Letters

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THE KIDS ARE . . .
Editor's note: The following two letters are in response to Nick Schou's “Jose's Choice” (Jan. 20), which profiled a Santa Ana couple whose children may be taken away because, county officials say, wife Angela Rosiles tested positive for methamphetamine after giving birth to the couple's fourth child. Angela and Jose claim she has never used meth and that the test is flawed.

It is apparent that Mrs. Rosiles may have justification for testing positive due to her asthma medication. Unfortunately, county officials prefer to punish her children and her husband with threats of sending the children to foster homes versus investigating the possibility that there may have been a mistake in the drug-testing results. They prefer to protect themselves from potential liability and scandal instead of doing the right thing by admitting a mistake. Mrs. Rosiles chose to exercise her freedom of speech and spoke out in defense of herself—now, Orange County officials are going to make her pay the price for speaking out publicly.
Debby Bodkin
Via e-mail

Angela Rosiles claims a friend gave her a pill that would “calm her down” two days before she gave birth. If Angela was willing to take a narcotic (legal or illegal) she knew nothing about while pregnant, she is, at best, stupid and, at worst, criminally negligent. If she wants to blame the whole scenario on her friend, that means Angela Rosiles is hanging out with people who, at the very least, think nothing of dispensing meth to pregnant women. I am already getting a sense of the type of environment in which the Rosiles raise their children. Also, Angela refuses to complete the drug classes because she insists she does not abuse drugs. I can see her point. If the drug test is a false positive, she has been unfairly forced to take these classes. However, which is her bigger priority: standing up for her allegedly abused rights, or MAKING SURE HER CHILDREN ARE RETURNED TO THEIR PARENTS? If she really, truly loved and cared for her children, she would be doing anything in her power to get them back!
Joanna Kahn
Anaheim

KING ME
I'd like to thank Steve Lowery for having the courage to point out how America's media, and America itself, has tried to make Martin Luther King into some kind of cutesy, cuddly doll [“Diary of a Mad County,” Jan. 20]. I too am tired of the never-ending loops of “I Have a Dream” with people clapping enthusiastically. That isn't how it was. I grew up in the '60s, and I remember most white people, at least the ones where I grew up, were scared that Dr. King was going to cause some kind of uprising. What's really amazing to me is that the media has also attempted—successfully, to some extent—to make Malcolm X cute and cuddly, and he really was trying to cause an uprising.
Jim Thomas
Via e-mail

Steve, your MLK piece was simply superb! Can we clone you?
Dr. Fisher
Via e-mail

STERN
I have no grievance with Greg Stacy [“First Person,” Jan. 13], in fact, I think Howard Stern is one of the most gloriously funny people on the planet. No one on the radio can tie Stern's shoes. However, for Stacy to suggest that Stern had a political epiphany that left him hating George W. Bush and everything on the political Right is pure bullcookies. Stern is a middle-of-the-road libertarian. If Stern hates any politician, it's Teddy Kennedy, but I guess Greg forgot about all those anti-Kennedy rants. For Howard Stern, everything—EVERYTHING—is well-planned self-promotion. The entire retiring-from-radio escapade (talk dirty, get fined, talk dirtier, get fined, feign outrage, get pissed at the president, “fight the power,” threaten to resign from radio forever, decide that the only alternative is satellite radio) was calculated very carefully from the beginning. Stern knew before his first anti-Bush/free speech rant that he was going to go to satellite. I'd like to ask any regular Stern listener: When is the last time Stern ever made any decision without first commiserating over it for months on the air? This time, instead of whining about the move, he devoted his time to whining about the president. I'll guarantee you that George Bush doesn't give a flying fig about Howard Stern.
B. Dirk Yarborough
Costa Mesa

SISTER CHRISTIAN
“Thank you” does not even begin to express my gratitude to Gustavo Arellano for his relentless search for the truth, especially in his “King of the County Pedophiles” [Dec. 17]. Like my brother “Michael,” one of the many boys molested by Eleuterio Ramos with full church knowledge, Gustavo wants to clean up the Catholic Church, not tear it down. I watched firsthand, all those years ago, how the church's hierarchy and their lawyers tried to annihilate Michael. All that pain they put Michael through just made him stronger and more determined not to let anyone suffer what he did. Even though it was brutal to read my brother's and next-door neighbor “Robert's” story, at last their hellish experiences have been told. Tonight, I am going to think about our lives before Eleuterio Ramos—the acorn fights, bike and running races, holiday parties, all those memories the soul-stealers could not take from us.
“Michael's” sister
Via e-mail

AGREED
Your new website sucks. Your rag sucks. I hate you.
Fred
Via e-mail