MAILBAG:Don’t pave back 9 to put up parking lot

I am extremely dismayed that John Wayne Airport is considering paving over the back nine holes of Newport Beach Golf Course (“Back nine may become JWA parking lot,” April 18). I have played at the course on and off over the past 30 years. I am a member of a golf league composed mostly of employees of former Rockwell Semiconductor and its spin-offs. We number about 35 golfers who play the back nine holes every Wednesday in the late afternoon, and everyone in the league looks forward to a mid-week break when we can gather to play. We call the league the Newport Beach Back Nine I served as the league’s president in 1999, and I can assure you that our current and past members want to preserve the golf course.

I have lived in Orange County for 44 years, and it is my firm belief that we don’t need to cover up more of our scarce open space! If more parking is needed, then the airport should add a second level to the Main Street parking lot.

EUGENE G. PRICE

Laguna Niguel

The golf gods are displeased with plan

I am running a back-nine league at the Newport Beach Golf Course, and this is my ninth year of playing in this league. The league members gather every Wednesday afternoon to play the back nine. We have 33 league members, and we work at businesses that are in the area.

This league provides local working people a convenient, affordable place to golf.

The other angle to view this from is youth golf. I have brought my two boys to play on different occasions, and it’s the perfect setting and size to introduce the great game of golf to our youngsters.

There have to be better places to make room for additional rental-car storage than the back nine. The golf gods will punish those who tread on our links.

PHIL ALVAREZ

Newport Beach

Logical solutions to gang-violence problem

Mayor Allan Mansoor has figured out the solution to gang violence, the latest threat to our city: “It boils down to having a strong, two-parent family that really spends time with their kids,” Mansoor said (“Leaders react to shooting,” April 21).

In order to make this happen, Costa Mesa, we are going to have to do the hard work of staying married. As with the immigration policy, gang violence is the result of failed federal policy (enforcing family values). So let’s be logical and ban divorce citywide.

Also, let’s ban second jobs and make at least one spouse, preferably the wife, stay home. Then we force kids to stay at home with their parents by passing that curfew. Actually, we should have the curfew state something like this: “Only one parent of a two-parent family is allowed to be out of the house (working), and the other one should be home with the kids after school.” That way the “really spends time with their kids” part of the theory is also regulated. (Maybe we should also say that they should read the Bible from 3 to 4:30 p.m., but I guess that’s implied.) Also, lets ban vegan diets (just to be safe).

Also, I think the mayor meant to say “two opposite-sex parent family,” so let’s ban homosexuality. Then we don’t have to worry about banning same-sex marriage later on.

Also, the mayor is an honorary Minuteman, and it makes sense that we at some point mandate that Costa Mesa families be comprised of two same-raced, opposite-sex parents. After all, as Mansoor once said, “tolerance is by definition intolerant,” which may make it OK at some point to have preference toward one race or the other.

Why bother with a police-recommended gang-prevention program when changing the way Costa Mesa families are comprised is the logical answer?

I agree with the mayor that the police are doing their job of preventing gang violence by apprehending them after the fact. As he said, that’s results!

DOUG AND SUZIE MANN

Costa Mesa

Check the facts about vegan diets

Sounds like Carolyn Parks didn’t do her homework (Mailbag, “Strict vegan diets pose risks to teenagers,” April 8). I have a 15-year-old who is a vegan and is probably the healthiest kid in her school. I just took her to her vegan pediatrician who we see once a year because she is rarely ill.

We need to teach our children wellness through nutrition. All the vitamins we need are provided through the plant world. I manage a vegan restaurant, and the young people who come in are all about health — in fact every customer who comes in has that in mind.

LYNDA SHEKLOW

Costa Mesa

Recent news points to right-wing conspiracy

Did you notice that the Dow just plowed through the 13,000 mark? I suspect a massive right-wing conspiracy by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and all the fat cat Republicans to make stocks so expensive that only fat cat Republicans can buy them, and therefore control the huge corporations that give all those enormous contributions to Republican politicians so they can get elected and give even bigger tax breaks to fat cat Republicans by taking the food out of our middle-class babies’ mouths as they try to drill for our own oil, destroy our planet, take away a woman’s right to vote and eliminate the minimum wage.

The media are telling us that the economy is in the dumper, so this must surely be a side effect of the same conspiracy. I can’t wait for Democratic senators to start conducting hearings and endless investigations to get to the bottom of this massive fraud on the great people of America. Write your representative and demand action while we still have a democracy to defend!

CHUCK CASSITY

Costa Mesa