USA still a superpower?

I AM A 13th-generation American and a vet.

The values of our founding fathers did not advocate what is happening in present-day America.

How can we justify sending $700 million to Colombia to fight the cocaine crops and support a war without end in sight in Iraq?

As I drive down Paseo Padre Parkway in Fremont every day, I see three of our residents living on park benches.

We have our children selling themselves on the streets and read of children going to bed hungry.

We are supposed to be the No. 1 superpower in the world, but continue to allow this dichotomy.

I have heard that insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

I don't care who is elected by the voice of the people, but whomever it is needs to put an end to all of this.

It seems the trees in a canyon near a wealthy neighborhood and the A's moving here get more press than the real issues.

Edwin Ball

Fremont

Tap Water results

AT THE 2008 Earth Day Family Fair in Fremont on April 19, Niles Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, hosted a "Tap Water Challenge."

We asked folks who came to our booth to taste-test two samples of water. One was bottled water and the other was tap water. The participants and booth staff didn't know which was which.

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We asked the 143 taste-testers if they could taste a difference. If they could taste a difference, we asked which one they liked better.

Here are our results:

Could taste no difference: 37; could taste a difference, but had no preference: 27; liked the bottled water better: 43; liked the tap water better: 36

That means that only 30 percent of the people who participated in the Tap Water Challenge thought the bottled water tasted better than tap water.

What we didn't ask these people was, "Does it taste 1,000 times better?" Bottled water is at least 1,000 times more expensive (that's 100,000 percent more expensive or more — depending on the brand you buy) than tap water.

Add to this the environmental impact of bottled water — the pollution caused by the manufacture and shipping of the bottles and water, the fact that 840 plastic water bottles are trashed (littered, landfilled or incinerated) every second in the United States, the impact on local water systems, etc. — and you've got to wonder if bottled water is worth it.

It's time to think outside the bottle.

Rev. Jeffrey Spencer

Niles Congregational Church, United Church of Christ Fremont

On Bush's payroll

IN THE April 27 Argus Viewpoint, "Ignoring the unthinkable," Clifford May argued in support of the Senate extension of the Protect America Act.

This bill would allow warrantless spying on Americans and give legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in President Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program.

May's rather incredulous position is that unwarranted spying on Americans is necessary to protect us from the threat of nuclear terrorism.

While attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for rightly opposing this unconstitutional and invasive expansion of government power, May ignores that the U.S. government already has the authority to eavesdrop on the communications of suspected terrorists, primarily through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

The act provides a procedural framework to allow the government to eavesdrop on phone calls and see the e-mail to and from suspected terrorists, while requiring a court order if the communications involve persons in the United States.

Why would May support a bypass of judicial involvement in the surveillance act — effectively giving court powers to the White House?

It might have something to do with the fact that he has received at least $1.2 million in State Department grants since 2004 for his Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, of which he is president. Not to mention that May is a member of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion.

It might appear then that May is using taxpayer dollars through his organization to support a campaign attacking Pelosi and promoting government spying on innocent Americans. This kind of tactic is genuinely unthinkable and should definitely not be ignored.

Bruce Winegar

Union City

Real justice?

MY HEART goes out to Gloria Bucol Bachrach, the mother of a teenage murder victim (Letters, April 24).

She looks for justice through capital punishment, but I am afraid that she will find that kind of justice hollow.

A real justice would right the wrong, fix the broken and heal the wound. But the dead cannot be brought back to life, and the wrong cannot be made right. There can be no real justice for crimes as heinous as murder.

When she sees her son's murderer being killed in retaliation, she might then realize that the suffering of her loss has not ended, but another innocent family will begin suffering the killing of their loved one.

Richard M. Doberstein

Fremont