Memories of Johnny Cash

Re "Candid photos from Cash concert surface" (Our Region, Jan. 2): I remember Johnny Cash's trip to Folsom Prison on Jan. 13, 1968. I remember it because it was my 11th birthday and my dad, Charles Bartells, brought me an original record of the concert Cash performed that day. I still have that record. My family lived on the grounds in house No. 236 from the time I was 3 until I was 18. My father worked there for 28 years.

This picture brought back long ago memories of family and good times!

Just wanted to tell you how much it made me smile.

Thanks!

– Yvonne Fowkes, Sacramento

Time to split the state

With no state budget in sight, everyone is quick to assign blame: Republicans refuse to raise taxes, Democrats won't cut spending, the governor won't take a stand, etc. Some are calling for legislative rules to be changed to make budgets easier to pass (as in, over the objections of Republicans). What we forget is that these representatives are the voice of the voters, inadequate as that might be, with one Assemblyman for every 450,000 voters. California, they say, is broken.

Not yet, but it should be. Broken up, that is.

It is becoming increasingly clear that California is too big, and too diverse, to be run as a single state. No other state has such a variety of social, cultural or geographical differences. What does Los Angeles have in common with Eureka? What does San Francisco have in common with, well, anybody? Prop. 8 is a great example – it did not do well in the cities but was passed in the small towns and rural areas. I'd say there is room for two or three states. Serious issues, such as water, would have to be worked out, but otherwise each new state could implement what works for their constituency, and better represent them as well.

– David Zinner, Sacramento

Canal idea is all wet

Re "Urgent call for canal" (Page A1, Jan. 3): Shades of Julius Caesar! The Schwarzenegger administration thinks it can dictate a peripheral canal without going through the Legislature? This is so typical of a movie star turned politician – they just aren't able to make the ego adjustment needed to include democracy in their thinking. And they want to spend $15 billion in times of economic crisis? This is ancient Rome all over again, with peripheral canals replacing aqueducts.

While on the subject of the canal, The Bee's story "Big gates for Delta weighed to help limit salt intrusions" (Page B4, Jan. 1) is an admission that a peripheral canal will send so much more water south that there will not be enough to flush the salt water intrusions back into the bay.

One has to wonder why the governor is so willing to risk his prestige on the house of cards his Delta Vision committee has built to justify this canal monstrosity.

– Burt Wilson, Carmichael

Snack tax is the acid test

When our state legislators and the governor push to reinstate the snack tax (a sales tax on junk food), I will concede that they are really interested in balancing the state's budget.

This tax, which would be easy to implement by retailers (they already tax certain goods purchased in grocery and convenience stores), would bring in well over a billion dollars annually.

Snacks do irreparable harm to our people's health (especially the young) and cost the state untold millions in health care costs, so it seems to some of us a no-brainer.

Of course, there is the risk that legislators who support this tax will have no chance of one day getting on the board of directors of corporations that make snacks, much less receiving political contributions from them.

– Bob Brauns, Chico

Prop. 8 is constitutional

Re "Brown's choice: Constitution first" (Editorial, Jan. 3): It's obvious why The Bee's editors went into journalism instead of law, although Jerry Brown's excuse is much less apparent. In the 1963 case, the state Supreme Court was able to legitimately rule the voter initiative unconstitutional because it violated the U.S. Constitution. This position was correctly upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. In the Proposition 8 case, however, no one is asserting that a ban against same-gender marriage is against the U.S. Constitution. The No-on-8 group is scared to let the U.S. Supreme Court look at the case because they know they will lose. For Brown to say that a highly specific part of the state constitution trumps a very unclear, unstated, dubious right in the state constitution makes no sense at all. Even if you support same-gender marriage, this argument reflects atrocious understanding of the law and the constitution.