Comfort food was never so needed

Ed, man, I’m sorry she’s not here and I’m sorry my condolences are so late. Read “Beautiful” in the paper Reader only just last night and spent the whole time since in the grips of the clutch. The one in the heart and throat that floods and burns in the eyes. I got it from your words which I read over and over, and then realized that I had only ever known her through your words, read over decades of your column, fragments of her accumulating over the years into this clear notion of a person fiercely alive, to be treasured, fed, maybe a little feared even. Your words enthrone her. Anyone with a heart reading them can glimpse her, enthroned.
— March 4, 2018 11:50 p.m.

Victorious Seals

Gawd, who should I hate more, Pistol Pete with his repeated wish of violence against The Dear Seals, his moronic politics, his inexplicable pride over his hated outlander status in California? Or Carolyn Grace with her smarmy New Age persona who, if you push her enough, will equate 6 million murder victims with a buncha noisy, smelly seals to make her point? F***it, I hate them both (not personally, of course, since I don't know them, just the fronts they present with the words they write) but I gotta go with Pete on this issue. That wall at the Childrens' Pool wasn't built by the seals. I don't recall any outcry against runoff at the Childrens' Pool during the many many years of its intended use. Finally, during all those years of human use, it never served as an open septic tank, which is what it has become: The Childrens' Cesspool. Thanks, seals!!! BOLD PREDICTION OF THE FUTURE: Forced by the Federal EPA to take action against the environmental degradation caused by the fecal-contaminated waters of the Childrens’ Pool, the City of San Diego will hire the Army Corps of Engineers to determine appropriate action. The Corps will conclude that removal of the pool’s seawall will allow the contaminated effluent to flow away with the tide. But such removal will make the beach less attractive as a seal habitat, and the same merry band of seal-lovers will re-converge to fight removal of the seawall, even at the cost of pollution of La Jolla Cove. Within a decade, the entire Cove area is populated year-round by seals, water at the Cove is contaminated to within 25 feet of shore, and bacteria counts at nearby La Jolla Shores are monitored on the half-minute. A giant seawall is eventually built to protect the Shores from the encroaching poop, but this in turn creates a giant habitat for more seals. Ad infinitum ad nauseum. Yay seals!!!
— January 4, 2010 1:18 a.m.

Letters

NQAD Angry! Why so angry? My letters had to pass through an editor to see print, which means that someone thought enough of my writing to publish them—just like Nasreen’s article. Aint no thing, maybe, but on the web-comments page, anyone with an account can vomit out their bilge, string up a bunch of clichés, tacky insults and bad grammar and get it uploaded. (See?!?) Jesus, take another look at your first comment above and see if it couldn’t benefit from some judicious editing. Write something coherent (and decent) to the Letters Editor and get it in print, if you want to get your point across to more than me and refriedgringo. (“Are any of you with me?” *crickets*) I’m thinking last week might be as long as the Reader is willing to draw this out, but if you switch to decaf for the space of a letter and write with your heart and head instead of your bowels and anus, they might go one more week. Trash me as payback for Nasreen, if it’ll make you feel any better. I’m over it, myself, so have the last word. But your writing would have to do it, not the heat of your expression, or your desire to save already-paid writers from any criticism. Nasreen Atassi lost no sleep or money from my letters, and (in print at least) any negative comments anyone made were balanced out by positive comments. No one got hurt, as far as I can tell, and Nasreen will continue to write no matter what anyone thinks of her, like any good writer. She’s not an aspiring artist—she was published: she IS an artist.
— June 8, 2009 2:32 p.m.

Searching for San Diego's Sea Turtles and a Job

refriedgringo: Nameless in La Jolla in this week's hard copy and NotQuiteADiva above are both referring to my May 6 letter (http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2009/may/06/le… Nasreen's article, which I did not like at all. Not because of her writing, but over the snide attitude toward working that displayed itself with the guy who took her resume, in her repeated quitting, and in her random comments about people who stay at a job they don't like. I just found it all a bit much coming from a post-grad who was living at home. Re Name Withheld in La Jolla: I agree that a writer who deems herself accountable for her writing backs it up with her name, and don't understand why the Reader granted anonymity in a case where no danger even remotely exists. -Neil Allen (Normal Heights, not Talmadge)
— May 28, 2009 11:26 p.m.