A Fish Story
A dire crisis looms and lurks across the land, oceans, rivers and seas for Passover and Easter. The gefilte fish are not biting this year,at least not the fishing lines. Fishermen are complaining from the Northeast, along the Great Lakes and to the inland streams.
A Minnesota fisherman declares, “I have never seen anything like this. It’s like some wildly out-of-control virus is making them bite and eat each other. I had my hand bitten while pulling a few out of the water.” Rabbis and priests are very upset, leading their congregations in prayers for a solution to this “mad fish disease.”
There are also scattered rumors of middlemen hoarding the gefilte fish and selling them at black-market prices. Some worshippers have dubbed the situation “Gefilte-gate.”
People in south Florida are allegedly paying up to $200 a pound,four times the normal rate,for the delicacy.
“We were caught unaware during election 2000 and we don’t want to bring shame upon ourselves again,” explained one Miami retiree.
Supermarkets, butchers and chefs are said to be passing off a concoction of white fish, pike, cod, carp, bluefish and even shad, buffalo fish and mackerel as real gefilte fish.
I recommend using this recipe for the holidays, since the fish is a dish, not a species. You don’t have to be Jewish to love gefilte fish, or a holiday hoax!
Michael Arnold Glueck, MD
Newport Beach
El Toro, Cont’d
Your March 5 OC Insider column noted that the visiting mayor of Irvine’s sister city in Taiwan, Chong-Yi Chen, said he “looked forward to using the (El Toro) airstrip in lieu of LAX,” but then passed it off as a misunderstanding on Mr. Chen’s part.
Perhaps however, it was not a mistake nor misunderstanding, but rather it shows most foreign and domestic outsiders’ perspective about Orange County’s lack of airport facilities.
For more than two decades, most people outside this county (including our neighbors in Los Angeles County, who must suffer our traffic and flight load) have not understood why we didn’t already have our own airport capable of serving national and international flights. This is not just a “poor LA” problem, as that traffic also has to travel through our area, and we all have to go to LAX for anything but regional travel.
Moreover, it is really in our own best interests to have our own full-fledged airport if we desire a strong and growing economy here. One of the major detractors for our area in attracting national and international companies has historically been the lack of nearby air service. This was an issue we grappled with in Partnership 2010, which ultimately recommended the airport at the El Toro base; but Orange Countians tend to forget this issue when we’re all “fat and happy.”
What other successful metropolitan area of 3 million people doesn’t have its own airport? El Toro has been an operating airport since 1942, and to use it otherwise is a waste of an invaluable resource. The people who bought in that area were fully aware of it and their property values reflected the fact that a then-military airport operated over them. And most people are unaware that the federal government holds an aviation easement above all of our properties for over-flights, so that even the John Wayne Airport patterns could be routed over Irvine, Lake Forest and other South County homes.
I see no reason for the rest of Orange County’s residents to help the property owners in Irvine, Lake Forest, et al to increase their property values by removing the existing airport. Nor do I see any reason to give the already park-rich residents of Irvine and Lake Forest, et al another monumental 4,750-acre “Balboa Park” cultural and recreation complex at the rest of the county taxpayers’ expense.
And why in the heck is it OK for them to pay tens of millions of taxpayers’ dollars to continually mail anti-airport propaganda and misrepresentations (I must get one a week), but now it’s not OK for the county to send out information?
Thomas Trischler
Principal
Trischler Associates
Orange
Nursing Shortage
Re: Vita Reed’s Feb. 12 story (“New Nursing Order) about the new state mandate on nurse staffing and the shortage of nurses in hospitals:
I was pleased this issue was being covered. The story pointed out the crisis regarding adequate numbers of nurses in hospitals. In Orange County alone, there are presently 2,000 vacant nursing positions. California has the lowest number of registered nurses per capita among all 50 states. However, the shortage exists in the other settings, too, including home care, skilled nursing facilities and public health.
The problem lies not only in staffing issues, but also in education, where augmented funding to community college nursing programs would increase program size and improve retention of students. Associate degree nursing programs are expensive to operate, requiring extra state allocations beyond the funding capacity of individual community colleges.
Last year, the Legislature supported a request for additional nursing slots and program increases for the CSU and community colleges. Unfortunately, Gov. Gray Davis vetoed the nursing budget money.
This year, the Healthcare Association of Southern California is seeking funding for a public-private partnership to be funded through a one-time-only demonstration project grant from the state of California of $2 million per year for two years. The success of this project could point the way to supply-side solutions statewide. Left unattended, the nursing shortage will likely become our state’s next crisis.
Carol Comeau, RN
Director of Nursing and Health Sciences
Santa Ana College
Santa Ana
