Improve access to diabetes care
World Diabetes Day is Nov. 14 and the theme for 2021-23 is access to diabetes care. Millions of people with diabetes around the world cannot access the care they need. People with diabetes require ongoing care and support to manage their condition and avoid complications. We are living in extraordinarily difficult times, in which people with diabetes are facing an additional major health threat. Regretfully, we have seen that people living with diabetes can be more susceptible to the worst complications of COVID-19. Nearly half the people who have died from COVID-19 in the United States were patients with diabetes.
Diabetes in Arizona: Nearly 600,000 people with diabetes in Arizona at present. One in 10 Arizonans suffer from diabetes. The related costs in Arizona are $6.8 billion a year.
Dr. Prakash Kotecha
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South Tucson
Popular measures blocked by GOP
I strongly support a free press, and believe that America’s journalists have been doing an excellent job in these challenging times. But I believe a current story is being unfairly misreported.
Strong majorities of Democrats, independents and Republicans support: a) reducing the cost of prescription drugs; b) making junior college and college more affordable; and c) closing the loopholes that allow America’s wealthiest individuals and corporations to avoid paying anywhere near their fair share of the taxes needed to support education, infrastructure, the military, etc.
Democrats are being blamed for failing to deliver on these issues, in spite of the fact that the proposed measures are supported by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. These measures are failing because lack of support by Republican senators. So why are Democrats being blamed?
Brooks Keenan
Oro Valley
Reduce your carbon footprint
Help cool the planet by reducing thousands of pounds of CO2 by installing rooftop solar panels and using an electric vehicle (EV). My roof panels produce power for daily use. When power production exceeds consumption, power goes to the grid for my neighbors and gives me a credit on the power bill.
Payback of my solar installation is 8½ years (estimate from installer). The cost of solar has dropped 60% in recent years and the federal solar tax credit is 26%. Each month, 2,400 pounds of CO2 is offset, or 28,800 pounds a year!
Charging my EV is done with solar power and no gasoline or grid power. This produces an estimated yearly savings of over $1,200, or 400 gallons of gasoline. The carbon offset is 8,000 pounds due to the chemical reaction of burning gasoline.
Backup batteries remain very expensive and would more than double the system cost and payback time.
Bert Gustafson
Oro Valley
Troubling column on US defense
Re: the Oct. 30 article “China threat requires our strength.”
Joe Ambrose’s recent column emphatically portrays the threat China poses to the free world through its strident expansionism, coupled with its growing inventory of highly destructive hypersonic weapons. As both a pacifist and a pragmatist, I reluctantly agree that our nation needs to portray an unequivocal posture of military strength as an effective deterrent to war.
Comparing us to China, Ambrose claims we have a serious deficiency in up-to-date Navy ships and an archaic inventory of military aircraft. I find it difficult to believe that the majority of our military aircraft are obsolete. If that is indeed the case, then the Pentagon squandered a golden opportunity under the Trump administration to secure necessary funding to bring our military capabilities up to par. Indeed, if Ambrose is right we are certainly in dire straits.
John Newoirt, Ph.D.
Northwest side
Ballot violence inspired by lies
Re: the Oct. 31 article “Threat of political violence simmers.”
Three cheers for Tim Steller’s superb editorial in Sunday’s Star, with its plea for tolerance, moderation and humanity. Some time ago I wrote a letter to the Star asking our Republican brethren how far they were willing to go down the dark road that Donald Trump was leading them. Evidently for some of them, to insurrection and madness. Mr. Trump’s serious allegations of voter fraud, which he used to instigate the Jan. 6 attack on Congress, were not valid. And after Cyber Ninjas (hired by the Legislature for their stated bias) still found Joe Biden won, Trump told followers the opposite. Trump is following a pattern well-established by dictators and demagogues: if you repeat a lie long enough and loud enough, people will believe it. His followers think they are saving the country. They are not. They are destroying it.
Abraham R. Byrd III
North side
Some zingers on politicians
Many well known persons have talked about this subject with great wisdom and clarity concerning our crisis at the border and our desire to tax the rich to help the poor. Some have called our current leaders idiots.
Mark Twain was ahead of his time when he wrote “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Government. But then I repeat myself.”
Concerning the corruption on all levels of government, Doug Larson warned: “Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.”
But concerning voter fraud and unemployment encouragement, George Bernard Shaw said it best: “The problem we face today is because the people that work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a living.”
Tom McGorray
Northwest side
