As Cal Poly’s ‘coolest alum,’ this astronaut deserves more from Mustangs | Opinion

Cal Poly, show Glover some love

Cal Poly’s coolest alum is right in front of our faces. Cal Poly alum Victor Glover is piloting NASA’s Artemis II mission, the first crewed mission to orbit the moon in over 50 years. Based on the lack of local noise, you’d never know it. From Pomona to Ontario to San Luis Obispo to the Navy to the International Space Station and now to the moon,

Glover is a certified California — Cal Poly, Central Coast — dream. Glover’s Southern California roots sure scream louder than his alma mater. I, for one, will continue to cheer for my fellow alumni as loud as I can, while hopelessly waiting for a shared sentiment.

Abigail Weizer

San Luis Obispo

Don’t like $6-a-gallon gas? Consider an EV

As a mother of two young kids, I didn’t expect my first electric car purchase to bring me this much joy — or this much peace and quiet. But our new Hyundai IONIQ 5 has done exactly that.

First, the silence. No engine roar, no rattling — just smooth, almost magical acceleration. My kids actually asked if the car was “on.” With quick handling and smart technology, it’s not just practical — it’s genuinely fun to drive.

While federal rebates for electric cars are gone for now, programs like Central Coast Community Energy still make a real difference. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a $4,400 rebate, which significantly cut the cost of the car and a Level 2 home charger.

And then there’s the bigger picture. With gas prices climbing past $6 a gallon, I no longer feel like my family’s budget depends on global tensions or whether the Strait of Hormuz is open. That’s a surprising kind of freedom.

Jaclyn Wong

San Luis Obispo

Where’s the evidence?

Clive Pinder’s recent commentary raises serious concerns about institutional failures, but its argument relies on several logical leaps. It links three unrelated cases—César Chávez, Jeffrey Epstein and grooming gangs in northern England, and treats them as evidence of a single global “playbook.” This is a generalization: The cases differ in legal context, political actors and available evidence.

The piece also leans on false equivalence, equating a labor movement’s internal culture, a federal criminal investigation and local council failures as though they reflect identical motives. Assertions about why institutions acted, such as claiming that the Democratic Party was aware of Chavez’s sexual abuse but turned a blind eye, are presented as fact without full evidence.

Pinder also makes sweeping claims about entire political parties, “deciding votes were worth more than the girls.” That kind of statement treats large, diverse institutions as if they were single people acting with a single shared motive. Institutions are made up of thousands of individuals with diverse knowledge and responsibilities, and collapsing that complexity into a single accusation oversimplifies the issue.

These weaknesses don’t diminish the seriousness of institutional abuse, but they call for a more precise, evidence-based argument rather than one built on rhetorical overreach.

Jill Stegman

Grover Beach

Trump’s war

Continuing the war in Iran is now overwhelmingly for Donald Trump’s ego. Why do I say that? Of all Trump’s reasons for the war, regime change and control of enriched uranium, have struck me as the most important. That’s not to say they justify the war, without taking into account the pre-war chances of achieving those goals. Looking back at how the odds looked before the war, it was at least arguable, if not likely, that those possibilities might be achieved. Destruction of missiles and air force did not justify a war, at least by the U.S. Israel, maybe. Now regime change looks much less likely, as does capture of enriched uranium, at least without a deadly ground war around the bombed-in mountain. So why mention this? Because continuing the war now is primarily and perhaps exclusively for a search by Trump for some way to claim he accomplished his goals. Any further U.S. (and other) casualties are solely for Donald Trump’s ego. Future deaths strike me as homicide.

Andy Greensfelder

San Luis Obispo