Letters to the Editor | Feb. 19, 2023

Infectious disease is preventable because infection is preventable. But The Inquirer article covering a Penn State study with an ominous warning about continuing COVID19 deaths platformed a “can’t-do attitude” of learned helplessness. Are we to go willingly into the COVID abattoir? The government has been inadequate in promoting vaccines, is possibly going to restrict booster frequency, and is doing little else to keep us safe. The article opens by stating public health has warned COVID is not like the flu, yet fails to mention that public health also recommends prevention with mask requirements and upgraded ventilation — including for the flu! We beat back diseases such as polio, malaria, and cholera. We can do better than 16% of people boosted, and we can wear masks in public. We must demand solutions from leadership. The press should report on prevention, not just shrug at a moral disengagement.

Chloe Humbert, Scranton

A letter writer rails against the dismissal of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee but seems not to have a problem with the previous ouster of “MAGA extremists” Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar from their posts. It was not “political vengeance” that led to Omar being taken off the committee. It was her string of hateful statements regarding Israel, along with a number of other concerning comments that necessitated the move. U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick did not “side with his party” on this issue. Bipartisanship does not mean he isn’t permitted to think for himself.

Stephen Hanover, Doylestown

Book banning is not what you think it is. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is not banning books. He is “protecting” children from ideas with which he disagrees. At his rallies, swarms of his fans cheer him wildly. He’s the “new” face of the MAGA wing of the Republican Party — the wing that believes ideas are dangerous. In that regard, they cleave to the cherished conviction that the intellectual diet of Americans should be a concoction of grievance, anger, and fear of “the other.” DeSantis and his allies march backward, joining a parade of book banners and burners. Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was banned from the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, where Darwin had been a student, and in Tennessee schools. Victor Hugo’s classic Les Misérables was banned by the Catholic Church. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was also banned. Today, the literary villains include writers who explore the lives of Black and queer people and writers who don’t condemn transgender people. As the Nazis and others would have learned had they lived past their hate and crimes, people die but ideas don’t. Prohibiting students from reading about controversial topics won’t make those topics die. Providing students safe spaces in which to explore and examine ideas ushers young people into a future where their ability to think critically is more important than ever.

Suzanne Bush, Gwynedd Valley

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