Letters to the Editor 1/1

Unequal justice

This letter is in response to the excellent and meaningful Tribune articles about the assaults on employees at ASH by its mentally ill patients.

A serious question about these assaults is why are patients who assault security officers and psychiatrists at ASH charged with a felony, but when a patient attacks a psychiatric technician, the patient is not charged with a felony? Why is justice so unequal here?

Please keep up your continuous reporting about the constant assaults on the employees at ASH.

You may be responsible for saving the life of a staffer by keeping the pressure on to help resolve this “patients’ rights” situation but no rights for the employees!

Naoma Wright

San Luis Obispo

Action earns thanks

To the gentleman who stopped to put out a small grass fire on the Madonna Road southbound exit on Dec. 26, I would like to thank you for, first of all, spotting the fire and, secondly, pulling over, grabbing your extinguishers and running to the site of the fire.

I couldn’t even figure out what you were doing as I was driving behind you but was so impressed when I realized your mission. Thanks for going the extra mile to extinguish the fire. Your efforts do not go unappreciated. I was unable to thank you personally as traffic started moving, but I wanted to you to know that anybody witnessing this act was wanting to thank you also.

Eileen Patterson

San Luis Obispo

Walters way off

Dan Walters in his Dec. 1 column seems to be making the case for continuing the present course as far as energy sources are concerned. He is troubled that outside investment will be hampered and the jobs situation will not improve.

Please allow this retired chemistry professor to remind everyone in our living memory: Coral reefs are being decimated due to manmade pollution resulting from the use of fossil fuels.

The outside investment is also threatened due to emphasis by individuals such as Mr. Walters to continue the use of heavily subsidized fossil fuels, which discourages the investment in solar. This also results in a lack of a better job situation. We cannot wait until humans start dying in cities and towns because of climate playing havoc. One must not allow the cost of something to make us forget the virtues of value.

Brahama D. Sharma

Chico

Save rare species

Funny how people can go to the same meeting and hear different things. Like Tom Cantwell (“Unnecessary fight,” Nov. 26), I attended the recent open house at Sweet Springs. Seems to me Audubon was pretty clear that the reason they want to take out the eucalyptus trees is that so many of the plants and animals unique to California can’t live with them. All of the trees are not located along the edges, and even those that are send their leaves, bark and pods flying into the interior with the wind. Trees that are 80 feet tall cast a pretty long shadow, too. So what’s an endangered Morro shoulderband snail or a threatened silvery legless lizard supposed to do? Or what about the endangered sea blite that lives right on the edge of the salt marsh?

It’s not like these plants and animals can pick up and move. The property was purchased to restore as a nature preserve because it is home to so many rare species. Let’s fulfill that promise.

Michele Avant

Los Osos

Got oil?

I am Walter Becker, and I am the CEO of the Becker Oil Company. I am an opportunist, not an entrepreneur.

In January of 2011, with the advice of my attorney, I established a corporation named Becker Oil Company. Since then, the only oil I have produced is on my forehead and facial area. The good news is I’ve received government funds for my lack of production.

First, the subsidies (free money) I received from the federal government were outstanding and now sit in an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. Second, the grants (free money) I received for exploring and developing alterna tive fuels were a huge bonus to my corporation. My current boss makes my paychecks out to Becker Oil Company.

My attorney tells me I will not have to pay any taxes this year. So my wife and I just paid cash for a coastal estate, and we are going on a couple of exotic vacations that we could never afford before.

So be an opportunist.

Walter Becker

Morro Bay Editor’s note: Becker Oil Company is not to be confused with Becker Oil Corp. of Ponco, Okla.

Generous display

Despite challenging economic times, the local display of generosity was much in evidence this year as many contributed to the Salvation Army “red kettles,” to help the needy in our community. Ninety percent of all donations goes to the poor, and only 10 percent go to the organization. “The Most Effective Organization in the U.S.,” it was recently described.

Will Perry

Morro Bay

A false claim?

Has anybody else noticed as they drive south from San Luis Obispo that Mr. Dalidio has apparently decided that he can, in fact, afford to farm his land that he so desperately wants to pave over to turn into a shopping center? During the long and involved process of getting his approval to do so, one of the reasons he gave for needing to have his farmland re-zoned for a shopping center was that he simply couldn’t afford to farm that land anymore, and he let it go to seed to try to prove that claim. Now that he has his approval to pave it over, I guess something has changed and he can afford to farm it after all.

Mark Hoffman

San Luis Obispo

Making a difference

Central Coast Funds for Children recently donated thousands of dollars to local programs that help underprivileged children. As coordinator of one of the programs to receive funding, I would like to thank all the members of CCFC for their tireless work to raise money for important causes that serve our community’s children in need. Members of CCFC have been raising money through a variety of fundraising events every year since the organization was first established in 1994. Through their hard work and generosity of spirit, they are able to make a positive difference in local children’s lives.

Kit Sinner

Abused Children’s Treatment Services

Repressive legislation

Hidden deep within the recent National Defense Authorization Act were provisions that allow the U.S. military to arrest, indefinitely detain, and virtually “disappear” any American citizen whom the military brass consider to be a “terrorist.” No specific definitions about what “terrorist” might mean; that is left up to the Pentagon.

When this is added to other repressive laws on the books, the framework of a military-police state has been established in the United States. This will no doubt lead to the victimization of many Americans whom the brass hats think have “the wrong politics” or the “wrong” ethnicity.

Obama gladly signed this law, adding a meaningless “signing statement,” which supposedly blunts some of the worst ramifications of the thing.

But we’ve often seen Obama waver on principles or things he’s pledged, and the “blunting” would only be for the rest of his administration anyway, which may have only a year to go.

Here is one more crystalclear example of how both major parties go hand-inhand when it comes to expanding the empire and militarizing our society — and attacking civil liberties and democratic rights — and how meaningless and bankrupt are the “lesser evil” politics of progressives supporting Democrats.

Jim Griffin

San Luis Obispo