By Vince Smith
Big Rock
I don’t really recall how I first became aware of this publication, but my first impression of The Voice was adequately positive for me to become a subscriber. I still feel that it has the best sports coverage of any of the locally-published news media, but lately I’m disappointed with the plethora of wack-job contributions with contents that sometimes have been unintelligible and usually without hard facts in support of conclusions or implications. It seems to me that The Voice has become a print version of Facebook, both providing a platform for all too many who have no qualifications for spewing the gibberish that they foist upon the reading public.
Allow me to offer a few examples of the nonsense which has been permeating these pages over the past several weeks. About a month ago, we read of an individual who, if given the choice between a vaccine shot and a lethal injection, would choose the lethal injection! Really? An opinion like that should suggest to anyone with a functional brain that the rest of that commentary should be viewed with at least skepticism, if not total disregard.
Then there was the article on the healthful benefits of eating watermelon, and in the article’s headline, “…stops cancer”. What? You mean that we’ve been wasting our time, money, and prayers on radiation and chemotherapy? We should be planting watermelon seeds instead? But because within the article no such claim could be found, Mr. Editor, that one’s on you!
Next came the contribution of an individual whose so-called common sense allowed her to reason that wearing a mask would result in her asphyxiation via carbon dioxide poisoning? Apparently this mask has the astounding ability to keep molecules of carbon dioxide and oxygen separated! I would suggest she hang on to such a mask because it’s surely worth a fortune, or, at least a patent. Perhaps breathing with a ventilator would be more to her liking? The rest of that contribution was filled with other so-called common sense issues, but Mr. Wayne Johnson in his column already has addressed those far more eloquently than I ever could.
Over the months of my subscription, Mr. Bela “Bill” Suhayda rarely has disappointed my thirst for comic relief, and his September 16 edition in the Reader’s Commentary, thevoice.us/readers-commentary-gullibility-remains-a-human-frailty, was no exception. Although his opinions are both abundant and predictable, they are rarely (if ever?) supported by hard fact. Interestingly, his most recent contribution begins by falsely giving credit to Susan Capitano-Hooker with having written “97.5% of scientists agree with whoever is funding them”. In truth, it appears that she had seen this absurd and baseless post on Facebook, and made the comment “Best thing I have seen on FB all week!”.
As a senior loan originator in the Tampa Bay, Fla. area, Ms Capitano-Hooker seems in an unlikely position to know what any group of scientists may agree upon, unless it happens to be the shape of our planet. Why Mr. Suhayda arbitrarily elevated the posted value from 97% to 97.5% is a puzzle… perhaps to suit his agenda?
I’ve written previously in this publication, although now retired, I remain a scientist. Documentation of my degrees still decorate the walls of my office, and I react poorly to the kind of gibberish so often spewed forth from Mr. Suhayda, especially when it pertains to matters of science, and particularly to scientists with strong credentials, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Although I respect and appreciate Mr. Suhayda’s 30-year career of teaching science in the public schools, it does not provide him the credibility to support his unfounded and ignorant attacks on Dr. Fauci, nor does it put him in any better position than Ms Capitano-Hooker’s to claim knowledge of consensus opinions of today’s scientists and how and from whom they receive their funds.
Without question, everyone in this country is entitled to have an opinion and to express that opinion through any platform willing to publish it. However, it is critically important that each one of us recognizes and understands the difference between opinion and fact, and to formulate our own opinions accordingly. As responsible citizens, it is our obligation to search for the truth, no matter where that truth may be hiding. So to quote Mr. Suhayda, “..don’t be gullible. Do your research.”