Letters to the Editor - The Lakeville Journal - 6-2-22

Is it merely nostalgic to ask lawmakers to do something?

“Faster than a speeding bullet” was just one of the super heroic descriptions about the main character offered up at the beginning of each episode of one of my favorite TV shows growing up. “Superman” was also “more powerful than a locomotive, could bend steel with his bare hands, and was able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.”

Whoee, that’s a lot to live up to. But he did.

The actor, George Reeves, played the character Superman with a certain sly playful earnestness that, as a young kid, allowed me to remain feeling safe while watching the show which usually had some “bad guys” doing bad things. I just knew that Superman would catch ’em and stop the really bad stuff from happening and hand those criminals over to the police. I remember he once even bent a bad guys gun barrel into the shape of a pretzel.

Unfortunately, nowadays, it’s straight gun barrels that are turning all of us into pretzels. One dare not look at the news anymore, for sure as shootin’, there’s gonna be another “mass casualty event” report that drains the blood from your dizzying mind and makes you heartsick. Just in these past two weeks, a supermarket, a church and an elementary school have all been ground zeroes for the planned slaughter of innocents. Whether you’re a Black American, Asian American or Latino American doesn’t seem to matter, — all racial, ethnic and age groups (whites included) are now potential whistle stops for this malevolent, American grievance freight train.  Non-pretzeled gun barrels seem to be randomly coming for any of us in evermore rapid fire fashion.

It doesn’t take a giant leap of the imagination to see where this malignant juggernaut of violence against innocents will eventually lead. The human species has a long bloody history of “arms races.” From flints to flint locks and up to the present day survivalist assault weapons, we homo sapiens (Latin: wise-men) have almost always reached for evermore physical force in conflicts rather than use the miracle of human reason to clear a path toward meaningful survival in a hostile world.

How many guns does our Second Amendment embracing population now own ... 300,000,000-plus? Somebody’s making a mint off of this existentially perceived, fear fed, domestic arms race. I wonder who?     

Back in my childhood, the good thing about watching TV was I would always feel safe from the bad guys, even during the commercials. You can see it now: Here comes a “real man” on horseback, trotting in golden light on the range out West, striking a wooden match and lighting up his cigarette.

I say again, I wonder who’s making a fist full of dollars off of the exponential rise in gun sales in this “land of the free and home of the brave.”

Granted, no one is Superman. But, is it merely waxing nostalgic to ask for our lawmakers to do something, and in so doing, “stand up for truth, justice, and the American way?”

Michael Moschen

Cornwall Bridge

Sharon Hospital issues

I am a student who goes to Salisbury School. I am writing because I do not agree with what Nuvance is doing to Sharon Hospital, but I understand why it is happening. I know it is important to understand the process even if you do not agree with it.

Recently I got access to a power point called Sharon Hospital Employee Town Hall: Our Strategic Direction. The PowerPoint was from Sept. 29, 2021. The PowerPoint’s data was gathered from NC Rural Health Research Program, and The Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. The presentation shows that “Rural Hospital Closures: 180 Closures since 2005; 138 Closures in Last Decade; and 40% more at risk of closing.” Based on a risk map from CHQPR.ORG that Nuvance included in the power point, the Sharon Hospital is at an elevated risk of closing. “Throughout the past 3-year period, Sharon Hospital has lost $39.8m, with an additional anticipated loss of $21m this year.”

Nuvance needs to be upfront with the public if they really do have good intentions and want us to understand the process. The people need to understand where the money is going and why it is so expensive to operate the seemingly basic needs of a rural community.

I know that most of the Salisbury School faculty’s children were born in the Sharon Hospital’s maternity ward. I know two faculty members who are expectant mothers. I do not know how we can tell these people in good conscience that an 11.1-mile, 18-minute drive to Sharon Hospital will turn into a 40-mile, 1 hour drive to Vassar Brothers Medical Center.

We also need to ask, what if a woman goes into labor earlier than expected? The Nuvance PowerPoint has quotes like, “Sharon Hospital has seen an average of fewer than 200 annual deliveries for the past four years, and birthrates are decreasing;” and, “We cannot continue serving the longterm needs of our community without adapting to our current realities…”. After the removal of the Labor and Delivery unit, a pregnant woman driving an hour away is our new reality.

Max Tsun

Salisbury