Still Here

THOSE PEOPLE in Aptos on the bridge overpass DO still dress in black and complain about the illegal war ("Pray Tell," Posts, July 21). Women in Black are there every Sunday from 11:30am to 12:3pm.  We welcome people to join us and carry one of our signs against war and violence.  

Phyllis Peet,

Aptos

Likes The Real Ones

YOU HAVE drawn a line in the sand, Curtis—real existence, or virtual ("Unconditional Love 2.0," Cover Story, Jul. 28)? I guess I prefer the real kind, puke and all.

Janet Miller,

By email

A Familiar Story

THE HISTORY of the company we now call BP over the last hundred years has really traced the arc of global transnational capitalism. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company, guaranteed itself, or won the right to own, all of Iran's oil. So, nobody in Iran had any right to drill for oil or extract oil or sell oil.

Then, soon after that find was made, the British government decided to buy the company. So the Parliament passed a law and bought 51 percent of that company. And all during the 1920s and 1930s and 1940s, the entire standard of living that people in England enjoyed was supported by oil from Iran. So that became a fundamental foundation of British life.

And then, after World War II, when the winds of nationalism and anti-colonialism were blowing throughout the developing world, Iranians developed this idea: we've got to take our oil back. It was Mosaddegh's desire, supported by a unanimous vote of the democratically elected parliament of Iran, to nationalize what was then the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. They carried out the nationalization.

The British and their partners in the United States fiercely resisted this. And when they were unable to prevent it from happening, they organized the overthrow of Mosaddegh in 1953. So that overthrow not only produced the end of the Mosaddegh government, but the end of democracy in Iran, and that set off all these other following consequences.

Ted Rudow III,

Menlo Park,

Missed One

YOUR cover story "Petrol Patrol" (July 28) has a significant error. The largest oil spill in California, the largest oil spill in U.S. history (bigger than Santa Barbara, Exxon Valdez or the Gulf Spill), was the Lakeview Gusher in Kern County. It ran for 18 months [starting] in 1910.

George Rasko,

San Jose

Editor's Note

It's election season if you live in the 15th Senate District. In advance of the Aug. 17 vote to fill the seat vacated by State Sen. Abel Maldonado, Santa Cruz Weekly and the League of Women Voters are co-sponsoring a debate between candidates Sam Blakeslee, Jim Fitzgerald, Mark Hinkle and John Laird on Thursday, Aug. 12 at 7pm at the Cabrillo College Music Recital Hall. If you live in Scotts Valley, Aptos, Watsonville or coastal Monterey County and have questions for the candidates, email them to [email protected].

On another note, the feature "Local Poets/Local Inspiration," which usually runs the first week of the month on the Locally page, is on summer hiatus. Look for it again in October.

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