Letters to the Editor
(The following is just a trickle of some of the many comments, observations, claims, and suggestions received by Santa Barbara Current. To enhance your reading enjoyment, please follow the Comment thread that appears immediately after each column. If you’d like to contribute a letter to the editor, please add your city/town in your comment.)
The Boys on the Boat
Celeste Barber’s review of the film “The Boys on the Boat” struck a nostalgic note with Ann Luther, whose late husband, Julian Nott, while having been too young to have competed directly with the junior varsity team from the state of Washington who crushed their upper class competition in the U.S. and went on to win a Gold Medal against teams from around the world in the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in Berlin, promoted and attended by Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolph Hitler.
Believing Biden
Our economy is unequaled anywhere in the world and now it appears that it may take China as long as 20 years (if ever) to catch up, not the ten years recently projected. The stock market under Biden is setting new records and the 2022 economy inherited from Trump and Covid was indeed depressing. Factory openings are booming, wages (especially for the lowest paid workers) are increasing, new Biden legislation (the mis-named Inflation Reduction Act) has been successful beyond what anyone imagined in promoting a new green economy and replacing infrastructure while creating thousands of new high paying jobs.
Jay Sullivan
Santa Barbara
(Editor’s note: You are parroting everything the Biden administration has lied about. You obviously believe those lies though because I know you as a man of integrity. However, the statement that the “2022 economy inherited from Trump and Covid was indeed depressing” is a crock. Yes, Covid-19 felled economic activity but, like a racehorse eagerly waiting for the starting gates to open, our economy was ready to burst forth as soon as it was re-opened, which it had been just as Biden & Company were handed the reins. Unrestrained, the U.S. could have experienced a mega-burst (MAGA-burst?) of growth and prosperity unseen in our lifetime. Instead, Biden and his friends added weights to handicap economic activity and we grew – and are still growing – anemically. U.S. factory productivity is now going down and, while “wages” for “the lowest paid workers” have gone up, they haven’t gone up as much as inflation, so they’re going down in terms of spending power.
As far as the “new green economy” being “successful beyond what anyone imagined,” I don’t know where these hypothetical imagineers are hiding, but there seems very little going on that’s positive in that world. Thank you, though, for reminding me and our readers who support replacing Mr. Plagiarist with a Republican, of how much work it is going to be to make that happen.
Oh, and as far as the stock market goes, I’ll take Donald Trump’s suggestion that its rise is a signal that market makers and portfolio managers believe Biden will be gone after the November election. Remove the “magnificent seven” on the NASDAQ, and that market is flat. If your man is re-elected, and he could be, I see the market going nowhere but down. – J.B.)
Many Did Indeed Die
Dr. Aijian writes in his article (“The Troubling Truths Behind the Covid-19 Pandemic”) that “It is now four years since the Covid 19 pandemic spread around the world; many people did in fact become ill and some died.” The National Institutes of Health has some clarification for the word “many.” From January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2021, 5.94 million people died or more likely up to 18.2 million. Using unexplained death data and statistics, that was likely well over a million Americans. I found the article oxymoronic since only more non-proven unsubstantiated information was provided by a cult of anti vaxxers that is a long way from the truth, which may never be known. Mistakes were made; it was a challenging time, and analysis of data is almost impossible; it was not the common cold. We certainly will get another chance when the next pandemic strikes.
Dr. Leonard Grabowski
Santa Barbara
Trump Backed Fauci
Don't forget about Dr. Scott Atlas, a fellow at the Stanford University Hoover Institution, who became Trump's Covid advisor. He was forced out by other members of Trump's Covid Task force (Fauci, Birks, Adams) because he dared to criticize statewide restrictions and public health mandates. Trump ultimately backed Fauci over Atlas.
Lou Segal
Santa Barbara
(Editor’s note: President Trump was fooled by the triumvirate you mention. Not for long, but probably for too long. Dr. Atlas was, of course, correct in being skeptical, but Trump’s expression during that era became increasingly skeptical as well. – J.B.)
Dr. Aijian Responds
President Trump thought Warp Speed was a success. Some things need to be done with great caution. Vaccinating the entire population of the world with an experimental vaccine would qualify as one of those things.
Dr. Aijian
Dr. Atlas’s Book is Recommended Reading
This is a good time to recommend the excellent first-hand account of Dr. Scott Atlas, who wrote about his brief days on the Trump Covid Task Force, called: "A Plague Upon Our House." This account revealed how federal "Covid guidance" actually did evolve. This guidance in turn was provided to state public health agencies, who could choose to follow these recommendations or not. Hence the lock-down states and the open states. Dr. Scott’s personal perceptions about these federal-level policy setters is both troubling, and sadly accurate. Many of their names now known to all. Candidate Joe Biden 2020: “Anyone who lets three-hundred thousand people die from ‘Covid’ does not deserve re-election.” Was it just a coincidence "Covid" emerged during that U.S. election year, or not?
Trump oversaw the introduction of this alleged mRNA "Covid" injection model to the market. Biden was the one who moved this experimental injection into wholesale mandates, Draconian pronouncements, and threats, which also required the CDC to re-write the entire definition of a "vaccine."
J. Livingston
Santa Barbara
(Editor’s note: The good news is that since way more than 300,000 people died from Covid-19 under Biden’s watch, Biden apparently agrees that he too “does not deserve re-election.” I can’t argue with that. – J.B.)
“…like a racehorse eagerly waiting for the starting gates to open, our economy was ready to burst forth as soon as it was re-opened”
This is a good analogy. Similarly, when President Obama took office there was really no place to go but up.
Yet, you decided to come out of the gate with, “You obviously believe those lies ... ” and “...a crock...”.
Label me not impressed
I read the only really negative comment on my article, from another doctor. I think that doctors who promoted the covid vaccine, and continue to do so, have a predicament. As the evidence grows of the damage these vaccines have done, doctors must ask themselves if they made a mistake. Doubling down on a bad choice seems to be the current plan. Hopefully, some independently thinking docs will finally admit the error they made, and reverse course. The failure to do so will only further erode the trust people have in the medical profession. This is sad.