Republican Rag

The Chavez dirty-secret article ("Team Chavez, Revealed," The Fly, July 29) reveals that you are really a Republican newspaper, trying to pass yourself off as "smart, X-gen" rag. Oh yeah, you have the Botox and strip-club ads, but you would rather be shaking hands with Dick Cheney and waterboarding Cindy Chavez and Philip Bump. 

Don Ricker

Scotts Valley

Revealing

There is more to this than San Jose Revealed. Working Partnerships seems to exist primarily to pay the salaries of union political operatives. That's fine if Working Partnerships wants to exist as a political action committee. But they want to exist as a 501(c)3, take a big tax deduction and advertise themselves as a charity.

It's as though someone created a church purely to hire those who volunteer on Republican campaigns. It's dishonest and a complete abuse of the tax code.

It's also an abuse of campaign finance laws. It means that the salary from WPUSA is actually payment for campaign work. As such, it is a reportable campaign expense that has not been reported.

Greg Perry

San Jose

The Nose Knows

I am so proud ("Sensorium," Wine Column, Jul 29). This is Jeff's mother, and I know he will be embarrassed because I am writing this letter. I am still so proud. Jeff has always followed his bliss, and winemaking is on the top of his list. Once I was told by an investor at Clos Las Chance that he loved to watch Jeff work because you could tell he enjoyed it so! He was called "The Nose" while getting his degree at Davis. I could go on and on; will stop for now.

Kay Ritchey

Mountain View

Really Lame

John Azevedo ("He's a Hack," Letters, July 22, and "Sarah vs. the Blogosphere," Metro News, July 8) misses the whole point on where Sarah Palin went wrong. I have a question for those who don't see anything wrong with what she did in "quitting" her office. Where are we going to be if elected officials decide to resign their office just because they think they would be a "lame duck"?

Officials elected to two-, four- or six-year terms are elected for those terms for a reason—the voters don't want someone who's going to just up and walk away when they are unhappy. We don't even like recall elections. She quit on her supporters and the people of Alaska, plain and simple. Hopefully, she will never be elected to higher office ever again.

Lynda Martinez

San Jose

Big Slur

I was surprised to see Amy Alkon declare her hostility to a slur-free society in Metro (The Advice Goddess, Aug. 5) by her vivid hate caricature of a blue-collar worker as "the paunchy Polish janitor with the exposed butt crack." This purely imaginary image combines national origin bigotry ("Polish janitor") and her supremacy claim to describe blue-collar workers ("exposed butt crack").

Mockery of blue-collar workers in this way would have been unthinkable before 1970, but since Norman Lear invented the wholly imaginary Archie Bunker in January 1971, the urban-coastal class in the corporate entertainment culture has wallowed in this kind of bigotry and supremacy. It needs to stop, and we call on Metro's Amy Alkon to sincerely apologize for her hate caricature of blue-collar workers.

Dale Warner

San Jose