Letters for September 10, 2009

Letter of the week
Reporters should be watchdogs

Re “Get ready for a post-daily world” by Jeff vonKaenel (SN&R Feature, September 3):

It’s odd that newspapers aren’t raising more concern over the lack of oversight government will have with fewer and fewer reporters (or “content providers,” as one online publication has labeled them) watching bureaucrats at work. Without skilled observers watching, our form of government is in peril.

Dick Tracy
Grass Valley

There’s no discrimination like foreign discrimination

Re “Find your power” by Kel Munger (SN&R Rainbow Festival Guide, September 3):

Today I read a news story about a Sudanese woman who was found guilty of indecency and faced the possibility of 40 lashes for wearing trousers under Sudan’s Islamic decency regulations.

Now compare that story with gays and lesbians who already have domestic-partner unions in California but who continue to loudly protest the fact that they are being discriminated against because they can’t marry like heterosexual couples can. There are no domestic partner unions in Islamic countries with Shariah law—in fact, homosexuals are stoned to death. The gays and lesbians who live in California obviously have no concept of what real discrimination and persecution can be like!

Sandy Biroli
via e-mail

A best dressed Title IX?

Re “Best dressed gay men” by Kel Munger (SN&R Rainbow Festival Guide, September 3):

So when do we get to see the best dressed lesbians in town? A little gender parity is in order. Surely Kel Munger doesn’t think we’re all “dowdy dykes.”

Jan Kline
Sacramento

Mixing drugs is bad news

Re “Altered state” by Nick Miller (SN&R Feature, August 27):

I was prescribed medical marijuana while taking Prozac. This caused me to have a manic episode, followed by psychosis, jail, psychiatric hospital, halfway home, months of recovery and years of medication to reverse the effects the marijuana had on me.

Please be conscious of negative impacts of marijuana legalization. Recent research indicates that it can cause psychosis, as it did in my case. There are legitimate concerns, not just from “squares,” but from scientific research and liberal former patients.

I think it should be legal to reap the benefits from taxes (it is everywhere, anyway), but there are real reasons to be wary.

Anonymous
Davis

Legalize, legalize, legalize

Re “Altered state” by Nick Miller (SN&R Feature, August 27):

Though cannabis sales will possibly bring in $1.4 billion, if the state passes the Tax, Regulate, and Control Cannabis Act of 2010, it will also legalize industrial hemp, which will increase revenue for the state coffers and create more jobs giving the state economy a huge boost. This initiative will also protect medical-cannabis users and release people from jail whose only crime was nonviolent possession or ingestion of cannabis. This is our opportunity to put our money where our mouth is. Join us in California by donating or volunteering for the California Cannabis Initiative, [a group that] is working hard at bringing the Tax, Regulate, and Control Cannabis Act of 2010 to the ballot box.

Let’s end this senseless war that has drained our local, state and federal treasuries and has destroyed more families and lives than any drug itself could have ever done. To join or help the fight go to www.californiacannabisinitiative.org.

Oscar Chavez
coordinator
California Cannabis Initiative
San Bernardino County

Regulate, regulate, regulate

Re “Altered state” by Nick Miller (SN&R Feature, August 27):

SN&R should be commended for reporting on the many benefits that marijuana legalization would bring to California.

But you fumbled when you said that “such figures as the late Milton Friedman supported the deregulation of marijuana.” In fact, just the opposite is true.

Friedman and others (like myself) who are in favor of legalization are pro-regulation. The failed policy of prohibition is the complete opposite of regulation. Just ask any high-school student which is easier to get: illegal marijuana or regulated alcohol. They’ll tell you that drug dealers never ask for ID.

Legalization is about putting drug cartels out of business, generating billions in tax revenue and spending those taxes on education instead of incarceration. It’s not deregulation, it’s pro-regulation.

Micah Daigle
executive director
Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Relief from pot—and ignorance

Re “Altered state” by Nick Miller (SN&R Feature, August 27):

I can appreciate a news publication that’s true to life. People need to know about the future of marijuana and how important it is.

I’m from Sacramento. I’ve looked forward to reading SN&R every week since high school, so when I noticed more and more ads for new [medical marijuana] clinics in Sacramento, it was like relief for me. I use medical marijuana for an illness. People judge because of ignorance and lack of education. So thanks for educating the public about this issue.

Kali C.
Sacramento

Pesticides will never fool her

Re “Chemical consent” by Sena Christian (SN&R Frontlines, August 27):

Ha! And they try to post articles and stories and “findings” that would have us believe that eating organic is unnecessary, not worth it or has no significant benefit over eating “regular” produce. I take great issue with this.

Tracy Franklin
Logan

Back in the (food) day

Re “Back in the day” by Ann Martin Rolke (SN&R Corner Table, August 27):

From when I was a kid in Land Park, I remember my family’s favorite restaurants: Posey’s, near the Capitol, where we celebrated every birthday of my immediate siblings every year; The Broiler, in its original location on J Street, which had amazing red meat and was a favorite of my parents since the ’40s; Al’s & Bud’s, where Pancake Circus is today; or the Pancake House on Stockton Boulevard, where we went every weekend after religious services and where I was introduced to the divinity of whipped butter and blueberry syrup; the Captain’s Table, on South Land Park Drive, a dark elegant place where my mom loved to dine on scampi (even the way she said the word “scampi” makes my mouth water); and the Hereford House, now the Riverside Clubhouse, which “back in the day” served some of the best red meat this side of Kansas City, but now has been reduced to a trendy eatery/drinkery serving barely edible attempts at nouveau Californicated cuisine that just pretentiously screams, “I was put here by an L.A. restaurant consultant.”

We so need our great restaurants again, rather than the pabulum currently dished out for us by ubiquitous and corporately sanitized junk-food taste buds posing in chef’s smocks.

Alex Berg
Sacramento

Food nostalgia

Re “Back in the day” by Ann Martin Rolke (SN&R Corner Table, August 27):

I also miss Robert’s Fish Grotto and Nicole’s (omelets, whole-grain toast and coffee).

Martha Swaim
Sacramento

Smoking gun?

Re “Suspicious minds” by R.V. Scheide (SN&R Race to the Bottom, August 20):

I disagree with R.V. Scheide about whether or not there is a “smoking gun” regarding how the [World Trade Center] buildings were demolished. Nanothermite, a high explosive that can easily be sprayed onto surfaces like paint, was found throughout the area after the WTC buildings came down.

To find out more: go to www.ae911truth.org.

Jim Leonard
via e-mail

K.J. makes him nervous

Re “Two visions” (SN&R Editorial, August 20):

I get nervous that Mayor Kevin Johnson is pushing for a “strong mayor” system. There are just too many unknowns in his past that he refuses to clear up.

James Sakauye
Sacramento

Hate is a many splendored thing

Re “Haters, lovers, spankers, fakers” by Lindsey Walker (SN&R Sound Advice, August 20):

While it’s obvious that Ms. Lindsey Walker has received extensive cybernetic enhancements to her ears, she really ought to consider writing reviews for those of us who are incapable of deciphering chords from a tympanum-shattering wall of amorphous noise. Perhaps I’m just getting old, but I need more than a high-energy performance replete with pelvic thrusts—namely musical talent—to thoroughly enjoy myself at a show.

Apart from the cacophony, Korvette seemed to have forgotten that his is a vocal-driven band, as not a single utterance could be heard from the floor, forcing the sound guy to literally throw his arms up in defeat. Needless to say, Pissed Jeans would be better off as a studio band and SN&R would be better off hiring a music critic that isn’t in heat.

Brian O.
Sacramento

Clarification and correction

The difference between print-on-demand technology and vanity presses was not adequately explained in “Any way you want it, that’s the way they print it” by Melanie B. Glover (SN&R Arts&Culture, September 3). Some printing companies, such as Lightning Source, use this technology to print books for both traditional publishers and self-publishers, while other companies use print-on-demand technology to function as vanity presses.

In “Sacramento’s best dressed gay men” by Kel Munger (SN&R’s Rainbow Festival Guide, September 3), Dennis Mangers was incorrectly referred to as having been a Republican state legislator. Mangers is a lifelong Democrat who defeated an incumbent Republican to represent an Orange County district in the state Assembly. We apologize for the error.