No demands from Pelosi

Re: your Feb. 9 editorial, "Needless fight over bigger jet":

The editorial writers at The Star should be more careful with the facts.

This statement about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — "She is demanding that the Pentagon supply her with an airliner-size jet, the military version of a Boeing 757, to fly her to and from her San Francisco district" — is wrong.

As reported elsewhere, Pelosi asked the Pentagon for clarification on the rules governing use of military planes after the House sergeant-at-arms advised her to use a military plane for security reasons and recommended that she use one that didn't need to refuel. She never "demanded" use of any size plane.

— Bill Becher,Westlake Village

Editorial needed update

Re: your Feb. 9 editorial, "Needless fight over bigger jet":

It is not often that I have to worry about The Star being akin to the New York Post, so what a surprise it was to read this editorial. May I ask when the editorials are written and turned in for publication? It is a legitimate question because by 11 a.m. Thursday, I already knew Nancy Pelosi had nothing to do with requesting a bigger plane. The House sergeant-at-arms, Bill Livingwood, did. This fact was further confirmed throughout the day on most news channels, and The Star even had an Associated Press article on the matter Friday.

Being second in line for the presidency, Mrs. Pelosi's security seems necessary to me. Mr. Livingwood is correct in granting her the same privileges as her predecessor, Dennis Hastert. Unfortunately, you can't fly to and from California nonstop on the same type of plane as Mr. Hastert did to and from Illinois. Mrs. Pelosi even offered to fly commercial, which Mr. Livingwood deemed dangerous.

The Star's editorial spreads a Republican urban myth that has already been debunked, and I expect nothing less from The Star than a retraction. After all, even the White House came to Mrs. Pelosi's defense. This is so extraordinary it has to be true!

— Françoise Dubois,Newbury Park

It's all about the oil

Russian President Vladimir Putin rightly accuses us of making the world unsafe. He is not alone.

Consider the remarks made in February 2003 by John Kiesling, a departing Greece Embassy employee. He wrote to the secretary of state advising, "We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships …. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security."

Putin also mentioned U.S. military bases in former Soviet bloc nations. Again, he is correct. In our National Security Strategy from 2002, we proclaim, "The U.S. will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia." Kosovo's Camp Bonsteel is located next to the proposed route of the Ambo Trans-Balkan Pipeline. Camp Sarafovo in Burgas, Bulgaria, is home to the largest oil refinery in Bulgaria. In Baghdad, the United States is building a $1 billion embassy that will employ 1,000 Americans. It will be the largest in the world.

We may not be safe, but at least we'll have access to oil. This is what our domination is all about.

— Robert Pisapia,Westlake Village

Hum-along music?

Saturday night, I attended a dinner party at the Gardenia Restaurant in West Hollywood when motion-picture and television stars Betty Garrett and Julie Wilson introduced a very talented singer, Perry Wood. Although he bore a striking resemblance to Frank Sinatra and his phrasing was equally effective, his voice was even stronger, with greater range.

During his one-hour presentation, Perry sang songs of composers such as Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Irving Berlin and Burt Bacharach, among others. All the lyrics were meaningful and poetic, and the melodies were such that, if you couldn't remember the words, you could always hum them.

Sunday, I watched the Grammy Awards. The show was full of very energetic and talented performers, but there wasn't a single song with a lyric that I remember or a tune that I could hum. Most of them seemed to rely on screeching and repetition to get some sort of point or emotion across.

Hopefully, this current phase will pass, and we will return to music that will, once again, soothe the soul and allow us to hum.

— Roy Thorsen,Thousand Oaks

Morality is enlightening

Re: your Feb. 8 article, "Some doctors let moral beliefs cloud treatments, study says":

Morality does not cloud one's judgment, but enlightens it. These moral doctors take into account the dignity of the human person and the harm that many treatments can cause. I would not like to leave decisions about my life and health in the hands of anyone who has a problem with the Hippocratic oath, which begins, "First do no harm." Would you?

— Dorothy M. Hage,Newbury Park

Don't fluoridate water

Re: your Feb. 10 article, "Fluoridated water":

What these people are doing is medicating me without my consent — something no one has the right to do. Take a look at who's pushing for fluoridation. They're all medical and dental professionals. This is self-righteous beyond belief! Is there no end to the arrogance of those who see themselves qualified to tell the rest of us what to do?

The issue here is not whether fluoride is beneficial, safe or anything else, but whether it can be forced on me without any choice. It's like the addition of iodine to salt — it may have been useful to some, but it was far from necessary for everyone. Yet, we all pay the price. I oppose fluoridation irrevocably, and I hope that suits to stop it will succeed.

— Roy W. Hogue,Newbury Park

Matheney should stay

Re: your Feb. 10 article, "Taxpayer group calls on Matheney to resign":

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors should certainly conduct an audit of all the agencies under Treasurer-Tax Collector Larry Matheney's control. But unless other problems are found, I oppose the Ventura County Taxpayers Association's call for his resignation.

The Public Guardian's Office provides a valuable service as a conservator, especially to those with mental illness whose families find it impossible to provide loving support and structured recovery at the same time. Mr. Matheney has worked hard with his new assistant public guardian, Marilyn Scott, to put in place strong safeguards that the previous administrator had avoided.

The Treasurer-Tax Collector's Office oversees a county budget of more than $1.5 billion, and Mr. Matheney has been doing a good job in this role. That is why voters re-elected him to this position last year. He has taken responsibility for the problems in the Public Guardian's Office and has addressed the concerns of the president of the taxpayers association.

Asking for his resignation now is unnecessary, and searching for and installing a replacement will cost us more taxpayer dollars while his departments again undergo turmoil.

I compliment Mr. Matheney on his openness and willingness to satisfy his obligations with a positive attitude. I urge the Ventura County Taxpayers Association to do the same.

— Ratan Bhavnani,Newbury Park

(The writer is president of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Ventura County. — Editor)

Leave race out of it

Re: Bill O'Reilly's Feb. 10 commentary, "The perils of articulating one's thoughts about Obama":

O'Reilly states the obvious point and then misses it. How can the folks, as he put it, attain a "certain comfort level" with any African-American, politician or otherwise, when every statement pertaining to their qualifications or abilities is preferenced by a racial description? This continuing kind of scenario was recently played out in this year's Super Bowl.

The comments by Sen. Joe Biden, D-Delaware, of and by themselves, were quite complimentary. If spoken about Mr. O'Reilly, no one would blink an eye. But once you qualify the comment by the use of the term "African-American," you've made that very description seem limited to a "special" few.

To accomplish what O'Reilly wants, which is a real discussion about real issues, leave the racial description out of the equation. For the most part, when we look at people, we can pretty much figure out what race they are. And if we can't, so much the better. After all, isn't it our words and our actions that count the most, no matter what side of the aisle we happen to be on?

— Rodney K. Boswell,Thousand Oaks

Rx for healthcare

Leave it to a Republican like our governor to come up with a boondoggle designed to line the pockets of his wealthy insurance company contributors and then call it "healthcare reform."

There is no doubt that there is a healthcare crisis. There are now 47 million uninsured Americans, up 7 million since 2000. Annually, 18,000 deaths in these United States are attributable to lack of coverage.

But mandating the purchase of insurance by those who can't afford it is not the answer to a broken healthcare system whose spiraling costs are anticipated to exceed the profits of the Fortune 500 companies by next year. A full one-third of those costs go to the middleman, the healthcare insurers, in terms of the cost of administration, lobbying and profits. The other major cost driver is the soaring cost of pharmaceuticals, which are priced at three to four times higher than what Canadians pay for the same prescription medications.

The only real solution is what every other industrialized country has adopted: a single-payer healthcare system in which administration and pharmaceutical costs are strictly regulated. Lest you think that single-payer healthcare is some wacky left-wing idea, I would point out that major U.S. corporations, including Wal-Mart, AT&T and Intel, have joined with major unions in calling for such a system to be implemented by 2012.

— Ernest A. Canning,Thousand Oaks

Too much

Wow! What a shock to see that political correctness has finally brought us to the Orwellian Period in American democracy. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read that Isaiah Washington was "undergoing treatment for his use of an anti-gay slur against a castmate" (of "Grey's Anatomy"). It's not 1984, but were getting there! I elected to laugh and imagined what the Department of Truth had ordered done to poor misguided Isaiah to straighten him out so he will be able to think correctly.

— Dick Hawley,Thousand Oaks