Letters

"Each of us has a friend or relative with a disability, elderly condition or such a difficult life that it’s left them a mess. If they’re fortunate, they have loved ones who help them along the way."

STREET SPIRITS

I was overjoyed to see your article about San Diego’s homeless citizens [“Down and Out in Balboa Park” by s.d. liddick, May]. Prior to this, I’d only read about the plight of America’s homeless through Street Spirit, a newspaper sold on street corners by people trying to escape the homeless underworld.

Each of us has a friend or relative with a disability, elderly condition or such a difficult life that it’s left them a mess. If they’re fortunate, they have loved ones who help them along the way. If not, they’re left to wither away on the streets, where a few cowards with badges may pick at them, just for sport.

San Diego is not all palm trees and sailing. It’s also about loathing the homeless and wanting them not to exist. Thank you for doing the right thing and focusing on this sad issue, which rarely gets the attention it deserves.

JOLIE M.
CHULA VISTA

POLITICAL POKE

I was reading my San Diego Magazine and came across the Juan Vargas Dialogue [June, with Tom Blair]. How could you run such a political piece when the primary was only weeks away? When will you run a Dialogue with Bob Filner?

I live in the 50th Congressional District [the old Cunningham district], and so I don’t have a vote in the election—for either Vargas or Filner. But I think what you have done is unfair. I subscribe to your magazine because I like to read about San Diego.

PAT KELIHER
RANCHO BERNARDO

OUTSIDE LOOKING IN

I live in landlocked cow town Denver, Colorado, and we love to visit your wonderful, fun, friendly city. During the time I spend reading your magazine, cover to cover, I can fantasize about the home I’ll buy, the restaurants I’ll visit, the events I’ll attend and the plastic surgery I’ll get! Your exceptional publication gives me a taste of what I hope to someday savor.

LAURA SCHUCHTER
DENVER

A CONSPIRACY?

Your magazine is a tool used by the corrupt San Diego government and greedy individuals like John Moores who represent Big Money in San Diego. They use your magazine to promote their avaricious agendas and deceive the public. They do this with your willingness to put forth the propaganda and disinformation they create.

I don’t expect to ever open another solicitation from you. Thank you for removing me and my wife from your mailing list.

JOHN J. MANISCALCO
SAN DIEGO

CAFFEINATED

My wife and I own the Bean Bar Coffee House & Drive-thru in the Point Loma/ Sports Arena area, and we enjoyed your informative article on local coffeehouses [“Mo’ Joe in San Diego” by Phyllis DeBlanche, May]. Thanks for highlighting the great coffee we have in San Diego. There’s plenty of room to grow this segment of our local flavor and economy.

We’re a little disappointed that you didn’t come across us in your research, though. We’ve been around for two years, and were recently voted Best Coffeehouse in San Diego and chosen as Business of the Year in our Business Improvement District, the North Bay BID. We serve Fair Trade, organic coffee and espresso, freshly made crêpes and a host of delicious pastries and other goodies.

We’ve also hosted some great events like “Beans for Marines,” where we joined 15 other local coffeehouses and Café Moto, our roaster, to send a few hundred pounds of freshly roasted coffee to the troops in Iraq; we’ve screened documentaries like Voices of Iraq; and also helped raise money for a local San Diego man who’s riding his bike from San Francisco to Los Angeles to raise money for AIDS research as part of this year’s AIDS LifeCycle.

If you do a follow-up, please keep us in mind.

RICK & LISA DIETERLE
SAN DIEGO

NEVERENDING STORY

I have a few “How San Diegan Are You?” items to add to your list [by Ron Donoho, March]. I live in North County now, which was better known as “Cow Town” back then. But these are memories from living in Mission Beach during the good old college days, and might bring back a few memories for others who hung out in Mission Beach and Pacific Beach about 30 years ago. You know you’re a real San Diegan when you:
• Ate spaghetti dinner at the Pennant bar in South Mission on a Tuesday night. It came complete with salad and garlic bread —for 25 cents. (We weren’t old enough to enter the bar, so we had to buy our meals at the back door. But it sustained us for several days, I think.)
• Chowed down at Tugs in Pacific Beach on Thursdays—one tostada and three taquitos for 75 cents. (Side entrance.)
• Rented roller skates at Hamel’s for 25 cents during winter.
• Wore a Raider Hater T-shirt to Jack Murphy Stadium for the Chargers-Raiders game and lived to tell the tale.
• Remember the Chargers’ glory-days greats like Kevin Winslow, Charlie Joiner, Lionel “Little Train” James and Dan Fouts.
• Watched Chargers away games on the sand, with a cardboard box around the TV to cut down on sun glare.

I could probably go on forever. San Diego is the best . . . and I love the magazine, too.

LORI HIGLEY

NOSTALGIA TRIP

Although I am a born-and-raised Chicagoan, I look forward every month to my San Diego Magazine arriving. I have been traveling to San Diego since the early ’80s and hope to make it my home one day. In the meantime, though, I enjoy the articles and photos and keep up with the news in your great city. When I open your magazine I am reminded of many great trips—strolling along Ocean Front Walk to the Firehouse Beach Café for breakfast, watching the sea lions in La Jolla and feeding the giraffes at the Wild Animal Park. See you soon!

DONNA KARPAVICIUS
OAK PARK, ILLINOIS

HISTORY LESSON

I thoroughly enjoyed Eilene Zimmerman’s article about Joanne Oppenheim’s book on former San Diego city librarian Clara Breed [“Letters, Love and Literature,” May]. I might be biased, since Zimmerman interviewed my father, Ben Segawa, for the article.

However, I must point out one mistake. The archival photos that accompany the story are part of the collection of the Japanese American Historical Society of San Diego (jahssd.org), not the San Diego Japanese American Historical Society. This is an important distinction, because JAHSSD is dedicated to preserving and sharing the rich history of Japanese-Americans in San Diego, and people who want to learn more about about this topic or other aspects of our history will have a difficult time contacting us.

It is our hope people will indeed want to examine our history. I believe it holds many lessons that are applicable today, particularly as it relates to current hotbutton issues like immigration and government-sanctioned wiretapping on citizens. These are issues the Japanese-American community faced during the first half of the 20th century.

DEBRA KODAMA
CHULA VISTA

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LETTERS WELCOME: San Diego Magazine invites letters from its readers. Send comments to Letters to the Editor, San Diego Magazine, 1450 Front Street, San Diego, CA 92101 or to tblair@sandiegomag.com (e-mail) or 619-230-0490 (fax). Letters must be signed to be considered for publication. Please type or print your name, as well, and include a daytime phone number. E-mail should include the writer’s full name and city. We reserve the right to edit letters for clarity and to excerpt them.

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