Recent editorials from Florida newspapers:
___
Oct. 6
The Miami Herald on Gov. Ron DeSantis prolonged the voting registration deadlines following the internet site crashed:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis went a prolonged way to quell conspiracy theories that Monday’s untimely sputtering of the state’s on line voter registration web site was a vote-suppression ploy.
Countless numbers of persons striving to sign-up to vote by Monday night’s deadline encountered gradual responses and error messages on the state’s on the net voter registration web-site, RegisterToVoteFlorida.gov.
Following cries of foul enjoy from Democratic legislative users, like State Sen. Jason Pizzo, regional politicos and even Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, the only Democrat in the Cupboard, the governor introduced midday on Tuesday that he would prolong the deadline to 7 p.m. for registration online, in particular person or by mail.
That was the right thing to do.
The major excuse for the partial crash is that throughout the final few several hours before the deadline, the internet site experienced been accessed by an “unprecedented” 1.1 million requests per hour.
It appears the web page confronted really significantly the similar problems that plagued the state’s unemployment benefits system at the begin of the COVID-19 pandemic.
There is nevertheless some suspicion as to what took place Monday. The Florida Section of Point out is doing work with federal regulation enforcement officials to glance at whether there had been any “deliberate functions against the voting process” that caused or contributed to the partial crash of the program, according to Secretary of State Laurel Lee.
Let us see what they uncover, but DeSantis did the very best he could to even the participating in discipline, in the event that there was fraud., or just the perform of one more faulty state website.
However, the most stunning revelation from the snafu is that the method saw 1.1 million requests for every hour.. How that translates to the polls on Nov. 3 is the genuine mystery.
On-line: https://www.miamiherald.com/
___
Oct. 6
The Gainesville Solar on the pandemic, sporting masks and higher education students:
Almost seven months considering that the COVID-19 outbreak was declared a throughout the world pandemic, we should not continue to be having difficulties as a place to get persons to don masks and choose other simple basic safety safeguards.
Just after all, more than 7.4 million cases of the COVID-19 virus and extra than 210,000 linked fatalities have been reported in the United States by yourself — or about 20% of the throughout the world fatalities, regardless of the U.S. acquiring just 4% of the world’s inhabitants. Nonetheless some Us residents nevertheless refuse to act responsibly in buy to prevent catching and spreading the virus.
This past weekend in Gainesville, for illustration, college or university students could be viewed crowding in bars with no masks. The town of Gainesville briefly shut down Lit at Midtown on Saturday for exceeding its occupancy restrict, but town officers have couple other regulatory solutions obtainable now that Gov. Ron DeSantis has lifted other limits on organizations.
University learners, of training course, are a notoriously tough team to get to act responsibly. And DeSantis has primarily provided youthful men and women no cost license to bash, instead than contacting on them to practice secure actions to defend them selves and other people in the neighborhood.
But our governor is hardly the only public official downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic. He’s next the guide of President Donald Trump, whose failure to persuade and follow essential safety measures has had sizeable repercussions for his personal wellness as properly as the wellness of these close to him.
Trump put himself and many others at hazard by holding events wherever attendees gathered intently with no masks, such as his announcement at the White Household that he was nominating Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. The repercussions had been revealed when the president and To start with Lady examined constructive for COVID-19 last 7 days, followed by numerous other White Property staff members associates and well known Republican politicians testing constructive.
The president’s hospitalization at Walter Reed National Military Clinical Middle above the weekend and battery of drugs he experienced to be given must have been a wake-up call for him and the region. The president could have pivoted from his combined messages about masks in the previous, utilizing his very own working experience to illustrate the have to have for people to continue taking safeguards right up until a vaccine is developed and dispersed.
Rather, Trump place Top secret Services brokers at danger by driving with them in a car or truck so he could wave at supporters exterior the clinic Sunday. As he was about to be produced Monday, Trump irresponsibly tweeted, “Don’t be concerned of Covid. Really don’t let it dominate your lifestyle.” The moment back again in Washington, the president taken off his mask while standing on a White Residence balcony and appeared to struggle to breathe.
Hopefully Trump’s health and fitness proceeds to recover, but his own physician explained he “may not be out of the woods nonetheless.” And neither are individuals all around him: The Facilities for Condition Regulate and Avoidance recommends that any one who comes into shut get hold of with another person with COVID-19 ought to self-quarantine for 14 times even soon after a destructive take a look at.
Trump’s failure to acquire the pandemic more severely has expense Americans their lives and led to his possess an infection. The American individuals should appear to his case in point as actions to stay away from.
From Washington to Gainesville, individuals want to hold donning masks and working towards other risk-free actions. We’re not out of the woods but when it will come to COVID-19.
On-line: https://www.gainesville.com/
___
Oct. 2
The Florida Moments-Union on Conclude-of-daily life treatment:
The little one boomers manufactured youth awesome by sheer quantities if nothing else.
Now, as they age, they can do culture a further favor by shedding light-weight on the difficulties of dying.
Harold Braswell, assistant professor of overall health care ethics at St. Louis University, sheds light on one particular of the problems in his reserve, “The Crisis of U.S. Hospice Treatment: Relatives and Liberty at the Close of Lifetime.
As Braswell notes, most People are not organized for prolonged-phrase care nor for the calls for on family users when 1 of their customers is around demise.
The hospice method was huge progress but it is dependent on unrealistic calls for on the loved ones.
“The U.S. hospice system’s reliance on familial caregiving seems to sabotage alone,” Braswell wrote.
The large problem is that dying takes location out of sight the two figurately and pretty much. There is no location for dying in the national imagination or political vocabulary, Braswell wrote.
This is translated into a deficiency of political motion on behalf of dying individuals, which success in the lack of a practical long-phrase treatment technique.
In short, Braswell wrote, hospice should aid common caregiving, not rely on it.
He indicates that dying individuals really should be subject to the Us residents with Disabilities Act or a individual set of civil legal rights legislation. It is an attention-grabbing recommendation.
Secure housing is required. Braswell proposes the creation of a countrywide housing voucher method for all weak households. The existing federal plan is limited by funding and other limitations.
In spite of his know-how of the situation, Braswell usually felt incapable of providing the suitable kind of support for his very own dying mom. She was transferred from a person site to yet another with no power in excess of her possess existence.
“My mother, as she lay dying, was not cost-free,” Braswell wrote.
Too often, dying folks never even obtain hospice care until eventually it’s too late.
“A hospice procedure and a overall health care procedure that was sufficiently funded could have regarded that my mom was dying much previously and delivered her with care that would have produced her significantly freer in the course of the remaining period of time of her everyday living,” Braswell wrote.
In reality, the requirements of family members at the conclusion of daily life are just as fantastic as people early in everyday living but culture doesn’t take it.
“Families are usually not well prepared for the conclusion of lifetime and dying is usually regarded as a shameful and personal affair,” Braswell wrote.
A single exception will involve an buy of Catholic nuns that presents excellent conclude-of-life care by means of charity, freed of authorities guidelines and limits,
Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, the youngest daughter of creator Nathaniel Hawthorne, launched the Dominican Sisters, Congregation of St. Rose of Lima, in 1900.
Elevated Unitarian, converted to Catholicism at the age of 40, left a unsuccessful relationship and devoted her everyday living to caring for the cancerous lousy. At the time, cancer was considered to be contagious so that weak victims were often remaining to undergo on your own.
The Dominican Sisters’ houses treatment for people today with incurable cancer. No payment is acknowledged from people, their family members or the authorities. Residences are open up to all.
There currently are properties in Hawthorne, N.Y., Philadelphia and Atlanta.
There clearly are limits to how a great deal charity care can give. Braswell’s issue is that the nuns have manufactured a model of delicate treatment for the dying and that its classes need to be followed as considerably as probable somewhere else.
It’s time for the requires of the dying to arrive out of the shadows.
On the net: https://www.jacksonville.com/