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Limiting plastic utensils
a welcome first step
Re. “Restaurants might stop offering plastic utensils,” Page B1, Oct. 7:
I am so happy to hear about AB 1276. This bill is a step in the right direction, albeit a small one, in curbing waste and litter.
Putting plastic utensils and condiment packets in every order should not be the default, but the exception. Just like when we had signs on tables saying “water upon request only” during the last drought; plastic utensils should be upon request only.
Now, if we can only get rid of straws and plastic water bottles.
Eva Lowe
Hayward
Columnist’s doomsday
predictions don’t pan out
Re. “Drop in military spending is a warning to California,” Page A7, Nov. 2:
Another day, another California doomsday issuance from columnist Dan Walters.
I have chuckled at his Chicken Little pennings for decades, first as a subscriber to the Sacramento Bee and now, unfortunately, as an East Bay Times reader. From his early days at the Bee during Jerry Brown’s first term as governor, Mr. Walters has continually predicted California’s demise. During that same time, this state has grown into the world’s fifth-largest economy.
Walters is both threatened and confused by change. Change often results in progress, which is anathema to those who want things to stay the same, or for those who harken back to “Mayberry, R.F.D.”
Enough is enough. While you now scribe for CalMatters, you don’t believe Cal matters. Therefore, I am offering to pay your relocation expenses to the People’s Republic of Texas or any other red state of your choosing. Happy trails.
Jon James
Pleasanton
Immigrant payouts
bad idea for nation
The Biden administration is considering giving illegal aliens $450,000 each for being separated at the Southern border during the Trump administration.
They don’t deserve a dime of the taxpayers’ money for crossing our borders Illegally and breaking our laws. They’re getting compensated for coming into our country illegally. I would be sitting pretty if they would give it to me, a legal citizen.
Since Biden has been in office everything has gone up: gas, food, lumber, crime, etc. If this payout happens, this country is doomed.
Cathy Ledbetter
Newark
Does columnist want
to whitewash history?
Near the end of his column, “Biden’s school board disaster is self-inflicted,” (Page A7, Oct. 28) Marc Thiessen lists the concerns of angry parents as “school closures, mask mandates and seeing their kids indoctrinated with extremist ideologies.” I assume by “extremist ideologies” he is referring to Critical Race Theory, which is only taught in college and not in K-12 schools.
My friend teaches history in a community college. In one class there were two home-schooled girls, A students, who did not know that there had ever been slavery in this country. One wonders if these homeschooling parents taught their college-age children about the Civil War and the reasons for it; or if they taught them anything about the Constitution and the meaning of the 13th Amendment.
One wonders if Marc Thiessen would equate teaching our nation’s history of slavery and the Civil War with teaching Critical Race Theory, or whether Thiessen wants to whitewash that part of our history.
Jeanne Kinkella
San Leandro
Information about
implant risks lags
Re. “FDA sets stronger safety warnings for breast implants,” Page C10, Oct. 28:
Breast implant illness has been insufficiently studied, even though women have reported health-impairing symptoms resulting in endless tests for autoimmune diseases. We have not been informed of the risks of implants and, notwithstanding new regulation, I fear we still won’t be.
After my mastectomy, I told my doctor firmly, “No silicone.” She assured me a saline implant was safe. I believed her. Later that year, I began to suffer several health setbacks, for which I continued to be tested for seven years. Last fall, I happened to read about B.I.L. After some investigation, I learned that a saline implant is always encased in a silicone sleeve. To be clear, the interface between my body and the implant was made of silicone.
My doctor was skeptical, but I insisted on having surgery to remove the implant. Since February, I’ve experienced a complete remission of symptoms.
Kathryn Jordan
Berkeley
Calling out math teacher’s
mnemonic goes too far
Re. “Racial insensitivity still plagues education,” Page A18, Oct. 31:
I was shocked to find out the PC police now think the mnemonic SohCahToa is a racial slur.
As a 30-plus year former math teacher who found it to be helpful for my trigonometry students to remember the trig functions, I think this is really ridiculous. You have been going too far in your search for pc words.
Charles Hunter
Pleasant Hill
Source: www.mercurynews.com