close to knowing the stress level put upon them. They deserve their pay â€"â€" all of it!

Yes, I do support your cutting back on nonessential services that don't include the public's security and well-being. Do the right thing for these men and women who are very often life-savers and don't do the "politically right" thing that appears to be your motivation now.

PS: Never borrow from the economic fund. Capital must remain to generate more capital, or it is lost forever. It is not disposable income. To misuse this fund is theft, no matter whatever else you'd care to call it, and tampering with it can forever impact the creativity of future councilmembers to whom you owe a continuity of past purpose.

Diane Davis

Escondido

The president's new toy

The president has a new toy: Air Force One. How much money does it cost to operate that plane each time? He flew to Colorado to sign the stimulus bill. Could he not have stayed in D.C. and signed that trash and saved the taxpayers money? The cost of a new Bic pen is less than a buck. That photo op cost the taxpayers millions of dollars. Is this the belt-tightening we need or just the "change" we need?

In response to Chris Pulse's letter of Feb. 17: I'm an Irish Catholic from a land far, far away. I thank God for that. I missed a few classes that teach you anger, so maybe Professor of Hate Pulse can refresh my memory as to why I should hate the Jews?

Chris, hate burns a hole in one's belly, but at least at that point, we will really be able to see through you.

David Jackson

Escondido

U.S. not meant to be communist

To rebut Maralyn Johnson's letter of Feb. 1: I am 90 years old and my mother-in-law had a contraceptive, namely, a diaphragm, and she was 40 years older than me. Men had condoms. No excuses. My mother-in-law lived in a small town in Colorado, so it didn't take a big city to inform her.

To Denise Breton, Feb. 14: Welcome to America! It was a joy to read a letter of appreciation of President Bush. It is particularly nice to read your appreciation coming from an abusive country.

Sadly, we are not going to continue our wonderful country. We have lost so many freedoms in the past and we have more to come.

Our country was never meant to be communist.

Bettie Heldring

Escondido

Are all cities as greedy as Oceanside?

I recently spoke with the city of Oceanside's utility department. I found this conversation to be both disgusting and pathetic.

My mother-in-law lived in a gated senior community in Oceanside but, due to failing health, she moved in with my wife and me for six weeks; we then placed her in an assisted living home.

Her home in Oceanside has been vacant for three months-plus. Yet the city continues to bill her for water, trash and sewer. She has no trash barrels, no sewer use and a minimal amount of water to keep a small patch of lawn green as per the homeowners association. The water consumption charge was $10, leaving $63 for nonexistent trash and sewer use.

The lady in the utility department basically told me "too bad." They will not reduce the charges and she must continue to pay for all services. The only exception would be for her to stop all services, which includes the water for the lawn. Catch 22: She must maintain water for the lawn because of the homeowners association.

I'm wondering, are all cities this greedy or is it just Oceanside? If all are this callous, we as a society are in trouble.

Edward Rudd

Fallbrook

No bad dogs, just bad dog owners

My missus and I are packing after spending three months in Oceanside and heading back to Canada. We have really enjoyed our time here and plan to return again in December. The people have been very friendly and the pace of life is most enjoyable.

We travel with a mini-schnauzer and this has been relatively easy, too, although I have heard a dog beach closer than Del Mar would be appreciated by a lot of people.

We had been warned by the local constabulary to stay off the beaches and I must say they were fair but stern with us. This is understandable after having walked our dog elsewhere.

There is a ridiculous amount of dog feces left about by owners, usually men who are too macho to pick it up. They don't seem to understand that the feces belongs to the dog and the dog belongs to them, therefore the feces belongs to them.

The police need to hand out a few tickets and they can start along the railway right-of-way in the morning and Buccaneer Park in the evening.

There are no bad dogs, just bad owners, and you seem to have a lot of them.

John W. Smith

Oceanside

Illegals are everywhere

Give me a break! Larry and Carolee Steneck (Letters, Feb. 25), as soon as you step out of your Escondido City Hall, it looks like you're in TJ, Mexico. Illegals and their kids everywhere, headed for the welfare office, food stamp office and anything else that's free.

Four or five families of illegals in all the apartments and houses and thousands of Americans live homeless, jobless and hopeless in their own country. What a joke. Surf's up.

Tommy Chanick

Oceanside

Back to Prop. 8

This is in somewhat different slant to "Many reasons to vote for Prop. 8," Community Forum, by Gary Zacharias (Feb. 22). His response was in reply to Peggy Hart's letter (Feb. 9), which claimed that the vote was not religiously based and that a domestic partnership is just as good as a marriage is for gay couples. #…

I've talked to a lot of people about Proposition 8, and most all of them agree with Peggy Hart. Organized religious pressures fooled Californians into believing that love between gay couples did not qualify for a marriage license, and they effectively used the cliche "marriage should be between a man and a woman." …

Our First Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof … "

The result of passing Prop. 8 is that gay couples are being discriminated against because they no longer can have their love validated by the state of California, as can heterosexual couples. Marriage licenses are now denied to them, which they would otherwise cherish as a sacred symbol of their devotion to one another.

Donald Roberts

San Marcos

Save homes threatened by eminent domain

On Feb. 18, I went to a meeting at Orange Glen High School to hear the county explain to 20 families why they … should lose their homes so pedestrians and bicyclists could use their property. The widening of Bear Valley could be done in a matter to spare these people.

The project manager made it clear that regardless of what these people said, their homes will be destroyed for the good of the people. Two of the county women said these people could accept the offer they are given (have you seen the housing market lately?) or their property will be taken by eminent domain.

What kind of dictatorship are we living under? We need to band together as a community to help these people save their homes. If we turn our backs on them, who will be there for us in our time of need?

If you think it can't happen to you, check with the good folks on Bear Valley. #…

And on your way there, stop by the county offices and see what flag flies there. Is it red, white and blue where individuals matter, or is it the hammer and sickle where government reigns supreme?

Tommie Lay

Escondido

Indulging in Biblical abomination

I knew at an early age that I had been cursed with an abomination, and dealing with it was an eternal, tormenting struggle. Growing up in a sinful city like New Orleans, the temptations became ever more anguishing as I entered puberty and saw all those beautiful people around me indulging in the sinful abomination. There was something about that "Big Easy" culture that just saturates the soul. The plethora, attractiveness and quality was overwhelming.

My Baptist preacher railed with hellfire and brimstone against the abominations from Leviticus. So I switched to the Catholic Church instead, where the priest spoke of peace and love. I adored the priest, a scholarly Jesuit, talented and very handsome, and he was so understanding of my teenage problems. But I discovered that the priest indulged in the forbidden abomination.

Finally I understood that because God gave me those inborn desires, they must be God-given blessings, and I began indulging. That led to an ever growing and insatiable appetite. I joined the local abominators and began devouring lobster Thermidor, crab Creole, shrimp gumbo, crawfish etouffee, oysters Rockefeller and even raw oysters, with butter and sauce running down to my elbows. C'est magnifique!

J. Howard Crews

Fallbrook

Mutations would create glitches

For science to be true, the world must be logical and organized, and the mind capable of understanding that logic and organization, otherwise it cannot be studied.

Evolution claims mutation/natural selection can accomplish such organization, but it cannot with such specified functionality. Evolution's mutations can only lead to broken applications, not innovative ones.

You cannot change one sequence in an automobile's production without changing many others to accommodate it. Even the occasional "beneficial" mutation would have to loiter around for a multitude of companions to perform any physical change even on the genetic level, much less on the whole body of the genome.

It would take many beneficially retained gene mutations to make a significant change even in a single trait, but that would not change the appearance of the whole organism, nor certainly not make an entirely new one.

Any change (mutation) in a gene, or a sequence in the production of an auto, can only lead to a less fit gene and a car with a glitch. Both are losses of complexity and information.

Under the evolutionary hypothesis our minds should not be logical, nor the cosmos organized from such an undirected mechanism.

Irvin Forbing

Escondido

Relief for the housing mortgage crisis

The taxpayers should not foot the bill for those homeowners who purchased a home that they never could afford, nor should the greedy lenders receive any further gains. Those buyers who were victims of unscrupulous lenders who used unfair practices to entice them into purchasing a home should be afforded some relief so that they can avoid foreclosure.

These home buyers should be permitted to continue to make the same payments to avoid the catastrophe of foreclosure. Then it will only be if they try to sell or refinance the home that they will encounter their current major problem with the devaluation of the housing market.

If they stay in the home, it will eventually increase in value to the point of the original price. Of course, like everyone else, their home has been devalued.

Adjustable mortgages are unfair and should be declared illegal, and the buyer should be allowed to continue payments at the original rate of interest. Congress can make this happen instead of just throwing money at the problem.

Herbert Pairitz

Carlsbad

Wilson, our most well-educated idiot

At the behest of his "mentor," "Colonel" House, President Woodrow Wilson destroyed America's future in that he allowed the graduated income tax and Federal Reserve first currency system into being in America (circa 1933).

Adolf Hitler used a far superior system in Germany after the first world war. He caused the German treasury to issue a trillion marks in labor certificates, which were used for the labor and materials used in rebuilding the infrastructure of Germany â€"â€" roads (Autobahn), parts, buildings, airports, etc. No debt, no interest!

If Obama were only so smart as to bypass the banksters!

Jack Fulton

Escondido