Our Readers Write or Wrong

David 2, Goliath 0

David and Goliath met again, this time on the football field. All the experts were ridiculing the bowl selection committee for putting Boise State, in a BCS game against a Division 1 champion Oklahoma team. Like lambs to the slaughter they were all saying. The much bigger, stronger and faster Oklahoma team would crush Boise State, said all the experts and odds makers. Yet, courageously, the Boise State team mixed it up with this huge and mighty opponent. The discipline, ingenuity and most importantly the heart of the smaller team again conquered the giant. Once again, the experts misjudged the fight (heart) in the smaller team by predicting that the bigger team would just have to show up to win. Congratulations Boise State. The system let you down by leaving you out of the national championship game with Ohio State where you belong.

Bob Tanabe

La Cañada

Sharing Life

Re: "Make the Decision to Give Life to Others," by Reg Green, (LC) Valley Sun, Dec. 28. Over half of the 94,000 Americans on the national transplant waiting list will die before they get a transplant. Most of these deaths are needless. Americans bury or cremate about 20,000 transplantable organs every year. Over 6,000 of our neighbors suffer and die needlessly every year as a result. There is a simple way to put a big dent in the organ shortage — give organs first to people who have agreed to donate their own organs when they die.

Giving organs first to organ donors will convince more people to register as organ donors. It will also make the organ allocation system fairer. People who aren't willing to share the gift of life should go to the back of the waiting list as long as there is a shortage of organs.

Anyone who wants to donate their organs to others who have agreed to donate theirs can join LifeSharers. LifeSharers is a nonprofit network of organ donors who agree to offer their organs first to other organ donors when they die.

They do this through a form of directed donation that is legal in all 50 states and under federal law.

Anyone can join for free at www.lifesharers.org or by calling 1-888-ORGAN88. LifeSharers has 7,395 members, including 976 members in California. Over 700 of our members are minor children enrolled by their parents.

David J. Undis

Executive Director

LifeSharers