Sunday's Letters to the Editor

<p><b>Wasting time</b></p><p>EDITOR: Come on, Santa Rosa City Council members, we already voted for who we wanted to represent us. It should be the next-highest vote-getter, who is Don Taylor.</p><p>Why waste your time, which is also our time, seeking applications to fill the vacancy?</p><p>Oh, I get it. He doesn't represent the council members. But he does represent the people, and he won it fair and square through our votes.</p><p>Quit manipulating the situation and let our vote count. The open seat on the City Council should be filled by Don Taylor, who ran for the position with his time and money and won it by our votes.</p><p>SHARON BAILEY</p><p>Santa Rosa</p><p><b>Cheapening life</b></p><p>EDITOR: A vineyard worker's life is only worth $200,000 (“$200,000 fine in vineyard worker's death,” Friday)? Then, given the high cost of workplace and equipment safety, why bother? The paltry fine and the lousy 30 day sentence for the manager sets the example to other employers that life is cheap — at least agricultural worker's lives. How quickly things stay the same. Thanks for giving this sad, sad story prominent coverage.</p><p>LYNN SMITH</p><p>Rohnert Park</p><p><b>A quid pro quo?</b></p><p>EDITOR: William Rothe (“Gifts vs. taxes,” Letters, Thursday) complains that the public is forced to pay taxes to fund public universities that are for “the benefit of certain, but far from all, of the citizens.” I am wondering if any of Rothe's teachers, doctors and engineers went to these public universities. It seems to me that increasing the educational level of many of our citizens benefits everyone by creating a wiser nation.</p><p>Rather than taxes, Rothe prefers donations from corporations such as AIG because their revenue is generated voluntarily from citizens. Unfortunately, Rothe is ignoring the conflicts of interest that arise when corporations donate to public institutions. Does AIG expect something in return for its contribution to the Sonoma State University ethics center (“Some topics too close to home for SSU ethics center,” Jan. 17)? Perhaps that is why this topic is “too close to home.”</p><p>JULIAN BLAIR</p><p>Santa Rosa</p><p><b>Gun-packing society</b></p><p>EDITOR: I'm curious. Where in this country does it require people to have semi-automatic weapons to protect themselves? Inner cities? Rural areas? Suburbia? Is a gun-packing society really the country we want to be? That sounds more like the struggling countries we're trying to help. When I lived in marginal neighborhoods, I didn't need combat gear. I needed to pay attention, be a good judge of character and be a good neighbor.</p><p>I was recently reminded that the Second Amendment was written with a feather. Literally, quill and ink. I'm quite sure our Founding Fathers were not referring to “the right to bear AR-15s” when they wrote it.</p><p>JACQUE BRAZIEAL</p><p>Forestville</p><p><b>Flu and diet</b></p><p>EDITOR: The flu epidemic has invaded 48 states, overwhelming medical facilities, exhausting vaccine supplies and killing 29 children and thousands of seniors. Both the problem and solution to this disaster hinge on how we relate to animals raised for food.</p><p>Indeed, 61 percent of the 1,415 pathogens known to infect humans originate with animals. The more recent, contagious and deadly viruses among these include Asian, dengue fever, Ebola, H5N1 (bird), HIV, SARS, West Nile and yellow fever. The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 killed at least 20 million people worldwide, and the World Health Organization predicts more pandemics in the future.</p><p>Today's factory farms are virtual flu factories. Sick, crowded, highly stressed animals in contact with contaminated feces and urine provide ideal incubation media for viruses. As these microbes reach humans, they mutate to defeat the new host's immune system, then propagate by contact.</p><p>Each of us can help end animal farming and build up our own immune system against the flu by replacing animal products in our diet with vegetables, fruit and whole grains. These foods don't carry flu viruses or government warning labels, are touted by every major health advocacy organization and were the recommended fare in the Garden of Eden.</p><p>LARRY ROGAWITZ</p><p>Santa Rosa</p><p><b>Combatting violence</b></p><p>EDITOR: One in three women on the planet will be physically or sexually abused or raped in their lifetime — a U.N. statistic. One billion mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, grandmothers. One billion women violated is an atrocity. One billion women dancing is a revolution. </p><p>V-Day.org is inviting one billion women and those who love them to walk out, dance, rise up and demand an end to this violence on Feb. 14. One Billion Rising will move the earth, activating women and men across every country. V-Day wants the world to see our collective strength, our numbers, our solidarity across borders.</p><p>One Billion Rising is a global strike; an invitation to dance; a call to men and women to refuse to participate in the status quo until rape and rape culture ends; an act of solidarity, demonstrating to women the commonality of their struggles and their power in numbers; a refusal to accept violence against women and girls as a given; a new time and a new way of being.</p><p>There will be two One Billion Rising events in the North Bay: Dominican Rising (Dominican University) and North Bay Rising (Petaluma). Join us in ending the violence.</p><p>TRISHA ALMOND</p><p>President, Guided To Safety</p><p>Petaluma</p>