Respect heroes with mask

Dear Editor,

Sept. 11, 2001. Two hijacked planes crash into the World Trade Center. Firemen rush in, not out, to help rescue survivors. Which put them right at risk. Many died.

Heroes.

How could we help? What can we do? FDNY hats were worn everywhere.

We now have a new nemesis. A virus. Instead of pulling together, we have split apart. One channel says one thing, the next channel says the opposite. I find it best to listen to each with a bit, OK a lot, of skepticism.

Instead I turn to the heroes. The doctors and nurses on the front line. Docs facing COVID every day.

I am honored to know many health-care providers in several fields. Here is what I have heard firsthand.

COVID is real. COVID is dangerous. COVID kills. COVID is not a hoax.

Doctors are overworked. Doctors faced and still face PPE shortages.

Dr. Ted, an ER doc in Detroit, has been down to his last mask more times than he cares to remember. Our concern for him remains in our prayers. His response was pray for the nurses. Their job is brutal. Personal care for very sick people. And not just for people who were going to die soon anyway, those at death’s door waiting for one more push. Sick patients of all ages gasping for breath, suffering strokes, heart attacks, pain, paralysis, and death. Dying with no family present due to quarantine. Just the nurses and docs holding hands, holding cellphones as patients die.

What can we do for our heroes? A simple request. Wear a mask. The right way. Cover the nose and mouth. Not exposing the nose. Not down at the throat. Not dangling from an ear.

We don’t need no stinking masks attitude is a real message to our healthcare workers at risk: We do not care about you. We don’t care about your family. We don’t care if you get sick. We don’t respect you. We give no thanks for your work. By the way, keep your kids away from ours.

Some say there is no COVID here. Pray it stays that way. Other communities thought the same. Ending up locking the barn door after the horse was stolen.

Wear a mask. Wear it with pride — like an FDNY hat. Do it for your community. Do it for healthcare and essential workers. Do something for someone other than yourself.

James Spangler, OD

Warren

Beware ‘leverage’ voting

Dear Editor,

A recent letter to the editor suggested that Judicial Watch is an advocate for fair elections. Rest assured nothing could be farther from the truth.

Voter suppression is their policy. We can expect to see more and more assaults on our right to vote, as the November election nears. According to Richard Hasen, a professor of election law at the University of California, the allegations of voter fraud, are the real fraud. After searching in vain to find a single case since 1980 when “an election outcome could plausibly have turned on voter impersonation fraud,” he concluded the problem was a “myth.”

Judicial Watch led by Thomas Fitton, is a partner organization of the Council for National Policy. The Council for National Policy was founded in 1981 by a small group of arch-conservatives. They foresaw the demographics of the country changing and feared the loss of power.

Majority rule, that is, democracy, was a threat they felt. So they devised a long range plan to change the rules. Paul Weyrich, a Republican power broker, and one of the architects of the council stated in a speech Aug. 21, 1980, at a Southern Baptist rally in Dallas: “I don’t want everyone to vote … our leverage in the elections, quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” In other words, suppressing opposition voters was as critical as engaging supporters.

The libertarian billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch became involved in the council around 2005. They provided huge sums of dark money to secretly undermine our democratic institutions, which had been built with heroic effort by those who went before us. Council for National Policy is affiliated with many other anti-democratic stealth organizations in addition to Judicial Watch.

Anne Nelson, professor of Journalism at Columbia University, has written a deeply alarming book, which exposes this underhanded assault on democracy. I highly encourage all to read “Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right.”

Neil Himber,

Youngsville, Pa.

Where credit is due

Dear Editor,

Just read the “big” story about the cleanup of the Tidioute Riverside Trail. Good deal. But let’s not forget who has cleared and mowed this trail for the last 14 years.

“John Person” has groomed this trail with little help from anyone except the Lions Club. John, if any one, deserves many thanks.

Carman J. Fedele,

Tidioute