Mailbag: Make registry available to pounds, rescuers

I think a registry of convicted animal abusers (“Animal abuse registry in works,” Feb. 26) makes good sense to anybody who wants to see animals protected from animal collectors, dog-fighting rings and many other kinds of abuse, but I don’t see why the public needs to have access to it.

It would be a better idea to have the registry available, nationally, to pounds, humane societies, rescuers, sanctuaries and reputable breeders responsible for placing animals in good, caring homes. This concern over animal abuse being regarded, somehow, as more important than child abuse is plain silly.

The human heart is big enough to encompass children and animals without either getting less.

GERI A. MELLGREN- KERWIN

Burbank

Why is tax money going to teenage mothers?

As everyone knows, the state has been furiously cutting back on the education budget. After reading the article “In The Classroom: Staying in school together” on March 2, I realized that our tax dollars are funding a program to help teen mothers raise their infants. Oops!

Don’t teens take a health class? Remember — freshman year? As accidents like these could’ve been prevented, why do we have to pay up?

Bottom line: If you think you’re ready for a baby at 17, make sure you are financially stable.

ELI TAHAN

Glendale

President dismisses Republican ideas

The presidential health-care summit was an exercise in one-party rule, and it played out on national television for all Americans to see.

A few days before the summit, the president published his ideas and put them on the Internet. At the summit, President Obama and legislative leaders from both parties talked about health-care reform for nearly six hours.

The president chaired the meeting and divided the time. He gave Democratic legislators 114 minutes, Republican legislators 110 minutes and spent 119 minutes at his bully pulpit.

The president pushed his ideas, Democratic legislators supported his ideas, and the Republicans laid out five cost-effective ideas to start an affordable health-care-reform process. The president dismissed the Republican ideas and closed the meeting by giving the Republicans four to six weeks to sign on to his ideas or the Democrats might force health-care reform into law and let the November elections decide who was right.

Isn’t one-party rule great?

LYNN MCGINNIS

Glendale