Letters to the Editor

(In the local paper I founded and owned outright (we sold it nearly four years ago), our Letters to the Editor section was the most popular part of the paper. I had hoped to continue the same kind of back-and-forth, give-and-take with the new owners in charge but that was not to be. Conservative, libertarian, and/or common-sense articles no longer qualify for publication there. That’s their right as owners, but I believe it’s to their detriment. –

With Santa Barbara Current’s new format – and remember, this is still a work in progress – we – James Fenkner, Christy Lozano, and Bonnie Donovan, and I – hope to recreate the kind of fun I enjoyed going back and forth with readers, supporters, and detractors. However, since there is a “Comment” section at the end of every article, we may just respond there rather in a separate Letters section.

Please bear with us as we tackle these formative challenges.

In the meantime, here is just a trickle of some of the many comments we’ve received after delivering the first issue of Santa Barbara Current last week. – Jim Buckley)

Katina Zaninovich: I am thrilled to see these columnists in action again for our community.

John Buckwalter: This is very exciting news! Looking forward to being part of a community that shares common sense values.

Elyse Rossler: Awesome news… can’t wait for more commentary.

Stephanie: I’m so happy to see good folks resurrecting the best of the News-Press. This is the best SB news I’ve heard in quite a while! Thank you, thank you, thank you, and God bless you.

J. Livingston: Yes! I have so missed the News-Press Voices section on Sunday mornings.

Janice Evans: I'm so thrilled and thankful that someone is picking up the flag to carry it forward locally!  I've already thanked Jim as he and I have known each other for quite some time. 

When I got the message on Wednesday. I felt like it was my first Christmas present for 2023! I will help in any way that I can.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Dianna Peirson, SBCC Neighbor (47 years): Thank you! All the names involved in Santa Barbara Current are impressive. Local heroes all of you! My husband and I have missed your insights so much. I still grieve the loss of the News Press Sunday Editorial pages and getting this email has given me a “lift.” Another reason to be grateful this Thanksgiving!

Bob C: You lost me at Christy Lozano. Hmmm, you’re libertarian, really? Usually code for conservative republican.

(Editor’s note: I didn't call myself a libertarian. My words: "we of a libertarian, conservative, and (Dare I say?), common-sense bent..." describe a wide political range. As far as being [Shhh... someone may hear us!] a "conservative republican," I have two questions: 1) Maybe so, and the problem is?? There's not a Democrat alive that I would vote for (though to my perpetual shame I voted for Jimmy Carter his first time out; and 2) Why no caps?

Apparently, many folks like to hide behind anonymity [What's a "Bob C?" Are you a twin?] and those same folks then feel free to lambast those of us who've stepped up, named ourselves, and who are willing to defend our ideas and opinions. In any case, thanks for taking the time to comment. – J.B.)

Stephanie: What are the “sins” of Christy Lozano?

(Editor’s note: I believe her sin is that she isn’t a flaming lib, though she worked in the education/indoctrination complex! – J.B.)

Stephanie: Yes, most likely! And most likely Bob C is more of a doctrinaire leftist than a libertarian.

On Israelis and Palestinians

Thank you for David McCalmont’s (Deciphering October 7) excellent timeline. In fall of 1988, my late husband and I attended a talk – a plea, really – given by Edward Said at UCSB. I recall the talk was given in a small lecture hall over in the Arts building. I recognized some of those attending, including a few of Frank's colleagues from the English Dept. Said was there to speak on behalf of the Palestinians, this during the time of the uprising which was much publicized globally that year. Frank and I attended because we had just returned from six months in East Berlin. We heard all sides of the ongoing conflict through American Forces Radio, GDR news reports, and the BBC.

But that night in the lecture hall, Said could not be heard. Throughout, audience members shouted him down. I was stunned that professors I respected could heckle and berate as they did. Finally, Said raised his arms and stated: "What can I say? We are all animals, and we deserve to die." That's word for word. The shouting then continued.

I support Israel and her right to exist. I do not recognize "the other side" argument as is currently inserted following the October 7 pogrom. But the point of my Said story is really about the audience. At that time, liberal academics unequivocally supported Israel. But their response that night was uncivil, a mob. Nothing was achieved. Today, campus liberals engage in the same horrific behavior, even worse.

What has changed? Now it's Gaza and the Palestinian Arabs they embrace, and Israel is the villain. That's what makes today's anti-Israel protests so dangerous and now deadly. The motivation comes from blind political ideology which leads to bigotry, and the rise in anti-Semitism.

Celeste Barber

The Truth about Solar Panels

I should start by telling you what bona fides I have for writing this. I am a retired aerospace engineer. A literal rocket scientist if you will. I worked on MX (Peacekeeper) Space Shuttle, Hubble, Brilliant Pebbles, PACOSS (Passive and Active Control of Space Structures), Space Station, MMU, B2, the Sultan of Brunei's half-billion dollar private 747 with crystal showers, gold sinks and 100-dollar-a-yard coiffed silk carpets. I designed a satphone installation on Prince Jeffry's 757. I did all the design work for the structure of the Mark 1V propulsion module currently flying on at least three spacecraft that I know of.  Some of the more exciting projects I have worked on are not shareable. My personal projects include a spin fishing reel with a 4.5-inch spool, which is entirely my design, machined, and assembled.  It has two patentable features: a unique true flat-level wind and a unique line pickup mechanism. I am also an FAA-certified glider pilot and FAI-certified gold glider pilot. I fly both full-scale and model sailplanes.  I am Microsoft certified, and CompTIA A+ certified.

Solar panels are, at best, about 20% efficient. They convert 0% of the UV light that hits them: none of the visible spectrum and only some of the IR spectrum. At the same time as they absorb light, they absorb heat from the sun. This absorbed heat is radiated into the adjacent atmosphere. It should be obvious what happens next. When air is warmed, it rises. Even small differences in land surfaces can create powerful weather forces like thunderstorms and tornadoes. These weather phenomena are initiated and reinforced by land features as they are blown downwind. What will happen with the heat generated by an entire solar farm is all too obvious to me. Solar farms will become thunderstorms and tornado incubators and magnets.

Solar panels are dark and emit energy to the space above them when they are not being radiated. This is known as black-body radiation. Satellites in space use this phenomenon to cool internal components. If they didn't, they would fry themselves.

So solar farms not only produce more heat in summer than the original land they were installed on, but they also produce more cooling in winter, thus exacerbating weather extremes.

I conclude with this. There is nothing green about green energy except the dirty money flowing into corrupt pockets. There is no such thing as green energy. The science doesn't exist. The technology doesn't exist. The engineering doesn't exist. We are being pushed to save the planet with worse solutions than the problems.

George Franklin

Stephenville, Texas

(Editor’s note: This was a missive sent to a close associate who lives in Santa Barbara, and we asked if we could launch our Letters section with it. Permission was granted.

George’s letter tackles something that I’ve grappled with over the years, and that is “The Butterfly Effect,” which in chaos theory (associated with the work of mathematician and meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz) proposes that a small change in one state of “a deterministic nonlinear system” can result in large differences in a later state. In other words, even tiny, butterfly-scale changes can trigger violent results. I’ve often pondered what changes these massive wind farms in Texas, the California desert and elsewhere around the world, as well as the solar arrays like the ones outside Las Vegas are instigating. Mr. Franklin’s hypotheses begin to answer those questions, so we thank him. – J.B.)