Letters to the editor

Janessa Gans recounts an incident she experienced while being escorted by a Blackwater USA convoy in which an apparently innocent car was forced off the road. Let’s reconsider that scenario from a slightly different viewpoint: that of an Iraqi who finds Gans’ mission a direct hindrance to his own plans. For a minimal amount of money, he can arrange for the end of this annoyance. What would be a logical place for his paid assassins to arrange Gans’ demise? How about a stretch of narrow and restricted road with no easy exit, blocked by a seemingly innocent vehicle? In that situation, what is the appropriate response from Gans’ security detail? Given the amount of risk in every mission outside the Green Zone, how long would Gans be willing to be a sitting target while the security detail politely searches potentially explosive-laden vehicles or inches forward in a traffic jam surrounded by hostile citizenry? Perhaps Gans should have taken a local taxi. If that sounds dangerous, then maybe a somewhat more thoughtful analysis of the difficulties her security detail faced is in order.

Anita Swortwood

Riverside

How much more good could have been done if Gans had written her Blackwater story about careening through the streets of Baghdad, terrorizing the populace, as soon it happened, rather than years later? Think of the lives that could have been saved if she and others in the same position had come forward and told Congress or the president about these atrocities.

I really don’t understand these former government officials who wait so long to tell the truth.

Kathi Smith

Ojai

I was horrified to read Gans’ eyewitness account of Blackwater guards ramming a huge SUV into the smaller car of a family of five, violently running them off the road. There were children in the back of that car. Is that what a democratic people does, slam Suburbans into children? Let’s stop asking ourselves whether we are creating enemies. Of course we are. The real question we should be asking is, have we no shame regarding the things we are willing to do to other people in order to safeguard ourselves?

Mary Caroline

Cummins

Newport Beach

Re “Guards’ actions defended,” Oct. 3

After all the fuss that has been made in the media about the behavior of the Blackwater security guards in Iraq, I got the impression that these were some really bad guys. Now I hear that members of Congress are saying the Blackwater security guards are acting like “cowboys” in Iraq. I am confused. I grew up thinking that cowboys were the good guys. Even our president dresses, walks and talks like a cowboy, and he is the guy who created the mess in Iraq. So I guess that if the Blackwater security guards are cowboys, they are really the good guys, and we should thank them.

Ted Ury

San Juan Capistrano

So the departments of Homeland Security, State and Labor are urgently trying to find a way to bring more guest workers into the country to rescue farm owners. What about the 12 million illegal immigrants already here? They supposedly do the jobs that no one else wants. Is keeping the price of lettuce low worth subsidizing our unwelcome guests? Import the produce, not the workers.

Bill Wallace

Corona

In the good old days for the music industry, recording labels had a virtual monopoly on the means of discovering talent and the production, promotion and distribution in manufacturing and selling discs and tapes to brick-and-mortar stores.

Today, consumers can discover self-promoted talent through such technology as YouTube, among others. Anyone with a few hundred dollars can acquire technology more advanced than that used to produce “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” From this story, it is clear that anyone can easily distribute music. These models are nascent, but the trends are clear.

In addition to getting songs on the radio, what role will be left for the labels, and what will consumers think that is worth? Perhaps it is in their shareholders’ best interests that the energy and funding for lawsuits be invested in answering these questions rather than in litigation to defend a dying business model against the inevitable.

George Alexander

Encino

The insanity of the ports, regulators and environmental groups in ignoring the greatest contributor to deaths from air pollution in coastal Southern California is about to kill me. It’s the ships, stupid. The attention to trucks and the struggling clean-trucks program serve as a horrible distraction from the established fact that ships emit more of the most harmful pollutants than any other source. Even more compelling is the fact that simply burning currently available low-sulfur fuel in ships would reduce the most harmful cancer-causing pollutants by one-third in one day. If and when the trucks program becomes reality, the total benefit would be on the order of a one-fifth reduction at best.

The shipping giant Maersk has proved the feasibility of low-sulfur fuel, and the ports planned to implement the cleaner fuel in their clean-air action plan by Sept. 30. But they have failed again on the most important opportunity to clean our air and reduce the horrible price Southern Californians pay for the benefit of the nation. As the ultra-fine cancer-causing particulate matter from ships drifts onshore, the time has come to face reality.

Richard Havenick

San Pedro

The time is overdue to chart and implement a course to reduce pollution from diesel exhaust from goods movement through the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports and the 710 Freeway corridor. But we will not know how effective such courses will be without good measurements of air pollution along the corridor, which accounts for the bulk of health damage. We should not have to wait for the count of deaths to decrease to know the pollution-reduction plans are working. The technology is here to accurately measure air contaminants continuously. It is time we installed the proper monitoring stations along the 710.

Harold Tseklenis

Downey

When I read about workers in respirators handling toxic substances, I picture them in a lab in full hazmat garb, not in the fields tending strawberries and tomatoes sprayed with methyl iodide. It is time to call my stockbroker and have her buy up any and all available shares in Whole Foods and organic farms. Any killing I knowingly participate in will be in the stock market, not from eating foods sprayed with the latest designer toxic substance guaranteed safe by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Carol Foster

Burbank

As a mother concerned about her family, I read with disbelief the EPA’s approval of the toxic fumigant methyl iodide. Spraying our strawberry fields with this toxic pesticide is opposed by more than 50 scientists -- yet supported by the very agency charged with protecting the public. It’s ironic that the former chief executive of the fumigant’s manufacturer is now a top official at the EPA. From now on, it appears I will be crossing toxic strawberries off my grocery list.

LeAnn Angelich

Los Angeles

Cancers of all sorts caused by environmental substances are already rampant around the world. This new pesticide sounds like it could become our Armageddon. The good news is that the organically grown fruit and vegetable industry will become mainstream.

Judy Price

Hemet

There is little doubt that Bill Stall is familiar with the commonly perceived water issues of California. It’s also apparent that -- consistent with the historical water manipulations going on in our state -- well-heeled and politically connected connivers continue to assault much of California’s natural beauty. These scoundrels will cover the Earth with houses much larger than sensible, with freeways that are ghastly modes of deliverance and with lakes and watering projects that ruin the Earth. Our river water does need to reach the sea if fish, wildlife, plants and humans are to maintain a healthy environment. The only hope is that much of California’s population will wake up to this insanity.

Gary L. Unruh

Santa Barbara

I support a free and open Internet. I’m not looking forward to corporate control (especially with the current trend of government outsourcing) over information and freedom of expression, accessible according to how much someone pays.

Mike Lemos

Ventura