“I Was Cougar Bait,” Feature, 2/11
Don’t Send a Square
What a missed opportunity on what could have been … should have
been … a very fun Valentine’s week cover story!
Why would you send a reporter who (seems square) and is married?!?
People want to hear what the REAL experience is like. What does happen
in that scene? How easy is it to hook-up, and what happens when you do
etc. etc. etc. Not some guy who is nervous, not looking forward to the
event, and worried about what his wife would say. BORING.
I would like a re-do.
George Brett, San Francisco
Don’t Send a Husband
What were you thinking, sending a married man to a singles event (“I
Was Cougar Bait”?)
That’s like assigning a vegetarian to cover a barbecue.
Gar Smith, Berkeley
Don’t Stroll Up to I
In your article, “I Was Cougar Bait,” you make much of your role as
a journalist. As such, your writing should be many things —
concise, factual, of current interest, etc. It should also be
grammatically correct.
I call your attention to paragraph 14 on page 13, which begins “Few
women were brave enough to travel alone….” In the middle of this
paragraph, you write “…only one other woman made as direct of an
approach as Melanie, strolling up to my friend and I…”
Surely, you should know better than to use a subject pronoun instead
of an object pronoun following either a verb or preposition. The phrase
should read “strolling up to my friend and me.”
I realize this particular grammatical error, substituting subject
pronouns for object pronouns whenever the object is more than one
person, has become an epidemic; but it behooves professional writers to
try to set a better example. Common mistakes do not justify violating
the structure of the language.
Your article was interesting, amusing, and informative — and
otherwise well written — which is why I thought you would be
interested in my nit-picking grammar.
Beth Weinberger, Oakland
Confused by a Flirt
I’d like to make it clear, at the Cougar party, I did approach Nate,
but at no time did I allure to going back to my place! (We only talked
briefly) and I enjoyed flirting with him a bit … I can understand
being out of the “bachelor scene” for so long he could get confused by
simple flirtation.
Cougar Melanie
“Labor Leaders, Have You Lost Your Damn Mind?” Raising the Bar,
2/18
Unions Need New Tactics
The growing divisions within the labor movement are not a case of
“losing your mind.” They reflect different perspectives and interests.
Corporate and business unionism is unable to win gains for working
people and the issues cannot be won anymore using the same old
tactics.
I suggest that you learn about what the workers in the hospitals,
clinics, and hotels are saying about their conditions and issues and
you might learn something that you failed to note in your article.
Steve Zeltzer, San Francisco
Reframing the Fight
Mr. Youngdahl makes the common mistake of thinking that this is a
fight between Sal Rosselli and Andy Stern. This is a fight between Andy
Stern and the members of UHW. Within ten days of the trusteeship, the
NUHW (National Union of Healthcare Workers) filed decertification
petitions in 101 bargaining units for 25,000 workers. That means that
the rank-and-file leaders of the union ran the petitions while the
staff was on administrative leave.
SEIU better realize that the members of UHW have made a decision to
leave SEIU in the thousands, and people like Mr. Youngdahl should at
least learn the name of the union they are talking about before
pontificating on its chances of survival.
Robert McCauley, former UHW Staff, Richmond
The Elephants in the Room
When two elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled.
— African proverb
The elephants here are indeed Andy Stern and Sal Rosselli. The grass
is the workers making up the turf that is being fought over.
The leadership of pre-trusteeship UHW-W agitated the membership to
believe that representation by SEIU was the worst thing that could
happen to a worker. But loss of their jobs is also not good. Of course,
that is not the concern of NUHW pushers who were formerly UHW-W
leaders. They can just sit back now and wring their hands over those
poor, poor workers who got involved in trying to get their sisters and
brothers to sign petitions to decertify or deauthorize SEIU in
UHW-W-represented facilities, and who now have lost everything.
Oh wait — they didn’t just sit back. No, NUHW actually posted
a flyer complaining that SEIU is not defending these people.
Mr. McCauley, the former USW staffer who thinks that the speed with
which UHW members got signatures on NUHW petitions spells success for
NUHW, steps smartly over the part where Jay Youngdahl points out that
the leaders of NUHW “will have to work with no money for salaries or
expenses unless they can find a rich angel to fund them.” The
“expenses” in question include the legal costs of helping a worker who
has been fired for circulating a petition in opposition to the union
recognized by the employer. SEIU is under no legal obligation to spend
the money of its other members in order to defend people that employers
have chosen to punish for engaging in anti-SEIU activity. Sure, people
have a right under the law to engage in collective action to change or
oust unions. But realistically, rights have no meaning unless there are
resources available to take a case to court, or to even win the
opportunity for an NLRB hearing. And as Mr. Youngdahl so astutely
comments, NUHW has no resources.
I have been following this sorry saga for several years now, and
nowhere did I see where the NUHW leadership ever warned the members of
the UHW-W that they would be engaging in anti-SEIU activities at their
own peril. I see much snarkiness on the Perez Stern gossip blogsite
about how badly the anti-SEIU membership of UHW-W is treated by the
current post-trusteeship leaders, including how the former staff of
UHW-W that assisted in the aforementioned anti-SEIU agitation of the
membership has not been welcomed back to work for UHW-W with open arms.
What I don’t see is any useful information, like the fact that elected
union leaders (or their delegated authorities) have an absolute right
to fire staff that has opposed any policy of the union — unless
the policy is illegal, but even then, you gotta prove that in court.
Also, any claim that SEIU is violating its duty of fair representation
hinges on what constitutes “fair” representation. In other words, for
those workers fired while passing around anti-SEIU petitions or
refusing to bargain while represented by SEIU staffers, good luck with
a) proving that that was the reason you were fired, or b) arguing that
SEIU has a duty to represent persons working against SEIU.
Again, without resources, it is always the grass that gets trampled
when the elephants fight. All of the pretty talk of thousands and
thousands of workers who signed NUHW petitions won’t save a single
blade.
Sherry Minson, Willits, CA
“Food-Free Zone?” News, 1/21
Not Very Buddhist of Them
The Thai Temple’s recent campaign to “save” the Temple was
completely irrelevant to the actual issues, yet it successfully won the
Temple everything it sought in a city permit for its restaurant and
other expansions. No one was trying to shut down the Temple or end its
Sunday restaurant. There was nothing to “save,” but the extensive
campaign stirred up hundreds of people, even lawyers from the Asian Law
Caucus, who believed they needed to help “save” the Temple and protect
it from “racism” and “religious intolerance.”
The neighbors simply sought the usual environmental mitigations that
are routinely devised for impacts of large-scale operations —
noise, odors, crowds, parking, and height limits. These are equal
opportunity issues in any urban area. None of the Temple supporters
share a backyard fence with its outdoor restaurant every Sunday. None
of them live on a street where traffic and overflow parking from the
Berkeley Bowl is directed by city design. The neighbors who are
impacted could hardly be more racially or ethnically diverse.
The Temple never actually conversed with neighbors to identify
agreeable mitigations. Its participation in a city-ordered mediation
consisted of saying “no” to every topic or creative solution proposed.
Its campaign to “save” the Temple, however, convinced the majority
members of the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB), who took on a role to
— based on their own words — “protect religious freedom”
instead of reviewing the details of zoning issues. “C’mon, people,”
board member Deborah Matthews told the neighbors from her seat in the
hearing room. “We’re talking about Buddhism.” In fact, we were
not talking about Buddhism. The ZAB’s failure to recognize this was
enough to make adjacent Berkeley homeowners throw up their hands in
dismay. Are facts relevant anymore?
Now that the Temple has a use permit and thus has been “saved,” the
only remaining question is whether the Temple Board of Directors will
finally engage sincerely in constructive conversations with its
neighbors.
Carolyn Shoulders, Berkeley
“Skank Till You Drop,” Music, 2/11
Better Than Lars
I’d go see the Uptones any day, even without the $500 skankin’
prize. There is no band better performing today in the Bay Area —
and that means you Metallica.
Jana Kaufman, Berkeley
Corrections
In our February 18 Seven Days column “Bart Cop Craziness,” and in
the February 13 blog post on which it was based, we erroniously wrote
that Oakland City Councilwoman Desley Brooks led a mob of angry people
as they took over a meeting of the BART board of directors. According
to the San Francisco Chronicle, upon whose account our
description relied, Brooks attended the meeting and argued with BART
director Joel Keller, during which several members of the audience
briefly charged Keller. But there is no evidence to suggest that Brooks
was responsible for the crowd’s actions.
In our February 25 Museum and Galleries pick, the work shown is “A
Trapped Star Escapes,” not “Self-Portrait for Hotsapien.com Video Interview.”
