Letters to the Editor 11/16

What we deserve

When I read your article on Nov. 8, “GOP raises multiple objections on the Hill,” my initial response was to laugh. After all, the behavior of Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., was really rather silly and didn’t deserve to be taken seriously.

This was followed by anger. Anger that a chosen representative of the American people would behave like a third-grader on the floor of the United States House of Representatives.

Finally, I felt a sadness, which continues to this day. A member of our government was behaving like a spoiled third-grader while debating an issue of such importance as the health of the American people. Price and his colleagues shouted “I object!” no less than 75 times during the first 40 minutes of debate on this landmark health care bill.

They also brought in babies and teething rings, among other props, apparently to emphasize their own childishness.

It was Alexis de Tocqueville who said that in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve. I guess that’s why I’m saddened by the behavior of Price and his colleagues — that apparently we deserve them and that they do, indeed, represent us.

Loren D. Acord San Luis Obispo

Lack of vision

I can only look at the recent vote on water rates in Paso Robles and shake my head in amazement. The voting citizens of Paso Robles elect a City Council to make critical decisions for us all. The council makes a long-range decision to have a source of water for the future. It is going to have a cost associated with it. Any major project will have a cost.

We have a protest ballot to force an election to override the council’s work, and only 40 percent of the registered voters participate! Now it seems that we are following the Los Osos sewer situation and are looking at increasing costs. When we moved here eight years ago, we saw Paso Robles as a city of vision. Bridges, parks, public facilities and wineries were all built for the future. But, many of us know that water could someday be as precious as oil. I just hope the 60 percent of registered voters who did not vote are happy with the results. I am not.

Bob Leith Paso Robles

Congrats Mustangs!

Congratulations to Coach Crozier and the Cal Poly women’s soccer team on an excellent season that was exciting to the very end. It was a pleasure to watch them overachieve with skill, effort and determination. We all look forward to 2010 for what is sure to be another great year of soccer for the Lady Mustangs. Thanks also to The Tribune for all the generous coverage and dazzling photos of our local soccer athletes.

Eileen Vavra Los Osos

Inappropriate

LaVerne Hawkinson just doesn’t get it (Letters, Nov. 11). On Veterans Day of all days, it should be clear why singing Christmas carols is no longer appropriate in the public schools.

As a World War II veteran and a true nonbeliever in any deity, I did not volunteer to fight for Christianity. The mono-theistic German Reich or the current Taliban reign should be a danger sign for people to resist a single ideology, including Christianity. The fact that Hawkinson had (was allowed) to say prayers in school was an affront to all the Buddhists, Jews and nonbelievers of her day (a day not that long ago).

Her Christian church is the place to go to sing carols, or she can sing in her home to her heart’s content. The shopping malls realize the profit (no pun intended) of the carols and she can hear them there, as we all must.

What xenophobic reaction brought her to the supposed perpetrators of this ban, foreigners and noncitizens, to dictate her problem? I thought we could all vote.

How recently did her ancestors come to the United States? Unless she is a native Indian, her ancestors would have all been “foreigners.”

Syd Brown Los Osos

Poly’s bad bike fee

My son is a senior honor student at Cal Poly. This quarter the tuition was raised, classes eliminated and teacher participation decreased, all without any prior notification.

In addition to the unexpected increased costs, my son recently received a bicycle citation. He was riding because he was unable to pay the parking pass fee.

The citation resulted in a $170 fine for riding the wrong way in the bicycle lane due to cars blocking the proper lane. The court official hearing the complaints offered decreased fines for driving under the influence, speeding and drug use violations of up to 50 percent off the fine, but only $20 less for the bicycle infraction including a mandatory diversion class.

The amount of the fine should raise the concern of the community, as well as the university, for partnering in the financial attack on students already strapped for funds.

Bob Jamison Truckee, Calif.

Insurance scrutiny

The insurance industry is a big part of the problem and will never be a good part of the solution.

Profiteering has destroyed this country’s medical system, from research to doctors.

We need to take a serious look at where the money is going and if it really is necessary for it to go there.

Judith Lautner San Luis Obispo

The true meaning

It is obvious that people who want Veterans Day moved to a Monday (Letters, Nov. 11) so they can enjoy not just a day off, but a three-day weekend, are not veterans and do not understand the significance of the day.

Veterans Day was initially known as Armistice Day. It was the end of The Great War, or the “war to end all wars,” later to be renamed World War I.

The nations at war in 1918 agreed to an armistice (or a cease fire) that would take place on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, thus ending hostilities.

In 1954, after World War II and Korea, this day became Veterans Day, to recognize the military service of all Americans.

If people want to lose the significance of holidays and move them just to enjoy a three-day weekend, then let’s forget all tradition and celebrate New Year’s Day on the first Monday in January, the 4th of July on the first Monday in July and Christmas on the third Monday in December.

Maybe we could even celebrate April Fools’ Day all year long.

Adrian M. Hurtado Cayucos