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,
    Mr. Whittaker's statement that Paul Robbins “thoroughly, categorically and at great length lambasted” Prop. 6 on Oct. 17 is false [Postmarks, Nov. 15]. Also this large forum was less than 50 people.
    It was I who invited Mr. Robbins, and while he was not asked to articulate any position pro or con, he was also not enjoined from having a position. Specifically, the invitation said, “I understand that you are good at articulating the everyman position as well as being knowledgeable about how we intersect with the city on issues of water.”
    Mr Robbins did say that he would not vote for Prop. 6; otherwise his comments focused on the issues surrounding water and not the issue of the proposition. There was no “lambast[ing],” and to state that there was is untrue.
    Had Mr. Robbins expressed such avid opposition to Prop. 6, the conversations of the group would have reflected that. The comments that I heard were along the lines of, "Well, I still don't know how I am going to vote." For the record, Prop. 6 passed overwhelmingly in Northwest Austin.
    I believe Mr. Whittaker owes Mr. Robbins an apology, and preferably in the Chronicle.

Dear Editor,
    I understand why the “Famous Cajun Pie Man” made the decision to move to Austin, though we miss him terribly [“'Bon Temps' and Tasty Pies,” Food, Nov. 8]. While I enjoyed the review, and the descriptions of the food made my mouth water (I am a NOLA girl, after all), I was dismayed to once again see the destruction of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina blamed on the storm itself.
    Hurricane Katrina did not damage New Orleans. It is a fact that the levees began to fail and be breached as Katrina was making its second landfall early in the morning of Aug. 29, 2005.
    The devastation was due to a man-made, civil engineering disaster of epic proportions. Both the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana and the American Society of Civil Engineers found the flooding of New Orleans to be a direct result of the levee failure, and placed responsibility on the Army Corps of Engineers.
    I hope that Mr. Hegger’s business continues to thrive, and I’m happy that Austin gets to sample our culinary delights. But please show some respect to his hometown and report the truth.

Dear Editor,
    The Parks and Recreation Department should be encouraging smaller neighborhood groups to participate in public-private partnerships [“Keeping Austin Green,” News, Nov. 8]. The smaller neighborhood groups would not pull in the multimillion-dollar grants from major corporations, but there would not be the strings attached to the grants, either. Many neighborhoods have improved parks and trails with the assistance of private funding and the Austin Parks Foundation fiduciary service for member groups. The Country Club Creek Trail in Guerrero Park was built with grants from Spansion, Tokyo Electron, and the Austin Parks Foundation, and is a good example of what can be accomplished by small groups partnering with corporations.

Dear Editor,
    In the Chronicle's Nov. 8 election coverage of Proposition 6 to fund future Texas water projects, your story incorrectly stated that I was part of an active campaign to prevent the measure from passing [“Prop. 6: Rainy Day Flows Downhill,” News]. This is inaccurate. I was not part of the Nix Prop. 6 campaign, and never actually heard the name of the campaign until I read it in the story.
    I did state at a public forum in October that I would not vote for Prop. 6, but would not take an active role in opposition because I did not want to oppose other environmental groups like Sierra Club and Environment Texas. There might have been 50 people at this event.
    I have great respect for these environmental groups, who took a principled, though in my opinion, incorrect stand. This fall I was asked to join a press conference in opposition to this measure, but declined.

   [Richard Whittaker responds: Paul Robbins seems to argue that opposing Prop. 6 in a public forum does not mean he publicly opposed it. During the Oct. 17 League of Women Voters panel, he was presented as serving as a technical witness, filling in any evidentiary gaps between consultant and former Texas Environmental Quality Commission Water Utilities Division Director Steve Walden (pro-Prop. 6) and Save Our Springs Alliance Executive Director Bill Bunch (anti-Prop. 6). Instead, he gave a cursory introduction, and then thoroughly, categorically and at great length lambasted the proposition. What was supposed to be a balanced debate, with Robbins as the pivot point, quickly became a two-on-one handicap match. Whether he was a formal part of the Nix Prop. 6 campaign or not, the idea that he remained only silently opposed certainly did not apply that night – arguably the biggest and most public discussion of the proposal in Austin.]

Dear Editor,
    With the publication of Roger Stone's book indicting Lyndon Johnson in the JFK assassination (The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ), I ask: When in polite society in Austin and Texas can we finally refer to Lyndon Johnson for what he was? A man whose corruption was of biblical proportions and a serial murderer who, in the words of Stone, "would order up a murder just as you or I would order a ham sandwich."
    Stone reveals that not only did Richard Nixon, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., Barry Goldwater, and the KGB all conclude that LBJ did it, but also that Nixon immediately recognized the murderer of Lee Harvey Oswald – Jack Ruby – as a "Lyndon Johnson man" from the 1940s and a paid informant for the House Un-American Activities Committee.
    After 50 years, can we finally acknowledge the hellish depravity of LBJ?