By sticking up for CeCe Pinheiro, screaming from the rooftops their love for Chris Rene, and crunching the numbers on national healthcare, readers let us know what’s up.
Other Side of CeCe
While I read the Santa Cruz Weekly on a regular basis and normally admire its articles, I found the article on CeCe Pinheiro (“CeCe Puede!,” Currents, Nov. 7) to be an abomination and nothing less than defamation of character. I’ve known Ms. Pinheiro for about four years and have found her to be competent, compassionate and responsible, and not the nutcase your article makes her out to be. While Georgia Perry writes amusingly and the whole thing reads like a comedy routine, I would remind Georgia that portraying someone as surreal leaves an imprint on their character. This someone is the executive director of a non-profit, former school board member and active in community leadership, and would have made a good city council member. Outspoken, perhaps, but a good solid candidate nonetheless. Let’s take care with our words—they can hurt people.
-C. D. “Fin” Finley, Capitola
Sleep Away Rene
A no-show by Chris Rene to sing the National Anthem at the “Showdown in Surftown”; Santa Cruz is :O!!! PLEASE PLEASE HAVE YOUR PEOPLE CHECK IN ON CHRIS RENE PLEASE I BEG YOU FROM HEARTS ALL OVER THE GLOBE PLZ PLZ PLZ !!!!!!!! PLZ TELL HIS FANS “IT’S GONNA BE ALRIGHT” OMGOSH THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME <3 THANK YOU THANK YOU <3
-Joanna Hale, New Zealand
Suspecting that Ms. Hale’s letter might be intended as a sarcastic jab at Rene’s often-intense fanbase (and not yet knowing she was writing from New Zealand), we contacted her, and it turns out nothing could be further from the truth. “My teenage daughter is Chris Rene’s #1 fan here in New Zealand,” she writes. “Chris Rene communicates often everyday via social media….then out of the blue, not one word from him for days in a row causing great concern to my daughter and no doubt all Chris’s fans world wide… we Renealians took it upon ourselves to find him!…As it turned out, Chris was resting, a simple case of jet lag! We’ll try not to panic in the future lol!” — Editor
The Facts About Medicare
Let’s get the facts straight about Medicare, the preservation of which should be of vital interest to every American regardless of political affiliation. The cost saving measures of the Republican plan and Obama’s proposal, an estimated $716 billion, are exactly the same. There are major differences in the two plans, however, in that the Democrat plan is geared to maintain Medicare as it is–guaranteed healthcare for older Americans.
In the Obama plan, there are no benefit cuts. The cost saving measures ($716 billion) come from reduction in payments to insurance companies and hospitals. The hospital industry has agreed to this because they’ll get more patients and fewer people who can’t pay to be treated for which hospitals have to pick up the costs. These are modest, reasonable cost reforms over 10 years needed to keep the program viable.
It was Democrats who conceived of and enacted Medicare (1965), and Republicans fought them every step of the way, just as they did Social Security and the minimum wage. Every advanced country on earth has some form of universal healthcare for its people. Remember Canada? There’s lower growth in healthcare costs, they spend half as much per person as the U.S., and the healthcare outcomes are the same.
-Will Shonbrun, Boyes Hot Springs, CA
