Letters for February 14, 2019

“Will this trickle-down work?” by Foon Rhee (Editor’s note, January 31):

Just because you say it, doesn’t make it true. First off, jobs, paychecks and the economy are doing much better than anything we’ve had the last 12 years. Secondly, this is still a country that rewards work. No government handout will ever replace working. Third, your heroes, Mayor Darrell Steinberg and Governor Gavin Newsom, are two of the “wealthiest taxpayers” in the city. That goes for all other Kings executives, land developers and Democratic politicians that your paper so loves. If you’re going to be critical of wealth, don’t be hypocritical!

Curtis Fry

Citrus Heights / via email

Design disappointment

Re: “Downtown development—Whoa! And yikes!” by Jeff vonKaenel (Greenlight, January 31):

All such things as mentioned, as anticipated (highly), could amount to a disappointment. Everyone involved ought to commit themselves to innovative design quality, particularly within the railyard, the sort that would attract attention across the nation. Once achieved, a host of mundane, run-of-the-mill designs would deflate and disappoint future interest in downtown Sacramento.

John Crandell

Sacramento / via email

Supply and demand

Re: “Let’s get serious about our war on drugs” by Jeff vonKaenel (Greenlight, January 24):

Let’s start with the first law of economics: demand creates a supply. So instead of continuing to try and fail to cut off supply, when will we get serious about analyzing the reasons for the demand and taking effective action?

Probably not soon, because that would mean calling into question the myth that our culture, governments (local, state and federal), educational system, technologies, etc., are actually based on offering to the poor and middle class the ingredients for a happy life, instead of just increasing GDP and corporate profits. It appears to me that we are living very differently than we are evolved to live, and it’s not working well.

Muriel Strand

Sacramento / via email

Courageous feminists

Re: “Thank movement elders” (Letters, January 31):

Thank you Dorothy Eller for sticking up for the courageous 1970s feminists whose hard work brought about so many desperately needed changes and opened so many doors previously closed to women. I can still recall the pre-feminist days when it was all but impossible for a woman to become a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer or a U.S. senator; when women were barred from many universities; when a woman could not even get a credit card issued in her own name—a whole catalog of sexist abuses so outrageous that they hardly seem credible today.

It was the women’s movement that changed all that. Unfortunately the price of its success is that many young women today take those hard-won rights for granted, and can all too easily be bamboozled into trivializing those feminists and their accomplishments. That “bra-burning” crap is such a lie! Thanks for setting the record straight.

David Urman

Sacramento / via email

Correction

Re: “Appetite for the outdoor festival” (Arts & Culture, February 7):

The names of Sol Blume festival organizers Fornati Kumeh and Justin Nordan were misspelled. SN&R regrets the error.