Letters: Real emergencies | Recall Price
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Real emergencies don’t
happen on a schedule
Re: “Quake alert test rattles thousands” (Page B1, Oct. 20).
The quake alert last Thursday that was erroneously sent out at 3:19 a.m. instead of the scheduled time of 10:19 a.m., may turn out to be a blessing in disguise. An earthquake does not strike at convenient times. A 3:19 a.m. alert is realistic. If you slept through it then you just learned a valuable lesson and should be thankful it was only a drill. Learn from it. That’s what tests are all about.
If only school districts can learn this lesson too as they schedule fire drills only during convenient times. Ask any child, “When was the last time your school conducted a fire drill during recess or lunch?” The answer will be “never.” Sadly if a drill occurred during recess, we probably would see young children, already safely outside, and not knowing any better, re-enter buildings so they can attempt to exit through a passageway next to their classroom.
David Chetcuti
Concord
Light sentence is
a strike against Price
Re: “Driver gets 3 years, 4 months for killing golf course employee in crash” (Page B3, Oct. 21).
Ismael Hernandez expected to go home after work that day in 2022. Ismael Hernandez was riding a mower at his job at Monarch Bay Golf Course in San Leandro when he was struck and killed by a stolen pickup truck driven by Jason McDermott who then fled the scene.
McDermott pleaded no contest to vehicular manslaughter and accepted the three-year, four-month sentence in exchange for the district attorney dropping charges of hit-and-run, driving a stolen car and enhancements related to his seven prior convictions including car theft and evading police in a vehicle. Since the defendant will receive credit for time served, he will soon be released and have the opportunity to steal more cars and kill again.
Thank you Madame District Attorney. Recall Pamela Price.
Bill Cooper
Brentwood
Let capitalism play
role in climate fight
Re: “Taxing cheeseburgers could help save the climate” (Page A9, Oct. 22).
Having a fee on greenhouse gas emissions is a great idea. The fairest way, I believe, is to give back the revenue equally to each person in the United States. This is what is behind the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act recently reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.
This approach does not “pick winners,” it just uses capitalism to allow businesses to choose the best way to lower emissions. Currently, the act does not include farming, but it offers a framework to do so.
Personally, I have taken a different approach. I have given up beef. Beef production produces about eight times the CO2 equivalent of pork. Chicken and turkey are even lower. So, I get to feast on animal flesh, while still reducing my emissions by 80%.
Cliff Gold
Fremont
Children’s lives at
stake in Mideast war
My heart aches for all Israelis and Palestinians caught in the crossfire of the Israeli-Hamas conflict. The atrocities are so foreign to my own experience of life that to say I empathize would be a betrayal of the concept. I can’t imagine continually losing whatever home I currently lay claim to while being terrorized, tortured and killed by those outside and within my own community.
Yet, even the extremists and terrorists on each side must be capable of empathizing with what may have driven one another to value their right to land more than life itself. Proud, brave Palestinians and Israelis know they can survive the loss of land because they have. But what about the loss of their children?
Regardless of religion or ethnicity, might not the children’s lives be worth whatever it takes to focus on common ground rather than who is more entitled to which?
Linda Thorlakson
Castro Valley
West’s candidacy hurts
only Biden campaign
No matter what Cornell West says about his independent presidential candidacy, the only thing he could possibly accomplish is to hurt President Biden’s chances of winning a second term.
