Readers’ Column for the week of March 29, 2020

You may call the Owego Pennysaver Readers’ Column at (607) 687-2378 24-hours a day, or email comments to readerscolumn@stny.rr.com. We reserve the right to revise or reject any message.  

I wonder if the mayor of Owego is still good on collecting $141 a quarter for sewage that people ought to be paying $39 per quarter for with the country being laid off right now. I wonder if he’s still good with that $141 per unit EDU.

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People, there’s so much gloom and doom out there, sadness, we will get through this, you have to think positive. Your lives, you’re breathing, you have a family, just take care of each other, don’t go crazy with guns and all. Stay in your home if you can, go to work if you can, and wash your hands a lot. We will get through this. We are Americans, we are tough, and we can do this.

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With the stay home mandate, I bet we have a baby boom in nine months. 

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I sure hope the annoying robo-call people stay home from their jobs too. 

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I know you people think the big foot thing is a big joke but I’ll be the last one laughing when the people from Finding Bigfoot TV show come here. I’m going to contact them and tell them I did see a Sasquatch over on Glenmary Drive. You’ll see; I’ll have the last laugh.

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The Newark Valley Food Pantry is taking requests for Easter food baskets for anyone in the 13811-zip code area. Pick up will be on April 11 from 10 a.m. to noon behind the Methodist Church. This is still being done in spite of the virus. We will still have this pick up, call 642-3339 or 642-8172 to sign up for the baskets.

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To the person that wants to get rid of ladybugs, I’ve had them and they only stay a short while. Ladybugs are very beneficial. They will eat mites, aphids and other pests. Please let them stay and help you out. They will move on. 

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The other day my pharmacy wouldn’t take my prescription bottle to be refilled. They wouldn’t touch it. I’ll bet she didn’t know the money she handles is ten times more dangerous. There are eight to 10 types of bacteria on money all the time. In Pennsylvania the port a potties are put out at rest stops instead of keeping the bathroom open where you can wash your hands. How unsanitary is that! It looks like we’re headed for a lawless society because judges and courts aren’t working. Gun sales should halt to prevent mass hysteria and home invasions. Money could be better spent on food and bills. I think the courts are a necessity because the drug dealers are arraigned and free. 

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In response to the reader who called about ladybugs entering their home, I invite them in. They like bud light and camel cigarettes.

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Are you taking care of your very elderly neighbors during this hard time? Drop off some hand sanitizer, toilet tissue and water. I’m sure some of you have a spare room full of these articles. Share what you have with the very elderly who are going without. You know who they are. God will reward you.

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In New York State is it legal to drive when you are 15 with no adult in the car and your little brother with you? Is this legal, out on the main road? I see it, these people get away with everything; hopefully nobody gets hurt.

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I find Bigfoot in Owego humorous. I think he’s a government experiment gone wrong and he went where bears and big feet go to take a crap – into the woods.

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When did the Owego Apalachin School District allow political signs on their property? It may be only an oversight but there’s a sign on Sheldon Guiles Boulevard, which is owned by the Owego Apalachin School district, 25 to 30 feet on each side of the road. I think this is totally incorrect. 

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I don’t understand the question that’s been brought up about Sasquatch. It’s unbelievable; there’s one named Darryl, he works for GEICO. 

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With all this talk about a Sasquatch spotting on Lillie Hill, I had to see it with my own eyes. The other night I snuck up there. I saw a man that appeared to be Mayor Mike canvassing, wearing his Make Owego Broke Again hat. Suddenly Sasquatch just appeared from nowhere. He was carrying an Owego Police Department briefcase; there was a strong smell of feces coming from the case. He handed it to the man who appeared to be Mayor Mike. Mayor Mike handed Sasquatch a document, Sasquatch looked at the document and shouted $141 for one EDU? That’s outrageous! You had better go now before I hit you in the backside with my big foot!” Sasquatch chased the mayor all the way back to the village and suddenly vanished. The only time I’ve seen Mayor Mike run faster was when the quarterly sewage bills were arriving at his office. Be careful if you go up there, Sasquatch will chase you and he will just appear from nowhere. I do believe that Sasquatch did throw the toilet paper at the truck last week. 

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Another COVID-19 death in Broome County. We have to pray for an end to this plague. We’ve got to pray for the healthcare professionals while they battle this and we’ve got to pray for the researchers that they will find a cure for this cursed disease. We have got to pray! 

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I have a dire warning for New York City and New York State. Pack your bags. New York will never ever recover from the coronavirus. Owego has never recovered from the flood alone that we experienced 11 years ago.

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I understand there may be one person in Tioga County that has this COVID-19 virus, and I see where they’re not giving out names; but could they give out a road, street or something so we can avoid that if anybody does go out. Nobody is going to hurt these people, they can’t help that they got this. Shouldn’t their neighbor be informed? Just a thought.

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Is there a curfew, because I think there should be because that’s when the kids come out to play. It’s almost midnight and they’re having a good old time. Just wondering.

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Hats off to Broome County for putting a map out and letting us know what’s going on. What’s happening Tioga? Can’t you get ahead of the game? Let’s see a map, we do exist. We’d like to be caught up.

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Teachers are conducting distance learning via the Internet. The students all have the necessary devices. Spectrum will install a 60-day free Internet if you don’t have it and their lines go by your house. The building is closed. The teaching continues. 

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If we were standing shoulder to shoulder on a battlefield we’d have a visible enemy and a weapon to return fire.

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Many thanks to all first responders, all public workers, police and fire personnel, food service personnel, and anyone else in service at this critical time. Thank you and God bless you.

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Put a list of Positive Thoughts list on a mirror so I see it everyday. What blessing do you see all around? Compared to the severe floods there are many pluses of our current national issue – we can go outside or have the windows open because there is no danger of poor or dangerous air quality. We have electricity, cable, running water that is safe to use, people do not have to live in shelters because homes are flooded or unsafe, no major cleaning out of water, mud, sludge, destroyed building materials or belongings. We have had some beautiful sunny days with blues skies, nice temperatures, birds singing, Robins returning.

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With all of the articles and videos being shown, I’ve yet to see it mentioned, what I think is one important step. Yet it should be common sense, but it doesn’t seem to be. After lathering your hands, rinse the soap itself off before placing it back in its place; otherwise, you may be leaving soil on it and the soap holder.

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When the road crew needs to plow, there should be enough snow to plow not a dusting. So the difference would be if we got just a dusting, spread the salt and sand and be done! When you plow you go up one side of the street than down the other. (So instead of 5.6 miles it’s 11.2 miles – 4 times would be 22.4 miles.) So the difference, taxpayers are paying for gas / wear and tear on truck / labor / maintenance to do plowing when really all that is needed is salt and sanding. In my opinion a total waste of time!

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When you drive around and see big red X’s on vacant homes it means if there is a fire, the department can go in. So why, in Newark Valley on South Main Street and Whig Street, have several homes have been vacant for years without big red X’s on them? I’m just curious. I would like to know who decides which vacant homes cannot be entered. The safety of our fire department and public should be the only concern!

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We are in a catch-22. If someone is deceased or ill from the COVID-19, we are supposed to report any recent association with them but no one will tell us the name of the afflicted person, so what do we do but sit and wait. GOTCHA! 

National Political Viewpoints

I’m just calling to say the reason we got behind on this coronavirus is because the democrats were too busy trying to impeach Trump and there was like a month where nothing was said about it; to me, that tells me that the democrats did that deliberately because they’re the ones that hired the people that make the thing in the first place. They were just throwing up a smoke screen until the coronavirus took effect and then the impeachment process stopped, because they knew it was all fake anyhow. It’s just another thing they are going to try to blame Trump for. 

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China spread the Wuhan virus, democrats spread the lies, media spread the panic, and they all crashed the economy – all to stop our president. Remember in November. 

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Here comes another multinational billion- or trillion-dollar corporate bail out. This MUST, I repeat MUST not be a “no strings attached” bail out. These corporations must guarantee in writing they will repatriate their factories back to the U.S.A. We do not need to have our medicines, food, high tech electronics or their components manufactured or assembled in countries like China. 

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I have a quick question for all of you who profess to hate any form of socialism, social democracy, and government help type program. I’m assuming you’re probably going to be in line with your hand out. How does it feel to be a textbook example of a double standard? 

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Peter Alexander, a very reputable reporter, asked Trump a very easy question. It was about putting the American people at ease. Trump couldn’t give an intelligent answer. He started to berate Mr. Alexander and the press. Dr. Fouchi and Dr. Deborah Birx must have wanted to crawl into a hole to be standing with a president who can’t even speak or talk intelligently. 

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These putrid anti-Trump buffoons who mistake the facts are just anti-American. Anyone who says the situation could have been mitigated by 90 percent is a mental moron. The problem at this point is not that no one listened to medical professionals who still don’t know a lot about this coronavirus; it is scaling up internal to the U.S. manufacturing to supply millions of masks, ventilators, etc. I am not a fan of Governor Cuomo, but even he says President Trump is doing an excellent job. As a New Yorker I salute both of them. By working together, regardless of party, we will overcome.

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I see where the democrats want to hold up the checks that Trump proposed that every man and woman in the U.S. get because of the coronavirus. Another thing I found out, some of you that go online know about these chemtrails that they’ve been spreading around and people wonder what they are. Well, they’re microscopic metal oxides of all different kinds of metal and this coronavirus; now that they’ve infected two thirds of the earth’s population and they’ve come up with a vaccine for it, there are talks that this vaccine may have nanoprobes in it and the chemtrails are going to be used by these nanoprobes to change your body chemistry so that the government can control you. I would be asking for a MSDS sheet on what that’s all comprised of, because the federal government requires it if someone asks for this MSDS sheet be given to them. 

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To anyone out there having trouble paying your bills and feeding your kids you can blame it to the worthless democrats. They’re the ones holding up the money being distributed to the people. I hope American people remember what they’ve done during this crisis and vote them out in November. What have the dems done to actually help you except scream about Trump. What are they going to do in November when Trump stomps Biden into the dirt? Also, to the residents of Richford, do you know if you get a new fire station it will cost the average taxpayer another $500 a year in taxes? Richford Fire Company didn’t tell all the details. How much aid are we going to get towards the $2.1 million cost? People should know the cost or is something fishy going on? Also, the vote was not advertised very well so a lot of people did not know about it. Three hours is not long enough to get the people out to vote.

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I just got done listening to Governor Andrew Cuomo giving his update every day. What a sigh of relief I hear and what a pleasure to hear an intelligent man speak straight out to the public instead of the lies and double talk that comes out of our so-called administration. Cuomo hit the nail right on the head that they’re still not doing their job, they’re holding off on sending ventilators when they have them in stock and are still not giving them out. That’s not counting what the army has! What’s wrong with this country? By the way, we don’t need ventilators anyway, not with the president so full of hot air like this guy is. 

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Someone should walk Trump through the hospitals or wherever coronavirus patients are suffering and the difficulty they have breathing with ventilators. It might be a good lesson for him because he’s very unethical and immoral for his ideas. I’m so thankful I didn’t vote for him.

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While I cannot stand Prince Cuomo, I was happy to see him finally working these past few days. I wonder if he can handle the stress. It’s the same stress though that many of us deal with every day at our jobs, in which we have to have to pay these high taxes. Our jobs don’t come with the high pay and perks that his does. I have to say thank you that President Trump is in command here during this mess. Can you imagine how bad this would be if Hillary and the Democrats were running the show? Why they can’t even get a stimulus package to help the American people because it doesn’t involve them. They are not for the American people; it’s all about them and what’s in it for them. 

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New York State, California and Washington State are all sanctuary states that have sanctuary cities, and they also have the most cases of COVID-19. Go figure. 

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Nancy Pelosi’s almost 1,000-page bill to help the American people in this time of the coronavirus crisis has nothing to do with helping the American people. Green new deal doesn’t help me, voter registration doesn’t help me, and more power to the union doesn’t help me. The democrats prove again they are not there for the American people. Come November we will all vote them out of office and they can sit back on their front porches, back porches, whatever they have and think about what happened because they have not a clue. They are not in touch with the reality of the American people. Thank goodness we have majority republicans running this country. They will pull us through, and President Trump, and his staff, is doing a fabulous job. I’m very much at ease that we will get through this and come back stronger than ever with no thanks to the democrats. Always, always vote republican. They care about the American people.

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I would consider myself a moderate to conservative republican and I am very accepting of the $2.2 trillion bill the senate has just passed to stimulate the economy and help the unemployed. I realize this will go on our kids and grandkids someday, but the one thing that is guaranteed in this country that I have watched over the last 40 years is, if it wasn’t given to you right now it would be wasted on something. 

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At the press conferences that President Trump and Governor Cuomo had they haven’t said where the virus came from and identify it. I think it was a dry run from another country or even the U.S. Next time it could be more deadly and eliminate a lot of the world. All the big countries have bacteria viruses in their stockpiles. So be honest with the American people President Trump and Governor Cuomo, they know.

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Cuomo was counter attacking while the president was calling the virus a hoax. Fact. Probable. Wake up! Choose the right path.

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The virus was reported in January. Trump closed the borders in mid March after denying it was a problem for two months. So please explain how Trump did it early.

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The president and the commentators at Fox were all downplaying the virus and calling it a hoax up until March 15. Fact. Video. Twitter feed. Fact. Yet the true believers claim that the president has been on top of it since day one. Amazing! Depressing.

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Here we are in the middle of a serious health crisis and the Dems are being spoiled babies. They couldn’t get President Trump on Russia, they couldn’t get him on impeachment, the Stormy Daniels issue fell like a rock in the lake, so they hold 330 million Americans hostage because they want airplanes to reduce carbon footprint. Stop flying around in your own private or chartered jets. Why wasn’t Schumer censured for threatening the lives of Supreme Court judges? Every one of you, Republican or Democrat that voted for those losers should be ashamed of yourselves, because those in office aren’t capable of feeling ashamed. If you think they’re doing this to help you, think about any Democrat program that helped you that didn’t cost you higher taxes. Look at New York City, DeBlasio fiddling while Rome burns and then blaming Trump because he didn’t make the call to isolate his own citizens. 

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Washington is a rancid Swamp. Obama corrupted all Federal Agencies. Pelosi and Schumer are leveraging Trump’s relief bill with more power grabbing pork barrel. Democrats want to give our poor underpaid, overworked, and abused (43 vacation / holidays per year) Federal civil servants collective bargaining rights. Dems would then own the 2,000,000 Federal civil servants. Honest Democrats shot that down 60 years ago. They would not tolerate a public employee union threatening their power. The corruption this would create would make Jimmy Hoffa and the New York State Teachers Union blush. You work for the modern Democratic politicians, not them for you.

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How sad our country no longer feels like a leader it once was. We have some of the most brilliant scientists and our leaders made the decision not to listen when this virus was first discovered. It feels like now we are chickens scrambling and pecking in our yard, trying to find the corn that will help. Unfortunately we are finding it too late. When I see Governor Cuomo begging for help from our government for the unfortunate ones who caught this virus it makes no sense why this should be in our country. And it angers me when the president tweets, making it sound like they initiated all the governor’s ideas. The president is gravely ignorant. I am prepared to see this spread across our country in the next few months. This too will end, but I sure hope those in charge listen to experienced governors, doctors and scientists, best practices, and not the president’s gut.

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It figures that the democrats are not just focused on the pandemic and what we the people need now. They throw such nonsense in their bill, such as funding for bailing out the postal service, voting on the same day, funding for the Kennedy Center, and so many other things not related to the coronavirus. They can do that much later on. They need to focus on the pandemic only. A lot of people are suffering and we need help now. The president and the experts have been doing what they can day after day and working for we the people. Come on democrats; focus on the coronavirus now so we can get back to our lives. They have their jobs and free healthcare and need to focus on we the people and not themselves. Please democrats, work with us and do the right thing and get this done ASAP.

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We have been chipping away at our public health infrastructure for quite some time: “Trump’s first major error in the crisis came a year and a half before the novel coronavirus first emerged in Wuhan China. In May 2018, he authorized his then National Security advisor, John Bolton, to eliminate the National Security Council’s global health security unit and demote its pandemic experts. In truth, America’s reservoir of health experts has long been starved of support. From 2001 to 2017, the CDC’s funding for state and local preparedness has been cut by a third, and the Hospital Preparedness Program within Health and Human Services has been halved. Between 2008 and 2019, local and state health departments hemorrhaged more than 50,000 jobs – a quarter of the workforce, according to the National Association of County and City Health Officials. And the Trump Administration made the problem worse. The President has yet to even nominate people for 165 of roughly 750 key Senate – confirmed federal government positions – including several high-level global health roles that would have been crucial in coordinating an all-government response. “Opportunity Cost” by Haley Sweetland Edwards. Time. March 30, 2020.

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Because our president was in denial about the Coronavirus, saying it was going to disappear, our country was late in assessing the situation and preparing for the Coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. Now Trump has regular press conferences, which he tries to muddle his way through, unsuccessfully, because he really isn’t very smart and he thinks people will believe everything he says. Much of what he says he makes up, and when he is asked reasonable questions he doesn’t have an answer for, he childishly goes after the reporters who ask the questions, using his favorite tactics of name calling and lying. Thankfully Mike Pence and the rest of the team is doing a good job and can be counted on to calmly and intelligently answer reporters’ questions. We will get through this, but it will be in spite of Trump, not because of him.

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Interesting. The mainstream media is trying to blame President Trump for the shortage of medical equipment needed to deal with the virus crisis. The blame needs to be placed squarely on the shoulders of the previous occupant of the Oval Office. The U.S. keeps a huge stockpile of medical equipment on hand, and as it’s used, it’s supposed to be replaced. Barack Obama decided against that practice. Now we have a shortage and it’s not President Trump’s fault. Google it yourself if you don’t believe this.

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It is absolutely unbelievable the Democratic Party has tried to leverage into President Trump’s stimulus bill a provision which will make voter registration fraud as easy as spitting on the sidewalk. Have you no shame? Will you ever stand up and say something is wrong? Now is a time for virtue and the best of Americans. 

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On Nov. 3, I hope the voters remember how the Democrats ignored the well being of the American people by delaying the stimulus package vote for their own frivolous agenda.