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Don’t let screens
raise our children
Re: “Newsom wants smartphones out of all schools” (Page A1, June 19).
The woman drawing my blood doesn’t want a TV in her 4-year-old’s room. “My daughter already has a tablet, but she whines too much!”
It’s exhausting when a child depends on us. But have the demands of parenthood become so enormous that we’re choosing to ignore our feeling that all this screen time is harmful? Don’t we have enough evidence to stop the on-average five hours a day of social media use that is damaging our children’s unformed brains? Let’s stop pretending we’re not allowing our young to be raised by machines. Using addictive dings and weak emojis of mediated friends, our devices and their invisible algorithms seduce and deceive with mere facsimiles of human relationships.
Sure, we suspect something’s missing, but left to our own devices, we’re so distracted by our own ghost-likes, pronouncements and memes we can’t see what’s happening to our children. We’re losing them and losing ourselves.
Kathryn Jordan
Berkeley
Chevron isn’t the main
cause of pollution
Re: “Council places Chevron tax plan on ballot” (Page B1, June 20).
The council is in error about the cause of pollution. In the 1930s, my parents’ farm in North Richmond had a difficult time growing lettuce. Sometime in the 1940s, Chevron made improvements and pollution was reduced, and lettuce thrived.
I worked at Chevron Research in the lab on the sixth floor. On hot days I would go on the balcony and look east and I could see where freeways 80 and 580 were because of all the smog over the freeways.
I would suggest that the individuals who complained, on hot days, go to Point Richmond Nickel Nob Hill and look east, and they will also view smog.
Alfred Bruzzone
Richmond
California a leader
on host of issues
Re: “State leads charge for EV sales in U.S.” (Page A1, June 13).
I am delighted that California is leading the way in electric vehicle sales. It appears our state is ahead of the game on a number of issues across the nation: climate change, women’s health care rights, attempts at gun control, LGBTQ rights, et al.
It is as if we are a different nation. A nation of educated, humanistic and reasonable people, as opposed to many other Americans living in states east of the Sierra who love their guns, passed anti-abortion laws and possibly now anti-contraception, who detest the sight of an LGBTQ flag in a yard, and pass laws limiting alternative energy sources.
Thank you, Californians. By the way, when I travel overseas, and people ask if I am American, I say, “No. I’m a Californian.”
Robert Thomas
Castro Valley
