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Letters
5 Across: Complaint
I do not like the new rules for the crossword puzzle. The new rules are not fair to those of us that work. Also, the new rules detract from my leisurely enjoyment of the puzzle. Hopefully, you will change the new rules based on a random selection of 50 winners.
Glen D. Cournoyer
via email
The only changes in the rules are (1) we print the names of the first 50 people who turn in a correctly completed puzzle and (2) we are making the contest quarterly instead of annual. Everyone who succeeds at completing the puzzle correctly and who turns it in by Monday, 7:00 a.m., will be counted and everyone’s name will be listed and the ranking updated on the website at sandiegoreader.com/news/puzzle — Editor
Jeez, Man, Get A Job!
What an asinine waste-of-time article (“Do You Live Close to Snoop Dogg?” Cover Story, July 30)!
Here we (you — the Reader) go again! More absolute crap about low-life people with low-life ideas, low-life attitudes, and low-life results! I don’t want to hear any more s*** about “gangs” and that boring, redundant, trite subject matter.
How about get off your ass, get a job, go to college (a G.E.D. won’t cut it anymore), plant a garden, donate some blood, learn to surf, donate your time to people who need your help, volunteer, clean up the beach, plant a fricking tree…do something! College will change your mind. It took me eight long, hard, rewarding years to get not one, not two, but three college degrees. I had an old car, no credit cards, worked several jobs, surfed my ass off, and had a ball.
Take that joint out of your lips and wake up! Morse High meant you hated the bloods? Tiny thinking for tiny brains. Yeah, that’s right. I was a college teacher for 25+ years, and you can bet you were never late for my class and you can also bet that you were rewarded (yourself) for your hard work!
Finally, grow up! Quit blaming your mom, your dad, your boss, your society, your neighborhood, your dogg, your situation, the “hood,” your ethnic background, the fricking sun, the moon, and your hangnail. Times iz short; time to git yer s*** togetha.
Name Withheld
San Diego
.45 Caliber Insurance
First, I just wanted to thank you for choosing my neighborhood blog (“At Home at Vista Ranch”) to be your second-place essay winner for June’s contest. I hope that your readers enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. For a cub blogger like myself, exposure is kind of hard to come by, and the rewards are very few indeed. I do thank you kindly for your decision and the prize that went with it.
Second, a comment on the July 16 cover story on the open carry movement (“They Carry Guns”). Frankly, I applaud their aims. The right to self-defense, be it by fist, chemical spray, baton, blade, or bullet is not one that can be just wished away in order to achieve some pie-in-the-sky version of peace on Earth, goodwill to all. As long as there are those who do not give a rat’s patoot about living a crime-free life, you are going to have those folks who are going to do unto you, then split as your life-force ebbs into the street.
When it comes to open carry, however, it’s all a matter of where you live and how the local law enforcers feel about the matter. What may work in San Diego may not fly in Carlsbad or Escondido. However you can do it, I say go for it! All in all, it’s just like having an insurance policy; you hope you never have to use it, but if you need it, it’s there!
And as for that whiner who wrote in opposition to the article but chose not to divulge a name (“No Good Guns,” Letters, July 23)? Hey, if you are going to write it, you need to own it! It takes far more courage to put your name to your words than it does to send in an unowned straw-man letter. Enough with these “Name Withheld” jobbies already, folks!
Robert K. Johnston
Vista
Girl Jackson
I am Dev, the Michael Jackson impersonator mentioned in your article “R.I.P., M.J.” (“Blurt,” July 16). It is obvious that Mr. Sanford did not do his homework to get his facts correct. I am not a “he” but a “she” and the only professional female-to-male Michael Jackson tribute artist. I also did not raise my rates after the passing of Michael Jackson as implied by your writer. My rates are within the range mentioned, not only at the top end. If you are writing about someone, best to speak with them to get the facts correct. My phone and email contacts are easily found on my website and the Gig Salad site. I would be happy to speak with you further about my experiences of being a Michael Jackson impersonator.
Dev
via email
A Constitutional Carry
Paperwork, fingerprints, fees, and background checks to allow people to carry a sidearm (“They Carry Guns,” Cover Story, July 16)? What kind of nonsense is this? Are we citizens or subjects? Free men and women or felons? The right of self-defense is a corollary to the right to life; to deny one is to deny the other. The purpose of government is to insure our rights, not to infringe on them.
The fact is that governments should not be involved in permitting the carriage of weapons, either openly or concealed, by anyone. Our Constitution states that the right of the people to keep (possess) and bear (carry) arms shall not be infringed. Marbury v. Madison (1803) decided that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land and that any law that contradicts the Constitution is null and void. “The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and the name of law, is in reality no law but is wholly void and ineffective for any purpose since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it; an unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed… An unconstitutional law is void.” (16American Jurisprudence 2d, Sec. 178)
In Murdock v. Pennsylvania (1943) the Supreme Court stated that a constitutionally protected right may not be licensed, nor a fee charged. The right to keep and bear arms is one of those protected natural rights. In Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, Alabama (1962) the Supreme Court decided that “If the state does convert a liberty into a privilege, the citizen can engage in the right with impunity.” (That means they can’t punish you, folks!)
To paraphrase an oft-quoted movie line, “Permits? We don’t need no steenking permits!”
Neil Evangelista
NRA Pistol and Personal Protection Instructor
via email
Here's something you might be interested in.
Letters
Letters
5 Across: Complaint
I do not like the new rules for the crossword puzzle. The new rules are not fair to those of us that work. Also, the new rules detract from my leisurely enjoyment of the puzzle. Hopefully, you will change the new rules based on a random selection of 50 winners.
Glen D. Cournoyer
via email
The only changes in the rules are (1) we print the names of the first 50 people who turn in a correctly completed puzzle and (2) we are making the contest quarterly instead of annual. Everyone who succeeds at completing the puzzle correctly and who turns it in by Monday, 7:00 a.m., will be counted and everyone’s name will be listed and the ranking updated on the website at sandiegoreader.com/news/puzzle — Editor
Jeez, Man, Get A Job!
What an asinine waste-of-time article (“Do You Live Close to Snoop Dogg?” Cover Story, July 30)!
Here we (you — the Reader) go again! More absolute crap about low-life people with low-life ideas, low-life attitudes, and low-life results! I don’t want to hear any more s*** about “gangs” and that boring, redundant, trite subject matter.
How about get off your ass, get a job, go to college (a G.E.D. won’t cut it anymore), plant a garden, donate some blood, learn to surf, donate your time to people who need your help, volunteer, clean up the beach, plant a fricking tree…do something! College will change your mind. It took me eight long, hard, rewarding years to get not one, not two, but three college degrees. I had an old car, no credit cards, worked several jobs, surfed my ass off, and had a ball.
Take that joint out of your lips and wake up! Morse High meant you hated the bloods? Tiny thinking for tiny brains. Yeah, that’s right. I was a college teacher for 25+ years, and you can bet you were never late for my class and you can also bet that you were rewarded (yourself) for your hard work!
Finally, grow up! Quit blaming your mom, your dad, your boss, your society, your neighborhood, your dogg, your situation, the “hood,” your ethnic background, the fricking sun, the moon, and your hangnail. Times iz short; time to git yer s*** togetha.
Name Withheld
San Diego
.45 Caliber Insurance
First, I just wanted to thank you for choosing my neighborhood blog (“At Home at Vista Ranch”) to be your second-place essay winner for June’s contest. I hope that your readers enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. For a cub blogger like myself, exposure is kind of hard to come by, and the rewards are very few indeed. I do thank you kindly for your decision and the prize that went with it.
Second, a comment on the July 16 cover story on the open carry movement (“They Carry Guns”). Frankly, I applaud their aims. The right to self-defense, be it by fist, chemical spray, baton, blade, or bullet is not one that can be just wished away in order to achieve some pie-in-the-sky version of peace on Earth, goodwill to all. As long as there are those who do not give a rat’s patoot about living a crime-free life, you are going to have those folks who are going to do unto you, then split as your life-force ebbs into the street.
When it comes to open carry, however, it’s all a matter of where you live and how the local law enforcers feel about the matter. What may work in San Diego may not fly in Carlsbad or Escondido. However you can do it, I say go for it! All in all, it’s just like having an insurance policy; you hope you never have to use it, but if you need it, it’s there!
And as for that whiner who wrote in opposition to the article but chose not to divulge a name (“No Good Guns,” Letters, July 23)? Hey, if you are going to write it, you need to own it! It takes far more courage to put your name to your words than it does to send in an unowned straw-man letter. Enough with these “Name Withheld” jobbies already, folks!
Robert K. Johnston
Vista
Girl Jackson
I am Dev, the Michael Jackson impersonator mentioned in your article “R.I.P., M.J.” (“Blurt,” July 16). It is obvious that Mr. Sanford did not do his homework to get his facts correct. I am not a “he” but a “she” and the only professional female-to-male Michael Jackson tribute artist. I also did not raise my rates after the passing of Michael Jackson as implied by your writer. My rates are within the range mentioned, not only at the top end. If you are writing about someone, best to speak with them to get the facts correct. My phone and email contacts are easily found on my website and the Gig Salad site. I would be happy to speak with you further about my experiences of being a Michael Jackson impersonator.
Dev
via email
A Constitutional Carry
Paperwork, fingerprints, fees, and background checks to allow people to carry a sidearm (“They Carry Guns,” Cover Story, July 16)? What kind of nonsense is this? Are we citizens or subjects? Free men and women or felons? The right of self-defense is a corollary to the right to life; to deny one is to deny the other. The purpose of government is to insure our rights, not to infringe on them.
The fact is that governments should not be involved in permitting the carriage of weapons, either openly or concealed, by anyone. Our Constitution states that the right of the people to keep (possess) and bear (carry) arms shall not be infringed. Marbury v. Madison (1803) decided that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land and that any law that contradicts the Constitution is null and void. “The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and the name of law, is in reality no law but is wholly void and ineffective for any purpose since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it; an unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed… An unconstitutional law is void.” (16American Jurisprudence 2d, Sec. 178)
In Murdock v. Pennsylvania (1943) the Supreme Court stated that a constitutionally protected right may not be licensed, nor a fee charged. The right to keep and bear arms is one of those protected natural rights. In Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, Alabama (1962) the Supreme Court decided that “If the state does convert a liberty into a privilege, the citizen can engage in the right with impunity.” (That means they can’t punish you, folks!)
To paraphrase an oft-quoted movie line, “Permits? We don’t need no steenking permits!”
Neil Evangelista
NRA Pistol and Personal Protection Instructor
via email