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 would like to thank Nora Ankrum for her excellent January 21 article “AE’s Nuclear Option” [News]. However, it was horrifying to see that Austin is being stalked by nuclear reactor builder NRG Energy. It would appear that once again this zombie is rising from the dead.
    Looking at the poll that was commissioned by NRG and its partner Toshiba, they seem to have left out some things. They didn’t make mention how much cheaper natural gas is. Nor did they discuss the safety issues of radioactive waste leaking into the air and water causing higher than normal levels of cancers in surrounding communities. Nowhere are the possibilities of accidents or terrorism in transporting radioactive elements to and from nuclear sites. There’s no mention of the very high use of water to operate nuclear power plants nor how that relates to our continuing drought.
    The poll talks about nuclear energy as clean energy because it doesn’t create emissions. Where is the statement that wind and solar are cleaner? Where is the statement that the waste from nuclear power plants is radioactive for thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years? Where is the statement that there is no safe place to store and contain the nuclear waste? I’d say that given everything that’s misleading or missing, this is a pretty classic example of a push poll designed to elicit particular answers, not an objective survey.
    From an environmental and health perspective, nuclear energy is an unmitigated disaster. From an economic point of view, nuclear reactors are not considered good risks. The only way they can be built is with loan guarantees from the federal Department of Energy. That’s our taxpayer money being used to subsidize one of the most destructive endeavors known to humankind. Why is the DOE laboring to give birth to zombies? Shouldn’t we instead be investing in clean air and water, in good health, and in energy solutions that make sense economically?

Dear Editor,
    If this letter ends abruptly, it's only because I'm drunk and my finger slipped. What can be said about politicians who waste time in Congress with legislative talking points? Pass a law sure to be vetoed simply to have a "see, told ya so" two years down the road. Somehow, cynically, perhaps this has always been the case, despite the party. How childish our politicians seem. How did we get to a place where we accept a Congress acting worse than children at recess? It was such a huge thing that the divided parties sat together at the last state of the union. Oh my God, could you be more immature. It really took you this long just to sit together? Jesus, grow up already. Grow up and make the world a better place. What's so hard about that? It's why you were elected; it's in your job description. The only way to live in peace is to live in peace. Don't pander to ignorance and insanity. Keep a cool head. Live long and prosper.

Dear Editor,
    The recent and untimely demise of Austin musician Bill Maddox casts an uncomfortable spotlight on gun culture in Texas. I've read up on the case in the news as much as possible, but it's clear Travis County investigators aren't saying anything for now. All we know is that both Bill and John Debrecht – the apparently mentally ill man that allegedly broke into his house – died of gunshot wounds. While there are obviously many questions about the circumstances here, the most pressing one for me is this: Why did these men have to die? While we don't know for sure, we can assume the gun or guns belonged to one or both of them. If the gun used belonged to Maddox, then he became yet another data point in a statistic that is well-known: Having a firearm in one's home highly increases the chance of dying by gun violence. If the gun was Mr. Debrecht's, what was someone taking medication for a mental condition doing with a gun anyway?
    The sad fact is that this unfortunate altercation did not need to end in two deaths, but the ready presence of firearms virtually ensured it.

Dear Editor,
    I want to address the specific subject of “history” in the article "One More Detour on Holly Street" [News, Jan. 21]. From Holly south to the Colorado River was the site of the beginnings of the Mexican-American community. In 1919 my mother, then only 1 year old, and her parents lived on Riverview – just three blocks from the present power plant. At that time there was already a nearby city sewer lift station in operation, which is only now being demolished.
    In the 1950s, as whites moved to the suburbs, Hispanics migrated north from below Holly to First/Cesar Chavez. My parents bought a home on Canterbury Street in 1951, just two blocks from what would later become the Holly Power Plant. My sister, her daughter, and myself still live in the same house.
    I'm not fearful of history, time, or change. Coming from four generations in the neighborhood, I can remember not only when the “old guard” was new but before there even was a guard. Also, perhaps it is the sense and view of our own, sometimes inflated, self-importance taken together with the reminder of individual mortality, which we don't control, that others find so troubling. This is a lesson that history teaches, one of many, and we all would do well to learn.

Dear Editor,
    The core psychological force of leftist thought is the empowerment of emotion wherein subjective claims of being right automatically translate into being right. This self absorption leaves objective thought, i.e., absence of personal bias, ignorantly denied. This hubristic subjective mindset creates a totalitarian impulse that’s the wicked dogmatic foundation from where pernicious leftism springs.
    Class, race, and gender envy as virtue, “multicultural” moral and intellectual relativism as rational, and utopian “social justice” enforced by police power somehow evolved into a benevolent paternal benefactor as sane are all pathologically believed. Vain leftist self-esteem irrationally rebels against recognition that objective moral and intellectual clarity proves this. And the social deformities and horrors that result are willfully denied. And all leftist horribles participated – Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Castro, etc.
    Then there are leftist apologists declaring leftist tyranny could never happen in America. That’s an unwitting but dark space occupied by people and organizations such as the Democratic Party, MoveOn.org, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barack Obama, and so on. And Louis Black sadly joins this misguided cadre in his January 21 “Page Two.” Now this is no shock. Mr. Black is clearly leftist.
    They intend no harm. They’re well-intentioned. Their terrible mistake is insisting that only on a subjective level can humans legitimately offer moral and intellectual conclusions. They pretend to demand that no one “dictate” such realities to others, i.e., objective moral precepts. They’re denying human fallibility. The proof is their own blindness to leftist dogma commanding that a few rule all. Specifically, leftism means government dictating. Their totalitarian impulse unwittingly enables tyranny. Ironically, leftists become the moral dictators they claim to loathe.
    Human failing renders emotionally imprisoned subjective good intentions and leftism existentially delusional. Objective thought is this ideological poison’s antidote. Without it all humanity will suffer greatly.

Dear Editor,
    Once again Cap Metro is treating the ridership as their cash cow or employee. On Sunday, Jan. 16, 2011, they increased the fare for one group of people. The folks that use their disability rider card now much pay a dollar more. No other riders have an increase. I am a disabled veteran, and I am not doing well financially. But I do better than most of the disabled community. I found out about the additional fee when I rode the bus on the Tuesday following that Sunday, after the driver told me. At least I had correct change. Also, how much money can this generate for Cap Metro? The disabled need it much more than Cap Metro.
    My real gripe/complaint is that this is suppose to help their money pit, commuter rail. Too few people use it, and those that do should pay for it. This is a cliché, but they are borrowing money from Peter to pay Paul.

Dear friends,
    It's wonderful to see Balcones Fault on the Hall of Fame ballot, finally [“2010/2011 Texas Music Hall of Fame Nominees”]! However, your description of the band was lifted word for word from another source (Wiki, Google, an old Tiger Beat?), not sure which. But I have read the very same description before. It's been a long time for sure, but you could have done a better job relating the impact of this amazing group of comedians, songwriters, and world-class musicians that captivated Austin in that time. No mention of a dozen sellouts of the Armadillo as headliner, openings for Jimmy Cliff, the Pointer Sisters, Randy Newman, many more, and the largest all-time crowd ever at the 'Dillo. Balcones was legendary all over Texas! Your own staffer Margaret Moser cut her journalistic teeth in Austin writing about them, and she declared that the band belonged in every hall of fame in the country. Why not have someone who was there write this? Your staff is too young (no offense intended) to know, and to just print this old, inaccurate, and dry plagiarism is a dishonor to this great icon of the Austin music industry! C'mon Margaret! Speak up!

   [Margaret Moser replies: If you read it before, it was because I wrote it before – just as I wrote it this time. We just haven't reached the point of having bands write their own nominations.]

Dear Editor,
    Going to the movies is not just about sitting on your ass, shoving popcorn in your face. It's about discriminating cineastes experiencing bold visions helmed by important auteurs. I know this because I read your highbrow movie reviews and enjoy them for the most part. I learn new words all the time. Sometimes, however, a writer's empurpled prose cries out, like a colic-afflicted baby, for an editor to trim turgid passages rife with redundant, superfluous, and excessive verbiage.