On saving Arcadia’s oak trees; tax cuts and Obama; and truckers resisting going ‘green’

A silly food fight

Re “School lunch bill approved in the House,” Dec. 3

“The $4.5-billion bill was approved 264 to 157 on Thursday, with 17 Republicans joining in support.”

Once again, Republicans are playing politics and forgetting about the common man or the common child. The bill will help needy children with food, but it also will help all children by teaching them about nutrition and limiting the unhealthy food for sale at the schools.

As you reported, “Republicans criticized the bill as too costly and pegged it as the latest example of government overreach.”

So, what do they want? Is the proper thing letting these children starve? Or to continue the sale of junk food in schools?

One would think Republicans would favor a bill that helps children. At any rate, they are consistent in how they govern: Show no mercy to people in need.

Joseph Vasquez

Anaheim

Saving trees is worth it

Re “Debate pits oaks vs. ooze,” Dec. 4

Thanks so much for your article on the effort being made to save a beautiful area in the Arcadia wash. The oaks and sycamores — many 100 years old or older —are the paramount issue, but the other wildlife they support is also as risk.

I was irate at the county Public Works Department’s plan to plant three saplings for each tree removed at a “nearby” site in Big Tujunga Canyon.

First, Big Tujunga is miles from the Arcadia site, and second, those saplings won’t be grown until after my grandchildren are dead and buried.

This would purposely devastate an area that wildfires haven’t reached. It may be expedient now, but the future will be too late for a quick fix.

Beverly McKenzie

Arcadia

Surely everyone who reads this article can agree that cutting down the century-old oak grove is simply wrong — a crime against nature. How can we have officials with this kind of mentality?

California needs to protect natural areas like the Arcadia Woodlands. There has to be another solution for the dredged reservoir silt.

Linda Lyke

Mount Washington

Bitten by the bedbug story

Re “Bedbugs no longer just under cover,” Dec. 5

Thanks for the heads up on those creepy crawly bloodsucking bedbugs that appear to be settling into Southern California.

There ought to be a law against such an infestation. But as we know, legislation that would make it illegal for the bugs to enter the Golden State would be bottled up in committee for far too long to do any good.

But how can the average family, already financially pinched by the depression, shell out the thousands of dollars that it reportedly would cost to vaporize the vermin?

This is bigger than Baghdad. Bold action is urgent.

William A. Harper

San Diego

Presidential politics

Re “ Obama tests party loyalty with tax cuts,” Dec. 8

In going against his progressive Democratic base (currently in a hissy fit) while appearing to be statesmanlike and reasonable with the Republicans (who are neither), President Obama has brilliantly positioned himself to

become the leader of a new political party that is growing at an exponential rate: the We’ve Had It With Both Parties party.

Currently leaderless, the party has been casting about for someone willing to jettison the old, tired, bought-off, partisan and irrelevant ways of the Democrats and Republicans and make decisions based on what is best for the majority of Americans, without first filtering them through Wall Street or a civil service union.

It’s a bold move, but at this point, Obama has little to lose and a great deal to win — like the 2012 presidential election.

Dennis Connor

Burbank

Bipartisanship appears to mean the Republicans get everything they want. The Democrats got nothing for allowing the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich to continue.

The Republicans would most certainly have had to extend the unemployment benefits in the next Congress. The latest jobs reports compel that.

The other middle-class tax cuts were already supported by Republicans. And why was the estate tax included?

This is a deficit-

increasing measure that will result in the Republicans having new fodder for their “cut the safety net” agenda. It is Obama who has betrayed the Democratic Party, not the Democratic legislators who oppose him.

Hadassa Gilbert

Los Angeles

I have been an Obama supporter ever since his speech at the 2004 Democratic Party convention. I voted for him in 2008.

Rest assured, I won’t make that mistake again.

He has turned himself into the single weakest leader I’ve seen in my 54 years.

As a lifelong Democrat, in 2012 I can’t bring myself to vote for a Republican for president, so I’ll just be leaving the top of my ballot unmarked for the first time since 1976.

Randal Snyder

Los Angeles

WikiLeaks and the Middle East

Re “A WikiLeaks disconnect,” Opinion, Dec. 6

All Arab states are not the same, as the WikiLeaks documents attest.

The United States must not assume that a solution to Middle East tensions includes a military

response.

Author Dalia Dassa Kaye rightly explains that stabilizing the Middle East has to do with resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The United States must stop arming Israel and defending its bad behavior in the United Nations and elsewhere.

Lillian Laskin

Los Angeles

Truckers, get with the program

Re “Truckers assail ‘green,’ ” Dec. 7

Isn’t this just another instance of people wanting to privatize profits but socialize costs?

Writing about the suffering of truckers driving polluting old junkers, which emit carcinogenic diesel fumes at idle while they wait for cargo to be loaded or unloaded, misses something big.

What about the millions of people who live in the Long Beach and Los Angeles port areas, whose health and life expectancy are diminished by the pollution from those trucks?

Affordable electrification for cleaner trucks servicing the ports has been a policy hallmark of regulators for a generation. There’s a reason for that.

The long-term health of millions of people, versus the circumstances of several dozen truckers caught short, are what’s really on the weight scales.

Lee Moldaver

Santa Barbara

Drivers are suffering under the massive costs associated with these trucks and their upkeep. No reasonable person expects low-wage, immigrant workers to bear these costs.

Under the Los Angeles Port’s Clean Truck Program, these costs were to be shifted to the trucking companies, which have refused to take responsibility for their

ill effects. Drivers are suffering because the trucking industry, even after losing in court, has secured an injunction to block crucial elements of the program that would not only bring relief to drivers but would lock in the environmental and public health gains for the long haul.

The trucking industry needs to side with its own drivers: Get on board or get out of the way.

Patricia Castellanos

San Pedro

The writer chairs the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports.

Health insurance companies and the uninsured don’t like the cost of lung and heart ailments, strokes, cancer and thickening of the blood from ultra-fine particle pollution related problems.

The folks who suffer from these illnesses and their families certainly don’t like the negative impacts of dirty air.

I have no sympathy for those who are indifferent to the harm they do; it is time for the transportation industry to “man up” and clean up its junk.

Amy Davis

Anaheim