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,
    Sometimes the authors of letters to The Austin Chronicle editor can be rather wacky. Other times, they make sense. Reading the “Postmarks” section in the June 14 copy, I found myself wanting to comment on a few of the issues discussed. (This has been a regular thing for me – ideas for new blog posts float into my head as I’m reading, especially when intellectually masturbating with Roland Barthes’ Mythologies – new translation.)
    One letter understandably complained about adding tolled express lanes to MoPac [“Prevent Toll Road From Happening”]. While the author’s argument seems a little convoluted, I would simply note that the Texas Department of Transportation recently “found” $2 billion. If, as the agency has stated, that money will go to relieving congestion in metropolitan areas, it should take over the project (which is not supposed to cost anywhere near the amount TxDoT found). Problem solved.
    In another letter [“Gentrification Is Cultural Genocide”], the author describes the gentrification of East Austin as “cultural genocide.” Strong words there.
    No one is forced to completely abandon his or her culture – no matter the neighborhood in which one lives. Cultures – and their attendant practices, teachings, family structures, etc. – cross international borders in the minds, bodies, and souls of those immigrating to Europe and the United States every day. Similar cultural migrations have occurred throughout history. Admittedly, some of these, often forced, migrations destroyed and degraded some cultures – but I believe more cultures survived than were completely wiped from Earth.
    Further, the increase in property taxes that is one of the likeliest catalysts for driving people out of East Austin affects all ethnicities, nationalities, and races, essentially all the working poor – low SES individuals and families – who live there. Of course, prices for their land must be high enough for people to sell their East Austin properties.
    While the disruption caused by “gentrification” to some – apparently homogenous to the author of the letter – neighborhoods may not be ideal (or even something with which I necessarily agree), I am not aware of any recent mass graves. Then again, I like a mixture of people, which is why I live in northeast Central Austin. But “genocide” does not apply here.
    Watch your language. It’s powerful stuff.

Dear Editor,
    The fact that those in Austin who can afford to drill private wells to irrigate their non-native landscapes greatly worries me. As one who grew up south of Lubbock on the South Plains, I am familiar with the overpumping of aquifers. Large-scale irrigation from the Texas South Plains part of the Ogallala Aquifer began after World War II and "According to a new study just released by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), since 1940, the total volume of water in storage in the High Plains aquifer declined by some 266 million acre-feet – a volume equivalent to two-thirds of the water in Lake Erie. (An acre-foot is the volume of water needed to fill an acre of land a foot high. One acre-foot equals 325,850 gallons)" [National Geographic, "Texas Water District Acts to Slow Depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer," Feb. 7]. I remember cotton farmers in Terry County pumping 8-10 inch streams of water until they started sucking air in the 1960s.
    The Pecos-Ft. Stockton area had extensive spring-fed irrigation canals before Clayton Williams drilled wells in the early 1950s into the aquifer and caused Leon Springs and Comanche Springs to go dry. The once Big Spring that American Indians had used for centuries went dry due to irrigation wells and is now artificially filled.
    Continued drilling of private wells into the Edward's Aquifer will eventually dry up our beloved Barton Springs It will be a tragic loss for the city of Austin and Texas. Unfortunately the Texas Supreme Court ruled that a landowner can pump unlimited water from beneath their private property regardless of how little property they own or the negative effects on the aquifer and surrounding community. I believe this is wrong and dangerous.

Dear Chronicle,
    I normally avoid verbal tête-à-têtes in the media as it boils down to the analogy of negotiating with a daughter to see Ted over Twilight. There's no point. But since this reader seems to make generalizations about me [“Postmarks,” July 20], I feel inclined to respond in turn.
    I'm not a religious person, but dear God, deliver me from hipsters. Reading this guy's letter reminded me of the people I used to socialize with back in school. You know, the type who smokes clove cigarettes, has Bright Eyes albums, and thinks after reading Chaim Potok they know the secret to life. Did I mention dropping quotes from Nietzsche and Oswald Spengler to show you how "deep" they are?
    OK, maybe I'm a little guilty of that last part. I was a snob as well. I used to know every Beck, Wilco, and Radiohead song by heart. I read all the works of Henry Miller, Arthur Rimbaud, William Faulkner, Steinbeck, etc. Then one day I watched High Fidelity. One scene in particular, where Jack Black's character chides a customer on buying Stevie Wonder's '80s hit over his early work like Talking Book, had a sobering effect on me.
    I opened myself up to enjoying life instead of thinking everything should have some artistic resonance to it. Naturally, this did not go over well in the crowd I hung with, and I lost some friends. But I eventually gained some new ones, too. From then on I started noticing how obnoxious, judgmental, arrogant, and humorless hipsters really are.
    As far as comic books being for under-18 audiences, this guy apparently just awoke from cryogenic hibernation, considering he missed out on the '80s and '90s with that uninformed comment. Comic books have matured as an art form. They now tackle social commentary and satire, which books like Ghost World, Watchmen, V for Vendetta exemplify. Now do those sound like they are for an under-18 audience?
    I do agree that there should be a balance of high- and low-brow stimulation, given the current Kraptashian obsessed culture.
    Judging from the reader's letter, it sounds like he partakes a little too much on the high end of things. I humbly suggest to both Savlov and this reader to embrace their closeted Reo Speedwagon, Choose Your Own Adventure, A-Team-loving selves. Trust me, nobody is going to care. It's only entertainment after all.

Dear Editor,
    In response to the state saying that seasonal trends push Austin unemployment rates up to 6.4%: It is tiresome and frustrating for us to read over and over again the latest absurd monthly stats on the unemployment rate. Any moron (including media reporters) must know by now that the statistics are wrong.
    With millions of Texans out of work for years now, who may have stopped looking for work, the statistics don't cover those longtime unemployed.
    The real numbers must be closer to 15% unemployed.
    So, please, stop insulting our intelligence by regurgitating the stale undercut government unemployment statistics.

Dear Editor,
    I lived in Austin for 10 years and was its biggest fan – loving the Chronicle went along with loving the city. Running into one of the Chronicle's writers was like a celebrity sighting for me. But, over the years, I started to take the Chronicle for granted – didn't read it from cover to cover every week. Now I live in Houston, and after seeing the alternative weeklies available here – their bland writing and their lack of event coverage – my love was renewed and I had to tell you how fabulously you have supported the fine city of Austin.

Dear Editor,
    Re: “Rembitika” [Music, July 20]: I have fingers enough to report that it is paragraph six. Margaret Moser says that Johnny Nicholas is now 64 and left home in 1966 as a preteen. I'm no wizard at arithmetic, but I'm also 64, and I graduated from high school in 1966 no longer a preteen. Whoop! I don't need to subtract to figure that one out, so if MM asks a Chronicle proofreader to go over her numbers next time, she won't have to either.

Dear Editor,
    Re: “All Your Memes Are Belong to Us” [Screens, July 20]: Somehow, one of your writers pitched an article, wrote the article, then passed it on to an editor who not only approved it but somehow placed it on the cover wherein the author tells other people's jokes and then explains why they are funny. Then, she gets a quote wherein someone explains what an inside joke is. This was a travesty of journalism. Just insipid.

Dear Editor,
    Re: “School's Garden Bulldozed” [News, July 20].I think this is just ridiculous, and I think there may be "grounds" for a legal suit if a grant was involved. And what happened to common sense? Duh! There's a garden here, and maybe it's important, but let's just dig it up and destroy it anyway! I do believe the community will be ever watchful as to what happens to this school in the future, and Austin ISD will have to pay the consequences, one way or another. What happened to protection of property, regardless of what has to be moved? The word "responsibility" comes to mind – oh, I forget – that seems to be a lost word in the field of education!