Letters for July 4, 2002

Trash your TV

Re “Kill Your TV!” by Jim Evans (SN&R Cover, June 20):

Here’s a perfectly good reason not to have cable television or television at all:

I find myself watching more evening cartoons, The Simpsons and King of the Hill, and I’m an adult!

I should be watching the evening news. But all I ever see is trash topics: people being chased in to buildings and reporters shoving their microphones and cameras in everyone’s’ faces. I don’t care that Tom and Nicole are divorcing, or that Tyson is going to be boxing. So what! It seems to be not long before I see it again, though. The 10 and 11 o’clock news is on at work and again it’s all smut. If I wanted smut news I would pick up a smut. They are right there at the cash register trash rack. I find my blood pressure rises more watching the news then when I’m at work in general.

I find that in the news there’s a lot of speculation since September 11, 2001. And that’s all it is—speculation. Speculation about what might happen, that terrorists might bomb another city, they might do this or that. I don’t want to live in fear. I refuse to! The news only feeds the fears of those who can’t see though the crap and feeds the stupidity of others.

Stop feeding the world crap and feeding into the terrorists’ game.

The next time anyone finds themselves yelling at their television and the news broadcast, take the advise of the SN&R—Kill your TV!

Irene Baldwin
West Sacramento

Offer me alternatives

Re “Kill Your TV” by Jim Evans (SN&R Cover, June 20):

Sacramento TV is a large, slow-moving, easy-to-hit target, and Jim Evans really didn’t tell us much new. What, perchance, should the locals have been carrying that evening instead? Evans gives us a bleeding second-by-second account of what was on, but really, were there alternatives to the pablum they were producing?

If there was, apparently it wasn’t important enough to touch upon in six pages of ink.

O. John Lawless
via e-mail

We offer sex and substance

Re “Kill Your TV” by Jim Evans (SN&R Cover, June 20):

You’re confusing me here. The newspaper that has covers of Chandra Levy (sex and violence), the half-naked preacher lady (sex), and killer-death mold (sensationalistic) is calling out the local news programs for their focus on sex and violence? Granted, your stories are infinitely more in-depth than those found in TV news, but that’s the advantage a local print media has over a local news program.

What you could have addressed is how all local media use sex and violence as an entree to entice potential readers/viewers/listeners to take a few moments of their time and look at (or listen to) that media’s product. I don’t see that you’re any different from them in that regard.

Besides, the News & Review has pages and pages of escort services and adult phone lines and dating services that pride themselves on their ability to get you to one-night-stand-land. I haven’t seen that kind of thing on my local news lately. That’s not to say it won’t be there soon enough. You’re just ahead of the curve.

Kirk Rosenkranz
Sacramento

Only good dogs need apply

Re “Renters Getting Bitten” by Cameron Macdonald (SN&R News, June 20):

Cameron Macdonald deserves thanks for reporting on the fear-driven policies being instituted against pet owners by local landlords in the wake of Diane Whipple’s death. Unfortunately, Macdonald’s story didn’t mention that newly developed resources are available to help pet owners and landlords alike.

Sensible rental housing policies need not contain breed-specific clauses or worse, an outright ban on pets. Landlords can keep responsible pet owners and attract new ones by conducting interviews, requiring references and mandating that animals be spayed or neutered, and licensed.

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has been working with rental-property owners and managers to develop “pets welcome” policies that are fair and allow only responsible pet owners of non-dangerous animals. Pet owners and landlords are invited to visit Renting With Pets: The Online Resource for Rental Managers and Pet Owners at www.HSUS/rentwithpets.org. Because some insurance companies adopt bans despite the fact that no one can distinguish a potentially dangerous dog from a safe, loving pet based on breed alone, we’re also working to educate the insurance industry on dog behavior and responsible pet keeping so that they, too, can develop sensible guidelines that customers would be required to follow if they wished to obtain and maintain coverage.

Eric Sakach
Director, Humane Society of the United States
West Coast Regional Office
Sacramento

Blame the dog owner, not the landlord

Re “Renters Getting Bitten” by Cameron Macdonald (SN&R News, June 20):

As a long-time professional property manager who takes care of about 300 single-family homes, I want to say thanks for this fairly balanced article. I can’t imagine a suit being successful against a disabled tenant who requires her dog, but stranger things have happened. It’s hard to say who the bad guys are in this problem. Her landlord, as you pointed out, was caught in a bind not of his own making, just as she was. The fact is our culture has become litigious-crazy.

To the tenant who said, “I don’t have to provide insurance for a firearm or my steel-toed boots, why should I buy insurance for my dog?” I would say, “No you don’t, not yet.” As one who works for landlords, I find myself wondering why the landlord should have any responsibility for a tenant’s dog at all. Should a mortgage company have responsibility for an owner’s vicious pet? And what’s next? If a tenant abuses his wife, should the landlord be held partially responsible for that as well, because “he should have known?” It was a sorry thing to read that due to the possibility of liability problems, more and more dogs are being dumped at the pound, most of them, I’m sure, both gentle and precious. But these are some of the unintended consequences of a culture that is always looking to blame someone else.

Mark Hunt
Orangevale

A corporate co-op

Re “Some Fear the Co-op Has Been Co-opted” by David A. Kulczyk (SN&R News, June 20):

I hope that Paul Cultrera reflects on his closing quote in your article and it dawns on him that the reason people are screaming at him is because he is not listening. The ethos permeating the SNFC argues that a culture of consumption is not the problem; the problem is how and what we consume. Apparently, only Cultrera and the board know the right way and the right products.

The loss of membership control is merely a symptom of the Co-op’s larger failure. Yes, double-digit growth in sales and profits suggests that the board meets with the approval of certain segments of the buying public, and the spread of organic products to other venues suggests the store’s original message is getting through to Wall Street, if not to Main Street. In spite of recent growth, however, can we really call the Co-op a success since they’ve replicated the same corporate principles that motivated the formation of the co-op to begin with?

SNFC management has deliberately turned itself into an organization that is more interested in merchandising than value, puts aesthetics before quality, ranks profits before people, and replaced substance with slogans. “Sustainability,” formerly the philosophy of a valuable community asset, is now little more than the Madison Avenue sloganeering of a model corporate citizen. But this is precisely the type of store board member Keat envisioned when he wrote of the possibility of what we might now call “compassionate consumption” leading us toward a consumption-oriented utopia. With organic beef on the current board’s agenda, Native American cigarettes can’t be far behind.

Michael Meloy
Davis

Shame on NIMBYs

Re “Home Work” (SN&R Editorial, June 20):

While most of us like to think we have an egalitarian society, there seems to be an element in Folsom that for very selfish reasons does not share this view. Affordable housing is in a critical state in much of California and everyone has to do his or her part to alleviate this situation.

If anything, the proposed development does not even begin to reach what would be an acceptable level of affordable housing in Folsom. I would say many of these lower-income people who need this housing perform far more important work for society than many of the NIMBYs. For those people who are opposing this development, I can only say shame, shame, shame!

James G. Updegraff III
Sacramento

Don’t worry, they couldn’t afford it anyway

Re “Home Work” (SN&R Editorial, June 20):

The problem with “affordable housing” is that over the years, this phrase has been used as a buzzword for “low-income housing” and has acquired the stigma of ghetto-ization.

If the city of Folsom were to be blunt and call it “middle-class housing,” I’m sure there wouldn’t be nearly as big an outcry, because they wouldn’t be using the same term that’s been used for decades to mean “welfare-recipient apartments.”

Alternatively, any reference to affordable housing should be accompanied by an explanation of who it’s affordable for, e.g., those earning $35,000-$50,000 a year, with pictures of teachers and office workers underneath, to emphasize the point that these homes will be occupied by respectable employed people, not gang members and drug dealers.

Karen M. Campbell
Sacramento

So it wasn’t because of unfair referees?

Re “Phil Jackson for President” by Steven T. Jones (SN&R Cover, May 30):

Little late, but I’d like to congratulate you on a great story. Phil Jackson is a great leader, period. Anyone involved in coaching should read his books, especially Sacred Hoops, Spiritual Lessons Of A Hardwood Warrior.

The most important thing a coach can do is to get his players to play to their full potential, with a clear mind, not thinking, just doing, to live in the moment and stay focused in the midst of chaos. Which coach had his players better prepared for what we know was the real world championship, game # 7 in Sac?

“Not only is there more to life than basketball, there’s a lot more to basketball than basketball.”—Phil Jackson.

Thanks for having the balls to print your story at the time you did.

Coach Dave
via e-mail