Modesto brings back cruising, ignores car pollution and climate crisis | Letters to the editor
Horrific accident
“While Modesto dithers, another homeless is crushed to death,” (modbee.com, July 20)
This was a terrible terrible accident, and I am confident that everybody directly connected to this is horrified by what happened.
I’m horrified, too, but I don’t think Grover Landscape Services needs your advice for reconsidering their protocol for mowing lawns. You can bet this is already being addressed. You should have counted to ten and thought a little longer before publishing an opinion like this.
Joel Richards
Modesto
Car pollution
“Modesto ends cruising ban after 33 years. Here’s how enthusiasts greeted council vote,” (modbee.com, July 12)
President Joe Biden says climate change is the country’s number one problem and Gov. Gavin Newsom is taking draconian measures to ban gas powered cars in the state and discourage us all from driving in general. Meanwhile, Modesto thinks this is a great time to bring back cruising, where people drive their cars — many of which are exempt from smog laws — up and down McHenry for hours for no reason other than entertainment.
Is Modesto saying there’s no climate crisis, or do the climate change supporters here lack the courage of their convictions?
Marian McNicol
Modesto
Opinion
PGA loses honor
“2023 PGA Championship Betting: Picks, Odds, Predictions,” (modbee.com, May 17)
As a lifelong golf fan, the news that the Professional Golfers’ Association of America
Tour and its European counterpart intend to form a new global golf alliance with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is highly troubling.
In the past year, some golfers left the PGA Tour for the Saudi-funded LIV tour. But their claims of “trying to grow the game” were disingenuous. They took the guaranteed money – at the expense of their reputations and legacies.
Regrettably, the same can be said of PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan. Saudi Arabia is an authoritarian country with rampant human rights abuses, personified by the grotesque murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. I can’t imagine that the TV networks that cover golf – as well as the corporate sponsors who underwrite the tournaments – will want their brands used as a platform for a despotic regime to launder their wrongdoing.
Golf is a sport where honor is paramount. Monahan needs to re-learn this concept and pursue a different course of action.
Christopher C. Doll
Salida
California’s lagging speed tech
“Speed enforced by aircraft? Here’s how it actually works, California Highway Patrol says,” (modbee.com, June 30)
California leads on many issues. But when it comes to cameras monitoring speed on our highways, our state is delinquent. I first noticed the positive effect of cameras while driving on a freeway near Pisa, Italy. A previous trip was hair-raising, with everyone driving at excessive speeds. But during this trip, everyone was going the speed limit. Cameras monitoring folks, with fines as penalties for speeding, worked like a charm.
Closer to home, on Scenic Drive here in Modesto, our commercial building across from the cemetery has been the site of eight crashes over the last 20 years. In spite of bollards to protect the building, speeding drivers continue their assaults. The cemetery stone walls are also favorite targets.
I am pleased to see progress with Assembly Bill 645. But why just a “pilot program” for speed-enforcement cameras? Scenic Drive is just one notoriously dangerous road in Modesto. As for privacy concerns, in this case I agree with the gun lobby: Cars don’t speed, people do. Call or write your Senate representatives to approve this bill.
This is proven technology, and California needs to get up to speed on this one.
Robert LeFevre
Modesto
Compassion over hubris
“Activists spurred by affirmative action ruling challenge legacy admissions at Harvard,” (modbee.com, July 4)
I suppose it was hard to resist publishing a critique of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent on the recent Supreme Court decision to ban affirmative action in college admissions. I take umbrage at the publication of this opinion and to the writer’s narrow focus. He takes one detail from a long list of citations documenting the disparities in health care between minorities and whites and writes that our first Black female Supreme Court justice put “undue” emphasis on statistics garnered by a study on “the tangible benefits of patients’ access to doctors who look like them.”
The article was published by the National Academy of Sciences to emphasize the need to train more Black health care professionals. The writer, who is himself a physician, further states that the study published by the National Academy of Sciences demands much higher levels of investigation.
Are we to doubt the rigor of the National Academy of Sciences? I understand his desire to defend his colleagues, but how will the conversation about race proceed when hubris takes priority over compassion?
Penny Williams
Patterson
“Experts see much of Valley ag adapting to climate. And some spots where farming fades,” (modbee.com, April 3)
Donald Trump has mastered the art of telling his supporters what they want to hear, but, unfortunately, most of what he says is a pack of lies that has detrimental consequences. Trump denies climate science predictions. Denial, however, does not make the problem go away.
President Biden has successfully passed the Inflation-Reduction act, which is a positive first step in the attempt to minimize the damage of climate change. Unfortunately, Republicans do not ever discuss corrective climate action. If we don’t want the Central Valley to become Death Valley II, we must only vote for candidates who sincerely pledge to fight climate change.
Steven Murov
Hughson
