To the Editor,
With all of these mass shootings taking place, our beloved nation is becoming like a modern-day version of Dodge City. Yeah, it is the old west all over again, only on a larger scale. Military-style rifles are being used by demonic young men and bullets are flying. It is such a tragic loss of life, good people being mowed down, and it is high time for politicians to get their collective act together and legislate strict gun control. Maybe it is time for some of those overpaid Brandy drinkers on Capitol Hill to be voted out of office. Lastly, it is going to take more than Marshal Dillon from Dodge, to restore law and order.
Mike Bobeda
Watsonville
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To the Editor,
Here is an example of the insidious way the big corporations control our thought.
Corporate news (MSNBC, The New York Times, ABC, CNN, etc.) tells us that the economy is doing great. By “economy,” they really mean Wall Street and the fat cats. The measures they use are the S&P, the Dow and federal unemployment numbers. The first two of these measures indicate the health of the stock market, where 85 percent of the stock is owned by 10 percent of the population. A rising stock market is irrelevant to the economy of Main St. Likewise, government unemployment figures are not an accurate measure of the economic security of the middle class.
Why does the corporate news not report the number of personal bankruptcies, the number of people working two jobs, the lack of wage growth, the number of people on food stamps, the number of homes repossessed, the number of homeless and the average personal savings of families? These things are real indicators of the health of the economy on Main St. The answer is that the corporate news is part of the one percent of fat cats and huge corporations. They do not care about Main St. Like all big corporations, they care exclusively about profit.
Don Eggleston
Aptos
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To the Editor,
All Watsonville households just received a slick brochure in the mail, “The Scoop on Public Works and Utilities.” Mine arrived yesterday. Unfortunately, this publication did not include the increase this month in the utilities. On the back is a bar graph unlabeled as to service. A phone call to their office informed me that the bottom, middle and top does include the current unannounced new rate increase of four percent in water, six percent in garbage and right percent in sewer, respectively. Yes, compared to neighboring cities we are lucky to be paying considerably less for these services. But why not include these rate increases in the brochure? Or why could their office staff not include with the latest bills a small sheet with this simple information, eliminating puzzlement and anger from the householders along with numerous phone calls to their office?
Richard Lynde
Watsonville
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