Letters: What the Yosemite reservation system tells us about our dependency on cars and traffic
Regarding 'Here's how it went on the first day of Yosemite's controversial reservation system' (Outdoors, SFChronicle.com, May 24): The Yosemite reservation system should be a nonstory but, unfortunately, it has become one.
I am an annual-ish visitor to Yosemite National Park and have visited multiple times during the COVID-era reservation system. I've been before and after that iteration of the reservation system. It was significantly easier to enjoy the park without having to deal with delays and traffic. Going back to the reservation system seems like a no-brainer.
I hoped that the reservation system and the ease of transport in Yosemite Valley could have translated into some moving opinions about our over-reliance on automobiles in San Francisco and elsewhere.
With BART, Muni and other public transportation agencies facing financial uncertainty, a system that is already over-reliant on private automobiles will face the traffic and lack of parking that Yosemite had without reservations.
We must rethink the place cars have in our society.
Brian Hoang, San Francisco
Photos too graphic
But the pictures of a tattooed shirtless male kneeling over a depressed woman on the street and a tent with a woman surrounded by three San Francisco police officers are troubling.
Other photos are of two guys smoking fentanyl and a couple out of a Dickens novel on the street.
This hardly invites sympathetic appreciation.
The story talks about a woman defecating at a bus stop and rendering it unusable. Another woman is quoted as saying she wished she had never started fentanyl and details how she spends most of her days trying to score the drug with her husband.
How is the average reader to see these individuals as worthy of care and treatment?
Treatment is available, and I commend Mayor Daniel Lurie for his focus on the problem. These are real and needy people.
Mel Blaustein, San Francisco
Bill discriminates
Regarding 'California anti-discrimination bill faces blowback' (Politics, SFChronicle.com, May 21): The story underrepresents the opposition to AB715 and fails to recognize the fallacies in the arguments about antisemitism in our schools.
At the Assembly's Education Committee's hearing, over 140 people opposed the bill to 70 in support. Many organizations not listed also filed letters in opposition.
AB715 was rushed, requiring a waiver of legislative rules — an abrogation of the democratic process. The voices of BIPOC communities were never included in the process, and that constitutes racism.
The bill would allow for anonymous complaints against teachers accused of antisemitism. It is important to allow time for teachers and the California Teachers Union to discuss the bill.
Studying Palestine and the politics of Israel has led to the censorship and reprimanding of teachers. This creates an environment of fear and silencing. Criticism of Israel, studying and critiquing the genocide against Palestinians — as it has been named by several human rights organizations — should not be conflated with antisemitism.
If AB715 passes, it will set a dangerous precedent for attacking teachers for curriculum that only a small and specific group of parents don't like.
Carla Schick, Oakland
No free lunch
But I have to respond to her comment, 'Everyone in this country deserves to live a life of ease, and so do we.'
Sorry, Carolyn, but no one deserves a life of ease. Here in the U.S., you have to earn it. Give the people of East Oakland the opportunity of education, good jobs and affordable housing, and your mission will succeed.
Kevin Hangman, Yountville
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