Letters

Grow Up

Since produce is grown and not manufactured, your cover story on rare fruit (August 23) should have been titled “Grown in San Diego” rather than “Made in San Diego.”

Robert Lerner
via email

This Tax OK

Your August 23 story “Wall Street’s High-Speed Gambling” (City Lights) mentioned the proposal to place a small tax on security transactions. Then it quoted Arthur Lipper III who opposed the tax, saying the “money will go offshore.” There are many economists who disagree with Lipper, who happens to be a member of the New York Stock Exchange.

This tax is currently in effect in the United Kingdom, which has not experienced the flight of high-speed traders that Lipper warns of. In fact, this tax was in effect in the U.S. from 1914-1966 and was promoted by the famous economist John Maynard Keynes. It is currently in a bill introduced by Congressman Markey of Connecticut.

All of this information can be found by Googling, including an estimate that a tax of half of one percent could provide annual revenue of $350 billion to offset our annual deficit.

Melvin Shapiro
Hillcrest

Why’d You Do That?

I am very disappointed in the journalism ethics of printing “O’Malley Family Buys Padres, Announces Team Move to Los Angeles” without a disclosure statement (SD on the QT, August 23). I understand that it does have a small caption that says “Almost factual news.” Most people read the headlines and then, if it interested them, they read the details. This initially had me extremely angry that the Padres, Petco, and the City of San Diego would let this happen. I now realize that this might not be true, due to the small print and that it did not hit any local news, or even national news.

The original article was written before the contract was signed and if this article was “Almost factual news,” then the end of the article should have made some sort of disclosure.

Disgruntled Reader reader,

Charles Clapper
via email

So Many Questions

The story “Man Tries to Kill Wife ... Twice” (August 16) is one I have been following and is very interesting. However, the writer of the article left out the answers to many questions and did not do a thorough job! I wondered why there was no mention of article’s author until the tiny print at the end — and likely pen alias name. Simple questions like:

What do the children of the Hoaglands have to say?

What did the mistress Lee Ann have to say after the trial?

Why would the mistress Lee Ann destroy another woman’s family for her own selfishness?

Lee Ann believes and falls for all the false actions of Larry Hoagland and never once is asking about the wife and kids? To pursue a married man should be a crime when so many lives are involved.

Lee Ann had to have this one man out of the millions of single and available men in the world? — and etcetera with the kind of related questions that should have been asked of her for her part in “pushing” Larry Hoagland (“I am tired of all your words”) into taking some sort of action or else, and etcetera, etcetera again.

How does this woman Lee Ann sleep at night?

What do the police think of Larry Hoagland blaming things on a vagrant named Jerry and his former business partner Jim Coit?

Where is this “Jerry” person’s account of the story?

Does it not sicken Jim Coit to have been blamed of something so heinous by a former friend and partner?

Details in writing, folks. I am surprised the editor did not demand more of the author.

J. Reese
via email

Crossword Politics

I enjoy solving the Reader crossword puzzle each week — except when the puzzle’s author pushes his politics with “repugnant” clues.

Name Withheld
via email

Times and Space

I understand that you are making decisions in the movies and showtimes, because of the amount of space that you have, to not list as many movies as there are in the theaters for the South Bay area. I have been getting your paper for many years and use it for the showtimes. I would appreciate it if you could give a complete listing of showtimes and movies in this area.

Friel Allen
via voicemail