Go back to sports with safety

After reading the article “Let Colorado kids resume fall sports,” I feel my opinion could shed some light on the minds of the youths.

I truly do think that we, the youths and children of Colorado, should be allowed to resume fall sports. The sports we play impact a huge part of our lives.

Oftentimes, the sports we play affect our future. The senior athletes need something to send to colleges on their applications and scouts need games to go to. When kids don’t have enough money to pay for college, they rely on sports scholarships, and they can’t win those if they don’t play.

Or children use sports to get out of sticky situations whether at home or on the streets. These extracurricular activities could be the only things keeping them out of trouble and safe. Are we really just going to take that from them?

On the other hand, during this rough pandemic time we have family members to keep safe.

We should be allowed to go back to sports with safety measures in place.

Wearing a mask, hand sanitizer readily available, social distancing when possible. And, of course, I realize how difficult this might be for the players but keeping ourselves and our families safe and healthy is important, too. People in these kids’ families can be high risk or the children themselves. We still have to protect them.

Yes, let us go back to fall sports but take some precautions.

Autumn Lee

Colorado Springs

Please keep dogs contained

Re: Dogs shot in Cañon City. I live in rural El Paso County and regularly walk and bike our dirt roads out here. Unfortunately, I have experienced dogs coming at me, barking and being aggressive. I carry a gun but so far I have not had to use it on dogs, I will yell and show them that I am not afraid of them and that has worked … so far.

Shooting someone’s dog is last resort but if I am attacked, I will shoot the dog(s). I have two dogs, and they are not able to escape.

I’m asking rural people to please keep your dogs contained. I will shoot a dog if I am attacked. But, I will also call the Sheriff’s Department. My message to dog owners is this …. keep your dogs on your property. Just because you ‘live out here’ that doesn’t allow you to let your dogs run loose.

Pearl Jordan

Calhan

There could not be a worse nomination

I read with interest Sen. Michael Bennet’s comments in today’s Gazette about Bureau of Land Management Interim Director William Pendley. Sen. Bennet asked why Pendley has been allowed to stay on at BLM as the president has withdrawn his nomination. I concur with the senator since Pendley’s nomination for director of the BLM was one of the president’s most egregious moves to appease his dwindling base. There could not be a worse nomination for the position unless James Watt reappears.

Among other items, Pendley has compared global warming to the existence of unicorns since neither exists, described climate science as junk science, compared immigrants to a cancer, has pushed to sell off millions of acres of federal land, called activists of climate change kooks, wanted to kill the Endangered Species Act, and noted that environmental activists are ecofascists. Perhaps Pendley is a clone of Watt since he was hired by him to work in the Department of the Interior.

I also have wondered why Sen. Cory Gardner has not offered his opinion on Pendley’s qualifications and nomination. The senator champions himself as a great supporter of conservation and takes much credit for moving the bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act to completion. He could strengthen his conservation ethos by demanding that Pendley be removed from his interim position.

Michael Nelson

Colorado Springs

Our current state of affairs

We have once again fallen victim to playing to the lowest common dominator. The fight over the need for social distancing and wearing of masks during a pandemic is distracting every level of government from the ever growing crises plaguing our state.

The shuttering of our local small businesses; the lack of constant guidelines around safely educating our youngest minds; the impending tsunami of evictions and its resulting homelessness; the reality for the paycheck to paycheck worker that catching up might not be an option for them after the lockdown even while working 40 hours a week; the discolored sun shining through the smoky reality that climate change isn’t coming — it’s here.

This dark nutshell review of our current state of affairs might be considered dramatic by some — but please let’s talk more about how people don’t like having to wear a mask.

Patrick Dillon

Berthoud

Should we defund Social Security?

On Aug. 8, President Donald Trump signed an executive memo for a temporary payroll tax holiday and said,“If I’m victorious on Nov. 3rd, I plan to forgive these taxes and make permanent cuts to the payroll tax.”

He didn’t say what would replace those tax revenues, which are the funding source for Social Security and part of Medicare. The chief actuary of SSA said that if the tax was cut with no alternative source of revenue, the Social Security fund would be depleted by mid-2023 with no ability to pay benefits after that.

Basically, Trump is saying, “Trust me.”

In 2015, Trump said he would repeal Obamacare and replace it with “something terrific.” In January 2017, he said he was close to completing his health care plan. On July 19, he said, “We’re signing a health care plan within two weeks…” On Aug. 7, he said he would issue an executive order in the next two weeks “requiring health insurance companies to cover all preexisting conditions for all customers” and that covering preexisting conditions had “never been done before.” Obamacare requires coverage for preexisting conditions.

As revealed in the tapes of Bob Woodward’s interviews with Trump, the president did not trust the American people to handle the truth about COVID-19, so he lied and told us that the virus was like common flu and not a big deal.

He doesn’t trust us. Do you trust him?

Craig Sommer

Fort Collins