Letters for April 9, 2009

Keep up the treatment

Re “Catch and release” by Janelle Weiner (SN&R Feature, April 2):

Just reading such about programs which can help prisoners find a hopeful way to exist, and with the success that this article shows, is most uplifting.

Everyone knows that the prison system is overloaded, and there has to be a way to rotate people to something better. I’m sure that not all will make it the first time, but just to know they can come try again is wonderful.

I would like to commend those in charge and the company who offer this education. Please keep this going.

Claudette Bigler
Del Rey

Less diatribes, more ball drops!

Re “Contested development” by Cosmo Garvin (SN&R Frontlines, March 26) and “A big coup for IMAX, finally” by Cosmo Garvin (SN&R Snog, March 26):

I just read [Cosmo Garvin’s] latest diatribes regarding K Street. It occurs to me that he has a lot of negative opinions, but not one constructive one!

Yes, the city has been on it a long time, but they haven’t given up, even through a lot of muck and mire called the legal process. David Taylor is at least bringing something positive to the table, and he is doing it with the money he and the city (under Leslie Fritzsche’s guidance) created with the profit made from the sale of the Sheraton Grand Hotel.

May I suggest you interview Ms. Fritzsche and David Taylor and get all the facts instead of shooting from the hip with negative criticism? Or better yet, come up with a positive plan—to quote you, something new and original—but make it profitable as well, instead of harping on what won’t work! Try to be part of the solution instead of sitting on the sidelines and bitching. It’s your city as well as mine.

The ball drop was very positive and brought people downtown, but that can only happen once a year. With your positive input and David Taylor’s business acumen, we might make something profitable and lasting.

Have the intestinal fortitude to print this in your “free paper.”

Charles P. Ossgoode
Sacramento

Sell the Sinai

Re “Right of refusal” by Maggie Coulter (SN&R Frontlines, March 26):

The young naive “refuzniks” that blame Israel for the continuing plight of the Palestinians are, to quote Joseph Stalin, “useful idiots” to the Arab world. A minority of young Israelis blame Israel for the hatred Palestinians and surrounding Arab states have for Israel and believe they will all live in peace if only the Palestinians are given some land to call their own. Trouble is, the land they want is the entire state of Israel or the historical Judea, not just the West Bank or Gaza.

If the Arabs and the [United Nations] were truly seeking a solution, they would cede a large chunk of land in the Sinai adjacent to Gaza and fund the infrastructure. In a decade or so, if done right, it could be like Dubai or Qatar. But a solution is not what the Arab world wants. They are happy to use the Palestinians as martyrs in the cause to ultimately destroy the state of Israel.

Franklin Cain
Sacramento

Beyond fundamentalism

Re “Why I don’t go to church” by Mike Elliott (SN&R Sacreligious!, March 26):

In my early 40s, for reasons similar to Mike Elliott’s, I left the fundamentalist Christian religion I had been born and raised in.

However, at that time, one of my maternal grandmother’s sayings—and she had many—kept ringing through my head: “Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.” I kept the “baby” by joining a Unitarian Universalist congregation.

I have always been a very spiritual person, have always had a need to be part of a religious community. For the past 36-plus years, this Sacramento area Unitarian Universalist church has filled that need. It fits my theology and what I believe is the core of Jesus’ teaching: to love and care for one another. It fills my need to help others when they need a hand, as Jesus commanded, and it has a congregation that will help me when my times of need happen.

Edward J. Blanchette
Citrus Heights

Mike is right

Re “Why I don’t go to church” by Mike Elliott (SN&R Sacreligious! March 26):

I think this article is dead on. I find myself in a very similar situation.

Ron Herrygers
via e-mail

They’re coming for Kloss—and us!

Re “Cartoon” by John Kloss (SN&R Opinion, March 5):

Tell [John] Kloss his inane Rush [Limbaugh] cartoon is just another and continuing indication of his juvenile and inane “cartooning.” Will he have a retirement? Or will he be part of those who scrounge off those of us who still work and are thoroughly disgusted and scared about the future of this once great country?

They will come for him and you one of these days!

Nick Schrier
Sacramento