Is This in Reference to the U.S. or Ukraine?
As my father once said, “This used to be a helluva nice country.” At least if you were white and middle-class.
And as Kurt Vonnegut noted (in reference to Germany), “occasionally countries seem to lose their minds.” We thought we were immune, but we were not. Imagine an era where ultra-conservatives are on the side of a Russian autocracy against an elected democracy. And calling a domestic near-coup, “civil discourse.”
Steven Meloan, Sonoma, Calif.
On Ukraine
Why, Why, Why, Why, Why, didn’t anybody tell me? Too many guns. Too many Nazis. Why on earth would anyone use public television to teach the public how to make molotov cocktails? Why would the United States provide weapons to Nazis? Why would MSNBC camp out with Ukranian Nazis? Why do American sources of L.P.S. and oil want to shut down Russian relations with Germany via the shutdown of Nord Stream II? Why aren’t the British imposing sanctions on one of the inarguably largest oligarchs of Russia, Roman Abramovich, owner of the Chelsea football team? Why can I not simply take as of word: demilitarization and denazification?
Deliver flowers not guns. Promote peace, do not deliver weapons to Nazi militias.
Joe Busciano received a little over half of the 6.5% of voters who could have voted to propel him into a seat as a council member. Let’s make sure he never holds political office again.
Mark A. Nelson, San Pedro
Terminal Island: Erasure or Remembrance? (RLn Feb. 17, 2022)
Heart wrenching to read, yet so important to remember what the RLn story reveals about the reaction to the day of “infamy” (Dec. 7, 1941) when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on Feb. 19, 1942 signed Executive Order 9066 that declared all Americans of Japanese descent were to “evacuated” to the various concentration camps around the U.S.A. for the duration of WWII.
Close to home here in San Pedro, hundreds who resided on Terminal Island in the village they lovingly called “Furasato” — home sweet home — were part of that mass exodus.
In 2007 the LA Harbor International Film Festival programmed the outstanding documentary The Lost Village of Terminal Island that played to the SRO crowd. We were also instrumental in linking the filmmaker David Metzler with ABC sports broadcaster Rob Fukuzaki who recorded a new voice over narration that added much panache. It was significant that Mr. Fukuzaki had relatives who dwelled in Furusato. My family’s tuna cannery employed dozens of workers of Japanese descent held in utmost respect.
For decades there has been a group calling themselves “Terminal Islanders” who have preserved the history of the community though sadly many of that “Greatest Generation” era have passed on.
Thankfully the Los Angeles Maritime Museum opened a permanent exhibit Tāminaru is a look back at this lost community.
Our family’s tuna cannery Franco Italian Packing Company employed hundreds of Japanese workers over the decades (c. 1924-60) and held those great workers in high regard. My parents went to school with many who were “shipped off” and told the cautionary tale of how wrong it was; and always honored, remembered and appreciated the dignity and loyalty of those of Japanese descent.
Esteemed former public official Warren Furutani remembers his family’s legacy in the Stories Of Los Angeles Harbor Area: For Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow (Vol. I) oral history project produced by myself and Jack Baric that can be viewed at the website: www.storieslosangelesharborarea.com.
The article is an important reminder that we must never forget, rather recall and attempt to understand such draconian actions, so as not to repeat again.
Stephanie Mardesich, San Pedro
The First Black Female Supreme Court Nominee
The White House announced President Biden’s nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill Justice Stephen Breyer’s seat on the Supreme Court.
Judge Jackson is the first Black woman to be nominated to the Court in its 232-year history, and given the fact that Mitch McConnell abolished the filibuster for confirming Supreme Court nominees, Democrats should have no trouble confirming her, even if it requires a party-line vote (it should not).
But you can never be too sure of anything these days, especially when some Senate Democrats have repeatedly stood in the way of President Biden’s agenda. And with Mitch McConnell attempting to stop any and all of our progress.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans have already begun their typical smear campaign of Judge Jackson, and it’s important that we stand with her today and in the weeks to come. The fight ahead is critical for the Supreme Court and for our country. Thanks for standing with me and for a balanced Supreme Court.
Rep. Adam Bennett Schiff, D-CA 28th District