Has a point, not sure what

When Meg Whitman's boat rocked over her housekeeper, she called it politics, but she is a politician, dancing a little sidestep and then checking the polls with no political knowledge or experience. In the primary, I heard her say that she wanted to kill the bullet train, the greatest hope for a green California, now she says she's for green jobs.

Jerry Brown knew where the fat is, and gave a 19th-century clue to what both Whitman and Carly Fiorina want to do: cut government jobs and give tax breaks to the rich, which was known as trickle-down, then voodoo, economics. They believe in it but don't have any experience. When I endorse a candidate, I don't expect them to agree on everything I believe, but to have a clue. I endorsed both Brown and Barbara Boxer, because of their knowledge and experience, and that's what California needs.

Bruce M. Gabriel

Santa Cruz

Crying into our beer (issue)

When you assay the kind of hard-hitting investigative reportage that informed our beer issue ("Brews & Chews," Oct. 6), you're bound to step on some toes, find your tires slashed or be unable to sleep at night. Sometimes you just plain old break down and place a solar sticker smack over a cover subject's innocent face. Or so we've read. (In other publications.) In our particular case, we've found that it's possible to entirely overlook one establishment while having a conflict fakt czeching another.

We begin with the great forgotten, known more fondly to staff and patrons as Mill Valley Beerworks. What's worse, we encouraged contributor Dani Burlison to drool all over the place in our July 28 Arcadia issue.

She wrote in part: "Tucked at the end of downtown's Throckmorton Avenue, the brewery and beer cafe opened its doors two months ago with an eclectic and elaborate list of tasty alcoholic and nonalcoholic treats. Along with on-tap pub favorites like Old Speckled Hen and Big Eye IPA, Mill Valley Beer Works offers bottle upon bottle of stouts, Belgian brews, barley wines and lambics, and will be soon adding its own house-brewed thirst-quenchers to the menu. The designated driver in the group can choose from ginger beer and dandelion or burdock soda pop, as well as a variety of more familiar sodas."

And yet: d'oh. When it came to the storied beer issue, we remembered the beloved MVB not at all. Maybe you will, next time: 173 Throckmorton Ave., Mill Valley. 415. 888.8218.

And then there's the beer of contention. While our writer phoned Third Street Aleworks and spoke with assistant brewmaster Tyler Laverty, taking feverish notes, TSA owner Todd Hedrick found an item or two amiss.

He writes: "The brewery was founded in 1995, opened in 1996. The 'flagship beers' which are described in the article as a 'guaranteed find' are the Annadel Pale Ale, Bodega Head IPA and the Stonefly Oatmeal Stout. Third Street Aleworks has won 10 medals from the Great American Beer Festival—not two. "

Evidently, other awards have also been hoisted, secured, won and not noted by us. The feeling over at the brewery was that we gave them short shrift, which was not our intent. Heck, everyone got short shrift. We had a lot to cram into a little space. Cheeringly, only one person got stickerfied. For which we also apologize.

Hedricks finishes: "Stout lovers, take note: Over the past decade our Blarney Sisters' Dry Irish Stout has won three gold medals and two bronzes from the GABF and two gold medals and one silver from the World Cup—making it by far the most award-winning stout in the entire country, and arguably the world."

We ain't arguing. And lawd, could we use a beer.

The Ed.

STricken with an unquenchable thirst

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