Rescue

My deepest appreciation for the extraordinary reporting of Charles Powers. After the long weeks of exposure to brutal hijackings, torture of hostages and the cynical behavior of terrorists and their cosmeticized spokesmen, Powers' revelation of the cooperation between the U.S. and Israeli officials in the rescue of thousands of black Jewish Ethiopian refugees helped balance the lopsided view of human nature and governments as nasty, brutish and short....

What totally amazes me about the Right-to-Lifers is their willingness to carry on high publicity protests and at the same time ignore the consequences. Just as in the abortion issue they ignore the lives of the unwanted abused babies, now they want to keep those alive who have come to the end of life. If they had rescued Nancy Cruzan, how long were they going to care for her shell? Five years? Ten years? Twenty years? Who was going to turn her every two hours and clean her? Who was going to buy the expensive liquid that goes into the feeding tube?

The predawn pounding on his front door woke Henrik Hairapetian from a sound sleep. It was a neighbor saying that an elderly woman down the street was trapped in a flooded house. Outside, rain fell in sheets. A basin on a La Cañada Flintridge hillside was overflowing, sending torrents of mud and water onto homes along Bristow Drive and Ocean View Boulevard. Hairapetian, 40, threw on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and ran to 86-year-old Ann Rouman's house three doors down. "The woman's daughter was outside screaming, 'She's in the back!

A French fishing boat was plowing through the southern Indian Ocean late Friday to rescue 16-year-old Abby Sunderland of Thousand Oaks from her storm-damaged boat in what will probably be the end of her attempt to sail around the world alone. A spokesman for Abby said he expected the rescuers from the French island of La Reunion to reach her yacht early Saturday, California time, and that plans are still unsettled about where the boat would head next as part of the young sailor's journey home.

We should really give thanks to the abilities of the Ventura fire and rescue teams, as well as all the other people that aided in that Ventura RV disaster. In these times of dwindling funds, it just makes everybody here in Ventura County very proud that we have such outstanding, brave firefighters and rescue team members who risk their lives to save somebody else's life. DON URSITTI Oxnard

Re "Sick Dogs Seized at Kennel in El Monte," Aug. 23: People who have to give up their pets need to be skeptical about the use of the word "rescue." Although the majority of rescue operations are legitimate and run by dedicated volunteers, there are some that may start out with the best intentions but eventually become overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of unwanted animals. It is important for people who are considering giving their pet to a rescue operation to do their homework.

That was an interesting table on the costs of various types of suburban rescues ("Rescue Me," by Phuong-Cac Nguyen, Dec. 13). I'm glad to see that the cities are attempting to get reimbursement from people who do foolish things and need to be rescued. I do wonder, though, why the proposed responses to the hypothetical incidents (which in many cases involved no risk of fire) all included a firetruck. Perhaps the cities are padding the bills or are trying to justify excessive budgets for fire departments.

A lucky cat owes one of its nine lives to a firefighter who revived it with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Al Machado rescued the cat from a burning apartment Tuesday, telling the Standard Times of New Bedford, Mass., that he began performing mouth-to-mouth as he carried it outside. Video shot at the scene shows Machado bent over, breathing into the cat's mouth. The cat, a tiger angora, was revived and resting comfortably soon after. Asked what it tasted like to give mouth-to-mouth to a cat, Machado laughed, grimaced and said: "Like fur."

Priceless How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures Robert K. Wittman with John Shiffman Crown: 320 pp., $25 Robert K. Wittman has saved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of art: Goyas and Brueghels, Renoirs and Rembrandts, a Rodin sculpture, hundreds of heirlooms and priceless antiques. Chasing a Rolls-Royce along a Miami freeway or breaking up a European crime ring, he also offers his theory behind the 1990 heist at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum amounting to more than $500 million.

Uplifted by 33 miners Re "Chile lifts first miners to freedom," Oct. 13, and "Chile revels in its triumph," Oct. 14 The uplifting story about the rescue of the Chilean miners placed next to the story about the pervasive antics of our gubernatorial candidates could not have provided a better juxtaposition on the good and bad of the human spirit. While the inter- national community celebrates the amazing rescue of the 33 miners, we are forced to focus on the petulant, preening and self-aggrandizing behavior of Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman.