Oakland Unified School District’s tech repair intern Danna Avila, 17, repairs Chromebooks at OUSD’s warehouse in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, June 27, 2023. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
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COVID closures worse
than dying laptops
Re: “‘Dying’ Chromebooks crowd e-waste bins” (Page A1, July 24).
How unfortunate that no one knew that the Chromebook’s low price might be offset by “planned obsolescence” costs. Whoops.
But from 35,000 feet, the millions spent on Chromebooks by school districts would be excusable had they resulted in measurable educational achievement. The COVID mandate said that school districts “provid[e] some sort of digital learning device” to facilitate remote learning. What was the measurable educational result? Per the Public Policy Institute of California headlines, “Pandemic disruptions reversed nearly six years of academic progress.”
Early on it was clear that COVID was a serious risk for the aged — children much less so. With 5.8 million school-aged kids, the California Department of Public Health reports 1,582,829 COVID cases and 63 deaths, so there are two groups hit by the state-mandated school closure/remote “learning” experiment: a) the kiddos who lost academically, and b) producers/taxpayers who will “foot the bills” for decades.
Ty Greaves
San Jose
Population stabilization
is great for weary state
Re: “Golden State’s glow is fading” (Page A1, July 26).
I was dismayed to read the headline in the July 26 edition that expressed worry that California’s population might stabilize. Stabilizing would be wonderful.
Do we really want to continue paving over habitat, devouring resources and spewing waste products into the sky and oceans to maintain our economy? And seriously: Is an ever-increasing population really the best long-term plan? What’s the logical result? When does it stop? How long do we continue increasing? The world is suffering the effects of economies based on unlimited growth, consumption, and resource depletion.
But humans are clever and creative. We can and will find better ways to live that don’t destroy the beautiful world we were given.
James Danaher
Santa Cruz
Add Hollister to Caltrain
for traffic’s sake
The vehicle traffic on Highway 25 between Gilroy (Silicon Valley) and Hollister gets worse by the day.
There is a viable alternative to the arduous commute: Extend Caltrain to Hollister. There is already a rail line in place connecting the two cities that just needs upgrading.
I hope that the San Benito and Santa Clara transit agencies can work together to make this happen sooner rather than later.
Gary V. Plomp
Gilroy
Will no one challenge
hawkish Biden in 2024?
On Feb. 28, 2022, President Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, addressed reports that Russia cluster-bombed Ukraine: If true, “it would potentially be a war crime.”
A 15-year-old convention, with 123 nations’ support, bans cluster bombs. These scatter bomblets widely, with many dangerous duds. Both Russian and Ukrainian cluster attacks have struck Ukraine’s civilians. Yet Biden ships Ukraine such weapons — augmenting his hawkish record.
As Senate Foreign Relations chairman, Biden advocated attacking Iraq. As president, he has bombed Iraq, Syria and Somalia; helped Saudis bomb Yemenis; sent troops to Africa and eastern Europe; and scorned efforts at peace in Ukraine. While “modernizing” our nuclear arsenal, he unilaterally pledges to defend Taiwan against nuclear-armed Russia and China.
Is there no prominent major-party politico with the guts to challenge Biden’s march to World War III?
Paul W. Lovinger
San Francisco
No shame in
honesty, retirement
Speaking from the perspective of an 86-year-old, President Biden and Sens. Mitch McConnell and Dianne Feinstein need to retire now. Their problems are obvious and will only get worse to the detriment of the country and themselves.
New arbitrary age laws and mandatory tests are neither necessary nor desirable. What is needed is honesty: honest introspection by the individuals themselves and candor by their families and colleagues. Families with aging family members do this all the time.
It is never easy but it is absolutely necessary.
Chester Clark
Los Altos
Don’t support Trump’s
shameless lie
Donald Trump has been saying that the Presidential Records Act says that he gets to take any documents he wants, when instead, it says just the opposite: It automatically transfers all presidential documents into the legal custody of the archivist as soon as the president leaves office.
Google it. Anybody who takes the trouble to read it will know this. Trump knows this. How can anyone support Trump when he deliberately lies to them, as well as to the American people?
Larry Guernsey
San Jose