What's Bee's blooming excuse?

Re "No longer just a hothouse delicacy, orchids step out" (Page A1, Oct. 24) and "The art of growing orchids" (Living Here/Home & Garden, Oct. 24): How can The Bee justify two articles covering much of five pages, including the first pages of two sections of the same day's newspaper, promoting, in large part, a private orchid business?

– Thomas H. Frankel, Davis

Let's be real about water policy

Re "Smelt still in trouble, surveys show" (Our Region, Oct. 22): When is enough, enough?

Environmentalists sued the federal government to force reductions in Delta water exports to protect the threatened Delta smelt. Those reductions cost San Joaquin Valley farmers and 25 million Californians nearly a million acre-feet of water – more than 325 billion gallons – during the past two years and it looks like it did absolutely no good.

Keeping that water away from our farms put thousands of farmworkers out of work and forced many of them to stand in food lines to provide for their families. California's economy also took a billion-dollar hit so the smelt could have more water to swim in … and now studies show that none of that water increased the smelt population.

If there was ever a need for a common-sense water policy in California, it is now.

– Mike Wade, executive director, California Farm Water Coalition

Mental illnesses subject to bias

Re "Not all diseases treated equally" (Letters, Oct. 15): The catastrophic and discriminating way people with mental illness are treated says volumes about the ignorance of our society when it comes to psychiatric disorders. With timely and appropriate treatment, people with serious mental illness can and do recover. Our broken mental health system and stigma allow vulnerable individuals to suffer needlessly.

I have bipolar disorder (manic-depression) as well as insulin dependent (Type 1) diabetes. Both are chronic diseases that can be controlled but not cured, and both are serious physical illnesses that can have devastating consequences if not appropriately treated. I take medication to control my bipolar disorder just as I take multiple insulin shots to control my diabetes.

I have a flaw in biochemistry, not character. With appropriate treatment, I am well-managed and live a happy, productive and fulfilling life, yet stigma and discrimination still cast their shadows overhead. Society needs to be enlightened about mental illness.

– Sheila LaPolla, Citrus Heights

Homelessness isn't the problem

Re "In homeless debate, reason is drowned out" (Our Region, Oct. 18): If people are shoeless, get them shoes. If homeless, get them homes. Right?

Wrong. Because we define those wandering our streets as "homeless," the solution (by definition) is homes.

The real problem is not "homelessness." It is mainly drug addiction, alcohol abuse, mental illness, or a combination of these. The rational solution for these individuals is drug rehab, psychological counseling, and help in learning basic life skills.

Instead, Loaves and Fishes, as well as other church groups, want to just give handouts forever, thus enabling and perpetuating behavior that brings unhappiness to everyone. This charity may feel good and may satisfy the religious who make their livings thus. But it does nothing to solve the real problem.

– Jack Thompson, Sacramento

Krauthammer choice disappoints

Recently you offered your readers an opportunity to become involved in selecting the contributors to the opinion section.

I promptly filled in my choices in hopes that I would be able to effect a change of what I feel has been a drift to the ideological rather than the reasoned. So I was highly dismayed to see an article by Charles Krauthammer complaining about the White House push against Fox News. Not only is Krauthammer an ideologue, but he has a conflict of interest since he is regularly employed by Fox.

I am highly disappointed by your choice in running his column. You could have done much better, and I hope that your survey was not intended to provide cover for your poor choices.