MAILBAG - Nov. 6, 1999

The shady side of the Bell Curve

Joe Bell squares off against right-wing fanatics in his column of Oct. 28

(“Forget about the facts, the commies are coming”), lecturing two local

congressmen, and, coincidentally, Pilot readers, that they are silly

children to worry about the fact that the Chinese have armed themselves

with nuclear missiles, and their military leaders have belligerently

specified that these missiles are capable of hitting Los Angeles.

Why is it childish of American citizens to be alarmed at being targeted

by the most terrifying of weapons? Bell doesn’t really make that clear.

He cites an expert who feels that a Chinese nuclear weapon would not be

very dangerous. And he quotes from an article in the New York Times (that

notable news source that suppressed information of Stalin’s mass

slaughter of millions of Ukrainian farmers as not being anything

Americans should know about), which concludes that espionage, military

threats, missile tests and unrelenting bluster and hatred directed at the

United States by an unprincipled dictatorship don’t really justify

concern.

But if his arguments against congressmen Chris Cox and Dana Rohrabacher

aren’t strong, they’re not really his point.

What Bell wants to do is to show his cleverness; he clearly remembers

those heady days in the ‘70s, when right-thinking lefties had such grand

sport with the slow-witted conservatives in exactly the way Bell is here

laboring to duplicate. He almost chokes on his contempt for Chris and

Dana for thinking that communists were, and still are, the threat he --

and the sophisticated set he longs to be included among -- had convinced

themselves they were not.

Bell is typical of the academic lightweights who see nothing in political

and foreign policy questions but opportunities to enhance their inflated

self-importance, their sense of superiority over the lowly bourgeois

citizenry that their mediocre educations have taught them to despise.

Like them, he hates his rivals more than he hates his enemies, even

though those enemies are devoted to destroying everything he wishes his

children and grandchildren to enjoy.

He and I have lived through much of this slaughterous century; we have

witnessed sights that should have convinced him, as they certainly have

me, that there is an overwhelming seriousness in the problems that face

this country -- and a grim finality for those who make the wrong choices.

Bell sees in them only an opportunity to smirk at those who don’t line up

with the popular kids. But Chris and Dana have chosen the unfashionable

route of taking armed hatred seriously; I think I’ll stick with them, and

let Joe slide down the shady side of the Bell Curve on his own.

DOUGLAS R. TOOHEY

Costa Mesa

Dunes is bigger than it seems

I noticed in your editorial about the Dunes that “The owners of the land

planned to build a 500-room hotel.” Please note that the people planning

the project are leasing the land from the county. The land was formed

from tideland by dredging.

Also, the size and appearance of the project seem to be misrepresented to

the public. The views that have been used in presentations were

illustrated from a vantage point three stories high. The harbor view in

the environmental report may be as much as 50% of the actual project to

view. Here are some images of the project. I made the image by overlaying

the plans behind the existing buildings. I used the existing buildings

for scale. Thank you for providing information to the public about the

project.

BERT OHLIG

Newport Beach