Your Say: June 7-13, 2018

Seeing Turtles

Re: I Know Why the turtle Crosses the Road: ­www.bayweekly.com/node/43504

      Eastern box turtles and terrapins are not the only turtles among us. Snapping turtles are our neighbors, too, as witnessed by Dennis Distler and the folks at Annapolis Hyundai. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

My Calvert County Nightmare

      I live in Calvert County and want to share a horrible nightmare I had the other night. In it, I was driving down Rt. 4 toward Solomons Island. Even though I’ve been here for 24 years, nothing looked familiar. I saw cows and horses turning into homes and garages. Barns became mega-churches; fields transformed into shopping centers, but there were no cars in the parking lots. Dirt paths became four-lane highways, and scrub pine forests were now colleges where no one learned anything that pertained to the real world. The Patuxent had turned to a muddy brown color and the fishermen had morphed into condos.

       Wait. I apologize. My nightmare was that I was being overrun by a stampede on a worm farm.

       The first is reality. 

–Allen Delaney, Prince Frederick

Treat E-Cigarettes Like Tobacco

         After many serious injuries to persons using e-cigarettes and in many cases to innocent persons near them, we now have the first known vaping death in this country.

        A 38-year-old man in St. Petersburg, Florida, was killed when his vape pen exploded, sending at least two pieces of shrapnel into his head. It also caused a fire in his house. The cause of death was listed as “projectile wound of head.” However, the victim also suffered burns on about 80 percent of his body.

        The use of e-cigarettes (called vaping) is now prevalent everywhere, especially among our youth. During testimony before the 2018 Maryland General Assembly, seven different high school students testified that classmates are even using a brand of e-cigarette called JUULS during classes.

         Due to the potential harm from e-cigarettes, they should be prohibited everywhere that normal tobacco use is prohibited so that innocent bystanders are not jeopardized.

         During this election year, every seat in the Maryland General Assembly is up for election. I urge voters to request the candidates they encounter to pledge their support for such legislation.

–John O’ Hara, Bowie: President, Maryland Group Against Smoker’s Pollution