Charity Needs Help

Re "Gimme Shelter" (Metro News, Dec. 24): This article is poorly sourced and highly inaccurate. The real story is that the Shelter is the sole financial responsibility of First Christian, not CHAM. CHAM is one of the spin-off ministries like Inn Vision that the church has supported over the years. Coco, mentioned in the article, is employed by FCC. Pastor Dana Bainbridge is chiefly responsible the management of the shelter.

Did you know that FCC is nearly bankrupt because of its fierce determination to help the poor and homeless in the downtown community? The shelter has been a huge drain on our financial resources and caused a loss of congregates. Helping the homeless is tough on our facilities and some of our former members couldn't handle close contact with the poor.

Our funds will last at most two years. Then, the ministries housed and supported by FCC will be without a home. We need help. We are a lifeline to the community.

Victor Aught III
Member, FCC
San Jose

Many Partners

Re "Gimme Shelter": Thank you for your Christmas Eve coverage of the homeless issue and the shelter at First Christian Church in San Jose.

The resources and efforts of many organizations and individuals have joined together over time to provide shelter and food here. First Christian Church owns the building and pays for utilities, supplies and limited staff.

Food is provided to residents and others throughout the week by Tzu Chi, Saratoga Federated Church and Los Gatos Methodist Church. Building maintenance and cleaning is contributed by shelter residents, their relatives and friends, members of the sister churches of the Christian Church of Northern California-Nevada and countless others. Volunteers from Community Homeless Alliance Deliverance Ministry and Santa Clara University provide friendship, child care, encouragement and connections to the residents.

We also recognize that extending this charity is only a tenth of the real work needed for public policy changes that will someday negate the need for the shelter in the first place.

Virginia Parks
Santa Clara

New Suspects

Re "Bee Afraid" (Cover Story, Dec. 17): After losing 12 hives two years ago unexpectedly, it occurred to me that there might be some factor in the environment which might be responsible. In an article in the SFC, "Could Genetically Modified Crops Be Killing the Honeybees," I posited that the attachment of bT genes to the genome of corn might be responsible and suggested a simple experiment to test that idea. In a second article at the same paper, I gave the results of having conducted that experiment, "Farmland bees fall short on honey production," and concluded that indeed there are large differences in honeybee survival when comparing farmland and nonfarmland bees.

I have, since the writing of those articles, become more aware of the role of systemic plant poisons listed in a previous letter and am prepared to add those chemicals to the list of suspects.

Again, there seems to be a deliberate avoidance of research which might resolve this issue.

John McDonald
Spring Mills, Pa.

Sustained Sleep

Re "Sustain in the Brain" by Gary Singh (metroactive.com): I've had trouble sleeping due to chronic pain. Been on Ambien and other sleep aids that work for a time. A friend convinced my wife to send me to have this Brain Music Therapy done. I was dismissive and thought it to be "yet another snake oil" kind of deal. To top it off, $550 seemed like a rip off. My wife—against my knowledge—made the appointment and then told me about it later. It took about two weeks of using it but now, 90 percent of the time, I fall asleep listening to the "Relaxation" track in under 10 minutes. It may be psychobabble, but it works for me and there are no medical side effects. I'm sleeping 6–7 hours a night—unheard of the past five years.

Dr. Jeremiah
Chicago, Ill.

 

Find the DJ

Re "In the Relm of the Senses" (Metroactive.com). I really liked the information in your article. Although I've only watched DJ Mike Relm's videos on YouTube, I was wondering if you could give me some kind of information or website on how I can go about buying some tickets to a future show in Northern California.

Monica Barajas
Ceres, Calif.

The Bay Area DJ can be found at mikerelm.com and on MySpace.

—Editor