Letters

I have not watched the Academy Awards in years, 15 if memory serves correct. I just don’t see the purpose of wasting several hours of my life to watch people praise one another, spout off political, racial and religious ideology on their adoring fans.

The continuing COVID-19 pandemic has shown the limitations and risks of skilled nursing facilities, as well as the importance of extended care at home beyond the pandemic. There is a better way to care for seriously ill Medicare beneficiaries after hospital discharge.

Things I hated about the Sixties:

In my 75 years, I have dedicated a great deal of my time and money to advocate for homeless cats and dogs. Pet shelters exist in most U.S. cities in an attempt to rehome the lucky ones that are considered adoptable.

If a veteran died on or after Oct. 1, 2021, we’ll pay a $300 burial allowance and $828 for a plot. The Social Security Department pays a whopping $225 for the funeral (the national average cost of a funeral with viewing in 2020 was $9,150. That cost does not include cemetery service or cemetery property charges.)

March was Women’s History Month, and I’m writing to honor the women who have come before us, recognize our current leaders, and celebrate our future trailblazers.

In the March 13 Monitor, we read about the ludicrous situations of hiring and firing in our local governments in America! Here in the Valley, people are hired to fill jobs with contracts containing loopholes stipulating terms of employment. These loopholes are costing taxpayers billions of dollars throughout America just to terminate someone, even if it is of a political nature!

The situation in Ukraine is getting downright genocidal with the Russian army killing civilians left and right. When you look at the maps of the entire planet, Russia takes up more land area than China and India combined with these two countries having 36% of the world’s population. Russia is losing people according to estimates of experts with only 148 million remaining.

In the wake of the crisis in Ukraine, last month the U.S. Secretary of Energy called upon American energy producers to increase output “to stabilize the market and minimize harm to American families.” This comes after more than a year of this administration taking deliberate steps to discourage, and in some cases halt, oil and natural gas production in our country, in addition to calling for an end to drilling during the 2020 campaign. American consumers are suffering with skyrocketing prices and feeling the repercussions of canceled pipeline projects, halted leases on federal lands, delayed approvals for permits and the discouragement of additional expansion — poor, short-sighted decisions that are exacerbated by the war.

Banning abortions increases crime, research proves. New research finds that legalized abortion following Roe v. Wade accounts for 45% of the decline in U.S. crime rates over the past three decades.