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,
    Good morning, people. All this talk of revolution and no one is really getting anything done because any rights we had are gone and everyone just sat by in the last five generations and did nothing!
    So I am conducting my own personal revolution. No longer will anyone tell me I am wrong in leading my life as I see fit! No longer will I allow anyone to treat anyone badly in front of me.
    No longer will I be used by men. You see, they have this thing in my business where people bully other people so they will conform and be controlled, and if you are not part of the "in" crowd, they designate you "a liability" for thinking for yourself. Well, my friends, I have never in my life needed to be one of the in crowd, and it has made me a threat to those who like to control other people. I have lost jobs over it, friends over it, spouses over it. And it has been a lonely, desolate place. But now I really feel a sense of satisfaction in saying no! In fact, I plan to use the word a lot.
    Telling people what you need from them does not mean barking orders or being a difficult person in your choices. My mother was an emotional terrorist and a demon, so in my dealings with emotional terrorists, I have found the only way to deal with those people are to "shoot the hostages." Take them out of the equation.
    So get out there, people, and take back your lives. You all are a wonderful sort of people; I have seen it on here. So make today a personal revolution and go kick some terrorist butt. Save yourselves, because except for a handful of people who have helped you in your life, the rest want to control you. What are you waiting for? A better world could be right in your own head!

Dear Editor,
    There are more than 420,000 registered motorcyclists on the Texas roads, with more and more riders joining those numbers every day. There were 470 deaths in 2011, and in half of these crashes, the motorist did not see the motorcyclist. Under the Ride Safe in Texas program, our goal is to reduce the numbers of “I didn't see him” accidents. We have two programs that we work on throughout the year. We're asking city mayors all over Texas to proclaim May as Motorcycle Safety and Awareness Month, along with Gov. Rick Perry; this helps promote our being seen on the streets and highways. We also work on installing “share the road” signs to remind drivers to look for us. Please look twice before switching lanes and give the motorcycle space. The life you may be saving could be your neighbor's, your child's teacher's, even your pastor's. This year, TxDOT has teamed up with our Safety and Awareness program and supplied us with 10,000 Share the Road yard signs across the state of Texas. Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell is among the 275 city mayors, along with 18 county judges, who have proclaimed May as Motorcycle Safety and Awareness Month.

Dear Editor,
    I am an Austin Chronicle reader, as well as an Austin voter, and I have been appalled by the hostile politics your circulation has promoted against Laura Pressley, candidate for Austin City Council in Place 2. (See the April 19 News article by Michael King,"Point Austin: Money and Minds.”) Dr. Pressley is an excellent candidate for public office. With a Ph.D. in Chemistry from UT, large- and small-business management experience, cost-reduction leadership in the technology industry, strong environmental stewardship, and volunteer service as a board member of several domestic abuse survivors' groups, I think she is the strongest among the entire pack of candidates running for this level of government. The Chronicle has been outspoken against the National Defense Authorization Act, the wars overseas, and government bailouts, just as Dr. Pressley has been, but when The Austin Chronicle released its political endorsements, it went with the safe bet by voting lockstep with the establishment in backing all incumbents. Your “cool,” "grassroots,” and "independent" reputation as one of my trusted news sources has been completely spoiled in my eyes. Reporters who put opinion over facts and show favoritism for one candidate over another are not reporters, and editors who allow that kind of “journalism” to go to print are not doing their jobs.

Dear Editor,
    In his Chronicle ad (May 4, p.21), the incumbent mayor [Lee Leffingwell] again makes his false claim that he "Expanded the SOS ordinance to help clean up sites polluting" the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer.
    In its article “Loosening of SOS proposed," Aug. 9, 2007, p.B1, the Statesman accurately reported that Leffingwell's proposal was to “encourage more redevelopment over the ecologically fragile" watershed by removing strict impervious cover limits on redevelopment projects. The final Leffingwell-backed amendment also allowed massive redevelopment on top of caves and sinkholes, straddling steep slopes, and within stream water quality buffer zones.
    Voters should know the truth: Leffingwell’s SOS loosener served developers, not Barton Springs protection.

Dear Editor,
    Re: “Split Endorsement a Cop-Out: 'Grow a Pair',” [Postmarks, May 4]: Please inform Mr. David Lundstedt that his voting rights are hereby revoked on the basis that he is a puppet of the media unable to make informed decisions for himself, instead choosing whatever candidate he is told to vote for. We now know that Mr. Lundstedt will vote for Mike Martinez, Bill Spelman, and Sheryl Cole, not because he knows what their positions merit over the other candidates, but because he was told to do so by the Chronicle.
    The fact is that both mayoral candidates endorsed by the Chronicle will do great work for our city if elected. The real question for Mr. Lundstedt is: Which one will work for or against the causes he cares about? Apparently, the only cause that matters to him is being on the same side as the Chronicle's editors.
    Mr. Lundstedt, if you can't think for yourself, you should lose your right to vote.
    Thank you, Chronicle editors for giving us the tools with which to make informed choices. See you at the polls!

Dear Editor,
    I have known Lee Leffingwell before he ever ran for any public office. I do not always agree with him and I tell him so. He is a calm, steady individual at the helm of a large city with a lot of controversial issues – and I spend a lot of time at City Hall because of these issues – but we need him to stay there. Snap and emotional decisions are not always the best because the moment and the message can change in a red-hot minute and you wish you had made a different decision.

Dear Editor,
    Re: The Midnight Cowboy restaurant review [Food, April 27]: Claudia Alarcón’s piece is entertaining enough. I just wish she had been more evenhanded when it comes to her accolades and disses; e.g., she requests a “sense of humor, for crying out loud” when she is criticized for being elitist, yet she hurls bitter morsels at “loud frat types, hipsters on cell phones.” The last time I looked, the latter’s money is as green as the former’s. The problem with newly arrived endeavors is that somehow they have to raise themselves above the established ones, claiming superior products that attract a finer clientele, forgetting there’s enough for everyone. Leave your condescension and superiority away from Sixth Street where they are a little more palatable.

Dear Editor,
    First, for Michael Ventura. Two things: First, I am trly amazed that you forgot to mention Nicholas Ray's' Johnny Guitar with Joan Crawford essentially as John Wayne ["Letters at 3AM: Katniss Everdeen's Grandmothers," May 4]. Dear lord! Even the final shoot-out is between Joan and Mercedes McCambridge :) I've read that Sterling Hayden was so totally confused with the film that he thought that he was the main character. And the male characters had such surreal dialogue like "I hear you're the Dancing Kid." [pause] "Yep. I hear you play the guitar." Well, in any normal Western there would be gunplay at this point. Nope – guitar gets played; Kid dances. This is the movie that stands Westerns on their collective heads. Next, how can you possibly mention the great Liz Taylor performances and not mention Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
    One last one from elsewhere in the paper – SubUrbia is not out ["Richard Linklater (Contemporary Film Directors Series)," Screens, May 4]? Criterion, where are you? OK, this film didn't really strike me when I saw it. But it is one of those films that just lingers deep in the brain. I have learned to trust that. That generally means it is a lot better than I first thought.