Letters for July 1, 2004

Not newsworthy?
I am writing this on Tuesday afternoon, the day after the special City Council meeting Monday evening [June 14]. I just got off the phone with someone at KHSL’s newsroom. I asked them if they were aware that there was a City Council meeting last night and why there was no coverage on either the late news Monday night or the noon news on Tuesday.

I was informed that they don’t cover council meetings unless there is something “newsworthy” on the agenda. Huh? How about the failure of the council to fill the vacant seat or the continued funding of the library? The possibility of a deadlocked (3-3) council for the next five months is not newsworthy? Libraries are not newsworthy? I hesitate to call them a bunch of morons, but …

Ed Pitman
Chico

Gov. Jimmy
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t the only celebrity to mistakenly call Chico “Chino” [“Pumping irony,” Newslines, June 24]. Comedian Jimmy “J.J.” Walker did it at an appearance here many years ago. His enthusiastic voice announcing “Chino, baby!” was on a local radio station for months.

Now that I think about it, Walker and Schwarzenegger, despite their obvious physical dissimilarities, do have a lot in common.

Tim Milhorn
“Chico (I think)”

Impeachable Bill
If the affair with Monica Lewinsky was a “terrible moral error,” then what exactly was his failure to intervene in Rwanda?

Melanie Carlson
President Chico State Chapter of Amnesty International

Wrong path taken
This letter is in response to your cover article of June 10 about Digitalpath ["(Un)wired for success”].

I was upset to read your slanted opinion of the company. Your language suggests that Digitalpath is a company that is not reliable, consistent or available to help its customers, which is not true. The staff is dedicated, enthusiastic, energetic and courteous. They truly are committed to their product and company.

Your research says that the majority of customers are satisfied, but you disguise this fact by touting the few people you spoke to who have had problems.

Perhaps you did not have the time to find people who love Digitalpath, or perhaps that just doesn’t make a good story. But I would like to tell you that Digitalpath is an incredible company and service and we are very lucky that we have this technology in Chico.

In a time when people are taking their work to other cities, counties and countries, we have an amazing jewel right here in our own town. I’m glad Mr. Higgins is committed to our community, and I look forward to our community getting to know the real Digitalpath.

Mary Lou Snodgrass
Chico

Non-flammable
I have a couple quibbles with Valya Watson’s letter [“Wait a minute,” June 24]. First, it is of course ridiculous to expect much from the Enterprise-Record besides mostly partisan posturing. Too bad the News & Review isn’t the Chico daily and the E-R—whatever.

However that may be, I disagree with Watson’s characterization of the reportage in “Sloan vs. Board of Education” [cover story, June 3]. Understand, my wife and I are relative newcomers, older people with no children, no grandchildren in Chico public schools. But we are interested residents—citizens, if you will. We read the report in CN&R with interest and afterwards felt that we had a pretty clear understanding of the issues. Naturally, not being partisan, we didn’t feel inflamed by your reporter’s story—we thought it was admirably researched and well-written, especially considering the history and complexity of bureaucratic infighting and the intense partisanship.

I think Watson’s characterization of the story as “rambling” was unfortunate—almost as if she were saying “don’t confuse me with the facts.”

Sanford Dorbin
via e-mail

Sorry Old Glory
As I put out Old Glory to flap crisply in Monday’s hot, brisk breeze, I was filled with more than a twinge of sadness. How sad that our image of our flag as a symbol of courage, pride, and compassion is not shared with so many others in our world.

Surely not the frightened Iraqi child hovering with her mother in the corner of their home as a team of soldiers bearing that symbol burst in at gunpoint and viciously drag out her grandfather, father and uncle. (The Red Cross estimates that up to 70 percent of those illegally imprisoned are innocent of any crime.)

Surely not the individuals themselves, hauled like factory-farmed cattle into a building flying that symbol overhead, where they are humiliated, physically and sexually abused, forced on fear of death to violate their religion, their morality and themselves. (We know now that this is not the work of a handful of over zealous military, but a mandated policy order authorized with the knowledge and approval of Donald Rumsfeld.)

Surely not George Bush, or he wouldn’t have lied to us about the reasons he initiated this brutal, unwarranted attack on the people who dwell in the cradle of civilization, who hid the real reasons—stupidity, greed, political gain—as he hid behind our beautiful flag while dictating brutal destruction on the innocent and weak.

Roger Montalbano
Chico

Mad about freedom
While waiting for my lunch today I picked up a copy of the CNR out of boredom. The old saying “You learn something new every day,” is true. I did not know we had such a vile, unholy, communistic rag such as yours in our community.

It seems to me that most of your writers and contributors are so unhappy and disrespectful of our country that they (and you) should move to another country such as China, Cuba, or Iraq. Oh wait, you can’t move there. Those countries don’t have freedom of speech. You couldn’t sprinkle your little foul words and treasonous ideas throughout your paper in those countries. Their governments would arrest you and shut your business down if you tried it.

It is a good thing that your paper is free. Otherwise nobody would read it more than once. I know I wouldn’t, even if it is free.

Mike Johnson
Paradise