Wednesday’s Letters to the Editor - The Santa Rosa Press Democrat

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Press Democrat readers comment on massage parlor ordinance, and more.


Target the demand side too

EDITOR: Good news regarding Santa Rosa’s crackdown on massage parlors that are disguising their real trade: prostitution (“Massage business rules tightened,” March 6). I drive by a number of these establishments and have noticed locks on back doors, leading me to suspect there are trafficked women inside. It is disturbing and sad, and I feel helpless in how to rescue them. What if it was your daughter or sister or friend inside?

Having read the biography “Paid For” by Rachel Moran, I challenge anyone who thinks women willingly chose prostitution as a way to make a living. As she says, it is rape every time. Trafficked women are sex slaves.

How about hitting the demand side of this supply issue and going after the johns who pay? Economic theory proposes that to reduce supply we diminish demand. Go after and publish names of men who are arrested for soliciting. It used to be done, and I daresay it would go a long way to reduce the dubious massage businesses from profiting or being forced underground due to new ordinances.

JENNIFER ESPINOZA

Santa Rosa

Worst moment in history

EDITOR: Feb. 28 was the worst, most traitorous moment in domestic American history. We are in the midst of a coup that is difficult to perceive because we have been shielded by 250 years of democracy. This democracy, its rule of law, goodwill and alliances are being ravaged by Donald Trump, JD Vance and their legion of sycophantic partisan lackeys and appointees. I have never been so ashamed, so outraged, so sickened.

My entire professional life was spent defending our Constitution and its egalitarian precepts against communist regimes, terrorists and international criminals who Trump now openly embraces. Throughout 27 years in the U.S. Air Force, where I reached the rank of colonel, and 10 years in NATO, I have been prepared to die in defense of our country, its people, its democratic principles. I remain so prepared, only now the enemy has changed.

MICHAEL CUOIO

Forestville

Dressing for success

EDITOR: Maybe President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could get some advice from Elon Trump about dressing for success in the Oval Office.

BOB THOMPSON

Napa

Distinctions matter

EDITOR: Robert Koslowsky (“Finding efficiencies,” Letters, March 4) asks why there aren’t protests against Starbucks for reducing staff to streamline its operations, when there are protests against DOGE for “similarly” laying off thousands of government employees. The two things are not at all similar. Starbucks is a corporation that can do what it wants with its own money. It is answerable only to its shareholders. Donald Trump and Elon Musk, on the other hand, are slashing funds and resources that belong to the American people and have been appropriated by Congress. Not to mention the fact that they are doing it in a chaotic and arbitrary way, damaging the lives of millions. Facts matter. Distinctions matter.

JOHN MASON

Santa Rosa

Russia wins

EDITOR: To date, Russia has seized around 20% of Ukraine. After the shameful display of international bullying in the Oval Office on Feb. 28, it is fair to say that Russia has also seized around 50% of the United States. The embarrassment of that anti-diplomatic display is gut wrenching. I have faith that European nations will step up to the challenge of defeating Vladimir Putin’s naked aggression. For now, no one should be foolish enough to count on the U.S. for support. We stand alone in the shadow of the Kremlin.

BRIAN NARELLE

Rohnert Park

You can send letters to the editor to [email protected].