Postmarks
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, follow this link.
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Date Received: Mon., Aug. 18, 2008
AISD ALREADY HAS MORE THAN ENOUGH FUNDING
Dear Editor,
Re: “Bare Necessities” [“Point Austin,” News, Aug. 15]: I was shocked by the blatant falsehood stated by the Rev. Fred Krebs who claimed, "A first-year teacher making $40,000 has to pay $12,000 out of pocket to insure his or her family.” I'm familiar with the rates of Blue Cross Blue Shield, Scott & White, and Humana. A first-year teacher, likely to be single or newly married with no children, currently receives full coverage. Coverage for the spouse and at least six children can be easily obtained for the $1,000/month premium Krebs claims. Krebs misleadingly purports his worst-case scenario as the status quo and implies it's mandatory – the reverend needs to review the Ten Commandments.
These “union advocates” lobby to escalate already oppressive property taxes for “wants,” as home-owning families struggle to pay. AISD's nine-month teacher compensation (average $43,400 plus health care and cash stipends) already far exceeds the average 12-month income in Austin. AISD views property owners as endless fountains of funding, recently heaping nearly a billion dollars of additional bond debt (and tax increases) on their backs for “extras.” Should we continue to reward a system that, based on dropout and graduation rates, is failing in its mission?
The article states: "AISD" is "a 'rich district' (which just happens to be filled largely with poor students).” Why is this? Half the children born in Travis County are illegitimate and subsidized by welfare – a growing dilemma. How much do you think these "poor students'" parents contribute to the system? How many work as a team with their child for educational success? We cannot solve societal/cultural failures with higher taxes.
Last but not least: Our tax-vote approval system is fundamentally flawed: People who don't actually pay property taxes are allowed to vote on their increases. This dilutes the representation of those who are obligated, violating their rights.
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Roger Falk
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Date Received: Sun., Aug. 17, 2008
STRIKING THE SAME POSE AS THE COVER
Dear Editor,
My wife is black and loves avocados, as she is from the Caribbean. I came into the kitchen with my weekly copy of the Chronicle and Onion and had to show her the avocado story [“An Avocado Story,” Food, Aug. 1]. Pure coincidence that she was making her lovely guacamole. We were both excited about the story and the amazing photo. I went to the website of the photographer [Ben Fink] and was perusing the many other beautiful photos of food and people. My wife tried to surprise me and turned her back to me and crossed her legs while holding a half-cut avocado in the same pose. However, she started cracking up laughing, as only the dog was taking notice. When I finally turned around, it was too late, as our lab had already started taking interest in the avocado. So now I read this hateful letter [“Postmarks,” Aug. 15] about the cover choice and wonder if the writer just enjoys getting worked up about nonissues.
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Paul Jameson
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Date Received: Fri., Aug. 15, 2008
BLACK GETS HIS SCIENCE WRONG
Dear Editor,
Mr. Black gets his science wrong regarding genetically engineered crops [“Page Two,” Aug. 8]. Plant hybridization involves crosses between two subvarieties of the same species, two closely related species within the same genus, and very rarely between two different genera in order to select for new varieties with desired traits. Genetic engineering puts DNA snippets from completely different kingdoms into plants, whether they come from fish, humans, or bacteria, typically using a virus as a carrier agent to get the new DNA past the natural cell defenses of the host plant. Whatever the potential merits of GE technology, it is by no means equivalent to hybridization.
Second, Mr. Black uncritically repeats the tired accusation of the biotech industry's public relations fronts that opposition to genetic engineering comes primarily from paternalistic U.S. activists claiming to know what is best for the Third World. In fact, the harshest criticism of genetic engineering comes from farmers and environmentalists in the global south.
In any case, Mr. Black may wish to question the assumption that GE crops will feed the starving world. Recent studies by the universities of Kansas and Nebraska show that GE crops of corn, soya, canola, and cotton yield less than their non-GE counterparts.
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Sincerely,
Geoff Valdés
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Date Received: Thu., Aug. 14, 2008
HAVING THE NERVE TO SPEAK UP
Dear Editor,
Re: “Angry All the Time” [Earache Music blog, Aug. 13]: Bravo, Jim Caligiuri, bravo!
Unlike you, Eric Hisaw is capable of accepting criticism with a degree of grace. It must have been a Monday or a Friday at the factory when yours was not installed. You chose to turn a lighthearted jab directed at you by a third party into an undeserved and overblown thrashing of Hisaw in a childish rage.
The publicist working the record, Eric, and myself were all aware of your negative review of his last album, The Crosses [“Texas Platters,” Music, July 21, 2006]. Yet we still chose to service you directly with a copy of Nature of the Blues, which you no doubt posted on eBay without a listen. We weren’t looking for a blow job, just the honest listen you weren’t prepared to give it in the first place.
While you’re entitled to your opinion of Hisaw’s music, and the editorial staff at the Chronicle might feel compelled to publish it, this sort of outsized retribution directed at a local artist who works his ass off reveals you for exactly what you are: a small, bitter, and frustrated man who can’t take a joke. (A joke, levied by a source that you deem wholly inconsequential, no less.)
Seems to me, if the opinions expressed in 3rd Coast Music are really so biased, irrelevant, and laughable, you could have laughed it off. I think John Conquest is on to something, maybe you really don’t count. Unfortunately for Eric, the Chronicle’s circulation and influence says otherwise.
Gee, I best prepare myself for an exposé in Best in Texas for having the nerve to speak up.
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Jeff Smith
Saustex
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Date Received: Tue., Aug. 19, 2008
QUOTE OF THE WEEK?
Dear Editor,
I think Michael King should use Condoleezza Rice's comment today as his “Quote of the Week.” Referring to the Russian invasion of Georgia, she said words to the effect that it didn't take Russia long to invade, so it shouldn't take them long to leave. In the light of our extended stays in Iraq and Afghanistan, that's pretty hilarious, Condi.
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Ben Hogue
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Date Received: Mon., Aug. 18, 2008
COVERING UP ART
Dear Editor,
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft is back and covering up the art again. The religious conservatives are making sure women do not overexpose themselves. Poor Chronicle will need to start showing women in burqas in order to not offend the overly sensitive. So ironic that the breasts Ashcroft covered up belong to the Spirit of Justice.
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Paul Jameson
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Date Received: Mon., Aug. 18, 2008
'ETHICS BEFORE PROFITS'
Dear “Postmarks,”
Thank you for printing my letter concerning the Live Music Task Force and the issues facing musicians [“Postmarks,” July 25]. Naturally, I was a little steamed under the leather dog collar when I perused that ridiculous response from Stuart Sullivan over at Wire Recording [“Postmarks,” Aug. 1]. Mr. Sullivan sounds well meaning, but comes across as a complete know-nothing when it comes to the multifaceted complexities of the U.S. Copyright Act!
As an aspiring personal manager, I get most of my legal advice from Mark Litwak, a Los Angeles-based entertainment and multimedia attorney. As a law professor, he has taught entertainment and copyright law at Loyola Law School, UCLA, American Film Institute, NYU, USC, Columbia University, San Francisco State University, and the Royal College of Art in London … and he knows a damn sight more about protecting musicians' intellectual property rights than some studio owner in Austin, Texas!
As one of Austin's cutting edge, in the know, personal managers, I am helping musicians avoid finding themselves stumbling through the "electronic landscape,” tempting legal and financial disasters, with their every move.
As a personal manager I would absolutely forbid any artist that I represent from recording one single digit of binary code in any of these recording studios without a work for hire agreement signed, sealed, and delivered by these unprofessional recording studio owners! This agreement offers 100% protection of the artist's copyrights! Without one … they're screwed!
In the Commercial Music Management Program at Austin Community College, we are all taught to put "ethics before profits" and to help musicians "maximize their profits and minimize their losses!" Personal managers like me are helping artists to retain their intellectual property rights, as well as looking out for their long-term financial well-being!
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Hank Startrain
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p.s. I don't trust any of these unprofessional operators in these recording studios. If they won't sign a work for hire agreement/contract, don't record at their studios. As for Mr. Sullivan, this boy needs to get off of Thorazine before he starts writing articles, 'cause he is totally clueless about the U.S. Copyright Act!
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Date Received: Thu., Aug. 14, 2008
WORK SESSION IS DURING ELECTION WEEK
To the editor,
There is one big hitch in the New York consultant group's plans for the redevelopment of the Brackenridge Tract in West Austin [“Naked City,” News, Aug. 15]. They have scheduled a weeklong series of full-day work sessions with public participation. The only problem is, they have scheduled it for the first week of November, right in the middle of the fall elections!
We have residents who are precinct chairs, campaign volunteers, and even candidates, elected officials, and their staff members living in West Austin. When one of my neighbors brought this up after the meeting, someone on the consultant's team rudely brushed her off and insisted they did not want to disrupt their schedule by changing the dates for the work sessions.
Everyone in West Austin needs to contact their elected officials and urge them to convince the "powers that be" at UT that we want the work sessions rescheduled for after the November elections. Otherwise the developers and the contractors will have free rein at the meetings, while many of the active people in West Austin are working on the elections.
Doesn't anybody vote in New York?
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Bill Oakey
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Date Received: Thu., Aug. 14, 2008
TIME TO PASS A SPAY/NEUTER ORDINANCE
Dear Editor,
If puppies and kittens aren't born in the first place, then the city and armies of fosters don't have to spend time taking care of someone else's problem [“Does Austin Need Fixing? Ask Reno.” News, Aug. 8]. There is no reason not to pass a spay/neuter ordinance except that dog and cat breeders are afraid it's going to cut into their steady stream of untaxed money. Breeders threw a hissy fit, and the City Council got scared and backed off a spay/neuter ordinance. Austin City Council didn't get scared off the smoking ordinance. They did the right thing. But our City Council is not willing to do the right thing by our four-footed citizens. What a shame.
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Cathy Olive
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Date Received: Tue., Aug. 19, 2008
MONEY AND BIG OIL
To the editor,
With gas prices continuing to hit record highs, Americans are feeling the pinch. While regular American families are struggling to figure out how they’ll afford to pick up the kids and drive to work, the oil industry recently celebrated record quarterly profits in the billions. Again. It's no coincidence that as gas prices surged to record highs, the largest oil companies in the world reported more than $40 billion in second-quarter 2008 profits.
The demands for more oil drilling should not drown out the fact that the beneficiary of increased offshore and domestic drilling will be the oil companies, not us.
A recent poll reported that 80% of Americans believe that we should end the billions of dollars in oil subsidies and instead use the money to invest in clean, renewable energy sources. Yet the president refuses to end the billions in taxpayer-funded subsidies that are helping to fuel Big Oil’s record profits.
Instead of the failed policies of the past, it's time to break our addiction to fossil fuels by shifting our priorities – and our policies – toward creating the clean energy economy. It's time to take back the giveaways to Big Oil and invest that money in clean, renewable energy and efficiency.
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Jeff Guidry
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Date Received: Sat., Aug. 16, 2008
TIME TO WAKE UP
Hello Austin,
So I hate to be the bearer of bad news, and I also hate to call out an entire city, but it is seriously time to wake up! What do I mean by wake up? I mean look at what "they" are doing to our city! From the 300-plus condos in development or being planned to the bastardizing of Lady Bird Lake by these same contractors, from the sound ordinances in the Live Music Capital of the World to the pyramid scheme that is the toll roads, from the gentrification of the Eastside to the shutting down of the Enchanted Forest. I pray that I am not the only one who sees what is happening to a city that used to be unique. I don't know how often anyone in this city goes to San Antonio, Dallas, or Houston, but we don't want to end up like these other Texas cities! Also, we don't want to end up as one giant shopping center like Round Rock, and the most frightening, we don't want to end up a ghost of our former selves. We have become a joke. Let's be honest with ourselves … everything that is happening to our once unique city is because of money. All the propaganda on Barton Springs Road is for money, all the “good things” about urbanization are for money. Do we really want Austin to become the capitalist whore that it is teetering on the threshold of becoming?
The knife of "new Austin" that has cut me the deepest, though, is the shutting down of the Enchanted Forest. The proverbial last straw on the camel's back. This was solidified after hearing Albert DeLoach's speech at the Ruta Maya benefit last Thursday and watching him practically plead with the general public to allow a community art space to remain in the center of Austin. Can anyone imagine that? A community garden and art space! What a concept … No, it doesn't have a ridiculously overpriced condo or restaurant; no, it doesn't sell the latest clothing; no, it isn't just a useless parking lot. An organic, magnificent, original art space – that's it. And poor DeLoach is having to fight the city and all the laws and zoning codes just to have a community art space for us, not for him, but for us, the community! So Austin, if you are still alive, if you still have blood left in your decomposing body of hopes and dreams, please wake up. After all, at the rate we are going, how long will it be until they charge us to use Lady Bird Lake or to drive through our own neighborhoods? How long will it be until Austin is the Condo Capital of the World?
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Dustin Baltis
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Date Received: Fri., Aug. 15, 2008
WHAT ABOUT MY ECONOMIC STIMULUS CHECK?
Dear Editor,
I am writing in reference to the economic stimulus check that I qualified for but never received. Granted, I did not receive it because it was applied to a $600 balance that I owed the IRS. I had another friend who owed $65, and that was deducted from her check. My problem is that this money is not being used to stimulate the economy as advertised so boastfully by our media and government. There is much talk about how these stimulus checks have not been enough to bring us out of recession, while there's been no discussion of how much of these funds were applied to tax debt, not the American economy. I wonder how many millions of dollars the IRS has taken in from lower income/poverty line folks rather than having it distributed out into the economy? Low-income people such as myself who are more likely to have previous tax debts are those who do not benefit from these "stimulus" checks. And our economy doesn't either. Way to stick it to the poor folks once again.
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Chris Siddall
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Date Received: Thu., Aug. 14, 2008
LOW IN LAW ENFORCEMENT
Dear Editor,
I was morbidly disgusted to see a video on the local news of the cop in San Marcos who sadistically delayed a couple racing to the vet to rescue their dying dog. I see no logic in telling the owners to calm down. Why should they? A furry member of their family is dying as the stupid, heartless cop tells them "you can [get] another [dog]." This cop not only allowed someone's pet to suffer and die but ensured that future desperate pet owners will not bother to stop and risk a dangerous chase. A good cop would have escorted them safely to the vet.
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Lili Murphy
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