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Home Depot can rebuild
without government aid
Thank goodness no one was injured in the fire that destroyed the Blossom Hill Home Depot. I am sorry the workers will temporarily be unemployed.
However, Home Depot is a large and highly profitable business – $16.4 billion in profits in 2021 (up more than 27% from 2020) – that does not need government help in rebuilding the store other than, perhaps, fast-tracking whatever permits are necessary.
Carol Zink
Redwood City
Church development
threatens vintage organ
In response to “Church organ sounds note from past” in the Mercury News of April 10, the pipe organ in the Grace Baptist Church is indeed magnificent in the sanctuary that was designed structurally and acoustically around this historic organ.
Therefore, it is especially ironic that Rev. George E. Oliver would present himself as a preservationist when he is leading the charge to have the Grace Baptist Church sanctuary completely bulldozed to get to the real estate it is sitting on for development. The organ will be ripped out of the building that was designed for it. Supposedly, the many thousands of parts will be stored to be rebuilt somewhere else later. Many people think this is doubtful and that the organ or its many parts may be damaged in this process or considered too much trouble to rebuild once redevelopment begins. This is wasteful and unnecessary. Preserve the organ and sanctuary.
Larry Guernsey
San Jose
Let’s focus on solutions
to growing water crisis
We know about low water reservoir levels and low Sierra snowpack. How about pushing California’s state and local political leaders to discuss and build new infrastructures that produce drinking water. Some solutions that I am aware of are seawater desalination and wastewater and sewage water recycling. Los Angeles is ahead of the Bay Area in setting long-range goals. San Diego is way ahead in producing drinking water from seawater.
Let’s focus on solutions and not just the problems.
Tai Quan
San Jose
Turn focus from vaccine
to COVID treatments
Re. “As virus changes so must vaccine,” Page A1, April 10:
Unsurprisingly, your average Joe has never heard of monoclonal antibody therapy as a treatment option for COVID-19. According to Lisa Krieger, the Department of Health and Human Services panel agrees that therapeutics will need to be part of a plan to manage COVID-19. Rather than constantly redeveloping vaccines, stronger emphasis should be placed on alternative therapies for those who have been infected to control disease progression.
Krieger reports that vaccine protection is about 78% effective in preventing hospitalizing after four months, implying that vaccines alone may not be enough. Per the CDC, for those infected, monoclonal antibodies can aid the immune system in more effective recovery from the virus. As duly noted in the past year, variants of COVID-19 infect the unvaccinated and vaccinated alike. By funding more research of monoclonal antibody therapy, we can better cope with the ever-changing virus and prevent hospital systems from becoming overwhelmed.
Kim Lopez
San Jose
Eshoo should back
unlimited aid to Ukraine
I urge Rep. Anna Eshoo to cosponsor H.R. 6753, the bipartisan Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022. Initiating a lend-lease agreement to provide unlimited supplies to Ukraine is a critical part of ensuring that Ukraine can defend itself against the ongoing Russian invasion.
I was happy to see that the Senate passed their version of this bill earlier this week. Now is the time for Eshoo to voice her support for the House’s companion bill in order to ensure that it passes the House as quickly as possible.
Babette Villasenor
Menlo Park
Nation’s fracture is
deeper than identity
Re. “We have lost ability to share common identity,” Page A17, April 10:
Actually, we have lost the ability to share a common reality. Ever since Republican Sen. Joe McCarthy’s 1950s fantasies of Communists infiltrating our government, the GOP has used disinformation to disguise the fact that they only care about billionaires. The GOP learned to take advantage of their fearful “base’s” gullibility with fear-mongering and lunatic conspiracy theories like “Pizzagate”.
When a master con-artist sociopath like Donald Trump comes along, so narcissistic that he needs to create his own reality in which he always “wins”, he and Fox News propagandists lead GOP politicians and gullible “base” around like frightened sheep.
How ironic. Republicans once railed against Communists and Russia; today the Republicans’ big heart-throb is Vladimir Putin, who the rest of the world sees as a war criminal and master sociopath. But not the Republicans, who cower in their own unhinged reality, fearful of change and bizarre anti-democracy fantasies of their own making.
Dave Whitaker
San Jose
Source: www.mercurynews.com