Defend Greyhound
I agree with Bill Densmore's letter ("City needs Greyhound," Your Views, Nov. 5).
I, too, have used Greyhound for intercity and interstate transportation.
I lived in the Riverside area long before Greyhound was moved to its current location. While I saw some questionable behavior from a few passengers, I personally never encountered a problem. I saw more criminal activity from transients and those using city buses than from anyone using Greyhound.
I have a friend who is a longtime business owner near the downtown terminal. My friend was the victim of an attempted robbery at the business a couple of years ago. The suspect escaped and my friend was not injured. It's possible, but unlikely in my opinion, that the robber immediately jumped on a Greyhound bus as a getaway vehicle.
There will always be crime to some degree at the downtown bus terminal. To blame crime on Greyhound bus passengers alone is unrealistic.
STEVEN GREGORY
Banning
Don't lose buses
Greyhound wants to serve Riverside, and many people in the Riverside area want the buses here, as well ("Bus station to stay open 3 months," Oct. 31).
I have used Greyhound for transportation and point-to-point shipping. Any effort by our city government to negatively affect mass transit and the primarily poor people who need it most should not be tolerated.
So the bus station attracts drug dealers? Does anyone think that they will relocate when the bus station goes away? They will just find another corner in Riverside where they can ply their trade.
The Police Department should be ecstatic about the status quo. Apparently officers know where the criminals are. They are conveniently located at the bus station, and that is where the police could set up stings and arrest them.
Or do the police really only do that on television?
Save our bus station.
JAMES HUCKS
Riverside
Voters chose freely
Many readers are struggling, I think, with a simple reality.
Barack Obama won the presidency of the United States not because the press had a love affair with him ("Press crowned Obama," Your Views, Nov. 14) or because of race ("An Obama win? How?" Your Views, Nov. 9).
Members of the press did not influence this election, and race is a word better used to describe the competition between candidates, not the color of their skin.
President-elect Obama won this race because of the popular vote, and to suggest that the majority of people are mindless imbeciles who can only choose a candidate at the direction of the press is insulting.
I chose Obama because he inspired me. He has ideas to make our economy stronger and our world better. I did not vote for Obama because he is black any more than I voted for Bill Clinton because he is white.
Stop the divisive remarks that tear away at the fundamental idea that we are a united nation.
DALE E. BENNETT
Hemet
Drill was essential
Letter writer Jay Gaskins questioned the value of the recent earthquake-preparedness exercise ("Worthless drill?" Your Views, Nov. 14).
It is apparent from his comments that Gaskins does not understand the goals of exercises such as these -- to provide private and public agencies an opportunity to activate and utilize the emergency response system in a disaster scenario.
After 9/11 and hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the entire country has been working hard to ensure that the U.S. has an emergency system capable of mitigating the dire results of such events.
The emergency system is more than first responders showing up. It involves local, county, regional and state emergency operation centers.
Gaskins asked how much the exercise was costing us. This is not the question. The question should be: What will it cost us if we are unprepared for the next disaster?
MARC ANDREWS
Moreno Valley
Liberal collusion
The column by Bill Maxwell shows the bias and collusion between liberal media and liberal academia ("Nurture discourse," Nov. 13)
If this nation is about equally divided between liberals and conservatives, then using the traditional liberal concept of affirmative action or proportional representation, that would mean half of university instructors and half of media reporters should be conservative.
That is the basic goal of David Horowitz, Michael Barone and other conservatives -- including me.
It is lunacy to think that liberal college professors will present competing views without bias. I would not be able to do that, and anyone being honest would admit the same.
I am not faulting bias. I am faulting the dishonesty that comes with saying people can be purely objective.
Columns such as Maxwell's insult my intelligence.
GEORGE PEHLVANIAN
Riverside
Published: Monday, November 17, 2008