Contra Costa Times July 14 Letters

By Letters from our readers

We own a Honda Civic hybrid that we bought about two years ago. We recently took a trip that covered 2,000 miles. We averaged just under 46 miles per gallon on the trip. On two segments of the trip each over 300 miles we drove at speeds of 55 or 65 miles per hour, which was the speed limit.

On these two segments, we averaged 52 miles per gallon. On another segment through Nevada where the speed limit is 70 or 75 miles per hour we averaged 43 mpg.

If the national speed limit was lowered to 55 and enforced, fuel consumption would be reduced by at least 15 percent. Increasing fuel efficiency standards to 35 mpg would reduce fuel consumption a great deal also, probably another 15 percent. And 34 to 36 mpg is what we average in city driving with our hybrid.

What would happen if an excess profit tax on the oil companies was imposed and the money was loaned to auto manufacturers to convert closed manufacturing facilities to hybrid then used the savings from reduced oil usage to provide tax incentives for people to buy hybrids.

These hybrids would be required to meet the same fuel economies that the Honda Civic and Toyota Prius meet.

Gordon Kohler

Lafayette

Can we recover?

On July 4, the day we celebrate our country’s Declaration of Independence from England, I like to reread Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem, “Concord Hymn.”

I purchased a copy of it at the site of the Old North Bridge while stationed at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts during the Korean War.

Most people are familiar with the first stanza, ending with the line, “Here once the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world.”

Those farmers never could have imagined the greatness their infant nation eventually would achieve.

Death saved them from witnessing its decline under George W. Bush and his fellow fleet-footed truth dodgers.

Can our nation ever recover all it has lost in a mere eight years?

We are at a nadir in our nation’s history. Neither Republican presidents Herbert Hoover nor Richard Nixon harmed our nation’s economy or ethics as much as “values president” George Bush and his ilk.

To rephrase Emerson’s last stanza: Spirit, that made these heroes dare to die, and leave their children free, bid time and honest leadership our nation’s greatness repair.

Marion A. McIntire

Richmond

Wasting water

I am appalled that the city of Pinole is planning to plant the median strip in front of the new shopping center being developed.

Why now, when water is in short supply and East Bay Municipal Utility District is asking everyone to conserve?

I also am appalled the city is assessing all the businesses around this area to cover the plantings. This is definitely not the time to do this.

I ask the new City Council where are your priorities? I have tried to contact our council members but haven’t been able to get in touch with a single one.

Come on city of Pinole, don’t waste the water now. Wait until we have water to spare … if ever.

Catherine Frost

Pinole

Narrow decision

I am relieved, yet uncomfortable, with the 5-4 narrow decision of the U.S. Supreme Court on gun ownership as an individual right.

A ruling of such historic magnitude should have an unambiguous, judicial consensus. For example, the unanimous 9-0 vote in the 1954 Brown vs. Kansas Board of Education decision on racial segregation, or, the 8-1 ruling in 1964 prohibiting government sponsored prayer in the public schools.

Had the majority ruled otherwise, imposing a “well regulated militia” on its citizens, can you imagine the proliferation of neighborhood militias all over the country, not to mention the open defiance of hunters and ranchers in the western states, especially Texas?

Dennis Kuby

Berkeley

At it again

President Bush and the majority of his fellow conservative Republicans in Congress, are at it again. They insist that drilling for oil, on the Arctic National Wildlife in Alaska, will solve the current energy problem with gas prices still on the rise. They dismiss the ideal that conserving energy is the answer.

People should understand that the Arctic National Wildlife is home of the Gwich’in people who live their own way of life. They preserve the water and take care of the animals there.

If President Bush and the majority of his fellow conservative Republicans in Congress, would to have their way, there will be oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife and that would be a violation on the sovereignty of the Gwich’in people.

Billy Trice Jr.

Oakland

Start with Bush

I’ll tell Pete Laurence (“Court overstepped,” June 26) who should be replaced, and it isn’t our Supreme Court.

Let’s start with the Bush administration that conned the Congress into passing the blasphemously named “USA Patriot Act.” And then there’s the Congress that colluded in its passage.

The founding patriots must be doing a hundred revolutions per minute in their graves. The current administration has sold Congress a bill of goods that has set aside, if not completely destroyed, many of the freedoms we enjoyed before 9/11, all in the name of national security.

The Congress willingly “… unwittingly, at best “… legislated away many of the protections of our Constitution.

The current administration has trampled further on elements of the Bill of Rights, lied to the Congress and otherwise committed high crimes and treason while that very same Congress has stood idly by doing nothing.

All of the people involved in this continuing fiasco took oaths to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Seems to me that the U.S. Supreme Court is the only branch living up to that oath.

Mr. Laurence, be careful what you pray for. You just might get it.

Albert F. Limberg

Concord

Not the cause

In her July 9 letter, Lisa Allen makes a dangerous overgeneralization: She equates “special ed” students with “learning problems.”

This is unfair, because it pretends that all special-education students are close to the norm and in need of only a little support or accommodation. This pretense supports her claim that these students are getting too much help.

Allen’s argument ignores students with challenges such as cerebral palsy, paralysis, Down syndrome, autism, or retardation, dismissing them as insignificant or nonexistent.

My daughter is mentally retarded. She will probably not go to college, and she knows it; nobody is giving her “a false idea of her abilities.” Because I manage the local soccer league for children with special needs, I know many special-ed students, most with serious challenges. Nobody has “lowered the standards” (as Allen claims) on their behalf; nobody is giving them “easier versions” of tests.

If Allen wants to tell children to lower their expectations and plan on not having their needs met, that’s her personal business but poor public policy. Schools are suffering, yes, but special education students and programs are not the reason; they are victims of this decline, not the cause.

Pete Gaughan

Concord

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