Letters to the editor for Sunday, October 29, 2023
Letters to the editor should be 250 words or less. Include your name and city or community of residence. Guest opinions should be 600 words or less and include a brief summary of the author’s credentials relevant to the topic. Guest opinions may include a head shot of the author. For the Fort Myers News-Press, email submissions to mailbag@news-press.com and for the Naples Daily News to letters@naplesnews.com
Old, yes, but a good Joe
Of course he is, anyone can see that Joe Biden is too old for his job. He's only a year younger than I am, and I can barely crawl in and out of bed these days. I kinda like the guy, though. When he saw small "d" democracy under attack and American fascism on the rise, he stood up big time; and he's done a way better than average job since then, despite being assailed by world conditions that would challenge a much younger man. But come on, he's way too old. Fact are facts.
But while we're on the subject of facts, here's another: The odds on favorite to oppose him in the coming election is a sociopathic grifter whose behavior as a politician has been criminal at best and traitorous at worst. So here's a deal I'll make with my Republican friends. Nominate a younger candidate, preferably a relatively sane and decent one who still thinks democracy and the rule of law are bedrock American principles; and I'll consider Joe Biden's age when I go to the polls. Someone like a Larry Hogan comes to mind. But if the best you can do is the former Solipsist in Chief, Joe Biden could be Methuselah's older cousin for all I'll care. He will have my vote. Sure he's old, but he's a good Joe. The other guy ain't.
Geremy Spampinato, Naples
The party’s over!
If the Republican Party were a business, rather than a servant of it, the GOP would be subject to what is known as an involuntary dissolution.
That’s a procedure in which a judicial body extinguishes a hopelessly dysfunctional entity.
It might be time to pull the plug on the Republicans in the House of Representatives, given their ineptness in selecting a speaker and other deficiencies and degradations.
Someone ought to turn off the the lights with an announcement: The party’s over!
Marshall H. Tanick, Naples
Lawsuit reform a boost
Overall, Florida’s economy continues to hum along, and I am so happy to be living in the Sunshine State. However, we have some challenges right now due to our growth and prosperity like traffic and the high cost of housing. One of the cost drivers for housing is our property insurance which has been harder to get and is getting more expensive every day.
I was glad to see that the Legislature took pains to get our home insurance rates back in balance with some of the reforms in the last session. One major boost was lawsuit reform. For too long, it has been too easy for anyone to unreasonably file frivolous lawsuits in hope of getting a big settlement, and lawyers have been advertising like crazy because a lot of times the fees they make in a settlement is way higher than the actual settlement amount itself. That hurts everyone and drives costs higher. I hope we keep it that way for a while.
Madeline Schattschneider, North Fort Myers
Questions for Cape council
Last week I sent the following letter to the Cape Coral City Council as they refuse to give us answers we want:
As a taxpayer and voter, I would like a written response to the following questions. 1) Who made the decision to spend almost $15 million on the destruction of the park. 2. Who made the decision to hire Pennoni Associates and pay them $1 million to design it? 3) Is it true you just approved an increase of over $400,000 to pay for changes to the design? 4) Why are you providing space for food trucks instead of creating another shaded play area? 5) Why are you ignoring the citizens that object to the project as presented and insist on using a very flawed online survey that didn’t even give the option of rejecting the entire project as evidence of citizen support? 6) How many full-time employees will be based at the park to monitor the chemicals on the splash pad and collect the pieces and parts of the lawn games and where will these pieces be stored? 7) Why can’t you eliminate the very unnecessary bandshell that is a real sticking point for every citizen who spoke at council meetings?
Marie Kavanaugh, Cape Coral
Florida addiction services
Just another sad story on Oct. 12 about the sorry plight of addiction services in Florida. Addiction services that are allowed to operate with no oversight by qualified addiction professionals. Yet, Florida ranks second in the nation with 7,800 overdose deaths in 2021. Florida is among the lowest in state spending per capita for mental health and addiction services. This low expenditure has resulted in a dramatic shortage of psychiatrists, social workers and nurses. Florida recently received 3.2 billion in funds from the opioid settlement. How will Florida use this money?Prevention services are important and play a vital part in addiction prevention. But what about the residents that are addicted? Don't they deserve our attention and effort?
When an opioid overdose is treated with Naloxone it precipitates acute withdrawal. The person then needs either medically supervised treatment for withdrawal or they will immediately pursue drugs. The person who is addicted to opioids has altered brain chemistry and most of the decisions that person makes are drug driven. This pursuit of drugs is called craving. Craving is a feeling of discomfort, an urge to use drugs and an urge to change the way they feel. Addiction is also a shame based illness resulting in feelings of low self-esteem, worthlessness and fear. The addiction driven thinking covers these feelings, problems and motive with denial.
Treatment consists of gaining and acknowledging the illusion of control over drug use and the accompanying denial. Next comes the work of understanding that craving can be overcome. One of the hardest parts of recovery is identifying and planning around triggers for use. None of this is easy and does not work when done in isolation. Relapse can be a learning experience focusing on craving and triggers for use. Most of all what treatment offers is hope.My hope is that opioid settlement money focuses on addicts and comprehensive treatment overseen by people with knowledge of addiction. We shouldn't lose almost 8,000 Floridians when recovery is possible.
Patricia Howard, Naples
Déjà vu all over again
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required that all escaped slaves, upon capture, be returned to the enslaver and that officials and citizens of free states had to cooperate. The Act contributed to the growing polarization of the country over the issue of slavery. It was one of the factors that led to the Civil War.Red states are now lining up to make it illegal for a state resident to assist a woman in traveling to another state for an abortion. Such legislation resembles the Fugitive Slave Act since it places women in the status of an escaped slave. If you assist them, you commit a crime.American women: America’s newly enslaved populace.
Sally Lam, Naples
Israel-Gaza turmoil
Three weeks ago Hamas in the Gaza Strip attacked Israel, killed over a thousand people and took over 200 hostages, and continue to shoot rockets into Israel. This provoked Israel into preparing for war against them, and as the result the non-combatants in the Gaza Strip are suffering (as well reported by CNN). I think Israel would stand down if Hamas would do only three things, release the hostages, quit shooting rockets into Israel, and announce that they are no longer bent on the eradication of Israel as a nation. Hamas has demanded that Israel release 6,000 people who had previously instigated violence against Israel, in order that Israel get back the 200 innocent hostages, an unrealistic demand. If Israel tries to invade Gaza to get back the hostages, things will greatly escalate and the innocents in Gaza will suffer even more. So the whole thing is Hamas' fault and depends on Hamas backing down. But I guess I fear that they won't, and a ground war is inevitable (which Israel will win but with great loss of lives).As to the 500 people in Gaza holding U.S. passports. Unless they are missionaries trying to win over the Muslims, these people have made their own beds by essentially siding with a political regime that promotes destruction of, and violence against Israel, and against U.S. policy, making them essentially our enemies. So I think we can forget trying to rescue them, and I say, let them figure out how to rescue themselves.Wayne Sherman, Naples
Something needs to change
“The whole of this nation of infants — Jewish, Arab, Palestinian, Israeli — wants just one thing: to grow up to a good life. It’s a simple dream. Our role as leaders is simple too: to make that possible.”This quote By Ayman Odeh (Mr. Odeh is an Arab Palestinian citizen of Israel and a member of the Knesset) appeared in the New York Times.It is a response to the numbers of small children’s lives snuffed out in Arab and Jewish communities in a moment that horrified the world and brought us to our knees in grief.We who have heard the first cries of a newborn can understand the dream that first cry brings for our child. Children everywhere deserve the chance to see the sunrise on all their tomorrows.I wonder if the dysfunction in our Congress which is preventing aid to Gaza’s children, Ukraine’s babies, and the desperate toddlers outside our nation's borders will listen to the cries. Inside the walls of Congress there is dysfunction. There seems to be no urgency to cooperate, to work together, to hear the cries of children or the grief of parents, to move to function in their role of granting aid and assistance to those in need. When one man can hold up military promotions, a small band of extremists can grind the House to a standstill, something needs to change. We have an amazing history as a nation of strength, caring and commitment to those in need. May our dreams for the children of the world shine again and drown out the divisiveness that threatens their tomorrows.
Barbara Levatich, Naples
Spewing misinformation
Nominating flame-throwing, election-denying Jim Jordan for the critical position of House speaker, with another looming shutdown, pretty much sums up how the MAGA party refuses to capitulate to saneness and the need for bipartisanship. The lessening number of votes for Jordan each session has led to nothing but hate mail to the representatives who voted their conscience against the continuation of gridlock. Even Sean Hannity has crawled out the woodwork to place pressure on the nay voters. It seems Fox News, who paid $787,000,000 to Dominion for their disparaging lies about voting irregularities with their machines, STILL has viewers and listeners paying attention to their spewing. Maybe the $2.7 billion upcoming suit from Smartmatic will wake them up but there are millions of followers who seem to have nowhere else to go for their misinformation.
What will it take for sanity to overtake Hannity?
Glenn Chenot, Cape Coral
Need a third party option
Let me see if I got this straight. We as a nation are 33 trillion dollars in debt. Social Security will run out of funds by 2033 and Medicare in 2031. We have aging infrastructure in every state. We continue to subsidize the war in Ukraine and now we want to do the same for Israel. We don't want to increase taxes because it is unpopular. We are dependent on and at odds with China, and many of the Arab countries with whom we depend on for oil and a lot of stuff we could better develop and manufacture in this country, thereby creating jobs for people who would pay taxes into the system. We have a two-party system of government that is totally dysfunctional and we keep electing the same people who can't seem to agree on anything. Are Trump and Biden really the best we can do? Glad I won't be around much longer to see us implode.
Gray Poehler, Naples
Axis of evil
Naive! How naive is Joe Biden and how naive is his State Department not holding Iran accountable for the terrorist attacks in Israel, and their constant rhetoric death to America. If a mafia boss orders a hit on a rival mafia boss his hands are not directly involved. Iran is a mafia boss ordering hits on Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East.Their gunman are Hamas and Hezbollah.Biden wake up and call out this axis of evil and stop the U.S. funds to Iran.
Arthur Maranian, Naples
They took an oath
It's a disgrace. Now we are through two elections for speaker with Jordan and he gets MORE defeated the second time!
Ego is on display -- "I'm going to continue to pursue."
Do any of those people in the House remember that they took an oath to uphold the Constitution, that they are now delaying when they are going from one election to another, and nothing is getting done to uphold or further the citizens' needs of these United States?
Franklin Warner, Fort Myers
Blatant antisemitism
Defying rules of war and simple human decency Hamas and its comrade in slaughter, Islamic Jihad, continue massive rocket barrages against Israeli civilians. Tuesday, when a botched launch struck the parking lot of a hospital in Gaza Hamas did what it always does; it called a press conference and lied, shifting blame to Israel. In an orgy of journalistic malfeasance, a credulous press vouched for the lie and spread it around the globe.No one would have uttered a word if the errant rocket had struck its intended victims in central Israel. But if it falls on Palestinians it must be Israel’s fault.The fact is that almost nothing spouted by the Palestinian liberation claque and their Iranian puppet masters is true. Amazingly, we accept their lies. The only time we don’t believe them is when they tell the truth, that they want to finish what Hitler started, and then move on to destroy America.That is blatant antisemitism.We need to wake up. We need to end the hypocrisy and double standards. It is time for our “allies,” the media, Democratic congresswomen, and brainwashed college students to stop libeling the Jewish State and stop supporting Jew hating war criminals.Allen Menkin, MD, Naples
Death sentences
Death by lethal injection is death sentence of choice under Florida law. But another death sentence has evolved in Florida: “Death by DeSantis.”
The Florida Department of Health, under the control of Gov. Ron DeSantis, settled a lawsuit filed two years ago by a former state legislator who, as a member of a House Pandemics & Public Emergencies Committee, was seeking daily statistics listing case counts, positivity rates, hospitalizations, vaccinations and deaths.
The agency had denied the request, saying the information was confidential under Florida law in spite of the fact that thousands of Floridians were dying weekly from the Delta surge.
Under terms of the settlement, the state must aggregate, on a weekly basis through its website, information on cases, vaccines and deaths, and by county, age group, gender and race, for the next three. The 23,000 Floridians who died from the Delta strain of COVID cheered the victory over a governor who outlawed mandatory masking, vaccines and life and death information.
Joe Haack, Naples
Debt ceiling process
If there was ever a system we need to get rid of, it’s the debt ceiling process. The only other country that has the same system is Denmark. The GOP has used it as a hostage every time Democrats occupy the White House, starting with Clinton.
The Republican Party is good at only two things, one is giving the wealthy tax breaks, and the other is taking from the poor people in America — health care, welfare and food stamps.
As of today, there is still no Republican speaker of the House. Jim Jordan has failed twice to get enough votes. Can you imagine having him as the speaker? He is a man that voted to overthrow our democracy on Jan. 6 (2021), and still won’t admit that Biden won the presidency in 2020. Trump’s tariff war with China failed to revive American manufacturing, and it raised prices for the U.S. consumer. It also invited retaliation from China, so our government had to pass the largest “Farm Bill” in history to bail out the American farmers.
The good news is that our government is a “Monetary Sovereignty” country, where our government is a monopoly issuer of a freely floating “Fiat Currency.” So it does not need to tax or borrow before it can spend. “Uncle Sam” can never go bankrupt, nor can it ever run out of money. The U.S. Constitution grants the federal government the exclusive right to issue the currency.
E.L. “Bud” Ruff, Naples
Show a backbone
It's a trap! Famous last words of Joe Biden, Antony Blinken and the chief of staff at the Pentagon. With more than 50 years of foreign policy experience, how is it we are in the worst pickle since 1941. The new axis of evil trio; China, Russia and Iran have the United States in a pickle. We are drowning domestically from the economy to immigration to massive debt. Internationally, the trio have staged the perfect storm, war in Ukraine, war in the Middle East, and Taiwan teetering on an invasion. Including our ill-prepared military, can you say woke? We are thin in all areas meaningful in war, money, weapons, ammunition, energy, and most important, soldiers. We fail to entice young Americans to volunteer and fight for the country. Our troops are dwindling.
It doesn't take a genius to see our enemies staging three wars where the U.S. has pledged our support through treasure and blood. We cannot finance nor defend three theatres of conflict. Imagine facing three nuclear countries in three distinct areas of the world, and no allies in sight. You see, Europe is not prepared to defend itself, Israel is the size of New Jersey with a relatively small army, and Taiwan, well, won't last a week without help. And the U.S. will be a weakened opponent spread so thin it cannot save anyone.
Maybe, just maybe, it's time for a show of hands for the U.S. to show a backbone.
Jack Holt, Cape Coral
Moral compass has failed
The history of Western civilization is the story of the triumph of civilization over barbarism. It seems in the present day we have forgotten the lessons handed down to us. Our human nature has not changed, only our technology. We continue to suffer because we fail to accept our limitations and boundaries.
Objective truth is disregarded. In its place is subjective relativism. Our moral compass has failed. Only a moral people can sustain a civil society. Through corruption, utopian ideas and progressive ideology, we are in danger of losing our republic.
Will we continue to support our Constitution, and our founding traditions, or descend into barbarism?
Carol Montpetit, Marco Island
Issues of trans kids
In the recent article, “I just felt like prey,” that addressed the health and social issues of trans kids many readers were surely as bewildered as I was when they read the text of the article. The first sentence would perplex those who are sticklers for grammar: “Ollie gave themself kidney stones because they had so much anxiety over which restroom to use (italics added).” For those with a passing knowledge of English grammar such confusion over singular and plural pronouns was usually clarified by the third or fourth grade.
The problem for the trans community: English lacks a gender-neutral singular pronoun. “Them” is pleural but in the above sentence it is referring to an individual, him or her. Merriam-Webster dictionary lists “themself” as “non-standard” but does acknowledge its increase in usage. Surely this is an excellent example of verbicide or the murder of words, in this case pronouns. There is no doubt that this attempt to alter English usage will lead to confusion and those who seek clarity and precision in their writing will ignore the pleas for change.
One also must be puzzled by the statement, “After a year of this, they developed kidney stones.” “This,” referring to “continuing to use the women’s bathroom.” I was unaware that this would lead to kidney stones and could find no references in the medical literature. However, studies have suggested that hormone therapy, testosterone, for transitioning from female to male can increase oxalate levels which may lead to stone formation (MD Edge, 5-30-2018).
James F. Lally, MD, Naples
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Letters to the editor for Sunday, October 29, 2023
