Dump 'Im!

DECINZO (or "Cheap Shot Chintzy," as we like to call him) has gone once again in the cheaply rude and wrong direction. Chet Bardo (figured in this week's cartoon) is properly paid to do a nearly impossible and very important job: policing the rudeness and stupidity of the locals who abuse our State Parks with dogs and bikes. Bardo will lead his staff in the unenviable task of keeping those parks from total destruction by self-righteous, self-entitled Cruzers. Of course, those people are not in the majority, but their presence is obvious to locals and visitors who use the parks even occasionally. The job of maintaining the parks is not about someone who will "water the trees" and "feed all these poor deers" as DeCinzo ignorantly jokes; it is about squelching rudeness. Metro Santa Cruz should join Chief Ranger Bardo by dumping DeCinzo. 

 A State Parks annual pass holder,
Felton

Keep 'Im!

WHY DO YOU keep diddling with the cartoon content? The back page deserves a permanent space for Matt Groening whether it's Life Is Swell or Life Is Hell. Akbar and Jeff are hilarious and fun. Binky and his wife are just like me and mine! Bongo screws up like most kids!

Slowpoke and This Modern World are CRAP! And not funny! The only thing worth seeing this week is the Frenchy's ad! DeCinzo is always great, offbeat but to the point! Keep DeCinzo!

Mike Kaufmann,
Santa Cruz

Tiny Sounds of Agony

INSTEAD OF CRYING to the police about the anti-lab animal activists, the laboratory professors should heed the message: hey, those activists are really serious because what you do to animals is really bad. If you have no compassion and believe inflicting pain and suffering upon defenseless mice and rabbits is OK as they are insignificant, then something which is significant to you has been visited upon you.

Chopping off a mouse's leg to meter trauma pitch is one of the practices which is nothing but savage cruelty, and people are deeply offended by such "experiments." I visited a bio-lab years ago in college: beforehand I just assumed the lab animals were of a certain disposition and were resigned to their fate of aiding in "research." Then I saw the wide-open frightened eyes and quaking in their flanks and realized these poor creatures want to be back in their environment and free just as much as any of us. I have never forgotten that image.

The lab animal activists are finally getting the public to see the wholesale cruelty. Now it's in our consciousness, and once in awhile during our busy day and our walks on the beach, we'll bring to mind a sterile white room with chrome bars across stacked cubicles and the furry creatures quivering in fear--and the post-experiment "patients" making tiny sounds of agony.

And it's all done so the lab can pretend it's making advances in research so the biology department gets more funding and grants. Lab holocausts on animals is an atrocity and doesn't belong anywhere especially in a university whose humanity department teaches to respect all life.

Theodore F. Meyer III,
Santa Cruz

Fill Us In

IT WOULD BE NICE to hear from you why the HPC voted unanimously against La Bahia ("La Behemoth," News&Views, Aug. 13). Isn't there a story about the history of the now sadly decrepit building? Why do they feel so strongly that it deserves at least some degree of preservation?

Drew Meyer,
Santa Cruz

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