Politics affect city’s transformation
Will San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee run unopposed in the next mayoral election? In “They looked, they saw, they balked” (Editorial, April 19), John Diaz notes that any challenger to this incumbent faces long “odds of taking on an incumbent mayor with deeppocketed supporters.” However, it will not serve the local electorate well if a discussion is not had about the city’s skyrocketing housing costs and escalating departure of its middle-class workers.
Is the future of the city going to be determined by political power brokers like Rose Pak and venture capitalists like Ron Conway? No mention was made in Diaz’s editorial about past interventions by Mayor Lee to give tax breaks and other assistance to tech companies like Twitter, Zynga, and Square, in which Conway has financial interests. Is this mayor able to operate independently of his political backers? And will city residents watch helplessly as the “Manhattanization” of San Francisco continues to turn it into a playground for the rich only? Voters deserve an alternative voice to debate these issues, before the city irreversibly transforms from a democracy to a “technocracy.”
Julian Grant, Pacifica
Pray for change
I’m one of many in the pews during Sunday Mass. There is a moment when we are asked to pray for the church’s leaders, including Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, and I do. I don’t question that Archbishop Cordileone loves and knows the Catholic Church in all its history and teachings much better than I do. So I pray that he will learn to extend that love to his fellow man.
Alfred Mammini, San Francisco
Moving up
Regarding “Experts: Archbishop blessed with celestial job security” (April 19): Now I get it. Archbishop Cordileone is bucking for a promotion.
Alice Spears, San Francisco
Medical hypocrisy
Regarding “Terminally ill deserve a choice of treatment” (April 16): Suffering in our narcissistic society is messy, undesirable and not worthy of our effort. Suffering is for Catholics and other Christians who see the “Cross” as a purifying instrument for the soul. Unfortunately, these pro-suicide advocates need someone to help them do the job. They can’t even be responsible for their own acts. They need a doctor to justify their choice of death.
What also strikes me as interesting is that these pro-suicide advocates and their like-minded brethren need medical coverage for their acts. Just this week, Debbie Wasserman Schultz was asked about aborting a fetus in the third trimester. She responded that government should stay out of this discussion because the issue is solely between her doctor and herself. Again, to make killing a viable fetus of let’s say 8 months a doctor must be involved. Medicine legitimizes taking of the life of a viable fetus and a depressed adult tired of living or fearful of pain. The fact that an innocent being in utero can be murdered is beyond my imagination, especially with no conditions except a woman’s right to choose to have or not have a baby.
Now, doctors and the medical industry claim the high road when it comes to capital punishment. The medical profession will not provide the necessary drugs or assistance to execute a criminal like the “Night Stalker” or the “Freeway Killer” because medicine’s role is to preserve and save life. Yet, when it comes to abortion (an innocent being) or suffering souls, it is legitimate to kill. Sounds topsy-turvy to me.
Nazario Gonzales, Los Gatos
Climate strategy
“Facing drought’s hard reality” (April 19) underscores the need to set climate stabilization strategy in spite of uncertainty. Do we wait until the science is more certain and risk horrible consequences if we delay too long? Do we act decisively now and risk the economic consequences of overreacting? If we wait too long, we plausibly jeopardize civilization as we know it.
If we act now, the beneficial side effects of lower cost energy in the long run include cleaning up the environment, expanding the number of good quality and non-exportable jobs in the clean energy industry, and making our world less vulnerable to trouble where petroleum is found. Even if climate disruption were not a threat, looking at it that way, it seems the choice is clear. By the way, thanks for treating data in the back-page headline for the referenced article as a plural noun. Seeing that made my heart sing.
William Cutler, Union City
Money still talks
How tragic it is to think that more than 100 of San Francisco’s finest Catholics put their names on a public letter to the pope asking him to remove Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. It will probably end in nothing. Kevin Fagan writes that church experts say that in the Vatican’s “feudal court” nothing will get done (“Experts: Archbishop blessed with celestial job security,” April 19). In fact, Pope Francis may not even hear about what is happening in the City of St. Francis, his namesake, and his conciliatory tone will now come to mean nothing. What is left to frustrated San Francisco Catholics? Maybe nothing, unless money still talks and enough of it obviously starts fleeing the church coffers. Maybe then Catholics living in the City of St. Francis would get noticed.
Margaret Stortz, El Cerrito