Nature, as it happens

I must say thank you Gazette for the “Catch of the day” picture. For a moment, I thought I was reading National Geographic. While I am immensely sad for the bunny, the picture does show nature as it happens. I think you should have a picture of the day every day. It was fun and made me smile.

Trish Beyer

Colorado Springs

The reverse cultural revolution

Children of the ’50s are not victims. Nor were their parents and grandparents who applied the YOYO “You’re on Your Own” method of parenting. There were no excuses. There was accountability.

Childless, I have inherited grandchildren of the 2020s through marriage. They are blessed with math skills; one even studies physics at the age of 10! My husband’s children, their parents, are also computer-age smart.

But: Reflecting the reverse cultural revolution now taking place, they are bereft of classical music, the age of thank-you notes for gifts, and the notion that they and they alone must take responsibility for their own lives. They are on their devices 24-7. They waste their days playing games and watching stupid videos on their handhelds. I once was appalled to see a grandson laughing hysterically as he watched photos of a person being physically harmed.

Having spent years substitute teaching, I was and am similarly appalled by the “books” made available by our contemporary schools: cliff-noted versions of the classics, dumbed-down vocabulary and no attention to the magic of beautiful book covers and lithographs. Today’s elementary school books are pitiful, and that’s just talking visually. That’s not even counting the rot that is inside as they read about Billy becoming Mary. Today’s children are adept at handling quick messages in a frenzy of a confused need for speed. As a result, most students know fast, but not slow. They know sound bites, but not substance.

Until and unless we return real education to careful, respect for detail and thoughtfulness, America is in serious trouble. As most students busily hurry through social media to (metaphorically) notice the butterflies perched on their shoulders, we are failing our children by renting them out to the social trolls.

Karen Cacy

Colorado Springs

Total tax burden

The Biden administration often asserted that the rich don’t pay their fair share of income taxes.

A study by the Wall Stree Journal dated Aug. 26 showed that nearly 40% of the taxes paid by the 400 wealthiest Americans comes from their payment of corporate taxes. “The corporate tax is effectively that which billionaires pay at source and is a major tax for them”, said an economist at Berkeley University, and the information was obtained with anonymous data from the IRS. This study consists of a Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans and indicates that 23.8% of their tax burden is paid as corporate tax, with the balance of their tax burden paid from individual income and payroll taxes.

Democrats claimed that the very rich pay only 8.2% of their income in individual income tax compared with 23.6% of their income for most Americans. However that figure did not include the corporate taxes that the rich paid.

The Democrats argue the ultra wealthy paid a much lower rate than the average American and therefore should be taxed more. Simply looking at individual tax returns of the very rich, does not show their total tax burden. Their total tax burden computation is very complicated including individual income tax, payroll tax and corporate tax. Most Americans only pay individual income tax.

This means billionaires’ income tax returns understate their full economic tax burden. The corporate tax is already taxing the ultra wealthy.

John Childs

Colorado Springs

Proof that vaccines work

I read that RFK, Jr., wants “proof” that vaccines are effective.

Proof of vaccines’ effectiveness has been around for 127 years. Maybe he missed reading about it.

In 1799, Edward Jenner developed a vaccine for smallpox. Up to that time, smallpox killed 10% or more of its victims. The vaccines, improved over time, has wiped the scourge of smallpox from the face of the earth.

Tuberculosis, or consumption, as it was called, killed people at an alarming rate. Sanitariums were common. However, with the discovery of penicillin, tuberculosis, although not eliminated, is under control.

Polio was rightly feared, as it could lead to paralysis and death. Drs. Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin invented vaccines that eliminated all cases in the U.S., and all but eight cases worldwide. I got this vaccine in elementary school. It was mandatory.

Measles, once a common “childhood” disease (I had it) was declared eliminated in 2020. Now, with too many knucklehead anti-vaxxers, measles cases in the U.S. this year exceed 1,000 and counting, with one unnecessary death of a child as one result.

The DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus) shot given to young children prevented contagious and potentially fatal diseases. (DPT has since been replaced with the DPaT vaccine, which is more effective and with fewer side effects.)

Yet I continually hear that vaccines cause autism, usually prefaced by, “…Studies have shown…”

Actually, I found this opinion to date back to one study, close to 30 years ago, that claimed to have found a link. After that study, Sweden did a study using 1 million schoolchildren; no link was found. Sweden did a second study, with 1.5 million schoolchildren, and no link was found. No study since has found a link between vaccines and autism. By the way, the original “study” had only 12 subjects, and the study has been totally debunked.

What vaccines have done in the last 127 years is help increase the life expectancy in the U.S. from 47 in 1900 to the mid-1970s and above today.

Trump now demands drug manufacturers “justify” the success of their treatments for COVID, as his administration deals with turmoil over vaccines and other health issues.

Wasn’t it Trump who initiated Operation Light Speed to get COVID drugs on the market faster and then took the credit for it?

Roger Thomas

Colorado Springs