Love Letters/Hate Mail

Tooth Fairieitis

Dear Editor:

(In response to "Too Pig to Jail?" in the Oct. 28-Nov. 3 issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly.)

Don't stop there. Make everything free. Make it illegal to prevent anyone from getting anything they want.

"Hi, I'd like a million dollar McMansion. With fries. And a diet Coke. How much is it? Who cares? I'm not paying for it."

This would usher in a golden age of irresponsibility. Evil corporations would fail, the lazy and inept would become prosperous, and we'd all live in 56,000 square foot homes. Nirvana for all.

Best of all, we'd have an all-knowing, all-seeing central government presiding benevolently over all, making sure all us corpulent, do-nothing morons never had to lift a finger again. It would give everyone a lot more time to spend doing what we really want -- devoting more time to reality TV and Twitter, and frolicking with Peter Pan and the Easter Bunny in Elysian fields.

That would be so cool.

-toddkreigh

Immigrant's Song

(In response to "Ask a Mexican!" in the Nov. 4-10 issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly.)

Dear Editor:

I have pondered this question myself, but from a different perspective. I have wondered why children of immigrants or legal citizens would not cherish the limitless opportunities this country affords those that work hard, obey the law and respect others.

Instead, I see a steady decline in the standard of living for all in which neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, public services are all overpopulated, overtaxed and overwhelmed.

This type of behavior and lack of respect reinforces the negative stereotypes. As a citizen of Mexican descent, this has always been a source of embarrasment to me. There are many hardworking, successful and respectful AMERICANS of Mexican descent, but they seem to not pass on this standard of living to their friends and relatives. A change needs to happen or we will see a gradual return to the barrios in SoCal where the affluent abandon communities in search of better neighbors.

How about a forum for voicing concerns? What happened to LEGAL immigrants assimilating into their CHOSEN COUNTRY, adopting the flag of this nation and it's customs:

Educate and monitor your kids.

Learn the language of your adopted country.

Obey the laws.

Pick up your trash.

Pick up after your dogs.

Keep your dogs in your yard.

Spay and neuter.

Use birth control. You won't burn in hell.

Don't park your junk in front of neighbor's homes.

Stop the street auto repair business.

Ditch the backyard roosters and egg farms.

Beat your kids when they tag your neighbor's walls.

Quit speeding through the neighborhood in your beat hoopty.

Move out of your parent's home.

Get an education, or a second job.

Introduce yourself to your English-speaking neighbor, be respectful, come by for some BBQ and a cold beer. I'll help you wrench on your car if you're a halfway decent neighbor. Help this Gringo learn Espanol.

-vettespeed

Editor's Note: If Gustavo ever tires of his column, you've got one here, hombrette!

Everything Old Is New Again

Dear Editor:

Virginia Thomas needs to put her big girl panties on and deal with it.

The "it" is the reality that she is married to a male chauvinist (in) U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Instead, she has chosen to live in a dream world which is evidenced by her recent phone call to former University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill. She asked Hill to apologize for her 19-year-old sexual harassment accusation that nearly kept Thomas off the Court.

Hill is sticking by her guns and says she is not retracting her charger. At Thomas' confirmation hearings, she said that Thomas asked her for dates and made sexual comments to her when she worked for him at two government agencies.

She owes Thomas no apology for the following reasons:

1. Testimony by a "second woman," Angela Wright, who also worked for Thomas and was harassed, was held back by key senators at the hearings.

2. No one where Hill has taught, at Oral Roberts University, OU, the University of California at Berkeley or her present employer, Brandeis University, has challenged her credibility.

3. She grew up here in Oklahoma, where your word is your bond.

4. Those of us who have walked a mile in Hill's moccasins know it is not unusual for the boss to try to hit on you if you are an attractive female employee.

Virginia "Blue Jeans" Jenner

Uncontrolled Sprawling

Dear Editor:

(In response to "Village People, Revisited" in the Nov. 4-11 issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly.)

I enjoyed your article on multi-use development in your latest issue. I look forward to such developments in Tulsa. However, your sources got the origins of suburban sprawl wrong. They need to read Jane Jacobs' "The Death And Life of Great American Cities" and anything else by Jacobs. Zoning laws began with the urban planning movement of the late 19th century and was an outgrowth of the love of central planning spawned by socialism. Urban planners have always insisted on creating ghettos of activity. But they would never have succeeded had city governments not enforced by law urban planning stupidity.

Suburban sprawl began with President Ike's obsession with paving every square inch of the country with concrete. Without massive state road building, people would travel more by train and live closer to work. So the urban sprawl and zoning ghettos that we lament in the U.S. have come from government dictate, not from free markets or any flaw in the American character. Get the government out of our lives and people will naturally return to natural mixed-use development.

Roger D. McKinney