SELLER BEWARE

Beginning in 1957, for 20 years, the US furnished not only technical assistance to Iran’s nuclear program, but enriched uranium and plutonium. Eight nuclear reactors with fuel were included. Despite President’s Ford hesitancy, the sales went forward with assurances by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; his Chief of Staff Dick Cheney; and Paul Wolfowitz, his nonproliferation man at the arms control agency, that these sales were intended for peaceful uses only.

What goes around comes around. The US has created an ongoing problem with weapons proliferation: our arms sales have the unfortunate consequences of coming back to hit us in the butt time and time again. As the world’s largest purveyor of weaponry, we can look forward to our sales efforts returning with fatal consequences. —William D. Cox, Ph.D. | Marina

FAMOUS ENVIROS NOT GOOD ENOUGH

In reading the local papers, it seems that there is a bit of hypocrisy with our heralded environmental leaders, Clint Eastwood and Julie Packard.

Front page news proclaims Clint Eastwood is assuming his role as national spokesman for “Take Pride in America,” a program that encourages volunteers to work for public lands.

And then we have the articles extolling the vision and conservation efforts of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where Julie Packard states, “new exhibits will connect visitors to ocean life and protection of the world’s oceans as never before.”

The Eastwood company is planning to cut down 17,000 Monterey Pines for its Del Monte Forest plan. In the case of Julie Packard’s vision for ocean conservation, isn’t this a blatant case of “do as I say, not as I do?” Case in point: the local Department of Fish and Game (DFG), under the direction of Fred Wendall, in an agency memo, wrote that DFG wanted to “resolve conflicts between scientific collectors, Monterey Bay Aquarium, university education facilities and the Tidepool Coalition of Pacific Grove, which seeks to prohibit all scientific and educational collecting within the city’s Refuge, except as related to onsite scientific research.” Wendall states, “the aquarium would ultimately like to continue collecting in this area on a very limited basis to help supplement their educational exhibits.”

No Way, Jose! The people of Pacific Grove in June, 2000 overwhelmingly supported a successful ballot initiative which prohibited collecting in the Pacific Grove Marine Gardens Fish Refuge for exhibits, displays, and scientific collecting of specimens that can be collected elsewhere.

All of this might lead one to believe there is a tinge of hypocrisy. —Jim Willoughby, Chair, Tidepool Coalition | Pacific Grove

PHIL’S SWELL

I would like to publicly thank Phil DiGirolamo for putting on Bluegrass on the Slough two weeks ago, the free music festival held at Phil’s Snack Shack in Moss Landing for the fourth year. I would also like to thank the musicians who donated their time and talent to make the event such a success. The venue for acoustic music at Phil’s Fish Market and Eatery has helped to spark interest in acoustic music. —Randy Lent, Courthouse Ramblers | Soledad

Editor’s Note

Roger Cohen, an International Herald Tribune columnist who contributed a Forum to the May 19-25 issue (“Global Blowback”) is the author of Soldiers and Slaves: American POWs Trapped by the Nazis’ Final Gamble, published this month by Knopf.