Regarding Noozhawk’s Aug. 23 article, “Protesters Sound Off Against Each Other Over St. Junípero Serra Statue at Mission Santa Inés,” the mission is a National Historic Landmark. It is allowed to get taxpayer funds.
In this day and age, church leaders should have some respect for the indigenous community that made the Mission possible through the exploitation of the desires of the King of Spain, which the Franciscan missionaries, believing Catholicism was the only right religion, were carrying out.
Each era has its blinders on. The mission building era is the same colonialism that happened in other parts of the world. We can now see the era through the eyes of the Chumash and all the others who made the settlement of the Santa Ynez Valley in the European tradition possible.
It would be respectful to all Americans of various faiths if all statues of saints or other icons were put on or in the religious buildings or in the cloistered interior gardens, not outside in freely accessible or visible public spaces.
Paulina Conn
Santa Barbara
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Randy Alcorn is entitled to his opinions in his Aug. 23 column, “We’re Following the Coronavirus Science, But to Where?” For instance, maybe the United States really is too much of a fractured mess for us to be able to enforce a real lockdown.
But then he goes on to say that the countries that have successfully controlled COVID-19 have actually failed because they have to deal with re-emergence of the virus. This is ridiculous.
In Alcorn’s single quantitative example, he talks about New Zealand having 105 coronavirus-free days followed by new lockdowns when the virus showed up again. That means that the country had months of being able to do things more or less normally, and once this new local lockdown is over, it will probably have more months of relative normalcy. How is that a failure?
Similar things are happening in various East Asian countries and some European countries. When better treatments or vaccines are available, their infection and death rates will be a tiny fraction of ours, and their economies and societies will have been functioning normally most of the time leading up to that.
The biggest problem they’ll have is the extent to which the world economy is being messed up by bonehead responses like that of the United States.
Peter Smith
Santa Barbara
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Retired Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Frank Ochoa’s Aug. 22 commentary, “History Collides on San Andrés Street,” and Neal Graffy’s earlier commentary, make a persuasive case to keep the name of San Andrés Street.
But I question whether there is any real desire to rename the street at all. I don’t live on Santa Barbara’s Westside but I have business clients there and have never encountered anyone looking to rename the street for Dolores Huerta. Shouldn’t residents and merchants get a say?
Santa Barbara has a lot of inocuous street names that could be improved if they were named after a person with a story and a history. Wouldn’t that be a better tribute to Huerta’s accomplishments?
Jennifer Garcia
Santa Barbara
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Great opinion piece, Judge Frank Ochoa! Thank you!
Ruth Ackerman
Santa Barbara
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Just had to say that I love Noozhawk publisher Bill Macfadyen’s writing. The Indio Muerto item in his Aug. 14 column, “Prince Harry, Meghan Markle Give Montecito a Royal Crush,” was a great short.
Thank you for all the hard work the Noozhawk team does.
Rino Dattilo
Santa Barbara
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A big THANKS! to Noozhawk for the complete coverage of the Santa Barbara Foresters and their spectacular victory in the NBC World Series! Sports editor Barry Punzal did great work keeping us regularly informed on their progress as well as the updates on players of the week and other awards. His writing brought each game alive.
Congratulations to Bill Pintard, his staff, the players and all of the volunteers who make Foresters baseball possible! Go Sters!
Kevin McDaniels
Santa Barbara
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Regarding the cause of the 2017 Whittier Fire, why on earth would the responsible party NOT be charged for the destruction and mayhem that they directly caused? That person cost people their homes, untold dollars in fire fighting costs, and put peoples lives in danger.
Claudia Matthews
Santa Barbara
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Patrons of the performing arts in Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties all miss live concerts, we miss our livelihoods. This is the rallying cry of live event workers around the world.
As many as 12 million people in the live events industry, an estimated 96 percent, are currently unemployed, furloughed or have lost up to 90 percent of their income. The world’s largest concert promoters have reported a 98 percent loss of revenue since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
In Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties, many of these mostly behind-the-scenes workers are represented by the I.A.T.S.E. (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States, Its Territories and Canada).
I.A.T.S.E. Local 442 was established in 1916. Stagehands in Local 442 work throughout the tri-county area at the Arlington, Granada and Lobero theaters; the Santa Barbara Bowl; the Thousand Oaks Performing Arts Center; and many other venues.
Performing arts organizations, theaters, orchestras, choirs, dance and opera companies, trade shows, venue management, food, bar and maintenance staffs, and vendors, not to mention hundreds of thousands of performers and entertainers (without whom there are no shows) are all affected. Also affected are film and television production, which includes designers, technicians, programmers, stagehands, rental shops, manufacturers and distributors of entertainment technology that include many of our members.
Live shows are not expected to return until at least 2021, and possibly even 2022. In the meantime, most of these workers are without employment, and many are without health care. Everyone in the entertainment industry implores the public to support all legislation that offers economic relief to the industry and continuation of the Pandemic Unemployment Act to provide relief to all those without work due to COVID-19.
Thank you for your consideration, and please stay safe and healthy!
Kelly Moore,
I.A.T.S.E. Local 442 president
Santa Barbara
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The environment scored a major victory Aug. 24 when the UC Office of the President announced that all campuses would phase out single-use plastics over the next 10 years.
Single-use plastics are a major source of pollution in California. Straws, plastic bags and utensils break down into microplastics that contaminate our oceans and can kill wildlife like sea turtles. As a student at UC Santa Barbara, I am thrilled that my school is taking this major step to protect our environment.
Now, we need the Legislature to follow the UC’s lead by passing the Plastic Pollution Reduction Act (Senate Bill 54 and Assembly Bill 1080). These bills would reduce plastic waste in California by 75 percent and require all single-use plastics to be recyclable or compostable by 2032.
I urge Assemblywoman Monique Limón, D-Santa Barbara, to vote for the Plastic Pollution Reduction Act now. Nothing we use for a few minutes should pollute our oceans for hundreds of years.
Sarah Jagger
UC Santa Barbara
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