Dear Editor,
I am troubled that the city administrator doled out raises to
selected employees of Gilroy after approving layoffs for 48
full-time employees. He should be fired for this lapse in morality
and for this example of selfishness. The employees who accepted the
raises should also be fired. This is a time of shared sacrifice,
not a time of greed at the expense of others.
Very troubled by the raises doled out at City Hall; it’s a firing offense
Dear Editor,
I am troubled that the city administrator doled out raises to selected employees of Gilroy after approving layoffs for 48 full-time employees. He should be fired for this lapse in morality and for this example of selfishness. The employees who accepted the raises should also be fired. This is a time of shared sacrifice, not a time of greed at the expense of others.
Every employee who was laid off has a family who is now uninsured and who is at risk. It is troubling to know that employees of Gilroy would be so uncaring, so greedy.
Sharon Wolbach, Gilroy
Read my words, there’s no excuse for the reported MACSA thefts
Dear Editor,
One of the challenges I’ve found with the local papers having two modes of media for the same articles (online and paper) is the separation of users of each mode and the misreading that comes when the thread of one mode (online) is addressed in the other (paper).
Such is the case in my response published in the paper to the online commentary regarding the Mexican American Community Service Agency’s travails. Incorrect assumptions based on lack of careful reading of what I wrote have led to accusations that I excuse theft or minimize the damage done. Nothing is farther from the truth.
I simply agreed with ONE of the MACSA’s CEO Olivia’s Soza-Mendiola’s statements in her letter to the editor: that what happened shouldn’t detract from the work the agency does in the community, and shouldn’t stain the other workers whom I greatly respect and enjoy.
My point in the paper was in response to the appalling and bigoted comments I read online that trashed MACSA employees for being Latino and serving Latinos. The comments online placed undue emphasis on MACSA as a Latino-run and Latino-serving organization, with the implication that this happened because of their ethnicity.
This is unacceptable. Additionally, school district staff are disingenuous to state so emphatically that such a problem couldn’t happen at their schools. Such actions are possible (not excusable) anywhere and are not due to ethnicity.
Dina Campeau, Morgan Hill
President Obama backs obsolete technology and the culture of death
Dear Editor,
We, pro-lifers, are one again disappointed, but not surprised, that President Obama is making taxpayer funds available for the kind of stem cell research that requires killing living human beings – technology that is unnecessary and obsolete. Embryo-like stem cells can now be created more easily and economically using ethical means. Obama’s decision is consistent with his strong embracement of the culture of death (that’s the “not surprising” part).
Every living human being goes through the embryonic stage in a continuum of stages from conception to old age if not interrupted by death. This is a matter of science.
During the last couple years, scientists have learned to create iPS or induced pluripotent stem cells from skin cells that have the same qualities as embryonic stem cells. They also have the advantage of being cheaper and easier to produce, and can be genetically matched to the patients circumventing obstacles in the development of practical treatments for diseases and eliminating the need for therapeutic human cloning.
It is unfortunate, that the President in not only making this unethical choice, but is wasting more taxpayer funds on technology of the past rather than ethical technology with better potential for saving lives and treating diseases for the future.
In 2007, the scientist who cloned Dolly the Sheep, Sir Ian Wilmut, announced that he saw no further need for cloning human embryos to develop patient specific therapies because “he is convinced that this new work overcomes key practical and ethical issues in obtaining embryo cells that (are) potentially capable of generating all cell types for treating disease,” according to the Daily Telegraph of London.
The March 6, 2009 Los Angeles Times reported a new breakthrough in iPS cell research and added, “The reprogramming of skin cells into iPS cells, which have the potential to become any type of cell in the body, is one of the hottest areas of biological research. The cells seem to offer all the benefits of embryonic stem cells without any of the ethical drawbacks. They are also ideally suited to making genetically matched tissues for patients, such as insulin-secreting islet cells for people with diabetes or brain tissue to treat stroke victims.”
This is truly shameful. Our country may need a lot of help in a lot of different areas but not in the continuation and growth of culture of death.
David Kaeini, Gilroy
