Dark skies

To the Editor:

I was pleased to read in The Nugget about the city making its Dark Skies Ordinance a priority.

Standing on our front porch the other night, it was quite striking to watch the full “wolf” moon rise in the eastern skies.

The moonlight was so bright you could read the headlines of The Nugget by its glow.

A midnight stroll around the neighborhood could easily be done without the aid of a flashlight.

Still, I couldn’t help but notice that some neighbors had their porch lights on.

Hmmm… It takes a while to break old habits.

I loved to go fishing when I was a boy and would keep every fish I caught regardless of size.

Later, when I first heard about “catch and release” and “barbless hooks” it just didn’t make sense to me.

Hey, those are “my” fish! But at some point my thinking turned around.

My habit changed.

A second article in The Nugget entitled “Light Pollution Affects Everyone” underscored the importance the daily cycle of light and dark has on the health of plants and animals.

For example, birds and butterflies do most of their migration at night.

Bright lights can confuse and kill them.

You can adjust your outdoor lighting by lowering the wattage of your bulb, buying lights that point down, or adding a motion-detector device to what you already have. The cheapest thing you can do and one that will save you money is to just turn off your outdoor lights before you retire for the evening.

Changing habits takes time but at some point you “get it.” We are all part of this natural world whose beauty can disappear unless we value it. So, make a wish on the first star you see tonight, hopefully from your front porch or out your bedroom window. And be thankful for our dark skies.

Paul Bennett

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‘Whataboutism’

To the Editor:

I experienced a sense of déjà vu when I read Mr. Flavel’s letter in response to my op-ed. It showed so many similarities with what I encountered over 40 years ago in the USSR on the U.S. exhibit I served on as a temporary foreign service staff officer. When our Soviet visitors were confronted with facts that they found disagreeable and unwelcome, they frequently responded with “whataboutism” (the practice of responding to an argument by changing the subject and accusing others of offenses) and then often followed that with fearmongering.

Mr. Flavel’s first tactic to rebut my article is to engage in whataboutism. Note that Mr. Flavel didn’t contradict any of the facts I asserted. He can’t. They’re true.

Instead, he makes new arguments based on things I never said in order to deflect the reader’s attention elsewhere, citing “deplorables” and “rednecks” (that’s sort of funny since I am of Scots-Irish heritage, was born in Alabama, grew up in Georgia, and have a Southern accent!), the Steele Dossier, and on and on. None of this has anything whatsoever to do with my column.

Whataboutism is merely annoying and dishonest. But fearmongering is a different matter. It is dangerous. Chillingly, Mr. Flavel’s last sentence reads: “Be advised, folks, they walk among us.” The day when people telling the truth or expressing differing opinions are perceived as scary and threatening merely for doing that is a dread day for everyone.

Mary Chaffin

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Living ‘The Hard Way’

To the Editor:

I really appreciated reading “The Hard Way” in The Nugget (Focus on Health, January 19, page 14). A very clear and content-rich article about pushing ourselves physically, mentally and emotionally.

It’s always been my view that humans have evolved into survival machines. And boy have many people forgotten this in our modern world! Challenging ourselves physically, mentally and emotionally can be a life game-changer in a society where ease and convenience are the name of the game. In the end it makes us much better able to handle the unforeseen challenges that daily life will bring to all of us. Though many intuitively know this, the cognitive sciences are now proving that people who live “The Hard Way” are much more robust outwardly and inwardly fulfilled throughout their lives.

And daily life is the crucible where the “The Hard Way” lifestyle is most powerful. A loved one passes, you get that health diagnosis, a divorce happens, or you lose that job.

With the immense speed of technology development and the conveniences we now have as a result, both individuals and a society need to very careful to not lose our inherent sense of survivability. Society needs resilient, tough, and compassionate people so it will thrive into the future. Yes, we owe our ancestors much more than can be expressed in words. But how can we start to repay them? To start living the “The Hard Way.”

The path is different for each of us but what’s most important as they say is that first step. It’s a tried-and-true path that has been time tested and now being proven that it works to make lives immensely more robust, inwardly satisfying, and resilient.

Peter Holocher

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It’s about our freedoms

To the Editor:

England, Scotland, Czechoslovakia, Kazakhstan, Ireland (and France to a lesser degree) have canceled restrictions for masks, masks in schools, vaccines, green passes, curfews, etc. America may not be next, but it will be soon.

The narrative of the “COVID Pandemic” is falling apart and we need to look at the larger picture. To Monica Tomosy (“A call to action, op-ed, The Nugget, January 19, page 2): It was never about you vs. us, left vs. right, vaxxed vs. unvaxxed, Democrats vs. Republicans, Biden vs. Trump. It was always about all of us losing all of our freedoms. Thank you, Jim Cornelius, for pointing this out in your commentary, “The law of suspects and civil death.”

We must talk about the elections. Why? Because the pandemic was politically motivated, and not by any one political party. I have heard that 98 percent of politicians in Washington are corrupt. Many have been found out. Notice how many Representatives and Senators are not running again. Democracy will be stronger than ever after the November elections, no matter who wins. Voter ID isn’t prejudicial; it ensures election integrity. Our country overwhelmingly wants honest and fair elections. No one wants illegal noncitizens, multiple votes, voters who have moved away from a state, and dead voters voting and taking away our right to a valid election.

Biden and his team have implemented failed policies with the southern border, Afghanistan, inflation, energy resources, not-so-green deal, climate change, and international diplomacy. One has to wonder why. If the Democrats don’t win seats in the House and Senate, there is a reason. Oregon’s ballot machines were put in place in 2008 and haven’t been calibrated since 2017. The software is outdated and obsolete. A lot has happened since 2008 and 2017.

Shemia Fagan has been served “Statutory Notice of Violations of 52 U.S.C. #20507 by Judicial Watch” for failure to update voter rolls for people who have moved. “The data shows that 14 Oregon counties reported removing five or fewer voter registrations pursuant to Section 8)d)(1)(B) in that four-year period. Many of these reported removing no registrations at all.” Shemia Fagan has “failed to remove names of ineligible voters” from the voter rolls. There are many other problems with the counting of Oregon’s votes and until these are fixed, I believe hand-counting and eliminating mail-in ballots would be great ideas.

Lastly, we need to stand united for the common good of our country.

Whether we stand up, sit down, or fight, fight, fight, we are all in this together.

United we stand, I hope and pray. God bless America.

Jayne Simmons