Letters to the Editor

Some guidance

for letter-writers

Editor, the Journal,

I feel that prolific, long-winded, angry complainers have achieved a near monopoly in the Journal's letters to the editor. Newspapers rarely publish letters longer than 300 words and most stay away from publishing rants.

Therefore, I request that the Journal implement a policy similar to many other newspapers by limiting letters to 150 to 200 words. One letter per person per month is another worthwhile policy. Your recent full-page advertisement by a reader who vomited COVID vaccination conspiracies was an interesting approach around a newspaper's policy. Although the ad constrained the editors breathing space, it was probably within the author's free-speech rights. To the letter-writers, I encourage them to be uplifting, use their wit, provide solutions, think about how readers will remember them and write about previous newspaper articles. Finally, follow good practices such as own your opinion, keep it short, start strong, use your own words, speak your truth, reinforce with facts and ask for action. For reference, search "Guidelines for Writing a Compelling Letter to the Editor" on the internet. 178 words.

Dave Daggett

Shelton

Thanks for story

on former inmate

Editor, the Journal,

Bravo, bravo Shelton Mason County Journal and Matt Baide for the outstanding community profile on Leonard Norling. We need more stories like this that draw attention to the positive ways each one of us can impact a fellow human being. Volunteers, pastors, church members, foster families, teachers, classmates, adopted mothers and prisoners all helped Mr. Norling and now he is helping others. Never underestimate the power genuine love, kindness and encouragement can have on another person.

Sally McCullough

Shelton

Abortion thoughts

Editor, the Journal

After reading last week's letter on abortion, here are a couple of points to ponder:

If a person's heart stops, do you consider them dead? Then shouldn't they be considered alive when it starts 21 days after conception?

I believe it was Ronald Reagan who said something to the effect that have you ever noticed all those in favor of abortion have already been born?

Ralph E. Aldrich

Shelton

Science uses facts, not beliefs

Editor, the Journal,

Wow. Terrific. The Journal now has a science-fiction page. Look for it in last week's paper on page A-6. I fully respect the author's religion and his pride in his Native American status. I served five years in the U.S. Public Health Service as a dentist on the Navajo and Skokomish reservations.

The difference is that religions are based on belief systems, while science is based on verifiable facts. If some of the brochure writing for the Pfizer vaccine seems vague and contradictory, well, I never liked the old PDR and its drug explanations written for PhD pharmacists, not working medical or dental personnel. I understand that the vaccines are cutting edge, but they are well-researched. If not, millions more people would have died by now. Heart attacks from vaccinations? I would only believe that after several independent coroners reviewed the autopsy and signed on.

CO2 buildup behind a mask? That is total scientific hocus-pocus. The virus particles are at least 1,000 times larger than an oxygen or carbon dioxide molecule. Any C-plus student in junior high science would know that. So, you're a certified naval analyst? In what? Welding? Aviation? Seafaring?

I don't see anything remotely related to medicine. Masks can be annoying, but I managed over 25 years as a dentist wearing a mask every day and I had to take no power naps. I do have sleep apnea, so maybe that is what your wife has - maybe a medical diagnosis would be appropriate. A CPAP mask can be a nuisance, but you live longer.

I know that Halloween is next month, but let's please stay away from boogie-woogie science, like claiming to be allergic to CO2. That's medically a total impossibility. I would bet a very large amount of money in cash that no PAC-12 or Ivy League medical school would endorse any study claiming that some people have a CO2 allergy.

Finally, if you personally don't want to wear a mask or get vaccinated, that's your choice, but that's not OK in a medical facility. Go work in a gas station, outdoors, pumping gas. I will personally not go to any health care facility where the employees aren't vaccinated or don't wear masks. Just because of your personal belief system, other people around you don't deserve to get COVID-19 and be medically messed up the rest of their lives.

Here's a scientific fact: Well over 90% of people who are getting hospitalized and dying from COVID-19 in the past three months are not vaccinated. Please go live in a cabin and stay away from the rest of us who want to stay healthy. Not in my hospital!

William Busacca, DDS

Shelton

About the masks

Editor, the Journal,

Re: Last week's paid advertisement by David Lee and Vanessa R. Creed.

Subject: Masks and clotting death.

See very old 3M mask and read warning label. The warning reads as follows: "This mask will not protect your lungs. Misuse may result in sickness or death. For proper use see supervisor, box, or call 3M at 1-800-247-3941.

I called and was forwarded to 651-733-1110 and again to 3M, Personal Safety Division at 1-800-243-4630, where I was told the following: Don't use very old masks; currently 3M masks are not made in China; 3M masks do not currently contain graphene oxide which was a problem several months ago; and 3M masks are on sale at several locations including Amazon. He also said the warning meant it would not protect against carbon-monoxide poisoning if you get into a car with the exhaust going inside.

My stepson, Errol Eaton, died at Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia after receiving the second Moderna shot and having the port for dialysis in his right arm clot up and require eight trips to local medical facilities to drain it, two trips to Virginia Mason and his final trip to St. Pete's, where he was told in front of his brother by the doctor he would die in surgery if another dialysis port was attempted so he could dialyse. He did not dialyse and died July 3, 2021.

P.S. I have the mask.

Diane Eaton

Grapeview

Speaking of dishonesty

Editor, The Journal,

Last week's letters included a comment from a contributor:

"There hasn't been a public official this dishonest since Pontius Pilate." I cannot imagine how the contributor could possibly verify this statement. There have been many, many public officials around the world in the past 2,000-plus years. This particular contributor is well-known to Journal readers for spreading inflammatory rhetoric and false information.

Former President Donald Trump made 30,573 outright false or misleading statements during his four years in office. He averaged six such claims a day in the first year, 16 in the second, 22 in the third and 39 a day in his final year, including more than 800 repetitions of the Big Lie that the 2020 election was "stolen."

March 2, 2019, was an especially productive day: the former president delivered over 60 lies in about two hours at the CPAC convention in Maryland. To be clear: these are lies told only during the last president's tenure. These numbers do not include all the lies told prior to 2016 about a certain birth certificate or lies about election fraud since he left office.

I can only speculate about what the former president has been reporting to the IRS all these years.

The numbers cited above have been verified by independent journalists and were reported by The Washington Post, The Toronto Star, The New York Times, CNN, Politifact, CSPAN and other legitimate news organizations.

The contributor goes on to chastise the speaker of the House for not reading some service members' names into the record. I notice the contributor does not mention the 21 Republicans who voted against honoring law enforcement officers for their valor and heroism in the line of combat duty on Jan. 6.

"Back the blue" indeed.

Theresa Jacobson

Agate

Baby boomer grandparents

Editor, the Journal,

As a baby boomer (born in July 1946), I recently celebrated my 75th birthday. The mother of two daughters, I am blessed to have seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

With Grandparents' Day on Sept. 12 (the first Sunday after Labor Day), I am reflecting on what it is to be a grandparent, now, as opposed to what it was like for my grandmother. When I was a young child, there was no television to turn on so my siblings and I made our own fun. We played games, read books, told stories, and pretended we were cowboys or Indians, princesses or dressed up in our mother's or father's clothes. My father's mother was the only grandparent we had. We lived in different states and often overseas because my father was in the Navy. But we managed to have visits, when we could, and had telephone conversations when we couldn't visit. She read books to us, helped us to understand the worth of family and taught my sister and me how to bake a pie. There were no cellphones, no texting, twittering or tweeting. Our conversations were eye-to-eye or a two-way conversation; where one person speaks to another person and a dialogue ensues. We had no computers, which meant letters were typed or handwritten and sent via the U.S. Post Office. There was no inability of reading cursive writing because children were taught cursive writing and penmanship. Perhaps the lost art of cursive writing could replace CRT in the curriculum of today's school system.

Grandma always saw the best in us, encouraging us to succeed. We reveled in her wisdom and how blessed we were to have her in our lives. She shared stories of her youth and how she and her family traveled from Pennsylvania to Ohio in a Conestoga wagon. We learned how important the morals of honesty, integrity and courage are in one's life. She began traditions, which my mother passed on to us and I have continued passing on; first my daughters and now my grandchildren. But now, there are cellphones, computers, television and social media sites. This is not to say that the evolution of these adjuncts is bad, just that they can distract from the physical social interaction of people; one's family and grandparent to grandchildren, in particular. Most of my grandchildren choose not to communicate unless through texting or social media outlets. Because I don't post on social media sites, I rely on certain grandchildren to email or mail photos of my great-grandchildren. One special granddaughter-in-law gives us a call and we get to have such wonderful conversations. She is the one who sends us emails with pictures of our youngest great-grandson. We love seeing how he is growing and changing. And, we always know when gifts to that family are received.

It seems that the tradition of letter-writing has terminated with my generation, along with the sending of a thank-you note, card or call when a gift is received. Social etiquette seems to be a lost tradition to an entire new generation of grandchildren. When President Jimmy Carter signed the proclamation creating a national Grandparents' Day on Sept. 6, 1979, he said that the holiday would recognize "the importance and worth of the 17 million grandparents in our nation." There are now more than 70 million grandparents in the United States, but, where is that recognition now? President Carter wrote that grandparents "are usually free to love and guide and befriend the young without having to take daily responsibility for them, they can often reach out past pride and fear of failure and close the space between generations."

That might have been true, when I was raising my children, but not so much, now. I can report that one of the leading greeting card companies offers Grandparents' Day cards for sale. Unfortunately, that section of cards pales in comparison to Halloween cards, which covers a much larger section of the store and is available in September, as well. I ponder, at what age did being a grandparent come to mean that I and my husband be set aside, and thus, become expendable? For those who are not sure what the term expendable means, here is a definition that Sylvester Stallone gave in one of his "Rambo" movies: "If you're invited to a party and you don't show up, nobody misses you. That's expendable." In my generation, grandparents were revered, a source of family history and life experiences. My grandmother was an integral link in our family chain. My husband jokes that one of us could die and if one of the grandchildren were to call to have a conversation (one can wish), the surviving spouse would simply tell the grandchild, "Oh, Grandma (or Grandpa) died three months ago."

It is my hope that there will be a social change in how grandparents are valued so that when my grandchildren become grandparents they will not be set aside and treated as "expendable."

Cheryl A. Dunning

Shelton

Thanks, post office

Editor, the Journal,

Recently my daughter was out shopping and somehow managed to lose her wallet. Of course, she went back over where she had been and asked whether anyone had found a wallet. Zilch. The wallet had a few dollars in it, but the real loss was the pictures, identification and credit cards. We all know what a mess losing those things can be. Anyway, she went about canceling and getting replacement cards and went on with her life.

Then out of the blue an envelope arrived from the U.S. Postal Service. Inside was her wallet; pictures, identification cards, credit cards and cash. Nothing was missing. We had no idea that the government provided such a service.

So, here's a heartfelt thank you to the wonderful person who found Jennifer's wallet and dropped it in a mailbox. And a well-deserved commendation to the U.S. Postal Service for doing a wonderful public service of returning lost wallets. It is events like this that nourish my faith in my neighbors and my government.

Brian T. Walsh

Shelton

American values

Editor, the Journal,

I have been reading a number of letters lately in the Journal where the writers lament the leadership of Mason County Commissioner Sharon Trask because she stands up for American values and freedom. What they seem to be saying is that individual choice is bad. That people need to be sheep and just accept what the scientists, (that they agree with), say, never mind all of the doctors' warnings of the bad effects to our health by wearing a mask for extended periods of time.

One of the things that has made America great is individual initiative, individual responsibility, in a word individualism. That we the people have rights granted to us by God. "That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it ..."

Commissioner Trask is doing exactly what all elected are supposed to do. Protecting our God-given rights, and I am thankful she is there doing exactly what she is supposed to do, leading by the example of the freedom of choice, not cowering like some whiny child, waiting for mommy or the state to save them from the monster under their bed or a disease that if you get it, you have a greater than 99% chance of survival. So to all the chicken littles out there that claim the sky is falling again and again, I say to you that there are a lot of us that have had enough of your fear mongering.

Thank you Commissioner Trask for standing up for our rights, even if sometimes you aren't aware, most thinking Americans are standing with you.

Pat Tarzwell

Shelton

Ship of fools

Editor, the Journal,

The entire Biden administration

Not one of them has a clue.

Joe Biden has done nothing good for U.S.

In 50 years in politics.

What made you think he would in four years?

Every time he opens his mouth, it is a lie.

He is a spineless coward.

I will never call him president.

He is an imbecile, not a leader.

Take responsibility for your failures.

Stop blaming Trump for everything.

I am fed up with you.

Not worthy of the title president of the United States.

Trump was "America first."

With Biden, it's "America last."

Biden, you are worthless.

Trump 2024.

Scott Stidd

Shelton

And the winner is ...

Editor, The Journal,

In a letter to the editor in the Sept. 9 Journal, I invented a little game to help pass the time while we wait - in vain, it seems - for certain higher-ups in the Biden administration to resign following our shameful and brain-dead surrender to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Well, while there are as yet no resignations, there are plenty of games of "let's change the subject" or "let's just move on" being played by the Democrats. These people are shouting their efforts to pass their mega-trillion socialist "infrastructure" bill while howling in pain, I'm pleased to hear, over the new Texas abortion statute.

In my game, however, which I called, "Great American Losers: Biden Version," I challenged readers to select from a list of pop culture losers which one had a personality most like Joe Biden's. The list included Casey from Ernest Thayer's poem "Casey at the Bat;" the squirrel Scrat from the "Ice Age" movie franchise; and Wile E. Coyote from the old Warner Brother's cartoons.

So who, in my opinion, won this race to the bottom?

Well, Casey did strike out big time - once - in the poem, but remember, he earned his chops over the years on the Mudville nine. There were obviously many other days when he was "mighty" and energized both the team and the crowds. He was just too good too often to be anything like Joe.

And Scrat? He was always losing the acorn, but unlike Biden, he was honest and believable. In one movie he actually fell in love with a female squirrel hottie. With Scrat, we can feel his pain; with Joe, we can see it, but in the latter's case, it's not from heartache or a lost acorn. Scrat is frenetic. Mr. Biden is anything but.

For me, though, the winner (or biggest loser,) was Wile E. Coyote. He is, well, getting quite old, has no new tricks and has screwed up virtually everything he has touched. He hasn't caught the Road Runner in over 73 years. Joe Biden will be 79 on Nov. 20 and hasn't done much better.

Why Americans are drawn to these exemplars of futility in our past is beyond me. A book which might help caught my eye online recently titled "Born Losers: A History of Failure in America" by Scott A. Sandage. It chronicles the trials of our second - or third or fourth - greatest over the years. I'd say, "Enjoy!" but I don't see how you could.

As long as Mr. Biden remains in his role as president, I'm sure there will be ample material for many more games in the "Loser" series. In the meantime, let's all just relax and prepare to enjoy the midterm elections.

Beep beep!

Robert E. Graham

Union