Page One

Are you happy now that we’ll be in the dark? 

Editor: 

Is everybody happy? Aren’t you glad your electric bill is going up? Aren’t you glad your gas bill is going up? Aren’t you glad to be paying more for gasoline than ever before? Aren’t you glad your stores and restaurants and elevators may soon be shut down by rolling blackouts? 

Aren’t you glad to see bus fares and airline tickets going up, up, and away because their fuel costs are increasing? Aren’t you glad to see your standard of living going down? Aren’t you glad to see homelessness, hunger, crime and violence increasing? 

Aren’t you glad you live under a system of production for profit, instead of a system of production for use? Aren’t you glad you live in a the “free world,” and enjoy a “market economy,” with “free enterprise,” under what is sometimes called “democracy?” Aren’t you glad you voted for those clever politicians of both parties who unanimously voted for deregulation and told us it would bring electricity prices down? 

Why would anyone choose to eat a nice hot meal when they can simply open up cold beans? 

Isn’t it nice to just lie in the sun and not have to worry about politics? 

Marion Syrek 

Oakland 

California is too late to save for our hero George  

Editor: 

George W. Bush — You Are the greatest! 

We Appreciate You President George W. Bush.  

If Gore had won, America would be on a fast track down the tubes.  

Thank God for George W.! We want you to win again in 2004. 

Here is my advice, don’t waiver on the threats from the environmental extremists. They and Clinton-Gore have set us back by at least 20 years. We need water, roads, oil, coal, and natural gas.  

We need these critical human necessities. We need them now. We have an over abundance of species habitat here in California and a minimum of human habitat. 

The environmental extremists are preaching their religious dogma, which is nothing but socialist lies. Our water, air, ecosystems, forests, etc. are just fine. 

My state of California is too late to save. The eco-extremists have devastated us. Don’t waste your time out here. These voters would vote for a monkey if there was a “D” after his or her name. 

My advice to you is write off California, New York, Massachusetts, and Hawaii and don’t spend a minute or one penny in these 4 states seeking re-election. It is a waste of time. You will never get any votes out here and we want you again in 2004.  

Please use all your effort in the other 46 states. We need you.  

Ella Jensen 

El Cerrito 

Down with the city council,  

up with cars! 

Editor: 

Michael Bauce (May 9) should be hunting for a time machine to take him back 100 years or so to a happier, pre-auto, pre-Mayor Shirley Dean Berkeley.  

His myopic rant against autos and parking in Berkeley really burned me up when I read it in the Daily Cal and the Planet. Mr. Bauce should realize that he and his particular views are in the very tiny minority (probably 3 percent) of what Berkeley REALLY wants for their city in the twenty-first century.  

The so-called “progressive” ding bats on the city council have, over the years, made Berkeley a living hell for the residents just trying to get around to go shopping, go to the movies, run errands, etc. These misguided miscreants and their anti-auto attitudes are the reason why there is no parking, concrete barriers everywhere, untimed signals, residential parking stickers and all the rest that drivers suffer through unnecessarily by living here.  

Wake up people! Times have changed! People want different things now than they wanted 20 or 30 years ago. The anti-auto council members should give up on their crusade to ban cars in town and realize that the horseless carriage is here to stay. None of us enjoy the abundance of cars (and people) around here, but we must cope with it or move away to rural Oregon.  

Berkeley must vote out ALL of the current council members when their terms are up (the good ones and bad ones) and start over with the best, living in the present, reasonable people, that we can elect. 

I look forward especially to seeing sub-moron Kriss Worthington voted out this fall. Look at the millions of tax payer dollars he was responsible for wasting on his worthless bicycle bridge over the freeway so a few bicyclists can peddle down to the Marina and get mugged. The guy is a first class cuckoo and really gives the city a bad name.  

I support Mayor Dean and applaud her for the great job she’s done in this difficult environment. (Much like Clinton trying to get things accomplished with a Republican congress and senate.)  

So, Mr. Bauce, if you don’t like Berkeley like it’s going to be in the near future, I suggest that you start looking around up north soon for a place to pitch your teepee. 

B. K. Wolfe 

Berkeley 

Beth El is not a supermarket, it’s a public asset  

Editor: 

It’s time to put to rest the repeated argument, raised once again in a letter to the Voice on May 4-5, that Congregation Beth El’s proposed new synagogue is “outsized” for its neighborhood. 

The truth is that this facility would occupy less of its site than homes in the area. And less of its site than virtually any other church in Berkeley. 

The synagogue is designed to match the style and height of buildings in the neighborhood. It fits within Berkeley’s demanding zoning regulations and requires NO “variances” or exceptions to the rules. 

Beth El is also not a supermarket with a steady stream of customers coming and going daily. It is a religious institution that is used on most weekdays only by children in a small nursery school and by children in after-school religious education. Adult committee meetings or classes involving small numbers of people occur on some week-day evenings. 

The larger gatherings at Beth El take place on weekends and religious holidays, and a series of expert studies has shown that there is adequate space and parking for these activities. 

If you want to observe an “outsized” facility for its neighborhood checkout Cragmont School, across the street from my home.  

What’s interesting about that project is that the neighbors treated its development with grace and acceptance. We did this because we recognized the public good that our schools do for our children. Why can't the opponents of the Beth El project have the good sense to do the same? 

David Tabb 

Berkeley