Wonder Woman's B&D message

With all due respect to Annalee Newitz, Trina Robbins, and Brian Hibbs: if the kinkiness in early Wonder Woman is a "subtext," then ER has a "subtext" of health care ["Sidekicks, Mutants, and Goddesses," 6/25/03]! One of the few accurate notions in Fredric Wertham's fevered brain was that William Moulton Marston wanted to turn American youth on to the joys of B&D. Marston did believe in empowering women, but not exactly in the Lilith Fair sense: he thought the human race could be saved if more boys (and girls) got their rocks off by being tied up by girls. Two seconds of Web searching would've given you the man's own words: "The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being bound ... submitting to other people cannot possibly be enjoyable without a strong erotic element." Odd that you missed this while using a cover illo by Spain, whose Big Bitch was another milestone in Amazon porn.

Otherwise the article is OK, but awfully familiar – another Pop Culture 101 piece where the corporate kitsch of the moment (Rawhide Kid) gets the same lip service as a serious labor of love like Love and Rockets. The latter has been around for 21 years and has a huge queer and straight following, who no doubt would've been glad to tell you a few things.

Eli Bishop
San Francisco

Why S.F. loses industry

Like much of city planning in San Francisco, your article "A Legacy of Wreckage" (6/11/03) was filled with a lack of information and wishful thinking.

There is a sense that San Francisco is losing blue-collar jobs. This is born out by statistics. There is also a perception that changing the current industrial "M" zone to PDR (production, distribution, and repair) or creating industrial protection zones will protect these jobs. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Industrial jobs have been leaving San Francisco for two decades. Best Foods left the northeast Mission in 1987. Was this due to rents? No! It was due to an antiquated plant, objections from neighbors, city red tape in terms of plant modification, business taxes, and poor transportation. Gallo Salami left San Francisco in the early '90s. Was this due to dot-coms? No! They left for much the same reasons as Best Foods.

The Planning Department has been working under the assumption that there is a dwindling supply of industrial land. This is simply not the case. The Planning Department has simply ignored the 250 or so acres of industrial land scheduled to come online in the next 10 years at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. This is enough land for over four million square feet of modern industrial space.

We do not lack space or zoning for industrial jobs. We lack access to efficient transportation. City business taxes are too high and statewide worker's compensation costs are driving out business. The permitting process in San Francisco is too cumbersome and political to be attractive to luring new business or retaining old ones since these businesses cannot make changes quickly or efficiently. Lastly, workforce composition is more attractive elsewhere. Our schools have simply failed us. A change of zoning will not remedy the situation and will probably only make it worse.

If jobs are the issue, we must recognize that San Francisco will need to adapt its physical plan to other, more knowledge-intensive industries. This means that San Francisco should have a R&D (research and development) provision added to the zoning code, which is something nearly every other jurisdiction in California has. This would end the type of debate that took place over business services and will take place over PDR.

Curtis Eisenberger
San Francisco

Fat and health

The opinion piece by Tish Parmeley, "The Fear of Fat" (6/18/03), tries to minimize the effects of being overweight on health. While the 300,000 excess deaths per year due to obesity number is very likely incorrect, there are a number of good reasons to avoid being obese. The best place to research the health problems of obesity and many other health topics is PubMed (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). A quick check of PubMed indicates that obesity is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes mellitus, which, in turn, is a major risk factor for coronary heart disease. Obesity is associated with a number of other diseases such as hypertension, stroke, sleep apnea, gout, osteoarthritis, and Alzheimer's disease. Obesity is a risk factor for some cancers such as breast and colon cancer in part through increased levels of insulin-like growth factor-I.

William B. Grant, Ph.D.
Newport News, VA

For the record

Due to an editing error, the story "Of Cops and Corn" (6/25/03) on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's meeting in Sacramento incorrectly stated the number of protesters involved in a legal march June 23. There were approximately 2,000 participants.