Letter to the editor

I decided not to respond to Michael Philip Pina's earlier letter, because I envisioned he had retired after 20-30 years of hard work provided to him by the American dream. Apparently, he had amassed enough wealth to be able to move to his hoped for retirement location, and he probably has earned the right to criticize what he found there.

However, in his next letter on 6/30, Pina reveals himself to be little more than a bitter old man who is living in the past, and blaming every unhappiness in his life on someone else. I, on the other hand, am not retired on the coast, where the climate would be better for my health, because of my poor planning which provided me with a "meager" retirement, and which I will gladly compare with Pina's at any time.

I only allowed myself to be truly offended, however, when Pina played the Native American card. He accuses Europeans of mistreating "his people" while conveniently forgetting that long before that, the more pugnacious Indian tribes had been slaughtering and enslaving their more docile neighbors for centuries.

"My people" first came to America around 1900. None of them owned any slaves or disrespected any Native Americans. My family feels no guilt for the actions of those over whom we had no control. Conversely, Pina's "people" have established casinos and promoted gambling which panders to the weakness in human nature. Many of them wreak this retribution while sitting at home waiting for the checks they haven't earned to arrive and reward their tribalism.

Gay shame

I have never been a fan of parades. I don't remember ever deliberately going to attend one. I have, however, accidently come across a few. I happened to go to downtown Orleans, France on one Joan of Arc Day. I must have left quickly, because I don't recall any of the features. I assume there was a teenage girl on a horse.

I have been briefly caught up downtown in our pleasant little town when I had gone to the post office and a parade broke out, and I remember one 4th of July when the kids and I found ourselves in a tiny town in some midwestern state whose name probably ended in -as. That parade was about 50 yards long and featured a bad school band, the obligatory fire truck, and a teenage girl on a horse.

Although in none of those parades did I see any naked people, the AP reports, "The 41st annual gay pride parade filled downtown San Francisco with color, music and more than a little nudity on Sunday." What is it with their obsession with embarrassment?

FYI: Free Speech TV (Dish 9415) is having its latest pledge drive. You know what free speech is, don't you? It's articulating what they believe, and pointing out how stupid you are if you disagree. I do enjoy their Aljazeera News, however.

Time is relative

My telephone answering machine message lasts twenty seconds. When I am watching TV, it takes me approximately one minute to get to the front door. In the overall scheme of things, those are miniscule periods of time.

Nevertheless, in today's excessively busy world, I rarely have been able to greet any visitor at my door, and, in fact, many of them are already driving away by the time I get there to answer the bell or their knock.. What has happened to patience? It's one minute, for heaven's sake.

Only my son, two daughters and my doctor's office suffer through the interminable twenty-second telephone delay. To be fair, most of the other calls are those electronic messages that my screening is meant to frustrate. Occasionally, however, my message ends, and there still seems to be someone on the line. I am curious why they never speak and always hang up. Just 'cause I don't owe them any money. . . .

"JUST ONE MORE THING:" Lt. Columbo is no longer on the job. Hopefully, Peter Falk (1927-2011) will be buried in a new trenchcoat. I wonder who will get his 1960 Peugeot 403.

As published on Saturday

I must respectfully take exception to the June 19 E-R editorial, "Good and bad of redistricting." Any attempt to differentiate one voter from the next is counterproductive. To that end, there is no such thing as a "competitive district;" there are only competitive ideas. The U.S. Constitution makes no reference to political parties, because representative government is based upon the concept that voters elect others with whose philosophy of government they agree, and it is incumbent upon the elected to know what the majority of the members of their district wants, and legislate accordingly. Certainly, public officials are free to attempt to adjust the thinking of their constituents, but, in the end, they must subordinate their own opinions to the will of the majority.

The system informs that all voters are equal. U.S. citizens who vote are called Americans, and residents of California are additionally referred to as Californians. For purposes of representative government, hyphenated designations such as African-American, Latino-American and any and all other racial, ethnic, religious or sexual semantic adulterations do not exist.

The only voting bloc is that of proud Americans who vote their consciences on an individual basis. Attempting to create "competitive districts" subverts that original intent.

Advisory request

The copy of "watching" published today said "is" in the first sentence of the last paragraph, whereas I said "are" here. Which is better? Correct?

This is not a test.

FLASH: We won't have one Weiner to jerk around any more. He has resigned. How do you like that, Bill?

Lest we forget

Today is Flag Day, but neither newspaper I read regularly mentioned a word about it.

On June 14, 1923, a joint resolution of Congress codified "existing rules and customs pertaining to the display and use of the flag."

We are flying our flag, because it represents America, the land we love. One might question the Sacramento Bee and the Chico E-R's devotion to our country.

God bless America.

The Legislature is "watching" (published 6/16)

I voted against the creation of a redistricting commission because it just added another level of bureaucracy. When it passed, I foolishly assumed that the entire cost of the enterprise would pass to the 14-member group of re-drawers.

I was wrong. The politicians are still spending our tax money, not so much to facilitate the redistricting process, but to search for loopholes to use to subvert it to their advantage. The State Senate has hired a firm of lawyers for a maximum of $75,000, of which $10,950 has already been spent. Not to be outdone, the State Assembly has contracted for a different gang of attorneys for four years at $300 per hour, and they have already expended $218,771.

Meanwhile, various interest groups from all the fringes of society are mounting protests, while the majority of us citizens, who are being fleeced financially, are sitting on our thumbs. The GOP says it wants to "monitor the process," and the Democrats say, "lawmakers have a legitimate interest in protecting constituents' interests."

Tell them you know that all they care about are their political futures. Let's replace those who waste our money in that endeavor.

Mea culpa

I frittered yesterday away without following up our gifts with the personal touch of a phone call, and I apologize to the recipient. Last night I wasted still more time watching "America Has Talent' (as it should be named). I'm so weak.

BY THE WAY: What happened to "Uncle" George Segal's sitcom on TV Land which has been replaced by some Fran Drescher crap?

RE: "Hot dogs" (below)

Weiner (D-NY) admits he did it. . . multiple young girls before and after his marriage. Thanks, Bill, for setting him right. Now he's a potential liberal presidential prospect. (Maybe, vice-president first.)

UPDATE: His wife is pregnant. Good grief, what a creep he's turning out to be.

Barf

If you don't read the sports' section, you may not be aware that there is such a thing as gay softball. There is even an association, the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance (NAGAAA), that oversees the enterprise. It has been allowed to limit team membership to no more than two non-gay players, but is now being sued by three bisexual men whose team was disqualified because they were "not gay enough."

At the risk of being falsely labeled as homophobic, I ask, "What is so unique about gay softball?" Do they throw like girls, take mincing steps on the basepaths, or sing show tunes in the dugout? In their search for equal treatment under law, how does a group which acknowledges that straight men are superior softball players further that cause? The NAGAAA seems to be as embarrassing as the vomiting sound their acronym creates.

Hot dogs

His name is Representative Anthony Weiner, D-NY (with the Oscar Mayer pronunciation), and he has been accused of displaying his namesake appendage on one of those social networking sites. The story goes on, but it's not news, so I'll leave further discussion to his constituents in those parts of New York City he represents.

I don't know if his district includes Bill Clinton's office in Harlem. You remember Bill, don't you? His part was a bone of contention to everyone except other Democrats. That may have taught Weiner something about resume enhancement.

Monumental wastes of time

Jonathan VanDyke, who imagines himself to be a performance artist, has created "The Long Glances," an occasion where he will stand before Jackson Pollocks's painting "Convergence" for five eight-hour days. A spokesman for the hosting Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY is quoted as saying, "VanDyke's performance is, in part, a commentary on contemporary culture and the way pervasive technology has influenced how we focus our attention."

Bullshit!

That excessively cold weather in Buffalo has apparently so frozen the brains of those displaying the Pollock, (which resembles a finger painting by a small child and his pet monkey), as to encourage a grown man to stare at the wall it covers, pretending he's creating art.

ADDITIONALLY: On the same page of pop "culture" news as the above in the Bee, it was announced that romance novelist Nora Roberts is giving $100,000 to McDaniel College in Westminster, MD to offer a minor in romance literature and start a writing course in the genre.

Literature?

The president of another virtually unknown institution said, "The college aims to raise the profile of romance novels." A full library of Roberts' more than 200 works of soft-core porn in 1-3 syllable words will be amassed.

Art is in the contemporary eye of the beholder, but nonsense is forever.