Publication Date: Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Letters
Letters
(July 07, 2004)
'Our Town' response
Editor,
In regards to Don Kazak's Our Town column (June 30), I have been flying the American flag at least six months before 9/11 because in my gut I knew our country had shifted too far left and that we would pay the price because of liberalism engrained into our education systems, politics, legal system and local and state governments.
Our state government was spending money like drunken sailors on shore leave. The decade of the '90s in my option was "lies and deceit." We had a "dot-com" house of cards, with CEOs and CFOs cooking the books, and then we ended up with Islamic terrorists flying our commercial aircraft into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.
Our previous president did nothing after the first Twin Towers attempt, or the destruction of our Nairobi Embassy, or the blowing up the U.S. Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia or the almost sinking of the destroyer Cole. In all these terrorist attacks, Americans were killed. I did not note any peace-loving citizens marching around with coffins covered with American flags condemning these attacks.
"The parallels between Vietnam and Iraq are getting scary." Under President Johnson and Secretary McNamara, their micro managing "tit for tat" approach in fighting a war ended up dragging this war on for too many years. It took President Nixon to bring the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table. Ten days of all out air war made them ready to negotiate. If we used our air power effectively in the first place, we would not have lost tens of thousands of our military members and South Vietnam would now be a free.
Iraq did provide support to various terrorist groups directly and indirectly. Saddam did use chemical weapons, did invade Kuwait and killed hundreds of thousands of his own Iraq citizens. He also tried to develop nuclear capabilities.
Yes, "we need a change" in this country. We need "fair and balanced" news in our airways, newspapers and from our politicians in office. The Our Town column did not mention one positive comment or achievement in what the United States has accomplished in Iraq since we enforced the U.N. Resolutions.
Eugene J. Micek
East Meadow Drive
Palo Alto
A 'Video' goodbye
Editor,
This letter is in response to the article published on June 16 in the Weekly. I managed Midtown Video for more than 15 years and took over running it following the death of Wilson Nicholls in 2001. When Wilson became ill he trained me to run the store's "day-to-day" operations exactly as he had done since the store opened in 1985.
When we realized that people's rental habits had changed so much that we could no longer stay in business, the first concern for all of us was how to handle the customers who still had coupons. While it was stated on each receipt that coupons were not refundable, we wanted to make an effort to give customers an opportunity to use up as many coupons as possible.
We all agreed that this was the best way. We've had more than 18 years in this community and it was important to follow through with the same kind of customer service when leaving the community as we had been doing for so many years while serving the community.
Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned. Due to many circumstances, there was a need to "speed up the process," in part due to landlord issues. Because I was only running the "day-to-day" operations and the controlling interest was with his family, the final decisions were not decided on by me and there was nothing that I could say or do to change things.
The "coupon list" that was spoken of in the article is incorrect; there is no such list. We printed a list of our most frequent customers so we could telephone as many as possible to let them know we were closing. From that list of customers, we could pull up each individual account to see if the customer had coupons (this coupon count would also show up on the receipt with each transaction).
It was a matter of days from the time we were informed of our last day and our actual last day of rentals. My last day of employment at Midtown Video was on May 28. I am disappointed in the turn of events surrounding the closing of the store. I wish there was something more that I could have done to make the process smoother. It just wasn't possible with the time constraints.
I remember when Midtown was "MIDTOWN" -- Midtown Pharmacy, Midtown Bike Shop, Bergmanns, Co-op, etc. Slowly all the mom-and-pop stores are closing and it is very sad for the community.
No more familiar faces as you are renting a movie, guaranteed to run into someone you know, whether the person was behind the counter, or renting a movie and seeing the actual owner behind the counter greeting customers. Wilson made many contributions to our community, from hiring and training teenage employees to raising and matching contributions for the earthquake in Colombia (where Wilson was from) to his countless contributions to the local schools.
I hope that the customers who are upset can understand that this was not the way we wanted or intended the demise of Midtown Video to be. We would have loved to have a happy ending.
Laurie Garcia
Middlefield Road
Palo Alto
Prompt response
Editor,
I would personally like to thank Palo Alto Mayor Bern Beecham for not only acknowledging my daughter's letter to him regarding the use of Rinconada lap lanes for adults, but also for taking her request seriously.
It is a rare and empowering message that an eight year old can be heard and told that, "staff agrees with your concerns and the following new rule will be put in place."
I have shared the mayor's letter with my friends and colleagues and I, like them, feel very grateful that not all processes need take forever. Mr. Beecham's decision, along with that of Director of Community Services Richard James, to now allow youth and teens use of the lap lanes all year round is a wise and healthy step toward wellbeing.
Again, I want to thank Mr. Beecham for his prompt and positive response to our daughter's request.
Andi Barlas-Simpson
Princeton Street
Palo Alto
Self-indulgent council?
Editor,
Adjacent to the June 25 ReaderWire question, "Does the city need to hire a consultant to evaluate its four top managers?" is the headline, "Few cuts, but more food for the City Council."
To the dismay of many, the City Council continues to squander our city's precious resources to cater to their special needs. Hiring yet more consultants to manage the inherent employee-evaluation duties of the City Council is ridiculous at best. They further exhibit their incompetence by not being able to figure out how to feed themselves during the City Council's late-night meetings (noting that some council members work part time or not at all).
While I understand the necessity of trimming the budget, every consultant needlessly hired diminishes that quality of life in some way for the residents of Palo Alto.
I am confident that a more appropriate use could be found for the proposed $2,500 designated to feed our pathetic, self-indulgent City Council.
Sonya Bavvai
Byron Street
Palo Alto
Silver Bullet insights
Editor,
We would have preferred your June 25 "Pie in the Sky" story had avoided the "Cities21 versus Stanford" angle.
Stanford is the South Bay's leader in commute-trip reduction and a national innovator in the production of workforce-oriented housing. These are two of the main objectives of Cities21. Cities21 has benefited from Stanford Management Company's (SMC) review of the Silver Bullet study. We're grateful that SMC volunteered to undertake significant time and expense.
SMC and the City of Palo Alto have supplied support letters for Cities21 attempts to increase carpooling through wireless technology and have offered to provide carpoolers to test our software.
The challenge is to get the first personal monorail system built anywhere in the world -- creating the first new ground transportation mode in 90 years. In our "mature democracy," cities and universities are justifiably hesitant to host the first system.
At this point, we're the first to admit that SMC should be skeptical about the Silver Bullet proposal. As personal monorail companies make progress over the coming months, we believe this skepticism will decrease. We can't imagine the Silver Bullet becoming a reality without Stanford President John Hennessey taking a test ride and coming away with a positive experience.
As far as moving the proposal forward politically, we've prepared a small step for the city to take: adopt a franchising strategy. We believe this circumvents the inertia of mature democracy while addressing most constituent concerns.
The strategy lays out a large series of hurdles to clear to make the Silver Bullet a reality.
Steve Raney
Pitman Avenue
Palo Alto
Thanks from 'Grannies'
Editor,
Saturday afternoon, June 26, a group of Raging Grannies gathered at the Century 16 theater in Mountain View to thank the theater management for showing the film "Fahrenheit 9/11," which had just opened.
Since many theaters around the country bowed to pressure not to show the film, the Grannies were pleased that our theater was not bowing to this pressure and we wanted to express our gratitude by singing.
One of the Grannies made a large poster thanking the management. As the Grannies launched into their repertoire and handed out copies of their song sheets so bystanders could join in, more and more people did just that.
And then, to the complete amazement of the Grannies, people began to come up and deposit money at our feet (in a basket meant to carry song sheets), even to the extent of $5 bills and a $20 bill.
Now, the Grannies don't sing for money -- we do it for our convictions of fighting injustice and oppression, and exposing political misbehavior. Our songs are written mostly by members of our group or other Grannie groups around the country and Canada (where the Grannies originated).
Our Granny group was truly touched by the enthusiastic reception of waiting moviegoers and the monetary donations. We have no way of knowing where all these donors come from, but we want to voice our thanks in this paper and some of the other local papers.
Such reception spurs us on to continue bringing our message and our songs to a public that embraces us so wholeheartedly. If the Granny group can contribute to a "kindler, gentler" world -- which we desire fervently -- and bring a smile to peoples' faces at the sight of these older ladies in granny garb, aprons and ridiculous hats, we are accomplishing our sincere aim in appearing before the public.
Maxine Eggerth
Cupertino Road
Cupertino
'Model T' gas mileage
Editor,
America must increase the fuel efficiency of motor vehicles. We now have the technology for automobiles with fuel-efficiency standards of 60 to 80 miles per gallon through the use of hybrid engines and other technologies.
Yet the average fuel efficiency of cars is almost as low as the Model T Ford. It is important that we take steps today to change this.
With increasing gas prices and reliance on Middle Eastern oil sources, there are numerous reasons to increase our nation's fuel-efficiency standards. Our gas-guzzling ways are making poor families pay more at the pump and putting our soldiers abroad into harm's way.
And as demand for oil from emerging economies continues to increase, we need to demonstrate restraint before it is too late. Congress should enforce and strengthen CAFE (Corporate Automobile Fuel Efficiency) standards instead of letting them get away with loopholes.
For a healthier environment and sensible foreign policy we must act now.
Matthew Savage
Woodleaf Way
Mountain View
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