Letters for October 9, 2008

Letter of the week
We’re the punch line

In all of the fuss about the World Trade Center costumes, many fail to realize that people like [President George W.] Bush and Toby Keith are responsible for making the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon into a punch line.

When “Boot Up Yur Ass the Uhmerican Way” ["It’s the American Way"] became a No. 1 hit; when thousands of rednecks used the deaths of thousands of New Yorkers as an excuse to whip themselves up into a racist, bloodthirsty frenzy and beat up everyone from Arabs to Turks to Sikhs to Greeks, demanding raghead blood; when George Bush stood in a personalized flight suit in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner and said “nucular” for the thousandth time; when Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell blamed the attacks on America’s refusal to exterminate gays and uppity women; when the hundredth image of a bald eagle shedding a single tear was superimposed over a picture of the smoking towers; when the jingoists forgot that their martyrs were the liberal-commie-fag-treehugging-elite they had hated on September 10; when Congress earmarked $78 million to protect the world’s only double-decker outhouse in Dover, Ark., from Al Qaeda; when we were told we could beat Osama bin Laden by spending ourselves into bankruptcy at the shopping mall; when Congress invented the phrase “freedom fries"; when we were told that the terrorists attacked us because they hate our freedom; when 9/11 was used to convince the 50 percent plus one of Americans who are idiots that we should invade the wrong country, turn librarians into spies and walk away from our proud tradition of refusing to torture; when yellow-ribbon magnets are displayed proudly next to truck nuts; when Osama urinal cakes became a best seller—only after seven years of all those things did jokes about 9/11 become OK.

America’s dumbest people have somehow managed to exclude everyone else from love of country and abhorrence of these attacks. In the new millennium, only humor allows a smart man to keep his sanity.

I wasn’t at that night club. If I were, I would have laughed, even though the thought of [more than] 2,000 people dying in a collapsing skyscraper fills me with horror and the need for somber retrospection. Oh, if only the “Redneck Nation” were capable of any emotion more complex than animal rage, America might be a great nation once more. In the words of the Internet’s most famous NASCAR fan, “GET A BRAIN, MORANS.”

Steve Kromag
via e-mail

Telling it like it is, she sez …

Re “Censored! Top 10 stories big media ignored” by Amanda Witherell (SN&R Feature, October 2):

Bravo! That’s the kind of article that makes me pick up SN&R every week. We need to know what the corporate media isn’t telling us, and we rely on you for it. Keep up the good work.

Jan Klein
Sacramento

… or isn’t, he sez

Re “Censored! Top 10 stories big media ignored” by Amanda Witherell (SN&R Feature, October 2):

In “Soldiers speak out,” the author perpetuates the predictable left-wing McCarthyism against the men I served with as an infantry team leader, squad leader and platoon sergeant in Vietnam. And we’re getting real tired of this shit!

Winter Soldiers, 1971, was a parade of wannabes, pretenders and frauds, including Al Hubbard, executive secretary of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, who claimed to have been a decorated Air Force captain wounded in Vietnam. In reality, he was a sergeant stationed at McChord [Air Force Base], Tacoma, Wash., with no Purple Heart.

I suspect the recent Winter Soldier Iraq promoted by anti-war groups such as Iraq Veterans Against the War are filled with similar frauds, since one of their members, phony Iraq vet Jesse Macbeth, was exposed. It should have taken real IVAW combat vets about five minutes to discover he was a fraud. So much for soldiers speaking out.

Dennis McMurray
Nevada City

Got torches?

Re “Bucking the bailout” by R.V. Scheide (SN&R Race to the Bottom, October 2):

What can we do? You call or e-mail them, and they ignore us. You vote someone new in and they soon do the same. So what can we do?

Martin Eder
Sacramento

Driving taxpayers to the poorhouse

Re “The drivers” (SN&R Editorial, October 2):

Your editorial noting that Mayor [Heather] Fargo is taking police off the streets to drive her to campaign events hit the nail on the head, but reached the wrong conclusion.

All state and federal candidates for office must reimburse the government for expenses related to their campaigns. Not doing so is a major campaign finance violation. For example, the Fair Political Practices Commission recently made a rule change requiring elected officials and candidates to pay the full cost of reimbursement for candidates and elected officials that had been jetting around on private planes, rather than just the equivalent cost of a ticket on a commercial airline from point A to point B.

Billing taxpayers to drive the mayor and her campaign staff to campaign appearances and her trips to the farmers’ market without reimbursement from her campaign would be illegal if she were a state official. There’s no reason city taxpayers should be subsidizing her campaign, either.

Mike Peterson
via e-mail

R.V.'s roadway obsession

Re “Best place to strike a pedestrian” by R.V. Scheide (SN&R Best of Sacramento, September 25):

In the four months since R.V.'s last hack job on the Freeport [Boulevard]/21st Street conversion, I have been pleased to see how most motorists have adjusted to the changes for the better. People have changed their timing, routes and speed to make this a pleasant and safe drive, especially given the pedestrian traffic in the area generated by Taylor’s Market, the light rail and the high school.

With “Best place to strike a pedestrian,” R.V. comes back with his hatchet to declare that the conversion is “the world’s greatest civil-engineering debacle.” In it, R.V. declares that “as [motorists] round the blind corner traveling southbound on the boulevard, [pedestrians will] never see you coming.” Well, R.V., this would only be true if someone drives well above the speed limit. We can only hope that R.V. is not as reckless behind the wheel as he is with the pen.

Peter Kirkup
Sacramento

Dr. Lou’s continuing brilliance

Re “Dr. Lou’s MIND” by Nancy Brands Ward (SN&R Feature, September 18):

I have two grandsons diagnosed with autism and share their parents’ worry and concern as to what will become of these children when relatives are no longer able to care for them. The “special community” concept mentioned in your recent story about Dr. Lou Vismara was brilliant.

I hope this project can become a reality. Thanks for sharing this heartwarming story of hope with your readers.

Joyce Evans
Anchorage, Alaska

Got pitchforks?

Re “Bailouts and meltdowns” (SN&R Editorial, September 18):

The United States government has more criminals serving than there are roaches in the projects, and there are roaches in the projects because there are criminals in our local governments. Historically, California’s forefathers were a pack of thieves, funded and protected by the federal government. How can we regulate the vast tax contributions being bled from our state when the federal government [is] so very far beyond control?

There is an optimum size to a nation, and the present situation is not optimum. Get the United States out of the United State of California. It was a bad idea then (the Gold Rush was a marketing scheme), and it still is a bad idea. Bring back the Bear Flag Revolt. We should not be funding this debacle. California funded the Civil War; it’s time to fund our own future and not the military despots'.

Lesley Clarkson
Sacramento

Worst of both worlds

Re “Attack of the Sac ads” by James Israel (SN&R Essay, September 18):

So the coin that the voters must flip is someone who courts the Maloof brothers at the citizens’ expense; or someone who slithers like the snake he is, breaking up Sacramento High [School] in an effort to promote privatizing education and busting the teachers’ union. Tough choice! To think that Kevin Johnson has reached this level and could be a serious contender [for mayor] makes me sad for Sacramento and its future.

Leah Levine
via e-mail

Time to mob

Re “Mobbing” (SN&R Advertisement, September 25):

Thank you for printing the unsigned ad “Mobbing.” It’s all true.

I have been a victim of this despicable persecution for years. They have broken into my closets and put animal feces in my underwear. They have spread the rumor that my real given name is “Lugburtz.” They have slipped poison oak into my salad in public restaurants and told the alumni association at my college that I was in prison for life for pornography.

But they will never break my spirit, and if I ever get out of this concentration camp disguised as a mental-health facility, I’ll fix those bastards but good!

Name withheld by request
Sacramento

Correction

In the Reader’s Choice listing for Best Massage Therapist (SN&R’s Best of Sacramento: Goods & Services, September 25), the first place winner is Lila Reynolds of The Magic of Touch Wellness Center. The name of the business was printed incorrectly.