Quick! Call Scotland Yard! King Charles III has been encased in carbonite, and without any guards in sight, he’s a sitting duck for the bounty hunters!
C.E. Wray, Charlottesville
The May 15 online article “Jewish staffer resigns from Biden administration over Gaza” was a perfect example of a non-newsworthy story.
After reading the article it is clear that Lily Greenberg Call was a non-senior staffer who has no foreign policy background, worked at the Interior Department, which has no involvement in the administration’s decisions on foreign affairs, and has no expertise in Middle East conflicts. Why is she getting attention? Because she is an American Jew whose forebears came to the United States from Europe via Ellis Island, has spent time in Israel and was involved in a pro-Israel organization in college.
So what? That description could fit thousands of Jews living in the United States, some of whom support President Biden’s foreign policy and some of whom don’t. I don’t see Post articles about the hundreds of Jews in the Biden administration who have not resigned over his decision to support Israel.
Elizabeth Muhlbaum, Bethesda
Double down on double standards
Major props to columnist and language monitor Monica Hesse for calling out Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) for mocking a colleague’s overlong “fake eyelashes” during a House committee meeting [“In Congress, brawls not reserved for the men,” Style, May 18].
But one wonders why Hesse had so little to say about an insult flung back at Greene from that long-lashed colleague, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Tex.). Crockett managed to combine shape-shaming with an anti-gay slur in a single succinct phrase. Greene, she suggested, inhabits a “bleach-blond, bad-built butch body.”
Was there a double standard at work here? Or did Crockett’s mass deployment of hyphens earn her a pass?
Double down on the doubling-down of double standards
The May 15 Metro article “In siege of clinic, a prison sentence” reported on “a reproductive health clinic,” “reproductive health rights” and “reproductive health services or providers.”
Here and elsewhere, The Post’s use of the term “reproductive health” betrays its bias. Everyone knows this term is code for abortion, the word all its advocates want to avoid.
Stephen Shook, Springfield
Remember the reason for the season
A multitude of thanks for the May 27 Metro article “A veteran’s final honor: His diploma,” the heartwarming article about Marine veteran Richard Remp and his award of an honorary high school diploma only two days before his death. The real heroine in this story is Justi Glaros, superintendent of schools in Sharon, Pa. Her empathy, kindness and immediate action in making Remp’s “graduation” a reality were an excellent example of doing the right thing at the right time. Her selfless love and respect for a man she had never met are proof that hope is alive amid the discord and distrust we see in our country.
The May 26 edition of The Post was sorely missing reporting on Memorial Day, George F. Will’s excellent op-ed notwithstanding [“This holiday, remember the sacrifices of the fallen”]. The biggest mention of the occasion was the full-page ad for the big Memorial Day concert. Did you at least give them a discounted ad rate? As for me, this Marine veteran and son of a Marine combat veteran would like to supplement Will’s recommendations. I celebrate Memorial Day by rewatching the World War II movie “They Were Expendable.” It’s nice to see something not about victimization but, rather, service and sacrifice.
Robert V. Hamilton, McLean
We want the hard (not alternative) facts
The May 8 front-page article “Plans develop to muscle up for a global trade war” reported that Donald Trump’s proposed 60 percent tariff on Chinese imports “could raise prices on more than $5 trillion in goods between 2026 and 2035, while also bringing in an additional $2 trillion in government revenue, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a Washington think tank.”
I could not believe the CRFB’s estimate of added revenue, so I went to the organization’s website to find the original report. Here, in part, is what it said: “Although we estimate this would generate $2.4 trillion of net new revenue on a static basis, it would ultimately produce far less revenue — or even lose revenue — once changes in trade behavior are taken into account. Specifically, under conventional scoring we estimate it would produce no more than $300 billion over a decade and could lose $50 billion.” The report went on: “Those figures would be lower after incorporating macroeconomic effects. For example, assuming the tariffs and responses reduced economic output by about 1 percent … the policy could lose between $200 and $500 billion over a decade.”
This seems to be the opposite outcome of what The Post article reported. Add in the estimate, mentioned later in the article, by the Center for American Progress of $1,500 per year in expenditures for a typical U.S. household based on the universal 10 percent tariff Trump is also proposing, and this is a lose-lose idea in my book.
Craig Hoogstra, Washington
The May 9 Style article “The saga of Kitty Snows” brought to mind another “Kittygate.” Yes, at the Watergate and, yes, during that era. My father, Charles W. Simpson, moved to Washington in January 1973 and was chief of staff for Rep. Charles “Charlie” Wilson (D-Tex.) for the first six of his 12 terms. Dad had stories about his time with Charlie that my 13-year-old self appreciated, such as Charlie doing the bump, as the dance is known, at the White House with his congressional freshman classmate Barbara Jordan (D-Tex.).
As for the original Kittygate: One weekend, shortly after he arrived in D.C., Dad’s home phone rang. “Simpson, we’re going to have to find a new apartment. Can you pick us up?” Dad found Charlie, his first wife, Jerry (“Goose”), and their cat, Ernest, sitting on the curb in front of the Watergate. Apparently, climbing the drapes on the windows that look out on that beautiful view of the Potomac River was not Watergate-acceptable behavior. Dad took the three of them home to live with him, I believe, until my mom and I joined him that March.
Every time I hunt for street parking in front of the Watergate en route to the Kennedy Center, I smile when I imagine Charlie’s 6-foot-4 lank folded up on the curb next to the lovely Goose — and Ernest, peering without guilt out of his cat carrier. Next time I round the corner in front of the Watergate, I do believe Kitty Snows will be sitting next to Charlie, too. Charlie would have liked that.
Teri Simpson Lojewski, Berlin, Md.
When will we again have a gardening column at The Post that reaches the standards set by Henry Mitchell and Adrian Higgins? Avid gardeners are waiting patiently. The generic columns and ones written by gardeners from other locales should be temporary while you search for a knowledgeable Mid-Atlantic writer who is passionate about writing columns that gardeners like myself will clip and save.
I hope this search is already in progress. These are difficult times, and gardens give much-needed solace. Enough about buying grills and garden furniture; we need a quality column like those of the past.
Kathryn Williams, Silver Spring
No need to leave our backyard
Over the past year, three articles stood out as exemplifying how The Washington Post ignores the city in its name. The May 31, 2023, front-page article “Schools done with phone use pushing their buttons” focused on schools in such far-flung places as Connecticut and Colorado; the May 8 front-page article “How the call to ban cellphones went through at one school” covered a middle school in Connecticut; and the May 12 Metro article “Schools warn high school students to avoid ‘Assassins’ water gun game” consulted officials in Loudoun and Montgomery counties.
In each article, the journalist would only need to have traveled as far as Alice Deal Middle School in Northwest D.C. for examples of each. Students at Deal have been using Yondr pouches to lock up their cellphones all year, and on May 1, the school went on lockdown because of realistic toy guns being used outside.
This is not the first time a letter has requested more emphasis on the District, and I fear it won’t be the last.
The writer is a parent of a seventh-grader at Alice Deal Middle School.
A little late for that. Thanks anyway.
The May 26 full-page spread “Election 2024: The issues, the answers” [Metro], on where the candidates in the June 4 Democratic primary for the D.C. Council stand on key issues, had a tremendous amount of very useful information for voters. D.C. Council positions are important, and little is known about many of the candidates.
The article would have been far more useful had it been published before many of us (myself included) had voted. Ballots were mailed out on April 29 and could have been mailed back at any point thereafter, and voting via drop boxes started on May 10.
The so-called tryst with the so-called actress shouldn’t have been called so
A tryst is an agreement between lovers to meet. Stormy Daniels agreed to meet for dinner. She did not agree to meet on a bed. Why, in the May 21 news article “State rests its case in Trump’s N.Y. trial” and elsewhere, is The Post continuing to use the word “tryst,” since she has testified under oath that the sex was unexpected, shocking and traumatizing?
Why describe her as an adult-film actress, rather than adult-film producer, director, screenwriter and actor? What about interviewing an expert therapist to explain how someone could not be drunk or drugged and not know how she ended up on a bed with a man she did not want touching her?
Rather than an adult-film actress testifying about a tryst in a hush money trial, I think you mean an adult-film producer, director, screenwriter and actor testifying about traumatizing sex during a hush money election fraud trial.
Clove Haviva, Bristol, Vt.
Fitting tribute for a master storyteller
The May 15 front-page obituary for Alice Munro, “Short-story master found great depth in ordinary lives,” was beautifully written. The writer, Emily Langer, is a young woman, but her words moved me, a woman nearing 70.
Langer wrote, “Mrs. Munro had a particular interest in what she called ‘a new kind of old woman, women who grew up under one set of rules and then found they could live with another.’ She might have been describing herself.”
I cannot imagine a better tribute to the life and mind of the wonderful Alice Munro.
Intents, purposes and consequences
The May 14 news article “U.S. bans Russian uranium imports” stated: “The United States’ dependence on Russian uranium dates back to a 1993 nuclear disarmament program … dubbed Megatons to Megawatts. … Today, some experts say the program had the unintended consequence of delivering such inexpensive Russian fuel that U.S. and European companies struggled to compete.”
I was the author of that agreement and can assure The Post that the replacement of American with Russian-mined uranium was not its intention or consequence.
The George H.W. Bush administration made clear to the Russians the major distinction between importing uranium derived from weapons and importing mined natural uranium, going so far as to have the Coast Guard interdict and board a freighter to prevent the import of Russian-mined uranium to protect U.S. miners.
The Megatons to Megawatts agreement did — as expected — contribute to reductions in sales and prices of domestic-mined uranium. But it did not produce a national decision to (1) turn to Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear power conglomerate, for all mined uranium supplies for U.S. reactors; (2) close U.S. uranium mines; and (3) use Rosatom for future development of a different kind of American fuel for advanced reactors.
Those decisions put the United States’ nuclear energy future in the hands of the Russians.
William H. Young, Rockville
The writer was assistant secretary of energy for nuclear energy from 1989 to 1993.
It shouldn’t have shipped
I was surprised to read, in the May 8 news article “Despite the hurdles, Johnson intends to continue as speaker past election,” this quote attributed to House Speaker Mike Johnson:
“But right now it’s all hands on deck, all hands on the wheel and steering the ship upstate, so to speak.”
Steering the ship “upstate”? Surely Johnson said “ship of state.” I am reminded of an episode early in my career as a Post editor, during the first months of the Reagan administration. While checking pages before publication, I noticed that we quoted the Rev. Jesse Jackson as saying that Ronald Reagan’s policies were “taking from the nitty and giving to the gritty.” I checked with the copy desk to make sure Jackson hadn’t actually said “taking from the needy and giving to the greedy.” Sure enough, it was fixed before the page was sent to press.
The May 10 Weekend article “How the show ‘Hair’ goes bare in 2024” discussed “full-on” nudity. Shouldn’t it be “full off”?
