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 [email protected]. Thanks for your patience.

Dear Editor,
    I definitely took a great interest in reading the article “Then There’s This: In the Bag” by Amy Smith [News, March 1]. She gave an insight to Austin’s decision to ban “single-use” bags and the lawsuit from the Texas Retailers Association. Personally, reusing a bag and remembering to bring it shopping is nothing more than a quick jot on the shopping list or an extra note on a smartphone. I have been receiving free shopping bags for my entire life, now this change suddenly seems so taboo, yet so very beneficial. With the hundreds of millions of single-use bags a year given out in Austin, it is no wonder why they end up drifting in the wind, in tree branches, and along the ocean shores. Since these bags have no visible price value, they are valued at nothing and people see them as unlimited until free bags no longer exist. Not only does plastic pollute our land but it also harms Earth's organisms in the oceans and that will eventually cause some major damage to the human race. So, since Austin is known to be very liberal and trendsetting, let us continue to keep Austin weird, but in a green way.

Dear Editor,
    Instead of training teachers and women to respond to gun violence, why don't we just prevent school shootings in the first place? If there are no school shootings, teachers can focus on being teachers. This may sound incredibly naive, but in 1996 in the UK, we did just that.
    I am aware that the gun industry in the USA gets nearly half its revenue from the so-called "gun show loophole,” and that the NRA and GOP are sworn to protect that revenue stream above children's lives. I disagree with their position and find it reprehensible, but I respect the First Amendment as much as the Second, if not more.
    I have the solution to the gun violence if anyone is interested: www.dcc.vu/guns.

Dear Editor,
    Every year during South by Southwest, a number of locals will bust out their “Welcome to Austin, Please Don’t Move Here” T-shirts. The cat is already out of the bag, the horse is already out of the barn, and the genie is already out of the bottle – Austin has been one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S. for years. People are already moving here, so instead of trying to stop something that is already a fact, my best advice is to operate within what is already reality and focus on recruiting the cool ones to move here instead.

Dear Editor,
    At ACL, the Flaming Lips packed in the biggest stage at the festival – in the daytime – with people who paid $160 to get in. Can you imagine what's going to happen when they have a free show at Auditorium Shores? Thanks for putting this event on for free, but let's get reasonable – move the show to the Big Lawn (like the Stones show). None of us wants another disaster at Auditorium Shores – one that might put an end to the whole deal (remember the boat races?).

Dear Editor,
    Austin Police Officer Rick Reza in last week’s Chronicle [“APD Occupies 'Occupy': A Half-Dozen Infiltrators?,” News, March 1] sure looks like a goofy kind of dorky dildo, doesn’t he? A real clown is this one, along with the others who infiltrated the Occupy Austin children so they could bust their puny inconsequential sit-in blockade in Houston, for felonies no less. A real efficient use of scarce law enforcement resources this was not.
    I mean, it’s not like these anarchists did anything like firebomb the Governor’s Mansion, or threaten to do the same to Brave New Books, or try to start riots against mainstream citizens peacefully and lawfully trying to petition elected officials to restrict illegal immigration at the Capitol, which required a whole company of DPS equipped with automatic weapons to protect the public against the anarchists. Or anything like posing a threat to the civil and human rights of specific individuals, bringing in the FBI to add even more to the surveillance of the Austin so-called “progressive” community. Or that these children could come even remotely close to causing the disruptions caused by the various Occupy movements on the left coast?
    I considerably dislike what the APD did in this case, but bear in mind that law enforcement officers everywhere must all nurture a special place of hatred in their hearts for the ones in the Austin affinity group that were going to firebomb the cops and burn them alive up in St. Paul during the 2008 Republican stupid party convention. Maybe the dorky dildo clowns in the APD do not see any difference among the various anarchist factions; then again, maybe they do, but just consider them all to be a general pain-in-the-ass threat to the public safety, rightly or wrongly.
    But what is the Austin left doing to educate the public about this? What I have seen is would-be cop burner Brad Crowder held up as some kind of victim, even hero, while Brandon Darby is excoriated by them.
    What the public sees is the firebomb. Right on, cool revolutionary, eh, mon?

Dear Editor,
    There has been more friction in the city as of late, with more people dissatisfied that our idyllic community has been fractured. I believe that the current challenge with the city of Austin is that we are still trying to define ourselves as free-spirited, liberal contrarians, when the truth is that the city has grown beyond that definition. We still have pieces of liberal populations, but 1) the meaning of "liberal" has changed since the 1960s and 1970s, and 2) large groups of people have different opinions. It would be hard to claim that the tech companies are liberal based on their locations and hiring practices, but they have made many positive changes in our city. We are an extremely segregated city – more segregated than Jasper, as it turns out – but that segregation is not limited to any racial group, and all people fall victim to it. The city can still be great, as long as we accept that we all can change some of our perspectives and share in its future direction.