The Village Voice • August 2020
Founded in 1991
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Vol. XXIX, No. 8 | August 2020
Editorial By Dave Esler
A Cure for What Ails Us
Along with toilet paper, respect has been in short supply these past few months. It has been long gone, of course, in our political life, where respecting one’s opponent went out with disco. Negative ads infest the airwaves. Trashing rivals is the norm. Personal insults are considered an art form. What’s more disturbing is how a lack of respect seems to be spreading to local communities and neighborhoods. Masking was one flash point, transformed from a simple public health advisory into an excuse to berate and vilify people who are just trying to do their jobs. Reopening stores and schools is another. Instead of working together to achieve a goal we all want, we take sides and impute bad motives to those who disagree with us, as our communities suffer. We’ve seen this toxic brew spread even to Ocean Hills, where “respecting and treating members fairly” to “promote safe and harmonious living” is part of the Mission Statement we all agreed to when we moved here. Some folks chose to promote their favored political candidate so aggressively that others responded EDITORIAL, Cont’d. on Page 3
One Nation In Unison
By Ellen Baur The World’s Pandemic, COVID-19, is ravaging America. It is tantamount to a raging war. COVID-19 mortalities in the United States exceed combat deaths in WWI, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined. Public health experts, infectious and contagious disease specialists, immunologists, and research scientists are all telling us that there is a way to beat this scourge, to save lives, and to even get our struggling economy going again. But we ALL have to do it together. It was in early April, appearing
on network television, that Dr. David Ho, one of the world’s foremost infectious disease doctors, described two different paths from which to choose in our response to defeating the coronavirus. He called the first path the “simultaneous” approach, and he described what would happen if our entire country acted in unison. The whole country would shut down and re-open in the same way and at the same time in an attempt to get the virus under control. In that scenario, NATION, Cont’d. on Page 4
The Village Voice is a publication of the Ocean Hills Country Club Journalism Club