To the editor:

Although I’m no longer privy to all the research materials of yesteryear, I’m constantly amazed at the well-intentioned but inadvisable suggestions and recommendations being bandied about. Case in point being a letter of Dec. 12.

Some folks haven’t been sick in 10 years, but that doesn’t apply to millions of the rest of us. If you don’t need healthcare, others do, so help us out.

And if you can’t see climate change, you have our sympathy – how about some of yours. Chances are that you will not be blamed for the coming catastrophes.

The president has expressed his most ardent desires to pass health and energy bills. The only way that is likely to happen is if the obfuscators in Congress are tarred and feathered, and then railed back to their confused bailiwicks. A local “no to everything” politician comes to mind.

As for oil drilling, the experts I read say that there is less than two years of oil off Florida’s coasts. What oil company would invest in four years of preparations, then drilling for such an uneconomical amount of oil?

Now there is probably a good deal of natural gas out there, which the panhandle uses plenty of (if feasible to drill for it).

Let’s face it, we are no longer the industrial giant of the world. Poor corporate management has outsourced everything, from toothpicks on up. And without innovative action, that situation will not change.

I favor alternative energy sources (including nuclear); however, the vested interest lobbyists are too powerful to let that happen. And we’ll let them get away with it.

As long as confusion reigns, status quo will likely be all we will see. How long can we put up with that?

Wayne K. Hood

Cape Coral