Letters

Letters may be edited for clarity and length. E-mail to letters@ocweekly.com, or send to Letters to the Editor, c/o OC Weekly, 1666 N. Main St., Ste. 500, Santa Ana, CA 92701. Or fax to (714) 550-5908.

COPY EDITORS GONE WILD
Wow, David S. Gray made your copy editor very angry Letters, April 27]! So angry that his or her big editorial response was to call him a bunch of nasty names and give him a wee (tiny, uneventful, trivial) lecture on punctuation. Whoa. That must mean that (like most far-left automatons) the copy editor hadn't the ability to respond on point. Well, after all, the big bad copy editor has a big-time job at the local OC far-left rag. That's pretty impressive, though not so impressive at all, really. So it goes. What a waste. Fire the nincompoop, and let's get some folks at the Weekly who can hold their own on point.
Dirk Yarborough
Via e-mail

The editor responds: Yeah, I didn't like the copy editor's reply either, but she told me to blow it out my ass! Beneath her inflammatory rhetoric, however, is impeccable logic: while quoting our colleague Jim Washburn, reader David S. Gray used a "sic"—the snottiest of all interjecta, one we employ with only surgical precision—and then stated that in Jim's column, the punctuation should have been outside the quotation marks. Mr. Gray was wrong, not so wrong that he deserved to be told to stick his "toungue" (as he spelled it) up his ass, but wrong enough, perhaps, that he had to be called out for his multiple ill uses of the language in a letter accusing us of abusing the language. If you're gonna lay a "sic" on us, you'd better be right. And if you're gonna take it to a copy editor on matters of punctuation, you'd best be prepared for hellfire!

Am I crazy, or did your copy editor spell the word tongue like this: toungue?

David S. Gray is a total asshole and should be beaten to death, but your copy editor needs to spellcheck.

P.S.: I'd make a great copy editor.
Jeanne the college dropout from RSM
Via e-mail

The copy editor responds: David S. Gray spelled it that way in his letter. That's why we put it in quotes: because he is an asshole. And if you think you'd make a great copy editor, please make a list of the errors in David S. Gray's letter and send them, along with your résumé and a cover letter, to resumes@ocweekly.com.

POOR PEOPLE
As a worker in the social service field, I was both pleased and proud of Rebecca Schoenkopf's story "Imagine Me on a Bus" [Commie Girl, April 21]. The title of my thesis for a master's degree in sociology was "Women in Poverty." Not only did Rebecca illustrate the many difficulties women and all families in poverty must endure, she clearly and accurately described the many obstacles that people face when trying to work within the system—and demonstrated that the system works quite well for those who are privileged and connected. I hope she continues to fight the good fight!
Donna Trahan
Long Beach

One of the pitfalls of socialism is that it can engender an attitude of entitlement and lack of gratitude, as was clearly illustrated in the typically puerile rant by Commie Girl in her April 21 column. She is a college-educated woman with a middle-class income, plus she has additional financial help in the amount of $900 per month from her child's Social Security benefits. Add that up for 17 years, and it comes to about $190,000 assistance to help raise one child. Most single parents would feel like they had won the lottery if they got that much cash, yet all she can do is whine about having to pay for his Medi-Cal. She also has no qualms about taking advantage of the Healthy Families program, which was set up to help the poor. What a selfish little wimp. Perhaps Commie Mom could kick in $100 per month, but she probably thinks that is a job for the government.
Asantay Williams
Via e-mail

Rebecca Schoenkopf replies: $190,000? I'm rich!!!! Not only that, but Social Security has really good cost-of-living increases. When my baby first started receiving it, he only got $600 a month, so I'm guessing that by next year or so, he'll be up to like $4 million a month, and then I will be laughing. At you! Now, I don't want to get all tit-for-tat, but let's take a look at what my buttercup's $900 a month pays for.

Half our $1,450 rent: $725.

Half our utilities: $100.

Groceries (he's a growing boy): $200.

School lunch and allowance: $80.

Private tutoring (he's a little behind, but catching up quick!): $1,200.

Day care: $0, since I've ordered my life so I can be with my son while I work from home.

Total: . . . Wait a minute! That's more than $900! Huh.

Could I find cheaper rent in OC? I suppose, but two years ago I was looking at two-bedrooms for $1,600 that had boarded-up windows and pit bulls tethered to the stairs. Could my son go without his fancy private tutoring? I guess so, even though it's working; but maybe he can skip junior high and high school and just join a gang! And I guess I don't really need to buy organic, healthful groceries for my son, so maybe I could save $50 a month there, and I guess he doesn't really need to go to basketball camp in the summers either, or on our annual road trip, but, man, he enjoys them so much! Also, in our house, we do Christmas and birthdays right, and it's not like I can go to sushi and just leave the kid in the car, so add on a couple of bills in eating out every month, because I totally do eat out, having selfishly neglected to take a vow of poverty when at 22 I took in my son. (And when the social workers who gave him to me explicitly stated he would always have health coverage.) But I agree: Commie Mom should get off her ass (she's a schoolteacher trying desperately to retire next year, but in 2001 her annuity-fund thingie pretty much went into the shitter) and start doing something for me once in a while! And I? Really, I should be more poor.