Readers’ Column for the week of July 26, 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’m looking for a pressure canner, not a pressure cooker but a pressure canner. If anybody has one that they are willing to sell I am willing to pay a reasonable price for one. I’ve been looking around and can’t find one at any garage sale. If you could leave your information in this column I will get back to you.

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I’d like to make a comment to the person who decided to go to the cemetery and take my memory from the cemetery that has been there for over 10 years. If you know whom I’m talking about, please bring it back and I won’t ask any questions.

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My suggestion for anyone using the Susquehanna River for recreational purposes – be sure you have your tetanus shot. We get notifications whenever there is raw untreatable sewage dumped into the river. 

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I was wondering if anybody knows how to get rid of a woodchuck without shooting it or getting a dog.

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As far as sending children back to school while the pandemic continues, there’s a school for multiple hours for multiple days. Just look at the church that was only together for maybe a couple of hours one day a week, and now the entire congregation is under quarantine because of COVID. So if that happened in a school, that means that every child in that classroom needs to quarantine as well as the teachers and anybody else that would be involved in that activity or that person. So now you would shut down that part of the school and that would put more stress on the remaining teachers and school staff. 

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To those who this applies to, and you know who you are, there are barking dogs in the village of Owego that start at 7 a.m. and bark until 7:30, again in the afternoon hour, and again at dinner hour. There is an ordinance in town that no dog should bark more than 15 minutes. If you don’t believe me, call the dog warden or I will. Shut the dogs up!

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It seems to me the school districts are wasting time sending out all these touchy-feely questionnaires about getting the kids to school. It’s time to start dealing with facts. Why not find out exactly how many kids are coming back to school. Based on that you will find out how many kids will be riding the bus, or how many parents are driving them in. Then you can figure out how many teachers, how many days a week. The kids that want to stay home and self-distance, you send out the same questionnaire to teachers. The teachers that are planning to come back, they can teach the kids. The teachers that don’t feel comfortable and compromised need to stay home, they can be the distance learning teachers and if they don’t want to do that, they can find another job. It’s time to start getting the facts and making some tough decisions.

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I own property on the top of Evelien Hill Road, which needs a lot of road repair. Every year I ask the Town of Candor Highway Department to do some servicing. I am lucky if they do anything, which if anything is a band-aid job. Some repairs haven’t been done since the last flood. The farmer doing my field mowing has a hard time maneuvering his wide equipment up the road. My vehicle takes a beating. We pay the same high taxes as everyone else, but we sure get short changed. I realize the pandemic may have created problems, but I would sure appreciate any road maintenance on Evelien Hill Road.

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In regard to tonight’s news, Tioga County’s Public Health Department is emphasizing the importance of wearing masks and social distancing due to the increases of COVID-19 cases in Tioga County, N.Y. I would encourage Tioga County to follow Broome County’s footsteps and put your fire investigation and zoning officers out there to start doing independent inspections of mask wearing in our local businesses. My experiences are that businesses are not adhering to the mask policy and wearing them properly over their noses and mouths. Together we can get through this.

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Listen and read more than one source of information to get the full picture. Listen to the facts, not just the name that’s being promoted or discredited. Find the facts that support or dismiss the statement being presented. Unless it’s a reputable news source listed on Facebook or other Internet sites, it is someone’s opinion and often not a fact that can be proven. 

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U.S. citizens endured rationing of everyday items in WWII. Rationing of food, meat, fuel for vehicles and heating, shoes, coffee, dairy, etc. This hardship is something that most of us have never had to endure; yet the proud American citizens did everything that was asked of them and pulled together to conquer a common enemy. All we have to do to defeat the common enemy is wear a fabric face covering and stay 6-feet apart from each other. Show that you are a proud American; wear a mask.

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Just like speeding tickets and open containers in public, the mask fine is well deserved. Don’t complain if you get it because it’s very simple to avoid it. Speeding, stay within the speed limit, keep your alcohol containers inside the bar or your residence and wear a mask when in public. These are all very common easy to do rules that protect our community.

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Other than an American flag on a uniform sleeve, I would never have thought that a small piece of fabric would be so important that it could prevent a horrible life altering illness. 

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Why is it considered ignorant for anyone to say all lives matter? I think I speak for many that we believe in equality for the entire human race, regardless of color. There are injustices to all races, religions and social status, even to those who protect us from those injustices. By stating that all lives matter, is not stating one race is better than another. We are stating we all need to be treated equally and with justice and compassion. Agreed in history, that was not the case. None of us living now participated in those types of injustices but it is now time to make those things right for all humankind. 

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I was just reading an article where 68% of Americans do not trust local, state and federal government. I’m surprised that it’s that low. They must not live in the village of Owego. I’ll bet down there it’s 98% that don’t trust the government.

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Prove your macho no mask stance is real. Head into battle without your helmet and body armor.

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A reader mentioned going to jail if they stole a candy bar. You must not live in New York State. Under Governor Fleckless and his bail reform act, you are issued an appearance ticket and released. Free to steal again and again and again.

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If you witness a COVID-19 violation, please complete a NYS form at https://mylicense.custhelp.com/app/ask. Make businesses and people accountable. If everyone does their part, we can move forward.

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Why is there a lot of junk and trash in the Kennedy Street area of Spencer; they just had a clean up.

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Captain Jean-Luc Picard, “Money doesn’t exist in the 24th century. The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.” Oh, c’mon the twenty-three hundreds?

 

National Political Viewpoints

Just heard that Trump is going to resume his daily briefing. He can’t answer COVID-19 questions intelligently, he never could. He just wants people to see him and he thinks he will get more votes in November. All he wants is a rally. We need the scientists to get us through these tough times, someone we can trust and believe in, like Dr. Fauci, Dr. Burkes and the CDC. Please, not Trump again!

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It’s Monday, July 20, and I just heard Joe Biden say he thinks the Muslim faith should be taught in our schools. Would that be the same schools that you can’t say a Christian prayer in? Vote Trump 2020.

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There is no way that Cuomo cares about lives in New York State, other than his own. He made a mess with the COVID nursing home response and now, where is Mr. Windbreaker with all these killings happening in our beautiful New York City? He’s hiding under his desk. He and de Blasio need to resign, and let’s put a Republican in there that can make things happen and run this country the way it should be, law and order. I think republicans should be running every state and America would go back to what it was originally. A beautiful country, law and order where you’re not afraid to go down the street and take a walk.

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Trump is not a law and order president any more than Nixon was. Trump is trying to start a civil war in this country. If you people are foolish enough to play into it, well, good luck.

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Think about this when deciding how to vote in November. The republicans have had multiple opportunities to remove Donald Trump and refused to. The only republican that should stay in office is Mitt Romney because he did the correct thing and voted him guilty. All the other republicans did was let the terror continue in the White House and that’s why we are in this horrible, horrible mess. 

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What is the purpose of the government? The 16th through 41st words of the constitution read, “establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Is there any part or similar words contained in the Democratic Party platform? No. The purpose of government is to ensure the preservation of life, liberty, and property. Boss Cuomo and de Blasio, freed criminals on account of ChiCom Flu, put violent felons back onto the streets with no cash bail policy, ordered ChiCom Flu into elder care facilities, refused to enforce selected laws, weaponized the law, and encouraged riots and destruction of property. When will the madness end?

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The most important issue in the coming election is whether you prefer a very large central government similar to Russia, China, Cuba, etc., or a capitalistic republic which gives us freedom, liberty and justice, and has saved the world from liberalism many times. Who will save the world if the liberals should gain control and join the other liberal countries? I love President Trump.

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The U.S. is roughly 26 trillion in debt, so why are the U.S. taxpayers expected to support the U.S. Foreign Policy of policing the world at the expense of domestic issues that could be resolved if the funds were actually spent inside the U.S. borders. With over 800 military bases around the globe, attacking any country we deem not up to our so called democratic lifestyle with economic sanctions that cause humanitarian crises, when we have 26 million living in poverty in the U.S. and another 500,000 homeless, higher education and healthcare for the wealthy, and the rest of us get the scrapes.

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President Trump took a cognitive test and passed. He was able to distinguish the difference between a dog and giraffe. He knows the difference between a circle and a square. He can also connect the numbers 1, 2, and 3. He bragged how the doctors were so impressed because he aced the test. Claims he’s a genius and got 100 percent correct. Think about that.

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Raise your hand if you think the “people” burning, rioting, looting and destroying other people’s property in Portland Oregon would rather be working, if only this lock down would go away. Yeah, right. Juvenile temper tantrums continue and they will until someone stops them by force! Summer of love anyone?

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Please think hard about reelecting Trump. The damage he has done to our democracy is huge. The damage he has done to the Republican Party is hopefully repairable. With our freedom comes our responsibility for all of us. Not just what is good for one’s self. Please defeat our current president, regroup, and spend the next four years making a plan to bring our great country back to a democracy that is respected and cohesive. And whatever party you are aligned to, get involved to make the changes you want to see. And please remember we must be willing to compromise, and will often get some of what we want. Democracy is not all or none. Dictatorship is.  

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I admit I am terribly confused; would someone in the healthcare profession please clarify something for me? It seems there are a lot of folks that apparently think that if you are outside, there is no need for masks ever, even when close (less than 6-feet) to a person that is not someone you live with; nor similarly, no need for social distancing. I struggled with my science classes on occasion, but it doesn’t seem to me that COVID-19 knows the difference between outside air and inside air. The respiratory droplets carrying the virus are still released when talking, coughing, sneezing; people can be ill with the disease and not know they have it. I glanced through the CDC website and they seem to think a mask is necessary outside if you are going to be closer than 6-feet to someone not a member of your household.

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COVID-19 is a hoax. Ninety percent of deaths in New York are from co-morbidities (coronary artery disease, renal disease, COPD, stroke, cancer, etc.). The actual survival rate is 99.99987 percent. Corrupt politicians are destroying our country, our livelihood and our children. All the data is on the New York State Department of Health website. Take off the stupid masks.  

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Have you noticed that the public officials demanding continuation of the lockdown are not dependent on a source of income that is affected? Their paychecks continue, no problem, while others get to try to exist with no income. Interesting. Perhaps they need to hear loud and clear from folks whose income is affected!

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I would hope that Joe Biden would choose Mayor Bottoms of Atlanta as his running mate. She has done an outstanding job of righting the ship in Atlanta and has had her hand in control of the right things to do to try to control the COVID-19 epidemic.

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Some thoughts about our Governor’s recent visit to Savannah, Ga. to “advise” on handling COVID-19. Did he wear a mask? Did he shake hands, without gloves? Did he self-quarantine upon returning to New York? I guess it’s just another example of his “do as I SAY,  not as I DO”, policy!