Emails to the Editor

Not Easy Being Green

Don Bauder was right to highlight SDG&E’s high electricity rates for San Diego (City Lights: “You Pay Highest Electric Rates In San Diego,” April 25). But he made no mention of California’s green policies that have pushed our rates to over half again as much as America’s average.

California’s voters in 2006 fell for Assembly Bill 32, the grandly named “Global Warming Solutions Act,” which imposed expensive and inefficient green policies on our utilities that pushed up rates. The impact of AB 32 on our rates is just beginning to be felt, and promises to increase in the future.

Contrary to AB 32 advocates, other states did not follow our lead with such extreme policies, and continue to have far lower utility costs. Consumers and employers will continue to move out of California in response. We voters need to look deeper into attractively named bills to discover their full impact.

Bob Spaulding, San Diego

Seeing P.B. Differently

“In P.B. the Hotter You Are the Easier It Is Not to Care” (April 18 cover story)was such a compelling, addictive and full-of-truth story. I loved this piece and I could not stop reading. Every young girl (like mine) should be reading this story.

I love P.B., but now I’m going to see it differently.

Congrats to Ms. Young. Best regards and continue printing such great stories.

Bob Landers, via email

A True Californian

This piece of drivel that you deemed an article (“In P.B. the Hotter You Are the Easier It Is Not to Care,” April 18 cover story) is the most self-centered, obnoxious, annoying waste of space I have had the displeasure of reading in quite a long time.

The author bemoans how no one likes her, yet her descriptions of people are mean and demeaning — “My coked-out friends would stumble toward the bar like a herd of fat people rushing to a buffet.”

What really upset me was that none of these vapid narcissistic friends of hers are from California. They are all from somewhere else! Real San Diegans are close with their friends.

I think the reason she has no friends is that she is a judgmental, rude whore. She proudly talks about her escapades as if she is a white wedding dress-wearing Southern belle who just got caught up in the craziness of California and our unholy lifestyle. Yet one sentence prior, she is bemoaning her friend for sleeping with Tony in her roommate’s room, something she does quite regularly, a different man for every day of the week. If she really wanted true friends then maybe she could be a true friend and stop talking behind all these people’s backs and tell them why she is annoyed/hurt.

I asked ten people who were born/raised and have always been a true Southern Cali person. We all agreed this girl has serious issues, and hopping from bed to bed while judging others is not the way to go about fixing it. This comes from a true Californian.

Shannon Riccio, via email

Dangerous and Degrading

Why did you print such garbage, and on the cover (April 18), as “In P.B. the Hotter You Are the Easier It Is Not to Care,” about an aptly described “piece-of-shit slut”? (She was called this by a Marine.)

Unfortunately I read to the end, hoping for some redeeming value, but none came. Well, sort of. She says, “I was angry with men.... It was the way I used them to validate myself.... I was a prisoner of that need.”

The story would have been better if she had talked more about that anger, why she chose to throw her body at men, and how she came to the realizaton that she was on a dangerous and degrading pathway. We didn’t really need to hear the sad details of all her sexual encounters. So sad and pathetic.

Maggie, what’s with you now? Hope you don’t have an STD!

C.F. Sherman, via email

Skinny Little Trainwrecks

I’m not entirely sure what you were aiming to do by printing Maggie Young’s story (“In P.B. the Hotter You Are the Easier It Is Not to Care,” April 18). Were you wishing upon a star, with fingers crossed, that some young twenty-something who could possibly relate was,going to be able to hold their gnatlike attention span the nearly 11 pages it took to get to the final paragraph, in which Maggie eventually admits her obscene lifestyle was due to an inner self-loathing that forced her to validate her existence through meaningless and drunken sex with strangers, and change their ways?

I really hope so, because if that’s not what you were hoping to achieve then the only other option is that you chose to print it because it so clearly defines the types of role models young ladies nowadays hold themselves to — skinny little trainwrecks with cleavage and drinking problems that have a knack for making promiscuity seem fun and exciting.

I don’t think we needed a story in the Reader to tell us that. That’s what we have real life for.

Elise, via email

Talentless and Tacky

I was very disappointed upon reading the cover story of your April 18 Reader (“In P.B. the Hotter You Are the Easier It Is Not to Care”). I was even more disappointed when reading the comments of the article online left by the author herself.

I am native to San Diego, and I have been an avid reader for several years. I have always enjoyed the articles. However, I found this article offensive on several levels.

I am involved in several sectors of the City of San Diego, specifically volunteering for rape victims. I was appalled at the ending of this article, as were several others who notified me.

I feel like the quality of this article is lacking. If you were going for talentless and tacky, you achieved it.

Name Withheld, via email

Stale Events

The Reader provides wonderful information on events for the weekend following publication. It would be great if you would provide information on events for two weeks after, as I usually don’t get to read the paper until Friday or Saturday, and the events are stale by then. Future event information would be great to know a little more in advance.

Tim, via email

Can’t Get No Satisfaction

Regarding City Lights: “Men are Lousy Lovers,” April 11.

So, if a man can’t achieve sexual satisfaction with his female partner, it’s his fault. And if a woman can’t achieve sexual satisfaction with her male partner, it’s still his fault?

Tamara Kayali’s sexist attitude towards men is a perfect example of why most people consider the current modern feminist movement a joke, and why it has less and less significance than ever to today’s young generation of both sexes. This is yet another example of this movement’s demand for equal rights but less responsibility.

So, let me get this straight. Ms. Kayali didn’t think to utter one word of protest as the multibillion-dollar Viagra industry sprang up, with thousands of products demanding men to be responsible for their own sexual satisfaction. But now there is talk of one product expecting women to do the same — and that’s unfair? I guess what’s good for the gander ain’t good for the goose!

Just as a man has part of the responsibility for his female partner’s satisfaction, so too does a woman share part of the responsibility for her male partner’s satisfaction. Or would that be too equal, Ms. Kayali?

If you don’t think the woman’s part is just as important as the man’s, think about this: Would your typical 50-year-old man who needs Viagra to get it up with his wife of 25 years (who has let herself go and nags at him) still need Viagra if a sweet, supportive Scarlett Johansson look-alike walked into the bedroom in a négligée?

To paraphrase Ms. Kayali: It may be kind of scientists to attempt to develop a drug that enables men to gain more pleasure from sex, but it would be even kinder to men to look into a drug that made women better at it.”

Ken Mayer, Kensington