Professor should get an award

I had to read Diane Gifford-Gonzalez”s letter twice to be sure my eyes were not deceiving me. Maybe I haven”t paid enough attention, but she”s the first professor to suggest she get a 10 percent pay cut and the administrators more to spare the lowest-paid any reduction. In all fairness, the announcement just hit the paper a few days ago though. I suggest we nominate her for the Humanitarian Award of the Year in Santa Cruz, if there only was one. What selflessness.

Sandra Cohen, Santa Cruz

State spending should be more transparent

How would a person start a proposition? I know one needs some signatures, but if one just has ideas for props, or laws they want passed at the state level, how would one go about starting them? I”d like to propose some propositions to bring budget transparency to California government so we the people can see where our money comes from and where our money is going — absolute amounts, and, at the macro level, by percentage. I”d like to see decimal numbers, but also easily understandable pie charts. This way, we can understand where our money comes from and what we are spending it on and get a sense of our monetary priorities. I hear of all the budget cuts totaling hundreds of millions, yet California”s proposed budget for 2009 is near the $135 billion mark. I don”t know if this is higher or lower than previous years, nor do I know previous year breakdowns, but I”d like to see expenditures against revenues that are proposed against past information. I”d like to see one for the state and a second one for other state public entities that have authority to collect money from the people. Is this something we could enact by proposition?

Linda Walsh, Santa Cruz

Health care system ineffective, expensive

The popular notion promoted by our “health” industry, that smokers and other social parasites are wasting health dollars is not substantiated by research and statistics accepted by other industrialized societies. Smokers, etc., in fact, die approximately 10 years earlier than their healthy counterparts, thereby saving money in the most expensive period — old age. So why discourage such behavior? The endorsement of contradictory findings, the promotion of irrational policies and the suppression of information unfavorable to industry not to mention the rabid, neurotic and sadistic motivations of sundry do-gooders is easily explained in one word — profit. The freedom of industry to waste, pollute, poison and wage war is obviously more important than the rights and freedoms of individuals, although the opposite is heavily marketed. What”s good for GM? National security? Yeah, right. Our health care system is the most expensive and inefficient among comparable industrialized nations. Our so-called leaders are willing participants in this obscenity because they”re making a fortune; 60 years promoting the benefits of privatization and the accumulation of wealth has delivered the inevitable debt, waste, wars and tax revenues that are dependent on individual consumption of cigarettes, cars, gambling, drugs, booze, etc. Amazing.

Joe Hertel, Santa Cruz

Why rush the aging process?

In the article in the USA Weekend citing statistics that older drivers are having fewer injury-causing and fatal accidents and the reasons therefore, I would add that as we are aware the inevitable end nears due to the steady process of aging, we see no need to rush it.

Ray Gardner, Watsonville

Profit should be taken out of health equation

If Congress is serious about controlling cost and creating an efficient health care system, it will look at taking the profit motive out of health care.

So long as medical facilities, process and treatments are investments seen in terms of cost and profit centers, health care will not be affordable in America even for people who have insurance. That is not to say that medicine shouldn”t or can”t make a profit, only that profits should be reasonable in the socialized sense that they do no harm to the community.

The current system is parasitic and has slowly been killing the society for a long time. But then, the financial industry is parasitic also.

Alvin Howard, Santa Cruz

Planned growth? Not in Scotts Valley

Planned growth is good. However, I do not see that happening in Scotts Valley. In addition to the outrageous idea of putting a Target store at the gateway to the beautiful San Lorenzo Valley, the City Council now plans to build a fire station on La Madrona under the pretense to better support Pasatiempo. One would think the fire station on Graham Hill would do this. It seems the lure of stimulus monies has the council thinking they can now build a fire station on La Madrona, in spite of the fact that the people of Scotts Valley have vetoed this in many elections. Why not retrofit the existing fire station to be earthquake safe? It is now a published fact that Target dumps hazardous waste that ends up in the landfills. Why would we think they would not do the same in Scotts Valley and pollute our landfill? Is this the type of establishment that is good for our town? The City Council needs to remember that it has an obligation to the people who elected them. That is to represent and carry out the wishes of the people.

Lucille Seavers, Scotts Valley

Education has become a political football

No exams to prove students can read and write after 15 years of school? They should be able to prove that before they enter junior high. How much does it cost the taxpayers to get him/her through 15 years of school? Free public education is not free. Yet when they graduate, how much do they know about culture, history, art, music? It is not taught to them. Physical education for their health has been stricken for economy. So they get their sports in front of the boob tube with coke and potato chips, interspersed every two hours with ads for Viagra and erectile dysfunction. Oh, they do get sex education at school. In third grade. Of course, they must know about gays in detail. At age 15, girls are producing babies to be paid for by the taxpayers. We have a huge white edifice in Sacramento with big letters: Department of Education, filled with well-paid people. What are they doing? Education is now a partisan football. The sad thing is it”s the Democrats in the forefront. Young adults don”t need to prove that they can read or write, or put two and two together after 15 years of school.

Ursula Grunwald, Santa Cruz

Urge the release of political prisoner

Please petition the release of Gilad Shalit. He was kidnapped by Iran-backed Hamas more than three years ago, presently being held hostage against the rules of the Geneva Convention, captured near where 9,000 Israeli civilians gave up their homes in hopes of peace.

Wesley Franklin, Carmel

Cheney should be put on trial

How can you tell when Dick Cheney, former vice president, is lying? When his mouth is open. Cheney has been on a whirlwind tour to convince Americans that we are not safe because we no longer torture our captives and we are again engaging with nations that Cheney and Bush refused to talk with — that evil called diplomacy. Why now? Why is Cheney all of a sudden coming out of hiding after eight years in near seclusion? With the revelation”s recently acknowledged by the Obama White House that high-level detainees were tortured, water-boarded, some over 100 times. Not to get intelligence about terrorist activity. These men were tortured so they would say what Cheney and Bush needed them to say — Iraq and al-Qaida were working together to destroy America. The smoking gun to justify the tragic decision to invade Iraq. As a veteran, it is my hope that Cheney will soon be speaking, opening his mouth, in a court of law, in defense of himself for the damage he has inflicted upon our nation, our military, our people and the world.

Kory McFarland, Salinas

Why not celebrate good ol” U.S. culture?

My, my, my! As more and more come from Southern California and other locales, just think how different it would be if those, putting all their time and effort into celebrating the Oaxacan culture, would put most of it toward learning the language and culture of their new homeland to be. Oh, I guess they are. Perdone.

Jerry Rappoport, Aptos

A complete history of the Middle East

Robert Carroll of Capitola has a selective understanding of Middle East history. It is correct that Israel was recognized as a state by the UN in 1948. The Arabs who lived in the region of Palestine also had an opportunity to have a state at that time. But they were convinced by surrounding Arab countries to oppose the establishment of Israel and not accept the U.N. ruling. There have been three major wars and many hostile actions against Israel. Territories captured in defensive wars, under U.N. laws, are defined as occupied territories until there is a peace agreement and boundaries are established. With the exception of Egypt and Jordan, there has been a peace agreement between the warring parties and the territories remain legally occupied. Carroll loses his bet and should learn his history.

Ralph Bernstein, Los Altos

Loopholes or life-savers?

How would you like to allocate funds in our state budget: $1.3 billion for a tax break for drug companies or CalWorks, a successful welfare-to-work program for single mothers; $174 million for an income-tax loophole on real-estate deals for wealthy corporations and individuals or Cal Grants for students to attend college and become the work force that fuels our economy; $700 million for a tax loophole for corporate offshore tax havens or keeping open our state parks and in-home care for elderly and disabled; $123 million for the corporate tax loophole which allows some corporations to pay no tax at all or saving the jobs of 1,700 Cal Fire fighters; $513 million for health insurance for 900,000 children, medicine for HIV patients and mental-health services for seriously ill patients or the Enterprise Zone tax break, which provides no community benefit. Let your California Senate and Assembly members know your choice.

Carol Long, Santa Cruz

U.S. should not meddle in Iran affairs

Can”t we learn from history? The United States, in 1953, helped depose the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mosaddeq with the Shah of Iran. The Shah turned out to be a brutal thug and suppressed democracy in Iran for the next 26 years. His corrupt and heavy-handed leadership, as well as his direct ties with the U.S., led to hostage-taking in Iran in 1979 in opposition to that American connection. The Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in Iran by opposing normalization of relations with the U.S. As usual, Republicans are clamoring for Obama to use military force or to come out forcefully in opposition to the election results in Iran. In my opinion, President Obama is doing exactly the right thing by not pressing for regime change, which would give the Iranian leadership an opportunity to make the U.S. the bad guy again. President Obama, stay the course.

John Beisner, Boulder Creek

Add more comics

I agree with most of your choices of comics. I”m glad you removed “Garfield,” “Hagar,” and “Frank and Ernest.” You could also remove “Blondie” and “Peanuts.” I miss “For Better or For Worse.” Please keep “Non-Sequitur,” “Doonesbury,” “Argyle Sweater,” “Rhymes with Orange,” “F Minus,” “The Duplex,” “Get Fuzzy,” “Zits” and “Dilbert.” All the others are fine, but if you have to get rid of any more, I would cut “Mutts,” “Deflocked” and “Sherman”s Lagoon.” Ideally, don”t remove anything, add more, so we have two pages of comics. Thanks for the changes.

Karen Williams, Santa Cruz

Make a pledge for Live Oak School

The bell is finally coming home to Live Oak School on Capitola Road and it will be gorgeous. And you can put your name or a loved one”s name or something clean in 35 spaces or less on a plaque or bricks for the world to see for the next hundred years or so. Contact Live Oak School District Offices at 475-6333 for information to pledge money.

Let”s git er done.

Gilbert Tanner, Santa Cruz