To cry or laugh over emails?

Re "I also bequeath my Facebook page to …" (Editorial Notebook, Dec. 7): I lost my 24-year old son 2 1/2 years ago. Periodically, I receive an email from him, letting me know of a fantastic deal on low-price electronics. Depending on the day, the email either brings a smile or a tear. I think about taking him up on the offer, but I fear that the shipping costs would be astronomical, downright celestial.

– Donna L. Hogue, Granite Bay

Try live Christmas trees

Re "Fake vs. fresh: Which Christmas trees are greener?" (Page A1, Dec. 10): The article presented a good comparison of the costs and benefits of the two.

However, the authors might have considered a third alternative: Live trees in containers. I have been promoting this idea at my small-scale nursery. I have Christmas trees in 15-gallon containers and I sell them at a reasonable price. The trees can reach 6 to 8 feet high before having to be transplanted after Christmas.

Buyers who have no place to plant the trees may give them away to a school, hospital or any other charity, and deduct the cost from their income taxes. Some of my customers have been returning for more than 10 years for live trees in containers.

– Elias Tuma, Auburn

Plastic trees add to garbage

The writers of the article missed a vital point. The problem with fake trees is that they are plastic.

Unlike most other trash, plastic isn't biodegradable, which means it never goes away. The result is that it accumulates in landfills and, worse yet, it is resulting in huge garbage patches in the ocean. It breaks down to microscopic size where marine animals eat it. Those particles then get into the food chain. Put "pacific ocean garbage patch" in your browser to learn more.

In the meantime, use less plastic where you can and recycle the rest.

– Charles R. Donaldson, Sacramento

Ban electronic billboards

Re "Parking cash is falling short" (Page A1, Dec. 2): Sacramento is not the only city considering electronic billboards. Rocklin's proposal to install three massive digital signs on I-80 and Hwy. 65 also will distract drivers and create sky trash.

Money and greed are trumping citizen rights and the need to travel without being bombarded by dangerous, brightly lit signs.

Taxpayers fund roadways for transportation, not for opportunistic, high-priced, huge advertising signs that only benefit multimillion-dollar entities, hurt small businesses and create hazardous driving conditions.

Even two-second distractions can cause injury and death via freeway crashes. Studies are inconclusive partly because those involved in tragic accidents often can't recall details.

Rocklin's City Council should vote "no" on the General Plan Amendments, zoning changes and all required entitlements in order to kill these three obnoxious digital freeway sign proposals that will increase distractions and trash our skylines.

– Jake O'Rourke, Loomis

Government causes woes

Re "Income gaps can't be skirted much longer" (Editorials, Dec. 10): California's income gap is indeed increasing, because hard-working, middle-class Americans are leaving the state in droves. Nearly all the pitiful growth in our state's population is due to longer life expectancy. The Legislature's current run on increased taxes, increased cost of living and massive loads of regulation are forcing jobs out of the state and taking the middle-class families with them.

It's been proved time and again that government can't create wealth. Quite the opposite is true. It's impossible to legislate people into the middle class.

California is a wonderful place, but the overzealous pandering actions of our leaders are ruining its appeal to the middle class.

– Jonathan Clow, Sacramento

GOP ignores middle class

Re "Obama's campaign strategy banks on class resentment" (Viewpoints, Dec. 9): Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer and other conservative commentators want to make it seem like President Barack Obama invented the "class warfare" idea as a re-election strategy and are trying to sell it to the American people.

It is ironic that they refuse to give Obama credit for his many real accomplishments, yet they want to give Obama credit for something for which they so richly deserve all the credit. The Republican majority in the House ignores the needs of the American people while they honor their pledge to special interests like anti-tax lobbyist Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform.

They are responsible for worsening the wealth divide in America.

– William Glines, Yuba City

Parking deal is no deal

Re "Plan for parking draws interest" (Page A1, Dec. 9): Deducting Sacramento's parking debt, the city will net at best $193 million for a 50 percent public contribution toward an arena built mainly for a team with an uncertain future, given the NBA's troubles.

Taxpayers stand to lose $450 million ($9 million times 50 years) in parking revenues, plus the interest that could be earned on that amount. That's a lot even when reduced to present value. Meanwhile, essential city services suffer.

This illustrates how small a price corporations can pay to prompt governments to sell off the public interest. Typical privatization contracts contain clauses that make governments the insurers of the private corporation's profitability and prevent governments from acting solely in the public interest.

Bound by the terms of privatization contracts, we are no longer citizens using public facilities. We are consumers of big business, governed piecemeal by unaccountable private corporations whose only duty is to shareholders.

– Jan Ellen Rein, Sacramento

Good riddance to pot shops

Re "Oblique assault on pot shops" (Our Region, Dec. 8): County supervisors did the right thing by limiting and, hopefully, banning any more pot shops in our region.

No person can prove to me that these so-called medical cannabis shops are solely for the sick and dying. It's obvious who these shops truly cater to – "stoners" who can't cope with life and are not willing to face each day without altering their minds with drugs.

Rest assured that sensible voters will continue to oppose marijuana shops. We already have enough drunks on the road and don't need the abuse of another drug to contend with.

– Rudy Venegas, Citrus Heights

SCTA's political, too

Re "City schools chief ignores consultants" (Another View, Dec. 10): First, Scott Smith, president of the Sacramento City Teachers Association, is probably correct that school closures will have to occur in the future in the Sacramento City Unified district. The difficulty is that the district has a neighborhood school culture resistant to change.

Second, Smith's use of the terms "disingenuously" and "play politics" is amusing in light of the SCTA's proposed swap of Sacramento High School and West Campus.

– Don Giusti, Sacramento

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