Wednesday’s Letters to the Editor

Grateful for Mase

EDITOR: I am grateful to Sundari Mase for her service as Sonoma County public health officer. She has done a great job protecting Sonoma County against the effects of the COVID pandemic. In March 2020, we were facing an unknown deadly virus to which the population had zero immunity. As health officer, she was the adult in the room who did not hesitate to take unpopular positions.

COVID-19 was uprooting our lives, not the official response to it. She became unpopular with then-Sheriff Mark Essick, the business community and some church leaders. Unlike many other officials in her position, she didn’t quit under pressure. Even as she was often treated as a scapegoat, she remained steadfast in her commitment to her mission. We should all be thankful to her.

For more understanding of what the job of a public health director is, I recommend reading Michael Lewis’ book “The Premonition.”

ERIC SCHLAEPPI

Healdsburg

Bad decisions

EDITOR: The latest act of violence at a school is a tragedy and should have never happened. I doubt that we will ever get to the cause of it. Break it down a bit. The 15-year-old stabber had a knife. He was probably told at freshman orientation that weapons aren’t allowed on school grounds. So, that’s on him. Two older assailants going into a classroom to beat on him; that’s on them. What caused them to do that? Did that precipitate the fatal response? Did the 15-year-old fear for his life and consider that his only recourse? Several years ago, the Santa Rosa school district removed school resource officers from the schools. You could probably say that the stabbing is on them. Maybe.

Some will lionize the teen who died or his partner. Some will see the 15-year-old as right to defend himself. In my eyes, no one is right, no one is a hero. All I see are three who made some very bad decisions. One paid for his by being killed. The others will have to live with their decisions for the rest of their lives. How sad.

RONALD CROWLEY

Cotati

No cops in schools

EDITOR: Putting cops in schools is the kind of knee-jerk reaction that fails to address the real problem. Public services are limited because they are funded by politically controlled taxes, and the basic law of politics is to keep taxes low. Instead of placing armed, uniformed symbols of power in schools, address the roots causes of most school violence: Fund programs to teach psychological coping and interpersonal communication skills, racial and cultural understanding and appreciation, etc. We sadly under fund programs to address root causes of violence.

Use this moment to think big. Knee-jerk reactions are small. No cop would have saved Jayden Pienta.

SARAH PHILLIPS

Santa Rosa

For a pluralistic America

EDITOR: Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who identifies as a white Christian nationalist, recently called for a national divorce. She reinforces local Republicans who decry Democrats as woke communists forcing a leftist extremism on our nation.

Please. When did defending the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, civil rights, equality under the law, voting rights and properly administered elections become radical, un-American extremism? Or allowing individuals, especially women, the right to make their own medical and health decisions?

Or progressive taxation requiring the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes, promotion of economic and social justice mitigating inequality and appropriate business and corporate regulation? Or long-standing programs like Social Security and Medicare many Americans, including Republicans, depend upon for their health and livelihood?

Or support for veterans, comprehensive public education curriculum, the Postal Service, science-based public health measures, environmental quality, national parks and interstate highways?

Let us support America as a pluralistic, democratic republic where government at all levels protects the constitutional rights of all citizens in all states. To adequately address the political, economic, social and environmental issues that face this nation, we need to think rationally. It is patriotic.

MARK ALTON

Petaluma

A Pyrrhic victory for Fox

EDITOR: Capitalism’s horses of the Apocalypse ride again with Fox News consumed, as Dr. Frankenstein was, by the monster it created. By profiting from its creation of a following for Donald Trump, Fox News’ Trumpian monster came close to ending our democracy on Jan. 6, 2021. Fox’s monster has forced it to continue to abuse the public air waves by promoting incendiary lies.

Fortunately, Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion lawsuit alleging defamation has exposed Fox’s modus vivendi. To recoup the loss of much of its base when it recognized that Arizona went for Joe Biden in the presidential election, a loss that cut into its advertising revenue, Fox News promoted theories it knew were extravagantly false.

In short, it lied to its discontented viewers in pursuit of profit, slandering Dominion in the process. It’s a Pyrrhic victory for capitalism, to make another classical reference. It may be winning for a while, but its coffin is being measured.

JULIA HAWKINS

Cotati

You can send letters to the editor to letters@pressdemocrat.com.