LETTERS
11/12/2009
Job well done
Dear Pasadena Weekly honchos:
Kudos to you and your entire staff on a spectacular edition of the Best of Pasadena 2009.
Having been one of the people who helped start the LA Weekly (associate publisher, advertising director), I can appreciate all the time and effort that went into producing this informative gem. Over the years the LA Weekly has gotten away from a traditional Best Of, naming names concept, because there are too many advertisers (and or potential advertisers) who would be upset that they didn’t make some kind of a Best Of list, and, as you know, when you have too many “winners” it totally dilutes the value of a Best Of issue.
What I like about your 2009 edition is the forthright statement that ... “this store/restaurant/shop/outlet/etc. ... in 2009 ... is the Best of its category.”
An example is the choice for Best Auto Repair, which this year was won by Mike Gibson Auto Service Center. I moved to Duarte this year and, not wishing to schlep all the way to the Westside to get auto service, asked some friends for a recommendation for a good (and fair, price-wise) local auto mechanic. That’s how I came to bring my car to Mike Gibson.
I asked them to check and charge the battery and replace an ailing alternator with a rebuilt one. I figured this was a three-day in-and-out scenario. To my astonishment, I got a call early the next morning telling me that the repair work was done. They completed all the work, plus changed my oil and checked tire pressure, in less than 12 hours!
The day that I picked up my car was the date that the Best of 2009 list was released.
I was very impressed by the very low price for my repairs AND, by coincidence, them being named Best Auto Repair.
Based on this series of events, I feel very fortunate to have hit a home run with my choices all around. Thanks again for informing and entertaining me and for, in effect, backing up my choice for an auto mechanic.
Keep up the great work!
A new Pasadena Weekly reader.
~JEFFRY MARTINI, DUARTE
Model for the world
Mayor Bill Bogaard:
Your recent Pasadena Weekly letter headlined, “I’ll get back to you,” regarding your intentions about running for another term, informs that you are not yet certain about running for reelection; but if you don’t run, you’re backing your “colleague and friend Chris Holden.”
Later, you list what you consider to be Pasadena’s “issues that are critically important.” Sir, with the same level of respect I can muster for those on our federal Supreme Court, who since our inception as a constitutional nation have consistently broken their oaths by voting “yea” in obviously unconstitutional cases, which is exactly what occurred in the 2000 presidential “election;” five black-robed judges jerry-rigged Florida’s rights to produce an accurate vote-count, thereby forcing us to accept their Republican favorites, George Bush and Dick Cheney, and all their subsequent unconstitutional activities, many of which continue to this day.
Therefore, to you and the great majority of your mayoral predecessors, including our city’s many managers for well over a century — not one of you has ever captured what Pasadena is, what Pasadena’s potentials are or, and most importantly, what Pasadena should be!
Because with all our blessings since 1776, blessings that continue growing to this day, as a city Pasadena should be leading this nation and the world.
But to communicate in such large and grand terms to “leaders” who are blinded by the light, leaders whose most recent major controversial accomplishment was the removal of some old trees, and to expect them to fully grasp the communication — well, it would be quite like speaking to a large group of Bush voters and expecting them to grasp that they are the major US issue (which can also be said for anyone who would ever vote for any Clinton).
But to restate the point, with the proper leadership, Pasadena has always had the potential to be a model for the world, and it can still become that city.
Written, very disgustedly, by longtime resident …
~BEE JONSON, PASADENA
Obamacons vs. Neocons
My God, George Orwell must be spinning in his grave … maybe he should have titled his classic book about Big Brother 2009 instead of 1984. As if giving a Nobel Peace Prize to the manmade global warming alarmist and film propagandist Al Gore weren’t bad enough, the panel decided to completely toss their credibility into the gutter by awarding this joke-of-a-prize to the current Warmonger-In-Chief Barack Obama! And he was nominated hardly two weeks into his new job!
Then again, they also gave it to the warmongering “progressive” Woodrow Wilson for turning a European border conflict into World War I.
In Obama, we have a president who is continuing, if not actively expanding, every single one of Bush II’s policy initiatives. From going back on his campaign promise to withdraw from Iraq, intensifying the war in Afghanistan, expanding the war into Pakistan, blowing up innocent civilians with unmanned aerial drones, saber-rattling against Iran, leaving Guantanamo open, presiding over another military budget increase, to the continuation of internal civil rights abuses (PATRIOT Act) … with no end in sight to any of it.
What has been most incredible to witness is how quickly the Left flipped a U-turn once a Democrat was propelled into the White House! Where did all of the peaceniks disappear to? Where’d all the righteous anger about “immoral and illegal wars” go? Even Code Pink has jumped on board the war bandwagon! Does the left have no shame? No principles? Are they really such cheap whores?
I would call it unbelievable if I weren’t so well-acquainted with the hypocrisy of the left. Man, you Obamatons really take the cake — congratulations to your idol for being showered with more undeserved praise!
Or should we be calling you people “Obamacons,” since you seem to have morphed into a leftist version of the neocons? By awarding this prize to such a blatant warmonger the Nobel panel has affirmed that “war is peace.” You tried to warn us, Mr. Orwell, you tried …
~SHANE SOLANO, VENTURA
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