We’ve Got No Friends

Regarding “Democrats Are Not Your Friends? Protestors Rally Outside City College” (“Stringers,” April 21).

The Democratic and Republican Congress are not our friends. They are owned by corporate America that has outsourced more than 2.4 million jobs over the last decade, while cutting the U.S. workforce by 2.9 million. At the same time, CEO pay at S&P 500 companies has increased 23 percent in a year, averaging $11,358,445! How many firefighters or teachers or nurses could we employ for that one CEO’s salary? 102,325 Americans in median worker jobs could be employed instead of this one average CEO who has probably outsourced jobs and been at the helm of a company that was bailed out by our taxpayer dollars.

The corporate-owned media covers protests that benefit their policies (such as right-wing tea party supporters that the “Democrats are not your friends”) yet mostly ignored the large protests against Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s attempts to take collective bargaining rights from American workers. We are starving on corporate-owned news.

J. Nep
via email

Correction

“Democrats Are Not Your Friends?” (“Stringers,” April 21) incorrectly stated that Governor Brown was scheduled to appear on April 15 at a conference held at City College. The governor was not scheduled to appear in San Diego that day.

Here’s Why

I would like to commend Ollie on the excellent and insightful article on why I have to live in Mexico (“Consider the Condo,” Feature Story, April 21). You can buy a two- or three-bedroom ocean-view house for between $100,000 and $200,000 here.

Rick Garrett
Rosarito

Cancel That American Dream

Re “Consider the Condo,” Feature Story, April 21. I didn’t read the whole article, but I was caught by the paragraph that intimated that lower-middle-income people have the right to assume mortgages, in effect, paying for a potential investment as well as a fee for living within it. We should not entertain the naive ideal that everyone has a right to buy things they can’t afford. The mortgage crisis should have taught Ollie something. Who is Ollie? There’s a great article at altacocka.com that covers the idiotic idea that everyone should own their own homes in this marvelous country.

Name Withheld
via voice mail

You Missed It

In your article about banh mi (Restaurant Review, April 21), I was amazed that you didn’t even mention K Sandwiches at 7604 Linda Vista Road in San Diego. Their banh mi are superb, and their bread is baked on-site!

Name Withheld
via email

Dateless In Lakeside

Did I miss something, or did you devote 14 pages of your latest issue to the Lakeside Rodeo (“Studs,” Cover Story, April 14) and fail to mention the dates of the rodeo?

Kerri
via email

The Voice From The Chamber

All in all, the article “Studs” (Cover Story, April 14), written about Lakeside’s annual rodeo, was an informative exposé; it is truly unfortunate the author felt the need to disparage one of Lakeside’s best breakfast/ lunch establishments.

For one, its untrue description added nothing to the article and served no purpose. Secondly, the author did not even take the time to visit Café 67, because if she had she would have found a nicely decorated ’50s-themed atmosphere with a team of friendly staff members who believes in the values of customer service. The food is delicious; the portions are generous, proven by the long lines of satisfied customers during their prime hours of operation.

The owner, Brenda Asaro, is one of our best Lakeside chamber members, who has embraced this community and has generously supported every service organization in Lakeside. She opens her restaurant and her heart, donating several thousands of dollars in gift cards to the various service organizations for their raffle and prize drawings each year. Once a year, she throws an amazing customer-appreciation dinner for free, opening her doors to 200-plus appreciated patrons, for no other reason than to say thank you!

You have done a great disservice to one of Lakeside’s leading community members. On behalf of the Lakeside Chamber of Commerce, we ask you to please apologize to Café 67 and its owner and ask that your writers take the time to actually visit an establishment prior to making rude and unfounded remarks.

Lakeside is an amazing community filled with hardworking people who never hesitate to roll up their sleeves and help their neighbor or their community. It is these people who are the true residents of Lakeside!

Kathy Kassel
Executive Director
Lakeside Chamber of Commerce

Who Cares? We Don’t

I have a really major question. Does the owner of the Reader pay this Barbarella for all of this “blah” about her daily experiences? What the hell does she get? The problem is, most of us out here in the real world could not give a crap what and how she spends her daily life. And she gets a paycheck? How lucky can you get?

Joe Browan
Alpine

Wrong World View

In response to Mike Myers’s worldview (Letters, April 14), it is good to know that due to its superior moral values, the United States has almost always been “exceptional.” As much as Mr. Myers and other progressive thinkers would like to separate these values from Christianity, it can’t be done. Certainly some values predate Christianity, but the founding morals, regardless of where the Founding Fathers got them, were pretty much the Judeo-Christian values they held at the time. In spite of a few quotes extracted and repeated out of context by atheists, most of the writings of our country’s founders make it clear that they were religious people, and their religious values informed their actions. To suggest that their morals and values were somehow separated from their religious lives is just silly.

But silly or not, it is required of modern progressives to believe exactly that — and by extension, that what the founders really wanted was for us to eventually forget that our inalienable rights have a supernal origin. Indeed, if we could only get that “Creator” guy (Declaration of Independence) out of the picture, then we could have as the dispenser of rights: the government. Much more convenient in this age of moral relativism. Trouble is, government-given rights can be negotiated and, eventually, even legislated away, especially as government becomes less limited. We’re getting there, sadly.

M. Read
via email