LETTERS

A gay issue?

I noticed the attacks on three men in July after the Pride festival was missing from your year-end wrap-up [“The Front Lines,” Dec. 27]. Am I crazy, or was this a big deal locally and nationwide? I was pretty sure I was living in one of the more tolerant cities in the nation until that happened. Sure, I would have expected it in Dallas, where I moved from, but it didn't happen there-it happened here. It was a harsh reminder that you can't find a safe haven from hate.

And then there was Tony Phillips' article [“Because I Said So”] bashing the Queer Eye guys. Hmmm. I'm starting to wonder. You better make your next issue extra queeny/dykey.

Michael Grunwald,
North Park

A war on ‘war'
In response to Tony Phillips' commentary “A war worth winning” [“Because I Said So,” Dec. 20], the essence of his article is noble, but his call to action is inappropriate. The choice to use the war metaphor is naïve and in bad taste. Liberal commentators know that wars cause death, suffering, destruction and numerous other negative consequences-even when the term war is used as a metaphor.

I find it odd that Phillips referenced a slue of wars that have not obtained their objectives-”the war on terror,” “the drug war,” wars on aggression, imperialism, totalitarianism and ethnic cleansing. He even made a reference to the Vietnam War. None of these wars has been ultimately successful. The war on terror is unwinnable and has been credited for creating more terrorism. The drug war is a failure; it has caused more harm than good. As many progressive thinkers have noted, it is not a war on drugs but a war on people. War has not rid the world of aggression, imperialism, totalitarianism or ethnic cleansing.

I wonder what Phillips imagined when he invoked a “full-scale war” on poverty. Did he picture tanks rolling over the bodies of poor people? Did he imagine smart bombs educating impoverished people on how to build credit? Did he envision secret prisons torturing poverty until it confessed to what cave in Afghanistan the top-poverty-official was hiding in?

Obviously Phillips did not imagine these scenarios, but the term war is explicitly bonded to violence.

Phillips acknowledged that President Johnson launched an unsuccessful “war on poverty,” and Phillips blamed the Vietnam War for the petering out of the “war on poverty.” This assertion is not entirely accurate; there was a plethora of reasons for the demise of Johnson's “war on poverty,” too many to discuss here.

To put it succinctly, we cannot combat poverty through the lens of war, even if it is just a metaphor. Poverty is, unfortunately, incredibly abundant. Phillips' generalization of homeless people, “people are homeless because they are poor,” was coupled with acknowledging that there are plenty of reasons for individuals to be impoverished. It is absolutely righteous to work to prevent/end poverty; sadly, though, it is presumably an unbeatable fact of life. Certainly it will not be ended through war.

Since we chose to have a war on terror, we have enlisted a mechanism that is great at war-our military. Now we are stuck in Iraq, trying to spread democracy with the wrong tool. If we had been more thoughtful as to how we were going to deal with terrorism we wouldn't be in the nation-building Iraq quagmire.

Since we chose to have a war on drugs, we have enlisted an aggressive police force to enforce drug laws on our own citizens. The consequence is that proportionally we put more of our citizens in jail/prison than any other First World nation, yet drug use is just as prevalent today as it was when Nixon launched the drug war.

I long for a day when our leaders (and liberal commentators) abolish war and the war metaphor. Poverty is an enemy, but it is more like cancer than an opposing army. We don't have a full-scale war on cancer-because we can't bomb cancer out of existence. But we do have a “race for a cure.”

In the future, Mr. Phillips, when you are feeling inspired to evoke support for the needy, please choose your terms more cautiously. Let's find a “cure.”

Randy Hencken,
Golden Hill>

Ed's brain
Re: “The Santa Conspiracy” by Edwin Decker [“Sordid Tales,” Dec. 27]. Thanks for running such an intelligent piece. Thank God there are still Americans with functioning brains and faith in humankind left in our world-and I'm glad this one writes so clearly.

Nancy Talbott,
Cambridge, Mass.

F-off, Jed
Tell Jed Gottlieb to go fuck himself. If he doesn't think the Guns 'N Roses album will be any good, don't buy the fuckin' thing, then. He's a piss-poor writer for some unknown publication who would give anything to be in Axl's shoes.

Heath Monroe,
Las Vegas, Nev.

Humans and nature

Well, it's always good to hear someone speaking up for the poor [“Because I Said So,” Dec. 20]. We call the U.S. the richest country in the world, and yet we don't clothe, feed or house an appalling number of our people. I never met a person who asked to be born. So if we're going to let people have new people, we should see to it that all the needs of the new people are taken care of, a fact that is rarely even hinted at. So I applaud any and every effort to deal with this problem.

I myself am retired. And tired! So I count on you younger ones to keep up the work, using whatever talents you have. But I do recommend another course of action that is rarely if ever mentioned. One should not make and spend so much money. I have lived comfortably for 33 years here in San Diego and traveled around a good bit of the world but have never earned as much as five figures of income in any one year. See, in America, if you're smart you can live on very little.

The first step to take is stop watching any and all ads and buying anything new. Having said that, I need also to point out one other (fairly distressing) fact. As long as the human race has existed, there have always been the few with too much, some with enough and many with not enough. It may have varied from time to time and place to place, but not by much. It is an insoluble problem. It is the nature of our species. Nature made a mistake with us, but nature always takes care of its mistakes. I know that sounds hopeless, but hope is for teenagers (just as belief is for children). What we need are adults who only need knowledge (and love), not hope and faith. But then we wouldn't be human, would we? We'd be, as Nietzsche suggested, beyond human. Get to work on it!

George Blender,
Ocean Beach

The tunnel
Fluid, comprehensive, entertaining-your synopsis of the year's news in review [“The Front Lines,” Dec. 27] was well worth the read. I was surprised and disappointed, however, by the absence of one particularly important event: The Jan. 25, 2006, discovery by Immigration and Customs Enforcement of the 1,200-yard-long underground border tunnel between a Tijuana warehouse and one in Otay Mesa.

Although 38 others of its kind reportedly have been found along the border since Sept. 11, 2001, this one, perhaps due to timing, magnitude or both, was the spark that ignited this year's border bonfire. Anderson Cooper spent an entire week here for the tunnel expose covering the dark (though I could have taken him to much darker) sides of our two cities. After that, the Minutemen, immigration reform and the trans-border drug and sex trades catapulted to the headlines.

But when the cameras quit rolling and media circus packed up the tent to take the show to the next town, the tunnel remained a concrete manifestation of a universal axiom: As long as there are borders, there will be border crossers.

Bryan Varela,
Downtown

Poverty-or not
I most certainly appreciate the sentiments Tony Phillips expresses [“Because I Said So,” Dec. 20] regarding poverty being one of many reasons why people are homeless. Over the past year, I have encountered two people who are homeless looking for assistance. One owned a home in Palm Springs and one has more than $200,000 in the bank. While these may be the exceptions to the rule, I believe each person brings to their homeless situation a unique life circumstance. I agree that poverty is one of the primary issues that prevents housing from being achieved, along with skills to maintain independence.

Betsy Knight,
Pacific Beach

Feelings aside
As of Feb. 1, 2007, I will be the new owner of Magpie Boutique & Gallery in South Park. In response to the “Letters” section in the Jan. 3 issue [“Buh-Bye!”], I'd first like to offer an apology as the new owner to the jilted artist who had a negative experience while shopping in Magpie and say that, hopefully, he will come back when I take over and help him have a much more positive feeling toward Magpie.

However, I'd also like to say to him and to you, CityBeat, to do a little more research when making a statement of grand proportions. Magpie was never planning on closing; the owners were merely trying to find a new person to take over the business and make it even better than it already was, which is my job now. So put all feelings aside and come to the boutique so we can have a fresh start.

Sarah Lambert,
Mission Hills

It's not about fear
Just as you chose Rep. Virgil Goode's public xenophobia to comment on because it was the most recent incidence that illuminated your point [“Editorial,” Dec. 27], so I will use your article to illuminate mine.

I grow weary of hearing bigotry and hatred talked about in terms of fear. Although it may well be true that bigots have deep-seated fears of what they hate, and it may make us feel better to dismissively psychoanalyze people we don't know, this talk of fear gets us far away from the point of discourse. I wouldn't want anyone finding one of my deep-seated fears (of which there are many) and dismissing my political views based on them, so I won't do that to others.

Instead of deciding that with a little self-esteem this problem will go away, let's assume it won't. Let's take the bigoted comments on their face and debate them, instead of demanding apologies and whining that it wasn't nice. I hold out little hope that anti-immigrationists will change their politics because of the other point of view they saw on a blog or something, but as long as we keep the message of tolerance as visible as the message of hate, there is the chance people will make informed decisions that sway our way.

“This is America, buddy, and everyone's invited!” or “This country was founded on religious freedom, and if you don't like it, you can just leave!” are the sort of ear-catching ironic sorts of rebuttals that just might be necessary should the debate turn illogical and futile, as it often does. We can't bow out and say, “Awww, you're just afraid, poor thing,” when hatred sticks out its tongue at us. We don't want to be hatred's permissive parents that let him get his way. We'll have to be un-PC parents, as much as we hate to be, and take the paddle to hate so he learns his lesson.

I was going to say something about the fact that people are routinely attacked and killed due to this sort of bigoted hate (most recently and locally at the Pride celebration last year), and it's just not justice to talk about criminally minded assholes as being “afraid,” but it doesn't really fit anywhere.

Karen Eckhoff,
North Park

Rational thought
I just happened upon your editorial on Congressman Virgil Goode's comments [Dec. 27] through Google News and wanted to say how much I enjoyed it. It was timely, appropriate and well-written. This was a year of many things, chiefly fear and bad behavior, and I really appreciate the voice you put out there-especially as a (hopefully) rational mind estranged in conservative Texas.

Eva Sikes, XXXXXXXXX