SoCal Scorpions follow in Lobos’ tracks
When I read your story about the Scorpions’ first season game scheduled for Saturday afternoon, I immediately marked it on my calendar as a must see event (“SoCal Scorpions tackle Amazons in LJ,” Village News, July 20, page 15). And it was fun watching the women in action.
The last time I saw a female football feature was 30 years ago “” 1975, to be exact. Then it was the San Diego Lobos in the National Women’s Football League. They weren’t anywhere near as good as the Scorpions.
Back then, we had a popular La Jolla Magazine. I wrote a review of the realm of women’s football that was published that fall. You might be interested in how the sport has changed since then.
Jim Bie, La Jolla

South SD bay airport site
There have been several letters published on the proposed relocation of Lindbergh Field over the last few years. Today (July 11), the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority suggested they may consider the Tijuana International Airport because ¦it could relieve pressure on Lindbergh Field.” However, since apparently the Airport Authority has also stated that they will recommend joint usage of Marine Corps Miramar Air Station, I decided to submit again.
Of all the letters published on this subject, a few have mentioned the south San Diego bay as a possible airport site. I proposed that area to the Regional Authority, the Port District and the mayor of Chula Vista two years ago.
I felt that a sketch of the area will help local citizens to visualize how the proposed two parallel airport runways would be constructed. The runways would be primarily built on the the Western Salt Works site. The salt works are expendable and are of another era.
The orientation of the runways will be the same as Lindbergh Field. The runways are 12,000 feet long, and the enclosed area is 3,000 acres. The runways will point at 270 degrees toward the ocean and cross the old U.S. Naval Communication Station, which traces back to the 1930s and should be deactivated.
The South San Diego Bay National Wildlife Refuge will not be impacted. Airport terminals and parking would be built along the north side of Palm Avenue and west side of Saturn Avenue. Both areas are currently underdeveloped.
I think this site is the most economical, feasible and accessible, and could be constructed in a relatively short period. (The V-runway would only be for general aviation, if desired.)
William A. Daly, La Jolla

Give it to the veterans
I heartily agree with Walt Tice’s letter about Mount Soledad (“No big issue with vets,” Village News, July 20, page 8). His answer would solve two problems. It would no longer be a religious matter, and it would show these men and women we are grateful for their sacrifice.
It would be a tiny piece of earth to call their own, a place to come to relax and bring their mementos and show their children they did not die in vain.
Mr. Tice, it is a wonderful idea, and thank you for sharing it. I for one hope the powers that be will cede it to the veterans.
Ada Powers, Point Loma

Time to leave?
When the government takes down the entire crosses off all the headstones of all graves of the solders who have died serving this country and removes any and all references to prayer or biblical material from all government agencies, then and only then the cross can be condemned.
Then it would be time to leave this God-forsaken country. The Constitution wasn’t written to protect the government from God. It was written to protect your religious beliefs from government intervention and persecution.
Oscar B. Anderson, San Diego

Education, not domestication
Factual information is needed to refute the assertions in Kent Trego’s most recent anti-seal letter regarding the La Jolla harbor seal rookery (“Making a buck off the seals,” Village News, July 20, page 8).
Wild harbor seals utilized the immediate vicinity of Casa/Children’s Pool Beach as preferred habitat when the first mapmakers were laying out the town of La Jolla. Old maps of 1887 and 1894, as well as the current USGS map, show “Seal Rock” as the rock-complex now underneath the seawall.
By 1922, hunting of harbor seals along the West Coast had reduced the population to “several hundred animals for the entire California coast,” according to one scientist of the time, and thus La Jollans were not seeing many, if any, seals in 1931, when the seawall was constructed near a very small beach which existed then under the now-present lifeguard tower.
With the inception of the Federal Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972, California’s population of harbor seals began to return to natural levels, and harbor seals began to reoccupy ancestral rookeries; however. many California mainland sites were no longer available to this human-shy species, having been occupied in the interim by people. Thus, harbor seal rookeries in southern California became concentrated on our offshore islands.
Fortunately for the ecology of nearshore La Jolla and the pleasure of thousands of recreational seal watchers, La Jolla’s harbor seals became bold enough, probably out of necessity, to reestablish their rookery at the ancestral site. Here they now give birth on the sand, nurse their young, molt and haul out to rest and reoxygenate without disturbance (except from the anti-seal activists), as these seals no doubt did prior to the massive hunting that almost caused their permanent disappearance from the California coast.
Because harbor seals are naturally quite shy of people, a citizens volunteer educational program to protect the La Jolla rookery seals from humans who would chase them off the beach by approaching too closely (in violation of city and federal law) has been operating since the beginning of 2005.
To raise money for the program, a table selling T-shirts and other seal-related items often operates above the rookery. Mr. Trego’s inferences regarding domestication and “a trained seal show for commercial purposes” show his lack of understanding of harbor seals, their natural behavior and habitat, the educational program volunteers, and the general public’s desire that the seals remain undisturbed.
James Hudnall, La Jolla

Help innocent Lebanon war victims
Lebanon, a democracy where Christians, Muslims and Jews harmoniously lived since 1500 and barely emerging from a decades-old civil war, once again is plunged into growing suffering and destruction caused by the Israeli-Hezbollah war.
At least 400 innocent Lebanese civilians have been killed and many more wounded so far; the infrastructure of Lebanon destroyed, bridges, roads, electrical plants, warehouses. Nearly 20 percent of the population, about 750,000, have fled the rubble of Beirut’s southern suburbs with nothing but the clothes on their backs and in desperate need of aid.
Pope John Paul II, on a visit to Lebanon before he died, lovingly declared: “Lebanon is more than a country; it is a Message, a Mission.”
To help with humanitarian relief, send your tax-deductible contributions to: St. Ephrem Church / Caritas Liban, 750 Medford St., El Cajon, CA 92020.
For information, call (619) 337-1350 or e-mail [email protected].
Alfonso de Bourbon, La Jolla

Emperor has no clothes
I am stupefied and amazed that five years after 9/11, the New York Times has had its eyes opened and realize that this administration only wants power, not justice (editorial on Sunday, July 16).
I knew that before 9/11. All my friends knew it. Where did you go? Where are the editors of the Pentagon Papers age? Cheney/Bush have always wanted to shrink the federal government’s role in governing our country.Why has it taken five long, destructive years for the stalwart New York Times to speak out?
The emperor has no clothes! Why did the New York Times pull its punches for five years as this administration systematically dismantled the fundamental Constitution by starting an illegal war and lying to the voters about it, by taking away our rights and giving air, land and water rights to big business, depriving our citizens of their lawful protections?
Come on, people! You have been backing away from telling the American citizens the truth about what this administration has been doing in the name of fighting terrorism.
Lies to get us into a horror in Iraq, and it never has stopped since then.
I hope you will lead the way with other journalists, take off the kid gloves, do investigative reporting, stop letting this administration intimidate you and your colleagues and tell America what they deserve to hear, the truth!
What will our country be like when my daughter is voting age in 15 years? Will there be elections? My family worries and is deeply concerned that the United States governed by rule of fairness and the Constitution will never return.
Please consult your own children and ask them what you should do to turn things around.
Robert Alexander, La Jolla