Fire DeJoy, restore Postal Service: Letters to the editor, Sept. 4, 2020

Fire DeJoy, restore Postal Service

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy needs to be fired and replaced, and Trump needs to be warned to stay out of interfering with our United States election process. The United States Postal Service must replace and repair recent damage that was done to post offices throughout the United States.

Our USPS is crucial for senior citizens and veterans to receive needed medicines, it is crucial for our military personnel to receive mail and “care” packages from home, and it is extremely crucial for voters during our November 2020 election to be able to vote by mail fairly and safely.

Since Tom McClintock has been elected to represent the people of his district, he needs to do his job and protect the USPS.

Biblical values and public health

Some Christian churches, as reported in The Bee, disregard public health rules aimed at protecting the health of our neighborhoods. This makes me wonder what Christianity and the Bible actually mean to them.

Both Jewish law in Leviticus and Jesus in the Gospels state that the two most important commandments are to love God and to love one’s neighbor as oneself. I wonder if disregarding rules designed to protect our neighbors from further spread of COVID is consistent with obeying the commandment to love one’s neighbor. If my church, now meeting regularly on Zoom, took that position, it would no longer be my church.

And now to my great dismay, I learn that my alma mater, Immanuel High School, has also taken an anti-public health stance. My Immanuel teachers (I especially remember Vernon Janzen) taught me to love and read the Bible, and to meditate on it’s meaning. But that was many years ago and it appears something has changed.

Could it be that Immanuel and churches that are opposed to public health mandates have a more important mission than loving God and their neighbors? Are financial or political values taking precedence over Biblical values?

Heat spells and threat of COVID-19

During these recent weeks of more than 100-degree temps, I feel so fortunate to have an indoor job and access to air conditioning. But I worry about the millions of people in our communitywho work outdoors or don’t have adequate shelter or air conditioning.

I just read in the CalCan report that extreme heat, worsened by climate change, has surpassed pesticide exposure as the major health concern for agricultural workers. Can you imagine what people working on farms go through in this punishing sun for 8-10 hours in order to feed the rest of us and support their families?

On top of that, climate change and air pollution are both caused by greenhouse gas emissions, and exacerbate asthma, COPD, allergies and lung cancer. These conditions are also known to make people who get COVID-19 be more vulnerable to getting seriously ill.

Effective legislation and good urban planning can slow global warming and reduce human suffering. Elections are just around the corner; please support candidates that advocate for effective solutions to protect our climate, air and health.

Student misses ‘actual school’

School is online this year. I am very unhappy. I wanted to go to actual school, where I have great friends, great teachers, and an awesome atmosphere.

Online school isn’t the same as actual school. During the end of last year, I would always find a distraction. I wouldn’t focus at all and I did not learn. There were no papers or anything for doing homework. Everything could be easier, but boring. At actual school, I won’t have any distractions. Me, and many of my friends, think that we should all go to school! But, if we went, we would always have to keep our distance and wear a mask.

What I think is fair is that we could go to school one day, have online school the next day, and do it over and over. So, for the people that don’t want to go to school, there is online school as an option. On the online schooling days, the janitors that work at school could sanitize and clean everything.

I miss school and I wish we could go back.

This story was originally published September 4, 2020 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Fire DeJoy, restore Postal Service: Letters to the editor, Sept. 4, 2020."