Letters for November 22, 2018

Re: “Apocalypse on the Ridge,” by Ashiah Scharaga and Melissa Daugherty (News, November 15):

I hope our new governor of California, Gavin Newsom, will make a strong effort to spend money on environmental safeguards toward water storage, land-use and other environmental issues essential to life and California land.

In times like this, money spent on a train is money thrown down a rathole. Hope you’re up to it, Gov. Newsom!

Madeline Curran

Sacramento

via sactoletters@newsreview.com

A losing proposition

Re: “California divided,” by Stephen Magagnini (Feature, November 8):

The far north people may not want to be part of what I call mainstream California, but they’d lose things that California now provides. Like CalFire (you know, to help save their lives and property), the state colleges (I don’t think their tax base could maintain a school like Humboldt State), roads and hospitals, and so forth (which are subsidized for rural areas).

I bet they’d be glad not to have the highway patrol either. They’d have to create anything they wanted to keep with their own money, if they bothered, which they obviously couldn’t.

And they obviously don’t need social services. I’m sure they’d have a lot of volunteers, right? To help the poor and elderly, right? I feel sorry for the kids who might want to go to a really good university. If their local school systems actually were able to prepare them for college, there’s the problem of not only affording to go to college, but also paying out-of-state tuition.

Of course, when they get rid of all those pesky taxes, all the best businesses will move in. Such as high-polluting businesses who don’t want to clean up after themselves. Too bad there’s not enough oil underground up there to pay for everything, like Alaska.

Work it

Re: “Viva la mota,” by Ngaio Bealum (The 420, November 15):

Getting high at work—like Joe Rogan said recently on his podcast [The Joe Rogan Experience], if one of his top employees is doing a fantastic job and that employee admits to smoking weed every day prior to starting work then what is the problem? I recommend a good sativa with a hot cup of coffee. Enjoy.

Laughable slacktivism

Re: “Cali goes strawless,” by Robin Epley (Off Menu, November 15):

It’s a shame because the idea that banning straws would have any real impact on the levels of plastic pollution in our oceans is laughable, and has been proven as such.

There are much, much more effective ways corporations (and state governments) could help. This is slacktivism at its worst.