Letters to the Editor, May 8

Why won’t Publix allow us to be protected?

We are living in an unprecedented time with far more questions than answers. One consistent point however among the medical community is that in addition to social distancing, the most important thing we can do is wear face masks in public.

Each time I go into the big Publix on Marco I am astounded by the number of people who do not wear masks. I wear a mask to protect others, not me. Don’t they in turn owe me the same courtesy?

I called Publix corporate headquarters and their answer was basically “we’ve talked about it."

I spoke to the local manager, referenced how COSTCO, Fresh Market and others are making masks mandatory. His answer was that "he has no control, it’s up to corporate."

I care about protecting others, apparently Publix, while their workers now wear masks, doesn’t seem to care if unmasked shoppers can make their employees or other shoppers sick.

Judy Sacher, Marco Island

Thank you

The ban recreational marijuana PAC wishes to thank all of the registered voters who filled out a petition, 10% of registered voters on 11/2018 (1,275) that were certified by the supervisor of election to qualify to get a referendum (prohibit the sale of recreational marijuana on Marco Island) on the August primary ballot.

We also received a sufficiency certification from the city to qualify to get the referendum on the ballot. Signed petitions are still coming in and I am logging then in for future. I would also like to thank the many volunteers that assisted us in getting petitions filled out.

Respectfully.

Amadeo Petricca, Marco Island

Downplayed COVID-19 

President Trump, Fox News and their associates, especially Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, have downplayed COVID-19 from the beginning, and most of them still are downplaying it.

When you downplay it, people will not take it seriously and will not take even a simple preventive measure such as physical distancing.

The ($2 trillion) emergency stimulus bill passed and signed by the president in March (to relieve the COVID-19 crisis) contained $500 billion to bail out corporations.* Bailouts make a mockery of free-market capitalism and essentially destroy it.

Corporate bailouts are for stockholders. Since the top 10 percent wealthy hold 85 percent of stocks,** this is a bailout for the wealthy. It redistributes wealth from the rest of us to the wealthy and creates oligarchs.

These oligarchs buy legislators, who in turn dole out more corporate bailouts. The end result will be Russia-style oligarchy replaces our free-market capitalism.

Mukhtar Ali, Marco Island 

[Editor's notes: *The $500 billion of taxpayers' money in the relief bill was designated for loans to big corporations, according to online reports by major news media outlets. **The top 10% of American households, as defined by total wealth, owned 84% of all stocks in 2016, according to a paper by New York University economist Edward N. Wolff cited online by Money on Dec.19, 2017 and The New York Times on Feb. 8, 2018.]