Dignity

The comments made by Councilman Donn Hall following the March 17 Costa Mesa City Council meeting and the apparent rejection of the Segerstrom Home Ranch project and its 500-foot office building were another example of his callous disregard of his own constituents in favor of developers. His request to the developer to withdraw the project was to allow the developer to, in Hall's words, "leave with some dignity." It's really interesting that Councilman Hall felt an obligation to preserve the dignity of a wealthy and powerful developer, and yet in the 10 years we've been observing the council we've never seen Hall cast a vote to preserve the dignity of his constituents, the residents of Costa Mesa.

An Actor's Life: INTRO TO HUM (that's humility, folks) 101. Those few good weeks can bring an actor, two, three, maybe even four (gosh!) auditions to juggle into his schedule. "No, this wino drinks Thunderbird, not Ripple. NEXT!" "Let's see your boy-next-door pining look. NEXT!" "Do the businessman on steroids who beats his wife. NEXT!" "OK, this character's psychotic, but stable. Now he's not a stable psychotic mind you, but psychotic only on Tuesdays, and it's Wednesday morning after a tough night, and he's thinking of his father whose schizophrenic as he's waking up. Now, wake up!

I certainly disagree with the column in every aspect. Let's put the leash back on the "dog of war." I am wondering if soldier Summers thinks that enlisted men don't have honor or dignity either. Is your officer corps above and beyond the laws of this country? Perhaps the officer corps is still living in a fantasy of princes, paupers, and serfdom. Traditionally officers came from the royalty and wealthy citizenry. However, this is 1988 and I'm sorry to say most of our officers come from the middle-class strata with a mentality befitting that position.

While reading about Dr. Eva Carrizales' plight ("By a Doctor's Hand," by Barry Siegel, June 12), I felt like cradling her in my arms, much as she did that doomed child. This tragedy is a sterling example of why criminal law and medicine should rarely intersect. When we bestow on a person the license to make daily life and death decisions, which has to be the most difficult job conceived, then that person must also be given greater latitude in making those decisions. A key mistake was that despite a peer review finding that the baby's care was not "below standards," the district attorney went ahead with a grand jury proceeding.

If the future of the United States were based on destroying all diversity of political voice and replacing it with 19th-Century doctrines of individualistic exploitation of the Earth's resources, then the Young Americans for Freedom would have a valid place as the catalysts of such homogenization. However, the United States is not a mere concatenation of human economic units, each actively pursuing its own private interests. Rather, we are a nation of people who believe in helping our fellow citizens live together in peace, security and dignity.