The year in letters

One of the most interesting parts of an editor’s job is “letters to the editor.” When you open an e-mail or envelope, you never know what you’re going to find inside. Here are some of the more telling comments sent my way this year (with additional ones online here):

• The Chico News & Review’s endorsement of Sen. John McCain [for the Republican primary] was all I needed to convince my conservative friends why they shouldn’t support him. Thanks for a job well done.—Blake Driver, Jan. 31

• Only the News & Review could equate Christmas lights with global warming. As I have written to you before, if it weren’t for Chico State, you would be just another empty building gathering cobwebs. No, by golly, you would be another Starbucks.—John Keeling, Feb 7

• There’s nothing wrong with religion, and there’s nothing wrong with science. It doesn’t have to be “one or the other”; but if it is, how about this: If you keep your religion out of my science, I’ll keep my science out of your religion.—Jason Reisinger, Feb. 28

• If Vice Mayor Ann Schwab wants my bottled water, she’s going to have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers.—Michael M. Peters, March 13

• Your Iraq roundtable was interesting, but let’s remember the stark truth: Lying, murderous criminals run our country, and they sure don’t give a damn what anyone in Chico, Calif., thinks about their foreign policy.—Cornelius Cakely, March 20

• Instead of leadership, we get impotence and pandering. It will be our duty as citizens in upcoming cycles to remove every one of these people from the City Council and replace them with vertebrates.—Ruben Leon, May 15

• The CN&R reminds all thinking adults that, while our schools are holding bake sales and fundraisers just to remain afloat, our government is blowing 3 to 5 billion dollars weekly in Iraq.—Jorge Smirnoff, July 17

• The vitality of rock ’n’ roll, embodied in the twirl of young lovelies, is alive and well in our fine nightclubs. Rock on, dude!—Snake Holmes, Aug. 14

• “Change” is defined as doing things differently. Sadly, the only real change America will get now comes from a machine at the laundromat.— Quentin Colgan, Sept. 4

• When the paychecks are stretched tighter than a rubber-band sandwich, the next bite could be a real snapper.—Danny Wilson, Oct. 2

• If the supporters of Proposition 8 really want to protect marriage, they should propose a constitutional amendment to ban divorce.—Karl Halfman, Oct. 16

• Ponder the sage reminder that “united we stand, divided we fall” and realize that we are the living antithesis to it.—Joe Bahlke, Oct. 16

• In a sense, I feel like we have won the Lotto. The help we have received [rebuilding from the Humboldt Fire] did not end in June; it is still coming our way. We would not be where we are today without all of you.—Nora Burnham and Rob Brunig, Dec. 18