Letters for May 12, 2011

Food trucks = who cares?

Re “What the truck?!” by Nick Miller (SN&R Feature, April 28):

When I go out to eat, I want to be greeted by a host or hostess, who takes me to a booth or table, where I am served by a waiter or waitress. I want comfort and class. Remember class?

Food trucks are a part of Mexico’s poverty culture, and they have no place in America. If you want to eat out of a food truck, go to Mexico. This current fascination with food trucks is just a fad among knee-jerk liberals. Anyone who wants to stand in line for an hour to eat out of a truck is moronic. But, hey, look around at California politics and California culture. We’re the premier state of American Moronic—or, as Green Day once put it, American Idiots.

Who cares what they do in Portland, Oregon? I’ve been to Portland on numerous occasions, and their line of food trucks in their downtown area is an embarrassing eyesore. I wouldn’t eat there for free. The Sacramento City Council should ban food trucks outright before Sacramento starts looking like Stockton, Fresno or, God help us, Mexico itself. Sacramento is either going to strive to become a world-class city, or it’s going to embrace the trashy, Third World ambience of food trucks.

Bon appétit, Portland.

Daniel McMasters
Sacramento

Nacheez deserves better

Re “Please, not cheese” by Shoka (SN&R The V Word, May 5):

What is with the tone of this blurb? At least try the product you’re reviewing!

I agreed wholeheartedly that all vegan cheese substitutes taste nasty and weren’t worth the time of day—until about one month ago. That’s when I tried Nacheez.

I’ve done quite well without cheese or cheese substitutes for nearly 14 years now, and I never found neon-colored gas station “nacho cheese” that appealing to begin with. Initially, I had no interest in trying it, but everyone kept raving about it. This made me curious enough to give it a shot.

I was shocked: Nacheez is good—really good. I tried one jar with chips and came back and bought another jar the very next day. I have put it on veggie burgers, in popcorn, on pasta, and dipped my sweet potato fries in it. I had a total “Where have you been all my life?” moment. …

To think … I was still clinging to my belief that all vegan “cheese” tasted like pencil eraser! Wow!

So, Shoka … I know you say you abhor cheese, but remember: Nacheez is a substitute for something that wasn’t really “cheese” to begin with.

Stacey Flowerdew
Sacramento

Give peace a chance

Re “Obama’s marijuana fail” by Nick Miller (SN&R Beats, April 28):

Many of us who voted for [President Barack] Obama in 2008 thought he was a progressive. We were conned. He is a regressive.

Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson has thrown his hat into the presidential ring. He has got my vote. He wants to terminate our unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and terminate our unwinnable war on drugs.

All three of these wars are unwinnable. Who is going to surrender and sign the peace treaties?

Kirk Muse
via email

The empire

Re “An end to war” (SN&R Editorial, May 5):

You quote Tom Hayden: “Now we shall learn whether there is another agenda.” No. It is the same agenda: to keep the American global empire in business.

The empire was built and maintained by wars and threats of force: Alaska and Louisiana purchases, wars against Mexico, the Confederate States of America, Spain, Germany, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other smaller-scale skirmishes in the Caribbean, Central America and so forth. Question: Has the empire grown too big to be cost-effective, and is collapsing under the weight of trillion-dollar budget deficits and Ponzi schemes?

Maybe Mr. Hayden and the tea baggers can force a public discussion of this issue.

Hugh Montgomery
Colusa

Don’t hate skeeters …

Re “Sacra-mosquito” by Jeff vonKaenel (SN&R Greenlight, April 28):

Don’t hate, not even the mosquitoes. But most of all, don’t blame the yard waste.

While composting is the solution for yard and kitchen trimmings, you are overlooking the unnatural streets and sewers, which are the biggest part of this “problem.” If we were smart enough to compost our poop instead of polluting clean water with it (which we then have to pipe to treatment plants for processing), then we’d only have to worry about rain runoff.

And if we were smart enough to stop driving, an activity far more dangerous and terror-ific than any number of mosquitoes, then we could stop paving over all the potentially fertile soil that could absorb all the rain and give us (and the chickens!) food in return.

Let’s start our environmental analyses by assuming that we really aren’t smarter than Mother Nature.

Muriel Strand
Sacramento

… or royal weddings

Re “A royal pain” by Rachel Leibrock (SN&R Popsmart, April 28):

Yes, there was a big wedding. What did it cost? A lot. Did I get up early to watch? No. Did I Tivo the proceedings? No. But when I saw the morning news snippets, the “why” was clear enough to me.

Something around 500,000 people interacting, peacefully and happily. Shoulder to shoulder in a good way, many of them strangers to one another, eye contact and verbal, not digital exchanges. Overall reports are that they mostly got along, with limited and few arrests—perhaps less than some Second Saturdays of the recent past.

Rachel Leibrock wrote her piece before the wedding, and I might have been like-minded, wondering why we should care. In a world gone mad while so many are hunkered down, waiting for the next disheartening headline, this event put a lot of people in a good mood—maybe the billions worldwide all laughing, happy, wearing silly hats and dancing in the streets. Priceless!

The Brits didn’t do this with a plan to make the world happy for a moment, but I for one think someone should host a party like this about every 25 to 30 years, whether they have a good reason or not.

Greg Taggart
Sacramento

F-bombs and irony

Re “Coming out of the basement” by Becky Grunewald (SN&R Arts&Culture, April 28), “Avoid vulgarity, please” (SN&R Letters, April 28), and “Drop the F-bombs” by Mark Drolette (SN&R Essay, April 14):

In the Letters section of the April 28 issue, a reader praises the essay “Drop the F-bombs” from a previous issue of SN&R and expresses hope that the media will begin to address the topic of vulgar language to encourage greater “civility in communication.”

I trust, then, that it was intentional irony on the part of the editors to highlight a quotation from Renny Pritikin several pages later that includes the F-bomb itself: “A museum shouldn’t just be a place to see art, but a place where you don’t know what the [fuck] is going to happen when you walk through the door.”

Well-played!

However, I’m not sure how many readers would appreciate this irony, so perhaps next time the editors could include a note to indicate the reason behind their choice, purely as a means to continue their good-faith efforts to improve civil communication in the media.

Jodi Samuels
Sacramento

Cut the strings on help

Re “The coldest season” by Christopher Buckner (SN&R Essay, April 28):

Thank you for featuring the essay, “The coldest season,” in this issue.

I’ve never really thought much about the harsh reality of our homeless community. And that this poor guy, after yet another tough day on the street, had to listen to this woman proselytizing is truly disgraceful.

Why is it that so much charity comes with strings attached? You know the saying: “Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Give him a religion, and he’ll starve to death praying for a fish.” Let’s teach our homeless to fish, shall we?

Yvonne Macias
via email

People change

Re “Staples and prisoners” (SN&R Letters, April 28):

If the criminal-justice system were required to be kind, it would look something like this: Police officers would approach all young people as if they were their own [children]. They would never slam kids’ faces onto car hoods; they would listen to people with accents and people of other races. They would not be prejudiced. Judges would not be required to use mandatory-sentencing laws. Nonviolent drug offenders would be sent to treatment centers, not prisons. There would be treatment facilities and therapy for prisoners who need them. Prisoners would be safe from harm; they could have conjugal visits with spouses. Communities would be involved in the process. Victims of rape, domestic abuse, assault and kidnapping would not be pushed aside, ignored, accused, threatened and intimidated. Justice would be blind. People of color would not be suspected, arrested and sentenced based on their race. Poor people would have the same legal representation as the wealthy.

Let us understand that poverty, racism, unemployment, lack of education and drug addiction contribute to criminal behavior, and be compassionate enough to believe that people change. Justice for all.

Ron Lowe
Nevada City

Dream job

Re “The freedom” by Greg Lucas (SN&R Essay, April 21):

It was absolutely wonderful to see your essay about my “coin collectors.” Once upon a time (24 years ago, to be exact), I too was a city of Sacramento coin collector. Monday to Friday, if out taking a morning walk, you can probably find one of the four coin collectors out doing their routine job of collecting revenue from the city meters.

It’s far more than a day-in-day-out boring job. It requires strength, stamina and a strong knowledge of the city. They walk up to 10 miles a day, and their collection routes last up to five hours a day! The average age of our collectors is 49 years old, and three out of the four collectors have been doing the job for more than 10 years.

In short, it truly is a “dream job.” No gym membership required—the job fulfills that area of their personal life completely.

Kim Eger
meter shop supervisor
City of Sacramento