Investigate the pandemic | Letters
After three months, I just started to wear a mask. Mine have bold letters on them: “THIS MASK LEAKS. KEEP BACK 6 FEET!”
Except for N95 masks, I really don’t trust them. But why pay a fine, or risk getting hauled off to jail on Hilton Head Island for not wearing one?
Will gloves and goggles be next? Not looking to make light of a horrible situation. I do love my neighbors, but I also want to do what makes sense.
As a part of the media’s DNA to scare the heck out of us, they “mask” the number of recoveries that should almost be equal to the number of infections minus deaths. So now with the imposition of these recently enacted mask laws, we should soon be expecting steep drops in the number of cases.
But more importantly, the media should be breaking down doors to find answers on how this virus started in the first place. What role did the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases play with funds directed to the Wuhan Institute of Virology? How, in 2015, did businessman Bill Gates predict the devastating effects of a biological release?
Like the impeachment hearings, there should be hearings every day with top government officials and medical professionals explaining how a microbe sickened and killed so many people, put millions out of work, and collapsed world economies. We are told that China just won’t let us in. Oh, OK.
Never mind. Just received 50 new masks from … Beijing.
Gene Ceccarelli
Bluffton
When will we take it seriously?
A month ago in this column I implored readers to follow and honor the direction and recommendations of our health care experts. My primary message and concern was to protect our health care workers who face hell each and every day.
Apparently, nobody cares to the extent that one of our gated communities recently held an outdoor music concert. Really. Is that event exempt from the virus spread?
How many people must die or become infected for us to understand the seriousness of all this? That each individual choice matters. Do the number of infections need to reach triple digits before the public wakes up? What benchmark must be reached before we finally get it?
Explain your position to an emergency room nurse.
Raymond Dias
Bluffton
Toadyism versus trust
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham has never been my favorite person, but I’ve accepted that his stature in the Senate was of enough benefit to South Carolina to tolerate some of his positions. Over the past three years, however, that benefit has diminished.
He is no long the man who initially stood up to Donald Trump, calling him a “kook,” “crazy,” an “opportunist” and “unfit for office.” Instead he has become an insufferable toady and President Trump golf buddy.
Graham sided with Trump in maligning the late John McCain, who had been a longtime friend. He advised Donald Trump Jr. to stonewall Graham’s own Senate Judiciary Committee. Most recently he has defended the president’s lack of concern that Russia may have put bounties on the heads of American soldiers. He has climbed on the Trump bandwagon, grabbed the president’s coattails and is holding on tight.
Graham has shown himself for what he is: the worst kind of politician: a hypocrite and an opportunist. South Carolina can do better.
We need a senator of experience and honesty who will focus on our state and bring a new kind of stature that will benefit South Carolina in the Senate. It’s the kind of stature that comes from integrity, determination and trust. It’s the kind of stature our country so desperately needs now. Vote for change in November.
Rita Conrad
Bluffton
Slanting the news is deliberate and sloppy
The Associated Press’ report of the Supreme Court’s decision on how to handle President Donald Trump’s financial records (your lead in the July 10 edition) is either an example of the mainstream media’s deliberate slanting of news, or the sloppiness that infects U.S. journalism today.
AP says “(The decision) is likely to prevent (Trump’s) opponents ... from obtaining potentially embarrassing personal and business records ... The documents have the potential to reveal details on everything from possible misdeeds to the true nature of the president’s vaunted wealth – not to mention uncomfortable disclosures about how he’s spent his money ...”
All the AP writer had to do was to insert the words “that his critics believe will be” between “obtaining” and “embarrassing personal ... records”; by beginning the follow-on sentence with, “They also expect that”; and by deleting the word “uncomfortable.”
Contrast this article with how the Wall Street Journal reported the Supreme Court’s decision – straight reporting, without editorializing. (Where the WSJ’s bias is revealed is in its lead editorial – the proper place for opinion.)
Too bad the Packet can’t do better, but what can its readers expect, given the decay in standards of journalism throughout the land that have overtaken the major news organizations on which papers like the Packet rely?
Everett E. Briggs
Hilton Head Island
Nancy Mace opposes drilling
I love the Lowcountry because I love our beautiful beaches. Because of that, I would never support a candidate who would ruin those beaches by drilling off our shores.
Why is some group from Washington, D.C., that I have never heard of lying, to me and my neighbors, about this topic? They are saying that Nancy Mace, who I am voting for in November to represent Hilton Head Island in Congress, supports offshore drilling. That’s not true.
One of the biggest reasons I’m voting for Nancy Mace is that she is a Republican who is leading the opposition to offshore drilling. While she has been in the South Carolina House of Representatives, she has earned a perfect score from conservation groups. She does what she says she is going to do.
The most confusing part about all of this is that this group and Nancy’s opponent, U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham, know that Nancy opposes drilling because they were at an anti-drilling event together! Why is this D.C.dark money group lying?
Marjorie Gaynor
Hilton Head Island