In letters: Limits on prescribed burning put Californians in jeopardy | Opinion
Lesson learned?
Throughout the world for millennia, huge, destructive land fires were prevented by the simple means of early spring controlled burns. In the ‘70s, when experienced and enlightened leaders and firefighters wanted to continue the practice, the EPA restricted prescribed burning because it said it would greatly contribute to smog.
Experienced firefighters knew where that decision was headed. With the fire lessons being learned now, it is not too late to take stock of what other “good intentions” are placing us in such widespread peril.
Robert Leon Halon
San Luis Obispo
‘ICE in the night’
I do not trust the Border Patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
A man who worked for my brother’s citrus farm for many years in Fresno County was picked up by ICE back in 2010. He had a green card and was a legal resident who had committed no crime. He had children born in the USA, too frightened to go to school. He was hauled off to Texas, and my brother had to call a lawyer to have him released. There was even a song written about this:
But don’t bother telling the ICE “tiene tarjeta”;
But a green card don’t mean a thing;
Next to brown skin and a Spanish accent;
ICE in the night — ICE in the night came a-knocking with a warrant;
But the warrant wasn’t signed;
What a violation of our rights.
If someone has broken the law and is undocumented, pick them up. But sweeps and raids are too indiscriminate.
Christine Mulholland
San Luis Obispo
Sounding the alarm
Ratepayer watchdogs the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility is celebrating 20 years of advocacy this month with a photographic exhibition at The Photo Shop in San Luis Obispo.
Founded in 2005 to prevent relicensing of California’s nuclear power plants, the Alliance succeeded with San Onofre and had done so with Diablo Canyon until Gov. Gavin Newsom’s intervention in 2022. The Alliance is still working to stop the expensive and unnecessary extension of Diablo Canyon.
The photo exhibit satirizes the annual calendar sent to SLO residents by PG&E and the county. Theirs opens with 10 pages of emergency evacuation and radiation protection information followed by a year’s worth of charming, scenic SLO landscape photos. We love the SLO landscape too, but as a stark reminder, each of our photographs features something theirs doesn’t: A siren. Out of sight is not “out of mind” and that’s what we intend to remind folks with these images of the mute threat that dots our picturesque vistas.
A reception will be held Friday, Jan. 24, from 5:30 to 7:30 PM at The Photo Shop, 1027 Marsh St. in SLO and the photos will remain on display through Feb. 14 th . Calendars can be purchased at the shop for $20; proceeds benefit the Alliance.
David Weisman
Executive Director
Glimmers of hope
The news has been depressing in recent days. For one thing, the climate crisis becomes more alarming with each passing year (2024 being the hottest on record, a quarter of freshwater animals facing extinction and record ocean temperatures). It’s easy to feel despair, especially as the wildfires continue to rage.
For this reason, I appreciate three posts that appeared in last Sunday’s Tribune. One noted the difficulties President Trump will have in reversing President Biden’s ban on new oil leases off the Central Coast. Another gave a mixed report on how Republican policies might affect the electric vehicle market. Countering any reduced federal support for electric cars and batteries is the news that “market forces and technological progress” may still direct a transition to electric vehicles.
And third, Stephanie Finucane’s excellent column spoke to the need for Californians to be educated on the dangers of gas stoves (both for individuals’ health and the overall environment), along with the importance of incentives leading us to transition from gas to electric appliances and heat pumps.
The bad news will continue tomorrow and the next day, and — I fear — for years. However, these positive signs need to be broadcast loud and clear to keep us in the fight and give us hope. I thank the Tribune for doing that.
Jim Wright
San Luis Obispo
History repeats
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness … In short, it was a period very like the present.”
-Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities
The two cities were London and Paris. In Paris, the absolutist French monarchy had been overthrown and replaced by a democratic republic. This republic was subsequently perverted into what is now called an “illiberal democracy,” hiding its non-democratic practices behind formally democratic institutions and procedures.
The Committee of Public Safety, professing to represent The General Will, proceeded to carry out the Reign of Terror, the focus of the novel. Ultimately Napoleon used his army to seize power and applied some of the democratic institutions of the Revolution to consolidate imperial power.
2024 was, relatively, “the best of times,” according to economic indicators. Nevertheless, a plurality of voters gave Donald Trump a 1.5% victory threatening the “worst of times.”
Despite his narrow victory, Trump claims a mandate, in effect a modern General Will that supports implementation of the radical measures of Project 2025, which propose a unitary executive, in effect, an imperial presidency.
Was Dickens prescient?
Max Riedlsperger
San Luis Obispo
Keep Direct File
A group of House Republicans is asking President-Elect Trump to terminate the IRS’s Direct File program for taxpayers with simple returns, which according to some Democratic lawmakers, has “saved folks millions of dollars” (Rep. Mark Pocan, D-WI). Representative Pocan added that “the only logical explanation for such a move is that they’ve prioritized campaign donations from H&R Block & TurboTax over taxpayers like us,” he added.
While the IRS is doing what it can to help taxpayers meet current filing requirements, it would be better yet to change the tax code so that most lower and middle-income taxpayers don’t have to file returns at all and which would allow the IRS to treat withholdings from their income as full payment of their tax liability.
The bottom 50% of taxpayers pay less than 3% of income taxes anyway, yet they have to spend millions of hours and millions of dollars filing over 77 million tax returns. This makes no sense and needs to be changed. In the meantime, eliminating Direct File would be step in the wrong direction.
Christopher Toews
San Luis Obispo