PETA’s misplaced agenda

PETA, in its never-ending quest to tell people what to eat, should instead worry about people without enough to eat. The volunteers in Receiving at the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program spend half a day, six days a week sorting through a bunch of vegetables and could sure use some help. The cost of a tomb stone to lobsters would also help end food insufficiency.

Loren Porr,
Topsham

Mt. Ararat team’s balloon release harmful to environment

I am writing in response to a picture that I saw in your paper this past Tuesday (“Mt. Ararat FH hosts ‘ Drive Out Cancer’ tournament,” Aug. 28). It was of the balloon release at The Drive Out Cancer field hockey event. While the event itself is a fantastic idea, the notion that any event organizers in this day and age would consider a balloon release to be a good idea is unbelievable to me. They might as well be taking 50 plastic cups and tossing them on the ground and in the ocean because that is essentially what they are doing.

According to the Environmental Nature Center, even biodegradable balloons can take anywhere from six months to four years to decompose and in that time can wreak havoc on wildlife. Just this past month a white-sided dolphin washed up dead on a beach in Maine with a balloon in its stomach. Plastic debris has been proven to have a direct and deadly effect on wildlife. Please, please consider another way to remember loved ones. How about planting a tree?

Andrea Hess,
Brunswick

Collins urged to vote ‘no’ on court nominee in order to protect healthcare

There are many reasons for Senator Collins to vote no on Kavanaugh. My story illustrates just one.

Two and a half years ago, I was traveling for a friend’s wedding, and suddenly I was in so much abdominal pain that I could not even sit, much less stand or walk. We rushed to the ER for a long night of tests and pain meds. For the next two months, I couldn’t stand for longer than 30-60 seconds without extreme pain–sometimes to the point of losing consciousness or stay awake for more than a few hours. Needless to say, I also couldn’t work because my teaching job required me to be upright and awake at the very least.

I was lucky. I had health insurance and an understanding employer. A couple of months after that scary night, I found a doctor and a diagnosis, which led to major surgery and years of continuing physical therapy.

Many people are not so lucky. Most people who are so sick that they cannot work will lose all income with which to pay for housing, food, medicine, and bills. Most of these people will lose their jobs. What of them? Losing your job because you are too sick to work means losing company health insurance, and the ability to pay for private insurance.

The ACA protects people from utter catastrophe, and — for thousands — death when they get very sick. The ACA is transformative, too, because it means that health care can no longer be denied from people because they really it. Now that I have a preexisting condition, I am terrified of what might happen for me and millions of others if protection for pre-existing conditions is removed, as our current president and Judge Kavanaugh would like to do.

Sen. Collins bravely stood for these people when she protected the ACA, along with the late, great John McCain. I would urge her to preserve her greatest accomplishment as Senator–saving the ACA — by voting No on Kavanaugh’s confirmation. A society that is truly great takes care of its members when they are at their most vulnerable, and every American deserves that.

Nacole Palmer
Bowdoin