Letters: On COVID, Republican legislators got what they wanted. Can they keep KY safe?
Life or death test
Last winter Kentucky’s Republican politicians passed legislation severely limiting the emergency powers of the executive branch. As I write, Brown School of Public Health ranks Kentucky’s rate of COVID-19 risk as fourth worst in the nation, yet the executive branch no longer has the emergency powers it needs to keep us safe. Kentucky’s Republican politicians have inadvertently designed a powerful public health experiment. Now we can test: Can our part-time legislature set appropriate public health emergency policies through a deliberative process, and quickly enough to protect public health? How well can our legislators balance safety and freedom in their decision-making? Can they set aside partisan politics and the temptation to grasp more power than they can capably exercise? Will I be safer now that a Republican super-majority holds the reins?
Meanwhile, commonwealth taxpayers will be paying for every day of any special session needed to debate new policy and laws. The lives of Kentuckians are at stake. Legislators, you designed this test, and now it has begun.
Deborah Gerth, Lexington
Fast action imperative
So, I wonder just how many Kentucky citizens young and old have to die each day for Kentucky House Speaker David Osbourne and State Senate President Robert Stivers to decide to work with the governor to implement science based actions to stop the currently rapidly spreading COVID virus in Kentucky. What’s the magical number — 100, 125, 200, or what? The time to act is now, not later, and quick action is needed; and some vacation schedules for legislators may need changing.
Gene Lockhart, Lexington
One vs. many
I have a question for state Senate President Robert Stivers and all the others who think that their right to die “free” trumps everyone else’s right to live free of fear. I wonder what our world would look like today if our parents had screamed about rights and waved signs in the streets, denied science, or just told us that the polio epidemic would just “play itself out.” We don’t live in a world of thousands of dead children or generations of adults lingering paralyzed in iron lungs. Could that be because our parents, or maybe your grandparents, knew that science is more dependable than rumor, and that even if every one of us is more important than the rest of us, it is also true that sometimes all of us are more important than each of us?
David L. Arnold, Versailles
Require vaccine
A famous quote from the legal world — maybe Oliver Wendell Holmes — goes something like: “Your freedom to swing your arm ends just where my nose begins.” You couldn’t ask for a better argument for vaccinations. Arms for the shots; noses to be protected against the COVID aerosol. Almost everyone, with rare exception, should be legally required to be inoculated against COVID so they don’t spread the disease to the rest of us — just as each person is currently vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella, and a variety of other illnesses to protect that person and those around her or him. You shouldn’t have the freedom to give me COVID.
Michael D. Kennedy, Lexington
Divided Kentucky
It strikes me that the politics of Kentucky are a little bit like the politics of Afghanistan in at least one respect. The gulf between urban people and rural people is huge and getting wider and deeper in both places. In Afghanistan, it’s reported that kinship and tribal connections often take precedence over formal political loyalties in the rural regions. It’s people before abstract ideals for them. The perspective of ex-urban and rural Kentuckians seems to me very much like that.
Tom Louderback, Louisville
‘Saddened’
I am saddened that the COVID-19 health protection issue has been morphed into a polarizing political controversy resulting in so many unnecessary deaths in the commonwealth and beyond. I wonder why those who express the same passionate opposition to vaccination against the pandemic virus haven’t expressed equal opposition to other viral vaccines, e.g. Influenza, MMR, Herpes Zoster (shingles), Hepatitis A & B, Varicella (chicken pox) and HPV.
I am saddened that the frontline healthcare workers are at the point beyond exhaustion caring for so many with preventable disease. I can understand their frustration and mounting resentment which could impact on levels of empathy and in professional care through personnel attrition and overextended services.
I am saddened that there is no drill bit of truth or facts that can penetrate the permafrost of passionate political fiction iced over by glacial denial. The virus plague marches on relentlessly and unnecessary deaths and disease follow.
Dr. Stuart Tobin, Richmond
Worse lessons
Science deniers trying to kill school mask mandates, even threatening violence on school boards; so where were these “guardians of freedom” the past five years with students exposed daily to lessons far more threatening to their development than mask discomfort?
Compare to the following:
1. It’s OK to lie to get your way
2. Never take accountability for any misfortune; just blame others
3. Spew derogatory names onto anyone not bowing to your wishes
4. Use profanity and strut as your friends cheer you on
5. Cheat, whether it’s a big deal or just a game — rules are for losers
6. Proclaim your self-anointed greatness
7. Whine whenever someone pokes holes in your facade
8. Laws are what you say they are; being charged with a transgression is greater malice than the alleged transgression itself
9. Wave the flag, but shed no tears for those who sacrificed for it
10. NEVER show sympathy for anyone except yourself
Time will tell how our youth have been affected. I’m betting they have more resolve and good sense than those elected officials and leaders in positions of moral guidance who lack the spine to condemn those lessons.
Ernest Henninger, Harrodsburg
Qualms about Brad
The University of Kentucky basketball program is one of most competitive in the nation. Coach John Calipari is the highest paid coach in the country making over $8.1 million a year from a publicly funded university. His assistant coaches are also among the highest paid.
UK basketball has a history of taking a player or two that might not be skilled enough to make the roster. Former Coach Tubby Smith’s son played under his father at UK. Saul Smith was often criticized for being the coach’s son, though he won a national championship and led the team in steals and assists for two seasons. Tubby was also criticized and fired for his 2006-2007 season after going 22-12 and making at least the second round of the NCAA tournament every year. Calipari was 9-16 in 2020 overall and 8-9 in the SEC conference.
When Brad Calipari joined UK basketball I didn’t have a problem with it. His recent hiring to his father’s coaching staff does bother me. First, UK’s nepotism policy has a general rule against such situations. Second, Brad Calipari has no coaching experience or credentials other than being around his father. I’m sure he learned a great deal from dad. I know I learned a lot from my family but it won’t get me a job.
Kentucky seems to have special love for the Caliparis they didn’t have for Tubby and the Smiths.
John Bishop Flynn II, Lexington
Afghanistan mess
The Afghanistan pullout of our troops under President Joe Biden is a complete mess. Biden and his administration extracted our military troops first leaving behind our embassy personnel, U.S. civilians, and Afghan citizens who helped us throughout this 20-plus year war. The wealth of technology, military vehicles, fighter planes, helicopters, night goggles, M16’s etc. left behind are a complete dereliction of duty.
President Donald Trump initiated this troop withdrawal process before leaving office. Recently, Trump said in an interview he would have destroyed any equipment left behind. He said he also told the Taliban he would annihilate them if they didn’t follow the plan.
Biden’s incompetence with this common sense formula has given the Taliban strategic leverage. Russia and China will be evaluating what was left behind.
Afghans who trusted us will be slaughtered. Our citizens over there are at present left in limbo.
Nation building must stop. Too many of our brave men and women have lost their lives, many more maimed. Trillions of dollars are lost.
Our military should only be used to protect us. These political decisions have proven to be wrong and must stop.
Ralph Strano, Lexington
Contractors’ victory
The recent collapse of the Afghan government and the takeover by the Taliban has put many Afghani lives in danger. People who fought against the Taliban may fear for their lives while women and girls may be subjected to extreme misogynistic laws.
The Taliban are an extremist group that aim to implement strict religious laws. The reality is that there is a link between poverty and extremist groups. When regions lack basic needs such as adequate housing, clean water, and food, they are more likely to succumb to terrorist organizations that prey on these types of situations. Afghanistan is a historically impoverished nation, which facilitated the Taliban taking over in the 1990s and again in 2021.
We saw the United States spend two decades and two trillion dollars on this war. It proved ineffective, seeing as the Taliban recaptured the entire country within a matter of weeks following the United States withdrawal. The real winners of this war were defense contractors who became enriched with U.S. tax dollars that manufactured bombs and fighter jets among other military equipment. This was highly ineffective in terms of eliminating poverty in the region. Rather, the United States needs to invest in poverty alleviation.
William Gorringe, Lexington
Coverage criticized
The Herald-Leader’s coverage of the Afghanistan disaster is appalling. Recently, while articles about students returning to college and Kanye West changing his name appeared on pages 1 and 2, there apparently wasn’t room until page 5 of the newspaper to discuss this tremendous foreign catastrophe. Earlier in the week, other news outlets reported that the secretary of state said that 500 Americans still want to get out of Afghanistan, while the State Department briefed Congress that the number is 4,100. Apparently this newspaper didn’t have time or room to report on these numbers (or on the odd discrepancy between them), but there was room to report in a Washington Post article about the number of Afghans who have been vaccinated against COVID in the past week. (As an American who is concerned about the number of American citizens trapped in a war zone, I didn’t realize vaccination rates were more important than that right now, not to mention the untold number of Afghans being executed, raped, etc.) The editors should be embarrassed at their failure to provide readers information about the Americans who may be left behind enemy lines.
Stephanie Mason, Danville