Letters for October 8, 2015

It’s also about fairness

Re “Beyond the banner” (Editorial, Oct. 1):

Chico Military Heroes’ banner proposal is not only a huge moral issue, but also one of fairness and precedent; what do you do when Chico Sports Heroes wants to hang mugs of Aaron Rodgers or Jeff Stover, or Chico Firefighters Heroes has their banners, or Chico Reality Show Heroes, or Chico Porn Stars?

Roland McNutt

Chico

Answering the question

Re Arts Devo, by Jason Cassidy, Oct. 1:

Thank you for letting people know about 1078 Gallery’s “If It’s Broke, Fix It!” fundraising campaign.

You asked a good question: If we are so strapped for cash, why would we let an art installation take over the gallery for the month of September, preventing us from having any (income-generating) music shows this month? There are two reasons: First, we schedule our art shows months in advance, and did not know we’d be in our current situation when this exhibition was scheduled. Second, we don’t select our shows based solely on sales potential. It’s wonderful when artists can sell their work, but some of the most interesting contemporary artwork isn’t concerned with commerce, and since our mission is to bring exciting and compelling exhibitions to Chico, it’s important for us to have a show like this from time to time.

We do look forward to returning to music programming in October, though!

Erin Wade, president, 1078 Gallery board of directors

Chico

Round up these folks, too

Re “Rookie moves” (Second & Flume, by Melissa Daugherty, Sept. 24):

Why don’t Mark Sorensen, Andrew Coolidge, Reanette Fillmer, Sean Morgan, Randall Stone and Ann Schwab travel to Middletown and have all of the homeless fire victims arrested?

Karen Ogle

Chico

Of Trump and Hitler

Re “Trumpeting Trump” (Letters, by Nathan Esplanade, Oct. 1):

Last week the CN&R changed the wording of my letter to indicate that instead of supporting Donald Trump’s position on Mexican immigration, that I was isolating myself from it. I originally wrote, “Trump is like Hitler in recognizing that a race of people are selfishly and aggressively displacing a native population’s own race, culture, values and control of the country.”

I’m not anti-Semitic or anti-Mexican. If a member of these or any other minority was lawfully born here, is willing to learn and speak English, and is willing to accept and comply with our culture, laws and social norms without attempting to isolate themselves from them or devise ways to get around them, I’m OK with their being here. Unfortunately, the attitude of many Jews and Mexicans is not this. Rather, it’s to push as brazenly and as hard as they can to take all they can until someone legally or physically stops them.

The problem with Americans is, if a bomb’s not blowing up in our faces right now, we don’t see problems. We’re grasshoppers—too busy hopping around playing the fiddle to realize winter’s on its way.

Nathan Esplanade

Corning

American dysfunction

Re “Quite a suggestion” (Letters, by Maurice Picard, Oct. 1):

Maurice Picard suggests I invite the homeless to camp at my house, thus exhibiting a failure to grasp a central purpose of the “commons”—which have forever been available to the dispossessed. Societies with any shred of decency leave public space for human beings, regardless of circumstance. (And, totalitarian states are the first to impound the people of the streets.)

In claiming that Reaganomics has nothing to with dysfunction in America today, Picard demonstrates a tragically limited understanding of military spending, accelerating wealth inequality and an array of problems precipitated by the chronic underfunding of social welfare programs. (This rich-on-poor class warfare is again on display in Congressman LaMalfa’s medieval/sadistic position on Planned Parenthood.)

Picard says he knows of homeless with credit cards and cellphones. What joy—another version of the fatuous “Cadillac welfare queen” story.

While saying nothing about returning our homegrown homeless back to Chico, Picard generously offers to provide bus tickets for sending people back “to wherever they came from.” Well, Mr. Picard, you might read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. If only the people who once lived on this land had had the luxury of putting John Bidwell on a Greyhound.

Patrick Newman

Chico

‘How terribly sad’

Re “Ever been in a fight?” (Streetalk, Oct. 1):

One woman’s response was “Definitely, I’ve been in fights with my ex-husband. Those were the worst. One time it was a bloody battle. I’ve also been in female fights, and I usually win.” How terribly sad.

Chuck Carter

Chico

More ideas, fewer rants

Re “Grow up, CN&R!” (Letters, by Rick Clements, Sept. 24):

Each time I see a Rick Clements rant in letters to the editor, I think, “What a pitiful waste of perfectly good print space.” His immature, vitriolic rants do absolutely nothing to further intelligent public discourse. How about a few more ideas and a lot less name calling.

Charles W. Bird

Chico

End the pot prohibition

I greatly grate under the fact that cannabis is considered a nuisance in Butte County. There is no more reason to persecute cannabis consumers than there was to burn witches, gas Jews or lynch blacks. The foundations of this drug war are set in the quicksand of racism and xenophobia—not the sturdiest of footings. This drug war doesn’t fight crime; it fuels it by making flowers into gold.

It is doublethink beyond Orwellian to hold the concepts of cannabis prohibition and legal alcohol in one’s head at the same time, and have it make sense. Americans have been doing this for many decades now. It is time to end the prohibition. It will help the national psyche by allowing us to live with one less lie.

Jay Bergstrom

Forest Ranch

Editor’s note

In response to a guest commentary on portable classrooms at local schools (see “Cleaner air for kids,” by Robert Speer, Aug. 27), the CN&R received seven letters to the editor. After they were printed, it came to our attention that some of the letters may have been penned by a single person under a pseudonym. Multiple attempts have been made to confirm the authenticity of the letters in question. As a result, five of the letters could not be validated. Those letters have been deleted from CN&R’s website. We apologize for any confusion. —ed.