Did the postal service that used to serve the Upper Valley so well close shop and leave town with no forwarding address?
I am sure that most folks here in the Upper Valley never fully appreciated the fact that we actually received mail and packages in a timely manner when the post office in White River Junction was our distribution hub. Now that it is in Nashua, N.H., we go days without any delivery service at all as our letters, bills and packages crawl through a system that’s designed to be slow, cumbersome, infuriating and slow, slow, slow, slow.
Did I mention slow?
My husband and I have been expecting an important package for nearly three weeks now, and have been tracking it online. It was mailed in Vermont, and shipped to Nashua where it sat — unmoved and unmoving — for two weeks.
Then one morning, when we checked its status, it had been shipped to Memphis, Tenn.
Why? I figure that the same intelligent decision-makers who decided to move our hub from White River Junction to Nashua are also responsible for our package being sent there as well.
We’ve tried to get help on this issue but a collective shrug seems the best anyone can do. We have no idea when or if our package will ever appear in our mailbox.
Our postal system used to be good. Now it is a national disgrace.
Few people ever complain to our senators or representatives, so those who do — with legitimate complaints and not conspiracy theories — do get heard. If you are fed up with our dismal excuse for a postal service, please speak up. Maybe we can rescue it before our distribution hubs end up in China!
SONJA HAKALA
West Hartford
I ask the nursing students who might drop out of school because of COVID-19 vaccine requirements to please do their research (“Quitting one shot over another: Nursing students drop out to escape vaccine mandate,” Sept. 28).
I am a retired physician, and I have had the pleasure of working with many fine, dedicated, caring nurses, and indeed our health care system cannot operate without them. If nurses-in-training want something to worry about, please think about the real risks in this noble profession. In 2016, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the rate of occupational injury and illness for nurses was 104.2 cases per 10,000 full-time workers — much greater than the 91.7 per 10,000 rate for all occupations. Lifting and moving patients can be dangerous. Though needle sticks don’t account for many lost days of work, the risk of HIV, hepatitis and other blood-borne diseases, as well as exposure to all sorts of harmful substances, airborne and otherwise, is real.
Learning about how to reduce risk is an important process, and as health care workers we would get repeated lessons and mandatory exams each year to make sure we stay as safe as possible. Adding the risk of COVID-19 exposure has increased the risk even further.
The COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective against serious disease, hospitalizations and death. Depending on reports of adverse events through the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System is limited by reporting bias, inconsistent data quality, incomplete data and the fact that there is no unvaccinated data there to compare. Randomized trials have shown the vaccines to be safe and effective. Read published data. Visit CovidVaccineFacts4Nurses.org for good information from the American Nurses Association.
If nursing students think they know what’s best, then it’s best for them to go to medical school where they can learn to make data-driven health care decisions. Doctors are quite aware of risk and benefits when giving or prescribing any medication. According to the American Medical Association, 96% of physicians are vaccinated.
LETHA MILLS
Norwich
The New Hampshire Bulletin article in the Valley News regarding the number of nursing students leaving their programs to avoid a vaccine mandate follows the previous articles about the resistance to these mandates in health care facilities (“Quitting one shot over another: Nursing students drop out to escape vaccine mandate,” Sept. 28).
It is difficult to understand this resistance, especially when it comes to health care facilities. There has also been reporting on the existing shortages of nurses and other health care professionals, even apart from the vaccine issue.
The confluence of these factors presents what schools and health care facilities should see as an educational opportunity. These institutions can, separately or in cooperation, develop educational programs to address the concerns, specifically covering how viruses develop, mutate and spread through a community, the history of how diseases have been eliminated through vaccines, and the drug testing and approval process.
A critical component of any such program would be how to distinguish accurate information about the disease and the vaccines from the misinformation that is so widespread. When an objection is raised, the source of the information must be considered. What is the basis of the information? Is the objection based on medical factors?
We are fortunate in the Upper Valley to have many professionals who would be able to contribute to programs such as this. While a program like this would initially be targeted to the current COVID-19 issues, it would be useful as an educational tool to look at many questions in the areas of health and medicine.
SUSAN MATTSON
Grantham
After reading Randall Balmer’s Sept. 5 opinion column (“Race, Reagan and the rise of the Religious Right”), I have a number of observations.
His assertion that the elections of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Donald Trump in 2016 were primarily motivated by racism on the part of evangelicals is ridiculous. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of evangelical denominations and many evangelicals aren’t affiliated with any of them. If they can’t agree theologically beyond their core tenets, why does he think they would be homogeneous as to their reasons for why they voted as they did?
Let’s briefly revisit the 1980 presidential campaign. The choice seemed between a twice-married former actor and a Georgia Sunday school teacher. But Reagan had distinguished himself as California governor and made his appeal on the basis that “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you” is the worst thing you can hear. It didn’t hurt his candidacy that the Carter administration was seen as weak because it mishandled the Iran hostage crisis.
Fast forward to the 2016 election, where Balmer was flummoxed by the fact that 81% of evangelicals voted for a “thrice-married casino operator and self-confessed sexual predator.” The issue was that Hillary Clinton was even less likeable. If race had anything to do with it, it was because Clinton had received Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger Award, named for Planned Parenthood’s founder who supported the eugenics movement and engaged with white supremacists.
Notwithstanding the brutal killing of George Floyd and the riots it ignited, Black people and other people of color in general did better economically during Trump’s term than they did under Barack Obama.
Maybe someday Democrats will realize that Black people are more intelligent and capable than they’re given credit for. Until then, they’ll keep them on the 21st century iteration of the plantation, perpetually dependent on government subsidies.
WILLIAM A. WITTIK
Hartford
William Garner’s Sept. 26 response (“Trump was out of control, tyrannical”) to Douglas Tuthill’s Sept. 22 Forum letter (“Tyrannical government is out-of-control”) was right on the mark.
The Jan. 6 insurrection against the Capitol was a crime, conceived and instigated by then-President Donald Trump, given encouragement by his (and others’) lies about the outcome of the 2020 election, and carried out by his supporters, who announced that “Trump sent us” and voiced the intent to kill the vice president and members of Congress.
The true tyrant was Trump, who seems to draw inspiration from authoritarian leaders of other countries.
In the same Sept. 22 issue, a Forum letter by John Nelson (“How long does America have to put up with Biden?”) takes issue with several events that have occurred during Joe Biden’s presidency and attributes them to Biden’s being “cognitively deficient.”
While it is perfectly acceptable to disagree with Biden’s policies as a matter of principle, he does not show any signs of being “cognitively deficient,” in my view. One only needs to actually listen to him address a multitude of issues in considerable detail to realize that he gives thought to the issues and understands them in a way his predecessor never did (and wouldn’t bother to try).
In an ideal world, the Valley News would do well to print letters with well-reasoned opinions rather than those that resort to misinformation and insults.
STEPHEN JORDAN
Sunapee