Letters: Too few customers | Improving recycling | Missing the mark | Perfect union | Not suited | Sad but accurate | A long wait
Mercury News Letters to the Editor for July 24, 2024
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Too few customers for
EV charging stations
Re: “California needs a million EV charging stations — but that’s ‘unlikely’ and ‘unrealistic’” (July 16).
A million public chargers for 7 million cars? What fumes are these people inhaling?
Each charger would have only one customer a day if these cars are charged an average of once a week — much less if we assume half or so use home chargers.
No wonder charging stations companies cannot make money if they plan on only getting three or four customers a week.
Robert Lipp
Los Gatos
Standard practices would
help state’s recycling
Re: “Bay Area recyclers resell overseas” (Page A1, July 19).
Nollyanne Delacruz wrote, “The items acceptable for recycling differ from city to city.” What an understatement. Individuals live in one place, work in another, and enjoy activities in others. Keeping straight on how to dispose of items in each jurisdiction is nearly impossible.
Labels “recyclable” or “compostable” are misleading. At Congregation Shir Hadash, we embarked on a journey to improve the sorting of our trash, compost and recycle bins. We have posted signs showing what goes in each bin and a disclaimer that our sorting may differ from people’s homes. People don’t understand the inconsistency and give up. Within the Bay Area, a used pizza container might be recyclable, compostable or trash.
Standardizing definitions and practices from one hauler and jurisdiction to the next would make a huge difference. The biggest difference will be made when the manufacturers adopt waste reduction as a priority and develop more sustainable products and reduce packaging.
Linda Allen
Saratoga
McCutcheon’s rant
misses the mark
Re: “Left is stoking outrage and anger” (Page A9, July 21).
Shaun McCutcheon’s op-ed piece aims to blame Democrats for political violence, but his diatribe misses the point from many angles. He starts by claiming that the answer is speech. However, speech is futile if the other side is not listening.
The Republicans did not listen to the polls that showed majority support for a woman’s right to decide about control of her own body. They did not listen when minorities and the underprivileged asked for respect from law enforcement. They did not listen when the middle class demanded that billionaires pay their fair share of taxes. They did not listen as multiple judges dismissed lawsuits about the 2020 election for lack of evidence.
Worst of all, McCutcheon blames the left for political violence when hundreds of right-wing rioters have been convicted since the Jan 6 insurrection, incited by Donald Trump’s speech at the preceding rally.
Campbell Scott
Los Gatos
Events make Trump
no better suited to lead
Whatever has happened to big-picture thinking? It is frustrating to me to see the dark predictions for the Democrats coming out of the Donald Trump shooting.
The press has been calling this election since the debate. The stakes are so high it shouldn’t matter who is headlining the ticket for the Democrats. What matters is the vision for this country’s future. Claims that photos of a bleeding Trump will become the “defining image of this race” are not helpful, and are being trumpeted by the press in a way that smacks of hysteria. Does anyone remember Jan. 6?
Donald Trump created this tragic ecosystem of hate. The New York Times finally came through in their editorial, “Donald Trump is unfit to lead,” calling him “dangerous in word, deed and action.” I hope more editorial boards and columnists stop the knee-jerk reacting and help us to realize what is at stake — democracy.
Nancy Noto
Cupertino
Trump reporting is
sad but accurate
Re: “Media is fanning Trump hatred” (Page A6, July 17).
A letter to the editor tries to explain that it’s the media’s fault for someone trying to kill the former twice-impeached felon who’s trying to sell us on the idea that the United States is a Third World country. He blames the media writing that No. 45 would end our democracy as we know it if reelected.
I need to ask Jerry Kroth if it’s the media’s fault that the lying candidate keeps giving us reasons to believe exactly what the media is reporting he’ll do if reelected. When reporting what someone states, exactly as they say it, it’s not the reporters’ fault that the person that said it, said it. It’s called reporting.
And if 45 becomes 47, we’ll see exactly why the media was right when it says that 47 is Vladimir Putin’s puppet.
John Bingham
San Jose
Italian Americans still
waiting for apology
There are few in our population who know that there were 600,000 Italian immigrants who were mistreated here in the United States during World War II. My parents, uncles and aunts were among those.
They were made to endure curfews and travel restrictions, forced to carry ID booklets, their homes were searched by the FBI, Italian fishermen had their boats confiscated, those living in coastal communities were forced to evacuate, and hundreds were arrested and interned in camps (similar to the Japanese).
Yet, our government will not give us survivors the apology that we deserve.
Chet Campanella
San Jose