Public Comment

Letters

Wednesday September 14, 2011 - 12:36:00 PM

Good Story; Dear MOCHA; Homeless 

Good Story 

Thank you Daily Planet editorial staff and writer Ted Friedman for his story "Causes and Consequences: Returning Cal Students Attract Sex Perps." 

The story was told in a non-hysterical manner that brought important information to all of us. The issue is often under reported, or over reported, as a hysterical diatribe that either marginalizes the victims or focuses on lurid characterizations of the perps. 

Friedman provides both support for the accosted as well as a valuable and realistic picture of perps and their presence in our community. 

Articles like these bring a better understanding of the human ecology of Berkeley, and in turn helps make our experiences on the streets a little less threatening. 

Stride on. 

UrbanStrider, Paul Kealoha-Blake 

* * * 

Dear MOCHA, 

Please reconsider your decision to cancel the "A Child's View from Gaza" exhibit. The excuse you give on your website is embarrassingly thin. 

If you are not willing to stand up to the pressure to censor children's art, what is next? 

Our community has been much too willing to let community expression be muzzled by a group that apparently feels children's art about the war in Gaza might weaken them politically. 

Please. The Board of Directors should step down, so that a fresh group of leaders can restore your organization's priorities. 

Carol Denney 

* * * 

Homeless 

Homelessness is not a new phenomenon in California. What is new—and alarming—is that more and more of the homeless are families that once believed they were secure members of the middle class. The growing trend is a sign that the nationwide economic slump is that a feared second recession could push the poor there over the edge and make a solid recovery even harder. 

More than two years into the economic recovery, there isn’t yet a light at the end of the tunnel for California’s economy and stubborn unemployment. The number of job losses in the state is still much higher than the worst moments of the 2001 and 1990 recessions. The state’s jobless rate hit 12% last month, the second worst in the nation The world today has over 1200 billionaires, perhaps 24 million millionaires, and 120 million homeless. It has half a billion [500,000,000] who eat too much, and an equal number who eat scarcely enough to stay alive....Equity of income distribution is worse today than at any time since records have been kept. At present the U.S. has more homeless than any other industrialised country on Earth! 

Ted Rudow III, MA