Letters

A rundown of some of Dean’s record, policies and statements: a 100 percent rating from the NRA; support of the death penalty; an anti-environment/pro–big business record in Vermont (IBM, the leading polluter in Vermont, received Dean’s Environmental Achievement Award nine times); sending Vermont’s nuclear waste to the poor, mostly Hispanic town of Sierra Blanca, Texas, 16 miles from the Mexican border — a plan described as “blatant environmental racism” by Paul Wellstone; opposition to Israeli Labor Party candidate for prime minister Amram Mitzna’s call for unconditional peace talks with the Palestinians; and this assessment by Annette Smith of Vermonters of a Clean Environment, who says: “Dean’s attempt to run for president as an environmentalist is nothing but a fraud. He’s destroyed the Agency of Natural Resources, he’s refused to meet with environmentalists while constantly meeting with developers, and he’s made the permitting process one, big dysfunctional joke. EP under Governor Dean meant Expedite Permits, not Environmental Protection.”

Dean is to be commended for running a grassroots campaign and for his tough line of questioning surrounding Bush’s rush to war with Iraq. However, Dean is conservative at the core. I encourage L.A. Weekly readers who support Dean to take a good look at the true progressive in the race, the one candidate who has co-sponsored single-payer universal-health-care legislation, who rallied two-thirds of the Democrats to vote against the war in Congress, and who authored legislation to establish a Cabinet-level Department of Peace: Ohio Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich.

—Eric Forst Culver City

In her article about Howard Dean, “Out of Left Field,” Jamie Wolf does a great job of allowing the reader to see her innermost thoughts — thoughts that should remain just that. This country needs people like Doctor Dean who have committed their lives to the people of this country and have the power to energize the electorate. Dean is changing the way we look at our politicians. Maybe Ms. Wolf should go back and read Theodore Roosevelt’s speech on “The Strenuous Life.” In order to build better communities in this country, as Dean proposes, we need more participation and less observation.

—Michael H. Kelly Los Angeles

Lettuce Gag

One should applaud Michelle Huneven for championing “a healthful alternative to the usual wash of hydrogenated oils and sugar and beef raised in environmentally damaging circumstances” in her review of McDonald’s new salads [“Fast-Food Lettuce,” August 29-September 4], if only because such concerns are religiously jettisoned from most restaurant reviews. But one must also point out that the McDonald’s chicken-, pork- and dairy product-loaded salads she champions as being that alternative are nothing of the kind. Salads stuffed with bacon, cheese, eggs, “crusty fried chicken” and smothered in bacon ranch or Caesar dressing do not a healthful alternative make, and the pigs, chickens and cows drafted to provide them are raised in circumstances equally or more damaging than the lot of any beef steer. Anyone whom Huneven’s review persuades that McDonald’s salads are ethically or nutritionally superior to their standard offerings is being grievously misled. When you order from the menu of a fast-food joint, you are getting fast food.

Huneven finds “a stray leaf of maroon radicchio” in her salad and thinks: “Alice Waters’ fresh-food revolution has finally come home.” For this observation, Ms. Huneven is surely due a generous check from the McDonald’s marketing department (and Ms. Waters is due an apology from Ms. Huneven), as that is, of course, the reaction they were aiming for, without the requirement that it be based on reality. Let us gag.

—Andrew Christie North Hollywood