Answers are out there
The Dec. 11 front-page article “School’s plastic warriors” about Desert Learning Academy teacher Lynn Yada shows that she is doing a good job in demonstrating the harm of plastics on our environment. However, I think she also needs to show that there are solutions out there that can fix the problem without putting people out of manufacturing businesses or jobs.
StormX capture netting system in Australia has been proven to be highly successful in collecting gross pollutants and has been well received as an inexpensive control. The state of Maryland has been installing the Bandalong Litter Traps (also from Australia) over the Anacostia Watershed to capture trash that flows out of drainage pipes.
If we can capture trash before it hits the oceans maybe we have a chance of saving sea life.
Pam Theisen, Palm Desert
Thoughts on the ‘naked ride’
A “Naked Bike Ride.” Really?
Do the promoters wonder if the county Health Department has any opinions about the proposed event? Such as whether there’ll be mandated sanitizing or cleaning of the bicycle seats after “bare back” riders have “pressed the flesh” during a sweaty ride through Cathedral City streets and that city’s mostly deserted section of the CV Link boondoggle?
And will subsequent warnings be required to alert any future riders or owners to enjoy those bike seats at their own risk?
I’m not a prude, yet my first reaction to this proposal was simply “Yuck!”
Bob Elsner, Palm Springs
More: Could a World Naked Bike Ride roll into Cathedral City in 2020? This councilman hopes so
Search engine woes
We’re again treated to the bonfire of taxpayer dollars in the grandstanding of GOP congressmen in their clueless public flogging of Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google.
His sin? According to the victimhood narrative being promoted by the GOP, Google has engaged in the systematic suppression of conservative sites via its search engine algorithms.
White-haired old men quacked out prepared statements written at the behest of their conspiracy theorist allies.
If they actually knew how search engines worked, a hope as futile as them closing the deficit, they would know that search algorithms are actually agnostic and that a large industry in search engine optimization exists if they just took the time to hire actual professionals to do the work. I can only presume they resorted to their usual cant of “This costs too much!” and thus find themselves lost on page 87 of the search results.
One might also conclude that some of the seamier “conservative” sites are also uncategorized as news and are pushed into conspiracy theory or superstition field.
While they may feel entitled to their fantasies about reality, when operating in the world of facts and technology, magical thinking and victim conspiracies don’t cut it.
Indiana Thomas, Cathedral City
Long-term damage
While multiple conflicts swirl around President Trump, long term damage to the country is being inflicted by his administration.
First, the economy will have a budget deficit reckoning due to the ill-advised $1.5 billion tax cut. Further, Trump has created costly problems by waging his tariff wars. Retaliation by China has left soybeans rotting in farms and disrupted highly interdependent global supply chains. Trump inherited a long-running economic recovery in 2016, but many economists now predict a recession in 2020.
Second, the United Nations and 13 U.S. agencies have issued dire warnings on climate change. Trump’s response has been to deny that climate change exists, remove the U.S. from the Paris Accord, and loosen regulations on auto emissions and coal-fired plants that will accelerate greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, fires rage across the West, hurricanes pound the East Coast, and tornadoes rip through the Midwest.
Third, Trump and his Administration have bashed allies, sided with Russia in Helsinki, separated immigrant children from parents, teargassed asylum seekers in Mexico, sold out to Saudi Arabia over a journalist’s assassination, and attacked the free press as “enemy of the people.” It will be years before we are a beacon of democracy and freedom again.
Bill Wylie, Palm Springs
Guns do kill
A Dec. 12 letter, “It really isn’t the guns,” emphasizes the fact that people are the cause of terrorist acts.
It’s true that people are involved in all of these acts. However, In the cases using guns, the author misses the point. If guns were not available, there would be no way these gunners could kill. So, it still comes down to the fact that it is guns that kill.
L.J. Friedman, Palm Springs
Palm Desert not quite as festive
I have been a full-time resident of Indian Wells for 12 years. This year I noticed that the city of Palm Desert no longer displays the holiday decor on Highway 111 street poles. They used to be displayed on both sides of the highway for about one mile.
It was so festive and beautiful.
I was told the city no longer does it because the decor was deteriorating. The city said it was too expensive to replace it, so instead they added a few more lights to the Christmas tree near El Paseo and a few more lights on El Paseo. I’m not sure where the extra lights are.
I hope the city of Palm Desert reconsiders the replacement of the holiday decor on Highway 111. My husband and I truly miss the festive feeling. I’m sure other residents do, too.
Lynn Anne Brickwedel, Indian Wells
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