As You See It: Nov. 1, 2009

Jack Creed commented about business employees pandering their customer at the check out counter for a donation: "The young man behind the counter was shamelessly trying to guilt people into supporting the troops."

Safeway is no better. It is completely inappropriate for their tellers to ask if I want to contribute to Breast Cancer Research or Prostate Cancer Research, or any kind of donation.

Not only that, it already comes up as a question as you try to use your credit card. "Do you want to donate to breast cancer; box for yes and box for No. Then the teller asks you again!!!!!!!!!! Totally inappropriate.

This is equivalent to being accosted by the homeless vagrants in the streets. It's even worse in a sense, because it is in a place of business. Retail panhandling!

On another note, it is wrong to politicize any type of medical research (read Dr. Dean Edell on the subject). "Hey, breast cancer is more popular that heart disease, so donate to that. You can wear little pink things and even become a volunteer!"

BTW, Heart Disease is the number one killer of women. But don't tell that to a Safeway checker..... they'll just look at you funny because you are not playing along. Stop this practice, shame on Safeway and Starbucks. Safeway fully promotes this with marketing materials. Not sure if Starbucks officially sanctions this to be fair.

Thank you for Stephen Fisher's letter - Stop Blaming Israel! He said it well, and a lot of us folks agree. Quit picking on Israel. The Arabs have plenty we should be scrutinizing them for. Pick on them for a change. As Stephen said, if you want to talk about walls and checkpoints, don't forget to mention the Arab suicide bombers.

Erica Aitken makes a valid point. Our city leadership has no background on how to deal with community crime. Unfortunately, our police do not either. They are the blind leading the blind and that is why the community feels glossed over when we demand they address these issues. Cynthia is termed out, she no longer needs to kiss butt with the community to get re-elected, that's why we are not hearing from her.

RE: Fisheries

Gee! Santa Cruz could get a permanent Navy Ship for the bay. Clean it up, then tow a ship from the mothball fleet down so that non-violent progressives can blow it up and sink it. The best of all worlds - something for everybody and the fish too...

I know, I know... you're all wondering where non-violent progressives would get explosives for the job, aren't you?

Well... from the Palestinians, of course!

What a shame that Jeff Creed is so self-absorbed that he infers ill motives of a young man who is encouraging people to support the troops. I'm guessing projection, and I'm guessing that Creed has his own guilt he's trying to avoid. What a shame, indeed.

Never Forget Tyler Tenorio. Let Find those guys and get them off the streets first.