Fluffy Anderson sounds off on Longboat Key's Bayfront Park

From a dog’s point of view, thanks for the park

On behalf of my four-legged brothers and sisters, I want to thank all of you for bringing us a very beautiful dog park.

Since I have been woofing about this to my dad Bob for a long time, it is only good form for me to acknowledge the town’s leaders and applaud their vision for giving us such a great place to sniff and check out all the unleashed newbies ... and all that grass to roll around in!

And thank you, Rotary Club of LBK and others, for contributing the special equipment to keep us cool and agile.

Believe me, this will be bigger than you guys ever imagined. Just come and watch your best friend’s reaction and you’ll get my point... and, please, remember to pick up our poopsters.

Fluffy Anderson, Longboat Key

Facts are facts when talking about election

This is in response to the letter from Susan McCulloch published on July 6.

I am 88, a war veteran and during my work life I frequently utilized various assessment instruments designed to identify personality characteristics.

One of them, called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, was based on the psychology of Carl Jung and it converted inputs from the person being assessed to arrive at certain personality types.

Among the personality types measured by the Myers-Briggs are two which relate to the manner in which people arrive at conclusions; the two are Thinking and Feeling.

Thinkers arrive at conclusions in an objective manner and base their conclusions on fact.

Feelers arrive at conclusions in a subjective manner which is devoid of the benefit of facts and logical thinking.

I served on a jury several years ago where the evidence against the defendant was overwhelming but when we got into deliberations there were three “Feelers” who said that they did not believe the defendant was guilty because he “was such a nice-looking young man.”

If you understand the above and read her letter, Ms. McCulloch can clearly be classified a “Feeler.”

She states that “it is difficult for many people, myself included to accept the 2016 election as legitimate” and bases her statement on the following:

• Hillary Clinton received more of the popular vote than Donald Trump.
• The Russian effort to influence the presidential election.

If she used logical thinking to arrive at her conclusion Ms. McCulloch would clearly recognize two facts:

• In the eighth grade I learned that the president of the United States is not elected by popular vote but by the electoral vote as was specified by the founding fathers and practiced ever since.
• Though Russia may have attempted to influence the election there is not one shred of evidence to prove that they did.

It is obvious that Ms. McCulloch, along with many other Hillary Clinton voters, are still stuck in Stage 1 of the five stages of grief, which is denial.

Perhaps it is time to accelerate to Stage 5, which is acceptance that, like it or not, Donald Trump is president, and join me in hoping that he succeeds since this country cannot afford another failed presidency.

William B. Allen, Longboat Key

Political parties should wake up — and reform

Professional advisers providing training and technical assistance to civil society organizations concentrate on four areas to improve governance and program impact:

• Accountability: acceptance of responsibility for decisions made, actions taken and results achieved.
• Transparency: clear, accurate and complete disclosure about policies, programs and finance.
• Tolerance: respect for other people’s beliefs, views and practices.
• Advocacy: actions to promote and achieve declared principles, policies and programs.

Most reputable civil society organizations hold these criteria in high regard and monitor their progress in achieving them. Many for-profit organizations and enterprises are now also embracing these criteria, and “social responsible” fund stocks are traded on major stock exchanges.

Applying these criteria to the major organizations involved in American politics (the media and political parties) yields sad results. With few exceptions, currently the major media groups do not even bother to pay lip service to accountability, transparency or tolerance.

Advocacy of their agenda is paramount.

The Democratic Party, current party leaders and past candidates appear to be in a feeding frenzy for investigations and impeachment.

The Republican Party continues to flounder in attempts to govern.

Clearly, the American people are confused and angry. Improving or reforming the media may be a lost cause; hopefully, the forces of competition will solve the problem for them. The two political parties should wake up; an internal, frank review of their current actions and emotions of both parties would reveal how far they have strayed from good governance and their pledge to serve the American people.

Internal political reform should replace political rebellion. The country deserves and requires nothing less.

Duncan Miller, Sarasota