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How is scrapyard
still in business?
Re. “Stolen statue found at scrapyard,” Page A1, Feb. 10:
While I am grateful that a resourceful Bay Area News Group reporter found the stolen Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj statue, I find it incredulous that Tung Tai Group recyclers remain in business. The business has repeatedly participated in illegal activities, yet, somehow, the owners are not in jail and the business continues to operate. One wonders why their business license hasn’t been revoked.
With businesses such as Tung Tai Group recyclers, it’s no wonder why thieves find it so easy to cash in here in San Jose.
Darlene Brannen
San Jose
Use empty garages
to shelter homeless
Regarding the recent article indicating that San Jose is one of the most “overparked” municipalities in the state (“S.J. tech rollout tests appetite for parking contraction,” Page A1, Feb. 11), I suggested to Mayor Matt Mahan and City Councilmember Omar Torres at a “meet the mayor” event at the San Jose Women’s Club that San Jose use the excess parking garages to house some homeless.
Our downtown apartment looks out on the roofs of both the 4th Street Garage and North Garage and both rooftop areas have always been virtually empty (even before COVID) except for skateboarders and the occasional lovers parked on the roof looking out at the view. Between the two garages, there are 600 parking spaces seldom if ever used that could be the sites for cheap FEMA-style trailers.
I don’t know if this suggestion has any merit, but as I look out the window and see the empty parking garage roofs I have to believe this empty space can be more effectively used.
Jim Schultz
San Jose
China’s land purchases
worse than spy balloon
We should be less concerned with watching the bouncing ball or balloon and be more concerned about the “farmland” the Chinese purchased around Montana.
If we had to launch one of our missiles from a silo, they are very slow on take-off and a well-fired RPG from a wheat field could cause destruction on-site.
Our government should not allow this.
Joe Sindorf
San Jose
Move spotlight off
Trump, onto nation
Imagine, if you can, a morning when Donald Trump isn’t suing someone. Better yet, imagine no mention — no picture — of Trump at all.
Now he’s going after Bob Woodward, for releasing an audiobook featuring recordings of what he, Trump, said during an interview. Imagine. And suing for $50 million.
Shocking? Not really, because he’s built his career on this con game: lots of lawsuits and lawyers, jamming courts until they toss the suits as “garbage.” Obviously, it’s profitable for the media and lawyers, or they wouldn’t hang on to him. And remember, all his legal fees are tax-deductible. So why stop?
Most of us can get by with food, water, air and a little love. But Trump has to have much more: total attention; with the media’s spotlight on him; just to survive. Imagine turning that spotlight off him and around to minding and mending America.
Dan Dippery
Menlo Park
GOP balloon outrage
is so much hot air
Time and time again Republicans regardless of facts will find a reason to criticize President Biden. Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have seized the opportunity, claiming Biden did not have the courage to order the Pentagon to shoot down the Chinese balloon flying over the United States when in fact Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated that the president authorized the Pentagon to shoot down the balloon, “as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to American lives under the balloon’s flight path.”
Imagine what Republican politicians would have said had Americans been injured or lives lost because of falling debris.
Nissen A. Jaffe, Ph.D.
Sunnyvale
Let’s scrap unclear
Second Amendment
Laws that are understandable and reflect fundamental values are respected. When not, political and legal turbulence arises. Turbulence now comes from the muddy language of the Second Amendment.
For decades, courts consistently ruled that the amendment asserted a common security right not an individual right. But SCOTUS rulings against precedent asserted an individual right, and legal and political turbulence followed.
Such turbulence occurred in limiting slavery. Absolutely nothing worked during decades of negotiations. What did work was the bold proclamation freeing all slaves and the bloody Civil War. Persuasion didn’t work. Pulling out roots did.
Those painful lessons point to abolishing the Second Amendment because its language is confusing and obsolete. Instead, keep gun ownership legal but with responsibilities — like vehicles. We don’t need a war, but we do need to remove the root cause of conflict. Will it be difficult? Oh, yes. As was the freedom of slaves.
Allen Pricee
Montara
Source: www.mercurynews.com