Problem Number One

Thank you for the excellent cover story in this week’s issue of the Reader (Cover Story, February 17).  I saw the cover leaving a local store and saw El Cajon mentioned. I read it as soon as I got home.  Wow, I was very impressed by the topic and how well the story was written. My father was killed by a DUI driver. I pray others realize just how dangerous it is to drive under the influence of the number-one drug problem in society: alcohol. The article does an excellent job in laying out the out-of-pocket costs, the impact on current or future job, and the possibility of death and injury — and I especially liked the reference to thanking an officer for doing his job — saving lives! Bless you, Reader!

Great job!

Monica Zech
El Cajon Fire Department
Injury Prevention Educator

What Took You So Long?

It’s about time! You finally printed a cover story deserving to be on the cover (Cover Story, February 17).  It was well written and on a topic many people can relate to. Find more stories like that, and people will read them instead of paging past.

Name Withheld by Request
via email

No VIP Cred

I’m the director of the MADD Victim Impact Panels (VIPs) in San Diego and have been for 20 years. I was told by a few different sources that this article was well worth reading (Cover Story, February 17). I had no idea MADD’s VIP was included in the article.

The author did not do research or contact me or the MADD San Diego office and obviously didn’t attend a VIP.  The description given of men and women streaming across the stage is not accurate.

The author has lost credibility with those of us who work the seven VIPs we hold each month.  The overall information could have been extremely helpful, yet we know this author doesn’t necessarily care for the truth.

Paula Myers
via email

Weird and Wrong

“News of the Weird” had a story on the Green Party and a ballot mistake concerning Rich Whitney’s name appearing as Rich Whitey (February 17). Chuck Shepherd’s lack of knowledge on this subject is atrocious.

The Green Party ran an African-American female for U.S. president in the last national election and has a very diverse ethnic mix of members across all income levels.

And equally disinformative were his comments on the cost of pollution. Environmental projects and green jobs always generate larger social dividends and create long-term, real profits. It is the exponential medical expense of pollution-borne disease such as asthma and cancer, the billions spent on unnatural disasters’ cleanup and repair, and the ultimate destruction of all flora and fauna from climate change that is wreaking complete havoc on our economy. The Green Party is as far as one can get from the wealthy sleazebags like the Koch brothers, who fund the Tea Party and other GOP interests and who propagate that global warming is a hoax.

Where are the weird tales describing the unprecedented celebrity idiots of Fox News and their moronic antics? Glenn Beck should have a weekly paragraph of his own. Shepherd’s politics seem to stifle the exposing of the truly weird news and crimes perpetrated by the radical-right morons. An entire magazine could be filled on Texas and Arizona, yet he never mentions their insane legislation and all of the goofy GOP politicians blathering sheer lunacy.

Stephen Johnson
via email

Besotted, Beancounter, Fishwife

Regarding the privatization of the City of San Diego’s water utilities services (“Water’s Monopoly Game — Public? Private?” “City Lights,” February 10), my knee-jerk reaction is “Jerry Sanders, you got to be out of your besotted mind!” More likely, though, the bean counter DeMaio is practicing the fishwife’s principle of “free estimates” to establish a cost basis for next year’s budget. Water carries the force of law in this part of the country. That is why it is in the public domain, and I would bet that it will stay there.

David D. Kirkwood
via email

Soulful Mexican

I agree with Ms. Goldman regarding her review of Barrio Star and its overpriced food, which lacks substance. However, I do not agree with her review of Jimmy Carter’s Mexican Café (“Restaurant Review, February 10). Ms. Goldman suggests that Jimmy Carter’s Mexican Café serves food from the soul. Having eaten there a couple of times, I hardly believe that this is in any way Mexican “soul” food. The food is decent and affordably priced, yes, but soulful, no. Perhaps Ms. Goldman would be better served eating at restaurants where Mexican patrons are likely to eat when looking for food that reminds them of Mom’s cooking, but she won’t find those in the Hillcrest/Banker’s Hill area.

At the end of the day, Jimmy Carter’s, though respectable, is only catering to those who do not know real Mexican “soul” food.

Name Withheld By Request
via email

She’s Too Steamed

In response to Judy Matthews (Letters, February 3).

Judy says “Roadshow producers are very astute at identifying and dismissing people who are more interested in getting attention than in getting information.” Yow, lady, that is the whole reason your appraisers are on the show, to get attention. Looks like ARS is in need of better standards!

Then you drool on, “It is a shame someone else, with a legitimate interest in learning, was denied a free ticket because Mr. Dimock (inappropriately) bought one.” So the person that sold it to me was a fine human and I am the bad one for buying it?

I really love this statement, “But he oversteps when he ‘explains’ how it all works, including the implication that Antiques Roadshow appraisers are somehow on the take.” Nowhere did I insinuate nor say any appraisers are on the take. In fact, I don’t even know what the “take” would entail; you would have to explain that. This is a blatantly ignorant statement.

You go on with “an audience of more than 9 million viewers a week (not Mr. Dimock’s 11 million).” Wellllll, Judy, that was the information I got from PBS in 2001. Does this mean you lost 2 million viewers in the last ten years? Good PR, and thanks for pointing that out.

And your finale, “why a collectibles dealer who couldn’t make it onto national TV blames everyone else for his failure.” Here’s an amusing fact, I do not know one real collector. Pure and simple, once you sell something you are a dealer, which means probably 97 percent of the people who came to the show are dealers, annnnd every appraiser is a dealer too. Another ironic fact, I did get on ARS — you see my head a few times in the background of the Washington’s Inaugural Ball Sash appraisal!

I would say you should stay in accounting and drink your vinegar, as your statements reflect no reading skills, which proves to me, you seem to be no smarter than a fifth grader.

Duane Dimock
via email