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 Louis Black,
    I was having tacos last Thursday with friend and actor Bill Murray (he had the barbacoa, while I stuck with egg and potato) while discussing your “Page Two” columns. We both remarked that, although you were still a master of awkward and unnecessary celebrity namedropping, it had been weeks since you had mentioned Jonathan Demme. Boy, we shared some laughs when I pulled out the latest Chronicle after our meal and read “Page Two” [May 25]. "Demme is back," Bill Murray cried. "What a terribly insecure man this Louis Black is," I replied, and we clinked our glasses together. Our dinner companion, assassinated former President Zombie Abraham Lincoln, told us not to be so hard on you, that you were a man trying to make it in this world like everybody else. It is worth noting, however, that my father-in-law, the Abominable Snowman, agrees with me and Bill Murray, and we rarely agree on anything.

Dear Editors,
    Regarding the May 25 issue of the "Hightower Report" titled "A Chocolate Mess." With the expensive price of cocoa butter, companies like Hershey's and Nestlé have signed a petition to use vegetable oil as a substitute and still be able to call this foul creation chocolate. They have no right to take away the chocolate we all know and love and replace it with stuff that tastes like a statue in a wax museum and still expect it to be called chocolate. Cocoa butter is the key ingredient to chocolate, and to take that away is a heinous crime. I used to think it was pretty generous to make those gigantic chocolate bunnies on sale during the Easter holidays 75 cents, but now that I know what's in them, I think the price should be even lower. The fate of our chocolate rests in our hands. Protest at www.dontmesswithourchocolate.com. You have until June 25.

Dear Editor,
    There are at least eight reasons to impeach George W. Bush:
    1) Losing a war based on lies too clumsy to be repeated without embarrassment;
    2) Extending soldiers' tours well beyond reasonable limit, then denying them adequate medical care;
    3) Directing advancing armies to bypass thousands of tons of high-powered explosives in order to stage a photo-op in Baghdad;
    4) Illegal and intrusive surveillance;
    5) Nullification of basic human rights such as habeas corpus and due process, in secret detention centers;
    6) Stacking the Department of Justice with prosecutors armed with hidden agendas;
    7) Asserting unitary executive authority;
    8) Threatening to expand the war to Iran.
    Now that Nancy Pelosi's strategy to end the war has failed, and since her plan B seems to be more of plan A, I think it appropriate that the Out of Iraq Caucus break with the speaker's pledge to keep impeachment off the table. I ask readers to urge Rep. Lloyd Doggett to challenge the leadership's ineffectual posturing, join with others such as Dennis Kucinich, and honestly consider the impeachment of this administration.

Dear Editor,
    Austin's green programs have two big problems: They leave out the simplest, cleanest, cheapest solutions, and they leave out poor people. The city of Austin will help you buy a hybrid car, an electric lawn mower, an electric bicycle, or a less-polluting air conditioner. But you can't get help with buying an ordinary bicycle, a human-powered mower, or an ordinary electric fan. I guess the people in charge think that everyone can already afford these things or that no one uses them. All of these cheaper items are greener than the city-subsidized gadgets. What gives?
    Austin still doesn't acknowledge walking as a means of transportation. Most Austin streets lack sidewalks. The city actively encourages homeowners to block the pedestrian right-of-way with landscaping. Austin regularly closes streets so that the well-off can pay to run marathons. But we never just close streets so that everyone can walk without paying, as they do on Sundays in Bogotá, Colombia.
    The “green” articles in the Chronicle [Green Issue, May 25] suggest that the greenest thing a person can do is buy something, preferably a Prius. But really, being green is a matter of doing less. Don't buy a new car; drive much less. Don't fly on airplanes. Spend your vacation here in town or within bicycling distance.
    Walking, even in pedestrian-despising Austin, is not only fun and interesting but cures all sorts of aches and pains. There are sights worth seeing all over town. You don't need to zoom to have fun.
    If we want to be green, we need to learn to value free resources, such as our own human power. Until we can do this, the green talk is just so much hype.

To the editor,
    Urban-planning studies which have actually measured traffic levels in suburbs before and after "walkable" high-density development found no reduction in the car traffic per capita, because people still needed to drive across town to jobs and shops that public transportation did not serve.
    Because higher density serves a corporatist agenda of greed, growth, and social control, it is useful to ask who is promoting high density in Austin.
    Will it really benefit the property speculators who bought or inherited distressed properties in old neighborhoods near busy roads? Are they really going to "make a killing" (so to speak) by driving the old and the weak and the sick and the poor out of their own homes in order to make some dirty deal with a big developer to take over multiple city blocks to build their Pottersville?
    The developers themselves can afford to sit back and let a bunch of small-time speculators and politicos take all the risks and do their dirty work for them – attempting to approve future land-use map changes and zoning changes without consulting the neighborhood. When these plans fail, the speculators are left holding property in neighborhoods where they dare not show their faces.
    Ironically, the longer they mire themselves in pointless and degrading struggles to unlawfully promote high density against neighborhood interest, the more openings the big developer will have to lowball individual speculators – a day after the tax falls due, no doubt. So, when speculators denigrate their neighbors' family homes in an attempt to attract a big developer, the speculators may or may not figure out that they're being used until after they've been had.
    In Dawson, we'd prefer they give it up, now. They have an out while they can still sell for more than what they paid.

Dear Editors,
    Julie Alexander's letter, "Pointing Out 'Misinformation'" [“Postmarks,” May 25], contributes to misinformation by claiming "the neighborhood plan is a tool to work with the city, not the law.” A neighborhood plan is part of the law. When a neighborhood plan is formally adopted by City Council, it becomes part of the Austin Tomorrow Comprehensive Plan. City codes and state statutes do apply to neighborhood plans.

Dear Editor,
    In his letter published May 25 [“Postmarks”] Donald Dodson has committed at least 18 errors. For a detailed description of these errors, see Austin Chronicle forums. Either these errors reflect ignorance or intent. Intentional errors are lies.

Dear Editor,
    Louis Black has stridently contested assertions by conspiracists that the U.S. government has any similarity or connection to that of Adolf Hitler.
    On Dec. 13, 1941, six days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Trading With the Enemy Act. George W. Bush should be very familiar with this act, as 10 months later on October 20, 1942, Roosevelt seized the assets of Harriman Bank, where Bush’s paternal grandfather, Prescott, owned one share and managed 3,991 shares owned by his father-in-law. After World War II, Prescott Bush was reimbursed $1.5 million, which was acquired, according to Holocaust historian John Loftus, from providing “the mechanism by which Hitler was funded to come to power, [and] by which the Third Reich's defense industry was re-armed.”
    When the first President Bush lectured Congress in 1991 that “the new world order cannot guarantee … perpetual peace,” he meant a world government, the same totalitarian order that his father was helping Hitler to establish.
    Michael Ventura published an essay, “For Other Purposes” [“Letters @ 3am,” Oct. 13, 2006], detailing provisions in the Military Commissions Act of 2006, wherein all manner of constitutional protections and habeas corpus have been suspended. This finalized our government’s transition into a proto-fascist state. It is no comfort that these laws are not yet in widespread use against American citizens. They grant our “unitary executive” more power on paper than Hitler had after his ascent to power.
    What an intolerable and despicable state of affairs, which has been enabled by a cynically manipulated constituency, the Christian right! But the blame for this, and the quagmire in Iraq, lies most terribly with the majority of TV and print media, which spoon-fed treasonous lies of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney to the American public with little trace of journalistic skepticism or integrity.

   [Louis Black Responds: There's really only one problem with the above. Stating, "Louis Black has stridently contested assertions by conspiracists that the U.S. government has any similarity or connection to that of Adolf Hitler," is only partially accurate. Comparisons between Hitler and Bush are not just inaccurate and odious but counterproductive. They are not going to nor are they designed to change anyone's mind. They simply validate the faithful's argument that criticism of Bush is irrational and over the top. I love Michael Ventura, and I'm sure he's accurate. But when one begins to cite specific government documents as proof positive of a theory, they should point out that there are millions of pages of documents, especially from the military, considering every kind of scenario imaginable. Claiming one document is more "real" than others has a lot to do with argument and almost nothing with history. There are, as well, untold amounts of passed legislation. The potential for the U.S. to turn fascist is there, but it is offensive and, again, counterproductive to claim it has already done so. There are true and profound differences between our current government, as rotten as it may be, and a fascist state. It is trivializing the suffering of millions and minimizing the brutality and inhumanity of other millions to make this claim. But the claim that I've ever disputed connections between the United States and Nazi Germany is groundless. If you can find one example of this, I'd love to see it. Sometime in the mid Nineties, the Chronicle ran a series of articles on the international backroom dealings of the Bush family, clearly examining Prescott Bush's role.]

Dear Editor,
    Hi! Thanks for the various shades of green in last week's edition [Green Issue, May 25].
    I think y'all overlooked one of the most unique environmental facilities in Austin, Hornsby Bend waste utility. Central Texas has one of the most advanced biosolid plants in the nation, and so few people seem to know about it.
    The facility receives all of the city's waste sludge as well as tons of yard clippings every day and recycles every bit of it into fertilizer (the popular Dillo Dirt).
    On-site, there are three miles of great trails along the Colorado River. Massive ponds attract fantastic birds and serious birdwatchers from all over the country. And there is a surreal 5-acre greenhouse. What other city has a shit facility that is also an ecotourism attraction?
    It was mentioned in "Water Utility Flows Green" [News, May 25] that at the wastewater-treatment plants, methane is currently flared off (wasting an energy source and polluting the atmosphere). What about Hornsby, which is powered almost entirely by the gas from the sludge?
    It is a zero-emissions operation.
    There is a lot more going on out there, and I encourage you to visit and take the tour. I know what you are thinking … sounds stinky. Surprisingly, it's actually not at all.

Dear Editor,
    Our population is exploding, and we have only two ways to address the problem: via sprawl or via “density sharing,” the great new idea that asks each neighborhood to accept a share of our density.
    Sprawl means leveling more oaks, running more wildlife from its habitat, and committing still more of our Texas Hill Country to suburbia. Though density sharing may mean accepting a few more people into each neighborhood than we’d like, it also eliminates the enormous and expensive new infrastructure that would be required by sprawl: new water, gas, and sewer lines; new high lines; new freeways; more commuters traveling greater distances; the burning of more fossil fuels; the introduction of more carbon emissions; and an inherent contribution to global warming, however small.
    Taxpayers will foot this bill – either way – but under density sharing, if an increased burden can be put on the existing infrastructure now, we at least postpone having to modify or replace it. By comparison, sprawl will require both new infrastructure now and replacement of our older, aging infrastructure in time.
    As for our developers, those four-letter people upon whose shoulders we dump these headaches, we would do well to remember how they took yesterday’s land and converted it to neighborhoods whose status quo we so rabidly defend today. Their vision was spot on, providing us with shopping centers just minutes away, convenience stores in the same block, schools within walking distance, hospitals, fire stations and police stations around the corner. Amazingly, they got it mostly right – as did four-letter councilmen, commissioners, and staff who gambled their approval on the outcome.
    We see our little houses and our little gardens, and we want to preserve that look forever. It’s only natural. And while density sharing is perhaps not the be-all, end-all solution, it is currently the best solution for Mother Earth. It asks each neighborhood to accept a bit of our density, using new and better technologies in the same space, in the greater interest of the planet, so that we can survive a little easier, struggle a little less, and be around a lot longer.
    Only through incentives like density sharing are we going to save an ailing planet. In the Dawson especially, I challenge leaders to act more maturely, less selfishly, and to become leaders of real substance.

Dear Editor,
    I want to thank The Austin Chronicle for publishing the May 18 “Media Watch” by Kevin Brass [News].
    To learn that the Telecommunications Competitive Legislative Oversight Committee, created to monitor the impact of Senate Bill 5 on communities and local access TV, never bothered to meet is alarming and unacceptable.
    The law mandates this committee to meet and file a report on how communities and local access TV are impacted by the passing of this controversial SB 5. The public trusts that our elected officials, in particular Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, and Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, are carrying out their job(s) respectively. I'm disappointed in our state Legislature for not carrying out this basic duty to serve the public.
    Independent media is under attack! It’s up to us to stand up and defend our constitutional rights!
    Action item: In support of independent media, I'm hosting a community TV producer potluck/meet-up on Sat., June 16, at 4-5:30pm at Mitchie's Gallery, 6406 N. I-35 (in the Lincoln Village Shopping Center), to discuss how Austin can preserve our Public Access Community Television. This is a free event. Anyone welcome. Past, present, and prospective producers are all invited to join us! We'll network and discuss our strategy to keep independent media alive and strong in Austin!

Dear Editor,
    With a U.S. armada off the shores of Iran, how soon will we wake to news that the bombing of Tehran has begun? Why? Because Iran might have nukes in a few years. Never mind that Israel, behind the Iraq war, is now pitching for war with Iran. Israel has an estimated 300-plus nukes, a fact U.S. politicians never mention. It's Israel and its brutal occupation and landgrabs that makes it the single most dangerous, destabalizing entity in the Mideast, and the U.S. will pay for it, again (9/11, Iraq) when the U.S. attacks Iran.

Dear Mr. Editor,
    I truly enjoyed reading your recently published piece titled "If You're a Viper" by Margaret Moser [Music, May 25]. The photo accompanying that article of Doug Sahm puffing on a big fat Juan just uphill from the old Soap Creek Saloon reminded me of why we used to call that place the Dope Freak Saloon back then. My band the Uranium Savages played SCS a lot back in the middle and late Seventies, and I remember many times out behind the place and smoking with Doug. More than once, I remember him being back there smoking two reefers by himself, one in each hand, savoring one flavor, then the other. I've never seen anyone else smoke two reefers alone at the same time since then. Truly, Doug was a hippie of the old school.
    Also, I give kudos to Ms. Moser for bringing up the name of the infamous Mezz Mezzrow, who followed the trail of pot and jazz during the 1920s and 1930s from New Orleans to Chicago to New York City and the Cotton Club scene. Anyone who wants to know about that period, drugs and all, should read his biography titled Really the Blues.
    Again, many thanks for publishing a swell article.

Dear Austin Chronicle,
    Re: "AE & Plug-in Hybrids" [News, May 25]: I have read much about Roger Duncan and Austin Energy's aggressive pursuit of plug-in hybrid cars. But I have yet to see a few basic points addressed. How does Austin Energy expect to change the world with:
    1) a car that does not now and may not in the future exist;
    2) that will likely have lease/purchase, maintenance, and insurance costs that most drivers cannot afford (note the small number of hybrids currently on Austin streets);
    3) that must be plugged into an outlet that many thousands of apartment/condo dwellers will not have available to them; and
    4) will significantly increase drivers' utility bills until the V2G technology is available, which as the article admits, is even further away than the plug-in hybrid car itself?
    I am happy to see Austin Energy putting so much of its support behind alternative energy sources, but I would be much happier to see the same enthusiasm for technologies that are already available and proven effective: solar, hydro, wind, and especially biodiesel.

Dear Editor,
    In terms of best Thai restaurant, Austin certainly missed it this year [Restaurant Poll 2007, May 18]! I cannot conceive how Austin voted Thai Kitchen (bland, meager, overpriced portions, and flat-screen-TV ambience) the best of Austin, when a gem like Thai Noodle House sits, literally, just around the corner. Sure, it's wedged behind 7-Eleven (on the Drag, north of campus), but the patio dining is great, the prices are fair, and the food is way superior. Order their Thai pasta salad and green curry some afternoon or evening, Austin, and think about next year's vote.

Dear Editor,
    The story about Ron Paul is BS [“Reefer Madness,” News, May 25]. Keeping hemp illegal only helps the Canadians get rich because they grow and sell it at a nice profit to the USA. I don't know what nuts don't know the difference between hemp fiber and the safest drug on the planet, cannabis, but you sound like one of them. I own a hemp hat, but I don't smoke it. Wake up and smell the pot. It might not be legal, but it's the most popular drug in the world. With more than 2 million people in our prisons, the drug war is a failure. Keeping hemp fiber illegal only profits the foreign industries while hurting our farmers, and keeping the drug illegal only keeps the black market growing, which will sell anything to anybody, unlike the coffee shops in Holland. I've been there and talked to their police, who said the only problems they have is with the bars, not pot shops.

   [News Editor Michael King responds: We're not sure what Julian Ward is smoking, but the central subject of "Reefer Madness: 'Let's Embarrass Ron Paul'" is indeed that hemp farming should be legal, as Paul says repeatedly and as we've regularly reported. So if Ward believes that's "BS," he seems to have gotten lost in the underbrush.]

Dear Mr. Black,
    I enjoyed your piece on the recording of Blonde on Blonde [“Page Two,” May 25].
    It's always good to get more insight into what I believe is one of the transforming records of the 20th century.
    One note from a former Nashvillian and Austin resident: I believe you have conflated the names of two musicians. You list Lloyd Green Murray, then M. Harman. Those folks must be the great steel player Lloyd Green and the drummer Murray Harman, who worked with Patsy Cline, the Everlys, Elvis, etc.
    Also, you probably know that Joe South contributed mightily to Blonde on Blonde. I think he has long been overlooked as a roots-music pioneer who crafted a rough union of country, R&B, and folk rock.

   [Louis Black responds: I absolutely share your enthusiasm for Joe South! On the CD of If the Jasmine Don't Get You ... the credits list: Lloyd Green Murray and M. Harman Jnr., but I'm not going to swear that they are accurate.]

Dear Editor,
    I wanted to express my outrage at being unlawfully searched in the greenbelt a few weeks ago. It was my first time at Spy Glass, a beautiful view of the belt and surrounding area. It was spoiled by two park ranger guys who followed me and my friends up the path to the lookout. We were asked to show the contents our backpacks or face charges. They claimed they could search us because we were in a "restricted" area and therefore our rights were waived. I believe they thought we were up to no good because of the way we looked (long hairs) and thought we were camping there and doing drugs. I didn't realize that we lost our Fourth Amendment rights for being in a public park. They used their intimidation to search us, but of course we were only on a day hike to enjoy some nature. We were out there to get away from people and situations but were targeted because we looked peaceful. So I want to know what can be done about this? Why are the powers that be out in nature trying to make money off people that simply want to relax? I hear that there are muggings going on around town, why aren't they stopping that? Another case of misplaced energy, this will not stand, and something has got to give.

Dear Editor,
    The Texas budget surplus is estimated to be at least $8 billion. News reports on the subject are more confusing than enlightening. I’m left wondering:
    1) Why did the United States Postal Service have to collect food for the Capital Area Food Bank? We must forget reliance on individuals and charities and demand help from the state.
    2) Why are food-stamp benefits the first to be cut? When these people turn to the food bank, the shelves are as bare as their own pantries. It’s hard to get back on your feet when your kids are hungry.
    3) Why were so many Texas children, whose parents are raking in big bucks from minimum-wage jobs, declared ineligible for CHIP’s health coverage? Paying to keep our kids healthy is an investment in the future. Pay now or pay later.
    4) Why has the state appropriated tax dollars earmarked for Texas Parks and Wildlife for years, leaving a once-exemplary park system in a state of disgrace?
    5) Why can’t I back out of my northeast Austin driveway without having to pay a toll purported to pay for roads already paid for? Toll roads encourage driving, pollution, and high gas prices.
    6) Why are new graduates avoiding the teaching profession, opting for more lucrative jobs in the private sector, like sewing buttons on cards for piecework pay? Thousands of current teachers are quitting or retiring early, lured away by the higher wages paid to intersection panhandlers.
    7) Why is the state willing to fund a Summer Without Gasoline Taxes, which will encourage people to drive and pollute more? That money would buy a lot of solar panels and wind turbines.
    8) If I’m asking these questions, why aren’t our legislators, congressmen, governor, and president?
    Food-bank shelves are empty, and people can’t get desperately needed assistance, while oil companies announce record-breaking, obscene profits and Texas has a surplus of several billion dollars no one will spend to help the needy. The Texas I grew up in was all about lending a helping hand to your neighbors.
    Bob Dylan asked, “How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see?” Apparently 8 billion times and counting.

Dear Editor,
    Republican politicians are corrupt, greedy, and ignorant. Democratic politicians are proving themselves muddled, cowardly, and clueless. Kind of a toss-up.
    I'm referring, of course, to the craven way the Dems have handed Bush more war funding. "Fido, lie down, roll over." And here I was, hoping against hope, that the Dems would send Bush a bill with funding only to be used to evacuate our troops. And when that was vetoed, I had hoped that they'd keep sending him the same bill every week, meanwhile cranking up impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney.
    I guess that makes me, and all the others who gave Democrats the victory last November, overly optimistic, shortchanged, and beyond outrage.