Letters for April 20, 2006

The edge
Re “Rights and wrongs” (From the Edge, CN&R, April 6): I would like to reply to Mr. Anthony Porter. Do you really equate your sneaking up behind a man when you were a kid and scaring him to a police officer telling someone to STOP before he touches her? And the cop should apologize for doing his job?

Your comment is a joke about “teach[ing] Capitol police officers what their charges look like.” Mr. Porter, do you know how many Congress people and other aides go through these doors? Something like 350 representatives of Congress? And the police are supposed to recognize them all? (Hence the reason for the identification pins.)

The police are there to protect our asses, not kiss them. She knows the rules; she failed to follow them and refused to heed a verbal warning. Then, when the officer did his job (oh, heaven forbid stopping a “striking and well dressed black woman”) and grabbed her, she yells, “Racist.” That sounds just as idiotic as some of the white-pride racist crap that spews out of some people. He did not throw her to the ground, strike her, pepper spray her; he did what he was hired to do! It is not his job to baby-sit those who know the rules of conduct. In my opinion, the officer failed in his job by not arresting her for striking a police officer.

She, at least upon reflection after the fact, showed some class and said sorry, not making lame excuses as others did.

Mike McCarty
Palermo

Sex Offenders
Re “The left wing” (Letters, CN&R, April 6): I was intrigued by the letter written by Mark McCandlish in which he referenced statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a division of the United States Department of Justice. I read the study, “Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from Prison in 1994” (www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/rsorp94.htm), and was not surprised to find the statement by Mr. McCandlish—"The recidivism rate of sex offenders has actually been documented in a three-year (1994) study, at over four times the rate of non-sex offenders"—is false. The study fails to tell us of the 262,420 non-sex offenders released from prison, how many were rearrested for a new crime. The sample populations of this study, sex offenders versus non-sex offenders, are significantly disproportionate.

The sexual molestation of children is a heinous crime. It is important, however, when statistics are reported and inferences are drawn that it be done correctly, thereby allowing proper legislation to be enacted.

Eric Anderson
Chico

Declaration of war
The very basis of our government, as provided by the Constitution, is the separation of the powers of government into three independent branches. These three branches are given specific and exclusive powers. We fought the Revolutionary War to free ourselves from the tyranny of European-style government, where all powers were concentrated in a single entity.

The Constitution gives Congress the “sole” power to declare war. There is no provision in the Constitution to delegate any of these powers to another branch. If we are to fight wars, they must be of, for and by the people, and this can only be done through our representatives in Congress.

I believe the root cause of our increasingly disastrous situation in Iraq is the (unconstitutional) congressional vote to let George W. Bush decide if and when we would go to war and his (unconstitutional) order to do so. The words “last resort” have no objective or legal meaning.

This is not a war of the American people. Except for the relatively few courageous volunteers, who are doing the fighting, and their families, we are not involved and have made no sacrifices. We won’t even pay for the war, shamefully passing on a huge and growing debt to our kids and grandkids.

The question of who declared this war is not moot. We are hearing the same rhetoric about Iran that we heard about Iraq. If we are to go to war against Iran, it must be a war of the American people, constitutionally, by Congress.

John Watson
Chico

General-ities
Six retired generals demand the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. What traitors! To even think that they held some of the highest levels of command and responsibility in our armed forces. What an insult! Don’t they realize that they are aiding and abetting our enemies?

When Condoleezza Rice said, “I know we’ve made tactical errors, thousands of them, I’m sure,” she meant tactical (i.e., the military’s fault) and not strategic (i.e., the Bush administration’s brilliant planning, which cannot be faulted). Now she supports our troops, but those generals certainly do not.

What do a bunch of generals know about war, anyway? They should be taking their cues from Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly and the like, for they are true American soldiers, and they know more about defense-related matters. Even Britney Spears, America’s famous Bush supporter and moral compass, knows more than these guys. She said, “I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes, and we should just support that, you know.”

Why can’t these pinko generals just shut up and listen to Britney? I’ll bet they don’t even have “support our troops” magnetic ribbons on their cars. They must really hate America.

Eric M. Hitchcock
Chico

Interchange interplay
Well, it is April 2006, and Butte County and CalTrans have begun their disastrous work on the Hwy 70/Hwy 149 interchange with a bang! Olive orchards, oak trees and willow trees have all been chopped down! I drive the road from Butte Valley to Oroville every day. I watched the dust cloud from the new beaver pond until the Air Quality Control folks showed up to control it.

Speaking of air quality, I wonder how much worse our air quality will be with the new project? Some afternoons when I leave the little hill in Oroville I cannot see as far as the Afterbay.

It has been proven that increasing road capacity directly affects land development patterns. After road capacity increases, land speculators hire professionals to advocate for projects near the expanded roads. This may open the door to a third casino in Butte County. Do we really need a third casino in our county?

What can we do for true public safety? We can drive defensively! We can lengthen the turn lanes on Highways 70 and 99, like Butte County did on Durham-Pentz Road to assist with traffic patterns to Butte College (with assistance from the community). We can get off the phone! We can put signals at both intersections at a cost of approximately $250,000 each or use a flyover ramp. If they can do it at Ophir Road, why not at these intersections?

You ask why I am not taking the bus? I am driving my hybrid to more than one job site!

Nora Burnham
Butte Valley

Clarification
Re “Staff turnover” (Letters, CN&R, April 6): In response to a letter from Barbara Vlamis regarding her concern over the sudden exodus of three members of the paper’s editorial staff, CN&R noted that former editor Tom Gascoyne would continue to contribute to the paper. Gascoyne has clarified that he wrote one story after his departure but does not otherwise plan to continue to contribute.

Corrections
Re: “A troubling failure” (Editorial, CN&R, April 13): CN&R criticized District 3 supervisorial candidate Steve Bertagna for allegedly failing to submit a campaign disclosure statement to the county elections office by the deadline of March 22. Bertagna’s campaign treasurer has since informed us that he wasn’t required to file the statement, as the candidate had not received any campaign donations when the filing period ended, on March 17. We apologize for the error.

Re: “Desert Rock” (Music, CN&R April 13): Musician Baba Maal’s native country was misidentified. He is from Senegal.