Mailbag: Enjoying post-ballot elation

I just completed my Vote by Mail ballot for the Nov. 8 election. I’m a little dazed, partly because the Official Voter Information Guide is 223 pages long, but also because of the many mailers, L.A. Times printed letters and opinions, fliers left on our doorstep, Internet coverage, speeches, TV debates and finally, the ballot itself with 43 candidates and issues to ponder.

Am I tired? A little. Am I discouraged? Absolutely not. I feel lucky to have a voice, no matter how small.

I want to thank our free press and media for helping me reach my voting decisions.

Dan Cabrera
Glendale

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Help NASA rocket to success

I wish to express my strong support for NASA and its efforts to explore the solar system and understand our cosmos. I vote for space.

Unfortunately, the president’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget request cuts NASA funding by $260 million, and has yet again singled out the successful Planetary Science Division for a cut of $112 million while every other science division sees budget growth.

I urge leaders to:

Fund NASA’s Planetary Science Division at $1.71 billion to ensure a mission to Europa — a moon of Jupiter with more water than the Earth — stays on track for an early 2020s launch. This is last year’s appropriation with small growth for inflation.

Support an increase of NASA’s budget to $20.3 billion to keep our next generation of human spaceflight on track, and sustain growth in all science divisions. This allows both White House and Congressional priorities to be fully funded and is in line with last year’s congressional increase over the president’s request.

Encourage NASA to clearly define its plan to send humans to Mars.

Last year, Congress increased NASA’s budget by $756 million above the president’s request. I ask our leaders to continue the exciting momentum in our nation’s space program by voting for space again in 2016.

Barbara Turman
Glendale

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Gender issues with columnist

Re: “The Whiteboard Jungle: New single-use bathroom law is a head-scratcher.”

As a trans man I well know the stress of the public bathroom, how the inherent danger of intolerance or simple ignorance can easily play out there. I will grant Mr. Crosby’s column one of simple ignorance, albeit lots of it. His premise is that laws protecting trans people, statistically prone to greater acts of violence, aren’t necessary because there are too few of them, so why bother?

With about 26,000 students in GUSD, at least 16 of them are immediately not worth this added layer of protection, nor worth his effort to address with proper pronouns. This only accounts for his .06%, not the students who are simply gender non-conforming or gender queer or any number of gender identities. Nor does it account for however many teachers and parents are also sprinkled along the gender spectrum. Because that’s what all this gender hullabaloo is teaching us — that none of us are as black and white as Mr. Crosby would like us to be for his personal convenience. The good old days, when there were men and there were women and only those, is a sentimental fable.

Contrary to his statement that he does not mean to be insensitive to trans people — which he spent an entire column being — it rather seems Mr. Crosby doesn’t like trans people challenging his expired world order. I deeply hope none of those kids turns to Mr. Crosby for help in their time of need. I’ll leave it to him to research transgender youth suicide stats.

Grey James
Glendale