Letters to the Editor

Kaplan slips: Lee Kaplan ["Kaplan Responds," Letters, Aug. 23] continues spewing his rage against those who dare criticize Israel or America's support of it by raking reporter Eliza Strickland over the coals for her story ["Disturbing the Peace," Aug. 9] on his actions to infiltrate, defame, and shut down the peaceful pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement, whose most famous member was Rachel Corrie, the American hero who died trying to prevent an Israeli soldier's bulldozer from demolishing a Palestinian home.

But I digress.

What moved me to respond was that, at the end of his tirade, Kaplan beseeched would-be followers to join him in his hunt for members of the ISM he brands as anti-Semites and self-loathing Jews, by writing to him at an e-mail address that reads, "stoptheism-dot-com."

Get it? Stop. Theism.

Can there be a more Freudian slip in this vast war on behalf of what is essentially a Jewish Vatican in the Middle East?

Mykel Cardoza
San Francisco

Yes, theExaminer is a blight upon our city: Thanks for the story ["Chuck and Run" by Martin Kuz, Aug. 9]. I talked to organizations including the Examiner, the city attorney, the DPW, and my supervisor's office regarding the copies of the Examiner left lying on my street. I also called many of the other supervisors about the issue. I even told everyone the Examiner was violating the anti-leaflet and trash ordinances, but I got nowhere after many phone calls.

I just spoke with Matt Dorsey of the City Attorney's Office, and he indicated that he would call the Examiner and inform them they have a duty to mitigate their litter. When ongoing, negligent leafleting occurs, that person or entity has a duty to deal with the mess. The DPW has also indicated to me that they are sick and tired of seeing the litter. If something doesn't get done, I am going to Superior Court and filing a nuisance complaint. I am completely and utterly fed up with the state of rotting newspapers around the city.

Mark J. Fiore
San Francisco

Government so small you can drown it in the bathtub: I must say that nothing cries out tyranny like Eliza Strickland's "traditional" interpretation of government in her "Eminent Changes" [Aug. 23] article. As an aside to the article, how do you decide what is the "collective best interest" of people when you say that government is the election of people to " ... make some rules that ensure we're all pursuing our collective best interest"?

The government's job is to protect the rights of the individual person to live their lives as they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live the way they choose. Limiting my freedom because someone else can't responsibly handle theirs is tyranny.

Brian Perry
South San Francisco

Hot for teacher: Chloe Veltman's review of "The Trip to Bountiful" [Aug. 9], currently playing at the Actor's Theatre of San Francisco and starring Jean Shelton, was very good, with one very important element lacking.

I don't know if Chloe was one of Jean's students, but I think I speak for everyone who ever had Jean as a teacher, whether for one semester or several years, when I say that the thrill of seeing her on that stage is not only in her performance, but also in watching her bring to life the techniques and nuances she has been teaching us all these years. The fact is, most of us have never seen her act.

It must have felt a little frightening to her, and at the same time exhilarating, to be on that stage. I would like to applaud her performance and her spunk and say that we are all very proud of her. Whether we are her students now or have gone on to be successful actors in our own right, we can smile and say she has been our teacher and touched our hearts, in ways only each one of us can understand.

More importantly, we hope she has much more of that wisdom and spunk to impart before she's done.

[Name withheld]
San Francisco