Editorials
Life and death decisions
Science increasingly gives doctors the ability to keep patients alive under conditions they might not choose for themselves. That is why advance directives are so important.

Even the sharks are on vacation
This just in: There are SHARKS in the Gulf of Mexico!!!

Letters
Oil industry respects gulf environment
I do not presume to speak for Texans, but I would imagine most of them are proud of their beaches. I would also suggest that the millions of people from the Midwest and other regions who flock to Texas beaches each year would not continue doing so if that state's beaches were in the condition described by reporter Craig Pittman (Is this in Florida's future? Aug. 12.)

Robyn E. Blumner
Once again, the civil rights commission leader lets her biases show
It may be time for new leadership on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Mary Frances Berry, who has been chairwoman of the bipartisan federal investigative agency since 1993, seems to have let power go to her head.

Bill Maxwell
A magical stay on Martha's Vineyard
MARTHA'S VINEYARD -- If this sun-baked island in the northern Atlantic is Sodom or Gomorrah, then I am right at home, in my element, as it were.