To the Editor:
I am not sure how I feel about Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). I am used to the winning candidate being the person with 50 percent of the vote the first go round and if no one did, there would be a runoff of the top two candidates with the most votes. Sure, RCV saves the expense of a runoff election.
But democracy can be messy and expensive sometimes. And with RCV, political candidates will have to adopt new strategies to win elections. Look how Don Perata, the consummate politician, got outmaneuvered by Jean Quan in Oakland, and Jane Kim, Malia Cohen, Scott Weiner, and Mark Farrell pulled upsets of sorts. The San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) choices didn’t fare too well. Is the influence of the DCCC and San Francisco’s progressive forces on the wane?
Ralph E. Stone
San Francisco
To the Editor:
Rochelle Metcalfe’s thinking is outdated, not understanding IRV elections, but rather looking as the result through the same lens as a standard ‘majority win’ election. As evidenced by IRV, the African-American voting bloc did just fine, as their votes ultimately coalesced around one candidate. And if it didn’t? Then maybe those candidates aren’t worth backing. It shouldn’t be about race anyway. It is possible that sometimes the best candidate for African American voters may actually be a non-black person. I find the underlying thinking deeply and disturbingly flawed that a black District 10 Sup is “vital” to the African-American community.
Dale Scott
San Francisco
To the Editor:
Thank you for this article. It makes me wonder how much two childhood concussions could have contributed to the psychiatric condition I have lived with for my entire adult life. Until now, I had assumed I was dealing with only heredity plus the psychological environment in which I grew up. It is a good thing to take people’s perception of any form of mental illness out of the “stone age” in which the parents or the person’s “weak will” or their “immorality” are blamed for psychiatric problems that in fact have a medical origin.
Jack Bragen
Martinez, CA
To the Editor:
A new method of preventing concussion from blows to the jaw, Nowinski “I got kicked in the chin,” type injuries. Cantu states helmets are not the problem, it’s their anchoring system, the chin strap. The Pentgon has recognized this with a new research innitiative now underway. The New England Patriots use a medically corrective device developed in boxing and used by many NHL and NFL players with prior concussion. New data in high school kids shows great promise, yet the politico, have not been fed the pertainent information.
All the public is getting is the spin that groups like Toyota think is credible. Nowinski’s biggest problem,they took $3 mil from the NFL, then gave Goodell and award for his work on concussion. Let’s be straight, Goodell would have done nothing if Congress did not put their foot on his throat six months ago. Before you go on the Nowinski victory parade you should speak to George Visgar, he can tell you why a lot of vetrans are upset with the NFL/SLI relationship. Besides, when Peter Keating responded to an inquirey by me, to address the concussion problem with our product, Nowinski was not even in the picture in late 2005. So before you crown Nowinski the King of concussion you should do your homework.
Mark Picot
Boston, MA
To the Editor:
This violence must stop. Abetted by our media, “sport” violence is a crime against humanity. Where is Congress while many of our youth will end with CTE? The media and the doctors must step in to stop this mayhem countering the perfidious “sports” world that divulge violence as manhood.
We really need a deep critical look at “sport” as it is presented to us today. But I guess many people in the business world, alas, will profit from the farce that is “sport” as we see it on TV. Doctors must insist that humans are made of flesh, nerves, bones, and many other fragile tissues. Our nervous system is the most delicate tissue, it even needs to be floating in liquid (cerebrospinal fluid) to survive. It is so delicate that if it were to rest on the bone of our skull it would crush from sheer gravity. Congress must act.
Nafiss Griffis
San Francisco
To the Editor:
This article is a breath of fresh air. I have just finished reading Ellen Brown’s “Web of Debt.” I believe it will turn out to be the most important book written in the past fifty years, and may turn out to be the most important of this century.
I am not given to hyperbole. In my doctoral studies, I focused on monetary and financial economics with a major in international trade and finance. I spent fourteen years in Wall Street as an economist, investment manager, and venture capitalist. I have lived and breathed political economics for over fifty years.
I believe that a State bank to provide a “Greenback” money supply has the potential to fund the establishment and operation of a first rate health care system, a first rate educational system like California used to have, and an adequate Social Security System. For what more could one ask?
James P Savage III
Glasgow, VA
To the Editor:
If you like these kinds of projects to localize our economy, check out the new documentary film The Economics of Happiness that will launch in Berkeley at the Brower Center on January 13th at 6:30. It documents many similar existing local alternatives to corporate globalization.
Robert Ovetz
Woodacre, CA
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