Today's Letters to the Editor from readers cover topics including Dunedin's new hospital, the US election and a clip-on cycleway.
Thanks for everything, but not hospital views
In my four years as a resident in Central Otago I have appreciated the balance and sensibility expressed by our recently departed mayor Tim Cadogan. He has played his hand carefully and soundly with many contentious issues in our rohe.
However, his departing comments regarding the Dunedin Hospital project v the notion of increased hospital services for Central Otago (ODT 25.10.24) were disappointingly careless and, at best, naive.
Central Otago residents would be foolish to believe that we could have a hospital in our rohe that would provide all of the specialties that a tertiary hospital provides. We are very complex beings for whom much can go wrong. It is not simply the building, or even the up-to-date equipment - it is the professional people including the academics and those working in the allied services.
Many professional people and other resources, with the ability to teach our future medics as well as attracting people from all over the world to practise at a highly functioning teaching and research hospital in Dunedin is what we in the South are striving for. Even if the good hospitals we have here in Central could be further upgraded with more buildings, more equipment and additional specialist professionals, there is no doubt, we in Central need that tertiary hospital in Dunedin as much as Dunedinites and all Southerners.
I believe the key players in this government would be delighted if Central Otago was to enter into some parochial hostility with our Dunedin cousins over hospitals and hospital services.
Frances Anderson
Alexandra
Eerily prophetic
The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times (Editorial ODT 30.10.24) are indeed lily-livered in failing to endorse either United States presidential candidate. Anyone who doubts the seriousness of what might ensue for the future of independent journalism should read Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 book It Can’t Happen Here, in which American newspaper editor Doremus Jessup’s stinging critiques of ruthless demagogue Buzz Windrip’s bid for the presidency led first to a catastrophic slump in his paper’s sales and eventually to his ousting.
A timely reprint of the book in 2017 shows just how eerily prophetic Lewis was in depicting the start of such a slippery slope into dictatorship and its horrific consequences.
His book mirrored contemporary events in Germany and Russia in the 1930s but rings equally true today, for both right-wing and left-wing extremists - Buzz Windrip was a Democrat.
J Donald Cullington
Company Bay
Much at stake
There is alarmingly much more at stake on November 5 than the election of a new American president.
Should Trump be elected for a second term he will challenge and potentially override the very foundations and bedrocks of American society, its democratic processes and its standing as leader of the free world. Constitutional checks and balances including the US Congress, the House of Representatives, judicial systems and constitutional rights which date back to 1789 will be tested to their very limits.
Certain recent Trump inflammatory rhetoric suggests punishment for those who have or will stand in his way.
For a billionaire who owns 18 golf courses around the world and resides in a hurricane-prone West Palm Beach Florida mansion, Mar-a-Lago, his climate change ambivalence is perplexing and alarming.
American friends said recently ‘‘please pray for our country on the 5th November’’ and they should have added ‘‘and for all liberal democracies around the world’’.
Bruce Eliott
Arrowtown
You want a clip-on, you pay for a clip-on
I read with dismay and amazement that the decision makers have again drifted off into the ‘‘sheer stupidity department’’. This time they are raising money for the construction of a ‘‘clip-on cycleway’’ on the Outram Taieri River Bridge.
At a time of austerity, it is beyond belief that some people are happy to spend taxpayers’/ratepayers’ money on such a frivolous project. To even contemplate such a project is beyond belief.
The cyclists who use the bridge have survived the ride from Mosgiel where the road is barely any wider than the bridge.
So what this proposal is suggesting is that the motorist is incapable of taking care when driving across the bridge.
What an absolute load of rubbish and what an insult to every driver who has seen those many Lycra-clad cyclists riding that route.
Can I suggest that if a clip-on is required, then the money needed, be raised, in full, by those who are going to use it.
I am way beyond fed up with the vast sums of money being spent on a section of society who do not contribute in a substantial way to the construction of such.
William Thompson
Dunedin
Advocacy praised
Maggie Smith’s obituary (ODT 26.10.24), made interesting reading, but failed to mention the work Dame Maggie did to raise awareness of glaucoma. She had glaucoma and became a patron of Glaucoma UK in 2012. Her contemporary Dame Judi Dench also has deteriorating eyesight and is a patron of the Yorkshire Macular Degeneration Fund. Both of these women have made important contributions to the acting world, but their high profile advocacy work should be acknowledged too.
Hazel Agnew
Oamaru
Time for action on ongoing Gaza tragedy
Any sympathy for Israel under its current government, I think is misplaced.
The PM and the far right members of the Knesset are determined to re-create a Davidic empire that historically never really existed. This movement is trying to build ‘‘Greater Israel’’. That term is not commonly known outside Israel, but refers to land extending from the ‘‘river of Egypt to the Euphrates river’’.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said: ‘‘If we want, we can renew settlements in Gaza.’’ He also said Israel is the owner of that land. ‘‘In less than a year you will see the Jews come to Gaza and the Arabs disappear,’’ Daniella Weiss, one of Israel’s best known settler leaders, was quoted as saying in the Washington Post.
That paper headlined: ‘‘Is Israel carrying out de facto ethnic cleansing?’’. My opinion is yes.
Why else bomb hospitals and schools? Why else gather Palestinians into ‘‘safe zones’’ and then bomb them claiming it was an ‘‘unfortunate error’’?
Israel has exhausted any valid justification to continue making war on the Palestinian people, or matter-of-fact now, on the Lebanese people. It is long past time for the media and the nations of the world to act.
Kevin Burke
Mosgiel
A different perspective
Peter Hall (Letters ODT 24/10/24) would like to see more ‘‘James-Bondish’’ plans by the IDF in Palestine and Lebanon.
I suggest he enlightens himself with regard to the history of Palestine and Lebanon and then ask the question: who actually are the terrorists here? He may find his terrorists might well be someone else’s freedom fighters.
K Schmidt
Dunedin
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
