Mmm-Mmm Good!

AWESOME ARTICLE on great soups (“Soup of the Evening,” Restaurant Review, January 7). I shall treasure it. THANK YOU.

• Eric Alan Jones
• via email

Perfection, At Last

I want to congratulate the Reader at finally becoming a real, perfect-bound magazine, just like Time, Life, and all that. Plus, your color use is amazing.

• John Kitchin
• via phone

Me Too

I just wanted to say to Elizabeth Salaam that my husband and I really enjoyed the article “I Never Thought I’d Become a Welfare Queen” (Cover Story, January 7). It was the closest scenario to what I am going through right now. Of course, I have been one for a while now. I am also going to be applying to public assistance for food stamps and Medicare (I am approaching 60 very fast and need it very much).

• Christine E. Eret
• via email

Child Welfare

Re “I Never Thought I’d Become a Welfare Queen” (Cover Story, January 7).

Am I the only guy who sees Mr. and Mrs. Welfare Queen as children pretending to be adults? In fact (to be undeniably judgmental), it seems to me their behavior reflects the classic definition of a child’s world, wherein immediate gratification trumps mature planning, failure is not their fault, life’s necessities are owed them by real adults, and there is a dearth of gratitude.

Add a heaping measure of denial to that brew (“But this isn’t the way it was supposed to be. I have a master’s degree”), and you have the potential makings of a death spiral into generational welfare.

I hope Mr. and Mrs. Salaam prove me wrong, and I sincerely extend to them the very best wishes for 2010.

One more observation, if I may: I was puzzled that security checks and metal detectors protect welfare offices. The reason soon became clear. Who amongst us cannot be righteously enraged by the laconic rudeness of the welfare personnel depicted in this article?

And then, another epiphany: If the government workers can reasonably expect violence from a client denied a welfare benefit, what can be expected when the unwashed masses on the other side of the Plexiglas are being denied life-saving medical treatment for themselves or a beloved family member? Do we really want Ms. Red Lips or Ms. Smokey making our health-care decisions or directing us through the double doors for end-of-life counseling?

For this insight, I am immensely grateful to the Reader and to Mrs. Salaam. We should all take her tale as a grim and solemn preview of future events if health care in this country is nationalized. A blind man can see it coming. Is there any reason to believe otherwise?

• Ed Dunne
• via email

Pay For The Piper

I enjoyed the cover article for its tongue-in-cheek humor (“I Never Thought I’d Become a Welfare Queen,” January 7). Mrs. Salaam is obviously a well-educated lady and, if the article is true, has fallen on hard times. Everyone needs a helping hand from time to time. If she had an earlier income of $49,000, why isn’t some of it in the bank for her emergency fund? That is what I did, forgoing the pleasures of dining out, movies, plays, and vacations, knowing that one day the piper would have to be paid. I can understand people living from hand to mouth being unable to put anything away — I’ve been there, on food stamps for five months, which I paid back in full a year later; the taxpayers are not responsible for my living expenses. No savings for a better-than-average income and a good education is inexcusable. Apparently not in her case, but I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve been behind someone in the checkout line with their bread, cereal, milk, juice, etc., being paid for by WIC and food stamps, and then they pay for the liquor, cigarettes, imported hams, and cheeses with a wad of C-notes that would choke a horse.

Bottom line, you have no right to complain about the hoops you need to jump through to enjoy the fruits of the public dole. You should be forever grateful for the money coming from my pocket to yours — I have to work for it; all you have to do is wait in a line for it, so who cares how long it takes; it isn’t like you have anything else to do.

When the current administration is out of power and the economy can rebound, your family should get their income back, hopefully saving money for the next rainy day and paying back the taxpayers for their largesse. In short, don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

• Name Withheld by Request
• via email

See The Future

Anyone who wants to know what ObamaCare will be like, “Welfare Queen” should be mandatory reading (Cover Story, January 7).

• John Sadle
• Lakeside

Stop It

Sorry, but no dice (“I Never Thought I’d Become a Welfare Queen,” Cover Story, January 7).

Be grateful. Be grateful for what you get, no matter how small it is. I’ve lived in San Diego County in a family of nine kids. My mother was and is the most beautiful human being I have ever known, not that she doesn’t have her moments, but she made it work. You can too. You get rejected, reapply. You lose your patience, don’t. You only have to worry about three people: you, your husband, and your child. You worry about only three papers; now multiply by three. I hate to say it, but easy pickings. The welfare women you got sounded real nice compared to the ones we have on our rez back home. That is why we moved out here in the first place. Be poor out in the middle of nowhere or be poor in the city where you can collect cans, plastic bottles, and live off the charity of a church you don’t remember the name of. My point is, stop complaining. It does you no good when the food runs out. Did you have a Christmas? That’s what I thought. I sure didn’t.

Name Withheld by Request

via email

Crystal Pier Clarity

A story, “No Room at the Pier” (“Stringers”), was published on January 7 (the online publication date was December 26) regarding a situation that occurred here at Crystal Pier, which we would like to clear up. The story was posted after two angry individuals got caught doing something they know they shouldn’t have been doing.

This situation was, in fact, brought to our attention by a guest staying with us who was surprised by these particular individuals trying to let themselves in the guest’s unit. The couple was confronted by our guest and then proceeded to leave the guest’s private patio. This is when the guest notified the front desk that “someone was trying to GET IN to my unit and I watched them then walk to the next cottage and I believe they are in that cottage now.” This is when we called on the radio for maintenance, which the trespasser called a “crazy-looking guy” in the story, to please go check out what was going on. As our maintenance reached the patio in which the guest said the couple had entered, he found that the private gate had been locked. He then had to climb over the PRIVATE gate and proceeded to try to open the sliding glass door to the unit, that in fact had been locked too. Blinds were also pulled shut. Once maintenance finally got in, he confronted the couple that were indeed in the cottage and asked, “What are you doing in here?” As they started to try to explain, he told them, “Don’t tell me, you’ll have to explain yourself to the office.”

That’s when I, the owner of Crystal Pier, confronted the couple. I did, in fact, ask the couple, “What do you think you are doing?” At that point the man involved did not say a single word, as the woman proceeded to be extremely argumentative stating, “I’ve done the same thing at other places” and referenced Pismo Beach as one in particular.

No apology was made, and the couple also felt there was no wrong in what had just transpired. Yes, words were exchanged after that, and then the police were called. Not only did this couple scare the guest in one unit into thinking someone was breaking into their unit but then proceeded to go into another private unit and lock the gate, lock the door, shut the blinds, use the bathroom, and sat on the bed. Needless to say, the police were told by Crystal Pier Hotel to go ahead and charge them with trespassing, and whether that was followed through, we are still in the midst of trying to figure out.

Please note that here at Crystal Pier, we believe our guests are entitled to their privacy and should also feel safe when staying with us. We leave this now to you, the reader, to determine who was in the wrong and thought it was only fair to post the FACTS relating to this incident.

Jim Bostian

The Shrieking Sergeant

Re your piece on Carey Driscoll and AMSD (“The Frustrated Hobbyist,” “Blurt,” January 7), one of the reasons he does it all alone is that he pisses off nearly every volunteer who works for him by being short, mean, angry, and ungrateful.

These are folks who work for no money. They work for the love of the music. But when the atmosphere begins to resemble boot camp with a shrieking sergeant in your face, the luster fades quickly. I’ve been there and seen it firsthand and been on the receiving end of it as well, and I can tell you, it’s no fun.

That all being said, no one is trying harder to bring good music to San Diego at reasonable prices in a great venue, and for that, he deserves a lot of credit. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to overcome the prickly personality and the tirades. San Diego is littered with people this guy has gotten in arguments with, and in a lot of cases, it costs him concertgoers and good publicity, both of which he sorely needs.

• Name Withheld by Request
• via email

Race, Not Religion

Gerald A. Shepherd writes regarding “Jewish atheists” in “Sorry, Atheist Offspring” (Letters, January 7) that “if your folks were atheists, they no longer belonged to any religion.”

Gerald, in many cases, to be Jewish is to be of a race called “the Jews,” in which inheritance comes through the mother’s line (matrilineal). You may remember that a certain German dictator had a problem with the Jewish race last century. He didn’t so much murder people for going to temple as he did for their being of Jewish descent. So yes, unlike Christians and Muslims, one can be both “Jewish” and atheist at the same time. Yes, they can.

• Eric R. Apple
• via email

Being Normal Takes Work

As someone who has been (and still is) fighting mental illness for over 30 years, I read the December 31 cover story, “The Little Pills That Sent Me on My Journey,” with a bit of skepticism. It seems that Ms. Restaino wants to blame Big Pharma for her supposed lack of normalcy. Case in point: the family pharmacy filled with good-for-what-ails-you medications as a contributing factor.

If only we could chuck the offerings of Big Pharma and be normal. Sorry, kiddo, but there is no real blame for Big Pharma in this case. There is not a one-size-fits-all treatment regimen that will cure all mental illness and return the former patient to normalcy.

In fact, there is no real cure for mental illness to be had. Mental-health treatment is based on stabilizing the symptoms and working toward returning the patient in question to being able to function in the real world. This is why a treatment plan is drawn up for each individual when they are in therapy (or when they are hospitalized).

Sometimes said treatment plan will require medications. This is why you need to keep your psychiatrist in the loop regarding medication side effects and effectiveness. Also, your plan will require talk therapy (including cognitive therapy, if required).

The worst thing about mental illness is that the treatment regimen required will be hard, expensive, and will last a lifetime. Sometimes you will relapse, but that in itself is a part of treatment. You probably will need to adjust your treatment regimen and keep on trucking!

Above all, Taylor, you are not a coward (or a p—y, as you put it)! You have the guts to seek out the help you require. Your scapegoating of Big Pharma for the little pills that sent you on your journey needs to be chucked into the San Diego Bay, but Prozac and cognitive therapy are the keystones on your journey down the road to recovery.

I wish you well, Taylor, on this journey, for it will be one that will last you the rest of your life (or until a definitive therapy that provides a true cure is found). And as for being normal? Your reality changes forever when a mental illness locks onto you and gets you.

Therapy, lifestyle changes, as-needed medications, keeping your appointments — this is part of your reality now. The alternative, however, isn’t a return to what you knew but a self-guided one-way trip into the afterlife.

On the whole, I’d rather live with what I have than to one day wake up and find out I’m no longer among the living. It’s going to be a tough way to live, Taylor, but I’ve lived over 30 years with my illness. If I can do it, you can do so as well!

• Robert K. Johnston
• Vista

The Bit ADA Goldmine

Mr. Bauder’s article (“The Plaintiff Knew Nothing,” “City Lights,” December 31) doesn’t go far enough. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a poorly written law that has been a gold mine for attorneys like Hubbard. Even my family has been hit with these types of lawsuits.

The ADA law should be rewritten to forbid filing a lawsuit unless and until the business owner has first been contacted and given ample time to fix any access issues. A lawsuit should only be allowed to be filed if the owner is completely uncooperative. That would be very rare. Every reasonable businessperson wants to avoid lawsuits and make his/her business available to the most potential customers possible. But the way it is now, owners only find out about violations when they get served papers.

In my family’s case, we had a building that was completely ADA compliant when it was built. We made sure of that. But then, a few years later, the requirements changed and we didn’t know about it. Normally, existing structures are grandfathered in. But not in the case of the ADA, apparently, because we got sued for not complying with the new rules that no one ever told us about. We basically had to pay off the suing attorney. The so-called plaintiff didn’t get anything because he’d never actually visited our business.

Lawyers like Hubbard and Pennock are always saying they’re protecting the rights of the disabled. That’s a crock. They’re only lining their own pockets by using the ADA to get money from defendants. They could do a lot more for the disabled if they were working with the businesses by informing and educating them before suing them, but that would mean they couldn’t make money for themselves.

• Name Withheld by Request
• via email

Eye-Opener

Thank you for “Nonprofits Nonplussed” (Feature Story, December 31). Thomas Larson’s sobering portrait of the impact of the recession on local nonprofits, the poor, and the newly poor should serve to open the eyes of those who might marginalize such services — and those who depend on them — in this era of crisis. Frankly, this deserved to be the cover article, not Taylor Restaino’s self-centered, tiresome “The Little Pills That Sent Me on My Journey”…into the obvious.

• Mike Grunwald
• via email

The Dumbest Development

Regarding the “City Lights” story “The Logic of a Landslide” on December 24. You guys nailed it on the head when you wrote, “Mount Soledad has been for centuries an unstable geological formation.” That piece of land should never have been developed in the first place. It is truly unstable. I’ve worked in architecture and geology for 12 years, and there’s no reason that there should ever have been anything built on that piece of land.

• Scott Weselis
• San Diego