People do care (letter, Nov. 5). That's why they voted in such numbers and elected Obama.

I, too, am of an older generation but I realize that the world has changed. We are a global economy, a global people, and that glorious custom built house that that you began to buy when you bought the bull, to grow the herd, to create the empire, now costs another country it's rain forest and your West Seattle neighbor her 30 year view of Puget Sound.

For better or worse capitalism has had its way with the world and the global economy is built on what you and I can only understand as fake money. I, too, was raised on the idea that you can't have it unless you have the cash to pay for it, but now the entire world is busy shifting "fake" money from one place to another. (On a small scale we call it kiting checks and arrest people for it.)

We aren't going to fix the problem by withdrawing from the world, closing our borders, forcing our neighbor to accept our own version of morality, or refusing to help those who suckered in to an unreal American Dream promoted and advertised by those busy buying up all the bulls on the market.

We need to welcome the change and the challenges. We can't leave our world to our children and grandchildren because that world no longer exists. We can only make what we have a better and less divisive place.

And on a totally irrational note - to Ms. Greenburg (letter, Nov. 5) who thinks youth outreach doesn't work and we should sterilize mothers - how about collecting all human sperm at puberty and giving all males vasectomies so they can't go around making babies. A man, in his lifetime, can create more babies than a woman can bear, so it seems that men would be a better target. Once they can prove that they are gainfully employed, with a future, and capable of supporting off spring , they can make withdrawals.

Sorry. Couldn't resist that one.

Linda Maki

Sunrise Heights