We need immigrants to harvest our crops. After achieving legal status, how long will they continue picking strawberries?

The injured whales insist on heading away from the ocean. Do you think maybe the mother is protecting herself and her injured calf from sharks that can smell the injuries miles away?

Islam is a religion of peace; it’s only a few fanatics who are bent on destroying democracy. Common sense: Their Koran demands that they slay all non-believers. You think maybe that means us? Did the good ones ever turn in “bad ones?”

President Bush asks that we be patient and give his new strategy a chance to work. What have we been doing for more than four years?

Bush criticizes Congress for imposing its judgment as being superior to the soldiers in the field. Isn’t the tradition in this country that civilians control the military? Wasn’t that what got Gen. Douglas MacArthur fired by President Truman? Besides, every time a general speaks the truth about the disaster in Iraq, he gets fired and replaced by one who is hand-picked to follow Bush’s folly.

The “conspiracy theory” raises its brainless head again. We have been conditioned to believe in fairy tales in which the white knight is confronted only by his equal, the black knight. We cannot accept the proven fact that a single moron or a malcontent with a gun can easily eliminate the best the world has to offer.

— Bernard Lehrer, Ventura