Publication Date: Friday, February 18, 2005
ReaderWire
ReaderWire
(February 18, 2005)
Aram responds
In the Weekly's Feb. 2 letters section, in a piece titled "Pas-de-deux," Mr. Dan Bloomberg becomes so angered over bumper stickers that allegedly outraged his moral sensibilities that he loses whatever ability he may have once had to distinguish fact from fiction.
He claims that in the Jan. 26 edition of the Weekly I engaged in a rant against the Palo Alto Police Department (PAPD).
A careful look at the Weekly of that date will show that my letter to the editor, titled "Shock and Awe," not once referred to the PAPD.
At the end of Mr. Bloomberg's rambling missive he engages in outright fabrication. He claims I accused the PAPD of racism when they arrested two African-American juveniles for alleged burglaries near Gunn High School.
I have never written or spoken publicly of that case. I challenge Mr. Bloomberg to show otherwise. As my father used to say: "Some people prefer not to be disturbed by the facts." Mr. Bloomberg clearly suffers a severe form of this syndrome.
Finally, Mr. Bloomberg speaks glowingly of the well-mannered PAPD. I wonder if Mr. Bloomberg has asked Albert Hopkins, who was brutality beaten by two of Palo Alto's finest for the crime of "Sitting In His Car While Black," how he feels about the PAPD.
Or what about Jorge Hernandez, who spent several weeks in jail after the PAPD extracted a false confession of rape from this young man.
Next time check your facts, Mr. Bloomberg.
Aram James
Los Robles Avenue, Palo Alto
Proud to work hard
Why is it so awful that driven students are working hard to gain acceptance into the college of their choice?
I think their hard work deserves praise, not worry. While, as a high-school student myself, I know the importance of playtime, I have gladly chosen to load up on AP classes and extra-curricular commitments, often foregoing a party to study for an exam.
Gaining admission to a top-tier school is much more important than the so-called normal high-school experience. I am proud to be part of a group of students that thinks toward its future.
Zoe Hoster
Byron Street, Palo Alto
Missing equality?
The fallacy in Lynne Johnson's Feb. 2 article is right in the title: "'Profiling' can occur in both directions...."
"Profiling" means discriminatory policing -- which cannot occur in both directions.
Actions of on-duty police cannot be equated with the public's actions. The Bill of Rights is solely concerned with protecting the public from objectionable government actions, like unreasonable searches and seizures -- not protecting the government from the public's actions.
That's the law of the land, and the city's chief law enforcer must respect its intent.
During the stop and subsequent complaint, as Johnson's hypothetical Palo Alto police officer I was paid for my time and backed by a powerful union and department, and the general public presumption of police propriety. Like any other public service position, complaints come with my job. Nonetheless, my chief publicly argues that complaints against police are unfair.
Meanwhile, the hypothetical African-American male's lost time during the stop may result in losing his slim salary, missing a critical meeting or losing an important customer. His embarrassing excuse -- that police mistakenly stopped him at gunpoint -- is received with skepticism, or as yet another reason African-American males are undependable employees.
Filing a complaint means losing more time, going in circles. Then there's the acute anxiety that resurges every time he sees the police and their guns. He watches the Human Relations Commission, City Council and police chief censure legal airing of legitimate grievances against police. And people wonder why he always seems angry.
Where's the equality?
David Taylor
Ventura Avenue, Palo Alto
The craft of living
I'm writing as a fellow craftsman (woodcarver, airplane builder, etc.) and a longtime good-natured advocate of manual training for kids to thank the Weekly for the wonderful article on farrier Margie Lee (Feb. 2).
Kudos to everyone concerned: Margie, Don Gustafson, Mr. Wizard, photographer Norbert von der Groeben, writer Sue Dremann, the patient and handsome horses on which Margie practices her art, and of course the Palo Alto Weekly. Mr. von der Groeben's photograph ("The Hot Seating" -- it deserves a title) is a masterpiece, the pictorial equivalent of a chapter in Studs Terkel's epochal compendium, "Working."
There's also a moral here that should be pointed out to the parents and children in our SAT-obsessed community: It's still possible to make a respectable living with your hands, doing valuable work, making people happy, and fulfilling yourself, without ever agonizing over your GMAT score.
Thanks again for a beautifully conceived and executed piece that echoes its subject; I wish the Weekly could publish one like it every week.
Dr. Morton Grosser
Lemon Street, Menlo Park
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