Letters are posted as we receive them during the week, and before they are printed in the paper, so check back frequently to see new letters. If you'd like to send a letter to the editor, use this postmarks submission form, or email your letter directly to mail@austinchronicle.com. Thanks for your patience.

Dear Editor,
    I've noticed that in the last couple of years there has been a rather significant increase in the number of "track" bikes around town. The folks that ride these bikes all appear to be in the same age group (my son calls them "hipsters"). Decades ago, track bikes were used for speed racing on an enclosed track, and I guess that is why they call them track bikes. They have one small gear in the back for high speed, no brakes, and no coast option. This makes sense in racing, but I am not sure this is such a good idea on the streets. If you want to struggle up hills using a stiff gear, that is fine, but what happens when a child runs out in front of you when you are speeding along at 20 mph? Since you have no brakes, the only way you can stop is to push backward on the pedals to start slowing down. Well, by that time you've already run over whoever was in front of you. Let me quickly add that many of the track bikes I have seen do indeed have a brake (singular), so this problem is not aimed at all the "hipsters" (thanks son!).
    I would like to please ask all the track bike folks to please add a brake to your bike for the safety of the pedestrians out there on the streets. I am no engineer, but I am rather certain that trying to push pedals backward at high speed is not remotely as effective as front and rear brakes.
    It's just a matter of safety, really.

Dear Editor,
    Just so that I can live long enough to be a cranky old man, I offer these driving refresher hints:
    1) If you can smell what I had for my last meal, you are probably tailgating.
    2) The small appendage on the left side of the steering column (that's what the steering wheel is mounted to – the steering wheel is that thing you should be holding instead of your iPod, cell phone, food, drink, etc.) is called a turn indicator. It helps everyone driving in your vicinity know if you are making a course correction.
    3) When stopping at an intersection, the first, and considerably wider, white line is the one you stop behind, not the second or the third. Those are the lines framing the crosswalk.
    4) When making a left turn, stay in your lane. It's a tricky move, but we're all counting on it.
    5) Most importantly. When sitting on MoPac (SloPacked) or I-35, give the car in front of you room. I'd rather do a sustained 20 mph instead of the stop and go. I'd like to use my car to travel faster than I can run. Think about it.

Dear Editor,
    This tea party crap is just that – crap. They say they want to stop the Constitution from being trampled on. How funny they forget that someone in the White House during Bush's reign of terror said that the Constitution was just a goddamned piece of paper. What a bunch of hypocrites! I wish Obama would just tell the Republicans to sit down and shut up!

Dear Editor,
    In response to the bad customer service letter [“Postmarks,” June 26]: What are you doing to provide a better experience? Do you call with the question you want? Do you speak slowly and talk to other people instead of talking to the operator, like children, co-workers, or spouses? Do you have your account information? Do you digress and tell stories to spark additional conversation?
    Everyone wants customer service to be fast and effective, but it's a two-way street. Three rules of thumb:
    1) Callous as it is, they don't care who you are, and they don't want to engage in social conversation. Get the representative's name if you need it, but don't give extra information that's not asked for and can't be used. The only time that conversation is necessary is when the representative is waiting for a computer to finish something.
    2) Don't spell things unless asked. It's not helpful, and it actually makes the process less clear.
    3) Ever wonder why you're on hold so long? It's because someone before you decided to weave a long story about his/her frustration with the process (or a happy time in life), spoke slowly, and didn't know what (s)he wanted. Know what you're asking, and keep as much information to get to that answer as fast as possible.
    Customer service agents want to help you; they really do. If you want good customer service, though, you're going to have to help as well.

Dear Editor,
    I read Marc Savlov’s June 26 article “Crime and the City Solution” [Music] with much disappointment. The author failed to ask any of the challenging questions that might interrogate the dominant assumptions about crime, race, class, drug addiction, and criminality and maybe bring us a step closer to some real solutions. Instead, he simply reiterated and reinforced all the overstated and underscrutinized assumptions and stereotypes our society has about crime and in a particularly sensational and fearmongering way. Was the author seeking syndication at Fox News or the New York Post?
    After briefly acknowledging that, despite some high-profile incidents recently, Downtown crime has declined significantly, the article continues on its pseudo-apocalyptic narrative of violence and lost city revenue before falling off on a tangent about urban planning. If the Chronicle hopes to remain an “alternative” weekly, instead of just a tabloid, it might consider asking some more difficult questions, such as: What causes crime? (Please don’t say broken glass or dirty alleys.) What prevents crime, instead of just covering it up or pushing it to a part of town that matters less to the city’s power brokers? What causes drug addiction and homelessness? What cures them? Do prisons fix these problems? Why are people blaming evacuees from New Orleans? Why did people have to evacuate New Orleans in the first place? Why can’t they go back to New Orleans? Or maybe, why are we so resistant to asking these question in the first place?

Dear Editor
    As is too often the case, the most vocal of the advocates for a position have alienated me and driven me to the other side. In this case the cause is live music. There needs to be some balance in this issue. The South First Street area was residential long before Freddie's Place was there. Barton Springs Road and the adjacent neighborhood was a residential area before Shady Grove started offering live music. And, believe it or not, Sixth Street had residents before most of the current clubs even existed. A prominent architect and a member of the City Council were among the earlier contemporary residents. To remain viable, a community must work for all its citizens.
    The 360 complex and the Music Hall are excellent examples of how music can cooperate and coexist with other uses. The music venue predated the residential development, so the developer took the initiative to arrive at a cooperative, and I'm sure not inexpensive, solution. It is a commendable example. Live music advocates must work to offer solutions as to how to coexist with other uses instead of taking an antagonistic either/or stance. Just repeating that Austin is the live music capital does not further the discussion.
    Austin is many things to many people, and music is just one of its attractive components. Austin can still be the live music capital without being the loud music capital.

Dear Editor,
    This is my response to the dozens of requests I get for campaign contributions: I will only make donations to candidates who declare in writing that they will champion and sponsor strong legislation for publicly financed campaigns and nonpartisan redistricting. I believe many reform activists feel likewise.

Dear Editor,
    Re: “Revolution in Our Own Streets” [“Postmarks” online, June 29]: Mike Rieman incorrectly conflates past (deplorable) U.S. intervention with current organic protests.
    Iran has far greater problems than the U.S. Peaceful demonstrators are shot at; bystanders are killed. Trying to compare this to American political suffering is ignorant at best and deliberately deceitful at worst.
    Trying to whine away the brutal oppression the common Iranian suffers by comparing it to the American struggle against "corporate America" is sickening, even granting the horrid control consumerism has over American culture. Supporting true Iranian democracy and further scrutiny to our own international congress should be welcomed, not deplored.

Dear Editor,
    The city will be shooting itself in the foot if it cuts or eliminates funding to Emancipet’s free spay/neuter program, which provides 4,000 free pet sterilizations of Austin dogs and cats. Programs like this have been proven to reduce the population of homeless animals living in city shelters.
    This program costs the city of Austin $195,000 per year. The program is a proactive approach to controlling the pet population that saves the city more money than it costs. The cost of a single surgery is $33. The cost to shelter a single animal is $140. A single, unfixed female dog could give birth to five to 30 puppies a year. Litters of unwanted dogs, especially from low-income areas where the residents depend on Emancipet’s services, very likely end up at Town Lake Animal Center, where they have to euthanize nearly 11,000 animals a year.
    The two proposals on the table don’t do enough to ensure the future stabilization of the city’s animal population. One proposal, which relies on private donations, is unreliable, and the other cuts the number of annual sterilizations available to Austin’s pets in half.
    I urge the city to keep its partnership with Emancipet the same as it considers ways to remedy the budget shortfall. I understand that our city officials face terribly difficult decisions right now, but I sincerely hope they look at the long-term costs before making a final decision.

Dear Editor,
    For those buying in to mainstream media's big sales pitch of Iran's street demonstrations as a true grassroots uprising: Be mindful that in 2007 Bush and Congress approved $400 million for covert operations in Iran, including funding for opposition groups, military black ops, and electronic communications. Can you say Twitter? The CIA has a history of meddling in Iranian affairs, including mounting a 1953 coup against popularly elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq, who had the audacity to nationalize his country's oil. I'm no fan of the current regime, but do discerning folks really believe Uncle Sam wants democracy in Iran or just another client state?
    Let's mind our own house and start Twittering toward revolution in our own streets, because our "supreme leaders" – Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, and the military industrial complex – are robbing us blind as the new administration settles in to the same old perpetual war, just like our old bosses.

Dear Editor,
    Re: “Muny Isn't Part of UT's Grand Plans” [News, June 26]: Is there anyone other than the Board of Regents or Cooper, Robertson & Partners that likes this plan? Maybe I'm a bit biased being a cranky graduate student in integrative biology, but I don't think this plan makes sense for anyone. For one thing, I recall them talking about the giant traffic problem on Lake Austin being an issue. How the hell is a large development going to help this? In general, why is it that teaching and research resources always seem to get the short end of the stick? I might be misinformed, but I thought that the point of a university was for learning, not making a profit. Or do we need to sell off the Brackenridge Tract to pay for more law firms to come in, take recommendations, completely ignore said recommendations, and do whatever the hell the regents wanted to do in the first place? I wish I could hire ass-kissers from N.Y. for all my harebrained ideas.

Dear Editor,
    Re: “Crime and the City Solution” [Music, June 26]: It's turning into a big mess. It is turning into one of those seedy areas you find in the bad sides of towns like New Orleans or in East St. Louis. As for the houseless situation, I have recently asked my mom (after reading the article) about the homeless there in Corpus Christi; she tells me that they are sending their homeless on buses up here. I knew that was happening when I read Mr. Savlov's article; it hit me good. One thing I noticed when I was in St. Louis: They don't have the panhandling problem we have. Their answer: The police pick them up and take them in (or in some cases to the city limits), give them a bus ticket, and send them away. I ignore them when I walk on Sixth. They are there with their pack of people and are always waiting to ask for cash. I never give them any when they ask; my reply is, "Have I been claiming you on my tax return?" They look at me as mad as hell, and they just move on to the next person. That Greyhound bus ticket would work wonders here!

Dear Editor,
    Regarding your cover story "Crime and the City Solution" [Music, June 26]: Could your cover be more sensationalistic? Blood splatter on a chalk-mark outline of a guitar? Because of violence in an area with dozens of bars, the host of hundreds of thousands of visitors and locals yearly? Do you know the violent crime rates in New Orleans' French Quarter? Memphis' Beale Street? Those are tourist destinations with a lot more trouble than we have.
    Savlov's "interview" with Police Chief Art Acevedo was a candy-covered soft pitch that smelled of Glade Lilac Spring. I thought I had my face shoved into Grandma's armpit while reading it. Downtown violent crime is down 14% this year, Acevedo says, and "Our Downtown is one of the safest downtowns in the country."
    So much for your blood-splattered chalk outline and reactionary texts of “frequently bloody” and “potentially deadly.” Driving I-35 is deadlier than having a beer on Sixth at midnight. Where’s your scary cover art for that?
    Still, the “reporting” gets better. Savlov lets Acevedo whine that he needs 50 more police officers who will dress like cops and scatter the dealers and thugs before they walk or ride around the corner. Yeah … that's working so well now.
    I work less than a block away from McCreight’s business and often see a dozen cops all hanging out on that corner where crack and crime is dispensed. When the cops leave, the thugs come back. Why doesn't Acevedo simply put some of the cops he already has in street clothes so they aren't so neon-bright obvious to the criminals? Then they'll get some bad guys. Walking more cops around in cop uniforms is like turning on the light in a room filled with roaches.
    Austin doesn't need more cops. The cops we have need to be utilized properly.

Dear Editor,
   While Marc Savlov's article on crime Downtown is a worthy subject and something that everyone should be aware of, what is with the sensationalist rhetoric and scare tactics throughout the article ["Crime and the City Solution" Music, June 26]? Marc Savlov and business owners characterize Sixth and Red River like it's a death trap waiting to steal your wallet and eat your children, when that just isn't the case. Buried deep within the accounts of rampant drug dealing and violence is the statistic that crime is down 14%, so why the tagline "Murder, shootings, and crack dealers on every corner"? Of course there's crime Downtown, but is this kind of language really necessary?

Dear Editor,
   "We're now a big city, and we have to start addressing [the drug problem] like a big city," says Police Chief Art Acevedo in Savlov's article “Crime and the City Solution” [Music, June 26]. How about starting by addressing the drive-by shooting that happened on Red River and Fourth Street on Friday, June 19, around midnight? No one was hit (not even the car the shooter was aiming at); however, there were about 20 people total divided among the street corners mulling about, and the shooter was in a dark green Caddy with cursive writing all over the back windshield (so artistic that we couldn't read it and were only feet away). The worst part about the entire incident is that later on our friends who were with us saw the cars involved hanging out under I-35 at Seventh (across from the police station), told the cops just east of that intersection, and were reprimanded by said cops for flagging them down on "the wrong side of their com-system.” Huh? Since then I have yet to be able to track down a single mention of the incident save for a Yelp entry. I have always felt safe in Austin and don't like where it looks like it's going.

Dear Editor,
    Robert Bork, rejected Supreme Court nominee, has offered his criticism of nominee Sonia Sotomayor: Obama’s description of her as “empathetic” is code for her agenda to legislate from the bench, to the detriment of the Founding Fathers’ original intent. Bork made no secret of his intent, had he been confirmed, to overturn Roe v. Wade. He flatly stated the Constitution provides no guarantee of privacy to U.S. citizens. This is not mistaken; it is a lie. Liberty is contingent upon privacy.
    I’m reading a posthumously published collection of fiction and essays by one of America’s greatest writers: Kurt Vonnegut’s Armageddon in Retrospect. His (last) speech “At Clowes Hall, Indianapolis, April 27, 2007” contains this gem: “I have the humorist Paul Krasner to thank for pointing out a big difference between George W. Bush and Hitler. Hitler was elected.” And this original idea: “If Jesus were alive today, we would kill him with lethal injection. I call that progress.”
    Yesterday Jon Stewart demonstrated that, despite repeated promises to the contrary during the campaign, Obama’s administration is just as nontransparent as George W. Bush’s. A half-hour later, Steven Colbert noted that with a stroke of the pen, Obama could end “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the armed services' prohibition of gays in the military. (But he’s stonewalling – pun intended.)
    The gay community has the duty to serve its country in the military – and the constitutional right to do so – and this right is “unalienable.” (The Declaration of Independence lays the philosophical foundation upon which the Constitution is built.) In other words, no one will grant to us that privilege. It is ours as a birthright. Even though I far prefer Obama over his campaign opponent, right now I’m beginning to suspect he’s a big, fat liar!

Dear Editor,
    What part of "violent crime … is down 14%” in the Downtown area does Marc Savlov not understand [“Crime and the City Solution,” Music, June 26]? This reads to me like a poncey twit that doesn't like the color of the people who have started hanging out in his neighborhood and is trying to whip up public hysteria. Why the editors choose to indulge him is beyond me; they should send him back to writing the worst movie reviews in Austin.

Dear Editor,
    The people of Texas need to begin questioning the presumption of law. One acceptable definition of law is that it "shapes politics, economics, and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator in relations between people." Yet we as a society do not question "administrative" law which is designed to "enforce a specific regulatory agenda.” In laymen's terms this means authoritative agencies can take money from the public in which the public has no recourse. Thus increasing government revenue and expanding government power. Examples like not wearing a seat belt, expired vehicle inspection/registration, failure to display a driver's license, parking, smoking, and noise citations to name a few. The flamboyant, nationally sponsored "Click It or Ticket" campaign is a horrendous misuse of governmental power (with tax dollars) disguised, as always, as a means to "protect the public" from itself. There has been an obvious increase in expenditure for the promotion of such campaigns. The heavy advertising of regulatory programs like "Click It or Ticket" and "Texas Sure" conveniently coincide with the proposed Department of Public Safety checkpoints. Checkpoints were initially targeted at drunken drivers but are now aimed at (doing what with?) illegal immigrants. To imply checkpoints will curb illegal immigration is laughable, as most of us realize the illegal immigration problem is a farce created and perpetuated by the government. It will moreover be the average Texan who will be subjected to unreasonable search, seizure, and fines via these illicit checkpoints. Nationalized programs are on the rise while financial oppression of the people by the government remains popular and unquestioned. Now is the time to investigate the origin of authority. The sooner people begin researching actual law and how it may be applicable to them, the more likely we, as a society, will become disentangled from the web of this ever encroaching feudal system.

Dear Editor,
    "[T]he … conversation circles around to how a young Korean woman [BettySoo] born of immigrant parents makes all-American music" [“A Girl Named Soo,” Music, June 19]. Maybe it's because she was born in America and grew up in a Houston suburb? Jeez, Margaret, could you try to be a little more racist?

Dear Editor,
    I must agree with our friend John Nordstrom in his assessment of the Austin Police Department as of late [“Postmarks,” June 26]. It seems that despite our cash-strapped city budget, it has had no problems acquiring brand-spanking-new patrol cars, which have begun to outnumber the old Crown Victoria models on Austin streets. No fewer than four were present for my recent speeding citation, and I can assure you they are very, very nice. Furthermore, APD parades its excessive budget every weekend on Sixth Street, with a full cadre of horse-mounted cops that disrespectfully spread feces all over our fine city, without any appreciable increase in public safety.
    Among other recent APD purchases is a small fleet of armored, military-style vehicles for combating imaginary supervillains. Is all of this really necessary?
    The city has bent over backward (or is it forward?) for the department and gotten very little return on its investment. It's time to cut budgets. I'd start with the stable fees, advertising campaigns, and new vehicle purchases. Maybe even shift some resources away form marijuana enforcement to drugs that actually cause some harm? And I'd get a move on to save that money before the citizenry decides en masse to go after your bloated, ridiculous salaries.

Dear Editor,
    The 10-year incarceration of the "yogurt shop" alleged murderers is another shameful example of what goes on in our justice system and prosecutors' rapacious quest for a conviction [“Yogurt Shop Murder Defendants Set Free,” News, June 26]. Their behavior is a sin and a shame. It should be a crime.

Dear Editor,
    Debate continues in this country as to whether we should “move on” or hold those accountable for torture that was crafted, approved, and instituted by the political leadership of our nation.
    Let’s be clear, “enhanced interrogation techniques” are torture; waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and physical abuse meet the criteria of torture, per the UN Convention Against Torture the U.S. signed in 1988 and 1994. Torture is a crime, and the fact crimes were committed in the interrogation of detainees can no longer be doubted or debated. These same actions were “war crimes” in World War II when perpetrated by the Japanese against Allied forces.
    Call your senator or congressman at 202/224-3121 and demand the U.S. attorney general appoint a special prosecutor and bipartisan select committee to investigate and prosecute these criminal activities.
    This should not be an issue to divide, but an issue to heal our country of this great wrong.