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Contra Costa should
wake up to bad DA
Alameda County’s new sociologist-in-chief (District Attorney) strikes again. This time a man charged with three separate murders is offered a plea to a single count of voluntary manslaughter for 15 years in prison. Sounds very unfair to citizens, but wait: He was only 18 years old at the time.
I wonder if any of his victims thought to ask for ID so they could ask him what was wrong in his world and maybe what they could do better to dissuade him from pulling the trigger. As for the citizens he allegedly attempted to carjack, if they had known his age, perhaps they would have just handed him the keys.
It didn’t take long for people to wise up to Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, and it shouldn’t take long for sensible people of Alameda County to start a recall campaign of Pamela Price and let her return to her civil rights practice.
Charles Jameson
Oakland
Indian government’s
ad is height of hypocrisy
Re. “Indian government asks people to hug cows on valentine’s day,” Page A2, Feb. 10:
This article initially cheered me since I am an Indian and an animal lover who abstains from meat. But my cheerfulness disappeared quickly when I remembered that India is the third largest exporter of beef (1.475 billion metric tons), just a tad behind the United States (1.510 billion metric tons).
How hypocritical. One wonders how the government of India can allow the slaughter of the very animals that it exhorts its citizens to embrace with love.
Jojy Michael
Fremont
Don’t sue manufacturers
for users’ misdeeds
I find the idea of suing a manufacturer when a person deliberately misuses their product to be utterly ridiculous.
I have been struck multiple times while riding my bicycle by motorists who have shown a complete disregard for my safety and disregarded traffic laws simply because it suited their personal convenience. They have always been at fault and property damage and bodily injury are the inevitable outcomes. According to Mr. Charleston, I should be able to sue General Motors, Toyota, Nissan, or whomever because some lawbreaker injured me using their product.
If some person misuses America’s most dangerous lethal weapon (automobiles) or the second most dangerous (firearms), it’s the person who is at fault, not the manufacturer of the product. Hold the irresponsible party accountable. That’s not the maker of the tool. It’s the person who is misusing it.
Stacy Spink
Castro Valley
Columnist should cut
president a break
For those who read Marc A. Thiessen’s columns, I would like to share my thoughts on his Feb. 10 column on President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address.
I feel bipartisanship can work. Why not? Life is full of compromise. There is nothing to gain from constant fighting.
We all basically want the same thing: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Come on, give Biden a break.
Virginia Kamp
Berkeley
Exercise COVID caution
for the vulnerable
I must object to the tone of the article “Will colleges rethink their COVID-19 vaccine mandates?” (Page A1, Feb. 11)
It gives the impression that COVID is no big deal and only affects the elderly. What about immune-compromised college students? They are being ignored. And the college students who do come down with COVID miss days of classes, and could spread the disease to the immune-compromised and elderly relatives, which too many people choose to ignore.
It’s true that the initial danger of death from COVID we had earlier in the pandemic has passed for the majority, but we need to continue common sense vaccination policies and care about the immune-compromised and the elderly.
Noelle Gillies
San Jose
Why are we OK with
problem gambling?
A long time ago there was a huge scandal when the Chicago White Sox became the poster child for gambling in sports. They were affectionately called the “Black Sox” and all the players involved had their careers ruined. Pete Rose was banned from baseball forever for betting on games while he was managing the Reds.
Today we have gambling and betting on almost every sports channel for nearly every sport. The names are Fanduel, DraftKings, Caesars and so on that are available on iPhones, computers and laptops. These sites are essentially preying on people who have no control over their gambling habits or are just desperate for funds.
Most folks know the axiom that “the house always wins.” Think Vegas and Reno. It’s unfortunate that our governments have little to no interest to try to stem the coming tide of lawsuits and poverty. The house always wins.
Stuart Shicoff
Martinez
Source: www.mercurynews.com