Public Comment

Jobs is a Four Letter Word;Republican Primaries;Socialism in One City;Make it fair; Children Need Love 

Jobs is a Four Letter Word 

Everyone needs a job, no one disputes that in this crumbling society. A person needs work to support body and soul in order to feel worthwhile but very often the constant din of "jobs, jobs, jobs" begins to feel like a excuse to throw every other concern out the window. If a candidate for president says we need to drill for oil and mine for coal and frack for natural gas no matter the environmental cost because we must create jobs and energy then he sounds very reasonable to some people. Advocating drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico with the recent calamity hardly behind us or fracking for gas despite the risk to the aquifers, stops creative alternative ideas from percolating to the top. Old solutions block new solutions from being pursued. 

One little problem with a green solar energy plant causes every one to throw up their hands and say, "See, we told you it wouldn't work," even though the dirty industries have problems all the time. This country needs some imagination to make the invisible visible. While Herman Cain chants 9-9-9 the rest chant jobs-jobs-jobs. What happened to American ingenuity? 

Constance Wiggins 

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Republican Primaries 

Is Rick Perry the inevitable GOP presidential nominee? Who decides the outcome in the early primaries of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina who the Republican nominee will be? Evangelical, fundamentalist and Tea Party white religious social conservatives. Essentially Rick Perry's base. So, don't write off Rick Perry too soon. The Texas candidate is doing the two-step, singing the fundamentalist anthem of the Tea Party and that's got to help. Rick Perry is scary. He's far to the right, ultra-extreme on a woman's freedom of choice, scoffs at the separation of church and state, derides climate change as a hoax, calls evolution an unproven theory (ask your third grader what they think about this), and sees Social Security as a failure, wanting to end or privatize the program. President Rick Perry, What a nightmare. 

Ron Lowe 

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Socialism in One City 

I was pleased to read your account of the Marin Circle Fountain. That our former mayor brought out that really excellent hat - the one present at the dedication of the original fountain in 1911 - gives me a notion: Perhaps we can next restore another feature from 1911 -- a socialist mayor. 

Tom Lord 

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Make it fair 

Lady with a sign sayen, “Hey C.E.O. sell your watch & buy my kids some socks”! 

Police are using mace and clubs, as the 1% sip their drinks, the mommies on the night shift miss their babies, I think were on the brink 

Our neighbor’s homes get foreclosed and the numbers living out of shopping carts grow 

The 1% don’t realize the time is coming when they’re gonna reap just what they sowed 

The libraries are closing and the teachers are laid off, 

the nurses on the picket line are trying not to curse. 

The “bag lady” on the corner expresses her despair, 

while a boy at the occupation holds a sign that says simply, “make it fair”. 

Solidarity! 

Neil Doherty 

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Children Need Love 

All children need love. Especially when adults around them are staggering from a broken economy children need assurance they are being cared for. Do we ever understand why so many young people take drugs? Probably during their growing and developing years we as parents or as a society were unable to give them adequate love and security. I think there is a strong correlation between their addictions and the love missing in their lives 

Many young children today don't feel that they can go home or to their school staff and pour out their bagged emotions fearlessly, without dreading the consequences of sharing their innermost thoughts. They don't feel that there is someone waiting to greet them at home or anywhere else in the community. They don’t have access to someone who has time to ask them about their day or about their feelings. 

We think children don't know how stressful it is for the adults around them. But, of course, they notice the remorseful or frightened looks on the faces of their parents or neighbors. But, of course, they catch bits and pieces of troubling news on TV. If they happen to find somebody who will give them attention, they open up and don’t want to stop pouring out their feelings. 

What can we do to offer children hope? Where shall we find the resources to assure them that they matter greatly to our future? That, in fact, they are our future. 

Romila Khanna