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Community wins
in run for fun
Thank you Mercury News photojournalist Wangyuxuan Xu for your July 3 story about our Bloom Energy Stars & Strides community run (“Meeting the stars and making strides,” Page B1). With our 25 employer partners and 1,650 participants, we were able to donate $300,000 to the Valley Medical Center Foundation.
At a time when our community and country seem so divided, it’s heartening to know that in Santa Clara County we can be a force for good by helping others to lift up our neighbors in need. When Bloom Energy selected the VMC Foundation as our beneficiary partner for Stars & Strides, we did so to thank our frontline hospital and health care workers at our three county hospitals and 14 health care clinics, which provide world-class health care to 1 million people annually – 9 out of 10 of whom are low-income.
Mercury News, thanks for serving as such a vital community partner.
Carl Guardino
Executive Vice President, Bloom Energy
San Jose
As in Valley, costs rise
in Chavez neighborhood
When Cesar Chavez lived in San Jose from 1951-53, the neighborhood he and his family lived in was known as “Sal Si Puedes” — get out if you can (“Ex-home of Cesar Chavez is up for sale,” Page B1, June 27). The house I and my family lived in when I was born in 1951 was also in that neighborhood on Sunset Avenue.
My father said that he had heard two explanations for the neighborhood’s name: One was that the name preceded the paving of the streets, and when it rained heavily cars and wagons would get stuck in the mud. The other was the name referring to leaving the poverty of the area.
Now with the list price being $1.19 million for the modest former Chavez home, the neighborhood (and the Valley as a whole) should be called “Entra Si Puedes.”
David Baldwin
Santa Clara
Eshoo should lend name
to windfall tax act
I urge Rep. Anna Eshoo to co-sponsor Rep. Khanna’s bill, H.R. 7061, the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act.
As I’m sure Rep. Eshoo is aware, the constituents in California are facing some of the highest gas prices in the nation. I urge Rep. Eshoo to prioritize their economic well-being over Big Oil’s record profits by co-sponsoring this important legislation, which would tax these windfall profits and return rebates to consumers.
Americans need to get some of the economic relief that they deserve amid skyrocketing gas prices.
Babette Villasenor
Menlo Park
Blinded Christians
still support Trump
John Cormode asks, “can evangelicals and other conservative Christians continue to support Trump knowing that Trump acted in such a harmful way to the living symbol of their faith in public service?” (“Will hearings cost Trump support of Christians?” Page A6, June 24)
I can answer that in two words: “Rusty Bowers,” the Arizona Republican who would not do Trump’s bidding, but then says he would vote for him again.
Dana Grover
San Jose
Constitutional right is
of, not from, religion
In Erwin Chemerinsky’s column (“Separation of church and state precedent demolished,” Page A6, June 30), he emphasizes the separation of church and state. Of course, being a lawyer, he twists the concept of freedom of religion to his own preference: namely freedom from religion.
Unfortunately, just because the Supreme Court once made a decree, it does not necessarily become the law of the land forever. For over a hundred years the courts upheld the concept of slavery. They also upheld the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
Mr. Chemerinsky, if you are offended by prayer in public, well, don’t look. Freedom of and freedom from are not the same, except for lawyers. Please reread your copy of the Constitution.
Jay Morrett
San Jose
Source: www.mercurynews.com