An Easy Coon Solution

I just want to comment on “Raccoon Wars” (Feature Story, August 26). I never saw anything sillier in all my life. I’ve been bothered by coons in the yard many times. Not only coons but also possums and also foxes and also rabbits. And what you do is you trap them, and then you take them far away so they won’t come back and bother you again. Get yourself a trap, lady. Put a little piece of meat in the trap. You catch the coon, and then you transfer the coon from the trap to a cat carrier, and you carry the coon five miles away, turn it loose. It’ll never come back and bother you again. You can take a possum or rabbit a mile away and it won’t come back.

Where do you get the trap? I’ll tell you. You can get one from Tomahawk Live Trap Company. And guess where? Tomahawk, Wisconsin. And you can also find them on the internet, at livetrap.com. What kind do you want? I’ll tell you the one I have. It’s TLT108, and it measures 32 inches long by 10 inches wide by 12 inches high. And the wire mesh is 1 by 2 inches, and it’s very sturdy wire, 12-gauge, it weighs 14 pounds, and I got mine for about $50, plus freight. It’s probably gone up since then.

Name Withheld
Via voice mail

Napping Bureaucrats

“City Lights” reports that some Lemon Grove citizens are proposing bankruptcy or disincorporation for their city due to falling revenues (“Big Problems for Little Lemon Grove,” August 26). There is a third option. Lemon Grove could simply outsource most city functions, leaving a small group of reasonably compensated city employees to monitor performance. Police service could be provided by the Sheriff, who serves our neighborhood well in the county portion of La Mesa. The tiny City of Maywood in Los Angeles County did this recently with excellent results.

Public employee unions claim that city services would suffer if provided by outside vendors, but that is ridiculous since the vendors must compete for the contracts, unlike civil service employees who generally cannot be fired no matter how bad their performance.

Lemon Grove citizens should get rid of their sleepy, overpaid bureaucrats and go to the marketplace for services. If they do so, they will find that existing revenues are ample to cover costs, they will receive high-quality services and, best of all, no new taxes will be required.

Steven S. Kane
via email

Shout Out To Julia

Julia, I just wanted to tell you that your writing is amazing (“Las Vegas Murder,” Feature Story, August 26). I’m glad you write articles on law enforcement/borders, etc.

Name Withheld
via email

Tom Needs Some Help

This is a big thumbs down going out to the “Blurt” section/music section in general. Why? (First off, this is not a complaint/kudos letter about something you printed; instead it’s one that should have been printed.) Let’s start off with saying my wife is a big dog lover. Now, on Monday, August 16, she watched/heard a story on the news of a man whose dog ran in front of a train; the owner ran after him. The dog was hit by the train and died instantly. His owner (by instinct) ran after his dog and also was hit by the train, suffered a broken leg, a big gash to his calf, and miscellaneous cuts and bruises, then helicoptered to the ER. When my wife asked me if I’d heard about the story, I said, “Yes, and don’t you know who the guy was?” She didn’t know. (And now this is where the “Blurt”/music section comes in.) I said, “It’s my longtime pal Thomas Yearsley.” (She just dropped her jaw and said, “Oh my God!” about 20 times.) For those of you who don’t know (or in the case of the “Blurt” section), Thomas is the bass player for one of the best bands to ever come out of our town, the Paladins. They are loved the world over and have opened for practically anyone you can think of to headlining in every country they have played in. (But now for some good news.) Tom is up and walking with crutches already, but the doctor bills are huge, so there is a benefit planned for him at the Royal Dive on September 10 with Candye Kane (Tom’s ex-wife) and other S.D. bands.

Ward Elliott
via email

Kids Born Bad

Thank you, Reader, for providing a venue for theological discussion. I am writing in response to Jim Crooks’s August 26 letter that challenges my letter of August 19. Augustine of Hippo and John Calvin dedicated their lives to diligent, painstaking study of the Word of God. Although they each were just as much subject to error as any other devoted scholar, I’m sure they would be horrified to think that they originated or repeated any doctrine that was contrary to scripture.

In his refutation of the biblical doctrine of total depravity, Mr. Crooks alleges that “Jesus taught us in Matthew chapter 18 that all children are born into this world in innocence and humility.” In the context of Matthew 18, the Lord uses a child as an illustration to demonstrate to the disciples that humility is the attribute that distinguishes those who are greater in the Kingdom. Jesus also asserts that unless one makes an about-face as the child had done, under no circumstances would that person enter the Kingdom. The same context reveals that the child He used as an illustration had previously become a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Nowhere in Matthew 18 does the Lord teach that children are born without a sin nature.

Mr. Crooks cites Isaiah 7 as a prooftext for his nonbiblical theory “that it is when a child grows older that he begins to learn evil ways.” Isaiah 7 says nothing of the kind. The passage acknowledged by orthodox Christians to be a messianic prophesy, when rendered into plain English, informs us that the Child the Virgin gives birth to will know the difference between good and evil, and He will choose the good while He is still eating baby food. The fact that Jesus Christ is exempt from the doctrine of total depravity does not disprove the doctrine. Jesus is the unique person of history, the only one of His kind, the only human being in history Whose body was miraculously conceived in the womb of a virgin, the only human being in history Whose paternal ancestry does not descend from Adam, the only human being in history Who is also eternal God, sovereign Creator of the universe.

As for Mr. Crooks’s other objections, it would take volumes to explain that Romans 6 does not teach that unregenerate persons have the ability to practice righteous obedience, that Romans 6 does not command water baptism as a prerequisite for eternal salvation, that Hebrews 5 and Matthew 7 do not teach salvation by works, and that Revelation 20 does not assert that believers will be judged at the final judgment.

It is true that God has given many commandments to those who already possess irrevocable eternal life. It is also true that He has given only one commandment to the unbelievers of this age: believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the difference between eternal condemnation and eternal life. The one believing in Jesus is not condemned. The one believing in Jesus has eternal life. Jesus paid the penalty for your sins while He was hanging on the cross. Jesus is alive eternally and will never forsake those that have put their trust in Him. Trust that the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ are sufficient to save you, and eternal life is yours.

John Pertle
Santee

Spanish Tummy And Pollyanna Creep

Don Bauder is a rare voice of reason and common sense in the world of financial commentary, but his latest column (“Get Used to Unemployment,” “City Lights,” August 19) once again wins the “Close but No Cigar!” award.

While he correctly points out that there is only one private-sector employer out of the 14 biggest employers in San Diego, he still doesn’t (or can’t) understand that public-sector employment represents a net loss (and a rather large one) to the economy, resulting in the disaster that is now coyly referred to as the Great Recession. (This would be like referring to the Black Death as a case of “Spanish Tummy.”)

Any and all public-sector salaries, benefits, and pensions are funded by private-sector paychecks; the result is skyrocketing taxation, economic decay, and the concentration of wealth (Econ 101, for heaven’s sake!).

One more thing — he states that in July, unemployment remained at 9.5 percent. The actual unemployment rate is about double that; the figure of 9.5 percent is the “U-3 Unemployment Rate,” which includes only those who have been unemployed for 30 days or less.

Multiple measures of unemployment (now known as the “U Rates”) were created in the early 1960s to deceive voters into thinking that the number of the unemployed is smaller than it really is (referred to as “Pollyanna Creep”). Every president since Kennedy has continued this process of deception; Ronald Reagan, for example, artificially reduced unemployment numbers simply by including military personnel as “employed.” Bill Clinton cooked the unemployment books by reducing the numbers of unemployed black Americans. Every president for the past 50 years has also falsified the consumer price index (the rate of inflation) and the gross domestic product (the “size” of the economy).

Name Withheld
via fax

Don Bauder replies: U-3 includes all unemployed persons, but they have to have made efforts to look for work in the last four weeks.

Poop On Your Page Count

In reference to the August 19 issue, page 30, “Thought You Should Know…” box, “Top 20 papers by page count.” By page count? I mean, for one thing, that’s just a really silly way to rank papers, and it’s like, okay, what are the two things that this tells me for which the Reader makes the top of the list? It tells me that (a) you’ve got more crappy ads that I’ve got to, like, dig through to get to, like, what I want to actually read, and (b) you’re killing more trees in the process and making more junk for me to have to responsibly recycle. So, I don’t see why you’re bragging about that, I guess is what I’m getting at. That actually seems like something you should be ashamed of, and thank you for letting me know.

Keep up the good work; waste less trees.

Scott Perry
North Park