Letters for September 21, 2006

Kudos to Kate …

Re “Sacto goes cosmo” by Kate Washington (SN&R Feature Story, September 7):

I thought the job that Kate Washington did on Sacramento’s new and improved dining scene was outstanding. Thanks so much for publishing such an informative and historical survey on eating out in this town.

Olga Mandrussow
Sacramento

… but please look for less-pricey options!

Re “Sacto goes cosmo” by Kate Washington (SN&R Feature Story, September 7):

This story provided an interesting perspective on the recent history and evolution of dining options in Sacramento. Having moved to Sacto in June 2004, my spouse and I were lucky enough to land here at a time when many of the newer eating spots had already opened, so we never experienced the “dearth” of dining options that seems to have plagued the city in years past.

However, one element missing from the story is a mention of some of the wonderful lower-priced options. The focus of Ms. Washington’s story is on establishments that fall in the $20-$40 or even $40-$80 range (based on the ratings listed in Dish). Although we’re a two-income couple with no dependents, we quite frankly can’t afford to dine often in the restaurants at this price range, yet we’ve been extremely happy with lower-priced locales such as Michelangelo’s, Crepeville, Tower Cafe, Pho Bac, Fox & Goose, Hitomi and Capitol Garage.

These are the types of restaurants that truly cater to a neighborhood clientele, which is a key to their long-term success, as seems to be confirmed by the recent transformation of the somewhat-upscale Icon into another Café Bernardo for the R Street corridor.

I’d like to see more coverage of these types of dining options in SN&R, and I suggest that the capsule reviews included in Dish be rotated on a weekly or at least monthly basis to include recent restaurant reviews rather than keeping the same stock of “best places to dine.”

With so many new restaurants to choose from, wouldn’t it be a better service to your readers to have some variety in this section to help highlight the newcomers?

Jodi Samuels
Sacramento

Bites is not from Biloxi

Re “Mike spiked” (SN&R Bites, September 7):

Were Bites and I separated at birth? (Was Bites by chance born in Biloxi, like I was?) That’s my radio listening exactly! These days, I don’t leave home during Stephanie’s show and therefore risk wrecking my car less often.

By the way, have you noticed how poorly the board at “Left Channel” 1320 is being operated at various times of the day? Two tracks playing over each other at once, the CBS news not being played and Air America news going on instead, no ads being run during Randi’s breaks, just hard-rock instrumentals: Do you think Entercom is trying to say liberal (or “progressive”) listeners don’t matter? Just wondering.

John Bell
Sacramento

No Rapture, just tribulation

Re “The end of time approaches” by Stephen James (SN&R News, August 31):

Stephen James sums up Jerry Falwell’s description of the so-called Rapture: “Believers will spontaneously disappear from their homes and workplaces and be carried to heaven, while the remaining population will be left behind to endure trauma and hardships never before experienced by mankind.”

The word “Rapture” does not occur in the Bible. Nor does it teach that believers will disappear before the “great tribulation.”

Gospel writer Matthew reports that when the Apostles asked Jesus what they should look for to identify the conclusion of this system of things, he told them it would begin with a time of war, earthquakes, disease, food shortages, increasing lawlessness and more (Matthew 24:3-14).

After the signs’ fulfillment he prophesied: “Then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened” (Matthew 24:21-22). Note that the tribulation is “cut short” for the sake of the “elect” (chosen ones), not that these would be spirited away before it.

In the Revelation, in visions of the future an angel showed John a “great multitude” of people from all nations, telling him, “These are the ones that come out of the great tribulation” (Revelation 7:9, 14). To “come out” of the tribulation, they have to have entered it and survived. Hence, this “great multitude” of Christians must endure this tribulation till God cuts it short.

The end of the tribulation will be Armageddon. Paul says only two kinds of people will be executed, “those who do not know God and do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10). This is not the end of the world, but the beginning of total and permanent peace on Earth under the rule of God’s kingdom, which will cause the will of God to “be done on Earth” just as it is done in heaven, perfectly (Matthew 6:10).

Diane Church
Placerville

Fostering discrimination

Re “Boy Scout snag” by Kel Munger (SN&R Upfront, August 24):

The information regarding the Davis Joint Unified School District allowing groups to use school-district channels to distribute literature/recruitment to students is eye-opening to say the least.

The simple fact is that the district’s action to allow such organizations to use its channels to distribute literature to recruit goes against the district’s own policy, with or without the disclaimer! Might as well have any group (i.e., the KKK) distribute literature to all of our children to join, regardless of the group’s beliefs and intentions, as long as there’s a disclaimer.

Is that correct? No! Would you want your children to be receiving any kind of literature the school district allows, just making it OK with a disclaimer?

The fact is that the DJSUD is fostering the same kind of discrimination that the district supposedly has rules against by allowing this distribution.

Jose Alcazar
West Sacramento

God bless the opinionated and ill-informed

Re “'I would do it again’” by Rachel Gregg (SN&R News, June 22) and SN&R Letters (June 29, July 6, July 20, July 27, August 3 and August 10):

I wonder if those of you who write letters to editors ever stop to think how lucky you are to be able to do so completely free of grammatical correction, syntactical realignment or a loud knock at the door in the middle of the night.

If not, please allow me to do so for you. Let me offer a silent prayer of thanks, on your behalf, that you can write some of the most incredibly spiteful, hurtful, intolerant, unproductive, narrow-minded, poorly considered, poorly crafted, ill-tempered, slanderous, scurrilous, pejorative, emotionally charged, divisive and borderline-illiterate things, and no one stops you (except, perhaps, your fifth-grade English teacher who recognized your name and wishes you’d stop using “who’s” and “whose” interchangeably). No one judges you guilty of felonious hypocrisy when you take the position that anyone who’s intolerant of that which you embrace is either a moron, an idiot or a zealot—or all three.

God bless America, land of the opinionated and the ill-informed.

When someone recently chose to make a statement in defense of human rights and sexual tolerance by tagging the now-familiar mobile hate platform disguised as a ’75 Ford F-150 camper truck, area residents leaped to their keyboards, crafting heartfelt messages of support for this “heroic act” and espousing the virtues of tolerance while simultaneously condemning the guy with the truck for his own supposedly intolerant beliefs.

Does the irony of this escape everyone but me?

Maybe the many authors of these letters believed they could drive out sexual intolerance by the sheer force of their inflammatory rhetoric. I suggest they look east—to Israel and the Palestinian territory. There’s a perfect example of why hatred alone almost never achieves the desired result.

I think it’s time that freedom of speech comes with a higher price tag—and I don’t mean letters should be subject to the heightened scrutiny of spell-checkers and your fifth-grade teacher.

What’s missing from our speech is humanity. What I’m waiting for is a letter to some editor, any editor, that celebrates the rights of the man with the camper truck, written by someone who vehemently opposes his position on homosexuality. To complete this scenario, the guy with the truck would respond with a letter of apology for forcing his beliefs on anyone who had to drive past Capitol Park.

Actually, what I’m really waiting for is the day when there are two camper trucks parked along L Street: one painted in the enlightened rainbow hues of gay and lesbian rights, and the other equally vociferous in its hand-lettered condemnation of the same.

In between the two trucks would be a sign that reads, “It’s your choice. What you decide is OK with us.”

I know what you’re thinking: “Now, who’s being delusional? The world just doesn’t work that way.”

Ours to wreck. Ours to fix.

Rick Bartlett
Sacramento

Editor’s note: Letters to SN&R are edited for length and clarity.