Who Is to Blame?
To the editor:
On Saturday, July 3, I took a drive to Provincetown to get malassadas at the Portuguese Bakery. I parked at the pier for less than an hour. When I returned to my car, someone had defaced my “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Trump” bumper sticker. I’m grateful they didn’t key my car.
The sticker was cheap and I’ll put another on. I’m glad we live in a country where we can still express views without persecution or fear of having our property damaged. Or do we?
I wonder why people feel compelled to behave this way. Is it because I’ve been stereotyped? Trump supporters must be gun-toting racists?
Guess what: I’m not. I’m just a person, perhaps the person who held the door open for you, or returned the shopping cart to the store when you left it in the parking space in the pouring rain.
A few months ago, you published a letter condemning the owner of Arnold’s Lobster & Clam Bar because he was at the Capitol on Jan. 6. The person who wrote it said he would never eat at Arnold’s again. It had the opposite effect on me.
When I’m at my house in Eastham, I rarely eat out. That letter prompted me to visit Arnold’s. Covid has been tough on restaurants. They need our business more than ever, no matter what political views the owners have. I had a delicious lobster roll there. It was so good, even a radical, ignorant, closed-minded person would like it.
Check Arnold’s out. But if you see my car there with my Trump sticker, have some respect and keep your hands off, please.
Ellen G. Smith
East Hartland, Conn. and Eastham
An Unreliable Source
To the editor:
On July 15, when the Mass. VaxBus, a mobile vaccination clinic, was in Provincetown, four representatives of the United Cape Patriots set up shop nearby and distributed their organization’s array of “facts” regarding Covid-19 vaccination.
“Wouldn’t you want to know the facts before you vaxx?” their brochure asked.
Most of their assertions were either misleading or patently false. For example, the statement “All CV19 vaxx’s are experimental” is untrue. Developers of the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines have completed all the animal and human testing required for emergency use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The New England Journal of Medicine on Dec. 10, 2020 reported results of the Phase 3 randomized control studies of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Of the more than 43,000 volunteer participants, approximately half received the vaccine and half a placebo. That study showed 95-percent efficacy in preventing Covid-19. The incidence of serious side effects was low and was similar in the treated and placebo groups.
Another untrue claim of the Patriots is that “CV19 has a 99.96-percent recovery rate.” If that were true, only 14,000 (0.04 percent) of the 35 million Americans who have been infected would not have recovered. In fact, nearly 625,000 Americans have died from Covid-19.
Similarly, the Patriots ignore the fact that nearly all the people dying of Covid today are unvaccinated, and that states with the lowest vaccination rates are experiencing the largest surges in Covid hospitalizations.
The United Cape Patriots claim they want you to know the facts, but they are hardly a reliable source.
Ronald A. Gabel, M.D.
Yarmouth Port
Conditioned Air, Continued
To the editor:
As Dennis Minsky points out in his well-written column “Our Conditioned Air” [July 15, page A3], we are all guilty of hubris to some degree. But do we really have a choice?
Unfortunately, just a few people doing the right thing, like recycling, isn’t nearly enough. The entire planet has to do it together.
Good luck with that.
There is, however, a far bigger problem facing the Earth today than just climate change. In fact, it dwarfs and is the underlying reason for all of the other problems facing humanity. I was born in 1940, shortly after our species reached the 2 billion mark. Within the next few years, it is due to cross 8 billion.
Do the math. Time is short. There is no “Planet B.”
Channing Wilroy
Provincetown
Facebook and Free Speech
To the editor:
“The Facebook algorithm controls the ordering and presentation of posts, so users see what is most relevant to them,” writes Brent Barnhart on the website sproutsocial.com. “Rather than publish content chronologically, posts and ads are presented based on what Facebook sees as relevant to you, the user.”
With this control in place, “free speech” on Facebook doesn’t really seem to be an issue. Whether or not posters post freely, readers see only what Facebook wants them to see.
As we consider the meaning of free speech, a key element — the freedom to hear or read all speech — is omitted from the conversation. The old conundrum about shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater contains implicit assumptions about the presence of listeners, which we often overlook.
Whether or not there should be free speech on Facebook, its algorithm makes free speech there impossible.
Lew Schwartz
Wellfleet
