New, space-saving seats for airliners; Americans in poverty and government policy; comparing Obama with Jimmy Carter

Just sit tight

Re “Think airline seating is tight now?” Business, Sept. 17

Regarding your article about the SkyRider seat for airlines, which would put passengers in a “semi-standing” position, reducing the space between rows from about 31 inches to 23 inches: Did I sleep through the winter? Is this an April Fool’s story?

I tried to put myself in the same position as the model in the picture — body elevated at an angle on a tilted seat. Now, I’m a guy who works out every day, but I will confess that after about one minute, my thighs were really burning as I tried to support my weight with my feet and hands, since the seat bottom no longer could.

How reassuring that airline analysts (who probably fly first class anyway) think that the SkyRider seat will only be used for shorter flights of up to two hours.

I’ve got a better idea: Sell the SkyRider seat to gyms and fitness centers; it gives a heck of a workout to your thighs. Three one-minute reps should be about right.

Victor Kenton

Calabasas

What’s next? Sitting in a hanging seat, a la hang-gliding?

No one could leave their seat during a flight, thus eliminating the need for restrooms.

More savings for the airlines. What an insult.

Graciela Kaplan

Pasadena

Is this a joke?

Apparently not, because this Italian company spent a lot of money building these instruments of torture and bringing them over here to show potential customers. Something this dangerous is no joke.

To put it another way: If airlines are actually allowed (never try to outguess the FAA and its lobbyists) to install these things, how much would those airlines be willing to pay passengers to ride in them?

Gordon Glass

Newport Beach

A wireless way to help the state

Re “Rate of drivers’ texting soars,” Sept. 16

Why has no one seen the obvious?

Raise the fines and start enforcing the law against talking and texting while driving, and the $19-billion state budget deficit will disappear.

The best part: Anyone who doesn’t want to pay the price can obey the law, so no one can complain about an increase in “taxes,” and our highways will become safer.

Definitely a win-win.

Richard Morse

Redondo Beach

Taxes, poverty and the rich

Re “1 in 7 Americans live in poverty, Census Bureau reports,” Sept. 16

It’s not just the recession and long-term economic troubles pushing more and more Americans into the ranks of the poor.

The Bush-era tax cuts widened income inequality by favoring the wealthiest among us and continuing a trend of upward redistribution of wealth.

Allowing the Bush tax cuts to end for the wealthiest can serve to both reduce the deficit and move tax policy toward greater fairness.

Cecil Hoffman

Pasadena

What a horrible contrast between these headlines — “1 in 7 in U.S. live in poverty” and “Regents struggle to cover pensions” — in The Times.

To think that so many make it on $10,956for one or $21,954 for a family of four, while UCLA’s top hospital executive, David Feinberg, has just received a $410,000 raise to about $1.3 million. These are figures I have trouble wrapping my head around.

In times such as these, why are we putting up with salaries such as this? These figures make the Bell fiasco seem reasonable. No wonder the state is broke.

Rob Nesbitt

Los Angeles

Isn’t it time the Obama administration wakes up and realizes that raising taxes and spending more just isn’t going to work?

Lower federal tax rates immediately to create disposable income for the poor and working people. That will work.

Tom Kondziella

Diamond Bar

The government should give people below the poverty line the difference between their income and the poverty line for their household sizes at the time they apply. The welfare should last two years while people are unemployed, but there should be no time limit for people who are employed full time.

Josh Rivetz

Northridge

Speaking of presidents

Re “The next Carter?,” Opinion, Sept. 14

Surely the Lord sent Jonah Goldberg to remind us of the close-mindedness of the Republican Party, and your paper appears to have no reservations about publishing him.

He could have mentioned the military budget under President Reagan, the ridiculous defense spending, the out-of-control federal budgets and the fact that the tax rules were changed to favor the wealthy over the middle class.

If The Times wants to let this right-wing writer flap his jaws about recent presidential history, let me write about Richard Nixon or maybe George W. Bush, who delivered us into a war that will have no good outcome.

Maybe we want to talk about the “wisdom” that was contained in major Republican blunders of the “first kind.”

There is lots of dirt to throw around.

Chet Chebegia

Long Beach

Goldberg is misguided in his thinking. His comparison of Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter doesn’t hold water.

Carter sat in his office in total isolation, lacking leadership, devoid of presidential insights and not at all charming.

Conversely, Obama is a man of intelligence, vision and sound judgment, surrounded by strong advisors with an agenda, and he is not sitting in the Oval Office in isolation, moping.

The problem is that the Republicans have been intent on beating him down from the day he set foot in the White House.

They are the “no” party who proclaimed Obama a one-term president on the day of his inauguration, and Goldberg is championing that.

In spite of this, the president has stoically accepted the negativity and is forging ahead with proposals to fix the economy and to create jobs.

Rhya Turovsky

La Habra Heights

It wasn’t President Carter who failed. It was the American people who failed to see what Carter stood for: human rights, a green economy and peace in the Mideast.

The Reagan revolution brought the American people debt caused by military spending, a savings and loan scandal and bloodshed in Central America.

Jim Vitek

La Crescenta

Big problems with Big Oil

Re “An industrial route may run through it,” Sept.15

Oh, sure, Big Oil, go ahead and tear up Idaho and Montana wild lands to send “heavy duty … shipments of giant oil-field equipment” to the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, and build a major new oil drilling mess.

You also want to tear down the landmark global warming law, AB 32, approved by California voters. You do a lot of tearing down and tearing up, don’t you?

I don’t think California voters will be “bought” by Proposition 23, the measure to stop our progress toward less pollution and more green jobs.

FOR THE RECORD:
AB 32: A letter writer on Sept. 21 said that AB 32, the global warming law, was approved by California voters. The Legislature passed the bill and the governor signed it in 2006. —

What’s next, Big Oil? Tear up the Big Sur highway to widen it for more oil company heavy equipment?

How about Yosemite; surely that’s a lucrative site you could mess up?

Charity Gourley

Santa Barbara