SMOKING LINKED TO CANCER

I’ve been a fan of Robinson Jeffers’ poetry since the late 1960s, so I’m well aware of his “environmental cred,” but the photo you chose makes a mockery of the “Nature Boy” tag. Jeffers is sitting there holding a pack of cigarettes with a lit cigarette between the fingers of the other hand!

Hey, DDT is “organic” but would you consider me a “nature boy” if I drank it? Well, cigarettes are also “organic” but they cause cancer, heart disease and emphysema.

This sort of mental disconnect between image and reality reminds me of all the phony trust fund hippie types who wear their Birkenstocks and shop at “Whole Paycheck” (to be “socially correct”) while smoking their weed that destroys sensitive lung tissues. Of course they will argue that “pot is not as harmful as tobacco or alcohol,” but such is the predictable speciousness of anyone who can’t admit that their self-destructive habits are stupid.

MARINA MAVERICK

At City Council, an out-of-town Dunes developer and the chief of staff of CSUMB have followed other speakers to the podium for years attempting to discredit the previous statements. The former mayor’s husband tells people to disregard my words since I’m not a Marina resident. He and the City Council keep secret that the Dunes developer who follows me, the current interim president of Marina in Motion, is not a resident.

Marina is pivotal to transportation and water in the region. Americans deserve and expect transparency and fairness in government. Please join the movement for change in Marina, vote for (and donate to) Delgado for Mayor, Burnett and O’Connell for City Council, and Gardner for Marina Coast Water District. They pledge to bring openness, friendliness and receptivity back to the public process in Marina.

WATER WARS

This letter is in response to the notice that was sent to all Cal Am water users for the proposed reauthorization of water use fees. Please allow me to voice my concerns.

First of all, public water which is furnished at extremely high rates by the California Water Company should be placed under public ownership. It is totally unreasonable and unacceptable that a private concern should be purveyor of a life-giving commodity comparable to the air we breathe. This controversy is a travesty of major concern and should be placed on the ballot so people can vote on it.

My family water bill has recently been increased $4 a week. This has occurred because the Cal Am water is heavily tainted with chlorine and other chemicals. It is not fit for drinking purposes, it is not fit to wash vegetables, it is not fit to use in cooking food and it is not fit for hygiene purposes such as brushing teeth. It is also harmful to the growth of houseplants. I am compelled to go to a local grocery store with empty water bottles to purchase drinkable water at 35 cents per gallon. If Cal Am cannot provide natural-tasting water through their pipeline, then they should make drinking water available at no charge at the area’s recycling centers and grocery stores. Again, this is another Cal Am rip-off that is intolerable and does not serve the public interest.

In summary, this is a NO VOTE on the proposed reauthorization of water use fees, and any other raises in public water use fees.