Letters to the Editor: Nov. 14, 2008

Circus animals have rights

When I was little, I remember going to a circus and asking my mom and dad if the animals liked doing all those tricks and jumping through hoops and my parents said, “That’s an interesting question, it depends if the animals are treated well.”

As we grow up and learn more, become further educated on various genres in life, we make better decisions with more knowledge that is gained.

Learning of the horrible things animals go through in order to entertain an audience is both disgusting and completely sad.

Listed are just a few examples:

• Elephants used by Ringling Brothers spend most of their lives in chains and are controlled by the use of bull-hooks (rods with sharp metal hooks on the end) and Ringling opposes legislation that bans this tool of torture.
• Tigers spend the vast majority of their time in cages that are so small that they can barely move.
• Animals are beaten into submission and denied everything that is natural and important to them. Animals often respond violently to such treatment. Terrified elephants and pent-up tigers have lashed out, causing injury, damage, and death.
• Ringling goes to great lengths to hide the dark side of the Big Top, that animals are beaten bloody, torn from their families, and suffer painful deaths.

These innocent animals do not deserve to be treated with such cruelty. We must protect the innocent who are enslaved; freedom and justice for all.

April Cunningham

Solana Beach

Is a train tunnel under Del Mar closer?

With the passage of Proposition 1-A the prospect of tunneling under Del Mar just got accelerated.

SANDAG Transportation committee chairman Jim Madaffer said he supported this initiative because: “The nearly $2 billion (of the $9 billion) in funding is for connecting to local rail.

These funds can be used to make improvements to the San Diego-Los Angeles rail corridor from dual-tracking to tunneling in sensitive community areas.”

Note: TUNNELING IN SENSITIVE COMMUNITY AREAS.

If we want to stop the tunneling under Del Mar we must enlist our local politicians to move the train to where it belongs - along the Interstate-5 corridor. Light rail along the freeway just makes too much sense. Freight will also eventually be moved. Let your local politicians know that NOW is the time to move the tracks out of the sensitive lagoons, off the bluff, and NOT under Camino Del Mar.

Jim Benedict

Del Mar