When did it become OK to take your dog everywhere? Was it Paris Hilton who made it OK--if that's the case we're all in trouble. She's also in the middle of making an album--does that mean all of us can do that too?

Recently I saw two totally disturbing things. First, I was sitting in Noah's Bagels on Lincoln Avenue on a Saturday morning at the counter looking outside. There was a couple sitting at a table with two dogs. Believe it or not, they had brought two pink cushions to put on the chairs for the dogs. They didn't even have cushions for themselves, yet the dogs had them. Chairs are at a premium on Saturday morning at Noah's yet two were occupied by dogs. I guess the people could sit on the ground.

Second, I was at Pasta Pomodoro on The Alameda on a Sunday evening and a woman arrived with her dogs. She was seated at an outside table next to me. She didn't have her dogs on a leash walking them, god forbid--she was carrying them. So where do these dogs sit during dinner? Believe it or not, one of them sat on the table. I don't know about the patron using the table after her, but I wouldn't want that to be my plate of pasta placed in the same spot the dog's butt had been.

Are these people really craving attention so much that they have to take a dog everywhere so people notice them? And how do they know the dog wouldn't rather be home relaxing on its pink cushion instead of sitting at Noah's.

I love animals, but give me a break.

Mary Hernan

Cleaves Avenue

Cut and run only
prods terrorists

I take issue with my critics regarding the anti-war/support Cindy Sheehan protest (letters to the editor, Sept. 14).

Mike Balistreri has no idea if I was in the military, have family in the military or have lost loved ones in Iraq. He makes numerous irrelevant assumptions about me personally. And we know what happens when a person assumes.

It is obvious that he doesn't feel threatened by terrorists and doesn't see that we are fighting a war. To "cut and run" as he and Peter Brown suggest would only embolden the terrorists. That is a shortsighted attitude and they are obviously not seeing the big picture: Terrorists want to kill Americans. They hate democracy. They love death.

Haven't they figured out that terrorists don't come from democratic nations? Just think what would happen if democracy was spread throughout the Middle East.

It is one thing to have honest debate about the war, and it is another thing simply to bash President Bush.

One last thought for Brown. If George Bush is such an "idiot," then how come Brown's political party couldn't find someone to win the 2004 election?

John DiGirolamo

Willow Glen