Letters to the editor | Sunday, Dec. 5, 2021: Public health should respect freedom
Stanislaus public health should respect freedom
Our Stanislaus County public health department continues to rule by Fauci fear, leading to more governmental control. In a COVID-19 case investigation and contract tracing services agreement is a paragraph stating direct cost will be used to train staff to communicate with those who do not trust public health. Another paragraph informs HIPPA privacy laws cannot preempt state laws pertaining to disease and public health surveillance. The time frame and potential open-ended funding is concerning when the overall COVID survival rate is extremely high.
How soon before a mandated digital COVID-19 vaccine record that includes a QR code?
Many Stanislaus citizens no longer want to be a COVID social science experiment to make others feel safe. We are a stronger community when we exercise our freedoms established in the Constitution. State and federal governments are attempting to impose mandates that infringe on local control and personal rights.
Would CARE money have been used more responsibly by funding our police and sheriff departments? Will our public health begin contact tracing those preparing food for hepatitis A? Can our public health trace the fentanyl deaths and drug dealers? Why are our county supervisors and CEO not asking our public health to do a better job communicating preventative health?
Debra Hall-Koftinow, Turlock
Gratitude for Modesto Bee editor
Our community owes a big debt of gratitude to retiring editor Brian Clark as he transitions out of the newspaper business after more than 30 years of doing important journalistic work. I first met Brian 21 years ago when I came to Modesto as publisher and president of The Modesto Bee. We worked together for six years and have remained friends in the ensuing 15 years. In all those years, I have known him to be the consummate professional — fair, kind, even-handed, a good listener, a hard worker and someone who cares deeply about our community.
Unfortunately, much has changed in the newspaper business over the past two decades. Brian worked diligently to adapt to the changing landscape and continue to provide our community the needed news coverage with ever-shrinking resources. I wish Brian all the best in this new chapter of life and thank him for his dedication and commitment to The Bee and our community.
Lynn Dickerson, Modesto
Editorial helped avert disaster
The Bee demonstrated the absolutely critical importance of a vital and responsible free press in your editorial encouraging the Ceres City Council to cancel the appointment of John Osgood to the council. What an idiotic thing they had done. You helped them to correct it. You shined a bright light into the darkness of public policy.
Bob Stammerjohan, Turlock
Loving liberty isn’t extremism
Re “Women are seizing the moment in far-right politics” (Front Page, Nov. 21): I’m disgusted by articles that equate myself, who identifies as conservative, as a crazed right-wing extremist. I needn’t defend myself; The Modesto Bee isn’t my barometer. But you are losing the small thread of objectivity you once hinted at.
Personally, I appreciate women who aren’t “yes-men” (a pun). I’m one of many whose ideology isn’t dictated by the media culture. Per the latest polls, it’s evident people are taking notice of the singular tolerated media mindset and certain publicity crazed progressive mud slingers, and running the other way. As well, mainstream news outlets avoid any story that blackens their political darlings. For this reason, women such as myself, who stand for personal liberty alongside conservative political ideology, have little faith in most news outlets.
No, I am not a right-wing extremist. I am an American who values independent thought, free speech, and making my own way rather than following rubber-stamped propagandists.
Christine A. Scheele, Modesto
Overcoming Latino vaxx reluctance
Re “Polling finds what makes Latinos likely to get vaccinated” (Front Page, Nov. 30): I have lived in Ceres all of my life. I know the struggle this county has been having with COVID numbers for the past two years. This county has one of the highest COVID numbers. We need as many people vaccinated as we can to bring those numbers down. So, finding out what could make Latino people get the vaccine is a great idea.
Things that we should be doing to help more Latino people include sending people door to door with information telling them the news that the vaccination is safe. Show them test results and tell them when there is going to be a free clinic to get the vaccine.
Brian Schlatter, Ceres
Supervisors should represent all
Re “No ‘vaccine passports’ for Stanislaus County services after leaders pass resolution” (Online, Nov. 24): Reading “County supervisors added language that affirmed the rights of individuals and families to make their own health decisions,” and “Families have the right to move freely in society” — what about the rest of us? To hear or read anyone making those statements makes me wonder what (leaders) do daily and what precautions they take. Did they forget it’s a pandemic? If precautions aren’t taken the virus spreads How? By the air you breathe into your lungs, or your eyes, whichever it finds first.
What gives county supervisors the right to decide for all of us? Those of us who go into stores wonder, “Who has it?” or “Who doesn’t care if you or I catch it?” They obviously are very egocentric as they are not thinking of anyone else, even their own kids.
Diane M. Kroeze, Modesto
Catholic political infighting
Re “Reflecting on clergy abuse” (Letters, Nov. 28): It’s disheartening to read a letter from a Catholic priest who not once mentions the name Jesus, and whose purpose is to denigrate an archbishop perceived as his political foe.
Archbishop Gomez’s criticism of atheistic social justice movements is valid. While seemingly meritorious on their face, they construct a social framework that defines humanity as something other than created in God’s image. “They deny the soul, the spiritual, transcendent dimension of human nature; or they think that it is irrelevant to human happiness. They reduce what it means to be human to essentially physical qualities — the color of our skin, our sex, our notions of gender, our ethnic background, or our position in society.”
These social constructs are divisive instead of unifying. They gain political power by allying media, educational institutions, politicians, and cultural elite. If you want to participate in those arenas, then you must agree with them, or you will be canceled.
Advent blessings to all.
Ross W. Lee, Modesto
Subsidence a real Valley threat
In 1968, UCSB Professor Garrett Hardin wrote his “Tragedy of the Commons” that explains the current groundwater overdraft in our San Joaquin Valley.
The Bee’s “State’s farmers rush to drill wells in drought (Nov. 24)” clearly shows how freedom in a commons brings ruin to all. This commons is our Valley’s vast underground water, claimed by all who live above it, from individuals to cities to farmers.
A 2020 study by the Public Policy Institute of years 1988-2017 reveals a longterm overdraft of about 1.8 million acre-feet per year — about 11% of net water use. Throughout the region, new wells are being bored deeper to keep their straws sipping this precious nectar, for good reasons: grow crops, supply industrial needs, keep our toilets able to flush.
An unintended effect of this “get it now while it’s still available” attitude is that in many regions of our Valley, the land is sinking, called land subsidence.
Never seen land subsidence? Please check out this four- minute video of a visit to the Delta Mendota Canal near Dos Palos to see its effects: vimeo.com/649346322/. The canal water threatens to convert bridges into dams.
Richard Anderson, Modesto
This story was originally published December 5, 2021 at 5:00 AM.