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,
    While we are flattered that candidate Jennifer Kim's campaign ad mentions working with the Sierra Club on environmental issues in the valley, we urge everyone to please vote for Margot Clarke. Although we appreciate everyone who has a role in pursuing environmental justice, the Sierra Club believes that of the candidates in this race, only Margot Clark has the experience to effectively serve the people of Austin and to protect us and our environment.

Dear Editor,
   Someone has to say this: Mike Levy is a bully. In the past he has called Kirk Watson the worst mayor Austin has ever had, but Levy has launched all his most vitriolic attacks against women. In just the last couple of years Levy has made ugly, personal attacks against Beverly Griffith, Jackie Goodman, Robin Rather, and now Margot Clarke.
   I hope Austinites realize how far this guy is out of the mainstream. Levy opposed preserving land over the aquifer, he opposed parks for East Austin, and he opposed commuter rail, the most sensible and affordable public transit improvement Capital Metro has ever offered, but hasn’t uttered a peep about CAMPO’s $22 billion tax-and-toll boondoggle.

Fellow Texans,
    First off, I want to express my continued appreciation and admiration for the publisher, editor, staff, writers, and advertisers of The Austin Chronicle: Thanks, you're all cool.
    After firing off a scathing yet unoriginal missive about the "conservative" agenda to mutilate the Texas Constitution with discriminating language against GLBTs, eureka! I hit upon an apt analogy for this fundamentalist mindset and activity.
    Robert Talton, Warren Chisum, and their religious self-righteous cohorts intend to do to our state Constitution what the Taliban did to the giant cliff Buddhas in Afghanistan, and for the same reason: ignorant, backward spiritual bigotry.
    They have aimed their cannons at the Texas legacy; watch now as they blast it to smithereens.
    One could make the dire prediction that – should this travesty occur to a document which stands for all Texans – there will be a future move to "quarantine" the queers. Codifying a group's legal status as less than that of society at large is a literal step toward their dehumanization, which in turn predisposes their persecutors to rationalize genocide.
    We could traverse this slippery slope in Texas unless moderate Christians and Republicans come to their senses and galvanize!

Dear Editor,
    My last letter concerning the world peace movement being a causal factor in World War II being such a bloodbath was labeled a "simplistic view of history," and whether wars can also have unintended consequences [“Postmarks Online,” June 6]. Wars certainly do. History is replete with them. But the effects of the peace movement of the 1930s has been well documented and commented upon by numerous serious historians. One of the most notable was the late Telford Taylor, who prosecuted Nazi war criminals at Nuremburg, fought against the right-wing witch hunts of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and wrote extensively about World War II and its causes. I would certainly place his opinions well above those of a crackpot editor of a weekly newspaper in Austin, Texas. Or is that also a simplistic view of things? I'm reminded once again that we no longer have any journalists in this country. All we have are reporters, with all the seediness and sleaze one normally associates with that word.

   [Crackpot editor responds: Thank You, I accept all compliments. I must point out that citing the Thirties peace movement as one of many, many factors that led to World War II and the holocaust, then privileging it over many others to make the disconnected point, "So the numbers in the peace movement will remain small right up until people forget what the last great peace movement brought us. War must always be the absolute last option. But taking that option completely off the table is naïveté run riot." Arguing that: a peace movement was wrong and therefore war is sometimes necessary is a triumph of the will over any logic. By the way, the last great peace movement was against the Vietnam War, and though the New Right is rhetorically refighting that war and finding it right, necessary, and just, it was none of those.]

Dear Editor,
    Over the last days, many Austinites have been smeared in leaflets and e-mails being distributed across Austin. The targets of these missives have one thing in common: support for Margot Clarke for City Council. The hate-filled, homophobic rhetoric is something we haven't seen in Austin campaigns in decades. It shouldn't be tolerated.
    There is one great way to send a message that these tactics may work in Tom DeLay's district or in Warren Chisum's district, but not in Austin: Vote for Margot Clarke!
    I've spent a lot of my life working for my community. I'm a long way from being “a radical gay activist.” I just happen to be a gay man who cares deeply about the environment, social equity, fiscal responsibility, and much more. And that's why Margot Clarke is my choice.
    Send 'em a message: vote.

   [News Editor Michael King responds: We are normally reluctant to run specifically "pro/anti" candidate letters in "Postmarks," but former Rep. Glen Maxey's letter is in response to a piece of widely circulated anti-Clarke hate-mail written by Robert Morrow, which also attacks Maxey by name, as follows: "Margot Clarke's three main constituencies are 1) environmental extremists 2) socialists 3) radical gay activists like Glen Maxey who has a huge role in Clarke's campaign." Morrow's letter is indeed disfigured by homophobic rhetoric that shouldn't be tolerated, and we believe Maxey has long since earned the right to a public response.]

Dear Editor,
    Margot Clarke's downtown trolley proposal is right on track for Austin taxpayers. Portland's new streetcar connecting Portland State University with an old downtown warehouse district illustrates what linking UT, the Capitol complex, downtown, and Seaholm could do here. For $55 million, Portland's 2.2-mile streetcar created $1.5 billion in new tax base and did it without closing a single street. Continuous business access was achieved by building the bidirectional trolley on parallel streets in three block sections that were completed in three weeks. Track was laid using an 8-foot-wide shallow trench that never impacted utilities and allowed street use throughout construction. Like Austin, Portland has a large, well-used bus system (plus light rail) and a great downtown bus circulator, but the simple streetcar delivered a better than 25-to-1 return on investment for Portland taxpayers.

Dear Editor,
    There have been several letters by supporters of the smoking ban recently that span the spectrum of selfish and arrogant positions that all boil down to “I don't like it and therefore you can't do it.” Smoking is legal and while it is unhealthy, business owners and adults that smoke do, or should, have a right to cater to or be catered to, respectively, whether most people like it or not. The characterizations of smokers in recent letters ranged from condescending (sick people) to selectively punitive (toxic factories) and ignored the fact that adults are legally entitled to engage in certain legal vices, and there are choices ban supporters make that fall under the same rationale (see my previous letter about cars [“Postmarks,” June 3]). As it stands, the issue has been decided through an exercise in majoritarianism that uncompromisingly excludes any possibility that smokers can freely associate and be catered to by any business – even those whose stated purpose is to, legally, do just that. Fine. Let the paternalistic, selfish, and puritanical types have the bars and clubs. I wouldn't want to hang out with them anyway. Come September I call upon all smokers to boycott all bars and clubs – go buy booze at the liquor store and invite your friends over. Let the economic blood flow, and lay the corpse at the feet of the zealots. Your choice is to give up liberty and be treated like a child, a pariah, and to fork over hard-earned cash for the privilege (no thanks) or to let these pigs have the bars for two years and to try to rescind the ban – roll over now and it's done. Remember, the paternalistic puritans won by only 3%. I suspect some of them are not as rigid as the rest.

Dear Editor,
    Many thanks to Kate X Messer and the Chronicle for a riveting portrayal of Bettie Naylor, who has never flinched from living life on her own terms [“Rare Bird,” Gay Pride, June 3]. For 30 years she has been a true leader and superperson role model for many of us in the LGBT community. She truly is one of a kind who continues to educate and inspire for the good of the total community – straight and gay.

Editor,
    The elevated prairie "erection" by Legge Lewis ["Elevated Prairie," Arts Listings, June 3] totaled $130,000 in tax money, and the snake is already dead. APD as "holistic land-management stewards and public art custodians"? You mean, after they're done ticketing on Springdale? Bees, birds, butterflies are gone, thanks to new Section 8 ghettos recently built, and more to come. Your tongue is deceptive. Come by in August and check the temperature on those steel planters, and just like those crime scene units, you'll get what you didn't expect.

Dear Editor,
    Recently, studies have shown that fewer people are going out to the theatres to see movies thanks to the new era of the home theatre. The reason I am staying home is because in the last four years I have had to ask several people to please be quiet in every single movie I have seen. It is appalling. Am I the only person who remembers the good ol' days of movie-watching when people remembered to be quiet? Fellow moviegoers, those of you who like to talk during the films (you know who you are), please, please be quiet. I did not pay $16 to listen to your conversation.

Dear Editor,
    To only point out the “problems” with motorcycle emissions to prove a point is alarmist and discriminatory [“Postmarks,” June 3]. What Mr. Johnson fails or ignores to notice is the positive attributes of motorcycle travel and their effects on traffic and the environment. Motorcycles’ average mpg rating is double that of most passenger vehicles, resulting in much lower fuel consumption. On average, motorcycles weigh 75% less than passenger vehicles, causing far less damage to road and parking surfaces. Most motorcycles are not equipped with air conditioning, another leading cause of ozone depletion. Additionally, it takes far fewer resources (steel, rubber, plastics, etc.) to build a motorcycle than it does to build a passenger vehicle. Motorcycles also average about 7 feet in length and about 2 feet in width, about 33% the size of cars. Finally, without the soundproof, climate-controlled protective barrier around them, motorcycle riders are intimately more aware of their surroundings – making them better defensive drivers, even when they drive a car, resulting in safer travel for everyone. While the emissions from motorcycles may be higher, the other benefits derived from motorcycle travel far outweigh the costs.

Dear Editor,
    I registered to vote in Austin in 1996 and never altered the information, although I moved several times. I was given a “provisional” ballot in the recent election since the voter database had somehow forgotten me. (My dentist and I Luv Video had not, however ... should we put dentists and small businesses in charge of voter registration?)
    My vote was not counted, and I received a letter to that effect. Is this grounds for a recall election? Having one's vote thrown away?

Dear Editor,
    God bless Austin's Bettie Naylor [“Rare Bird,” Gay Pride, June 3]! What an inspiring and courageous woman! If only there were more like her.
    The anti-gay-marriage amendment must be defeated, and she is right in saying she doesn't "see anyone doing anything about it."
    Perhaps the solution is to bring "her day" back when, as she says, "we'd be in the streets yelling and screaming and throwing rocks." Unfortunately, it may well take protests on a large scale to secure equal rights in Texas for gays and make their relationships legal.
    She asks why gays are "taking it." There are many answers. Unfortunately some gays have been exposed to enough violence through their lives because of their lifestyle and do not to want to wreak it upon others. Some are lazy and would rather cruise in the bars. Others are making plans to leave the state as soon as they can. And others simply don't know or are in denial about how serious the threat is today to their basic human rights.

Dear Editor,
    Let me see if I have this straight: A well-respected human rights organization has real information about real abuses, torture, death, and lack of due process for detainees in U.S. hands. Other organizations have uncovered much of the same information independently. The organization tried repeatedly to contact the administration about these matters, but was ignored – until the word "gulag" was used. Now the administration rains down fire and brimstone on the organization for using that word.
    I say whatever it takes to wake them from their self-righteous stupor is fine. And Bush's response to the real information about real abuses, torture, death, and lack of due process? "Absurd."
    It must be easy to be president these days. You can screw up, and if someone notices, you just label them America-haters, and – poof! – you're absolved of all responsibility.
    I'll tell you what's absurd: Falwell saying gay people are to blame for 9/11. Now that's absurd.

Dear Editor,
    So state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, and a couple of other Democrats don't want the Minutemen to come to Texas because the Minutemen are vigilantes?
    Hey, Senator and you other Democrats, the defenders of the Alamo were only vigilantes fighting against the lawful government of Mexico.
    The real Minutemen who made their stand only some 20 miles from where this letter is being written were vigilantes too!
    Was Sam Houston a vigilante when he holed up in his office to keep out the evil Democrats who wanted to secede to support slavery?
    Don't they teach history to people who hold office in Texas?
    Sen. Shapleigh, wake up!

Dear Editor,
    All bill signings and so forth that happen on church property shall henceforth be binding only on members of that particular denomination. Seems fair, no?

Dear Editor,
    The 79th Texas Legislature session has ended, and the senators and representatives have gone back home. Future Texans will look back at this session with shame and horror. Important work such as school funding was left unfinished as the majority party followed a national trend set by the current president. Forget the rules of good government; use lies, fear, and hatred to stir up emotions for future elections.
    Rep. Talton, once again, attacked the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community with his attempt to stop them from being foster parents. He would rather see children left in abusive homes or placed back in overcrowded institutions than see them receive proper care in a loving home. He even stated in a letter that he had been called by God to wage this campaign of hatred. (Scary thought when an elected official forgets how he got in office.)
    Rep. Chisolm authored the bill that puts a Texas constitutional amendment on the ballot in November to ban gay marriage, civil unions, domestic partnership, and also nullify common law marriage for heterosexuals. Was I the only one in the gallery when the House voted who heard him bring up the Terri Schiavo case when defending his bill, which is supposed to protect marriage? Stopping the court system from doing their job is the only thing this bill is written to do. Well, except get more ultra-right-wing money and votes.
    Now Gov. Perry has shown his true colors. He is not a governor of the state of Texas. He is a governor for and of the Christian right. He has decided that his office in Austin is not a worthy place to sign bills. He will be at a Calvary Christian Academy in Forth Worth to sign two bills. One deals with abortion and one deals with gay marriage.
    As a Texan, I am ashamed of the public leaders except the few who were brave enough to call for an end to this sham. There is no way to list all their names, but you can look back at the voting records and see which ones actually care about Texas and which ones are only following a national agenda of hate, lies, and fears. I would hate to sully their good names in the same company as those above.

Dear Editor,
    Mr. Deutsch takes me to task for not placing the collaboration of leading Western industrialists ahead of the peace movement in aiding the rise of Nazi Germany [“Postmarks Online,” May 27]. He is correct that those industrialists absolutely did contribute to that rise. But when the Japanese occupied Manchuria in 1931 (the real start of World War II) and the Germans annexed Austria and remilitarized the Rhineland, it was direct political pressure by a massive peace movement (not a few "peaceniks") that forced a feeble, pathetic response by Britain, France, and the U.S. – the only nations capable of preventing the conflict it eventually became. The S.S. St. Louis was turned away, and its Jewish passengers sent to their deaths due to pressure from Republican isolationists strongly allied with the peace movement. Like many in these movements, they didn't want to get involved. I do not assert that the peace movement caused World War II, only that the movement caused it to be worse than it might have been had the Western powers not been prevented from stopping the threat earlier. That other factors created the circumstances that allowed for the rise of the Nazis' and Japan's militarists is not denied, nor is it part of this discussion. Peace movements, just like other movements, often have unintended consequences. Unfortunately, they cannot be wished away just because their motives were pure.

Dear Sirs,
   Have you noticed that our liberal pro-choice legislators and leaders are not pro-choice on most other issues except for abortion? They vigorously contend for the right of a woman to do the choosing on almost all other issues.
    They are not pro-choice on education. They strongly support the public school monopoly and don’t want nonrich parents to have the choice to send their children to private schools if they so desire, but they want the federal government to have full control of all public schools just like communist countries such as North Korea, Cuba, China, and Vietnam do.
    They are not pro-choice on gun control. They seem to want to eventually confiscate all privately owned guns, just like communist countries do. In fact, that is the only way totalitarian governments can stay in power.
    They are not pro-choice on health care. Their plan is for the federal government to provide their brand of health care to everyone just like communist and socialist countries do.
    They are not pro-choice concerning free speech issues. They don’t seem to want anyone to publicly express their moral and religious values unless they go along with the "politically correct" view of the liberals. In fact, they try to punish any person or organization (including churches and Boy Scouts) that won’t change their moral standards to suit their views, just like communist countries do.
    One would almost think that these liberal pro-choice legislators had sworn to uphold Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto instead of our wonderful U.S. Constitution.

   [Editor's note: Have you noticed that our conservative anti-abortion "pro-life" legislators and leaders are not pro-life on most other issues except for abortion? They are not pro-life when it comes to the death penalty. They are not pro-life when it comes to invading foreign countries. They are not pro-life when it comes to funding prenatal care, family planning, health, public education, job training. They are not pro-life when it comes to minority rights, prisoners' rights, protecting workers' and consumers' rights. Or when it comes to fighting AIDS overseas, preventing the Sudan crises, slowling down the arms race. But bless their hearts, they do want to see those babies born, they just don't want to take care of them in any way.]

Dear Editor,
   Thanks to the Chronicle and Kate Messer for telling Austin about the outstanding work Bettie Naylor has done to make Texas a more tolerant and livable place ["Rare Bird," Gay Pride, June 3]. Although I wish the cover photo had captured her energy and enthusiasm the way the article did, I was gratified by the detailed coverage of one of my role models.

Dear Editor,
   I am not an Austin native but recently had the opportunity to visit your wonderful city during Memorial Day weekend. As a recent graduate from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, I felt at home in the progressive and individualistic atmosphere. However, I had an experience one night that was slightly disconcerting.
   I am a gay male and am accustomed to frequenting the gay nightlife scene in the greater Detroit area and have also experienced the NYC gay club scene when I lived there for three months last summer. I have gone to many different types of bars and clubs with both my male and female friends ... gay and straight. My straight friends have always felt welcomed and comfortable at gay bars both in Detroit and in NYC.
   When I attempted to go to a bar in downtown Austin this past weekend, however, my two straight female friends were blatantly discriminated against. We had gotten in line behind two other girls who were there with their friends. After watching the girl in front of us get turned away for having questionable identification, my two 23 year-old female friends showed the bouncer their identification. Despite the fact that the both had a driver license, student ID, and multiple credit cards with them the bouncer refused to let them in. Never before have I seen such a display.
   What bothers me most about this incident is the message that is sent to "straight" society. Gay people, of all people, should understand discrimination. In a world where it seems like every state government is against equal rights for gay people, how do we expect to gain these rights by alienating ourselves from the world in which we live? If a person is supportive of the gay community, they should be welcomed, not turned away. I sincerely hope the bar will change this attitude and realize the consequences of such actions, as they are destructive to the progression of equal rights.

Dear Editor,
   I could use a lot of big words and long sentences, but everyone will understand and it's just a lot easier if I simply say, "Mike Levy is a dumb caca head" ["Campaign Update," News, June 3]! There, now I've lowered myself to his level, but at least maybe he'll grasp my meaning.