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 [email protected]. Thanks for your patience.

Dear Editor,
    I don't ever read the negative letters and tirades against your film reviews/reviewers; however, now I must write, albeit calmly. Re: New in Town [Film Listings, Jan. 30]. Am I the only person who sees and remembers films? Renée Zellweger's Miss Potter (about Beatrix Potter) was right on and perfect. Children and adults all loved this film and Zellweger in it. Friends viewed the DVD several times. No mention in Kimberley Jones' comments! Or how about a very early Zellweger performance in The Whole Wide World? Classic, vintage Zellweger. Perhaps Ms. Jones is still too young to really review films. Let her go to see Miss Potter!

Dear Editor,
    I've never written before, but I am so distressed at the recent news from my alternative comics faves about the large-scale slashing of comics that I am moved to write and thank you all for continuing to publish alt comics. In particular, I favor This Modern World, Lynda Barry, and Troubletown. Hopefully, you can continue to support these excellent artists by publishing them in the Chronicle.
    I appreciate it!

   [Editor's note: The Chronicle no longer runs Lynda Barry's wonderful strip because she decided to end it.]

Dear Editor,
    I was relieved to finally read (or hear) a news article that made this debate between the State Board of Education and the defenders of science education clear [“On the Lege,” News, Jan. 30]. I attended the board meeting last month because this is a hugely important issue that has lasting implications for our students. I was appalled at the poor coverage that the meeting and the topic received in the local news. This article, in contrast, made the controversy very clear and underscored how important it is that science and rational thought prevail on this topic. Not only will the decisions made by this board affect the curriculum for the next 10 years, its decisions will also affect what the multimillion dollar textbook industry will publish in its textbooks. Will we have one textbook developed for Texas while the rest of the country has its own (accurate) version? I was also appalled at the line of narrow-minded and repetitive questioning by our school board members. I was embarrassed at times by the shameful and willful ignorance. This article should be more widely read so that our collective willful ignorance will not allow this body to determine the content of our children's curriculum based on faulty ideology. I hope Lee Nichols continues to illuminate the nuances of the debate so that the public is aware of what the real, long-lasting implications of the board's decisions are.

Dear Editor,
    Why is the city of Austin employing defense contractor Kellogg Brown & Root on major infrastructure projects such as the current Lady Bird infrastructure upgrade? This is KBR's line of work, but lately the company's head is embroiled in an $180 billion corruption scandal, not to mention the two alleged intramural rapes in Iraq and the 18 soldiers electrocuted in KBR shower facilities. When these contracts next come up for review, they need to be summarily denied to KBR.

Dear Josh Rosenblatt,
    After I saw Into the Wild, I searched almost in vain to find a review that reflected my own reaction to the main character and finally found yours [Film Listings, Oct. 19, 2007], which was very close to my own. I just saw Seven Pounds and again searched for some reviewer whose reaction was similar to my own, and again yours was the only one [Film Listings, Dec. 19, 2008]. I'm always looking for a reviewer I can trust, and now I think I have found one. Thanks.

Louis,
    I agree with much of what you said in "Balancing Act" [“Page Two,” Jan. 30], but I think your wish for a republican renewal in 2010 is simplistic. The long-term health of our constitutional government requires more than two parties working together but two vital parties working together. Time and again, one of those parties has lost its way and stops making useful contributions to the national dialogue. When that happens, the best interests of the nation are served by reforming or replacing it. And such change is best encouraged by expelling that party from the table.
    One of the great strengths of a longstanding democratic tradition is that one-party rule is safe because it can never persevere. Moreover, it offers real positives. The side that governs must take real responsibility, something we have not seen in some time. The other side must regroup and make itself relevant. Finally, the media is forced to see the world differently and perhaps some of the right-wing bias we see today will disappear.
    Today, I see almost no value in the Republican Party. While the democratic solutions to today's problems are far from perfect, I see compromise as a way to make things worse, not better. A party crying for fiscal responsibility has merit; one crying for lower taxes is purely destructive. We need a second party to look out for the interests of neglected rural voters and not one that simply sows and harnesses hatred in those voters to achieve unrelated purposes. We need to curb the militarism of the Democratic Party, not enhance it.
    I'm not sure what the "correct" Republican Party would look like, but I am fairly certain it won't happen in less than two years. And I don't think it will happen without one more kick in the head.

Dear Editor,
    The federal government will never legalize drugs in our lifetime because to do so would immediately expose the ineffectiveness of the drug warriors' policies and the falsity of their arguments that have been used to justify the expenditure of hundreds of billions of tax dollars on enforcement, prosecution, and incarceration. Regardless of the likelihood of this policy change or of one's position in favor of or against legalization, everyone should strongly condemn the recent use of coercion by state and federal officials who threatened to withhold funds from the city of El Paso unless its City Council quashed a resolution calling for an open public debate concerning drug legalization. These strong-arm tactics are unacceptable in a society that claims to value freedom of speech. I would like to commend state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh for being the only official who supports these basic principles of unrestricted and open political debate.

Dear Editor,
    When Austin voters approved Save Our Springs, we failed to understand the impact of low-density development on local air quality, to say nothing of global warming. Central Texas is still in the Eighties on land use and water policy despite (or because of) the concerted efforts of many passionate people. However, the ground has shifted, and like the political landscape, many activists failed to notice.
    The greatest threat to water quality and quantity in the Barton Springs Zone is the loss of open space. Open space, undisturbed land, allows storm water to percolate into the ground and feed creeks and streams that regenerate the aquifer and preserve adequate flows at Barton Springs. Current policy exacerbates the loss of open space with roads and sprawl.
    SOS Alliance argues: "We should stop development over the aquifer." There’s a disconnect between property rights (the right to develop that is quintessentially Texan) and the public right to enjoy the natural environment. SOS demonstrates another disconnect. Research shows watershed impervious cover should be limited to 10%. We'll never get to 10% impervious cover with SOS limits of 15%, 20%, and let alone 25%.
    Like Bush's policies on sex education and condoms, "just say no" led to Texas having one of the highest teen birth rates in the country. “Just saying no” to development within the city's jurisdiction has led to sprawl in Hays County and the Belterra wastewater mess.
    We must reconcile environmental policy and land development with the political realities in Texas. SOS’ “just say no" to Wildflower Commons (actually all projects) exacerbates sprawl in Hays County [“Naked City,” News, Jan. 30]. Oak Hill gets hammered with traffic and overblown highway improvements, and the planet gets hammered with greenhouse gases. SOS' current efforts are a disaster for the very things we all want to protect.

Dear Editor,
    I had to write after reading the "On the Lege" column [News, Jan. 30] on the board of education meeting on evolution vs. creation and tell you how I feel about this topic.
    I don't for a single moment believe that a white-haired and bearded old man called God created man and everything else just as we see it today. Nor do I believe that life on Earth evolved through blind chance and natural selection alone. I have a theory that there is a program at the subatomic level of matter that learns over vast amounts of time to evolve complex forms of life. Man himself has evolved his technology from its primitive state in the 19th century to its highly “evolved” state today. And it was through man's ability to think creatively and his ability to do complex math that got us to where we are today. There isn't a single thing that a mechanical or electronics engineer can build without crunching the numbers, using everything from simple math to very complex equations. I'm sorry to inform the overly egotistical and self-assured college professors that blind chance and natural selection can't do complex math, nor can they think creatively. Nor can they run complex biological programs.
    You know there are scientists such as microbiologist Michael Behe who believe that the cell is an irreducibly complex form of life that can't have possibly evolved but instead had to be created. I don't agree with him, and I'm sure many microbiologists don't either. Two scientists I saw on PBS years ago said they made their colleagues hopping mad at them for saying that DNA has a written program in it and that a program requires a programmer. I would like to see dissident scientists like them invited to these debates to kind of round them out a bit and hopefully confuse things further and put it on TV for all to see the madness take place. I had a feeling that the staunch evolution hard liners don't want to acknowledge that their wayward colleagues even exist. Nor do they care to hear what they have to say. Egos run high everywhere from science to show business. Amen.

Dear Editor,
    While everyone has an idea of what they like in music and are quick to judge style, genre, ability, and so on, I make a defined attempt at remembering the hardworking musicians working their proverbial cojones off trying to make it in the crazy music industry. I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to walk down Sixth Street and catch an act. One in particular is Subrosa Union right here from Austin. After getting to know the boys from the band, I learned they moved from El Paso to Austin just to break in to the biz! I just wanted to say to all, "Let's support our local entertainers and show them the love and embrace their work, for they are the impetus that draws the crowds to our fair city too!"
    My thanks, Austin Chronicle, for doing a damn great job in getting the word out there on what's happenin' in Austin.

Dear Editor,
    Enrique Peñalosa gave a talk Downtown last Wednesday, and it was amazing. Peñalosa is the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, who transformed the city in one three-year term.
    He began by saying that happiness is the goal of life, and so cities should be designed to maximize happiness. As for what makes people happy, Peñalosa mentioned three things: walking around and seeing people, being in touch with nature and the outdoors, and not being excluded.
    Great public space makes people happy. The pedestrian space is our public space. Sidewalks, said Peñalosa, are more like parks than like streets. Sidewalks are where people can meet and talk. You can tell how advanced a city is, he said, by comparing sidewalk width and street width. Highways do not indicate an advanced city – developing countries are full of cities with big highways where most people lack running water.
    Then Peñalosa made a very interesting point: How much space we allocate to pedestrians and how much to cars are not technical questions to be solved by traffic engineers doing studies. They are questions about values, about what sort of city we want to live in. When someone says that there is room for on-street parking but not for 10-foot sidewalks, that's a statement about values.
    Elected officials were invited free of charge, but none showed up. Chris Riley was there. In general, it was bicyclists who attended. However, the talk was not about bicycles but rather about how to design cities for happiness.
    Peñalosa is probably the most interesting city planner in the world. It's too bad that only bicyclists seem to have heard of him.
    I wish Peñalosa were running for mayor of Austin.

Dear Editor,
    Re: “Democrats to Challenge Dunbar on Education Board” [Newsdesk, Jan. 30]: Actually, Lee Nichols does not know that there will be any Democrat running against Cynthia Dunbar, and neither do I. The filing for this office is not until Dec. 3 of this year, the office requires lots of work, and pays zero, zilch. Members get travel expenses and are put up in nice hotels and get meals, but that's about it.
    The State Board of Education meets about seven times a year, for two or three working days, all day, either Wednesday through Friday or Thursday through Friday, usually in Austin.
    To run as a Republican or Democrat, one needs a $300 filing fee or 500 signatures. Libertarians need no filing fee, but then again, Libertarians never get elected.
    The State Board of Education is important because of the influence it has on textbooks, etc., for K-12 education.
    To learn more about the SBOE, come to the forum on it at Yarborough Branch Library, 2200 Hancock, from 11:45am to 1:15pm on Saturday, Feb. 7.
    I hope to see you there.

Dear Editor,
    I almost did not read the article about Austin boards and commissions [“A Cacophony of Passions,” News, Jan. 30] because it reminds me again of the failure of our city government to understand the problems in my area of Austin. It is another reminder that Southeast Austin is not represented in city government, while other areas are overrepresented. The Southeast area continues to be neglected because we have no voice on the City Council. I have applied several times over the years to various boards, and I have never been contacted about participating. I looked at the membership of the boards your article listed as first tier. It only takes a few minutes to type the names into the Travis County voter registration search to find where they claim to reside. (One member of the Board of Adjustment shows his residence at a business address, and several board members are apparently not voters or property owners.) Most of those found are residing in West Austin, coincidentally where almost all the City Council members in the last 20 years have lived. Several come from just a few ZIP codes (i.e., 78704). This is another example of the way the politically powerful, privileged few control the city government and resources and why we should have voted for single-member City Council districts.

Dear Editor,
    Re: "New Nurse Staffing Bill" [Naked City, News, Jan. 23]: In light of the critical patient-care issues involved, I was very disappointed to see the Texas Nursing Association has adopted the policies of the Texas Hospital Association in House Bill 591, its new bill about nurse staffing. This legislation just tinkers with our current broken system and would only require hospitals to publish their staffing plans. The facts show that hospitals are the driving force behind the current problems we have. Simply put, nurses have too many patients, meaning patients do not receive quality care and in some cases even die because they cannot get the nursing care they need. As a nurse for more than 40 years who has taught at the university level, mentored aspiring nurses, and who continues to be at the bedside, I find myself questioning if this is all Rep. Donna Howard and the Texas Nursing Association can do for us?
    A much better alternative comes from Texas’ new union and professional association for registered nurses, which is the National Nurses Organizing Committee-Texas. Its proposal would guarantee safe nurse-to-patient staffing ratios on all units at all times. The facts show that ratios work. This safe staffing approach is working around the world, saving lives, and continues to enjoy broad support from working, bedside nurses. We call on the Texas Nursing Association and Texas Hospital Association to follow the lead of its own RNs and sign on to support safe nurse-to-patient ratios.