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,
    Re: Film review of Black Swan by Kimberley Jones, Dec. 10 issue [Film Listings]: With the endless reviews and comments in the press, radio, tweets, and Twitter of Black Swan, everyone goes back to Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream as background for his film processing. However, prior to that was his Pi, in 1998, which is truly the real template for his filmmaking in almost every aspect. I'm not sure if a copy is available now, but anyone interested in the beginning, the real beginning, should watch this film. I still shudder when I think of it!

Louis Black,
    Re: “Page Two,” Dec. 10: I love your pragmatic/left viewpoint, but you fail to grasp what is different this time. Sure, every other apocalyptic prediction has been wrong, except the one that is happening now before our eyes! Climate catastrophe is happening, ask any biologist. Species are behaving in ways consistent with a warming climate. Those who predicted many actions (ice melting, etc.) are not only being proved correct; they are shown to be too conservative in their timelines. The present political climate in the U.S., China, England, and Australia pretty much precludes any meaningful action. If this isn't the beginning of the end …. Have a nice day!

Dear Editor,
    The Republicans are holding everything hostage until they get their precious tax cuts for the rich: not just Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which of course you'd expect of them, but now relief funds for sick 9/11 workers. And everything else. Everything – those babies! Folks, this is what they do. This is how they think. This is who they are. And this is what Americans voted for? There's only one word for Republican voters: stupidi-tea.

Dear Editor,
    Re: your article on anti-bullying legislation [“Strama Takes Anti-Bullying Laws to the Next Level,” Newsdesk blog, Dec. 10]: We appreciate your willingness to highlight alternatives to expulsion and the role of broader school-discipline practices in preventing bullying in the first place. However, to be clear and as was stressed to the reporter, Texans Care for Children supports many positive elements of House Bill 224, ranging from parent notification to training for parents, students, and teachers on the measures to address "cyber-bullying" and the improvements in school planning.
    Our organization's key areas of policy include children's mental health, child protection, and juvenile justice. We take seriously the need both to protect children who are victims of bullying and to respond to offenders in ways that can put them on a path to better choices.

Dear Editor,
    The realization and application of objective moral and intellectual truth is the sublime goal of a well-lived life. Foremost in achieving that goal is the insight that virulent insidious evil in fact exists. Its behavioral parents are vanity, envy, self-pitying nihilism, hubris, and the willful id that denies these facts. What's more, the mandatory duty to fight evil is existential to human decency and civilization. And the only force that can vanquish it is consciously recognized active good, i.e., integrity, courage, gratitude, humility, and dignity.
    In the postmodern world (beginning in the so called “enlightenment”), the concept of evil has been reduced to today’s subjective moral and intellectual relativism, i.e., who’s to judge what’s really evil. Simultaneously, relativists falsely condemn those delineating behavior as good or evil as reactionary cretins. As a former relativist I strongly relate to this willful narcissistic ignorant mindset. And ironically, its conscience piercing dark nature becomes the self-realizing force to overcome it.
    Sources of great wisdom from Socrates, Plato, Moses, Jesus, Cicero, Epictetus, the American founders, and many others have been profoundly consistent in explaining that evil exists because of the dismally flawed nature of humanity. To be sure, they’ve repeated over and over the unassailable need to subdue those flaws in order to conquer evil.
    Life’s short. That’s natural law never to be altered. During our time we have the choice to acknowledge evil and the need to fight it or remain in the denial of pathological narcissism looking the other way. The entire Christmas season is focused on finding and perpetuating happiness. Without vanquishing evil there is zero possibility of achieving that goal. Moreover, apathy and denial of it will enable its devotees to succeed in sentencing humanity to tyrannical horror and utter misery – again and again! Merry Christmas!

Dear Editor,
    If we can use biofuels to heat and power our homes, businesses, and cities, then why aren't we? Paper, wood, manure, and wastewater can all be used for fuel pellets or biogas. We can end the contamination of our groundwater, waterways, and oceans using a renewable, sustainable source that is less polluting than fossil fuels. We can make it no longer our national interest to be involved in the Middle East and its wars and conflicts. Biofuels can save our environment and our children from being endlessly tossed on the pyre of war.

Dear Editor,
    Re: “Tone Deaf” [News, Dec. 3]: I would like to comment on your story and share my experiences.
    I am a person with epilepsy who was previously given a ticket by an Austin Police officer called to the scene of an intersection near Highland Mall.
    Another citizen witnessed me having a seizure and decided to call the police, because during the course of that seizure, I attempted to jaywalk in my semiconscious state.
    When he arrived at the scene, however, rather than providing first aid, the cop ticketed me. I was at fault for having epilepsy!
    The city also sold my name and contact information out to companies for a quick buck.
    Although I do not own a car, was not driving at the time of the incident, and there is no way I legally can drive a vehicle, the city gave auto insurance agencies and other similar companies access to my contact information!
    I felt violated by the city. When I appeared before the City Council judicial committee to attempt to obtain retribution for this mistreatment and ask for the firing of the police chief (incidentally where I had another seizure), they did not do anything.
    APD's abuse of people with disabilities goes well beyond the deaf community.
    Please continue investigating this. I want accountability and justice. I do want APD leadership fired.

Dear Editor,
    I’m a little peeved at Gretchen Carlson, Bill O’Reilly, and other Christian insurgents against the war on Christmas. It’s not that I think they’re wrong; they’re just not doing quite enough. Secular forces have long sought to redact Christ from his own birth celebration, just not in the places we’ve all been looking. I beg all of you to fear not the benign, secular slogans of “Happy Holidays” and instead turn your attention to more hidden and therefore more insidious forms of secular approach: Santa, the Christmas tree, and other such popish frippery. Remember that yule logs, mistletoe, and the imbibing of alcohol are only associated with Christmas because they were the winter traditions of the last European pagans to Christianize. If we’re all so serious about resisting the war on Christmas, perhaps we should take a page from the Protestant reformers who banished the Dutch deity Sinterklaas from England, replacing him with the Christ Child (or “Christkindl,” which, when the pagans reinstated Santa much later, explains the English corruption “Kris Kringle”). Or take James I of England, who demanded church attendance on Christmas. Or the American Puritans, the descendants of the Mayflower, who actually outlawed Christmas. Forget that James I was almost blown up in his own parliament or that the Puritan castigation of Christmas is an ironic counter-statement to the principles of religious freedom we’ve imbued them with posthumously. The point, as Glenn Beck would agree, is to look deep (but not too deep!) and recognize how your Christian birthright, like your nation, is being stolen from you. The fact that you never before actually recognized or understood the specific nature of your birthright is, really, just a minor detail. Because, thank the Lord, Fox is here to explain it to you. And that’s good news.