The Vintage & Handmade Market Clarification
In her story last week about the search for a site for a winter homeless shelter, Kelly Davis reported that Asst. Police Chief Boyd Long prefers the shelter to be located Downtown. Long talked about the benefits to Central Division of having a shelter, which has always been located Downtown, but he never specifically indicated a preference for location.
Out-of-sync liberals
Let me say first that I usually enjoy your wacky liberal newspaper. I try to expose myself to viewpoints from all sides of the ideological spectrum, as long as they are speaking genuinely, not just doing a “Karl Rove, shaping public perception by lies and distortion” thing. That being said, I was really bothered by your Aug. 26 issue.
When I open the paper, the first story [“Editorial”] is about child labor on tobacco farms in Malawi, and that people should stop buying tobacco products. Fine. Who could have a problem with that? Well I do, and I’ll tell you why. What do these families do if everybody follows your advice and the farms close? How do they support themselves and feed their families then? Don’t misunderstand, I’d be all for reform efforts to improve the lives of these people. But your call for a boycott seems simplistically shortsighted and the moral equivalent of the conservative who doesn’t want the young mother to have an abortion but doesn’t volunteer to pitch in and help support Mom after she has the baby. I think you need to temper your ideology with some reality.
Then the next story [“Presently Tense”] is advocating a new trial for a convicted cop killer. I would be willing to listen to this if you had some DNA that proved the convicted person couldn’t have done it or some other very convincing piece of evidence, but you don’t. Your best evidence is that the witnesses are now going back on their stories. This is not a good reason to throw out a conviction. I think people are a lot more likely to change their stories after a trial, for lots of reasons, than to lie on the witness stand during the trial. You seem to want to advocate for this murderer on ideological grounds.
Then in the next piece [“The Front Lines”] you go to bat for illegal aliens. I know you libs hate that phrase, but that’s what they are. They are foreign citizens in this country illegally. Law enforcement’s job is to enforce the law. If a sheriff pulled somebody over for speeding, found them to be undocumented and didn’t hold them for ICE, I would be unhappy. That is their job.
What I really hope to spotlight with this is why you liberals are not only out of sync with the attitudes of most people, but why Limbaugh and Fox News can throw around the liberal label and inflame people’s passions. Because they say “liberal” and this is the stuff people think of—the stuff that ticks people off.
I think liberals make great investigative reporters, because they see victimization and “the man” everywhere they look. But maybe your editorial board needs a little more perspective.
Michael Donovan,
Vista
All in the family
I loved your column about adopting a black child [“Backwards & in High Heels,” Sept. 2] so much that I feel compelled to write. When I was young, my family kept foster children. There was no place more invasive than the local suburban mall: “Are you babysitting?” “Is he lost?” “But he’s not your real brother, though. He’s a foster brother.” Fury wells up in my chest to this day to remember the looks we got, and the utter lack of sympathy when a sibling of 2-plus years was replaced with an abusive family, or happily, adopted by a loving, permanent one. The one child we still see now, years later, calls us family but has an innate and respect-worthy loyalty to his biological family. It’s heartbreaking, and I wonder what it would have been like if we could have adopted him.I wish you utter joy with your new child. Thanks for writing.
Kristen Green Wiewora,
Philadelphia, Pa.
