LETTERS
SUVs and Terror
I was listening to my car radio the other day when the voice of Arianna Huffington came on explaining why she believed driving an SUV was equivalent to buying illegal drugs. According to the diva of “musical chairs” politics, SUVs are the reason we are buying more oil from Arabs who in turn finance terrorism. Her and her celebrity buddy Norman Mailer were equating the legal purchase of a consumer good with the illegal purchase of drugs! It was enough for me to turn my suburban around with all the lacrosse and football equipment, assorted cases of juices, snacks, water and kids piled high and drive straight to the Huffington and Mailer mansions.
I don’t have a problem with people who practice what they preach. I might not agree with them, but they have my respect for being true to their ideals. A few months ago a group of Christian environmentalists put out an ad asking, “What would Jesus drive?” Other than walking, the Bible only mentions a donkey as the mode for His transportation. Yet even if I didn’t agree with the concept, the ad at least struck me as sincere.
However, I am dumbfounded in the case of people such as Huffington, who lives in a nine-bedroom mansion heated by natural gas, flies on private jets not known for their mass-transit conservation and is driven around in gas-guzzling limousines. As for Mr. Mailer, he lives in a mansion with a 21-car garage!
The truth is most SUVs get better mileage than many cars over 15 years old, sports cars and large sedans. If instead of going after a particular popular type of automobile they would rationally emphasize the value to everyone of better gas mileage, Huffington and Mailer might have some credibility. Instead, these wannabe activists play a cheap trick by exploiting the tragic problem of drugs that is crippling our kids to promote their personal agenda.
I advise Arianna to get over her ex-husband’s loss of the Senate race (which everyone knows was more her ambition than his) and stop hanging around the Hollywood crowd that is long on money but short on brains.
Barbara Hiller Johnson
Anaheim Hills
The West Rules
California vs. New York/New Jersey:
Lakers vs. Nets (ouch!)
Angels vs. Yankees (ouch!)
49ers vs. Giants (ouch!)
80 degrees vs. snow (brrrr!)
Roger “I Love California” Kranz
Transplanted New Yorker
Irvine
