You’re 1,000,001

Jay, Jay, Jay…

Lestat’s is in Normal Heights (“Overheard in San Diego,” January 24). The sign is right there! C’mon, man! I’m sure a million people already emailed to tell you this. Still enjoy the strip.

Name Withheld

via email

Not Real Crazy

I’m not real crazy about your new online format plus I can’t find the “Blurt” column anywhere.

What happened?

Tom

via email

Click on “Music” in the navigation bar at the top of the home page to find “Blurt” in the pull-down menu. — Editor

Tabloid Fodder

Re: “The Principal’s Principles” (“City Lights,” January 24).

After reading the captioned hit piece, the real question is what happened to the principles of “City Lights” and writer Joe Deegan? This article is about nothing more than gossip and a breakup quarrel between two gay men.

What appears to be going on is a custody battle. Elevating it to some kind of scandal involving the City of San Diego Schools and Mark Twain High School is pure Britney-chasing tabloid journalism.

You owe an apology to Michael Rood. We do not pay our teachers and principals adequate salaries, and they are forced to take second jobs to make ends meet. I seriously doubt that a principal would jeopardize his career to sell ads on school time. And the principals do get breaks during the day, lunch hours, etc.

Calling Uptown Publications’ Gay and Lesbian Times pornographic is absurd on its face.

I expect better from “City Lights,” Joe Deegan, and the Reader. You should be ashamed of printing this article.

Christian F. Winkle

Pacific Beach

The Reader did not call the Gay and Lesbian Times pornographic; one source characterized the paper as pornographic because of the nature of its ads. —Editor

Out To Get Him?

Read between the lines, Mr. Editor, your paper should be ashamed (“The Principal’s Principles,” “City Lights,” January 24). This article is spurred on by someone who is trying to ruin Mike Rood (perhaps the people from the Gay and Lesbian Times who called the school district — for what reason did this paper report him to the school district???). Also, I have a suspicion that the teacher with all the “teacher” comments is the one who did not leave Twain on a good note and made a point of telling all of us he/she would find a way to mess him over. This teacher was any child’s or parent’s nightmare — rude, crude, and bitter. Also, this person chose to leave our school.

And what is the article about — the shocking truth that a principal can have a side job? And did he really hold this job and was he really fired — did your reporter verify these facts? And if he did/was, what would one consider “school time” for a guy who works at the school until 8:00 each night and most Saturdays and the occasional Sunday?

The author of this article is writing on hearsay; then he tells how shocked the parents/students are — over what??? I can guarantee that your writer did not interview any parents or students. You have no idea what kind of man this principal is. He is a man of great character. He is hardworking and supports our entire staff and the students. He is so well liked and has an entire school, the parents, and the community standing firm behind him. So your paper is trying to take down a person’s career for what? Did you owe someone a favor and are paying it back by trying to ruin this man? Why else would you publish this outlandish article where you do not name any of your sources?

If Mr. Rood is so terrible for affiliating with the Gay and Lesbian Times, I assume that your paper takes the stance that everyone working with this paper is immoral or corrupt. And why was the lady at Bambu Bistro “horrified” when she found out he was a principal??? Who put those words in her mouth? Why would she be horrified that an educator was also working as a sales rep for a gay newspaper being that he, too, is gay? Am I not allowed to work elsewhere because I am a teacher? Can I not email someone during a lunch break from my school email? If I work 14 hours a day at an 8-hour-a-day job can I not take a minute to deal with my personal affairs?

This is a witch hunt. It is not fair that it was printed. Your paper should be ashamed of itself. You defied the code of ethics that journalists must hold true. You wrote a story for the purpose of trying to ruin a professional in our community. You did not do your homework, and your sources are nonexistent.

May the woman at the Bambu Bistro never walk into a school and see all of us hardworking individuals working a tough job with these great students you call “troubled kids.” Miss Melchior would be “horrified” as it is obvious that she has issues with education and school principals. Perhaps she should place a sign on her restaurant stating that educators are not welcome because she would be horrified to see us in her restaurant, and God forbid one of us was trying to sell her something! This article is a disgrace to our school community, and you owe all of us an apology.

P.S. And yes, I am writing this to you from my school email. I will work overtime (ha ha, as if we teachers don’t work a 12-hour day already) to make up for the ten minutes I took to respond to your trashy article.

Diane Proctor

via email

Hooray For Twain!

On Thursday, January 24, I picked up an issue of the Reader and was shocked to see my school’s principal in the paper (“City Lights”). The article was called “The Principal’s Principles.” I am a student at Mark Twain High School, and I felt appalled by what was said about Mike Rood. I am also hurt by what was said about the students: “It is bad enough that the students at this school are troubled.…” This school is not made up of “screwups” and pregnant teens. Mike Rood gives us a second chance. I am not pregnant; I do not have a child, nor am I a member of a gang. I am just simply a student having trouble with grades.

Reading this article makes me feel upset because Mike Rood is being portrayed as this “gay villain,” when in reality he has done so much for our school. The way he is being written about is as if he is never at school and is away at meetings for the Gay and Lesbian Times. I don’t think I have ever seen him not at school. He is either in his office or in the classrooms talking and learning with the students. What is Mark Twain High School without Mike Rood? Nothing! He motivates students to come to school every day. He creates charts to keep track of our attendance to see who is coming to school. In the end, he pulls strings to reward us for our good efforts. If it’s lunch, gift certificates, or even tickets to a Charger game, he always finds a way to get us into our classroom seats and celebrate our success.

He not only motivates us to graduate from high school but also from college. Mark Twain gives all the students a chance to attend Mesa, City, or Miramar College for free with no drastic requirements. The staff and Mike Rood want us to go further than what most students have ever dreamed. He most likely has done more than what a principal has done at a “regular” school. He cares about the students and always has the time to see how we are doing or whether or not we like what we are learning.

On behalf of the students at Mark Twain High School, I can truly say that we all support him in this hard time. We will stick with him and give our love and support to this man who helps and motivates us to reach for the stars. It breaks my heart to hear that this wonderful and kind man is being exploited for something that is rumored to have started out as a personal problem. I love Mike Rood, as my principal, and I will stick with him for the rest of my junior year and for all of my senior year. I will keep him in my heart when I go on to college, and I will thank him for taking me in and giving me a second chance!

Angela Bernal

Linda Vista

Lighter Than Air

I sat down to look through my new crisp Reader, which is a weekly occurrence of mine for many years, and I turned to page 148 (“Picture Story,” January 24) and read about a murder suspect arrested in August of 1961. Standing to the right of the suspect was a person described as then SDPD Deputy Chief Ray Hoobler. The photograph is from the San Diego Historical Society. I transferred from the SDPD in July 1972 to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department and retired last August after 35 years. Police chief Ray Hoobler was my last boss on the PD. The gentleman in this photograph is not Chief Ray Hoobler. Chief Hoobler was a fairly short, stocky, tougher-than-nails- looking cop with a full head of black hair and described by us street cops as “a cop’s cop.” The gentleman in this photograph was probably a homicide detective or homicide supervisor. Being that I was a lowly street cop wrestling drunks out of the lower Fifth and Sixth avenue downtown bars, I didn’t get much of a chance to rub elbows with the “Lighter Than Air Squad,” aka Homicide.

Conrad Grayson

Retired Sergeant

SDPD

Robert Mizrachi responds: I misinterpreted a note on the Evening Tribune photo-assignment sheet. Though Ray Hoobler’s name was written in the “Identification” area, he may have been the intended subject for the photo shoot.

Accept, Adapt

In response to your January 10 article titled “Global Warming in a Nutshell,” the first paragraph contains an error. It’s not global warming people deny. Global warming is happening. Global warming is good. The alternative is to slip into another ice age, which would be bad. You see, climate changes. That’s what it does. You cannot stop it — you have to simply accept it, adapt to it.

The second paragraph contains an error. The Keeling Curve and Keeling’s work in general did not show “beyond a shadow of a doubt that humans were causing carbon dioxide to increase.” It shows that carbon dioxide is increasing and says nothing of the cause. Further, as carbon dioxide continues to increase, since 1998 temperatures have at best remained somewhat constant if in fact they have not cooled off. Those wishing to continue to fool themselves regarding the fact nature dominates man, not the other way around, say that 2007 was the seventh-warmest year on record. If the planet is experiencing rampant warming, don’t you think it would be first, second, or third instead of seventh?

There are many more errors in the article. Among the worst is the claim that “polar ice sheets ‘form from snow falling on land and then being compacted.’ ” The north polar ice cap sits not on land but on the Arctic Ocean. It does not form from snow falling on land. In fact, it’s essentially too cold and dry for snow or other precipitation to fall there — the ice there forms by freezing water from the ocean, not from falling snow. And if “the snow never melts in the polar regions,” why were Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Catastrophe Alarmists (CACCA) so upset about the fact the Northwest Passage may be open again soon. Don’t worry, the last time it was, the polar bears survived. Plus they aren’t as vocal about how the north polar ice refroze at record rates this winter or about how the southern ice has been setting new records for its extent. Of course not — that tends to disprove their favorite myth — that we’re experiencing a climate catastrophe. They’re depending on it to keep us interested in their plan to create a massive transfer of wealth much like the oil-for-food program. Why? Well, when you have trillions changing hands for no good reason, who’s going to notice a billion or two that’s gone missing here or there?

Your article raises the issue of increased desertification even though geological evidence suggests that a warmer world (with the continents in their current configurations) tends to be a wetter world. More warmth tends to produce more evaporation, which in turn leads to higher humidity and greater precipitation, not less. Deserts get a boost when evaporation rates decrease, and what moisture there is available gets stored in ice and snow — like during an ice age.

Climate change is inevitable. The Earth has been warmer. It has warmed faster. Besides, warmer temperatures mean a longer thong season. How can anyone be against that?

Greg Harris

via email