Agreeing with Fitzy and now this? Consider our touch lost

As a former college newspaper editor, one of the most annoying things I had to deal with was letters to the editor. Why are they so annoying? (Besides the question of who writes letters to the editor to a JuCo paper) Beacause 99% of the time those letter are...what's the technical term I'm looking for... oh, retarded. Letters to the editor for the most part are self serving piles of shit that have no business being printed. Mostly because these letters are either overwhelmingly reactionary and are written and sent almost instantly after the story is read or they're written by journonerds who write in to correct AP style or allege bias.

The biggest downfall letters to the editor have is that journalistic rules dictate that you can't respond to the letter directly. Even if what they wrote was really really stupid. This is when we feel sorry for the Record's editors. Sometimes they get complete morons writing in. A classic example would be the lady who complained they weren't talking about Queen Emily enough, even though they did a front page story about her 2 days before she appeared in the America's Got Talent playoffs.

Luckily for this place, the rules are a little bit more flexible. And since I got such a kick out of helping Slick dole out some real advice yesterday, I figured I'd give the concept a shot with the Record's letters to the editor. Today's letter? "Quick picking on poor Bryan Bjork." This should be good.

"Rodeo organizer deserves support

I am appalled at the bashing that Brian Bjork has taken in The Record regarding the Stockton Rodeo. It does not matter if this rodeo would make more money than the Neil Diamond concert ever did for Stockton.

Brian and his family had a dream to bring a rodeo to Northern California due to the difficulties the Cow Palace has had. Stockton seemed the logical choice due to its history and great events center. But now due to circumstances beyond his control, the rodeo has been canceled.

The rodeo is still a vision that would benefit all concerned. The Stockton Rodeo Association is a professional organization that could benefit Stockton on a yearly basis. With overwhelming budget concerns that face all cities and a great avenue to promote events, you would think there would be overwhelming support. Instead of bashing a man for his dreams, you would think that there would be support for a vision that would bring people to the city.

Brian is an upstanding individual, not a swindler, and he deserves none of this criticism. His and his family's only passion is to create an avenue for people to experience the rodeo. They don't need the PRCA to do this, and I salute Brian and Dale Yerigan for sharing this vision of producing a great rodeo for all to enjoy.
Candace Briskey
Salida"

There's only a couple of problems with that letter Candace. For one, the Arena could book me shitting in a hat and trying to put it on a drunken Bris Isaak's head while the Benny Hill theme plays in the background and it would make more money than the Neil Diamond concert. Using that abortion of an Arena opening as the standard is a horrible fucking idea.

Second, if Bjork is such an upstanding individual, then why didn't he put the money in escrow like he was supposed to? Why didn't he actually get the full backing of the rodeo organizations tha he said he had? Actually, scratch all that. His dream was to bring the rodeo to Northern California? I haven't gone by Oakdale or the Altamont lately, but don't we already have a rodeo?

And to get to the main point of the letter, The Record (who I can't believe I'm defending) did a surprisingly measured job on forming an opinion on the rodeo. Or did you miss the part where they spent a day trying to talk us into the minor league rodeo? (Synopsis of that editorial "Hey, at least something's gonna be there.")

I guess what I'm trying to get at is Bryan Bjork royally fucked us. (And by "us" I mean people who give a shit about rodeos.) And when you do it as blatantly as he did, people are going to say something about it. Writing pissy letters to the editor about it only serves to remind us that the city got swindled by some douchebag in a cowboy hat. And I'm pretty sure that's our job.