Transracial Adoptions Have Many More Sides

Your portrayal of people who adopt children of another race was more promotional than factual (“Adopt, Then Adapt,” Aug. 4).

The natural mother of one of the children was deemed a breeder, or “birth mother,” who was flown from North Carolina to California by the people who planned to adopt.

That mother and child seemed doomed to adoption even before the baby was born. Did the mother even have a chance to give the baby the milk that nature intended before the couple whisked the child away?

Why were adopters interviewed extensively, and yet no mother or father who had lost a child to adoption interviewed?

One other thing that was missing was the African American family who had adopted a European American child. Where are those families? Why are European American families so often the beneficiaries of African American families and those of mixed heritage that are broken up?

TRICIA SHORE

Van Nuys

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A Fine Line Between Safety and Madness

The friend of Sandy Banks (“Her Sense of Security Died With Samantha,” July 23) who won’t allow his daughter to be alone outside his gated community deludes himself.

How does he know that the guard at the gate is not a would-be rapist? Can he be sure that his next-door neighbor doesn’t harbor homicidal intentions?

Imposing ever more restrictions on our children after a well-publicized crime is not the route to safety, but the road to madness.

Our pursuit of the unattainable goal of perfect safety is not worth its psychic cost to ourselves and to our children.

ELIZABETH RALSTON

Los Angeles

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Word of Warning: A

Nostalgic Scent Can Kill

Tobacco kills. Your nostalgic ramblings will surely encourage people to try smoking the cigars you have promoted (“A Scent of Cigar, a Sense of Home,” July 29). They may buy a bundle to give to friends. Some will get cancer and die a painful death. There may have been drug dealers and prostitutes in Cuba ... do you smile and long for the old country when you see them on the streets here too?

MARTHA S. MOTIA

La Canada Flintridge

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A Columnist’s Words

and Poetic Memories

When Al Martinez laments, “I am beginning to feel that we’re in a state of cultural free fall” (“A Nation of Excess Sorely Lacks What Counts,” July 29), I am reminded of words written by W. Somerset Maugham: “The work of which he was a part had passed away, and the future belonged to a meaner generation.” The quote is from “The Outstation,” a short story published in 1926--three years before the great market crash.

The average human lifespan is longer and, for many, life is better than ever. We must be doing something right, though nothing can take the sting out of growing old.

FREDERICK CLEVELAND

Hollywood

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