California’s prison hunger strike; Jonah Goldberg on Obama as an ideologue; L.A. and cyclists

Locked up, badly

Re “The hidden hunger strike,” Editorial, July 20

Thank you for your continued coverage of the hunger strike by California prisoners.

California’s prisons are perpetuating a system in which violence breeds more violence, thereby making our society less rather than more safe. No one has to condone the crimes that led these men to prison to be appalled at conditions of confinement that are tantamount to torture.

As taxpayers and voters, these abuses are being committed in our name, and we should stop them.

Elizabeth Ralston

Los Angeles

Fixing what is broken

Re “Oval Office ideologue,” Opinion, July 19

Be reasonable, Jonah Goldberg. Keeping our children’s education and deficit-reducing healthcare reform off the table in the debt talks is in no way comparable to congressional Republicans wiping out any possibility of raising revenue to help reduce the deficit.

It’s unfair to paint President Obama as no better than any of the Republicans in Congress when he is trying to save our economy from default. He has compromised on trillions of dollars in other entitlements, an unpopular move that certainly won’t increase his chances of getting reelected.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) openly declared that his party’s top priority is making Obama a one-term president. Now who here is the pragmatist, and who here cares more about the 2012 election?

Carter Vanderbilt

Culver City

Goldberg writes: “Americans wouldn’t mind soaking ‘the rich,’ ‘big oil’ and ‘corporate jet owners.’ ” Soaking? Really?

When poor or middle-class American families receive assistance, conservatives say it’s an “entitlement,” but when corporations have their effective tax rates decreased or don’t pay any taxes at all, that is a business “incentive.” So is that why our largest corporations, in the face of the lowest effective tax rates in decades, have reduced jobs, not created them, over the last decade?

I suppose it is good that Goldberg, like the Republicans in Congress, has suddenly discovered balanced-budget religion, because he and they didn’t seem to care when George W. Bush was living in “public housing.”

Pat Levitt

Los Angeles

Bike safety is everyone’s job

Re “It’s a crime to harass L.A. cyclists,” July 21

There are so many reasons to applaud this law. But it’s not enough to keep our bicyclists safe.

Every time I go out on the road, I worry about people who bike without helmets in a car culture where so many drivers are aggressive, arrogant or simply not paying attention. Most of the bicyclists I pass — especially teenagers and young adults — are not wearing helmets.

Riding a bicycle without a helmet is reckless and dangerous. Next, can we turn our attention to that? How about a campaign encouraging helmet use?

Dawn O’Leary

Los Angeles

As a cyclist for more than 80 years, I want to establish my credibility: I have been an amateur road racer, done the commuter-by-bike bit and taken many overseas bicycle tours.

To those cyclists who claim they are “treated like second-class citizens,” I suggest they stop acting like second-class citizens and obey the rules of the road.

Robert Alexander

Seal Beach

I admit to many of the “offenses” cyclists are often accused of, but I do so out of self-preservation. Drivers don’t like bicycle riders slowing them down. So if I keep my speed up as I approach a stop sign, I spend the absolute minimum of time getting in the way of the drivers.

Jumping lights may also appear to be reckless, but I gauge my chances for a safe “jump” very carefully. After all, it’s not the driver who is going to come out on the short end of the stick in a collision.

But the closest calls I have ever had have involved motorists using their cellphones blowing through a red light.

So the next time you see me go through a stop sign without slowing down, you can figure I’m not slowing your two tons of motorized iron either.

Mike Kilgore

Mar Vista

Cleaning up dirty coal

Re “Carbon dioxide’s escape hatch,” Editorial, July 20

Kudos to The Times for highlighting this failed “carbon capture and sequestration” experiment This issue is highly relevant to customers of the L.A. Department of Water and Power, which gets 39% of its electricity from two coal-fired power plants in Arizona and Utah.

To feed the Utah plant and cool our homes, the federal government is planning to approve the mammoth Alton strip mine next to Bryce Canyon National Park. What a tragedy it is that, when we have so many renewable energy options available, we choose instead to invest in a 19th century technology that turns pristine wilderness into wasteland and pollutes our air.

The true cost of coal is far greater than what our energy bills reflect.

David Haake

Culver City

It’s correct that American Electric Power’s decision to table its commercial-scale carbon capture system in West Virginia was based on flawed public policy, not flawed science. This project demonstrated that carbon capture technology works. Over the project’s lifespan, it captured more than 50,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, representing roughly 90% of the project’s emissions.

The decision is an unfortunate reminder that the United States still lacks a regulatory environment that incentivizes companies to develop and utilize this promising technology.

Coal generates nearly half of our nation’s electricity. And thanks in large part to clean-coal technology, major air pollutants from coal-fueled power plants are more than 80% lower (per kilowatt hour of electricity generated) than 30 years ago.

For the sake of our economy and environment, it is crucial to create public policies that encourage the development of clean-coal technology.

Steve Miller

Alexandria, Va.

The writer is president and chief executive of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.

Out of the race

Re “Foreign nations push into space as U.S. exits,” July 22

If other nations wish to waste resources on manned spaceflight, let them. They will learn the hard way that there is little of value returned from a very expensive investment.

Compare the achievements of the manned space program with those of the unmanned program. Compare a few moon rocks and a few un-noteworthy experiments in the space station with a whole array of communication and weather satellites and deep-space probes that return scientific data and images.

If the rest of the world’s countries want to bust their budgets in a race to achieve a false sense of national prestige, let us not be drawn into such a fool’s errand. Real power comes from what can be done in space, and that comes from sophisticated, unmanned spacecraft controlled from the Earth.

Don Croley

Hermosa Beach

Impurrfect

Re “Too many kittens,” Editorial, July 18

Your recommendation that feral cats be returned to the outdoors is, unfortunately, not the most humane option. Feral cats, even if neutered and vaccinated, are not a part of our natural ecosystem and must cope with potential diseases, predators, starvation, being run over by cars and more.

Also, if you consider the number of native small animals they kill — whether or not the cats are also fed by well-meaning people — releasing feral cats to the wild or allowing them to persist in the wild cannot be justified. (And yes, I have two beloved indoor cats.)

Martin Byhower

Lomita