What a Year
Thanks, Tom (“The Year in Review,”
Dec. 20). You’ve recapped a momentous year that we are all looking forward to putting behind us. Now I’m relaxed.
Via Bohemian.com
Humans Before Institutions
Alan Wayne and Paul Livingston got letters printed in your Dec. 27 edition. Although Mr. Wayne only hinted at it,
Mr. Livingston actually brought out the old communist boogeyman. I do not want to get rid of either the market or the central government. I don’t think either of them is inherently evil. I am not a communist, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think Marx ever made any good points. Like all of us, he was sometimes right and sometimes wrong.
One of the things he was right about is that human institutions are just that—human institutions. Money and the market are human devices intended to aid in the distribution of goods and services among the population. When they are not serving the interests of a given society, it makes sense for that society to change how they are being managed. In a democratic republic, it is up to the representatives of the people to manage the above-mentioned institutions for the good of the society as a whole, not only for the good of those obsessed with the accumulation of money and power. To put human institutions above the humans they are intended to serve is one of the prime foundations of authoritarianism.
Santa Rosa
Journey
Not Over
Wondering where the coverage of Journey’s End mobile home park has gone? No news story of the fire in the last month, in any local media—KSRO, the Press Democrat, the San Francisco Chronicle or the Bohemian—mentioned how these victims are doing. Where are they? What is their situation now? Surely they deserve more recognition.
The omission is glaring in some cases. For instance, “Resilient City” in the Bohemian’s Dec. 13 issue read: “[T]he city adopted an ordinance aimed at speeding up reconstruction . . . [that] created a ‘Resilient City Combining District’ that loops Coffey Park, Fountaingrove, Oakmont, Montecito Heights and the Round Barn/Highway 101 corridor into a special building zone.” Not a mention of Journey’s future. Where is Journey’s End in the mix?
Santa Rosa
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