Feb. 21 Letters to the Editor

Forced retirement is wrong

Flight 1549. Bird strike. Captain Sully, 58, at the controls. Thank God.

Sully’s years of experience save hundreds of lives, and he emerged a hero — who will be forced to retire in two years. Why does America do this to airline pilots?

Aviator Jan Smith said: “The age 60 rule was arbitrarily enacted by one man, the original FAA administrator, because of that wonderful human emotion: spite. General Quesada had wanted to join National Airlines as a captain, but at the pilot’s insistence that he start at the bottom like everybody else, got even by instituting this rule. An act of Congress to get this changed was working its way through when 9/11 happened and it became forgotten.”

Denying people the ability to earn their living at age 60 is unfair, illegal and unconstitutional, especially when foreign pilots older than 60 are allowed to fly in American airspace today. Like anyone else, American pilots should be able to do their jobs as long as they can pass the physical.

And tonight, some 200 families agree.

Susan Ashford

Longview

Carter didn’t write for Hustler

Sherry Davis (Feb. 19 letter) was wrong on at least one point. Jimmy Carter did not write for Hustler magazine. When running for president, he did give an interview that ran in Playboy magazine (the famous “lust in my heart” interview).

She probably got confused, because Ruth Carter Stapleton (Jimmy’s sister) did work to convert Larry Flynt, Hustler’s publisher, to Christianity.

Mark Siltala

Puyallup

Does law pertain to all?

I just read in The Daily News about Kelso’s crime rate being way down. Could it be because at times ones are not cited, but just given a pat on the wrist?

I thought there was a state law for drivers to carry liability car insurance? I had an experience on Oct. 2 of a car ramming into me while I was stopped at a stop sign with my right turn blinker on and my foot on the brake, waiting to turn right. This person rammed into me, doing over $4,000 damage to my car and giving me severe whiplash. He had no insurance, having been canceled for nonpayment in June, I was informed by his previous insurance company.

As near as I know, he was never cited for not having insurance at the time he hit me and none for the four months previously. I was at the Kelso Police Department when they called him. Talk about handling someone with kid gloves. This officer almost apologized to this person for bugging him.

Isn’t Kelso a part of Washington state? If so, then he should have been cited. I was carrying liability to protect him. My insurance paid some, but not near what I’m out. My car was totaled, and I’m sure he is still driving his.

He got insurance “after” he hit me. Doesn’t the law pertain to everyone?

L.A. Rhodes

Longview

Should we just forget?

I keep thinking how lucky we are to have had our last election.

Anyone who’s bothered to Google the 1997 “Project For the New American Century” (PNAC), created by the Bush family, Dick Cheney and other neo-cons, knows of their delusional plans to control the world, starting with Iraq. On Page 51, they stated they needed a “catastrophic event — a new Pearl Harbor” to jump-start those plans. They got it on 9-11.

I ask: Why don’t we know about PNAC? Why were all the obvious warnings of a coming terrorist attack ignored? Why was President Bush far away in a grade school during 9-11? Why did both Bush and Cheney fight an investigation? Why did they refuse to testify under oath, and only for a closed, brief and limited investigation, which we never heard?

Why haven’t the air traffic control tapes of 9-11 been released? Why weren’t planes sent to protect Washington, D.C.? Why isn’t anyone held accountable?

If the passenger plane that went down in a Pennsylvania field had wiped out our mysteriously unguarded Congress, we’d probably be under a dictator right now.

So now, should we just forget all this and move on? Or should we investigate?

Bill Kasch

Longview