Wear your ribbons on Veterans Day

As a proud Vietnam veteran who is preparing for Veterans Day, I call on each and every veteran to proudly wear your ribbons on Veterans Day. You don't need to be in uniform to wear your ribbons. They are yours. You earned them. Wear them on your coat, on your jacket, on your shirt. Many Americans have lost sight of the true meaning of Veterans Day: Remind them. Wear your ribbons, not only for yourself, but for your fellow citizens. They need a reminder and a chance to say thank you.

Accept their thanks and recognition not only for yourself (and you earned it), but on behalf of all your veteran comrades. Stand tall and wear your ribbons on Veterans Day.

Frank Comstock

Oceanside

Kern has taken the high road

Amazing that a sitting mayor would support a recall of one of his council members. Hopefully, Jerry Kern will not be recalled, and I would not blame him for not supporting the mayor in the future.

It seems that Kern has taken the high road and the unions are in the gutter. Wood will not get my vote next time.

Joe McCluskey

Oceanside

Why are seniors being targeted?

It has recently come to my attention that the state/county has decided to add to its coffers by harassing the seniors in our community. These are people on fixed incomes, and many have lived in their mobile homes for 20-plus years. They are being cited for infractions they were never aware of and have lived with for years.

Water heaters without permits, extension cords from their porches going to Halloween lights, new porch lights? $196 per citation, 60 days to obtain a permit or eviction.

These are retired people who have contributed to society for 50 years. Harassment of people who can least afford it. Of all the people to target in our community, why the elderly? Can somebody please help me understand this? If this isn't a Turko File, I don't know what is.

Shelly Fink

Oceanside

Ignore rantings of the right-wing fringe

To the writer who claims to be "fighting for your freedoms" ("A second wave needed," Oct. 30), I have to ask -- for which of our freedoms is she fighting? I've yet to see anything from the current administration (or the past administration) that is a threat to any of my freedoms, but I hear a constant echo from the writer and her fellow fear-mongers that the world is coming to an end. Where were she and her TEA partiers while the previous administration was doubling the national debt, starting two unnecessary wars and illegally spying on us all?

They constantly rail against "big government." What about the more than 700 military bases that we maintain around the world, costing billions every year? That's as big as it gets. No mention of that from the right-wing fringe, yet universal health care for all is "too expensive."

I will call and write my representative and encourage him to ignore the paranoid rants of the fringe; however, I'm sure that Mr. Issa will continue to pander to the "base" of his increasingly fractured party, and that our dear writer will remain convinced that her country is being taken over by aliens.

John Musser

Vista

Tell government you want a public option

Clock's ticking -- tick, tick, tick. Remember that mandate, Bush was so bad we elected a black guy, Mr. Obama, and a filibuster-proof Democratic majority (60? Lieberman?) in the Senate. A huge House majority solely for the purpose of finally seeing Edward M. Kennedy's vision of health care going from privilege to right. Hey, Sparky, we don't have time to mess around! There will be an incredible Republican bounce in the 2010 election, that's why the hurry-up, "progressives." We have one shot for the next ??? years.

Tell our president that you want a robust public option to compete with the private sector, which has reaped unscrupulous profits, drops coverage arbitrarily, then "buys silence" from all of our key representatives.

Tell the White House you want a robust public option. Now go send that letter. Straightaway. Go now. Thank you.

Nathan Wesley

Solana Beach

Jerry Kern should absolutely be recalled

My subscription to the North County Times has been canceled because of biased reporting, particularly regarding the Oceanside recall Kern effort. I approve of the effort to recall Kern, as do many others whose letters have not been printed. I hope this letter will be published so readers may understand why many of us want Kern recalled.

Public safety should be the No. 1 priority in Oceanside, yet Kern and the pro-developer majority on the council believe that cutting back on paramedics is a prudent savings, while they spend nearly $1 million on landscaping a part of Oceanside Boulevard.

Kern should be recalled and Charles Lowery should be elected in his place. Chuck developed a business in Oceanside with nationwide distribution, and his financial conservatism would be a great asset to the city, plus he is not beholden to developers, as Kern is, so his decisions would be made in favor of the citizens of Oceanside, not developers.

Vote "yes" to recall Kern, and vote for Chuck Lowery to replace him.

Anne Christian

Oceanside

Get rid of Jerry Kern

Jerry Kern's idea of a fundraiser and "sportsmanship" is to have hunters gather in a confined area and shoot captive pheasants released from cages.

Additionally, Kern keeps voting for projects that are not helping our residents, but that only help outside businessman who are his friends. He wants to get rid of our firefighters, paramedics and one of the city's four ambulances, and outsource it to a private ambulance company. This failed in San Diego.

However, he is more than happy to spend our money on frivolous projects like landscaping. Either Kern will get rid of the firefighters and paramedics, or we take this opportunity to get rid of Kern.

Leslie Davies

Oceanside

Unions are behind Kern recall attempt

I ask fellow citizens to join me and vote no to this crazy recall attempt on Jerry Kern. If you read the article regarding the funding of the recall, you will see it's just the unions ("Reports show thousands spent on Kern recall campaign," Oct. 31). There are no real citizens behind it. The public safety unions are lying and saying that Jerry is opposed to public safety and that he tried to remove an ambulance and even that he wants to outsource public safety. All of those are not true. They are scare tactics by the unions to get senior citizens to think they aren't safe.

The truth is the unions have a contract coming up and need a union puppet to replace Kern. That union puppet is on the ballot and after I vote no, I am going to write in the name Jerry Kern. I voted for him before and I will again.

Bud Parker

Oceanside

Double-decker graves nothing new

Re: ("Space crunch leads UK cemetery to try secondhand graves," Nov. 1): I was both surprised and a bit uncomfortable when I attended my father's funeral/interment a few years ago. He was a veteran, and as such, he was buried at the VA cemetery in Henderson, Nev.

The operating procedure there was to dig a large hole and bury six caskets, three across by two high, in each hole.

My dad's remains will spend all eternity closely packed with five other veterans. He is the middle, bottom casket.

Gary Goldman

Oceanside

Petty, whiny Barack Obama and the press

Obama just can't believe not everyone loves him and thinks he's some kind of self-made royalty that should cause awe at everything he speaks or puts his hands on. He has done nothing, not one thing, nada, that has improved this country. ...

We were built on democracy and the freedom to express, and he can't stand it that he's failing in everything he lays his hands on. Not only that, the world is looking at the U.S. as a laughingstock because of his whiny, lame, stupid leadership and at every turn lambasting the United States for what he deems has been done wrong in the history of our great country.

What other country has ever helped other nations and put our men and women in harms way for the better of men, women and children who are less fortunate? It is an outrage that he is taking his sweet time in sending more troops, no matter if you are for or against the war, while he runs around like a Hollywood celebrity or wannabee king Obama while our troops die waiting for him to speak. It is to our shame he was ever elected to our highest office.

Linda Ynda

Carlsbad

Freedom and individualism

Careful what you ask for, America, the consequence may be the loss of your individual freedom. The empowered forces of liberalism have crossed the Rubicon and taken full aim at American individualism and self-reliance. Convinced of their mandate to move America from capitalism to a socialist economy, that is, a welfare state. Despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary, the current crop of politicians genuinely believe "big government knows best."

Notwithstanding the recent abuses of Wall Street, they view being financially successful at any level above poverty, including the middle class, somehow as a crime against humanity to be taxed out of existence. Individual achievement is to be replaced by government-mandated programs to legislate the definition of well-being, that is, to force everyone to the same economic level through the worn theory of redistribution of wealth and perceived common need as a justification.

Ayn Rand warned repeatedly, America is ripe for passing straight through socialism to fascism, where the perception is citizens still own the means of production, but the government mandates who, what, when, where and how much is produced -- any attempts at individualism or self-reliance are rapidly punished as crimes against the state.

Ross Douglas

San Marcos

Cookie-cutter liberal letters

I have to thank Dan Ryan for making me smile with his letter of Nov. 2. He spoke my thoughts exactly. The similarity in the liberal rants is so obvious, it should embarrass them. Indeed, the content does come from marching orders. We see the same thing in mainstream media. Identical phrases can be heard on various networks as if they are literally reading from the same script.

I also get a kick out of the criticism of Glenn Beck. He does have a fun personality but what he offers is deadly serious. It is all supported by facts. Anyone who chooses to ignore them is either willingly wishing for destruction of life as we know it in America or dangerously naive.

Lynna Howard

Carlsbad

Pandora's box

The online response to my letter, "Is it constitutional?" Oct. 21, was illuminating. Every respondent confidently supported government's "right" to mandate national health insurance. Still, I'm mindful of Thomas Jefferson's words: "In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.

"If the lay consensus is that national health insurance is a legitimate business of federal government, then by what precedent does our Constitution possibly "bind" federal government from making everything its business? If federal government has the right to enforce our health care, then what power does the Constitution withhold from federal government? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't think of anything, either material or cognitive, that doesn't potentially affect one's health.

Moreover, I am sure the above rationale will never escape control-happy politicians as far into the future as the mind can stretch. I, for one, find it disturbing that America's controlling elite can think of no way for consumers to buy health care without opening this Pandora's box.

Grant Kuhns

Carlsbad

Immigrants shouldn't fear reporting crimes

There is an idea circulating in the media that close cooperation between local law enforcement and immigration authorities raises suspicion among immigrants that if they call police to report a crime, they could be handed over to immigration agents for deportation ("Undercover sting used to cite, deport Carlsbad day laborers," Nov. 2). Therefore, aliens/immigrants would be afraid to call the police about a crime. The latter idea is a red herring.

It's not the callers who have anything to fear. It's the perpetrators of crimes who should be afraid, and rightly so. Local police should be encouraged to contact ICE if there is any suspicion that an alleged criminal might be in this country illegally.

Before 9/11, there was little need to ask whether a person on a U.S. street was a citizen. Today that need is much greater and our police are the right persons to ask, particularly if they suspect a person is an illegal alien or is engaged in other criminal activity. I fully support all police activity that results in the deportation of illegal aliens.

Al Tschaeche

Encinitas