Opening schools makes no sense
I get that children need to be in school, but at what price? When all this COVID started in March, it wasn’t as bad as it is now, yet schools will be opening. Where’s the logic in that?
Kids get sick, too, and God forbid they contract this horrible virus and take it home to their parents, siblings and even grandparents. What about teachers and staff? Seems like no one is thinking about them.
Try and social distance first, second and even third graders. If Gov. Doug Ducey is telling people to stay home, then this should include teachers and students. Reopen in October.
Maybe by then this will have died down. If not, come flu season, schools will close again.
Elaine Moreno
South side
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Get ready for more fake news
We can all expect fake news on the virus situation, since hospitals and health organizations have been directed to report their COVID-19 data directly to the White House instead of the CDC. How perfect for Donald Trump’s continual game plan to downplay and minimize the reality of this pandemic. If you don’t see or hear the truth about the exploding death numbers and burgeoning surges of virus, it doesn’t exist, or at the very least, it’s not that big of a problem.
“We’re doing great!” “It’s under control.” “We’re doing more testing than anyone.”
On his recent visit to Atlanta, Trump not only didn’t wear a mask, but didn’t visit, let alone mention, the CDC. Anyone who is duped by this lying, denying president deserves what we are getting. Unfortunately, the rest of us suffer, and many are dying, as a result of this complete and utter lack of leadership.
Deb Klumpp
Oro Valley
Accountability is a lost art
In school, most of us were taught the words of President Harry Truman: “The buck stops here.”
Unfortunately that lesson has been lost on too many political leaders today when addressing the coronavirus pandemic.
President Trump failed and dumped responsibility on our governors. Too many governors failed and dumped responsibility on mayors. Some mayors failed and dumped responsibility on citizens and residents with recommendations. The result is we are addressing a grave pandemic without a national plan or policy.
The matter is politicized, and the science of public health has been dishonored. Some say “you get what you pay for.” Or not!
We pay to have government to protect us. Instead we have leaders who don’t do the job and expend energy to avoid responsibility and accountability. Not the government I was told about in school.
Jim Greene
Oro Valley
Teachers, a privileged class
After years of teachers lecturing us on how essential they are to society, I find it most interesting that they now don’t want to go back to school (but of course still want to get paid). As they should, teachers expect fire fighters to respond to calls to transport COVID-19 infected individuals from nursing homes. They expect police to respond when someone crashes into them on the highway.
They expect grocery store workers to work in very public environments stocking shelves, and they certainly have not been timid about asking others to process their online purchases in crowded distributions centers.
We’ve also been lectured on how we must take care of the children, but when teachers are asked to do just that by showing up in the classroom with a population that is the least likely to be infected by COVID-19, they run and hide.
Teachers you are important, just not a privileged class. If you think you are essential, show up for work.
Vincent O’Brien
Marana
Schools should be safe — not sorry
There’s an adage that goes, “when in doubt, don’t do it.”
When in doubt, don’t send kids to school. Continue their learning online until it’s safe to return. For those kids who rely on school for food, get them food. For those who rely on school for a safe haven, address that concern.
Don’t subject them, teachers, monitors and support staff, to an unsafe environment. Operate instead on the premise, “better safe, than sorry.”
Jim Dreis
East side
Trump’s response is making America sick
The novel coronavirus outbreak is exploding in the United States. According to former director of the CDC, Dr. Tom Frieden, “Every 15 minutes, 1,000 people are infected by COVID in the U.S., and five people die from it.”
A Trump adviser told the Washington Post that when it comes to the pandemic, the president is “not really working this anymore. He doesn’t want to be distracted by it. He’s not calling and asking about data. He’s not worried about cases.”
Watching the president’s chaotic and incoherent response to the pandemic is heartbreaking, infuriating and jaw-dropping. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it bluntly: “All the answers are there. The scientists are clear: Testing, tracing, isolation and masks are critical. And yet the president takes the wrong path.”
We have to ask ourselves why? It’s his job to worry about the safety and well-being of the American people. If the president is not working for the American people, then who is he working for?
Linda Stanley
East side
Finchem not qualified to provide health info
As residents of Oro Valley, we are dismayed that our state representative hired his own brother to do an “independent, objective analysis.“ We hope this study was not paid for with taxpayer dollars. The study concludes that there is a downward trend in COVID hospitalizations, which is unclear.
The study seems to be an attempt to convince the governor that restricting activities is an overreaction to the pandemic. Rep. Finchem argues that the effort to flatten the curve is somehow unrelated to preventing transmission of the virus. In fact, steps to prevent transmission are the only way to flatten the curve.
Arizona is going in the wrong direction, so more restrictions, not less, make sense until we can get our out-of-control infection rate to a manageable level. Rep. Finchem is using his position to spread misinformation about a killer pandemic, thus putting Arizona lives at increased risk. We suggest that it’s time for Oro Valley to find a new state representative in November.
Colleen McKaughan
and Ken Watters
Oro Valley
Trump forgets the light in all of us
Re: the July 18 letter “A rundown of Trump’s many accomplishments.”
To the letter writer: You still do not understand, do you? It is not that we hate Donald Trump; it’s that we believe the ends do not justify the means. I still believe in and honor the oath I took as an Air Force officer 53 years ago and even the promise I took joining my college social fraternity, “To believe in the life of love; to walk in the way of honor; and to serve in the light of truth.”
Phil “Bulldog” Bentley
Foothills
Hypocrisy at its worst
Tucson Electric Power and the City of Tucson are constantly crowing and patting themselves on the back about how they support Tucson first and local businesses. I just mailed my monthly bills to TEP and Tucson Water. I’m shocked, shocked they were mailed to processing facilities in Prescott and Phoenix. Last I checked a map, that is not local.
I’m sure there are plenty of out-of-work people in Tucson who could use a job. And no, TEP and the city don’t have to raise the rates to process in house.
William Long
Foothills
Biden has history of lying, too
Mary Bradley writes she is amazed at “the excuses people use to justify Donald Trump,” and “Biden is a just and moral man.” I respond not to defend Trump — which is admittedly difficult — but to point out contrary facts about Joe Biden’s character. He cheated in law school, falsely claimed he graduated in the top half of his class and misrepresented his academic record repeatedly.
Ms. Bradley and Biden supporters will no doubt excuse his transgressions as “honest or minor mistakes.” As an attorney, prior adjunct professor at UA School of Law and two other law schools and past member of three state bar associations and an inactive member of the California Bar, I do not consider cheating in law school and misrepresenting your academic record minor matters. They are lies and demonstrative of a person’s character: you’ll cheat to get ahead.
James Tuthill
Oro Valley
Trump’s actions against protesters is scary
Imagine two men in camouflage uniforms with no identification grabbing you then forcing you into an unmarked van. Taken to a place you don’t recognize, they lock you in a jail. Fortunately, you think to ask for an attorney when they begin questioning you.
As hoped, you are set free. But in disbelief, you are freed from a federal building with no explanation as to “why” this happened to you. This would scare almost anyone, but would it turn to anger once you knew this was Trump’s executive order to keep his promise to “dominate” demonstrators.
Trump used U.S. federal officers against people living in Portland, Oregon, in the United States of America. This was not a tyrannous act that happened abroad; this happened here, on our soil. We all need to wake up!
The only way to stop this insanity is with our votes.
Cathey Langione
Marana
A mask mandate would have saved money
Once again our anti-science, reckless and feckless governor leaps into the breach by having to hire almost 600 critical care and medical-surgical nurses to help cover the demand for treating new COVID-19 infections in Arizona. He seems not to realize that ordering the use of masks weeks or months ago, even if the state bought and distributed them, makes more economic sense than the costs incurred by the state hiring the nurses.
Moreover, Ducey, like the president of the United States, is directly and needlessly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of citizens. Surely, as Ben Franklin said in an unsigned letter to his own newspaper “an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.”
Franklin was talking about fire prevention; now we have a wildfire of a different making — poor political decisions when a knowledge of scientific data was and still is available.
Malcolm Levin
Northeast side
Make America great — but how?
Americans want America to be great. But how do we go about accomplishing that? Some say we should isolate ourselves from the rest of the world and place barriers to trade, becoming totally self-reliant. An alternative approach is to engage the rest of the world to advocate for democracy and encourage free and fair trade. I advocate for the latter approach.
Why? Because America can again be an example of freedom to be emulated, while also competing successfully in a global marketplace. By stifling world involvement, we are saying to ourselves and the rest of the world that we are weak and no longer capable of being a world leader. The absence of competition from abroad might look like a safe approach in the short run, but it quickly leads to a stifling of investment and innovation.
Industries tend to stagnate when they see that they have little or no competition. Competition is the spark that drives innovation. Innovation drives progress.
I believe in American ingenuity.
Tony Banks
Oro Valley
