Letters: New garden is no big help to pollinators; Long-term care gets attention it deserves in Pa. budget
New garden is no big help to pollinators
I can’t decide whether to chuckle or to cry at the irony embedded in the hoopla over Penn’s State 3-acre pollinator garden. Even if those 3 acres are the most pollinator-friendly 3 acres on the face of the earth, they aren’t going to make a bit of difference in the plight of the pollinators. While 143,000 plants may sound like a lot, one honey bee visits about 50-100 flowers per collection trip; makes about 10-12 collection trips per day; and lives about a month ... so that’s about 25,000 flowers in its lifetime. And it makes about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in its life — one honey bee — there are about 60,000-70,000 honey bees in one hive. So you start to see the scale that is really needed. I have a really novel idea ... why doesn’t Penn State and everyone else in this supposedly nature-loving town stop using lawn chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, Roundup and every other chemical you use just to have a green, monoculture yard (or 8,000-acre campus)? You are directly poisoning the pollinators and/or killing all the plants they need to live on. So which do you think will really help the pollinators — to plant a 3-acre pollinator-friendly garden for $9 million dollars, or to just stop using all the chemicals.
Long-term care gets attention it deserves in Pa. budget
As far back as I can remember, long-term care was never a focal point in Pennsylvania’s state budget negotiations. Year after year, education, taxes and Marcellus Shale were always the primary issues. But that changed this year when critical funding was prioritized to our senior citizens in nursing homes, personal care homes and assisted living communities. That change came when long-term care needed it most.
Pennsylvania’s long-term care continuum was combating a dire financial crisis before becoming the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Skyrocketing PPE, testing and staffing costs only compounded the problem. This year, our leaders in the General Assembly — including Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman and House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff — stood up and ensured that more than $280 million in American Rescue Plan funds were allocated to an industry that truly needed to be rescued: long-term care.
This funding will help sustain essential care for tens of thousands of vulnerable seniors and maintain employment opportunities for front-line caregivers in the months ahead. And we look forward to working with our elected leaders on additional, pivotal investments that will cement the future of care for our seniors.
To be clear: COVID-19 hasn’t disappeared. And neither has the financial strain placed on our providers on the front lines of the pandemic. But this year, our elected leaders took a historic step in supporting our fastest-growing demographic — senior citizens — and their providers of care. That’s something we should all support.
Keller shares inaccurate portrait of America
I appreciated getting a July 4th contact from my elected U.S. Representative, Fred Keller. He sent a short video entitled, “Happy Independence Day.” Mr. Keller thanked ALL who sacrificed and made America the great country it is today. I appreciated him reminding his constituents of our shared history, but ALL of his photographs showed ALL white men. I realize that many American history textbooks neglect the contributions made to the USA by many different groups— women, Black Americans, the Native people who settled here first, and the many peoples of color who’ve come to America over the last 400 years. Those mistakes are being corrected by more historically accurate texts today.
Mr. Keller has a great power in the megaphone of his office, and he has the responsibility not to perpetuate the shameful myth that only white males made my country what it is today. America wouldn’t be America without all of US. ALL of us.