Letters to the Editor

What You Say

Heaven in Earth

I live about 100 yards away from Earth [Bread +Brewery] [Food, Trey Popp, "Hearth of Gold," Dec. 18, 2008]. It's amazing what it's become. I remember when it was a nuisance bar with stinky wall-to-wall carpeting and a friggin' Coors Lite banner outside. The whole neighborhood has fallen in love with the place.

Sam Steinig
Via citypaper.net

People need to understand that they are responsible for themselves and their actions [News, Charles Cieri, "The Defenders," Dec. 18, 2008]. That includes their own self-defense. If you live in an area where you need to carry a weapon, then be smart enough to realize that and do so. Also know how to use it. When the woman reported the license plate, were the police able to find the man that attempted to attack her?

Jay

Charles Cieri responds: After filing a report and following up, Courtney Dozor was sent to the Special Victims Unit where she met with Officer Jim Owens, who identified the man associated with the license plate she recorded. The man had previously been arrested for soliciting prostitution, and his mug shot fit Dozor's description. Owens informed her that he would contact and question the man and get back to her within weeks. More then a month passed with no contact. Dozor contacted Owens to get a copy of her incident report. Owens informed Dozor that he mistakenly omitted instructions for pressing charges. About two weeks ago, Dozor began the process of pressing charges. There have been no updates since then.

Regarding the mayoral aide who wondered why libraries can't be run by volunteers [Opinion, Loose Canon, Bruce Schimmel, "A Growing Gift," Dec. 11, 2008], how unfortunate that our mayor employs a person of such ignorance.

I'd like to issue a challenge to the unidentified one (who's obviously being paid too much of the taxpayers' money — now there's a salary that could be put to better use). If libraries could be run by volunteers, then find a branch library and volunteer to run it for a day. You would gain a lot of useful knowledge about libraries, about how they function for people and communities and, quite possibly, about life in the real world. The librarian in charge could sit off to one side and watch you flounder pathetically in water that's way too deep for you.

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

Ellen Sack
Via e-mail

For those of us with what would be considered a consumerist false consciousness, who enjoy living in a prosperous nation, who aren't racked with guilt and indecision over the environmental implications of every holiday purchase and who are reasonably certain that the ecological apocalypse is not near, Bruce Schimmel's column on "The Story of Stuff" reads as yet another gratuitous criticism of our nation.

Schimmel isn't content with merely pointing out how to make environmentally friendly shopping decisions. He chooses to endorse the hyperbolic and simply unhinged view that our consumer culture is evidence, "that Americans are a deluded and dirty people, misled by a corrupt government."

I continue to hope for a Left that doesn't merely love some ideal, or lofty abstraction, of America, but rather loves the country itself, our people, our culture and system of government — a Left that gently pokes and prods the America they love in a better direction without the insidious charge that our faults lie not merely in some of our behaviors, but in the very fabric and essence of America itself.

Adam Levick
Via e-mail

Due to an editing error, last week's story about Action Against Rapist stated that "most people City Paper spoke to were aware of the specifics of the group's mission." It should have read, "most people City Paper spoke to were unaware of the specifics of the group's mission." City Paper regrets the error.