Readers comments on a recent pedestrian death and more

Concrete city

I am sorry for the loss of Sophia Lambert this last Saturday. How many lives do we need to lose to change these money-driven development decisions?

Where are you, Gainesville? Because we cannot find you anymore, you have been transformed into a concrete city where everybody is in a rush and where too many pedestrians and bikers are dying every day because of car accidents, which are also related to the destruction of your historic buildings and nature around campus. 

Gainesville, you are virtually the only city in Florida that allows large developments without citizen input. Gainesville you are not for SALE. We, your citizens, want to protect you and we should have the right to do that. It is time for us, your citizens, to have input on such large developments. 

Marina Ascunce, Gainesville

Publicity stunt

Several recent letters to the editor have objected to Rep. Kat Cammack’s Jan 6 vote to overturn the presidential election results. I was just as disappointed in another of her out-of-the-gate actions.

Learning that she had been assigned an office next to Rashid Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American woman elected to Congress, Cammack immediately announced she would place an Israeli flag outside her own door that Tlaib would have to walk past every day. I emailed Cammack about unnecessary taunting of Muslims but never got a reply.

That’s not a political statement. It’s a tacky publicity stunt.

Leonard Tipton, Gainesville

Unacceptable waits

I am appalled at the way veterans are being treated by the local Veterans Affairs hospital with the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine. Seven-hour waits in a car with the line stretching for a mile is outrageous and unacceptable.

Surely an easier appointment system could have been set up. Whoever was responsible for this debacle needs to be fired.

Dennis Blay, Gainesville

Treasonous conduct

Donald Trump has been "predicting" for months a new civil war. It is here. He started it on Jan. 6. Our gangster-boss president has added treason to his long list of crimes.

Even after he leaves office, Trump's treasonous new civil war will continue to be prosecuted by his treasonous far-right-wing white supremacist followers. But it will continue to be led by Donald Trump.

President Joe Biden will try to unite the country. He will try to reason with Trump and his followers. But the new president will find he will have to combat Trump's new civil war.

You can't reason with treason.

Steven Mossburg, Gainesville

Clear and present danger

Now that we have a vaccine for COVID-19, science can begin work on one for Trumpism. It's an insidious, mind-numbing disease that strips all common sense from an otherwise normal person, rendering them incapable of recognizing the truth. 

This also causes manic behavior, placing our country in clear and present danger.

Lonnie Jones, Alachua

Start again

In 1974 author Hannah Arendt wrote, "If everyone always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies but rather that nobody believes anything any longer … And a people that can no longer believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also its capacity to think and to judge."

Sound familiar?

Could we start again, please?

Today.

Susan M. Stanton, Gainesville