Editor;
I have been a regular reader of News24/680 for some time now and appreciate the generally level-headed and often humorous approach to covering local news.
We also appreciate the way the site has attempted to help overcome the drastic and frightening impact this pandemic and its remedies are having on local businesses. With each lockdown extension people who are not making money can’t buy food, can’t pay their mortgages or rent, and may even have to pull the plug on their own businesses. We have not had a situation like this since the Great Depression, and it took World War II to recover from that.
As our president advocates for the “Liberation” of key states of interest to him politically and fires up supporters in those states with vague references about their right to bear arms, we are left to wonder and worry about the very future of a nation which once suffered and endured – largely together – to defeat fascism and dictators and provide a future to the boys it sent away to do the job.
While my immediate family has been blessed to not actually have to endure the endure the horrors of war the elder members of our family who did made sure we understood what that meant. I feel Americans today have become soft and delusional, preferring to stomp their feet about perceived offenses and limitations of their rights and taking to the streets – with assault rifles as we saw recently in Michigan – to complain with no actual understanding of the implications of their actions.
As I write this, a group organized largely on the internet is supposedly making its way to Sacramento today to protest the close of businesses in conjunction with a statewide effort to halt a pandemic and save lives.
The group is calling on other Californians, especially those not working to drive to the Capitol building proclaiming on its site “Come prepared for a traffic jam in Sacramento! We WANT gridlock.”
To this group I would say congratulations because you and others like you have already gotten the gridlock you desire, manifested at the federal level of government and buoyed by politicians who grin while declining aid to the very people they have sworn an oath to serve.
Mark and Naomi Gallo/Sacramento (formerly Lafayette)
Editor;
“It’s not man’s diseases that kill him, it’s his medicines.”
From everything I have been able to find out about COVID 19 in recent weeks it is apparent we really don’t know how serious it could get, because there is not enough data to support any logical conclusions.
Mankind has survived bird flu, swine flu, SARS, and Spanish Flu. In the Middle Ages we survived the bubonic plague. We will survive the coronavirus.
Lawrence Loesser/ San Ramon
Editor;
Regarding the Shelter In Place Order: We hate it.
I understand I can walk my dog from time to time, which is nice because she has been a nervous wreck since the kids came home. So I can take the dog out but we have to stay at home otherwise. Why? Can someone explain this to us? What dangers lurk on the pavement or in the trees? If we socially distance, where is the danger?
Anyone?
Ray Evans/ Dublin
Editor;
Thank you for making your newspaper. My name is Mackenna and I have two cats and a dog named Maybellene.
I am in my house now and I watch birds. We look at their pictures in a bird book.
A bird named a Towhee made a home for her family in a bush outside my window. I watch them a lot now.
I hope everyone gets better soon.
Mackenna Leigh/ (Age 5) Concord
Editor;
A recent trip to Lowe’s was enough to make me realize that many people are ignoring a mandate to cover their face and maintain a distance between others as we try to deal with a lethal virus which has already shut down much of the world.
I am sorry we weren’t able to get through this together but it is apparent to me that we can’t and that others will most likely be lost before this is over.
Normally I would have suggested that no one should be allowed in a store or public place without proper protective equipment. I would propose we grant law enforcement temporary authority to close any place that allows the public to wander around without protection. Closed businesses could reopen when they prove they have taken appropriate steps to correct the situation.
It has become clear that many businesses have been adversely affected by closures and other methods employed to protect the population as a whole and that people are no longer to abide by this order. History has shown us that this is wrong headed but I do not believe people care or want to care and will do what they want. I supposed that is in many ways the American thing to do – even if others who have adopted this approach have ended up dead in recent weeks.
Apparently, Americans are willing to put up with many things in order to protect their “rights.” They are willing to put up with schoolrooms filled with massacred children as long as they can have access to their guns and they are willing to risk death in order to get their hair done.
Good luck with that. Good luck to us all. We’re going to need it.
A.E. Beals/ Walnut Creek
