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Walters’ attacks on
Newsom are tiresome
Re: “Public support for governor is sinking rapidly” (Page A6, Nov. 10).
The Nov. 10 Mercury News had yet another article by Dan Walters of CalMatters excoriating Gov. Newsom.
Let’s agree that Gov. Newsom has flaws and has made mistakes. (Even Newsom would concur.) But Walters’ perpetual, imbalanced vilification of all things Newsom reveals malice and bias, not objectivity. I don’t recall Walters saying a single positive thing about Newsom. Ever.
Worse than being one-sided, it’s boring. We get it. Enough.
Rajiv Bhateja
Los Altos Hills
Column makes wrong
call on education
Re: “California needs to fix school curricula before adding more” (Page A6, Nov. 15).
Dan Walters is usually on target, but he missed the mark this time.
Walters argues that adding new “mandates” in K-12 education takes away from basic reading and math skills. I disagree. New state requirements include media literacy and economics — two subjects I taught in Orange County back in the 1990s. I was nearly fired and told to “cease immediately from teaching unrelated media literacy classes.” I had to go through a supervised review to keep my job. How things have changed.
Personal finance is critical, too. I taught my students how to save, invest and be socially responsible as part of basic concepts of “household management,” aka economics.
Jerry Sheahan
San Jose
Bill isn’t likely to help
reach climate goals
“Legislation would help reach climate goals” (Page A6, Nov.16) by Rob Hogue promotes the federal Big Wires Act, designed for enhanced transmission of energy throughout the nation. It promises to improve the supply from renewable sources, but for the near future, there would be more from nonrenewable sources. As in the past, California is likely to be a loser from any such transmissions. True, the BWA will create new jobs, but not nearly as many as are being lost in the coal and gas industries.
Making the national energy grid more robust is a good thing to do, but it won’t make any difference in climate change. Decades of solar energy development and centuries for wind have made no difference in the fact that atmospheric CO2 is entirely a function of population growth. Like the Inflation Reduction Act, the BWA is unlikely to help reach climate goals.
Fred Gutmann
Cupertino
This election is
different for incumbent
Joe Biden’s recent polling numbers are troubling.
However, previous polls for incumbent presidents a year before the election have often been
unfavorable, but proved to be wrong on election day.
The difference is that their opponents were honorable men who played by the rules, were pro-democracy, didn’t have fanatic and corrupt cult and party followers, and were not aided by skilled and well-funded foreign and domestic purveyors of misinformation on social and cable media.
Never before has there been a presidential opponent with so much to lose personally or so much to gain in perverse power as the one Joe Biden will likely be facing.
And never before was there so much at stake for our democracy.
Barry Bronson
Saratoga
Protest the spending
on the war in Gaza
I suspect the average American does not understand that a portion of their taxes is forked over to Israel, and Israel uses those funds to purchase American bombs and other weapons of war from the U.S. military-industrial complex. In my mind, that makes the United States an accessory in fact to the ongoing Israeli bombing of ambulances, medical facilities and hospitals in Gaza, an outright violation of international laws governing war.
Even if Hamas terrorists occupy alleged tunnels below medical facilities and hospitals, that does not give Israel a right to bomb the facilities above those tunnels. The sanctity of life for civilians must be maintained, and that is one of the tenets of the laws of war.
I urge all U.S. citizens to contact their representatives and make known their strenuous objection to having U.S. funds used for illegal and amoral purposes.
Larry Dorshkind
Redwood City
‘Fool theory’ at play
in antiques market
Re: “A hat worn by Napoleon sells for $2.1 million” (Page A2, Nov. 20).
As I read the headline, the folktale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” came to mind. The antiques industry has convinced the world that such rare items are priceless, are worth their astronomical prices and will keep rising in value.
No one, including the experts, can distinguish the original Mona Lisa from many of its copies. Why then does the original command one billion dollars? A visitor to the Louvre will enjoy the Mona Lisa just the same whether it is the original or a copy. I can understand how some previously unknown secret to Napoleon’s success can be worth a lot, but his faded and cracked hat?
One explanation could be the greater fool theory. The buyer of Napoleon’s hat hopes to sell the intrinsically worthless hat to another fool for an even higher price.
God save the fools of the world.
Dinesh Desai
Los Altos
Source: www.mercurynews.com