Inbox

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Oceanographer Sylvia Earle's call for more marine protected areas (MPAs) is an admirable start, but by itself it is but a salve ["Code Blue," Oct. 4]. MPAs don't necessarily reduce fishing pressure; they just concentrate it in adjacent, unprotected waters. With nutritionists increasingly urging us to eat more seafood, one answer lies in open-ocean mariculture. We can--as the Hawaii water farm I help run currently does--grow great-tasting seafood in deeper waters farther offshore, where environmental conflicts with other ocean users are negligible. Increasingly we can do this with sustainable diets: soy proteins and oils, microalgal biofuels' by-products. We can grow more fish better and truly soften our impact on the seas.

Neil Anthony Sims, KAILUA-KONA, HAWAII

Anything but a Delicacy

Killing sharks for nothing more than their fins is shameless ["Killer Cuisine," Oct. 4]. We should go one step further than the efforts Krista Mahr describes and ban the sale of the extravagantly priced shark-fin soup here and in all U.S. territories. Such acts are crimes against nature. The practice of shark finning and the like should be a thing of the past, not the future--if there is to be a future.

Charles Sobczak, SANIBEL, FLA.

At Home on the Beltway

Re "Candidate or Kingmaker?" [Oct. 4]: Haley Barbour is exactly what we need in Washington--another good ole boy! Not only is he a wealthy former lobbyist, but his other insider connections make him a perfect current politician. But seriously, his governorship and his state's 50th ranking in so many areas say it all. I wonder if enough Americans will see a need to go in a different direction?

Ed Lipton, CORVALLIS, ORE.

Losing My Religion

Joel Stein's Oct. 4 Awesome Column, "Tax and Spend," has managed to settle once and for all the theological question that has plagued humanity for centuries. After reading that Stein makes $288,115 a year, I now realize that there is no God.

Trevor Robinson, CARY, N.C.

Kudos to Stein for making it clear that the part of the Bush tax cuts that the Administration wishes to let lapse is on taxable income--not gross income--that exceeds $250,000 for a family. I cringe every time I hear from either side that this affects everyone making over $250,000, no caveats included. I believe that many would rethink their opposition to the proposals if this distinction were made more clearly.

Irving Codron, LOS ANGELES

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