To the Editor:
Bravo, Paul. Everything you have said is true and needed to be revealed. Governor Schwarzenegger’s VLF tax cut has dug the state into an unnecessarily deep hole of debt. Corporate tax levels as a proportion of state revenues continue to fall and commercial properties are protected from reassessment due to Prop. 13. Is it any surprise that K-12, higher education, health care and our social safety net are being decimated?
Mark Leno
State Senator
To the Editor:
The SF Chronicle and LA Times coverage on taxes is Reaganism at its best. It deregulated the media to the point of a farce. Since Reagan, we have a de facto absent anti-trust law vis-a-vis the media. Thus, someone like Sam Zell can own a major newspaper and use it for propaganda without any checks and balances. Next to the Chronicle Building, there is a fictitious ad on MUNI’s bus shelter that says how the Chronicle gives the news a Bay Area perspective. Little one knows how a side-walk away is that from the truth.
Nafiss Griffis
San Francisco
To the Editor:
And who may I ask paid you to write your little expose on California taxes? I am certain that to someone like you that it really is meaningless that an extra 5 or 10 dollars per week, I taken from a check. There are people that it does make a difference to. My life or lifestyle will not appreciably change with this change, I will still be in a million plus home, with a tennis court and pool. I will still drive a new jag and SUV … my bills will all get paid but some others that are not like you and I won’t have that luxury. I tell you, what why don’t you and I make up the difference that it will make to them out of our incomes that it won’t really matter so much. I will await your public response.
Joel Kent
To the Editor:
Gray Davis was recalled for wanting to double the DMV fees. Now we have Mr. Movie Star (rich) creating havoc in our once financial stable “State of California.” The good thing about all of this is we can only go up. Because we’re already at the bottom.
Concerned Citizen from Los Angeles
To the Editor:
Harrison Chastang’s piece was the first article in Beyond Chron that I TOTALLY disagree with!! As an African American who has worked on ex-offendender re-entry issues in San Francisco for years, I am DISGUSTED and OUTRAGED by what Michael Vick did to those animals. The issue of animal cruelty isn’t “hype,” as you put it. And black folks shouldn’t get a pass if they go around torturing and killing dogs for some sick form of pleasure.
Just because there weren’t a lot of people protesting in Philly doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t protest. Vick does not represent the typical African American ex-offender who cannot find work. (You understand that, right?)
There may be a rally-around-the-brotha effect when it comes to Vick, as there was with O.J. Simpson. But that does not excuse the fact that we should be critical of Vick’s actions. If I were in Philly, I would have gladly joined the protestors, regardless if I would have been the only black person in the group.
Perhaps there are aspects of black culture that turn a blind eye to animal abuse, or human abuse for that matter. If so, that does not mean that we are immune from critism.
Vick does not deserve the privelege to earn whatever amount of money he earns, but ALL ex-offenders do deserve to understand that physical abuse towards all animals (including humans) is never tolerable.
Kevin Bard
San Francisco
To the Editor:
Michael Vick cannot be forgiven for what he has done to innocent dogs. He has done the time, but has his heart changed? I want to forgive, but not yet. What is he going to do now for the rights of all animals? This is not about race, it is about morality and justice. Why isn’t he speaking out? He should not be allowed to make millions in sports on the backs of slaughtered animals!
Maggi Rubenstein
San Francisco
To the Editor:
Is “Olivier” a musical about Lawrence? And is Bert Bacharach in any way related to Burt Bacharach? Lorna Luft has a powerful voice with very little connection to the heart or soul of a song. She is an empty vessel. Liza Minnelli is the one and only “Inheritor of her mother’s talent.” You must learn to distinguish between a good voice and a GREAT interpreter. There is a reason Minnelli has endured and is headlining at the Hollywood Bowl this weekend, while Luft is working in 50-seat dives with a two-drink minimum. Let’s compare “Cabaret” to “Grease 2” when we get a chance, shall we?
Ivan Douglas
To the Editor:
I have never heard of Bob Grant’s radio show, so I will not pass judgement. However, your reference to radio formats in general: What answer do you progressives have to counter the facts: (a) Conservative Talk Radio has huge ratings, and (b) By contrast NPR’s ratings are abysmal while the highly touted “Air America” crashed and burned. See a pattern here?
Mark Simons
To the Editor:
Since when do we have to vote the way our home town votes? My mother used to ask “if your brother ate a cat turd would you eat one too?” My answer was always NO! What about you? Have you been chew on a few cigars for the litter box? I feel pitty for people like you because you have no idea what the back bone of America is thinking.
James Bowen
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