The campus of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is seen in Atlanta.
CDC reporting failures
A recent study published in a well-regarded medical journal, the type of journal I read to help me decide how to treat my patients, found this, and I quote:
"This study reports a serious failure to update federal databases that are important to protect Americans from infections and other diseases. It leaves healthcare leaders and providers without guidance on ways to deliver care and may also prevent the public from trusting information from the CDC. The biggest gap in data appeared for immunizations, which compromises this important form of care."
Simply said the CDC is now mum on infections and immunizations. Our government does not want us to know what infections are out there, and for which ones you can get immunized.
Sander Zwart
Midtown
MAGA celebration?
As we approach the historic milestone of our nation's 250th birthday, a sense of profound sadness hangs over the upcoming celebrations. Instead of a moment of reflection and pride, we will mark this occasion under the shadow of the most divisive and corrupt leadership in our history. This jubilee should be a time to honor our democracy and look forward to a bright future. Yet, the current inhabitant in the White House has put personal greed and vengeance over the public good, leaving our national discourse fouled and our global standing wrecked. The contrast between the ideals of our founders and the grifting policies of this administration could not be more stark. It's a tragedy that such a significant anniversary is being presided over by a such a person so lacking in character and dignity, so at odds with the spirit of service and integrity. We deserved a statesman to lead us into our future; instead, thanks to the MAGA pigeons, the rest of us lament what might have been.
William Muto
SaddleBrooke
The choice is ours
During Holy Week Jews and Christians reject divine sanction for the brutality of the Egyptian and Roman empires.
Yet during this week our Secretary of Defense invoked the Bible to justify brutal killing in an illegal, preemptive attack on Iran. Over 73,000 migrants, like Jesus, are dehumanized in overcrowded ICE concentration camps.
Instead of dealing with the blowback from the 1950s CIA coup in Iran and Guatemala along with climate change, our actions intensify political unrest and immigration, making us less safe.
Meanwhile, astronauts return to the moon, looking back at Earth as they did on Christmas Eve, 1968. Will this perspective remind us we are Earth’s stewards, not dominators? Will ICE abuses, like those in Birmingham and Selma, awaken our compassion? Will the divisive, fear-mongering culture wars end our 250-year-old republic, or will we have a rebirth of freedom and humanity?
The choice is ours.
Ron Nason
Midtown
Sheriff's department training
Training at the Pima County Sheriff’s Department is among the best in the nation. Officers (both Corrections Officers and Deputies) attend a basic academy (6 to 16 weeks) followed by several months of Field Training and evaluation with certified Police/ Corrections Training Officers.
Training is provided to Sheriff’s Department personnel (Corrections and Deputy) on a regular basis. This includes training from the FBI (Violent Offender Analysis), AZ Department of Corrections (Tactical Officers Training Academy), Tucson Fire Department (HazMat training), ATF (explosive devices), Los Angeles County Sheriff Department (Gangs), National Tactical Officers Association, American Jail Association, National Sheriff Association, and other agencies.
Several Sheriff Department supervisors have attended the FBI Leadership Academy. Many Corrections Officers and Deputies have Associate degrees, Master’s degrees and Doctor (retired — taught Criminal Justice and Criminal Psychology AS- Doctor for 18 years at several universities including University of Arizona and University of Arizona Global Campus).
Corrections Officers and Deputies rotate to other positions regularly. The Guthrie case is a “political kidnapping” which is rare in the United States.
Ray Bynum
Northwest side
Phoenix rental pricing
Affordability is not hard to define. Things become unaffordable when the purchase of essential goods, services or housing begins to compromise basic financial needs. Indeed, rental prices in the Phoenix area are dropping (not "plummeting"), but the "experts" are not at all "perplexed." According to Mark Stapp (W.P. Carey Center for Real Estate & Finance at Arizona State University), post-pandemic, there was a surge in multi-family construction leading to more available units than renters can absorb, in turn leading to rental discounts. He also mentions that lower prices may be short-lived, as absorption is going up (meaning occupancy is going up), and likely going into the next year or so, rents will go back up again. In short, the lower pricing has nothing to do with "uninvited guests self-deporting" to California or anywhere else - that's just another predictably weird fantasy taking up space as an LTE.
Hope Gastelum
East side
Environmental toll of war
Re: War’s environmental toll could last decades
This article correctly noted many ways in which the war with Iran is damaging to environments, with impacts that could last indefinitely. All true, if not essentially self-evident, as the impacts were all direct in nature.
An additional, indirect effect of war not mentioned might be more damaging to environments: distraction. Societies are distracted when war breaks out. Most everything else in life is relegated to the proverbial back burner. Even the environmental issue of high importance, global warming, will not get solved while countries are at war. Tabling action to avert global warming makes solving it all the more difficult deep into the future.
It’s not just the recent flare up with Iran that is distracting. Currently, the list of wars or armed conflicts is over 100 and includes scores of countries. The entire world is distracted at the moment.
Paul Sheppard
Midtown
ASDB — Fear of change? An overused cliché.
Some well-placed contemporaries offered that “the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its children.” Seeing how some of Arizona’s most vulnerable have been treated, children who are deaf/hard of hearing or visually impaired/blind, one must ask what type of society exists that would consider closing this school.
What is needed? The Governor and State Superintendent of Public Instruction together appointing an Interim Special Administrator with full authority to implement corrective actions related to clear violations of state and federal law, reporting directly to those offices and superseding the current Board of Directors. This Administrator will recapture the trust needed from parents and school districts across the state using existing factual dynamics of Arizona, the ASDB, needs of students with sensory loss, and set the ASDB on a future guided by those student needs. Research studies show when local schools and campus-based programs work together, students succeed. Leadership is here for the asking.
Retired Assistant Superintendent — ASDB
William Koehler
Northwest side
Hegseth's firings
With the removal of two Black Army officers and two female Army officers from being promoted without providing any reason and the firing of the Army Chief of Staff, it looks like Pete Hegseth is in the process of transforming the U.S. military leadership into a bunch of white, male, Christian-nationalist butt-kissing lackeys.
I'm hoping there are enough officers with character and a backbone left to stand up and do something about this gutting of our military.
Larry Hammond
Southwest side
Department of War
First, change the Department of Defense to the Department of War. Second, get rid of those military leaders with ethics and experience. Third, attack Iran without considering the consequences on world economies, gas prices, and shipping lanes. Fourth, prevent talented military leaders from promotion because of their color or gender. Fifth, tell the troops that they are fighting for Jesus and the President, not the country. Sixth, ignore every rule of the Geneva Convention including the slaughter of non-combatants, the wounded, and those without arms. Seventh, take away educational opportunities for returning troops. Eighth, ignore the families of our troops by taking away promised housing, medical care, and other aid. Ninth, tell our military forces that the Military Code of Ethics can be ignored. Tenth, consider anyone who disagrees with you an enemy to be destroyed or demeaned. Eleventh, listen only to the sycophants and not to those with real information. Twelfth, remove experts from government offices and replace them with wealthy know-nothings. Thirteenth, lie about everything.
Cynthia Schiesel
East side
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