Pave It
Your fawning ode to this idiocy (“A Square Is Born,” May 17) shows that you are just in it for whatever advertising revenue you can get, this time from businesses around this public park. But not a word about the disruption to traffic: Mendocino Avenue is the main north-south thoroughfare aside from 101. In 1967, saner minds ran the city and made room in this underused park for important traffic connecting the south of Santa Rosa with the north. Now such traffic must wind its way around several left and right turns, slowing traffic and greatly adding to the noxious exhausts of slow-moving, often-stopped vehicles as they navigate the many turns.
It’s a testimony to the greed and short-sightedness of whoever is running Santa Rosa right now. Instead of attracting folks to local businesses, it will drive them to the 101 freeway.
Money is, of course, always an object, but instead of leaving well-enough alone, with two parks instead of one, any intelligent traffic planner or civic leader could have opted for an underground extension of Mendocino Avenue to allow free movement of vehicular traffic and expanding the park above back into its native big-square configuration. Think of Geary and Masonic boulevards in San Francisco. No doubt, some local politicians will add to their bank accounts from local businesses hoping to capitalize on increased business.
Graton
Climate Apocalypse
Polar bears in sunglasses
lolling on melting land masses
Penguins in sombreros
driving fossil-fuel Camaros
And if all the rising seas don’t fall,
we’ll never see any atolls at all
Greenland is so green now
that it’s filled with nudists
In Iceland, further south,
there frolic the lewdest
In America, once the Garden of Eden,
between its shining seas, a desolate desert scene
Might it be caused by corporate greed?
Could that just be the reason why?
Nah! A Chinese hoax! Pay it no heed,
we all know how scientists lie
Just ask our current president,
now there’s a really stand-up guy
Santa Rosa
Let It Fly
As proud, patriotic Americans, we flew the Stars and Stripes on Jan. 20 to commemorate the inauguration of President Donald J. Whatsisface. Only it flew upside-down, to acknowledge the dire crisis our country was in on that dark day and will be in for the next four years. On that day, I saw two other American flags flying upside-down in our west Petaluma neighborhood alone.
Ever since I can remember, we always flew the American flag on June 14, which is Flag Day. This June 14, that tradition will continue, even though it is slightly tarnished by President Whatsisname’s 71st birthday. And again, we will fly our flag upside-down. What better way to honor our beloved flag and at the same time, say “Happy Birthday, President Shitgibbon”?
Petaluma
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