Juiced

Re: Regarding the Chargers and the NFL (News Ticker, “Tale of Two Sleazes”)

Capitalism on steroids is now overwhelming this professional sport.

Everyone should read March 5’s News of the Weird, the lead story on the tax-publicizing season in Finland, and take that to heart. Go socialism!

• Teddy Rodosovich
• via voicemail

Mission Valley Aquifer?

Re: Regarding the Chargers and the NFL (News Ticker, “Tale of Two Sleazes”)

It’s now been discovered and made public that the Mission Valley stadium is sitting on a large aquifer, and the aquifer is controlled by the water department. The stadium owes large amounts of lease money to the City of San Diego.

There is going to be a large demand for water in San Diego in the future, and we’ve had these years of crushing drought. The cost of importing water from Northern California is extremely high. It’s not only expensive, but it’s wasteful. Why aren’t we pulling out the stadium, which is sitting on an old river pond?

I have aerial photos from 1955 showing the river pond before the stadium was built. We should take the stadium out and use the existing location — 160-plus acres — for a large reservoir to provide water for the citizens of San Diego, instead of catering to the interests of a few radical, alcohol-addicted football fans.

I’m a past board member of the Mission Valley Community Council, and a retired engineer for the City of San Diego, and my specialty is land use.

• Mary Slupe
• via voicemail

To Prevent

I’m a regular reader — have been for decades. Surprisingly, I often uncover abuses of the English language. In the article that Susan Luzzaro wrote in the March 5 issue, “Fix the Cracks, Leave the Potholes” (City Lights), she uses the word “preventative.” There is no such word in the English language.

I assume Luzzaro is an English-speaking person. Would you be so kind as to let her know that the correct word, I suppose, is preventive, not preventative. Perhaps the copy editor who reviewed her story should be informed as well.

We’re just trying to clean up some bad English in your publication. Every time something like this comes up, one of us will call you. We don’t mean to be disrespectful. Just let this be a learning experience.

• Name Withheld
• via voicemail

The Last Nickel

The article, “A Disaster of Biblical Proportions?” (SD on the QT), was an excellent commentary on the nature of funding for a new Chargers Stadium.

Spanos would very much like to relate the Chargers to a religious experience in the same way that corrupt religious leaders extract the last nickel from naive followers. My compliments to the author.

The only difference is that Spanos is going for really big bucks — $975,000,000, according to an objective third party. This will be a great investment for those who want to pay more taxes, like to see water main breaks, enjoy watching sewer overflows, and look forward to bumpy streets.

Spanos and Fabiani have threatened the Mayor of San Diego and have insulted all of its residents. They are the last people who I would want to do business with.

• Ronald Harris
• Scripps Ranch

Video Store Tribute

Now that we are done singing the seemingly endless praises of Kensington Video (Big Screen, March 5, “You’re Invited to a Farewell Party for Kensington Video on March 19” and "Kensington Video not Closed Yet"), I’d like to say farewell to an even better video store just one mile west of Kensington Video.

James, the owner of Completely Video, unfortunately closed his business last year. His store was much smaller than Kensington Video, but he most definitely beat them in humility, generosity, and pure human kindness.

• The many fans of James
• via voicemail

No Kill, but No Good

By charging exorbitant surrender fees and, worse, turning away feral cats to struggle to survive as best they can on the streets, the El Cajon animal shelter is complicit in these animals’ inevitably bad deaths (Neighborhood News, March 5, “Something Feral This Way Comes”).

Feral cats are genetically identical to the cats we share our homes with. They do not have superpowers. They are not immune to extreme weather conditions, dehydration and starvation, speeding cars, injuries and infections, deadly contagious diseases, and attacks by dogs, wildlife, or people who don’t want them climbing on their cars or digging in their gardens.

In our files here at PETA, we have albums stuffed with hundreds of gruesome photos of stray and feral cats who have had body parts bitten off by dogs or mangled by steel-jaw traps, gaping wounds from being slashed by car engines, prolapsed eyes and rectums, and eyes and noses so covered with crusty mucus that the animals can barely see or breathe.

Shelters that refuse to take in needy cats have these animals’ blood on their hands. This isn’t no kill, it’s no help, and that’s no good.

• Teresa Chagrin
• Animal Care and Control Specialist, PETA

A Great Writer, but ...

I’m calling regarding “Scheming Diva” in the February 26 issue (Diary of a Diva).

I thought that Barbarella was doing a great job dictating and doing penmanship until she had to use the word shit. Usually she uses vulgarity in quite a meaningful manner. In this case, I don’t think she really did. I believe that she is a great writer, but after I read that word I continued on, and I did not finish reading the rest of the article.

Then to Ask a Hipster. I really liked the graphic design stuff, because I believe that’s what most hipsters do, and that’s what they believe in.

• Jeremy Marsh
• via voicemail

Sound Stage Stadium

Re: News Ticker, February 26, “Chargers Departure Could Hit U-T Where It Hurts”

Chargers and Raiders gang up to shake down SD and Oakland for new stadiums! Let’s look at the numbers. Cost for a new one in San Diego is $1.2 billion up to $1.5 billion, before interest. At most, I’d bet, you have about 200,000 individual fans actually there during the ten-game season — all your season ticket holders, and some others. When it goes for a vote, maybe this group should pay. Nobody else is going to use the place. At $10,000 per attending fan, we’re at $2,000,000,000 Voilà! There you have it.

Those 200,000 stadium-attending fans will want the rest of our population of 2.5 million to help pay the bill. But for all those of us who never go to the stadium, why? We watch on TV. And the Chargers could be playing on a sound stage with a green screen background, for all we know, like the crowd background in Gladiators. The endless game-day ads on TV would easily cover the costs of the sound stage. It could be in Stockton, at the headquarters of the A.G. Spanos Companies. Done deal!

• Jon Donahue
• Carmel Valley