Face masks and school: Letters to the editor, Aug. 15, 2021

Masks critical to beat COVID

To the anti-maskers advocating at a recent local school board meeting and elsewhere in our community: Yes, it is annoying and inconvenient to wear a mask, but a small price to pay to avoid COVID, not only for the victim but those in contact with him/her. We teach our children to overcome other challenges of life. We can manage any downside of wearing masks — both for them and ourselves.

Where would we be if our predecessors had ignored the science of controlling diphtheria, typhoid, measles, small pox, polio etc.? With the COVID variant surging it is science that we use to protect the community. The sooner, the better. Without doubt masks are part of that science.

Skip vaccine, pay a big hospital bill

Don’t want the vaccine? Are you or your survivors prepared for a $51,000 to $78,000 hospital bill? It depends on your age but that’s the average for American adults.

Put carbon price on natural gas

My congressman, Devin Nunes, recently introduced HR 4394, the Clean Energy Protection Act, mandating continued operation of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.

All 10 California Republican Representatives are co-sponsors.

I agree closing Diablo Canyon is a mistake, probably leading to more use of natural gas plants. Keeping it would allow new solar and wind power to replace fossil fuels. Nuclear actually works well in tandem with intermittent renewable sources.

I respect my fellow environmentalists who are leery of nuclear power, but many are changing their minds. The Union of Concerned Scientists is just one organization giving qualified support of nuclear energy as better than coal or gas power plants.

But no bill is helpful unless it passes. Demanding Diablo Canyon stay open, “notwithstanding” California laws, will attract no Democratic votes. Other Republican initiatives, such as streamlining regulations, and developing safer nuclear designs, could be bipartisan.

The best policy to help nuclear power is a price on carbon. It was PG&E that requested shutdown for economic reasons, largely cheap natural gas. But gas is “subsidized” unless it pays a price for damage to our climate from CO2 and methane. A carbon price establishes market-based competition to eliminate these greenhouse gases.

Tell the truth about local racism

Tell the truth! White racists cannot handle the truth pertaining to America’s treatment of Native Americans, Mexican Americans and Blacks. Fresno needs to face this truth also as to their treatment of nonwhite citizens in Fresno’s history. I support the Bee’s articulation and shaming of these racist and racist policies in Fresno’s history.

Thanks for Bee’s racism editorial

We commend the editors of The Bee for their courageous facing down of racism in our community. This kind of courageous stand is desperately needed.

We need to learn to be honest about our history so we can move toward “a more perfect union.”

Watch out for ‘woke’ math, English

Mr. Walters is right to worry abut the woke math being plied by the state of California. Unfortunately, these idiots will likely pass it as they did decades ago with UCLA Professor Krashen’s idiotic spelling system, in which kids could make mistakes without any correction. He created a generation of agraphic children who are now college students with a disability that never should have been created.

The stupidity is only surpassed by our inability to avoid these “woke” debacles. And people wonder why there is an anti-elitism backlash. It is justly deserved.

Valadao ad so misleading

Why do you let people like David Valadao take out misleading ads about seniors and Medicare drug pricing? He continues along the Republican motto that anything helping ordinary people is “socialism.”

Apparently the congressman does not have Type II diabetes and thinks that raising the price of insulin to the point where people underdose themselves because it is so expensive is some form of freedom?

I object to that kind of double-standard being abetted by The Bee. Valadao’s district is one of the deepest rabbit holes of Republican hypocrisy in the Central Valley.

What Christianity is all about

Kudos to David Pierce of Hanford for his letter on Aug. 1. It touched me deeply. I hear Christians talk about what a Christian nation we are, and yet the past five years have been anything but Christian.

To me, Christian means loving your neighbor, and even “loving your enemy,” but I see very little of that. Thank you for reminding us to be kinder to each other and live the Golden Rule of treating others as we would wish to be treated. We are all created “equal” by the same Creator. Peace to you David, and to all people on planet Earth, and let this peace begin with me.

This story was originally published August 15, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Face masks and school: Letters to the editor, Aug. 15, 2021."