Letters to the editor

Canceling out the concept of a contract because some people are not willing to really consider what it means to sign their names to a mortgage is ridiculous. A mortgage isn't a bankruptcy proceeding. The contract to pay back the loan is backed by the property -- the property is the guarantee.

That many thousands of people could not afford to buy the homes that they purchased and are now losing them as a result is not a justification to wreck the mortgage contract instrument for everyone else.

You can't protect people from overreaching in what they can afford because of what they want. Bailing such people out is utter nonsense.

David O'Shea

Costa Mesa

Right now the fight is over how (or whether) to bail out the folks in danger of losing their homes because of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. But the fight that needs to be fought is over regulation of an industry run amok. New rules need to be put in place, such as making borrowers prove they can repay the loans they are taking out, requiring lenders to act in the interest of their clients and holding those who sell mortgages as securities on the stock market accountable for the quality of their product.

Pedro Morillas

Sacramento

Do most homeowners really deserve mortgage relief assistance? How many put little or no money down and have actually enjoyed payments less than what equivalent rent would have been? How many have used their home as an ATM, living far beyond their means and owe much more than the purchase price?

Any government assistance to these irresponsible people is a slap in the face of the sensible taxpayers who must now incur higher mortgage costs and contribute through loan guarantee programs.

Ed Skebe

Manhattan Beach

Once again, the Democrats feel the need to jump in and protect regular people from evil businesses -- in other words, anyone who tries to make a profit. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? People made bad choices. The trustworthy borrowers shouldn't be punished for those bad choices, nor should the lenders, to their own detriment, be required to adjust those loans.

Terrance Dauplaise

Torrance

Blaming the rape victim

Re "What campus rape crisis?" Opinion, Feb. 24

As a rape survivor and someone who volunteered at a community rape crisis line for nine years, I knew where Heather Mac Donald was headed. She begins with the implication that she spent countless hours sitting by a college rape crisis phone but nobody called. If this were the truth and not a myth, Mac Donald would have stated it outright. If Mac Donald were to respect women's self-identification as rape survivors -- something she demands of feminists -- she couldn't label up to 50% of women who report rape as liars, and she couldn't try to label the rest as promiscuous young women who got what they deserved for not being chaste.

Never mind that chaste young women also get raped. At 15, I lost my virginity through rape. But by the standards used by Mac Donald, I wasn't sufficiently chaste. No wonder I felt crazy for too long. I liked kissing my boyfriend and, yes, I eventually liked a little more. I clearly communicated that I was going to wait for sex until I was married, and he agreed to respect that boundary. Yet if Mac Donald were to be believed, my getting raped was my fault, not that of someone who lied to stay close enough to succeed at rape.

Marcella Chester

Rochester, Minn.

Mac Donald grossly minimizes violence against women in a way that not only blames survivors of sexual violence but perpetuates the myth that it is OK to rape a person if she has been drinking. It's true that people make unhealthy choices like drinking too much at a party or becoming physically intimate with someone they don't know well, but neither of these choices is a rape-able offense. Various studies confirm not only that woman are often forced to have sex against their will, but that men will force women to have sex if they know that they will get away with it.

We are in a state of emergency when it comes to sexual violence on college campuses, and hurtful arguments such as Mac Donald's only do further damage, making it difficult for survivors to reach out for help after an assault.

Rebecca Peatow

Nickels

Executive Director

Women's Crisis Line

Portland, Ore.

College campuses are now reaping what they have sown over the last 40 years. It was appalling to me when colleges began allowing coed dorms. What were they thinking? They purposely put testosterone-laden young men in the closest quarters with female students, and then pass out condoms on the first day of orientation. And now they are wringing their hands about the prevalence of sexual encounters on campuses? Give me a break.

Sharon Giannotta

Pasadena

Although everyone is entitled to an opinion, and certainly the Opinion section is the place for this, newspapers have a responsibility to the dignity of human beings. If The Times believed this, it never would have printed Mac Donald's horrible article. Rape is never the fault of the victim, and it does no good to blame the women who must deal with this tragedy. In the future, think about who you are hurting before publishing such irresponsible journalism.

Gemma Drouhard

Bellingham, Wash.

Delays in cleaning up the ports

Re "A storm in every port," editorial, Feb. 24

The Times claims in its editorial that a lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council aimed at reducing deadly diesel pollution from the Port of Long Beach actually will slow progress toward clean air. Perhaps The Times forgot that it was a lawsuit by the council -- the China Shipping case -- that forced the ports of L.A. and Long Beach to begin addressing their toxic emissions.

Despite the council's efforts, however, the ports' dirty diesel trucking system is still a source of unmitigated pollution. Long Beach's just-announced plan to clean up pollution is no better than the current system because it still places the burden of repairing and replacing port trucks on the undercapitalized drivers, most of whom earn about $30,000 a year.

What is needed instead is a system that will provide incentives to responsible trucking companies to run clean, efficient trucks and to replace them when needed.

The council is working with both ports to negotiate a solution. But, as the China Shipping experience shows, sometimes the only road to clean air runs through the courts.

David Pettit

Santa Monica

The writer is director of the Southern California Clean Air Program with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

I'm baffled at your editorial placing the blame for delay on advocates of clean air. The ports are at least a year behind in their five-year Clean Air Action Plan, and industry lawyers incessantly threaten litigation.

The Port of Long Beach passed a plan to clean up trucks this month with, as you note, major elements of it "still unclear." A glaring weakness is its failure to influence working conditions, which put its air-quality goals at risk because marginalized truck drivers skimp on properly maintaining their trucks. These are concerns for environmentalists and labor advocates alike. Whatever you think of Long Beach's plan, in fact, it is not being delayed by legal actions of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

However, you predict that if the Port of Los Angeles takes a more sustainable approach that accounts for truck drivers and not just trucks, the American Trucking Assn. will sue to stop it. So let's ask the question again: Who is for delay, and who is for progress?

Martin Schlageter

Campaign Director

Coalition for Clean Air

Los Angeles

Radicals can also be from the right

Re "Radicals never say sorry," Opinion, Feb. 26

Jonah Goldberg once again displays his tone deafness. He wonders, "How is it that [William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn] get prestigious university jobs when even the whisper of neocon tendencies is toxic in academia?" The answer, dear boy, is power. The radicals, for all the bodily harm and property damage they wreaked, were essentially powerless to alter anything. The neocons, with their bloody hands on the levers of government, were and are powerfully able to change the world.

But the path to a prestigious university job is not a one-way street. Answer this, Jonah: How is it that John Yoo, an architect of the current administration's policy that ignores the Geneva Convention, is a law professor at UC Berkeley? Has he said he's sorry? Not that I've heard.

Martin Parker

Thousand Oaks

Goldberg's article left me a bit perplexed. Although I agree that most radicals probably don't apologize for their past acts, why is it that the only radicals Goldberg mentions are of the left-wing variety?

Nowhere can I find a mention of any one of the hundreds of radicals who have bombed abortion clinics and women's health centers, set fires, intimidated innocent people or stalked, hunted and murdered doctors. Why no mention of any of these people? Is it that every one of these conservative, right-leaning murderers, arsonists, bombers or terrorists have all apologized for their past sins, or is it simply that being a myopic, right-wing conservative writer means never having to tell the full story?

Garry Kluger

La Crescenta

Goldberg asks the difference between Sen. Barack Obama's acquaintance with Ayers and Sen. Trent Lott's "kindness" to Strom Thurmond. There is a difference, Jonah, between meeting a bad guy and wishing he had been president of the U.S.

Russell S. Kussman

Pacific Palisades