Letters for May 31, 2007

Feeling free
Re: “Freedom” (From the Edge, by Anthony Peyton Porter, CN&R, May 24):

Why would people choose to feel sad? Because people care about the wounded whales floundering upriver. I’m not urging people to get hurt, but if it happens, let ’em see you limp! Yes, this creates easy targets—for love.

For example, An Inconvenient Truth generated love for the planet by exposing the world’s wounds. Sadness has transformative power. Deeply happy people can take feeling sad. Strong people can take feeling weak. Free people feel how bound they are to everything. Thoughts are not determined only by either oneself or others, but are mutually influenced in interaction. So, improving one’s mind and the world happens all at once.

Complaints bring about civil rights. Not long ago, lynchings were condoned. Now verbal abuse is not supported. This is tremendous progress!

I don’t think the Rutgers players insulted Don Imus. I think they just expressed pain. This itself prevents problems. Now shock jocks are more careful, that is, “full of care.”

People urge hurt people to laugh it off all the time, showing no concern to help them understand what caused the problem or how to prevent it. The Rutgers players are not wimpy victims. By fully experiencing their loss, they won.

(By the way, as to being labeled an “APP dissenter"—I dissent! As for his article on lust, I felt enlightened by it.)


Irene Cardenas
Chico

Protecting the protester
Re: “Protester, do the right thing” (Letters, CN&R, May 24):

As the creator and coordinator of StreetPeace, an ongoing peace vigil at Children’s Park in downtown Chico, I feel the need to apologize to Anna Caul for her uncomfortable “confrontation” there.

Our mission at StreetPeace for the past 21 months has been to support peaceful, nonviolent diplomacy in the world and an end to the Iraq war now, and to oppose George W. Bush and his administration’s incredible abuse of the Constitution, our nation’s precious men and women in uniform, and the world at large. Because we are an inclusive group, the people who come have their different approaches to a more peaceful world. Being the coordinator, I try to keep the group in the spirit of nonviolent confrontation.

As a practitioner of Buddhist meditation, I too have a desire for infinite love and peace in my heart and life. But the world is not like this. The road to peace is an education, not necessarily peaceful and sometimes brutally uncomfortable. Even though I disagree with the gentleman’s sign, which reads, “If you drive a car, you cannot be against the war,” I understand its sentiment. This war is about oil. And what he’s trying to say is we must find a way out of our dependency on that which is killing hundreds of thousands of people and all environmentalists in the world would agree is killing the planet.

So, Anna, please come down to StreetPeace and join us. We meet Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings, 5 to 6:30 p.m., rain or shine. We welcome all to the growing, nonviolent peace revolution in this country.


John-Michael Sun
Paradise

Re: “Protester, do the right thing” (Letters, CN&R, May 24):

Just to warn everyone, this letter is a personal rant, directed at the public in general. So Friday, I open the Chico News & Review, like I do every week (thanks!), and one of the first items I read is Anna Caul’s letter titled “Protester, do the right thing.” Umm, OK … she describes the war memorial she viewed as “breathtaking.” Is she writing puns?

Well, anyway, as she left, she was “visually attacked” by a man with signs! His signs pointed out the fact that “If you drive a car, you cannot truly be against the war!” Good point, but Ms. Caul was angered and saddened that this individual stripped her of her feeling of “love and peace” that she somehow came away from the war memorial with. The truth hurts sometimes, doesn’t it? I wonder how all the injured U.S. soldiers and Iraqi citizens feel.

I wasn’t going to write after reading just that letter, but then I see the article on “50 things to do in Chico when it’s dead.” I couldn’t help but notice most of them revolved around driving somewhere else that hopefully is cooler. Seems to me that if that’s your solution, you’re part of the problem.

And I apologize for these fatalistic views, somewhat; it’s Memorial Day, and I’m a veteran of Operation “Iraqi Freedom” (LOL). Everyone’s entitled to their own opinions, and I enjoy driving, too. But I feel that there are few places most people really have to drive to, at least here in Chico. And we hardy souls that do choose to brave the sun and heat would rather not have to breathe your exhaust fumes.


Ben Elwell
Chico

In Chico?
Just read this article. Hmmm … 50 in Chico? I count 18: Numbers 7, 8, 12, 15, 20, 22, 26, 27, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 41, 44, 46, 49.

Maybe the title should have said “50 things to do in & around Chico …”


Kathy Gipson
Chester

Out to play
I enjoyed your Summer Guide 2007 issue last week—especially the No. 30 picture of me “trying” to play some basketball at Rotary Park. (I am the “old” guy with the beard with my mouth open). I have been playing there off and on since I arrived in Chico in 1978. It has been interesting seeing the ebb and flow of people playing there over the years.

I just wanted to add another item to your list of summer activities—I belong to a nonprofit group called Coastwalk whose mission is to assist in forming a trail along the entire coast of California and they offer summer weeklong hikes, which is an excellent way to escape the summer inferno. I will be leading one in Del Norte County June 10-16 and would love to see people take advantage of the coast in a unique way. Their Web site for walks and more info is Coastwalk.org.
Ron Jones
Butte Valley

Nuts and bolts
Re: “Evidence for a 9/11 case” (Letters, CN&R, May 24):

I’d like to clarify some matters that David Kiefer of Chico brought up in his May 24 letter to the editor in the CN&R. Jet fuel burns at 2,000 degrees, and steel loses half its strength at 1,200 degrees and all of its strength at 1,400 degrees.

The World Trade Center was not welded together; it was bolted together with small bolts. The collapse of the initial floor impacting subsequent floors sheared off the bolts, and the entire building pancaked sequentially.


Michael M. Peters
Chico

Judge not
Re: “Plea for a Moral Majority” (Letters, CN&R, May 24):

One ought not speak ill of the dead, yet their deeds and utterances survive. Mr. Falwell seems to have totally ignored the biblical exhortation: “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”


Joe Bahlke
Red Bluff

Clarification
Re: “50 things to do in Chico when it’s dead” (Cover story, CN&R, May 24):

The Chico Observatory is open only on clear nights Thursday through Sunday. The outdoor planetarium, however, is always open.