to the editor

Bears as 'wine country casualties'

Editor,

I was appalled after reading Peter Fimrite's article, "Wine country casualties" (Dec. 26). It describes the slaughter of bears and deer because they damage wine grapes in Napa County.

There are thousands of acres of open, forested land in California's northern counties that would make a suitable habitat for these animals. Wouldn't relocating them to these areas be a more humane solution to the problem?

If there is a reasonable argument against relocation that I haven't thought of, I'd really like to hear it.

RICH FOLEY
Sausalito

Editor,

I was saddened but not surprised by the article about the plight of our native bears and even cougars being targeted for death by vintners.

As humans further encroach on these majestic animals, of course sightings and "incidents" increase. We have driven many animals to extinction, and most others have been exterminated from their normal ranges by human "development."

It is sad that human greed and shortsightedness keep pushing these original inhabitants of "our" lands ever further into retreat and decline. Ideally, we could set up a grassroots-driven "Wildlife Conservation Act" akin to the original Coastal Conservation Act. But the state proposition process has been so co-opted by powerful industry lobbyists that it is likely impossible to achieve anything meaningful by that route. Still, it is worth a try.

In the meantime vintners and ranchers should be required to set up stronger, and electrified, fences before any "depredation" (execution) permits are approved. Vintners and others wishing to destroy our wildlife should be required to try to trap and relocate animals several times first.

We California citizens also need to wrest the "depredation" permitting process away from the feds. If Californians aren't willing to curtail further intrusive "development" into wildlife's last safe places, we must take steps to ensure our native fauna's dignity, safety and right to survive and even thrive.

DAVID SHEFIK
Berkeley

Editor,

Seems to me that we've got a lot more vineyards in the coastal mountains than we have bears. I'd rather see the bears.

ERIC JEWETT
Los Gatos

// posted by Unknown @ 10:40 AM 0 comments

I am a soldier in the US Army. I want out of this nightmare, this emasculation of my humanity, my needs, my desires, the right to voice my opinion. Ironically, I obtained a copy of Embedded from my base library. I also just sent a letter to the FBI, via their webpage for submitting tips about possible terrorists, and informed them of my disgust about their interregation of people who intend to protest at the RNC in NYC. Please forgive any mispellings, I am typing this much quickly than normal; you guessed it, I am using a highly monitored computer. Fuck it, I don't care anymore.

Sincerly,

Dwayne

// posted by Unknown @ 7:11 PM 0 comments

Some local letter writers are embracing the techniques of sleaze, slime and misinformation that they're seeing on the national stage, joining the army of the scurrilous. It's disheartening.

I've spent seven years as an editorial page editor and 10 years before that, when I was a managing editor, working closely with another opinion editor. And never, in the best part of two decades, have I had to reject, throw away or send back for rewrite so many letters filled with so many frauds and character assassinations.

Some writers are going to highly partisan Web sites filled with deliberately deceptive claims, copying what they find and submitting it as letters. Stuff like the anti-Kerry venom spread by the "Swift Boat Veterans," a group heavily funded by a Houston developer who has donated millions to the Republican Party. Stuff like the ads from MoveOn, the PAC funded by big-bucks Hollywood liberals, that continually distort what the Bush administration has done, especially in the Iraq war.

I have as much respect for the attacks of the Swift Boat Veterans as I have for the barrages of Whoopi Goldberg and Michael Moore. None. I am disgusted by the relentless war being waged by both the left and the right against civility and responsible debate. Are we watching as a respectable democracy degenerates into a Roman circus, where bloodshed is prized and intellect demeaned?

That's a local worry. Some of our readers are taking the low road to the mud pits, submitting slurs and misinformation as their truth. It is anything but truth. Whether from left or right, it is propaganda, Big Lies that, if repeated often enough, become an accepted version of reality.

Do yourself and your fellow readers a favor: If you want to write a letter about the presidential race, check your facts with a neutral source. Look at the candidates' actual statements, their actual voting records, their real performance. George W. Bush and John Kerry have real records, readily available, and it takes no great intellect to construct legitimate arguments for or against either one of them.

We'll be getting piles of political letters between now and Nov. 2. We won't have enough space to print all of them. The first ones to bite the dust will be the ones built on deliberate falsehoods. If there's a minor factual problem, we'll send the letter back and ask that you rewrite it. But the scurrilous diatribes will go to the wastebasket.

Let's have a good debate here. Share your own opinions, but base them on verifiable facts.

// posted by Unknown @ 9:10 PM 0 comments

This is a letter to the person or persons who stole my grandson's bicycle, which was chained to a telephone pole in front of my house. It was a fairly new bicycle, one that would take my 11-year-old grandson to school, to visit friends and family or just to enjoy himself when God gives us beautiful weather to enjoy.

Do you carry bolt cutters around with you to commit your crimes? Did you really need my grandson's bicycle? Or did you sell it for the use of other things that make you feel good? If you knew what a gentle, quiet spirit my grandson has, would you still have stolen it?

I cannot stay angry at you, but I pray for you that someday you will change your heart. And in changing your heart, you will one day do good.

ELLEN HICKMAN
YORK CITY

// posted by Unknown @ 8:37 PM 0 comments

Bill O'Reilly's piece of July 25 asserting that "Liberals" and "Liberal Web sites" are destroying America and should apologize for accusing the Bush administration of lying its way into Iraq is, simply put, garbage journalism.

First, let me point out that devout "liberals" such as Pat Buchanan and Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul have been steadfast in their opinion that Bush and his neoconservative advisers manipulated the facts on Iraq. While Bill O'Reilly is checking out the wild-eyed leftist Web sites he writes about, he should also check out The American Conservative, Antiwar.com., and Cato Institute sites as well.

Second, I remind O'Reilly that contrary to his claims of U.N. ineptitude, the U.N. and Hans Blix were not just wandering around the desert, blindly seeking Iraqi WMD. In fact, Blix and his UNMOVIC inspectors were corroborating the statements of a number of experts, including former UNSCOM inspector Scott Ritter, stating that Iraq's WMD programs were gutted by the U.N. inspections of the 1990s. Mr. Bush, in his rush to this foolish war, feared the UNMOVIC inspections and their potential for negating his pretext for war, and did his very best to discredit them. Three days into the inspection process and he was already declaring them a failure.

There is ample evidence that the Bush administration and the neocons manipulated and cherry-picked intelligence to tell the story they wanted to tell on Iraq. There is, of course, also the issue of our spineless Congress, taking the politically expedient (and constitutionally illegal) route and giving Bush the unfettered blanket authority to make war.

Americans of all political stripes are angered by these duplicitous actions, and they are speaking out. The next time O'Reilly wants to confront someone who " ... will say and do anything to destroy those with whom they disagree ...," I suggest he take a dose of truth serum and go look in the mirror.

JOHN H. BOHN
YORK TOWNSHIP

// posted by Unknown @ 8:34 PM 0 comments

Editor -- Can you tell me how I might contact Tom Ridge to let him know that I have very firm (albeit dated) intelligence indicating that the British are coming?

DOUGLAS C. THOMPSON
Belmont

// posted by Unknown @ 12:35 PM 0 comments