Letters to the editor for Saturday, May 13, 2023
Alternatives to toxic discourse
Here’s a story to counter the divisive, toxic content of too many other letters.
Gene Wordehoff has written numerous letters in The News-Press and Naples Daily News about severe water pollution in Collier County and on Marco Island, in particular. He urges readers to print out, sign, and mail the petition to amend our state constitution giving all Floridians a right to clean water.
Mr. Wordehoff is a Republican councilman for Marco Island. His wife, Nanette Rivera, is a councilwoman. Together, they recently facilitated a meeting for Republicans about the formation of a Collier County Republican Environmental Committee, during which they shared their deep knowledge of local water pollution issues.
John Reynolds is an active member of the Collier County Democratic Party. Mr. Reynolds, who met Mr. Wordehoff at a recent water summit in Naples, is now sharing the recording of the meeting with Collier County Democrats to inform them about the levels of water pollution within the county and the need for a constitutional right to clean water.
Furthermore, Mr. Wordehoff is the new chair of Collier County Waterkeeper’s Water Quality Committee. Mr. Reynolds has accepted his invitation to join the committee.
There are alternatives to toxic public discourse and polluted water, and perhaps nothing else unifies Floridians as does the necessity of clean water.
Joseph Bonasia, Cape Coral
Hypoxic Dead Zone in Collier
The Collier County Hypoxic Zone, or Dead Zone, an area of low oxygen that can kill fish and marine life, covers seven watersheds in the county. This “dead zone” begins innocently enough. Sewage treatment plants distribute reuse waters (partially treated sewage) that are loaded with fertilizer nutrients. The “Purple Pipes” program saved the Florida aquifer. Reuse is good, right? Farmers also use fertilizers to increase the output of their crops so that we can have more food on our tables and more food to sell to the rest of the world. More food is good, right?Nutrients fuel algal blooms that then sink, decompose, and deplete the water of oxygen. This is hypoxia, when oxygen in the water is so low it can no longer sustain marine life in bottom or near bottom waters — literally, a dead zone. When the water reaches this hypoxic state, fish leave the area and anything that can't escape like crabs, worms, and clams die. Birds leave the area as their food source has vanished. All wildlife leaves the hypoxic zones to seek food elsewhere. This dead zone covers a significant area of the CREW. The Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed (CREW) is a 60,000-acre watershed in Southwest Florida – the largest intact watershed of its kind in the region. Florida residents must add an amendment to the Florida Constitution for a Right to Clean Water (RTCW). Sign the petition: floridarighttocleanwater.org
Eugene Wordehoff, Marco Island
IRS cuts make no sense
The Republicans in Congress, especially the House of Representatives, are demanding massive spending cuts without specifying any reductions. Except for Internal Revenue Service (IRS) collection agents.
In other words, the GOP budget plan is to eliminate funding to be used to collect revenue.
That makes about as much sense as reducing spending for law enforcement personnel when crime is rising. Oh, there’s name for that: Defund the police. Any GOP takers?
Marshall H. Tanick, Naples
Overbearing GOP, governor
In an article about DeSantis, there is a statement that he and GOP leaders in Tallahassee showed they are willing to unleash government to craft a state that reflects the way Republicans say they want citizens to live.
Since when does the GOP decide how the vast majority of citizens of Florida want to live? If they are really interested in listening to their constituents, then the laws being enacted should benefit the majority instead of the so called elite. The government should take care of the real problems and leave the private lives of citizens alone. Education should be left to the hands of those who went to school to train for it, doctors should be able to decide what's best for their patients, and we should have harsher gun laws, not freedom to go back to the old West days. Many of the laws being enacted are focused at stripping people of their rights under our Constitution.
To learn from past mistakes, history needs to be taught and perhaps listened to in order to prevent the same mistakes over and over.
And, why is the governor going on world trips when he is supposed to be taking care of the really important things which are wrong in Florida, such as horrible insurance rates, not enough affordable housing, rising shootings all over the state. Why is he trying to change the rules that as the governor, he is not supposed to try to run for president while still in office.
If all of this is how the Republican Party wants the citizens of Florida to live, I say they are infringing on our rights as citizens and need to be stopped by voting them out of office. And now, since I have spoken out against the current so called leaders, am I to expect a knock on my door late at night to remove me from my house and into a detention cell?
Pat Whitehall, Lehigh Acres
Trump bullied, bloviated, lied
On Tuesday night in a town hall event on CNN Donald Trump got to remind us who he is. The crowd afforded him the opportunity to play Bozo the Clown, delighting his devoted dingbats who cheered and applauded his every lying word. He bullied and bloviated, repeating lots of lies we were already familiar with.He started with the Big Lie, despite being fact-checked by Kaitlin Collins, who had the unenviable task of reining in the biggest blowhard in the Western world. He glibly makes things up, relying on the dimwitted to accept whatever their hero says. He saw nothing wrong with the arm twisting phone call trying to get the Georgia secretary of State to just find 11,780 votes to swing the state. Trump called it a “perfect" phone call. The twice impeached ex-president drastically mischaracterized the events of Jan. 6 and his role that day. He promised paroles for most of the insurrectionists. He continued to assert inaccurately that Pence had the legal right to reject electoral votes.
He couldn’t commit to continuing our policy of supporting Ukraine. Of course, he loves Putin, the aggressive dictator who invaded a sovereign nation. He idiotically vowed to end the war in 24 hours if elected.Defaulting on our debt is fine with citizen Trump, even though it clearly wasn’t with President Trump. Two-faced — just a bit.
On guns, he is blindly committed to the anachronistic Second Amendment. He states that the intolerable number of mass shootings is a mental health issue, not a gun issue. He lied about the length of his wall, and didn’t like it when Collins corrected him.The finding that he was liable for sexual assault (which he denies) and defamation in a civil case probably won’t move the needle with his blindly loyal followers. Inexplicably, women vote for this misogynistic reptile.The town hall debacle proved one thing. Trump’s mendacity knows no limits.
Kevin McNally, Bonita Springs
Women will push back
Women are marching in the streets again. There is good reason for this. We feel as if our“government” is putting us back in a box again, telling us no, mandating limitations on ourchoices and our bodies, telling us how we should fully live our lives as women.Women are speaking out again, but not all of them can be seen and heard yet. There is another group of women who are silent and hidden. We may mask our feelings in certain company and discuss our true beliefs only with those we trust right now. Some of us are of an older generation, boomer strong. We have not forgotten the work of the women before us who fought for our basic freedoms.We are full of rage as we remember the tireless work of the suffragists, and of such women as Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Patsy Mink, Ruth BaderGinsburg and many others who fought for voting rights, affirmative action, Title IX, equal pay and educational opportunities.The women who are mostly silent may turn out to be most effective. Some women aremarching in the streets again. Others will just appear out of nowhere to cast their vote at the ballot box. And you may wonder where we all came from, and ask, “Now, how did thathappen?”Susan Greiner BSN, RN, Naples
Grim anniversary
May marks the anniversary of the T-4 Program in Nazi Germany.
In May of 1939 a group of doctors and chemists led by Hitler's personal physician Karl Brandt met at Number 4 Tiergarten Street in Berlin to plan the murders of every person in all of Germany's many institutions as lives unworthy of life, men, women children and soldiers incapacitated by the war. At first the deaths were manipulated by starvation and poison, but in December of that year, in a jail in Brandenburg, the very first gas chamber cum shower was installed.
The first to die there were three men from a nearby mental institution who, told to disrobe and shower, were killed with carbon monoxide gas as the doctors watched. The speed of the killing was such that gas chambers were then installed in a number of institutions where the killing continued. Gas chambers and crematoria were then installed in concentration camps. Of that history we are painfully aware.
The murders became known when families received a notice their relative had died before the last time they had visited. Bishop Clemens Von Galen took to the pulpit to decry the murders. They did not stop. The Allies dropped copies of his sermons on German cities. Priests who repeated those sermons were executed.
Those who do not know history cannot remember it. Few of us know of that particular history. Perhaps this May, 86 years later, we can.
Harold A. Maio, Fort Myers
Dictating lives of Floridians
DeSantis claims he’s “fighting wokeness” with legislation dictating how Floridians think, act, speak, learn, do business, and procreate. These fictional issues aren’t based in factual crises; there is no substantial evidence to justify dictating personal ideology over an entire state. According to FL DOS, only 37% of registered voters are Republican.
Instead of legislating issues to benefit Floridians, our governor is codifying bigotry against large segments of the constituency he was elected to represent, into law. He’s dictating a whole lot of things we CAN’T do, infringing rights and liberties while calling it “freedom.”
The “anti-woke” legislation seeks to punish anyone disagreeing with DeSantis’ narrow version of biology, humanity, his personal ideology, and religion. Much of it goes against what the majority of Floridians want.
ACLU-FL reports 67% of Floridians support legalized abortion. Nationwide, 72% of Americans believe reproductive decisions belong solely to the pregnant couple. But Florida’s law forcing pregnancy after six-weeks’ gestation passed anyway.
UNF’s Public Opinion Research Lab found 77% of Floridians, including 62% of Republicans, oppose allowing people to carry a gun without a license. But Florida’s “Constitutional Carry” gun law passed anyway.
The Parental Rights in Education Act, Stop Woke act, expansion of school vouchers, and ban on AP African American curriculum are just a few of the education bills contributing to the highest teacher vacancy rate in the country.
For those supporting the oppression of humans whose biology and life experience you don’t understand, or whose reproductive health care decisions, political, religious, or moral views differ from your beliefs, allow me to remind you that this is America. A democracy founded on representation of ALL the people -- not just those who look, live, do, and say exactly as you would have them do.
Melodee Hardy, Naples
Trump and decline of morality
Will Republicans and MAGA cult followers give Trump another pass? In Trump's years as president and now for the last two years he has been in the news, the morality of America has declined. He was impeached twice, lost a sexual abuse case, faces an indictment over falsifying business records related to paying hush money to a stripper, soon will face an indictment over hiding documents at Mar-A-Lago and lying about his knowledge related to this and an indictment for election interference in Georgia. This is the standard bearer for the Republican Party! Surely even an ultra-conservative die-hard Republican should be able to see this man should not be elected to any office whatsoever and say "Dump Trump." If not, then yes, morality across America has hit rock bottom.
Lou Vigliotti, Naples
Impeach Biden
Joe Biden should be impeached. I don't refer to him as president anymore because he isn't. Lord only knows who is really running the country, but whoever it is, they are doing a lousy job.
There is runaway inflation, billion dollar deficit spending, skyrocketing murder and crime in our cities, an open border with a growing invasion of illegal aliens, and a threatening China. All this and a president who cannot exit a stage without someone to point the way.
It is obvious Biden cannot make it another two years. His mind is as weak as his body. To know that, one only has to listen to him brag about his son Hunter. "I'm very proud of him," Joe says. But I've yet to hear him explain why. Meanwhile, about the only good thing I can say about Joe Biden is that he's a sharp dresser.
Jan Ganter, Fort Myers
Seller beware!
I wanted to sell two items of furniture that were in good condition. I advertised on Facebook Marketplace and Next Door requesting cash payment. Imagine how surprised I was when the first responder and the five that followed were scammers. I almost fell for the first response because I naively believed that the buyer was interested in the product. I agreed to allow the buyer to use Venmo to pay for the product. We went through a lengthy process of trying to make a final transaction. When it was not working, I phoned Venmo; during that conversation with the representative, I discovered the scam. When I looked back on the online correspondence with the buyer, I realized that I probably should have noticed before, but I proceeded because I thought the buyer was sincere. I recognized the next five scammers without difficulty. They were gone as soon as I announced that these were cash only, no online transactions. I will not attempt to sell items online again; a pitiful lesson to have learned again about the lack of scruples of some of my fellow Floridians.
Helen Leddy, Fort Myers
What's happened to GOP?
Where can I turn to, to understand what's happening to my former party? I actually had friends and colleagues on the Collier County Republican Executive Committee who were reasonable and could explain the direction of this once great party. Now all I hear is rants, and extreme negativity, with no forward thinking on solutions. Recently, our former president was indicted on 34 tax related felonies, as well found liable for sexual assault, among other issues; to the tune of $5,000,000! All the while we're waiting for possible more felony charges from Georgia and Washington D.C.! Is Trump really the say all and be all of the GOP's future? I think not, and I'm not "afraid" to say so. People seem to be whispering that they hope Trump isn't standard bearer of the party for the 2024 presidential election; yet they won't say it out loud. Now even more strange or troubling is this question: Can, if indicted on multiple charges, he still run for president? Think about that for a minute, is this something we can explain to our children? I dare say, Biden seems not to be the person who leads us for another several years. Yet neither should a twice impeached person found liable for sexual assault, with the possibility of several felony charges laid against him. Has the GOP, become a sort of cult; rather than a viable political party? I don't see it as a farfetched explanation anymore. My old party, seems to be a version of the television show, "The Walking Dead"!
Robert Jenkins, Naples
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Letters to the editor for Saturday, May 13, 2023
