Thursday’s Letters to the Editors

North L.B. problems

As if the crisis in the financial markets weren’t depressing enough, calls to the North Division to deal with chronic disregard for codes and statutes in North Long Beach are met with a shrug. Illegally parked cars, fireworks and yelling and screaming are bad enough, but repeated calls to North Division have produced little more than quick “don’t want to get involved” drive-bys by patrol cars.

There was not only a loss to the city of the income from a minimum of four parking tickets Friday night – two red zones and two blocked driveways – but more importantly is the deterioration of property values brought on by poor policing.

It is time for North Division to make the connection between their salaries and the diligence with which they do their jobs.

Edward Morris

Long Beach

Flag pins

While watching the presidential debate it became obvious that Sen. McCain was not wearing a flag pin. Wasn’t it the McCain campaign that raised such a ruckus about Obama not wearing a flag pin? Talk about hypocrisy.

Eric David

Long Beach

Paul Newman

Years ago, I was a partner in a limo service in Huntington Beach. During this time period I had the opportunity to drive Paul Newman. I don’t think I have ever met a sweeter and kinder individual in the movie industry. He will be sorely missed and my prayers go out to his wife and family. My brother, who lives in Connecticut, has fished with Mr. Newman during his stays at the Hole in the Wall camp, which he set up for ailing children. A photo of his Long Beach Grand Prix car holds a place of honor on the wall of my home.

Isaac J. Oshana

Long Beach

Prop. 8 and mothers

Opponents of Prop. 8 now use the word “fair” to justify redefining marriage. But those four California Supreme Court justices missed point: the true meaning of marriage. Perhaps mothers understand it better than those four men. Perhaps the judicial vote would have differed if they had listened to mothers.

Marriage, really, means far more than veils, flowers, and exchanging rings. Its true prestige is earned by sacrifice, not by ceremony. The joy is more in bringing a child into the world than in bringing flowers into a church. It often includes two persons giving equally of their genes to the child they bring into the world. This carries on, in the child, the very appearance of both the father and mother.

That is marriage.

Those four justices were trying to enforce a social prestige: the ceremonial prestige; but the husband-wife relationship, over thousands of years, has earned at least the prestige of having one word for itself: marriage.

How unfair to take from all of us the name we have had for that relationship.

Jonathan Whitcomb

Long Beach

Bailout politics

Nancy Pelosi and the other Senate members want you to believe that they did a bang-up job saving us from certain economic failure. They promise to introduce regulations to keep this from happening again. Trust us, they ask. I want to know where they were when the original regulations were removed or changed. These are the same people on watch when this all started. They say there won’t be any golden parachute for these Wall Street CEOs. Well, that cow has already left the barn. The smart ones on Wall Street long ago made enough money to last them for awhile. They’ll probably be hired as consultants to help straighten out this debacle and make even more of the public’s money. Everyone gets a piece of the pie expect the common working person. Well, they have helped me decide who to vote for. Anyone that’s not an incumbent and I’ll continue this practice until I see that these senators and congressmen start working for the common people that pay their wages, and not their buddies on Wall Street.

Gloria Mannion

Lakewood

Compromising

Politics is the art of compromise. Say what you will about President Bush and John McCain, but they assembled a fragile alliance to pass a record bailout to stop the bleeding on Wall Street. And Speaker of the House Pelosi demonstrated her abject failure in leadership by politicizing the vote on the bailout – and so the House failed to pass the measure. Should the democrats maintain their majority in Congress, then the people get what they ask for – a rudderless ship in a sea of crisis.

Paul Carter

Long Beach

Foreclosures moratorium

We should allow people who are now in foreclosure to remain in their homes indefinitely. A moratorium on future foreclosure must be declared immediately. The human aspect of this issue has been ignored entirely.

Mel Salsman

Long Beach

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