I skimmed John Balentine’s opinion article on the reasons for skepticism about the virus stats, looking for the nutmeat. (“View virus stats with a raised eyebrow,” April 9). There was none.

Cute, sarcastic, accusatory, yes. A mixed bag of fact-bits, a couple of anecdotes – all drawn from a serious set of statistics that helps understand what is going on and has gone on with this epidemic – is used to demean and vilify the public health professionals who have chosen their respective fields because they actually care about fellow humans and want to help.

His final sentence is, “They’re the liars and damned liars that are using statistics to paralyze our state and nation with fear and dread.”

Do you want fear and dread and hate and acrimony? Read John Balentine’s columns on a regular basis.

Do you want lies, dishonesty and cherry-picking to rile the readers up and try to maintain his standing as a “conservative“ thought provider? Keep reading them.

I find it useless, at least in any positive way. Question yourself if you like it; is it because you like being riled up about the, I don’t know, “elite“ or maybe “liberals”?

Maybe after seeing another dozen or so of his columns I’ll skim another one and most likely verify that it’s most always sour tripe.

Andrew McCusker

Scarborough