New Times / Letters to the Editor

Welcome, children of all ages

Roy Mueller, executive director - San Luis Obispo Children's Museum

Thanks to all the contractors, donors, Museum members, board members, staff, and volunteers who contributed to the successful grand opening of the San Luis Obispo Children’s Museum’s new first floor, The Caves of Exploration, on June 19 in celebration of the Museum’s first birthday.
 
The Caves of Exploration have been designed to appeal to children ages 8 to 12, but are fun for all ages.  Ten new exhibits offer opportunities to dig for fossilized sabertooth-cat bones, build and test structures on a table that replicates the forces of an earthquake, play music on an otherworldly earth organ, sculpt with magnets, get physical with an interactive video wall, create short animated films of an exploding  volcano with clay, and more.
 
Zoomtown, the Museum’s kid-sized city on the second floor, inspires children ages 5 to 8 to play imaginatively in a diner, fire station, performance stage, medical office, farmers’ market, train station, and a giant 17-foot-tall clock climber. Jelly Bean Junction, a unique train station for children ages 4 and under on the third floor, features a 13-foot-long replica of a Brio train engine.
 
We invite everyone to explore the delights of the San Luis Obispo Children’s Museum with their children or grandchildren this summer.
For more information about the Museum, visit slocm.org or call 544-5437.

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Kudos, kiddo

Bill Denneen - Nipomo

You published an excellent commentary by Emily Thurston (“Remove ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance,” June 25). It disturbs me to say this pledge, which is contradictory to the founding of America. She mentioned, “There are millions of devoutly religious people who just don’t worship an almighty power with the moniker God.” The Pledge promotes religious tyranny. My supreme being is a female, which I call Mother Nature. The time has come to remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance.

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How dare you?

Robert Bettencourt - San Luis Obispo

Astonishing! New Times gives a full page with mega typeface to a high-school freshman (“Remove ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance,” June 25) who presumptuously advocates for Buddhists that “under God” be stricken from the Pledge of Allegiance.

Young Emily Thurston contends our founding fathers would not have included “under God” because His name does not appear in such honored documents as the Declaration of Independence. If, by advancing this viewpoint through the pen of a naïve girl, New Times is goading God-fearing patriots to sound off, then you have got a taker in me.


It borders on the reckless to put such sophomoric points in print. “God” is well known as the English expression of deity; most of us revere deity under some monotheistic religion or other. Other terms for deity include “Creator,” as in “…endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights …” When Miss Thurston takes U.S. Government at Templeton High, she may recognize the source document.


Yes, Emily, be content: You may freely be an atheist in this country (try that in Iran). You and the Buddhists you presume to defend are free to remain silent as others around them say “under God;” the thoughtful ones know their very right to live freely has been purchased by the blood of others who fought to keep the government from establishing any particular religion. If you want to write about how the U.S. could more stridently oppose Chinese oppression of Buddhists in Tibet, we might be on the same page.


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Thanks to Thurston

Norman Mehl - Santa Maria

Emily Thurston’s opinion piece (“Remove ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance,” June 25) is one of the best I have read in a long time!

Many people do not know or appreciate the effort our founding fathers went to, to keep religion out of the government. Thomas Jefferson and Payne were both published atheists along with many others in the Constitution convention.

As an ex combat Marine, I think that the pledge is asked of us way too often. I also object to people who feel they need to lead us in prayer and end with Jesus Christ our lord.


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Thurston must have been brainwashed

J.E. Curtis - Baywood Park

Emily Thurston’s commentary (“Remove ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance,” June 25) had a very disturbing tone. Here is a high- school incoming sophomore who is filled with hate and rage against our country, Christianity, and our Pledge of Allegiance. This kind of rage comes from years of it being pounded into her by the public school system and possibly her parents. She does not know our history, only revisionism taught by hate mongers.

What is scary is that the so-called wall of separation is not and never has been legal. The entire point of the First Amendment to the Constitution is freedom to worship our God without being persecuted by government. Period. Like it or not, our country was, in fact, founded on Christian values by those who wished to escape such persecution and escape tyranny. Thanks to unprecedented hate, lies, and deliberate deception, people like Thurston do not know real history, just surreal history. It’s not okay to hate God’s people or our precious foundation. It’s sad that young minds like hers are so easily corruptible.

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What a writer

Norman J. Scott - Creston

Emily Thurston’s commentary (“Remove ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance,” June 25) was one of the gutsiest and most well-written public essays I have seen from a high-school student. I hope her classmates are as open-minded.

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Invoke a forefather

Mary Bradley - Cayucos

In regard to Emily Thurston’s June 25 commentary on removing God from the Pledge of Allegiance, I will simply borrow a great patriot’s words:

  “It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains.
   “A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom.
    “No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”
                                                                          —Patrick Henry

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Breastfeeding clinic downsized

Olga Mireles, Margaret Veyna, Yvonne Hill-Printup, - RN, IBCLC

We regretfully inform the community that effective June 26, a substantial cut in the San Luis Obispo County Breastfeeding Clinic occurred. Two out of the three lactation consultants were given notice, leaving one remaining consultant who will be unable to adequately cover the needs of the many families who need services. We understand the clinic will be limiting services to Community Health Center patients. The clinic routinely has seen approximately 2,100 patients, most of them not CHC patients. 

The clinic has a 30-year history of excellent service, adding greatly to the county’s impressive 95.1% average breastfeeding rate, This rate will be negatively affected by the loss of services. The Warmline is a bilingual phone line with approximately 20 to 40 calls per day answered seven days a week by a lactation consultant; this service is also closing.


The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended at least one year of breastfeeding and the World Health Organization and UNICEF have recommended at least two years. We have been in a unique position to initiate early intervention not only with the babies but have been able to assess the mothers’ physical and emotional needs.


We are concerned about the lack of advance notice (only two weeks) to explore options for the clinic to practice elsewhere. Any suggestions or offers would be appreciated.


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Bad genes suspected

Sean Shigley - Avila Beach  

Thanks to M. Power Giacoletti for a well-written letter (“Paso Robles fireworks waste money,” June 25). Gene 6 or 13 has definitely run amok by the looks of most of the current news in our world. Close a clinic that nurtures new life at its most vulnerable time, while two County officials collect almost $200 per hour to create more problems. Gene 6 and 13 have both been hard at work in the SLO County building department and Board of Supervisors for years. How about instead of spending $280,000 to put mosquito control on a ballot, devoting the money to help Dan DeVaul help others in our community? Did I say almost $200 per hour? Please keep us posted as to any gene therapies available to deal with the number 6 and/or number 13 dysfunction.

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Go get 'em, Dan DeVaul

Gina Carmen Turley - San Luis Obispo

I know there are many different types of people in San Luis Obispo, but if the Board of Supervisors represents a majority including the people on the hill by the DeVaul ranch, then the rest of us are enemies of the proper way to live in a town. I am so happy Dan DeVaul is suing the county. Now, I’m originally from the South and having lived here six years love a lot about this place. Yet if I told people in the South about the rules of the land in San Luis Obispo, they would laugh out loud on their porch swings with their sweet tea.
 
You have to get a permit here to walk out your front door on Tuesdays. The people who settled these parts back in the day were not worried about who had what carriage on their property; I think they were proud to live here and celebrate each other. When I drive on Los Osos Valley Road I can see the mountains just fine. Let’s be real here: Who is scarier, the homeless person in the night you walk by near the liquor store or the homeless person trying to find some peace in a shelter with folks who care?

The people making up the rules around here must have really fun lives keeping everything in neat order while forgetting about the joy and sorrow and messiness of being human. We all have problems, rich or poor, and we all need a home.

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Targeting Sotomayor

D. Duane Wall II - Cambria

Senate Republicans just announced they are going to  contest U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor on gun- rights issues. The United States just had doctor George Tiller assassinated in his place of worship, allegedly by a gun-rights fanatic. Guard Stephen Johns was gunned down at the Holocaust Museum by a gun-rights fanatic, and a respected football coach, Ed Thomas, was gunned down by an apparent gun-rights fanatic. No wonder the rest of the civilized world calls us a nation of gun nuts, as thousands are mowed down each year. 
 
And now America has loaded gun-rights fanatics drinking while packing in our National Parks: utter lunacy, Republicans.

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What do they have to complain about?

Ray Pezzoli Jr - Kihei, Maui and Avila Beach

I’ve never comprehended why Blacks and Hispanics claim America is racist and prejudicial, yet thousands from Central America and the Caribbean still desperately try to enter.


Apparently they, and our media, are not aware of this.

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