Letters

Harley Jerks

“Dad Was a Bum” (Cover Story, June 16) reminded me that we have no basis to draw facile conclusions regarding total strangers we may encounter during the typical day. We have no idea what life forces carried them to the point where our paths intersect.

So it is only after careful consideration that I reaffirm my position that Harley riders who roar through neighborhoods at 6:00 a.m. are antisocial jerks of the first order.

EZ Eddie
via email

A Little Sugar, A Little Trash

Daugherty does one of the sharpest, most concise, most amusing takedowns of the NCAA oligarchy this sports lover has ever read (“Sporting Box,” June 16). We live in obscene times, and I appreciate Daugherty sweetening the filth of the hypocrisy our moral guardians force us to choke down.

J. Michael Robertson
via email

Mansion For The Homeless

Re “Under the Radar” (June 16).

Bill Lerach and his wife Michelle Ciccarelli, as recently as six weeks ago, donated the use of their mansion to hold a fund-raising event for the Coalition for Basic Dignity, which abates homelessness. The end result promises the biggest dent so far in the homeless problem. CBD also operates the Girls Think Tank and helps the San Diego Homeless website.

John Kitchin
via email

Oh, You’re Too Modest

Okay, I thought at least one modern-day puritan (Letters, June 16) would react to the “bare Barbies” on last week’s cover (“I Want Love Now,” June 9). Sir, do you have the same reaction when your child innocently takes her topless doll out of the privacy of her Barbie mansion? (“Put a shirt on that Barbie now!”) Do you waste as much effort advocating for flat-chested Barbie with permanent granny underwear? Our society enhances sexuality by making it so titillating. Remember how in junior high everything forbidden was so much more fun? Seriously, the internet porn industry loves your kind of modesty. Here’s another brainiac notion: women have breasts! Time to grow up.

Michelle
via email

Jobs For Dogs

Re “I Want Love Now” (Cover Story, June 9). I have been complimented for a pleasant telephone voice, the problem being that we all judge a book by its cover. While on the phone, a woman has images of George Clooney. What greets her is closer to George Costanza (from Seinfeld). I’ll see a brief reaction of profound disappointment, like that of a child opening a present only to find clothes instead of a toy.

The effect on one’s social life is difficult enough. But it also limits one’s earning potential. Virtually all executive positions are held by those who were pretty and popular in high school, as opposed to the nerds who could not get a prom date. One can, with some difficulty, forbear a love life. But the unattractive still need jobs and don’t get them. A 130 IQ and three degrees are far less valuable than a full head of blonde hair and a height well over six feet.

Eleanor Roosevelt’s lament applies to many of us, man or woman: “If only I had been born beautiful!”

Jason Kron
Lakeside

Disability Is No Crime

You cover stories about how overworked social service people are (“It’s Not Correct, But at Least It’s Done,” “City Lights,” June 9). Why don’t you cover what the state is doing to the people who are disabled, old, and homeless. I am permanently disabled, and working is not an option. Yet our government has cut SSI benefits three times in the last year and a half. We got no cost-of-living increase this year, and we are being cut again as of July. Since when is it right for the disabled people in this country to be punished for their disability? Soon I will be living in a car, spending all my time in food lines, and just trying to survive.

All this crap our government is doing to us is wrong. The only thing that can come of this is people turning to things they normally would not do. Try stealing, dealing drugs, identity theft. Hell, why not? They are just cutting all the people in jail loose, anyway, and they will have food and shelter for a little while anyway. I doubt anyone making these rules has ever gone hungry or had to find some place safe to hide and sleep or even had to go without a shower for days. This country is broken, but we are now the degenerates of society, and no one will listen to what we have to say. Why not print how many people jump in front of trains, jump from freeways, or just blow themselves away because they just can’t try anymore. I was born here and taught to be proud to be an American. Sorry, but I’m just ashamed to be now.

Dory Fenley
via email

Franks And Screams

You write a frankfurter horror story (“Best Buys,” June 9): ketchup on hot dogs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!? Back East, people have been throttled for that very sacrilege — alas, another world, another time.

But, then, I’m now making do with flavorless tomatoes with a piece of gristle extending halfway through from the stem end. I’m on the lookout for a good tomato corer.

George Seibert
via email

My Comment Beats Your Comment

The Reader’s new puzzle rules are a negative step and pervert the whole process. Previously, you solved the puzzle and added a comment, usually an honest one, and if you were one of the first to submit the correct answer, your name was published. Now, it has become a contest to come up with the cutest or most profound-sounding comment to be one of five “winners.” Why don’t you just have another contest for comment writers?

Steve Schorr
via email