San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Keep school in check
Regarding “Motive a mystery, families grieve” (Front Page, March 5): In the wake of yet another uniquely American mass casualty event, this time in Sacramento, The Chronicle’s bold headline states the motive is still a mystery. As if ascertaining the motive will somehow lead us to a solution. It won’t.
As a mental health professional for 44 years, I will venture an educated guess that this massacre is another iteration of a familiar algorithm: alcohol+anger+firearms=multiple victims.
Other versions of this same equation simply replace anger and alcohol with mental illness, gang-involved, hate crime, etc., take your pick. The constant factor in all these equations is, of course, firearms. We can assume that in countries with strict gun control laws that anger, gangs, hate crimes and mental illness also exist, yet these mass shootings are virtually nonexistent. The U.S. accounts for 4% of the world’s population and more than 40% of the its firearms, according to some studies. And these deadly events, which now number in the hundreds, are uniquely ours.
There will be more deaths by firearms, more grieving loved ones, more thoughts and prayers, and no sensible legislation limiting access to firearms. Sigh.
Community members attend a candlelight vigil at Seventh and K streets Monday in Sacramento where six people were killed in a shooting last Sunday.
Bunny.”
Every year, parents and children get the idea that they’d like to bring home a rabbit, thinking they are easy to care for. Rabbits can live as long as a dog or cat. My house rabbit lived for 13 years.
Parents believe they have a shortterm project and the kids will have a cuddly toy. Worse, some consider this life disposable. Rabbits do not make good pets for children. They are prey animals and will defend themselves by kicking and biting.
Sadly, most children lose interest in the rabbit as it grows up. The bunny dies from neglect, ends up at an animal
shelter, or worse, is dumped in the wild where it cannot survive.
Please don’t buy Easter rabbits for your children, truly they don’t mix. day, the issue at hand is about a living wage for hard-working cab drivers.
The meter rate is our very last protection left, after unlimited competition from Uber and Lyft, and a rapacious $250,000 medallion sales program by the the SFMTA have gutted the industry.
The taxi meter is our only chance of having a living wage during any given shift, and the SFMTA just gave that protection away to Uber, which of course is known for its exploitative labor model, where a customer could be charged $30, but the driver would only get something like $15. Now, it looks like all city taxi drivers will be subject to this practice.
Perhaps Uber could extend an olive branch to an industry it has treated with nothing but contempt to make this new partnership work. It would be a good start.
Regarding “Private school fights to grow in Oakland” (Front Page, April 7): There is no valid comparison with the recent conflict over UC Berkeley’s enrollment with Head-Royce’s plight.
UC is a public institution designed to benefit all academically eligible Californians, whereas Head-Royce is a private school for rich kids. Furthermore, Head-Royce need not increase enrollment in order to “offer more scholarships to boost diversity.” It merely needs to accept more scholarship students and fewer rich kids.