Also: Unhoused needs | Lawless ICE | Qatari jet | Change course. Mercury News reader letters to the editor for May 14, 2025.
With all due respect to Neveen Radwan for writing about the eating disorder travails experienced by her 16-year-old daughter, when did it become acceptable for parents to abdicate responsibility for raising their children? Radwan had several alternatives available that she could have used to exercise control over her daughter’s unhealthy use of social media.
The easiest option would have been to simply limit her daughter to using a text-and-call-only cell phone. While it’s fashionable to bash social media companies about exposing children to questionable content, the first line of defense for parents has always been themselves. Unless we’re hell-bent on ceding child-raising responsibilities to the nanny state, parents need to get back to the fundamental responsibility of parenting. Homelessness is not just a social issue. Homeless people are part of our community, and they deserve more assistance. They are entitled to shelter, as the rest of society has a place to rest. Not only do homeless people need shelter, but they also need food and hygiene products. These necessities are not just part of a simple fix. Our community must come together to raise awareness and challenge the stigmas of homelessness by creating support programs.When the Nazis created the Geheime Staatspolizei they explicitly rejected that it have any accountability to the German courts. Instead, the Gestapo was empowered to act as judge, jury and executioner with its victims lacking any ability to appeal to any higher power. I am seeing this play out in our own country in the form of masked ICE agents snatching people off the streets with no warrant and sending them to terrible gulags without any due process. Unless we reject these attacks on our freedoms by all means necessary, we will all soon be living in a fascist dictatorship rather than an imperfect democracy that inherits the tradition of freedom our forefathers fought and died for.As Donald Trump says, he is not “a stupid man” who would turn down a “free, very expensive airplane.” But he is a powerful, immoral, greedy, racist, convicted felon who cares little about violating the oath of office he took a few months ago to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. The emoluments clause in the Constitution forbids anyone holding government office from accepting gifts from any “King, Prince, or foreign State“ without congressional consent, yet Trump is salivating over a gift of a $40 million airplane, offered to him by Qatar’s royal family; this while he tells working-class Americans to tighten their belts and little girls to limit their dolls, while he takes away medical care and food subsidies, while he decimates government agencies, while he ruins our country … and while we stand by and watch. How can Americans watch while some 500,000 children are deliberately starved to death in Gaza? Hundreds of truckloads of food stand immobile a few miles away; boatloads of food are bombarded by drones to keep them away. Why does no one intervene?Are Israel and the United States so powerful and so evil that they can commit mass murder in front of our eyes? Why doesn’t the U.S. Army or some other military drive those trucks past the Israeli blockade? Whoever takes that courageous action will win the world’s love and be remembered as a hero. But nobody has. Is the U.S.-Israel alliance so powerful, or Palestinian life so devalued, that innocent children must die miserable deaths without anyone helping? To save thousands of lives, we must demand that our country break the blockade, take aid into Gaza now and stop arming Israel’s genocide.Dear Abby: I realize now why the others refused to go on my sister's outingsMiss Manners: The graduation invitation now sounds almost like a threatMiss Manners: Why do they doubt I'm really an engineer?‘I was crying and asking God to help me’: San Jose woman held at gunpoint by cops sues Home Depot over ‘stolen’ rental truck 'I was crying and asking God to help me': San Jose woman held at gunpoint by cops sues Home Depot over 'stolen' rental truckNewsom calls on California cities to ban homeless encampments
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Midtown park gets improvements, neighbors wonder how to help unhoused populationEdward 'Eddie' Celaya is a Multimedia Journalist here at KGUN9.
Read more »
Unhoused man in California wins $1 million on lottery scratcher'Oh my God, is that real?'
Read more »
Unhoused man in California wins $1 million on lottery scratcher'Oh my God, is that real?'
Read more »
Letters to the Editor — Bookstores and newspapers, child care cuts, nuclear power, lettersLetters to the Editor
Read more »
Letters to the Editor — Nurses, health care, name-calling, choosing letters, hockeyLetters to the Editor
Read more »
3 in 5 parents are ditching their parents' playbook — new study showsToday's Video Headlines: 05/12/25
Read more »