In 1975, I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago on the city’s South Side. One night, I heard three gunshots and a cry for help. Instinctively, I went to investigate.
At the scene, I observed a clutch of weeping souls surrounding a lifeless body. As was the practice then, a police wagon carried away the gunshot victim. He was another graduate student, close to completing his PhD in psychology. Having a brown belt in karate, he decided to resist rather than comply when held up.
As a first-year graduate student, the experience horrified me — all the more on learning two other students had similarly perished in previous months.
The university promoted “the life of the mind.“ Fine, I thought… at what cost? Frightened, I wanted to either get a gun — impossible in Chicago. Or leave graduate school, period.
I did neither, staying to earn a PhD and taking a job at Amherst College in Massachusetts — an anti-gun state.
Later I migrated to Florida, teaching at Rollins College for 34 years. Here I gained interest in competitive pistol-shooting. For it, I acquired a concealed-carry permit — for travel to events — but never carried otherwise.
Now, in retirement, I take my encased pistols to a local range several times a month. But open-carry, I abhor. The only purpose is to show off, I say. And to frighten law-abiding citizens!
No thanks, Gov. DeSantis.
Richard Foglesong Orlando
Richard Foglesong is a professor emeritus of politics at Rollins College.
Editorial: Floridians could soon see guns everywhere. What can protect them?
Switching parties isn’t always cynical
While I agree with Scott Maxwell that partisan rancor and machinations muddy elections (“Party-switching politicians play partisan voters for fools,” Oct. 2), ditching state-level party labels would confuse voters more. And our true problem is not party-switching (unless done cynically to fool voters about a candidate’s true allegiances), but rather, voter negligence/apathy and closed primaries which weight outcomes toward the extremes. An individual’s principles and character — not just party — guide his/her actions once in office. And only informed voters can discern integrity through the noise.
I don’t agree that Charlie Crist was a rudderless opportunist when he switched parties. As a Republican governor, he took action that saved imperiled species and fragile landscapes from bad development — thanks to his moral compass, not the GOP. He went blue to reflect who he was. I believe David Jolly similarly is now a Democrat, to show his heart and not to “fool” voters. NPAs can’t win against the two-party machinery. Jolly appeals broadly in polls and town halls. He both espouses progressive goals and seeks consensus across parties on housing affordability, insurance, environmental protections, choice, human rights, less gun violence and restoring sunlight to state government. In the sense that Jolly’s mission to unite is nonpartisan, Maxwell is right: the two parties fail us when they perpetually divide.
At this point, normalcy — a calm wherein new dragnets and vendettas aren’t launched daily from Tallahassee; nor vaccines snatched from CVS; nor joyful life-celebrations in rainbow chalk erased at midnight by humorless squads — is a goal.
Why candidates switch parties matters far more than that they do.
Rebecca Eagan Winter Park
Who is watching DOGE?
Who is auditing Florida DOGE to determine the truthfulness of their findings? There are many citizens in the state who are uninformed and are willing to “trust and not verify.” DOGE knows this fact, so they say anything because they are assured they can get away with it.
We are waiting to hear more of the wanton waste that occurred at the University of Florida by the governor’s hand-picked former president.
L Williams Winter Haven
We did this to ourselves
Donald Trump, who promised to leave health care untouched, is threatening millions of Americans with losing part or all of their health care. Unwanted citizen soldiers are being sent, not by governors of the individual state, but at the orders of the president. Late-night talk show hosts are named and criticized and in one case suspended, apparently because Trump dislikes their criticism. Masked ICE agents target immigration hearings to arrest anyone they care to. What have we done to ourselves?
Joseph Pedersen Orlando
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