Letters to the Editor 10/02/2019

To the Editor:

Friday, September 27, 10 Sisters citizens and one brave child stood on the corners of Highway 20 intersection with Larch Street to smile, wave and share our signs protesting the lack of urgency our government has shown the last 40 years to mitigate the effects of global warming (GW).

The people of the world are observing, if not living through, extreme weather events, melting glaciers and polar caps, rising and warming oceans, and species decline across our planet.

Very few, indeed, are saying GW is a hoax.

What allows even the non-scientist to realize humans have made it worse, is the speed of the warming changes.

Geologic time stamps for previous warming periods in tree rings, ice cores and strata show the slow advance of warming periods occurred over hundreds if not thousands of years.

This current GW is occurring within decades — a speed that is unprecedented on Planet Earth.

Yes, humans are making it advance this quickly due primarily to our fossil fuel emissions.

So, it is for the children who will live to see a very unfriendly planet should we do nothing, that we stand together with them to lift awareness and to lift hearts. It is not hopeless to protest, it is in fact hopeful. We were out that day with over 4 million like-minded humans across our planet. Humans have the capacity to slow this effect and to eventually reverse it. We proved that in the late ’70s and early ’80s.

Back then the ozone had holes and we figured out how to close them up by stopping the use of polluting toxins. Los Angeles had unhealthy air; we created the catalytic converter. Rivers were so grossly polluted some were on fire, and we regulated industries to not feed toxins into any rivers, lakes or streams.

Today, in 2019, we are facing the greatest crisis humans have ever known. We all need to do our part to call our representatives, engage with our community leaders to help our city have a smaller carbon footprint and to do what we can at home. Anything you do to reduce your footprint, no matter how small, matters. It all counts.

At the end of our hour of protesting, we’re talking about meeting once a month, as long as the sidewalks remained safe (no ice or piled snow) but that child spoke up and said, “why not in two weeks?” So for him and all our children’s futures, we hope you will think about joining us Friday, October 11, 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the corners noted above.

Susan Cobb

s s s

To the Editor:

Mr. Rullman’s piece on “Civil Disobedience” compared recent political concepts on gun control to slavery and lawful gun owners to slaves. Making any comparison of gun control/ownership to hundreds of years of slavery in this country is ignorant, egregious and immoral.

While our opinions may differ I have come to expect more from his columns. Instead, a piece like this does nothing but to help solidify people’s stereotypes.

This is not thought-provoking, it is just plain sad.

Aaron Gregg

CHL carrying gun owner

s s s

To the Editor:

What to say about Craig Rullman’s September 25 rambling rant titled “Civil Disobedience”?

Firstly, I want to say that I was appalled and deeply insulted. Mr. Rullman uses his half-page mostly conspiracy-theorist tirade to lump into the same pot and to malign all who are members of the Democratic party. Surely, Mr. Rullman realizes that “there are many fine people on both sides.”

As a Democrat, I don’t see myself “calling for government-sanctioned violence against innocent people,” taking up an agenda “with endless character assassination, smear campaigns, violence, and threats of violence, which the DNC, ANTIFA … have demonstrated repeatedly” as stated in his column.

ANTIFA’s stated focus is on fighting far-right and white supremacist ideologies through violent action, rather than through electoral means.

The DNC and ANTIFA have nothing to do with my patriotism, politics or morality, nor do they have anything to do with any Democrats that I know.

Did I miss the point he was so offensively trying to make? No, I got it. Protect the 2nd Amendment, even if it takes civil disobedience to do it. The same civil disobedience that helped to bring an end to the Vietnam War.

My complaint, here, is on how he went about it. Equating Democrats with slave-holding? Really! Mr. Rullman should drag himself out of the 18th century.

The other day I was putting groceries into my car after shopping, and this old white guy passing by said that he liked the American flag that I have prominently displayed on my car. I smiled at him and said thank you, I’m a proud American Democrat. Do you know what he said? He told me I was a waste of life.

So you see, by printing the kind of incendiary, violent, half-true and divisive rhetoric that you published for Mr. Rullman, you are contributing to a divisive community, and country. We can be better than this.

And while I strongly disagree with the way he presented his case and felt it did more harm than good, I do believe in the protection of the 1st and of the 2nd Amendments to our Constitution.

While Mr. Rullman has a right to his opinion, it should be presented in more measured style, tempered by good editorial work. I recall past articles he wrote that were enjoyable.

But I won’t risk my sensibilities, or be witness to his coming undone again, by reading future articles by Mr. Rullman.

Deborah Hewett