Letters for September 18, 2003

We need more news from the front …

Re “From the front lines, with love” by Tom Gascoyne (SN&R Cover, September 11):

This is the first time I’ve ever written an editor regarding an article, so please bear with me because I don’t know where to start.

I was very moved by your article about Cpl. Garth Talbott’s letters to home. Ever since the first plane hit the WTC towers, I’ve been glued to the television, radio and newspapers. I, as well as others, had to understand what was going on around us, as a nation.

I had seen, heard and read several accounts of the survivors and witnesses, but this article was by far a new angle to the events in Iraq. Cpl. Talbott’s letters are one of hundreds of thousands that would help the American citizens see the war from a soldier’s point of view.

I would like to see more letters to home from soldiers, with their consent, of course. I salute all the men and women of the armed forces of the United States for their unyielding sacrifice to ensure our safety at home.

R.J. Camario
Sacramento

… with intelligence and spirit

Re “From the front lines, with love” by Tom Gascoyne (SN&R Cover, September 11):

Your collection of letters from soldier Garth Talbott was terrific! As a high-school dropout, he writes with a lot more intelligence and spirit than the materials from most recent high-school graduates I’ve seen lately.

The rest of your issue was great, also, on top of the superb recent article by Jeff Kearns [“They play, you pay,” SN&R Cover, August 28]. The colorful stuff in SN&R beats that other local daily paper, with all its hundreds of people with mostly sanitized points of view.

Allen Jamieson
Sacramento

Why is SN&R pro-sex and pro-drugs but anti-Arnold?

Re “Arnold, uncut” (SN&R Cover, September 4):

I am amazed at your article, “Arnold, uncut.” As I look through your “trampy” little newspaper, I see you actively support drug use, prostitution and “free-for-all” sex.

Why are you anti-Arnold? Funny how you “toot your own horn” (oops, maybe this is the wrong expression to use—sorry!) when someone has a slightly conservative viewpoint. Typical of how the liberal mind works.

We have seen how well the liberal approach works in California: no jobs, no business, no future. The great liberal dream: more of the same.

Kim Aimes
Sacramento

Why is SN&R anti-Austrian?

Re “Arnold, uncut” (SN&R Cover, September 4):

As an American of Austrian heritage, I was not only offended but also quite angry over your hit-piece on Arnold Schwarzenegger. Your innuendos, inflammatory remarks and exaggerations are pitiful.

If I remember correctly, Rabbi [Marvin] Hier from the Simon Wiesenthal Center had only good things to say about Arnold Schwarzenegger.

As for Kurt Waldheim, check your facts. He was never charged with anything, nor was he ever found guilty for “Nazi” war crimes. Your slur about Europeans refusing to have their penises mutilated is vile and vulgar.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is probably the most hardworking actor and businessman today in Hollywood. Compared with the freak show California voters are exposed to in this recall election, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the only viable candidate.

Hans Huber
Sacramento

Editor’s note: “Arnold, uncut” refers to a movie term, as in an unedited version, not uncircumcised penises.

Don’t forget they’re illegal

Re “Arnold, uncut” (SN&R Cover, September 4):

I made a promise to myself a while ago to never touch your liberally tainted magazine again. Sadly, I’m not great with promises.

I was washing my comforter at a laundromat, which I also try to avoid like the plague, but what can you do when you’ve got to wash a comforter and standard washing machines are too small? But I digress. Your hippie magazine was the only reading material available while I sat and waited for my laundry.

First, I was glad to see that you were trying to be at least somewhat objective with your cover story on Arnold. However, you made a gross misrepresentation regarding Proposition 187. You conveniently left out the word illegal when you were explaining who was affected by this proposition, which the majority of Californians voted for.

To simply say that Proposition 187 “cut health care and public education for thousands of immigrant children and families” is misleading. Proposition 187 was intended for the immigrants who are in this state illegally, not just “immigrants” in general.

Needless to say, I’ll be bringing my own reading material next time I go to the laundromat.

Joe Martin
via e-mail

It’s the Republicans, not the Dems

Re “It’s the Dems, not Proposition 13” (SN&R Letters, September 4):

What is clear is that Frederick Cianci is a Republican. Also clear is that he can write a passable letter, and, for a few paragraphs, he stated his case logically, clearly and with a goodly amount of entertainment value.

I truly was enjoying myself while reading how the Democrats are solely responsible for California’s ills. Then, suddenly, Mr. Cianci was hoisted on his own petard by blathering the old hypocritical Republican claptrap. He started in about people being fed up with seeing the will of the voters “muted, stayed or overturned” by the [American Civil Liberties Union], a liberal judge or the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Oh my, how that made me wince!

I’ll wager Mr. Cianci is the type of Republican who tells someone still angry over the 2000 election to “get over it; move on.” He’ll explain that they counted the Florida votes 10 different ways and came up with Bush the winner, while completely ignoring the agonizing fact that when the tally came in that should count, Bush lost by 500,000 votes! That’s half a million Americans who had their votes nullified.

Now, in California, one of the “most beautiful and progressive places on Earth,” we have a pack of hoodlums collecting 1.3 million questionable signatures in an effort to nullify the will of 7 million California voters who went to the polls in November 2002.

So, Mr. Cianci, don’t weep to me about having your majority-vote nullified. What you should be concerned with is who is truly doing the nullifying and why. And, at the same time, you should think about the wisdom of aligning yourself with them.

Ron Waggoner
Sacramento

Forget the Austrians, the Swiss are traitors

Re “If you were exiled from the United States, what country would you want to live in?” (SN&R Streetalk, August 28):

I am responding to Linna Jo Dombroski’s answer to the question of where she would go if exiled from the United States. She said she would not live in France because they are traitors. I don’t know why she thinks they are traitors, but I have a feeling it’s because they didn’t support the recent war on Iraq.

Then she goes on to say she would go to Switzerland. Well, honey, I have news for you: They didn’t support the war, either, and in fact, they didn’t support the war against Adolf Hitler. In some ways, they even aided the Nazis.

Wayne Schiller
Davis

American foreign policy for dummies

Re “We should learn from 9/11 … 1973” (SN&R Guest Comment, September 11):

Richard Estes’ self-righteous and disingenuous diatribe on 9/11 should have been called “American foreign policy for dummies.” As a “progressive activist,” he may have forgotten that progressives have supported genocidal dictatorships around the world, from Cuba to Libya to the former Soviet Union, including some that have blown up American and French airliners full of passengers.

By far the most ludicrous accusation by Mr. Estes was that the CIA trained the Islamic extremists, giving them the skills to kill 3,000 of our citizens. They did not attack the World Trade Center with AK-47s, [rocket-propelled grenades] or Stinger missiles using guerilla tactics. Instead, they bought tickets on American airliners. They were not prevented from boarding the aircrafts because of the airlines’ fear of lawsuits for racial profiling, a practice instituted by progressive activists. Our law-enforcement and intelligence agencies were prevented from communicating with each other about terrorist activities by progressive activists.

The weapons the terrorists used to kill our citizens were our freedom, openness, generosity, diversity, freedom of movement, religious tolerance, multiculturalism and, most ironically, our educational opportunity. They didn’t learn to fly jets in Afghanistan or any other Muslim country. They learned to fly them right here.

And the box cutters were so effective because we, as a nation, have been taught—by progressive activists—for the last 30 years to be passive in a violent world.

Dennis McMurray
Nevada City