Tucker Carlson casts needless doubt about vaccine
While over 500,000 COVID-19 deaths have occurred and medical experts have spoken numerous times about the necessity of people getting vaccinated, Tucker Carlson has recently been on Fox News seeding doubts about the safety of these vaccines by asking:
“What about this vaccine? Why are Americans being discouraged from asking simple, straightforward questions about it? How effective are these drugs? Are they safe? What’s the miscarriage risk for pregnant women, for example? ... If the vaccine was so great, why were all these people lying about it?”
I’ve watched many reputable news reports and read numerous articles about the development, effectiveness and safety of these vaccines to have more than all my questions answered.
How ironic that Carlson claims that the left’s disinformation campaign is destroying America while he’s on national TV broadcasting terribly misleading remarks that can dissuade people from getting COVID-19 vaccines.
He also said, “Without relentless skepticism science dies ... and when it leaves, inevitably it’s replaced by witchcraft and superstition.”
And it’s also replaced by people like Tucker Carlson, who proffer harmful falsehoods and not facts.
Barbara Adamcik
Freemansburg
The thought of your season and career coming to an abrupt end can be a great motivator.
Freedom senior Brenna Ortwein said that finality crossed her mind early on in the second half of Tuesday’s District 11 Class 6A playoff game against crosstown rival Liberty, and it was plenty of motivation to pick up the pace, get the job done and move ahead in the playoffs.
The Patriots, one week after a surprising loss to Liberty, pulled away for a comfortable 45-28 victory at Freedom’s Joseph J. McIntyre Gymnasium.
Coach Dean Reiman’s Pates, the No. 7 seed in the 6A bracket, advance to play second-seeded Parkland in Thursday’s quarterfinal round. Tip off is set for 5 p.m. at Parkland.
Ortwein paced Freedom with 17 points and Kailey Turpening contributed 12.
Liberty closed within 19-15 in the first 10 seconds of the third quarter when sophomore Jessica Farrell, who totaled a team-high 11 points, drilled a 14-footer. The Patriots then embarked on a 13-2 spurt over the next four minutes of game action to create their separation.
“We needed to play Freedom basketball,” Ortwein said. “We were falling into a game that really isn’t how we like to play. We’re at our best on hustle plays and that’s how we build momentum.”
Hustle plays, as well as offensive conversions, keyed the rally.
Turpening, who scored 10 points in
2:40 of game action spanning the second and third quarters, started the 9-0 run with a threepoint play. Ortwein then scored on a layup and Turpening immediately stole an inbounds pass and dropped in a layup.
Corrin Gill, the Patriots’ strong third offensive option, capped the quick run with a short shot in the paint. Gill finished with eight points.
“Liberty was in a zone,” Reiman said, “and we were tentative. Thank goodness, I thought our experience showed up. If we were going to be tentative, we were going to lose and we’d deserve to lose. If we were going to be aggressive, let’s take our chances and see what happens.”
Liberty closed within 38-28 on freshman Emma Pukszyn’s basket just before the third-quarter buzzer. Freedom, however, put the game away in style by shutting out the Hurricanes in the fourth quarter.
“I thought we got really, really passive and reluctant offensively,” Liberty coach Andy Wescoe said.
A second chance: Last year at this time, Reiman’s Patriots were putting together an impressive postseason run.
They finished runner-up to Nazareth in District 11’s 6A tournament, then reached the quarterfinals of the PIAA state tournament before the pandemic shut down the season.
This year, Freedom’s struggled at times in a strange COVID-19 altered season.
The Pates, who went 24-5 last season, entered with a 4-6 record that backed up their uneven play. Two days after their eight-point loss to winless Liberty, Freedom upended perennial power Bethlehem Catholic by 14 points.
Reiman said that performance gave him hope.
“When we beat Bethlehem Catholic, that was a whole different game than we played the entire year,” the coach said. “That was the way we played all last year. It was very aggressive, it was very unselfish, there was great passion. I thought that game could propel us.”
Ortwein said the motivation is, indeed, playing as many postseason games as possible. She is one of six seniors, along with Gill, Elsa Martin, Kayla Jefferson, Jewel Levy and Gabby Glick.
“We had a nice long talk after the loss to Liberty,” Ortwein said. “We said we’re not a bad team, we’re just playing bad. That wasn’t going to win us games. We have six seniors and if we lose in districts, we’re done and we’ll never play together again.”
Canes are coming: Liberty’s season ended with a 2-9 record.
But, expect Wescoe’s squad to be among the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference’s top teams in coming years. The Hurricanes should welcome back their entire team in 2021-22, and they feature a strong sophomore class fronted by Farrell and Layla Orth, as well as a promising freshmen class led by Pukszyn, Abby Thompson and Ruby Miller.
“I’m happy with our team,” said Wescoe, who finished his fourth season. “Our team is a group of fighters. They come to practice hard and they’re a pleasure to coach. Our losses aren’t because of effort. Our inexperience showed up at times but I think we’ve grown quite a bit.”