Where’s written proof of Kagan’s brilliance?
Re: “Vital questions for Elena Kagan,” editorial, May 11
It is a real mystery how Elena Kagan became a tenured professor at the University of Chicago and Harvard University — and then head of the Harvard School of Law — without having written several books and many scholarly articles for major legal publications.
As University of Colorado at Boulder law professor Paul Campos commented: “Yesterday, I read everything Elena Kagan has ever published. It didn’t take long … she’s published very little academic scholarship — three law review articles, along with a couple of shorter essays and two brief book reviews. I didn’t know you could publish so little and still become the dean of a major law school. I guess times have changed since the days of John Hart Ely.”
Mr. Louis Farrakhan recently said about President Obama that “before he was elected, he was selected.” Maybe this is the same case here. How else one can explain this miracle?
Val Golovskoy
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Oil companies put profits over worker safety
Re: Common sense needed on oil spills, Editorial, May 10
The Examiner‘s defense of oil companies is surprising. Offshore drilling is high-risk stuff. People may die, and the environment could be permanently destroyed.
The National Safety Council reports about one in 6,500 people will die this year from a car wreck. The offshore oil industry employs about 35,000 workers each year, so the chances of dying on an oil rig are maybe one in 4,285. However, there are strict laws about driving, and if you hurt somebody, you’re in big trouble. There seem to be no consequences at all for the oil companies.
I might support offshore drilling if the safety regulations for workers and the environment were vastly improved. Apparently, the drilling industry has “voluntary” safety compliance. Putting high-risk profits before the protection of dedicated workers and our fragile planet makes no sense at all.
Andrew Buskey
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Oral contraceptives are not safe for everybody
Re: “Our favorite birth control method turns 50,” May 10
This article says that the pill is “safe” and beneficial to women. But an earlier Examiner article (“FDA scrutinizes birth control drugs,” 1/24/07) reported that first-generation oral contraceptives “carried risks of blood clots and cardiovascular problems that would be unacceptable to most women.”
Women are still dying from blood clots caused by the pill. It isn’t safe for them.
The World Health Organization designated estrogen-based oral contraceptives “carcinogenic.” A study in April 2009 showed that OC users under age 18 and black women were highly susceptible — 320 percent more likely than non-OC users — to contract a particularly aggressive and treatment-resistant breast cancer. Even Susan G. Komen for the Cure acknowledges an increased risk of breast cancer from OCs.
Women deserve the truth, but that would jeopardize the $3.5 billion “family planning” industry.
Richard A. Retta
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