China Syndrome

Mr. Bob W., Marina, from the sound of your comments you must not know much about China [“Speak Up, Be Down On Olympics,” Letters, March 20-26]. Have you ever visited there? Have you ever talked to Chinese citizens who live here on the Peninsula? If you think that our boycotting the Olympics, as you suggested, will mean anything to China you are dead wrong.

Who are we to decide the future and fate of athletes who have been preparing to compete for years because of political differences? It’s not fair to them for you to decide. Your statements of Internet blocking is baseless. I lived there for two years teaching English to young kids who were eager to learn and never found any hostility or negative situations. I also had high-speed internet 24/7 and was never blocked when I visited any site.

If you are basing your opinions on just what you read and hear I suggest to talk to real Chinese citizens (there are many here on the Peninsula). You might find a totally different attitude than what you are projecting.

My wife is from Beijing and has lived here for 10 years. We have visited China several times and on each visit we make we are amazed how “Western” China is becoming. Whatever you think China is…it isn’t. China is getting a bad rap because of inaccurate media coverage. Maybe once, just once, we should mind our own business and take care of the serious problems we have here at home. Open your mind and don’t believe all that you read. Vincent Marchiolo | Pacific Grove

Get Stuffed, Squid

Oh, would Squid just go suck on something else! I’m so tired of seeing our resident cephalopod criticize Monterey Herald Executive Editor Carolina Garcia [“Squid Fry,” March 20-26]. Less than six months ago, Squid gave her hell for giving Leon Panetta a warm greeting at a public event and now your tentacled-wonder is freaked that her meatiest ethical issue at the Carl Bernstein lecture was how to deal with “the incredible shrinking newspaper.” Here’s a suggestion, Squid: Take your ink sac and write an in-depth piece about how Media News has drastically altered daily, local news coverage in our area and how your reporting colleagues at The Herald continue to work hard, like you, for their public, despite outdated technology, shrinking resources and ever-growing demands from suits who may or may not share the exact dollar figure of the profit margins you are making for them. When you fry up this story, one angle you might want to cover is why Carolina Garcia, an intelligent woman who undoubtedly has job offers left and right, continues on at the helm. Or is Squid too squirmy around powerful, loyal women? – Dania Akkad | Santa Cruz, former Herald reporter

Dodge The Bullet Train

As Santayana famously wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The proposal to build a high-speed passenger link between San Francisco and Los Angeles [“”Who’s On Board”, March 20-26] is simply asinine. Consider the cost/benefit of recent ventures of the kind, such as the San Jose light-rail system, which like all such modern marvels generates revenues an order of magnitude lower than its costs. The inescapable fact is that if travelers have to get into their car to access mass transit, most won’t. As anyone who has actually driven the north/south corridor can attest, the problem is that one lane each way of the major highways is almost exclusively trucks using a second lane to play leap-frog at a snail’s pace. What’s needed to clean up congestion and reduce pollution is a self-supporting freight line. Andrew Allison | Carmel

Clarification

In the “Spending Green” photo caption [March 20-26], the Weekly misidentified Jay Tulley. He is project manager for the contractor of Trader Joe’s center in Monterey, Daniels & House Construction Co.