I would like to second the important letter by Chris Censullo (CHN, Jan. 27, bit.ly/11b4t6f) concerning the remarks made on PBS by John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, who suggested that the historic Affordable Care Act is fascism.

I have long been a customer of Whole Foods, and I will miss some of the offerings at the store, but I certainly cannot imagine patronizing a shop if its corporate executive officer does not believe that every citizen should have the right to health care and uses a term that is not only incorrect and misleading but at its core is deeply self-interested and divisive in the worst un-American way.

This progressive area has access to many fine food markets, among which is the Weaver Street Market, a community-owned, cooperative grocery store that specializes in the best local, organic, natural, and humanely raised foods. Weaver Street Market has stores in Carrboro, Southern Village and Hillsborough. I’d bet anything that its owners – people like you and me – believe the opportunity to have health care insurance should be available to every American.

Sandra Eisdorfer

Chapel Hill

Coyotes and deer

It is striking to me that we refuse to acknowledge even the possibility of a link between what appears to be a growing coyote problem and the long-standing deer population problem.

Your article (CHN, Jan. 27, bit.ly/XMigZr) mentions coyotes being drawn to dog/cat food. Sure. But did dog/cat food draw coyotes into this area of the county? Come on, guys: Coyotes eat deer – they will hunt live deer and they will scavenge dead deer.

We have long known that deer are grossly overpopulated in our area. What is the process for having this town/county adopt a reasonable deer (coyote food) policy? Are we waiting for the next irrefutably linked death from Rocky Mountain spotted fever, or Lyme disease epidemic? Are we waiting for the first child to be attacked by a coyote (rather than just the domestic animals we know the coyote are already taking)?

If coyote sitings (and corresponding coyote populations) are believed to be growing, then it seems a logical extension that the currently limited risk of coyote attacks is also growing. We don’t need to wipe out every deer or coyote in sight, but we do need a strategy.

William R Carpenter

Chapel Hill

Editor’s note: Deer comprised 22 percent of the coyote diet in one study (Cook County, Ill., Coyote Project, bit.ly/14AHdxE), according to our story. For more on coyotes see page 10.

No annex fan

The Chatham County commissioners should consider tearing down the Pittsboro Courthouse Annex as opposed to spending $3.2 million to renovate the interior.

It’s ugly.

A park in its place would complement the new Courthouse and the new Pittsboro Justice Center.

The upkeep on a park would cost less than maintenance of the ugly annex.

Michael Strong

Chatham County

Evidence of leaks

In a September letter I pointed out that the Obama administration was leaking classified information on a regular basis. One reader asserted in a reply that “no evidence exists” of that.

Two months removed from the election, the Washington Post confirms my assertion. The FBI opened an investigation LAST JUNE of “current and former senior government officials” who have leaked highly compartmentalized intel on U.S. cyberattacks on the Iranian nuclear program. The FBI is also investigating a leak compromising the presence of a British double agent inside the Yemen al-Qaeda branch that sent bombs on cargo planes. Because this intel was “limited to a small set of Americans,” prosecutors are pursuing people “at pretty high levels” according to the Post article.

The evidence of this was obvious as early as last summer when members of Congress (including Democrats such as Sen. Feinstein) expressed their concern over it. The media chose to downplay or conveniently ignore it until safely past the election. The result of someone in the Obama administration leaking such information to shore up his anti-terrorism credentials has done significant harm to our national security, regardless of whether readers want to acknowledge it.

Perry Collette

Chapel Hill

Diplomat danger

Forty years ago two Turkish diplomats in Los Angeles became the victims of hate crimes on U.S. soil. On Jan. 27, 1973, a 77-year-old Armenian-American man, Gourgen Yanikian, gunned down the Consul General of Turkey, Mehmet Baydar, and the Vice Consul, Bahadir Demir, in a Santa Barbara hotel. Sentenced to life imprisonment, Yanikian was released on parole in January 1984 by then California Gov. George Deukmejian.

On the day of his crime, Yanikian issued a public appeal urging to kill Turks, which inspired JCAG – a militant offshoot of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) – and the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA). Between 1975 and 1991, the two terrorist groups staged over 300 attacks murdering scores of Turkish diplomats and civilians across North America, Europe and the Middle East.

Nine years after Yanikian’s crime, on Jan. 28, 1982, Harry Sassounian, murdered the Turkish Consul General, Kemal Arikan, at a street intersection in Los Angeles. While Sassounian was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole in 1984, some Armenian-American groups named him a hero and pushed for his parole eligibility in 2002. Last year, Paul Krekorian, the Los Angeles City Councilman of Armenian heritage, petitioned federal authorities to pardon Sassounian.

The 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, which killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and four others, and the recent threats by ASALA against Turkish and Azerbaijani officials highlight current dangers against diplomats at home and abroad. I join Turkic-Americans, members of the Pax Turcica Institute, to commemorate the fallen Turkish diplomats and to urge U.S. officials remain vigilant about the security of diplomats on our soil. Instead of seeking to justify hate crimes by sympathizing with convicted murderers, our elected representatives should promote tolerance in their ethnic constituencies.

Selen Yalin

Raleigh