Gas Wars
The time has come for more than verbal pleas if we wish to halt Iran’s going nuclear. Our president’s outstretched arm has been refused, and sanctions that would prohibit the importation of gasoline remain a nonmilitary option, since Iran must import 40 percent of its gasoline. One other move would supplement this with the sanctioning of oil tanker insurance, needed for the transport of Iran’s oil, its source of international currency. Tankers don’t move without insurance.
I urge that you consider this situation yourself and urge your readers and representatives to take quick action
Bernard Rubin, Palo Alto
Saving Services
If the city of San Jose needs to cut expenses, they should end the leasehold on the present City Hall. The old City Hall is a sunk cost and is fully owned by the taxpayers and can be reused. The loyal city employees do not deserve a unilateral pay cut tantamount to ending their civil service. By this method, essential city services, jobs and good will could be preserved.
William J. Garbett, Phoenix, Ariz.
Warbler
Let’s hope he can sing, “Do you know the way to San Jose” well enough to bring in jobs and revenue (“Karaoke King of D9,” The Fly, March 17).
Kathleen, SanJoseInside.com
Starve the Beast
In spite of the “starve the beast” strategy of the right of cutting taxes for everything except war, then blaming the public infrastructure for not working well enough, public education has persevered and remains one of the few bedrock bastions of commitment to the public good and to equality of opportunity (“Enforce Educational Equity,” SanJoseInside, March 17).
The protests against privatization of public education on March 4 were impressive and were a sign that there is a movement to preserve this vital public resource and bring costs down for students and their families for higher education. The values of the civil rights movement are alive in this country, and the slogans of some students for “Education, Not Incarceration” and “Schools, Not Jails” show the connection between cuts to education and the increase in incarceration among all groups, but especially black and Latino men and women.
The failure of the movement for educational equity to preserve public education and restore funding would result in the continuing growth of the prison population and prison construction. Those students are stating loud and clear that they will not allow themselves to be treated as “surplus population” that the job market cannot absorb and which must then be flushed down the toilet of prison. May this movement be as irrepressible as the Civil Rights movement.
Downtownster, SanJoseInside.com
Support Needed
I write to say that America has only one real ally in the Middle East and Israel has never asked anyone to fight for them. They can handle their wars. However, the Israelis need the political support more than ever now as the Arab propaganda is trying to make a mockery of Israel’s needs to build and secure sights in their country.
Israel has fought back in every Arab attack for every piece of property that is there, and many lives have been lost on both sides. When has anyone heard of the enemy starting a war, the other side wins and then they have to give back the territory. This is insane! Since the 1967 war, Israel has been putting synagogues and neighborhoods back together that the Arabs destroyed when they had the chance before Israel won the area back. Israel is for life and they make all sites in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel open to all—not just the Jews.
We must support this tiny little country!
Sandra Harte, Menlo Park
