Letters to the Editor: So what if the Resnicks’ gift to Caltech is less than altruistic?

To the editor: I do not know Stewart and Lynda Resnick, the billionaire couple that pledged $750 million to Caltech in Pasadena for research on climate change and the environment. I first learned of them in a column by Michael Hiltzik, who paints them as a feckless couple.

Their donation to Caltech doesn’t undo the damage that their businesses are apparently causing to the environment and to water resources in California, but Hiltzik’s piece is a curmudgeonly attack on those super-wealthy people who have bestowed large gifts for the public’s benefit. Hiltzik seems so small bemoaning that the donors want to free up their guilt or increase their chances at some eternity belief if they perform some major good.

The millions should not need be looked upon as expunging past and even ongoing wrongs; rather, they simply benefit mankind. Accept the gift and say thank you.

Bruce N. Miller, Playa del Rey

..

To the editor: Congratulations to the Resnick grandchildren for nagging their grandparents into attempting to mitigate some of the damage done by their industrial agricultural practices.

Their wealth should allow them to make multiple similar grants and maybe they might even discontinue Fiji Water, possibly the most environmentally insensitive product ever conceived by the mind of man.

John Sherwood, Topanga