Jul 1, 2007

Letters

A so-called video-game addiction

Dear Editor: I read the American Medical Association is going to vote on whether video game addiction is a disease. If this doesn't show the American public what a fraud and pseudoscience psychiatry is, I don't know what will. Medical diseases are real, tangible things that can be measured by lab tests, X-rays, etc. You can't "vote" cancer, diabetes and heart disease in and out of existence - they are factual scientific conditions. Psychiatric disorders, on the other hand, have absolutely no factual basis in reality and are subjectively voted upon by a group of people. Of course, once it's a disease, then insurance can cover it and the patient can be plugged into the billion-dollar pharmaceutical pipeline. One in five American children is currently on psychiatric drugs. Wake up, America.

Marsie Sweetland,
Los Gatos

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Dear Editor: I always find it interesting when psychiatrists move in to some area of life where there is a lack of ethics and self-discipline and start making up disorders for it. Such is the case with "video game addiction." As if there is a shred of medical evidence behind it, they start to create a diagnosis. The sickeningly sweet sympathy that is hiding behind statements like "We have got to get these poor people the help they need!" should be shoved back at them with "Stop trying to litter our lives and our health care system with your fictitious mental disorders!" Let's stop falling for this phony interest in our well-being that comes from some of the biggest drug dealers in the world - psychiatrists.

Melissa Butz,
San Jose

Voters should be irked

Dear Editor: Los Gatans should be thoroughly nonplused by the attitude of their representative on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, Don Gage ("Board rescinds offer to purchase swath of land," June 24). Rather than working with the Los Gatos Town Council to resolve the matter, Gage has adopted "attitude" about the proposed deal in nixing the sale of the land to the county, stating that "the board is very tired of the shenanigans going on." I guess now that Gage is chairman of the board, he has forgotten that Los Gatos is part his constituency. We should remind him of that fact in the next election by tossing him out should Gage choose to run. Who knows, perhaps he is term-limited and will no longer represent Los Gatos. He sure acts as if that's the case.

Steve M. Zientek,
Los Gatos



Medical insurance

Dear Editor: In an article in today's issue about Stanford Lincoln Mercury closing in Menlo Park ["Lack of car lots taxing city, Thursday"], you report on Dean Bishop, who says that since Cobra benefit continuation is not available to him he's "walking out to a wife and 8-year-old daughter without health insurance." He's wrong. He, his wife and his daughter can qualify individually or collectively for underwritten individual coverages, or they may apply individually or collectively for perfectly good quality coverage on a guaranteed issue basis under the terms of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.

There are some strategic considerations involved in getting the most economical arrangement. I strongly recommend he work with an experienced professional agent. At the very least he should think twice before applying for any short-term medical insurance plan, as that will cancel his HIPAA guarantee issue privileges.

Michael Goldeen,

Palo Alto



Police set bad example

Dear Editor: During my many local trips by car I frequently encounter (follow) local police cars. More times than not, they fail to signal while making a turn. They should at least set an example for other "law-breakers" who fail to use their signal upon turning.

Mel Hirsekorn,

Redwood City



Intolerance shown

Dear Editor: It has come to my attention that there are people who have described the installation of an eruv (a demarcated path where very observant Jews are permitted to travel and carry things on the Sabbath, loosely speaking), as "disgusting," "insane" and "embarrassing."

What's disgusting and insane is that people around here have become so intolerant of any religious expression that they think it's acceptable to call other people's harmless religious practices disgusting and insane. While stretching their own rights to freedom of speech to their limits, they ignore the right to the free practice of religion, which requires tolerance among those of different beliefs in order to actually work. This is one of the main principles on which this country was founded. This kind of intolerance and bigotry is not only wrong, but it is un-American. The eruv doesn't hurt anyone.

Shannon E. Wells,

Santa Clara



Theft upsetting

Dear Editor: On June 13, someone forcibly tampered with locker no. 17 at the 24-Hour Fitness Center in Mountain View. The thief took off with my wallet and keys.

I can relate to the anger provoked in folks whose valuables are stolen while they are in public places like malls, beaches, restaurants and movie houses because they are more apt to be wary of strangers around them. But where the standard for safety calls for more leniency because clientele frequenting the Fitness Center are supposed to be professionals and well-educated people who I associate with honesty, I am shocked when I realize that I cannot feel my belongings are entirely safe in the lockers.

After a search for the proper personnel to report the theft, I was directed to the front desk folks who took down the details. I was informed that there is no surveillance camera in the locker room, and was given the phone number for the police department.

I am terribly disappointed by the way theft and vandalism are handled matter-of-factly by the staff of the 24-Hour Fitness Center. A show of concern would have sufficed - but the way the personnel involved handled this incident seemed to say, "Oh, that's a normal occurrence here."

Sam Talag,

Mountain View



The Fourth of July

Dear Editor: Two hundred and thirty-one years ago, a handful of citizens in Colonial America risked their "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor" upon the revolutionary idea that individuals (not governments) should have the freedom to control their destiny. These powerful ideals of liberty so brilliantly outlined in the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia eventually changed the world.

The result of combining this expanded individual freedom with the economic freedom of a limited government created a dynamo for human progress. Soon, the average American family's standard of living was almost doubling every decade while most of the world continued to stagnate in oppression and war.

It did not take long for this information to spread worldwide. In the late 19th century, millions began leaving a Europe dominated by monarchs and dictators for the liberty of America. These immigrants wanted the opportunity to apply their skills and then own the fruits of their labor. Most, including my own grandmother from Sweden, immigrated with no guarantees. Today, new generations stand in line and even risk their lives to continue that tradition.

With less than five percent of the world's population, the United States has slowly guided the rest of the planet away from tyranny for two centuries. This liberty in America has never been perfect and has often resulted in two steps forward and one step back.

Contrary to the small minority of America haters, people worldwide continue to overwhelmingly vote with their feet for the freedom and opportunity of the United States. Consider our liberty and celebrate this Fourth of July by reading the approximately 1,300 words in the Declaration of Independence.

Mark Lindberg

Mountain View



Israelis and Palestinians

Dear Editor: Michael Barton (Letters June 2) again makes a hideous comparison between Israel and the culture of Palestinians. He insinuates that because some individual Israelis may have called Palestinians derogatory names, Israelis, too, must have been brought up with malicious anti-Palestinian propaganda.

This analogy is as erroneous as it is odious. Children in Israel, unlike those in Palestinian areas, are not urged to martyr themselves by murdering others. To incite hatred like this would be a crime in Israel. But this same vicious incitement pervades every moment in Palestinian life: government-controlled television, mosques, kindergartens and the elected Hamas government all bombard their children with the news that "Jews are the offspring of pigs and monkeys." Mickey Mouse icons even help deliver the message.

Scott Abramson,

San Mateo



Rice and Blair

Dear Editor: News that the Bush administration has charged Condoleezza Rice and Tony Blair with making peace between Israel and the Palestinians makes me wonder if Bush's advisers ever read a newspaper. It would be hard to find two people with less credibility among Palestinians and others in the Middle East.

Blair is seen as a lackey of the United States who last summer refused to support a cease-fire to end Israel's massive bombing of Lebanon. Rice was Bush's chief policy adviser in April 2004, when he wrote a letter to former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon officially accepting as permanent the huge Israeli West Bank settlement blocs that the United Nations and previous American presidents have condemned.

The administration Rice serves claims to favor democracy but since January 2006 has joined with Israel in a boycott designed to overthrow a democratically elected Palestinian government. By arming anti-Hamas forces and attempting to starve the Palestinians into submission, the two countries succeeded in splitting off Gaza from the West Bank. But they could not change the Palestinians' basic demands: an independent state in all of the West Bank and Gaza, control of their own borders, and the right of refugees to return.

Unless Rice and Blair work to achieve such a solution, they might as well stay home.

Rachelle Marshall,

Stanford



Mainstream media

Dear Editor: I have some sound advice for columnist Tom Teepen, who has sounded an alarm about talk radio ["Talk radio sounds alarm again," Tuesday]. He should find someone like Joseph Goebbels to team up with. Perhaps together they can stifle one of the last free speech venues Americans still have and thus usher in a Brave New World Order faster than Hitler or the thugs in Washington ever could.

I agree with Edith Groner's letter (printed on the same date) and can answer her question about why Americans are so passive about what is happening to our country. It's the mainstream media. It has dulled the senses of the American sheeple, who, like ostriches, have their heads buried in sand security while the foundations of our freedoms are vanishing. Did Jefferson and Franklin not warn us about people like Teepen and Goebbels?

I hope true patriots will continue to vent their outrage over the airwaves and on the Internet. Those formats are uniting left and right, and that's what happens when a nation's survival is at stake.

Aric Zoe Leavitt,

Santa Clara