Thank you for including so many impressive pictures with the Dec. 28 story, “High Tides, Big Waves Pound Santa Barbara County Coastline.”

Nature is a powerful force, and the pictures decisively underscored it.

Thanks again.

Christina Mills
Santa Barbara

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Finally … on Christmas Eve, Noozhawk published an updated article on Goleta’s Cathedral Oaks Road repair. The story, “Goleta Public Works Gradually Making Progress on Improving Cathedral Oaks Road,” was a gift for the citizens of Goleta.

After staff writer Serena Guentz talked to city spokeswoman Kelly Hoover and Public Works Department director Charlie Ebeling, we find out that the repair won’t happen till next Christmas, if we’re lucky. The gift that keeps on delaying.

We are informed that the road repair has funding problems because the City Council prioritized funding for striping Old Town instead of fixing pothole-infested Cathedral Oaks.

Last time I checked, paint was cheaper than asphalt. I guess the city must have bought the expensive paint and therefore couldn’t fix the grenade holes on Cathedral Oaks.

For additional funding, perhaps the City Council can contact Gov. Gavin Newsom or President Joe Biden and ask for them to initiate a Road Repair Forgiveness Act (RRFA). They can explain that college students drive on Cathedral Oaks, too, and it is damaging their cars. They could show how this RRFA would help college students and also families in the area.

I would think with Hoover, Ebeling and and the City Council’s ability to create euphemisms for Cathedral Oaks road repair — like “Pavement Rehabilitation Project” and “Pavement Treatment” — they should be able to wordsmith a document to the state and capital to achieve a “Cathedral Oaks Roadway Holiday Monetary Support Program.”

Ho. Ho. Ho!!!

Bart Bader
Goleta

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Karen Telleen-Lawton, as always, writes pointed and incisive reflections on a wide range of topics. Her Dec. 25 column, “Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future,” about the Israel-Palestinian conflict 10 years ago when she arranged trips to the “Holy Land,” troubled me.

To refuse to call it Israel indicates the writer’s denial of the existence of Israel as a nation that was established by the United Nations in 1948.

The Palestinians were offered Gaza and the West Bank at the time. It was not only refused, but that small ancient sliver of land amid enormous Arab countries surrounding it was attacked.

Subsequently, Israel prevailed at a price … resulting in walls, occupation, and now this terrible war between Israel and Hamas.

The faceless ghost of the future is a violent one. For years, the Palestinians attacked Israel whether by simple rock-throwing juveniles or actual killings.

The late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meier said her greatest regret was that the unsettled situation would turn its young men into killers as well. And so it has come to pass.

A young Benjamin Netanyahu, whose beloved brother was killed, has never gotten over it. That ghost has turned the prime minister into a relentless avenger, blind indeed.

He fails to see that even if he wiped out Hamas, there would be countless young boys, no different from a young, grieving Netenyahu, determined to seek revenge after the loss of so many hapless Gazan-Palestinian youths.

Telleen-Lawton’s sincere mention of peace efforts by both Israelis and Palestinians seemed promising, even three months ago, but are now buried in the ashes of this desecrated  Unholy land.

Josie Levy Martin
Montecito

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