A cartoon presidency
Regarding “Trump vs. the universe” (Last Word, March 17): Is it just a coincidence that the Space Force to which President Trump referred during his recent remarks in California, and that editorial writer Josh Gohlke notes was also a 1980s cartoon, featured a character who wore an orange cap and carried a blue Uzi submachine gun?
That sounds like someone who might be currently living in the White House. We truly are living in the time of a cartoon presidency.
Ferdi Bagdalian, Daly City
More Steve Aoki, please
Regarding “Steve Aoki is as busy as ever” (March 4): I almost cried while reading the piece on Steve Aoki because ... it was so short a piece! I wanted more Aoki! Natalie Molina, Oakland
Mature suggestions for CEOs
Regarding “Tech leaders grow as they grow up” (Business, March 19): As a 50-something tech user, I’d hardly consider 33-year-old Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg or 41-year-old Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to be “greybeards.” Still, if these individuals want to show that they are being more mature, responsible tech leaders who want to make the world a better place, I’d like to make two suggestions.
Zuckerberg should more carefully vet advertisers and enhance security on Facebook, given that Russians were able to manipulate its users’ content feeds during the 2016 presidential election.
And Dorsey should close the account of a certain Twitter user in the White House who has used the social media platform to repost videos that promote violence against others, as well using words that constitute hate speech. Such actions would show that Silicon Valley is truly “growing up.” Nigel
Llewlyn, South San Francisco
Give cops a choice with tasers
Regarding “Worried over arming police with Tasers” (Letters, March 17): What is so hard to grasp on the need for officers to be armed with Tasers? In the use of force, it seems clear that using a Taser on a person armed with a knife or baseball bat, or whatever, would be a better choice than the deadly force of a firearm. For a suspect with a heart condition, the chance of surviving a Taser is much higher than surviving a gunshot.
In regard to the elderly, I have not seen many 80-year-olds confronting the cops with weapons, but in the case of the rare geriatric violator, I suspect she would also stand a better chance at survival by being Tased, rather than shot. Please allow these officers who work these thankless jobs and are constantly in no-win situations a choice. Rick Hart, Union City
Sustainable water systems
Regarding “Big boost for water project in Bay Area” (Page One, March 17), on Antioch being selected to receive a share of state money for desalting projects: Some of these inland projects will “tap underground basins” for desalting water.
Why not use gray water instead? Why not mandate that all new buildings in the state have a means of recycling water by installing systems to capture used water from showers, tubs and bathroom sinks to treat and reuse on site for toilet flushing, landscape irrigation and other non-potable uses? Instead of depleting underground aquifers, why not install systems in this arid Western state, where increasing population and building is creating unsustainable demands on our water sources? Jean Gengler, San Francisco
Air travel and climate change
Regarding “Legislature’s rule: Do as we say, not as we do” (March 19): Dan Walters argues that California’s expensive high-speed rail project looks like a solution in search of a problem. He pooh-poohs its likely impact on transportation emissions, citing a claim that only 1 percent of auto trips between northern and southern California would be eliminated by the completed high-speed rail line.
But Walters doesn’t mention the climate benefit that would come from replacing some, perhaps many, of the millions of plane trips every year between the Bay Area and points south. Flying is one of the worst climate offenders, and emissions from air travel are rising fast. If we’re to minimize the extent of climate change, we need to provide substitutes for air travel wherever possible. While the glitches and rising projected costs of high-speed rail are daunting, unmitigated climate change will be far more expensive. We shouldn’t give up on high-speed rail. Glenn Fieldman, Brisbane
Fair and balanced justices
Regarding “A political assault on judges” (March 19): I’m surprised that this newspaper is asserting that incumbent judges should not be removed unless they “fail to act with integrity, competence, or fidelity to the law.”
Such malfeasance was committed by Judge Aaron Persky of Santa Clara County in his light sentencing of a student-athlete who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman (as well as in several other cases involving student-athletes), and yet The Chronicle expressed its disapproval of an effort to recall Persky. We need justices who believe that Lady Justice is blind and holds two balanced scales evenly.
Veronica Delvecchio, San Jose
Heartless edicts from Trump
Regarding “ACLU sues government over detention of asylum seekers” (March 16): What have we become? Under Trumpery edicts, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is heartlessly tearing thousands of families apart, separating children from their parents and imprisoning and deporting undocumented individuals with no criminal record. Where is the voice, the spine and the soul of the Republican Party, which sits silently by while families and innocent lives are torn asunder?
Deidre Silverman, San Rafael