Category Archives: Letters to the Editor

The QB Who Kicked the Hornets Nest

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To the Editor:

As someone coming of age in the times of the Civil Rights struggle, Viet Nam, Kent State, and the assassinations of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Robert Kennedy, I have frequently  wondered just what does it mean to be a “loyal American”?  What is it to “respect the Flag”?  What does “patriotism” entail?  In asking and addressing these same questions, Colin Kaepernick has become the Quarterback Who Kicked the Hornets Nest.  Any number of NFL teams could immediately use his skills, but the reason he is not playing is not a football decision.  It is a socio-political-economic decision based on the fear of teams and the league losing fan and advertising support.  Both Kaepernick and the owners have valid concerns, but the overriding question still is what does it mean to be an American? Or, for that matter, what is it to be a valid person in a still racially divided society?  In inserting himself into the fray, Donald Trump is that guy standing in a crowd surrounding what appears to be a fight about to break out who is yelling for the fighting to begin.  This is for his fan base, but it is utterly irresponsible behavior.

Robert Porath

Human Sparked Climate Change

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To the Editor:

The frustrating aspect of the denial of human sparked climate change is that it chooses to ignore the basic chemistry of oxidation, particularly that of the combustion of fossil fuels.  The carbon, hydrogen, and energy present in oil, natural gas, and coal have lain dormant in the earth for millions of years.  When burned, these element combine with oxygen and release levels of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, water vapor, and heat (plus various other chemical compounds) that are now active in the atmosphere.  Climate science is the attempt to understand what this means for the future of every living thing on the planet.  This part is not simple science.  It is globally complex.  Climate scientists have been threatened with losing funding for their research by pro-industry Republicans since the Bush Administration and are wary, with reason, of speaking out forcefully, but to set this exploration aside is not only short-sighted, it is dangerous.

Robert Porath

Female Statuary

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To the Editor:
A not entirely trivial bit of the history of female statuary is John Ashcroft’s covering of the breasts of the blindfolded, scale holding symbols of Justice during his tenure as Attorney General.  If Harriet Tubman is not a proper replacement for Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, perhaps the Venus de Milo or Rodin’s The Kiss might serve to better reflect feminine beauty and mystery and deflect our tendencies to military engagement.  Similarly, lest the reality of Art upstage the surreality of ambition and war, the copy of Picasso’s “Guernica” portraying the anguish and suffering of a village being bombed and strafed during the Spanish Civil War was covered with a tarp as our intention to attack Iraq was being announced from the steps of the UN building in New York.  It seems we have but a tenuous grip on the realities of justice and life.
Robert Porath

Governance

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To the Editor:
Since Ronald Reagan was President, Republicans have been running successfully on his platform of “government is the problem” and that deregulated markets can solve the problems of the nation.  They have been aided in this by wealthy donors who saw (and see) clearly, “there is money to be made here”.  This has resulted in a slew of office holders not only indebted to their donors but also largely devoid of the ability to govern, which, in a democracy, requires having a perspective that extends beyond narrow self interest.  The impending perils of global climate change are quite frightening enough without the sense that those in office are utterly inept in the skills of governance.

Robert Porath

Mt. Evans

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To the Editor;

As to honoring past icons, Colorado’s 2nd Territorial Governor John Evans, as one of the founding fathers of Denver and Colorado’s economic development, deservedly has his name attached to several small railroad towns, a major street, and even a Professorship and chapel at DU. He is similarly honored in Illinois, however, from his failure as Superintendent of Indian Affairs and involvement in instigating the Sand Creek Massacre in which a peace-seeking village of Cheyenne and Arapaho was brutally attacked, it seems incongruous is that one of our magnificent “14ers” also bears his nome.  The uprooting of the Native Peoples of America amounts to a genocide equalling that of the Holocaust.  That John Evans’ name is on a piece of the natural beauty of Colorado is a travesty that should be removed.

Robert Porath

White Privilege

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To the Editor:

On the one hand there is the boorish, self-aggrandizing pathological liar that is Donald Trump and on the other the millions of people who have no problem with the President of the United States being this deranged.  The driving force behind this phenomenon, most simply put, is race.  A large percentage of white America will never accept racial equality in any form.  That Barack Obama could hold office with intelligence, dignity, and grace for 8 years was too much to bear.  Immigration, voting rights, and affirmative action in hiring and education are seen as threats to white privilege, wealth, and power.  Slavery may have been abolished but white supremacy is very much alive today.

Robert Porath

Fake, fake, fake!

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Donald Trump made the first splash in his campaign for President with a “fake news” story that Obama was not born in America. Now he and his supporters cry, “Fake News!” at any reporting not favorable to him or his message, particularly in regard to the Russian involvement in his campaign. Looking past the tacit racism underlying the questioning of Obama’s “Americaness”, the claim of fake news has become a political tool to confound and confuse public perception of what may or may not be factual. A truthful evaluation of the Republican effort to Repeal and Replace Obama’s Affordable Care Act would term it the Fake Health Care Act in its denial of quality health care for those less fortunate, which also exposes the Fake Christianity of Republican politicians who choose to ignore the teachings of the Beatitudes. Through it all, it reveals that Donald Trump is a truly Fake Savior of America’s Greatness.

Robert Porath

A Guiding Thread

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To the Editor:
If there is a guiding thread through the maze of incoherence and distraction created by the ascendency of Donald Trump to the Presidency, it points to a plan that America be governed not on democratic principles but as an autocratic fascist oligarchy.  With a Cabinet filled with retired generals, CEOs, and billionaires, it is no wonder the President so admires Vladimir Putin and the Russian oligarchs.  Further, the Supreme Court decision on Citizens United cleared the way for the unlimited power of wealth to influence American politics, which sits well with the Libertarian/Republican desire for a limited, deregulated “small government”.  This is a government not of the People but one by and for a wealthy elite.
Robert Porath

The Dung Beetle Congress

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To the Editor:
The Republican Party’s Repeal and Replace Obamacare efforts are rooted firmly in Social Darwinism, aka, the survival of only the fittest, as well as the Calvinist belief that being wealthy implied being in God’s favor, and the economic elitism of Ayn Rand. If you are poor, disabled, or otherwise unfortunate in life, your medical care is of no concern to the powers that be. Watching the slow determined slog of their attempts to push a bill to fruition through the halls of Congress brings to mind the image of a dung beetle resolutely rolling a ball of dung to its nesting place. One has to admire the dedicated and seemingly cheerful labor it applies to its task. That its prized possession has value to no one but itself is clearly not the beetle’s concern.
Robert Porath

On Reading

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To the Editor –

I always celebrate the confluences and serendipity of books and life.  I’ve been reading Anthony Burgess’ fictional biography of Christopher Marlowe, A Dead Man in Deptford, not an easy read as, ever the linguist, he writes in, I presume, a passable Elizabethan English.  He also does not sugarcoat what life was like then nor gloss over the intrigues of the Court (what we would call “politics” today) and the dangerous ground theater trod in its earliest days.

And so today we have a volatile mixture of politics and religion, the general populace walking around armed (with guns, not daggers and swords) for protection, and the recovery of the body of Richard II, written into history (by the victors, Shakespeare’s patrons) as villianous.  Isn’t it all somewhat wondrous.

– RP