Plus Letters to Good Times
Something To Talk About
Take Two
Remember Prop 8? Yes, it’s been more than a year since California voters banned same-sex couples from marrying in the state, but this month, things have heated up politically once again as the issue of gay marriage went back into court. Earlier this week, all eyes turned toward two same-sex couples and the city of San Francisco who are seeking to overturn Prop. 8. The issue before Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker is whether gays and lesbians are a “persecuted minority” and if they are entitled to the same sort of legal protection as, say, racial or religious minorities. The answer to that question could, in fact, require the judge to overturn Prop. 8. Meanwhile, Hollywood has chimed in. While the trials cannot be broadcast, Tinseltown has found a way to work around it. Now, there’s a reenactment on YouTube. Producers and actors are actually staging an impressive redux, which includes the actual trial transcripts of the proceedings. Alyssa Weisberg, who’s at the helm of casting TV’s Lost is overseeing most of this. Watch for some "A-list” actors to come on board. In the meantime, catch it all youtube.com/user/MarriageTrial.
When all is said and done, I think most would agree that loving somebody is a natural human act. Imagine a world where the marriage issue were reversed? No champagne toasts or marriages for millions of heterosexuals? Talk about buzzkill. Don’t we all strive to live in a world where basic human rights are honored? I don’t know about you, but I Do.
Greg Archer | Editor
Letters to Good Times Editor
Take Two
I am most disappointed with Lisa Jensen's “review” of Sherlock Holmes. I realize there's limited space in the film section and your staff really does cover quite a bit of road in those few pages. It's not that. It's the off-hand dismissal of the particular film that saddens me. I'm also saddened to see the Canon referred to in lower case, not to mention a seeming lack of intimacy with the work in general. It's true Mary Morstan hasn't much to do ... she's never had much to do. The wonderful thing about this film is that she's given so much more to do than usual.
I'd just like your reviewer to know what she's talking about before she relegates a film to the bottom draw and frankly, I really don't think she's as familiar with the Canon as she'd like her readers to believe. I base this only on what I read in her dashed off... consideration.
Jessie Lilley
Mondo Cult Magazine
Something To Talk About
Regarding your recent “Local Talk” question about whether the wealthy have an obligation to help the poor, I’m almost amazed that anyone living in the “Free-World” would ask such a question, although I suppose now-a-days the term “Free-World” doesn’t exist anymore. I’m not so young that I don’t remember a time when the very mention of a question like this one would quickly illicit a response loaded with expletives like commie, pink-o, and not necessarily in that order.
Let’s talk taxes for a few minutes shall we? Taxes—something we all pay, one of those necessary evils to keep the economic wheel of our country turning. If you doubt this then I suggest you look to the tens of billions in tax payer dollars given to the banking industry. The IRS shows that the richest 1 percent of Americans pays 39 percent of the country’s total income tax bill, and the top 10 percent of filers pay approximately 71 percent of the tab. Hold on a sec I’m not done yet. The bottom 50 percent of earners now make up 13 percent of the of the country’s total income yet pay less than 3 percent of the income taxes. This means this, people in the top 50 percent of pay in this country pay 97 percent of the country’s total income tax bill. I think it would be safe to say that the rich do at least one thing for the poor. I know, I know, some of you are probably saying, “Good! They should pay the bill. They have all the money!”
Requiring one person to help another person for no other reason than one of the two people has more money than the other is ludicrous if not borderline criminal. This concept is no different than a person with a median income owning a house, two cars, and a boat being told to give the poorer person some of their possessions because they can’t afford things of their own.
It seems to me that the guiding principal of freedom that our founding fathers rallied behind during the creation of our nation has been lost somewhere through the years. Forcing or obligating the rich to help the poor goes against the very notion of freedom.
More and more I keep hearing the Communists—sorry I mean the Progressives—of the world demanding that everyone deserves the same sized piece of the proverbial pie. Whether it be the rich helping the poor or everyone should have free healthcare. There is a certain sense of accomplishment and satisfaction when you accomplish a self imposed goal that you will never have if someone just hands it to you. However the Progressive movement going on in this country seems to dictate that the way I think is out dated, and that the foundations that our country was built on is an old way of thinking and that we need to evolve with an ever changing world. But my argument to this rhetoric is and will continue to be, that every time you strip away someone’s rights gifted to us by our constitution (even the rights of the awful rich people), you destroy the adage that used to be taught to us in school, that the United States of America is the land of the free and the home of the brave.
By the way I only make about $40,000.
Jason Loring
Santa Cruz
