Letters

ROAD TO RECOVERY

I feel compelled to comment on your recent article, “One Too Many for the Road” [by Bob Rowland, June]. DUIs and drunk driving are touchy subjects that have affected nearly everyone in one way or another, yet very little real progress has been made in stemming the tide. Mr. Rowland’s article was a good one in that it covered all the problems stemming from a DUI economically, legally and otherwise. He brought up a very good point about the current .08 blood alcohol content (BAC) in effect in most states. In California, it was .10 for many years. This .02-point drop brought about a huge increase in DUI arrests and revenue from those arrests.

What many people don’t know is that it also spawned a cottage industry of traffic schools, counseling centers and DUI lawyers. This brought in a huge amount of increased revenue to insurance companies and the court system. Very little of this revenue has been used on education and awareness campaigns. Nor has any of this money been spent on rehab or detox centers. San Diego’s only rehab center is slated for closure, and in a city of this size that is a crime.

While the general public thinks lowering the BAC was a good thing, it really has had almost no effect on DUI-related traffic fatalities and incidents. The average “Happy Hour” drinker who drives with a BAC of less than .10 is very unlikely to be involved in an incident, because the effect on motor skills and judgment is minimal. Yet our court systems are jammed full of such drivers. Many of these drivers are sent to mandatory AA meetings as if they were some sort of punishment instead of what they really are, a lifeline to the true alcoholic. We reluctantly sign their court cards and send them on their way. Some of them come back on their own, usually after a second or third offense.

The drivers we need to worry about are the chronic alcoholics who commonly drive with a BAC above .15 and are often uninsured and unlicensed. Many of them do not consider themselves alcoholic, just unlucky, and have only been to AA meetings a couple of times under duress because they needed to fill a court card.

Some of them, like me, listened, stayed and turned their lives around after using the free tools given at every meeting. For those like me, this was not a punishment but a reprieve from years of destructive drinking. I never slept under a bridge or did any of the other things people usually associate with alcoholics. I owned a home, had a job and a family, but was an alcoholic nonetheless. This is a malady of the spirit, not weakness of the will.

The tragedy is that most people have very little understanding of the disease, and very little is available outside of meetings that has any real effect. AA does not advertise or recruit.

The only thing missing in Mr. Rowland’s article was any mention of AA as a solution. There is a local central office open 24 hours a day (619-265-8762) that will supply information and help for free. San Diego has more than 753 meetings a week supported by a huge community of happy, sober alcoholics, of which I am one.

ERIC JACKSON
SAN DIEGO

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Why don’t we stop illegal immigration by banning the export of United States currency? We did this during World War II. I know because I worked at the Mexican border to remove U.S. currency from the wallets of travelers who were going to Mexico, or leaving the country.

Also, why don’t we tax these dollars?

This flow of U.S. currency is Mexico’s largest import. It allows Mexico to shift the huge cost of its welfare program to the taxpayers of the United States. Illegal immigration would stop soon if the same ban on the export of U.S. currency used during World War II was installed.

WILLIAM P. BROTHERTON
MISSION VALLEY

PRIVILEGED FEW

Now they’re telling us illegals might have voted in recent elections—and oh, what an outcry! But judging from the record-low turnouts at the polls, I say let ’em. Someone’s got to make electoral decisions for us since, apparently, we citizens don’t want to.

Perhaps those who’ve crawled through mud and dodged vigilantes to get here will actually appreciate the privilege of voting.

BILL CARLISLE
SAN DIEGO

BETTER THAN BEST

I have to take issue with one of your “Best of San Diego” selections [June].

The I-5/I-805 merge, which you picked as your best bet for a rear-end collision, can’t even hold a candle to the Highway 163 southbound area where it runs into Mission Valley. After 31 years of covering news in this town, I can’t begin to count the times I’ve seen crashes and near-crashes there—what with people trying to continue south on 163 or get onto I-8 or Hotel Circle. It’s a total mess.

What Caltrans designers had in mind there completely escapes me. I kinda suspect it escaped them as well.

DOUG CURLEE
KUSI-TV NEWS
SAN DIEGO

BACK TO SCHOOL

I loved your private schools article [“Ahead of the Curve” by Julia Beeson, July] and the whole July edition. The idea of covering key, discriminating facets of private education, as you did, will be enlightening to many parents.

In my experience, private school parents (11 percent of all parents) are a group who are willing to exert an extraordinary amount of extra effort into their children’s educations.

Thank you for supporting that through your excellent research and coverage.

STUART R. GRAUER, ED.D.
PRESIDENT, THE GRAUER SCHOOL
ENCINITAS

BASIC ECONOMICS

“Theater is too often perceived as an elitist pursuit, a diversion appealing narrowly to the middle- and upper-class white population. It’s not, of course, but whatever the reasons, audiences for stage productions comprise mostly those segments of society.” This quote is from your recent Stage column [by Don Braunagel, June]. Based upon my experience, the primary reason for this phenomenon is not narrow cultural appeal but rather a much more basic economic reason: cost of admission.

San Diego has a median annual income of $47,067, according to U.S. Census data. Thirteen percent of the workforce earns less than $8.35 per hour, according to the San Diego Association of Governments.

A brief survey of ticket prices in San Diego indicates that, on average, one can expect to spend $50 for a decent seat at a stage production. While tickets are sometimes available for a lesser price, these are often in locations that render the show nearly unwatchable, especially in the larger venues such as the Civic Theatre. Tickets to the San Diego Symphony range from $20 to $85, while attending the Mainly Mozart Festival at the Neurosciences Institute will set one back $42. The Old Globe is selling seats for $49 to this summer’s productions. Attending a show at Lamb’s Players Theatre will cost either $24 or $44. A high-altitude, side-view seat for the San Diego Opera or a Broadway/San Diego show in the Civic Theatre (an experience more frustrating than fulfilling) can be had for $27, but the next tier of pricing is $52 (still requiring binoculars). A truly good seat can cost up to $125 for a Broadway show, and a staggering $182 for the opera.

I am a middle-class employee in the software industry with a comfortable income. Even so, I do not attend all of the events I would like to see due to the cost. Many people who would love to attend the theater regularly cannot afford to budget $200 per month for entertainment (one show per week, excluding additional costs such as parking and additional ticket-handling fees).

As an example, during the 2005-2006 season of the San Diego Opera, there were at least three performances my friends and I found appealing. However, we had to choose only one, because most of my friends could not justify the cost of going to all three. We have to struggle to suppress laughter at these performances during the constant appeal to purchase season tickets, which would cost hundreds of dollars.

The irony is that the availability and quality of the arts in San Diego has been steadily and significantly improving over recent years. However, enjoying the full range of options is not economically accessible to a person who earns the median income in this city.

I understand fiscal worries are omnipresent for arts organizations, which are the first to suffer in stressful economic times. As an instrumentalist in a local wind ensemble, I have experienced this firsthand. However, a more reasonable pricing structure might widen the economic base to a broader audience, rather than relying on the limited number of wealthy benefactors. In a larger sense of civic duty, this would also enable more people to experience the arts who would otherwise not have a chance to do so.

KEITH SCHOOLER
NORMAL HEIGHTS

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