Editor:

What I've really been trying to say with my barrage of angry letters ("Mailbox," Jan. 15, Feb. 5) is that the North Coast Journal has a very bad habit of preaching to the choir and patting themselves on the back for reporting ground-breaking news. Everyone in this county knows that growers are scandalous, from their environmental violations to the way they treat women.

Linda Stansberry did make an excellent point in her "Is Rape the Third Rail of Discourse" article (Jan. 29) when she stated that there are way too many unheard stories out there. If this is true, then why is the NCJ reporting the same old stuff and calling it news? You know who never gets any press? Old school working folks that live in closed communities. These closed communities used to be called tribes, and every human on the earth used to belong to one the way nature intended. As a closed community, they tend to favor frontier justice over state involvement. If a grower rapes a girl or pollutes a stream, where is the grow community to stop him? Oh, that's right. They're so afraid of the state coming in and destroying everyone's livelihood that they look the other way. Why does the state need to regulate every little thing? This can be handled internally. That stream has neighbors. That girl has brothers, cousins, uncles and a father.

— Janelle Andersen, Eureka