A house divided
Think of all the good money that has been spent, and is being spent on political ads, to spread misinformation and promises made that candidates must know they can’t keep. This is money that could bring much-needed help to the homeless, the hungry, people out of work, small business — the list goes on and on.
And we have a do-nothing Congress, on both sides of the aisle, who seem to want to score political points instead of solving problems. There’ll be enough blame to go around after this is over. To quote a guy named Lincoln many years ago, “A house divided against itself cannot stand”.
Dennis Ryan
Patten
Trump not making America great
On Sunday, New Hampshire received a special shipment of 91,000 pounds of personal protective gear — face masks and gowns and such — a shipment arranged for the state by an entrepreneur doing business in Shanghai. The New Hampshire papers are exulting, but that should not be the reaction. New Hampshire’s “score” underscores a profound failure: the Trump administration’s failure to attack the COVID-19 pandemic through a unified, national counter-offensive.
Instead, individual states — including Maine — must go in alone, buying PPE supplies however and wherever they can, competing with each other, competing with buyers around the world. The federal government should have taken over procurement on behalf of all states from the first, allocating supplies based on need.
President Donald Trump has made a national disaster of a virus we could have potentially contained if the president had taken the threat seriously when he was alerted to the oncoming disaster in January.
This is a disaster we could, even now, be doing a better job combating if there was a nationwide battle plan, shaped by the “generals” this self-described wartime president should be listening to: epidemiologists and experts, like Dr. Anthony Fauci, in combating infectious diseases.
But no. This president seems to prefer to posture, claiming successes for which he has no claim, and shifting responsibility to governors who must cobble together ad hoc responses to a task that belongs to the commander in chief.
Donald Trump has not made America great again. He is making it weak and ineffectual.
David Chase
York
Whales and ship strikes
I am a retired marine biologist. The Associated Press article by Patrick Whittle in the BDN on April 11 about right whales only discusses injuries and deaths that appear to have been caused by entanglement with vertical lines attached to lobster traps. However, the Center for Biological Diversity estimates that half of all right whale deaths are caused by ship strikes.
Right whales are at great risk from being struck by cruise ships, especially, for several reasons. First, cruise ships release large volumes of treated and untreated sewage sediment every hour.
Invertebrate copepods can feed on that suspended sewage on and near the surface and thus can be attracted to those shipping lanes. Right whales feed on those suspended copepods on and near the surface. Thus, right whales can essentially be attracted or “chummed” into exactly the lanes where cruise ships sail. The result: cruise ships striking, injuring, or killing right whales.
Question: why are lobstermen being blamed for right whale injuries and deaths when half of those actually are caused by ship strikes?
I suggest that BDN reporters should begin to examine the effects that cruise ships have had on right whale feeding patterns, the increasing numbers of such ships in the Gulf of Maine and the Gulf of St. Lawrence (before the coronavirus pandemic), and therefore, the increasing likelihood of even more right whale injuries and deaths from ship strikes. I suggest that the current cancelation of cruise ship visits to Maine ports be made into a permanent ban.
Gary W. Conrad
Bar Harbor
Quarantine questions
I read the recent BDN article about Mainers’ attitude about the influx of people from out of state during this time of the virus and quarantine. One woman provided a camp so a New York City family could escape to Maine. She is upset by the “mean” stay-at-home attitude of some Mainers, including some island residents. She translated this as them saying “your health is not valued as much at mine.”
I think we can find some answers to all of this by asking what a quarantine is, and why we are quarantined. We have been told this virus came from China. It was spread around the world when people were exposed to it and traveled through other countries and to their home country.
From news reports, the virus has spread to all of the U.S. states. Authorities believe the quarantine and travel restrictions will limit the exposure and spread of the virus to more people. I think most Mainers are respecting the quarantine and are abiding by it.
Therefore, it is questionable when there is an influx of travelers coming into Maine in an attempt to escape the virus that is in their area.
Beth Gott
Kenduskeag
Details matter
In response to Chris Reed’s OpEd, “Shortages are indefensible,” in the March 25 edition of the BDN, I have to take exception to his claim that the aircraft plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan, was producing a B-24 bomber at the rate of one “in just over an hour.”
A simple search on the internet would produce the actual rate. At its peak, in 1944, the Willow Run plant was turning out one B-24 Liberator bomber every hour. That’s not the same as building each bomber in just over an hour. Pictures of the facility show an assembly line over a mile in length.
The plant was built, starting in 1941, but took three years to reach full production. Charles A. Lindbergh detailed the startup issues in “The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh” published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., of New York in 1970.
For a long time, major components of the B-24 were being rejected due to shoddy workmanship.
Such a simple detail, so easily researched, calls into question many of the other claims made by Reed. Especially since he is the deputy editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune.
William Chapman
Rockport