The letter to the editor (Nov. 16) from Mr. Thomas Oatway of Valencia made me grin, and then I giggled a bit, and then I openly laughed (nearly spitting the coffee out of my mouth). I am not going to cite any facts or statistics, projections or analyses, expert sources or scientific prognostications, in my response, my two-word response, to Mr. Oatway’s letter: “Thank you.”
Well, Mr. Oatway, you told us, didn’t you? For months and months your letters served as our “town crier.” You never tired of warning us, and scolding us, and even calling us names like “stupid,” and “people with low IQ’s,” and still we let you down. We failed you. No, we didn’t just fail you, we failed the entire nation (maybe even the planet), and for endless generations to come. Someday our children, and our children’s children, and our children’s children’s children (need I continue) will lament the misfortune of having been born into the depressingly dark and diseased world we created and left for them.
How sad is that, Mr. Oatway? Indeed, how sad is that? And none of that would have had to happen if only we had all followed the simple instructions you gave us in your letters to the editor.
Do you think I’m being sarcastic? Partly, perhaps, but nestled comfortably within my wry sarcasm is a grain of truth, at least I think it’s the truth. It may not be scientific fact, but I think it is certainly true of a good number of those of our species. We humans can be a very stubborn, selfish, and lazy lot. Oh yes, we can — stubborn as mules. And we can be all those things even more so when people who are clearly in it for themselves are pointing their dirty little political fingers at us and telling us what to do (while not doing it themselves).
We may have failed you, Mr. Oatway, but in a way you failed us, failed in your quest, your mission, to talk some “sense” into our heads and lead us all out of the “wilderness” of disease and death. Why did you fail? I’ll tell you why I think you failed. You failed because you were barking up the wrong tree the entire time. Instead of incessantly scolding us and calling us names like some maniacal school headmaster, you might have considered why we were resisting in the first place, and it had nothing to do with a lack of intelligence. But it had everything to do with human nature.
Have you ever heard the old saying, “You can attract more bees with honey than with vinegar”? Well, your letters tasted like vinegar. That’s why you failed. So you might want to consider using “sweeter” language when trying to get us to follow you out of the next pandemic. Yes, you might want to consider that.
But again, thank you.
Arthur Saginian
Santa Clarita
