Willow Glen Resident

Letters & Opinions

Speak Out

Willow Glen well
represented in city

Congratulations to Nancy Ianni and Dave Fadness on their nomination to the General Plan update task force. They have been selected to represent council Districts 6 and 10, respectively, and I know they will do an excellent job.

The Aug. 3 article in the Willow Glen Resident overlooked another local resident: Harvey Darnell has been nominated to represent neighborhood organizations on the task force. It was my honor to endorse Harvey as he is perfectly suited for this position. He is president of the North Willow Glen Neighborhood Association, on the board of the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association, vice chair of Citizens for a Livable San Jose and also chairman of the Greater Gardner Strong Neighborhood Initiative Neighborhood Advisory Committee. In these various capacities, Harvey has worked tirelessly for years for the preservation and improvement of the community, such as improving streets in Gardner, the pool at Biebrach, and the designs of new projects throughout the city.

As a member of CalSJ, Harvey worked to improve the designs of the Tamien Place towers, minimize the traffic impact of the proposed stadium, and increase the fees developers are to pay toward parkland dedication. Now he is working to strengthen the protections for the riparian habitat throughout the city.

The list of nominees for General Plan update task force is quite impressive and is representative of the wide range of interests and concerns in the city.

Provided the task force is given sufficient time and resources to do its work, and provided the public participates and expresses their wishes and goals, the result should be a General Plan that will serve San Jose well for years to come. Congratulations, all.

Larry Ames

WGNA president and CalSJ chairman

Fox News doesn't report objectively

Boy, does Bob Kieve have it wrong, but more importantly completely misses the point ("Fox News is the target of an advertiser boycott," Aug.10).

The crux of the problem that Moveon.org, and so many others, has with Fox, is not that they don't like what Fox says or, more accurately, claims it reports; it's that Fox News clearly misrepresents itself. That is the objection.

Moveon.org doesn't like Rush Limbaugh's opinions or perspective either, but Limbaugh isn't being boycotted because he doesn't call himself a news organization.

People are being told that they are being given "fair and balanced" information, yet in the case of the Fox this so-called "news" is just blatant conservative spin, propaganda and proven time and time again to be lies. That is false advertising and consumer fraud, which dangerously lowers citizens' ability to rely on the quality and accuracy of their media sources and seriously endangers and erodes our democracy--which is exactly what is happening.

By the way, did Kieve also defame the "patriots" who boycotted and eviscerated the careers of the Dixie Chicks back in 2003? I completely believe in freedom of speech and the press, but I also believe that we have a right as consumers to know what we are getting and paying for up front, and Fox News is a scam.

We better start understanding, acknowledging and respecting the difference between opinion, fact and fiction in this country and the difference between editorial/opinion pieces and factual, accurate reporting or we will not be able to sustain the democracy we hold so dear.

It's important that someone point this problem out lest journalistic standards that are crucial to any democracy be further compromised and systematically destroyed and our country along with it.

A person can and should be able to express his or her opinion freely and openly, Mr. Kieve, along with the rest of us. Just don't label it news.

Carolyn Allen

San Jose

MoveOn.org way
exercises rights

Bob Kieve's diatribe against MoveOn.org in the Aug 10 issue of the Willow Glen Resident is a contradiction of his philosophy about free speech.

I thought it was the right-wingers who believed that money for political campaigns and advertising is equated with free speech. This can't work only one way. Where free speech is glowingly praised for an operation like Fox News, and MoveOn.org condemned because it wants to take the voice away from Fox News by cutting off its money supply through a boycott of advertisers.

Corporations have used the First Amendment to overturn restrictions on corporate spending for political campaigns, and the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld this action. Under this umbrella, money is free speech, so why can't MoveOn.org play the same game?

Fox News' demagogy is an inherently good cause for activists to shut down this kind of airwave abuse and a beautiful expression of free speech as it was originally intended--a citizen's advocacy of inalienable rights.

Furthermore, I bet MoveOn.org did not decide on this action at some corporate board meeting with all its yes men but was generated from the grassroots by freedom-loving people in general who abhor the abuses of corporations that exploit wars such as Dick Cheney with connections to Haliburton and Fox News with its spin.

Members of MoveOn.org would find Bob Kieve's comparisons of their actions with government censorship hilariously inept since Fox News has used its own propaganda as the network's main weapon of censorship with its own news stories.

Karl Humbarger

Almaden Valley

Resident speaks
for free speech

Can one person, Bob Kieve, president of Empire Broadcasting, be wrong?

Boy, can he ever! He claims in the August 8 issue of the Resident that contacting Fox advertisers to point out the content of what Fox is broadcasting is somehow attacking freedom of speech. He bolsters his argument with a non sequitur, assuming "Fox-haters" would censor media that reflect philosophies of which they don't approve.

Bob says, "It would be better if we simply responded to those opinions with which we disagree." I submit that is exactly what we are doing and it in no way restricts freedom of speech. Fox has a license to broadcast and it will continue to broadcast. I just want the advertisers to know that I understand the difference between fact and fiction and don't appreciate advertisers that support fiction presented as fact.

A handful of corporations own the media and there is no way for viewers to directly respond. Americans were given misinformation by the media that led many to support an unnecessary war. It is time we expect the media to serve the public interest, as they once were required to do.

Phillip P. Pflager

Cupertino