Leave eye-patch industry alone

Re Rex Babin's editorial cartoon, Sept. 10: As a longtime Bee subscriber, I am intensely offended by the Duvall cartoon. How typical of the left-wing Bee to print Rex Babin's slimy, biased attack on eye-patch underwear. I find this callous political stretch of his utterly contemptible.

How dare he smear the good reputation of eye-patch underwear with his socialist-fascist visual garbage! How typically anti-business of The Bee to let this commie dirtball slander the eye-patch underwear industry. I bet you and your lefty subscribers wish this had happened in January so that anti-capitalist Babin could torpedo eye-patch underwear sales just before Valentine's Day.

Look, Babin, you can go after sleazeball Assembly members and their tawdry dalliances with energy lobbyists, but leave the eye-patch underwear industry alone. Now, thanks to that evil Babin, people are going to associate eye-patch underwear with destroyed careers. The anti-eye-patch underwear loons will start coming out of the woodwork trying to abolish, or severely limit, our right to own eye-patch underwear.

Don't they understand? Eye-patch underwear doesn't destroy careers and marriages; people destroy careers and marriages. Thanks to Babin, when they outlaw eye-patch underwear, only outlaws (and scumbag politicians) will have eye-patch underwear. Consider my subscription canceled!

– John Armstrong, Sacramento

Bee downplays Dems' scandal

Re "Legislator undone by lewd sex talk" (Page A1, Sept. 10): The Bee ran an article about a Yorba Linda legislator with a huge picture and a huge headline on Page 1. It must be of monumental importance to Sacramento residents that a legislator from Southern California is a philanderer.

In the same edition, The Bee ran an article titled, "Study sees pattern of defense earmarks to donors." This is a small article on Page A7. The article begins: "A senior congressman's controversial pattern of steering lucrative defense contracts to firms represented by his close friends and former staffers …"

Perhaps it's only coincidence that the philandering legislator is a Republican and the corrupt congressman is a Democrat. Shame on The Bee.

– Richard Johnson, Roseville

Just what the president needed

The behavior of Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., during the president's speech was disgraceful and an insult to his party and the nation. This one act, however, may have been what the president needed.

It was another humiliation for South Carolina conservatives after the Gov. Mike Sanford incident. It shamed the Republican Party with an act never before seen in the House. It should negatively impact future Republican Party fundraising.

It empowered and unified the Democrats on the health care reform issue. It reminds us of the growing list of Republican insults to this nation.

Way to go, Joe!

– Eugene L. King, Sacramento

Crime prevention underfunded

Re "Governor's cuts to child services run deep" (Viewpoints, Sept. 11): Want to know why we spend so much money on prisons in the country? It's because we don't spend enough money on the prevention.

As with anything, prevention is cheaper than the remedy. The foster care system is the prevention, and prisons are the remedy. For so long, instead of evaluating the causes of crime to prevent it, we just let it happen and decide to spend more money building prisons to lock people up. Unfortunately, in this country, tax revenues to pay for these preventive measures are frowned upon as socialist and are looked at as income redistribution, when in fact they should be looked at as an investment for our future.

Let's face it: The policies and philosophies of old are not working anymore, and that is why we are in the shape we are in. Ideologies are still prevalent where pragmatism should be taking root.

It's time to change the way we think. Until that happens we will continue on this downward spiral.

– Sean Collier, Sacramento

Steinberg wrong about Delta

Re "Water package isn't perfect, but it's much better than status quo" (Viewpoints, Sept. 10): Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg's editorial proclaimed the Delta legislative package a "marked improvement for my district and the greater Sacramento region." As a local water district and Sacramento Groundwater Authority director, I have a different view.

The Sacramento region had the foresight many years ago to develop and implement a comprehensive solution to our own water issues, the Water Forum Agreement, to achieve the objectives of reliable water supplies and protection of the American River ecosystem. The Delta legislative package would undermine this historic regional plan. The legislation would put our water supplies, and the underlying water rights and entitlements, at risk, hurting our region's quality of life and economy.

Diversion fees and mandated expenditures on water conservation will hit local pocketbooks, while benefiting those who export water from the Delta.

Water agencies in the Sacramento region have committed to working with others toward a comprehensive Delta solution. Unfortunately, the current package is seriously flawed, and cannot be given a last-minute fix. Hurried bad legislation is still bad legislation.

– Sandy Kozlen, Carmichael