Council over regulates: Letters for Nov. 12

To Amy Gladish... you are sorely mistaken. HIV/AIDS is NOT a communicable disease. HIV is preventable, people just don't realize that they shouldn't be having unprotected sex (vaginal or anal) and shouldn't share needles. HIV/AIDS is not contracted through the air, sharing a drink with an infected person, touching them or simply being in the same room as them. HIV/AIDS is spread through blood, semen, vaginal fluids and breast milk. You really gotta go out of your way to contract this virus. HIV/AIDS is not spread like the "Flu, TB, Malaria, H1N1, or even the common cold." Let's start banning folks from entering the U.S. for having H1N1 or the Flu even... Please get your head out of the sand Ms. Gladish. It's people like you who, without proper education on the subject of HIV/AIDS, that misinformation is spread like a communicable disease and keeps the stigma of HIV/AIDS alive. I'd be willing to bet that you know someone living with HIV/AIDS and you don't even know it. Perhaps a co-worker, a family member, a friend, grandmother, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, nephew, niece, your neighbor. You can't tell by looking at someone. People are afraid to be upfront with their positive status because of comments such as yours. I'm sorry, but you are way out of line and are very ignorant. By the way, I've been living with HIV/AIDS for 20 years this month. I cannot allow comments such as yours just slip by without saying a word. We, people living with HIV/AIDS, are people to & we have a right to go wherever we want. Who made you God? We are human beings living with a virus and we also having feelings... Get over yourself, be responsible and do some research on HIV/AIDS. You'd be surprised at how ill-informed you really are. Your comment is out of pure ignorance!!!

Bob Mauch ignores the unwritten social compact in this country. Human capital is nothing like physical capital. With physical capital, you can depreciate it on your taxes, wear it out, sell it to another business, set it aside unused if business slows, or scrap it if it is worn out. Human beings are also a form of productive capital in a purely business sense, but we are also sentient creatures. We cannot be discarded to rust in a vacant lot, or scrapped when a new technique comes along that is more profitable. In Europe, they make it very very difficult to fire someone. In the US, the tacit agreement is that sure, business can have employees "at will" to hire and fire as business dictates, but in exchange for this flexibility we tax business to pay for unemployment and for retraining. People need food, clothing and shelter, unlike discarded production machinery, and live upwards of eighty years. It is less costly to an economy to retrain laid off or redundant workers than it is to just let them rot. It is also imminently more humane. These are still productive people who can make further contributions to our nation, and to another business bottom line. Your view is short sighted and barbaric, not unusual in American business circles.

It's all about the fines. They cruelly neuter two month old puppies at the Pound (Los Angeles Animal Services) with a twenty eight dollar allowance to the vet for an operation that normally costs about $400. In addition to neutering them far, far to young, don't you think that the corners that are cut amount to extreme cruelty? It's certainly not about the City Council's concern for animals.