Who deserves an apology from Tiger Woods; more Afghan civilians killed; NASA’s LAX study

Taking on Tiger

Re “Gloria Allred’s new feminism,” Column, Feb. 23

Sandy Banks is right-on regarding Gloria Allred taking the case of one of Tiger Woods’ alleged lovers.

Volumes could be written by and about the millions of women who have fallen for the sweet words of their married lovers, believing the fantasy they will one day be No. 1. It is a story as old as the ages. Allred should know that women in this position have no rights.

In the past I have held Allred in high regard, as she championed the cause of women who have been mistreated through no fault of their own -- but she has this case all wrong.

Roberta M. Blank
Los Angeles

Some of Woods’ sex partners are complaining that they never got an apology.

How many of them apologized to Tiger’s wife? They knew he was married but kept having their fling with a celebrity with no sign of caring about his wife and children. It is all about them, and to the devil with anyone else.

There was a time when a woman would be humiliated by having a celebrity give out her name to the media as a sex partner -- even with an apology.

Let these women go find another celebrity for sex and leave Tiger alone. Tiger has paid, and is still paying, a tremendous price for his indiscretions. What price have they paid for theirs?

Jack R. Tatham
Irvine

Bombs have no conscience

Re “Airstrike kills Afghan civilians,” Feb. 23

The NATO attack that left 27 civilians dead in Afghanistan is sickening, disheartening and inexcusable.

For Adm. Michael G. Mullen to pass it off as, essentially, the consequences of war is also inadequate.

The fact is, this was a monumental blunder that shouldn’t happen again. If that means aborting all airstrikes until a better system of checks and balances can be put in place, then I suggest doing it.

Nothing in this offensive should be more important than ensuring the safety of the civilian population.

Jeff Schiro
Los Angeles

Well, of course. This is what war is all about: killing. Bombs and guns don’t ask questions; they just kill.

Maybe that is one good reason to eliminate war. Haven’t there been enough wars already? And in today’s world, what does war accomplish -- besides death?

Clara Browda
Los Angeles

Pharmacy board a stacked deck

Re “A big say on small type,” Feb. 20

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger insists he didn’t deliberately try to stack the state’s pharmacy board when he appointed a drugstore industry official to the panel the day before it was set to vote on reforming standards for prescription labels.

The proposed standards were recommended by the National Assn. of Boards of Pharmacy and would have included requirements for larger print and access to translations for non-English speakers.

No doubt Schwarzenegger wants us to believe he had no idea this official was going to vote against a proposal that her company had vigorously opposed.

No doubt he wants us to believe it was a mere oversight when he neglected to fill three other vacancies on the state panel.

But Schwarzenegger isn’t fooling anyone.

While the California Retailers Assn. has contributed $400,000 to his political campaigns, the elderly and immigrant citizens of our state did not. And that makes all the difference in the world.

Paul A. Kenny
Los Angeles
The writer is president of the Food & Drug Council, a coalition of labor unions.

Expanding on an LAX study

Re “Redefining safety at LAX,” Editorial, Feb. 23

The Times wondered why our “perplexing” study about safety on the LAX north airfield reached different conclusions from five studies that preceded it. Actually, it didn’t.

All six studies concluded that moving the LAX north runways farther apart would reduce by a substantial percentage the risk of a runway collision. But ours was the first study that directly asked: How great is the risk in the first place? Our frequency estimate -- one fatal collision every 200 years on average -- did not contradict earlier estimates because there were no such estimates.

Given that your editorial board described the analysis behind the 200-year estimate as “convincing,” it is unclear what you found “perplexing” in our work.

The Times also wrote that “the [LAX] neighbors finally found some experts who agreed with them.” We hope you were not suggesting that we or NASA were chosen for the study because we were predisposed toward a particular conclusion. Neither the community nor Los Angeles World Airports ever asked us to do anything but tell the truth.

We concluded that spending $500 million to reconfigure the north runways would be hard to justify on safety grounds alone, because that money might save more lives if spent in other ways. But we explicitly said that capacity benefits could well make a case for reconfiguration.

Our study offered new information for the debate about LAX’s future, but was not intended to end it.

Arnold Barnett
Cambridge, Mass.
The writer, a professor of statistics at MIT, was chairman of the panel that wrote the LAX report. He co-wrote this letter with the five other panel members.

Rules of the road in China

Re “A scrape, a dent -- it’s China,” Opinion, Feb. 19

Ronald Brownstein likens the chaos of Shanghai traffic to the chaos of dealing with the Chinese government.

But he doesn’t understand traffic. I have also been to Shanghai recently -- and its traffic merely brought back fond memories of Boston. There, too, major thoroughfares have the unfortunate tendency to abruptly vanish. “Never yield” is not only a survival tactic, it is a battle cry. I felt I was in the land of savages.

Fortunately, an old Boston hand taught me the ropes. Drive aggressive, but drive smart. In all my years there, I suffered nary a scratch. I learned to appreciate the method in the madness. An appropriate metaphor is short-track skating, as exemplified by Apolo Ohno. Skate aggressive, but skate smart.

Brownstein’s old China hand is not as wise. He seems to think the appropriate metaphor is roller derby. If that is the case, we will be lucky to get by with only scrapes and dents.

Ronald Chao
Huntington Beach

The devil and Ronald Reagan

Re “A devilish dispute,” Feb. 23

I don’t understand why anyone would want to change the name of Mt. Diablo to Mt. Reagan. Mt. Diablo is already named after Ronald Reagan.

John Humble
Santa Monica

As I sit eating Reagan’s food cake, I realize the Reagan is in the details; and though Arthur Mijares is probably Reaganishly clever, won’t it be hard to change all Bibles to say “Reagan” instead of “he whose name must not be spoken”? Got to run. I’m reading “The Reagan and Daniel Webster.”

Michael James
Burbank

Mijares clearly has too much time on his hands. However, he has his work cut out for him. According to the book “California Place Names,” there are between 150 and 200 topographic features that have the word “devil” or a variation as part of their name.

There’s Devils Postpile National Monument, Devil’s Gate, Devil’s Canyon and many, many more. Some of the places are under federal jurisdiction -- or, as Mijares might suspect, under the control of the devil himself!

Abe Hoffman
Canoga Park