Not a Bright Outlook

In the Aug. 12 issue in the Leisure section, page 14, the “then and now” feature highlighted the oldest house in Montrose.

[What happened to it] sizes up all that’s wrong in not only this city but all over: the dissolving of R1 zones. A total lack of concern or respect for history not to mention what this heartbreaking act of greed did to the surrounding area. Devastating!

And on top of all this, we’re told to cut back on our water usage!

It can only get worse. It’s too bad.

Larry J. Clesceri
Montrose

Supports AB 652: Bans Toxic Chemicals

Assemblywomen Laura Friedman wrote here (“News from Sacramento,” July 15) that she had introduced AB 652, which will ban the toxic chemicals per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAs) from children’s products sold in California. Linked to serious health problems such as cancer, hormone disruption and kidney/liver/thyroid disease, these 9,000-plus chemicals usually aren’t even needed for the products’ functions.

The good news is that it appears likely that AB 652 will pass.

In the same article she also asked this excellent question: “If they’re this dangerous why do we use them at all?” Indeed, let’s ban PFAs in all products. Children are most vulnerable, but why accept such poisons, marginally useful or surely replaceable if essential, to be foisted upon any of us?

Unfortunately here are more scary initials: BPAs (bisphenol A) and BPSs (bisphenol S). Used in the paper for thermal-printed receipts – meaning in most cash register receipts nowadays – both are endocrine (hormone) disruptors. In plainer English, exposure to these toxins (e.g. touching receipts) lowers sperm count/quality and causes other reproductive harm, like miscarriages, early puberty and more. (See: https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/harmful-bpa-replacements-contaminate-store-receipts).

If we truly care about health and safety, as I know we do, we must insist that our legislators do everything they can to protect Californians and ban these harmful substances.

Roberta Medford
Montrose

Left Behind, Again                            

Is history repeating itself? Is Obama’s Benghazi now Biden’s Afghanistan? Both terrorist incidents have one common denominator: total incompetence by each commander-in-chief. In Obama’s case, his inability to make a Presidential decision when it came to the lives of American citizens through his failure to send in nearby troops to take out the enemy intruders. In Biden’s, his incompetence began at the beginning by failing to provide just a simple basic evacuation strategy. He is either surrounded by like-minded fools or he came up with his own troops out first, abandon his only secured airport and let the Taliban dictate the terms of departure idiotic evacuation plan. I leave it to the American people to decide but my inclination is the latter.

Both incomprehensible decisions cost valuable American lives. How many more American lives are still unknown as Biden left behind many more wanting to leave but unable to do so because the planes have already left the airport. Will Biden be held accountable for his “abandon Americans first” policy? He’s a left wing Democrat, so the answer is quite obvious.

Bob Tanabe
La Cañada