Every week, The Post runs a collection of letters of readers’ grievances — pointing out grammatical mistakes, missing coverage and inconsistencies. These letters tell us what we did wrong and, occasionally, offer praise. Here, we present this week’s Free for All letters.
How is it that, say, $20 billion to one who already possesses billions of dollars is beneficial to “the economy” but $20 per hour to an actual worker who is likely to spend that money is wrecking it? That’s preposterous.
Prices clearly are not exclusively a function of the wages being paid to or denied to workers. The issue is more nuanced, which is not the case with this portrayal.
Robert Braxton, Fairfax
Not so distasteful after all
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization Bear Spray depicted in Michael Ramirez’s wonderful April 6 editorial cartoon, “NATO’s 75th anniversary,” has been a solid sales success, particularly in Poland and the Baltic nations. I suggest the introduction of a companion product for our allies facing encroachment from the People’s Republic of China: Dragon Repellant.
John S. Williams, Fairfax Station
That’s what we get for hiring the Big Bopper to write about women’s basketball
When I read the lead of the April 8 Sports article “As good as it gets,” about South Carolina’s defeat of Iowa, I wondered whether I was looking at a parody.
Was the sentence “Raven Johnson skipped over to Dawn Staley, toothy smile beaming, ponytail bobbing behind her, for a moment of celebration” intended as a joke? “Skipped”? “Toothy smile”? “Ponytail bobbing”? This is how The Post introduced a winning player on the winning basketball team in the NCAA finals? Was the article trying to minimize her contribution or her achievement? It’s hard to even imagine an equivalent sentence to describe a male basketball star in a similar situation. This lead did no honor to Johnson, women’s basketball or The Post.
Priscilla Rope, Washington
Take a gander at how we goose the stats
For the past several months, The Post has routinely equated sports records in men’s and women’s college basketball by reporting that women’s players and coaches have broken long-standing men’s college basketball records. I’m puzzled, therefore, by several articles’ continued insistence that Virginia and Purdue were the first two No. 1 seeds to lose to No. 16 seeds in the NCAA tournament. For one example, see the April 8 Sports article “Purdue’s path parallels Virginia’s 2019 title run,” which reported that last season, Purdue “became the second top seed,” after Virginia in 2018, “to lose to a No. 16 seed in the NCAA tournament.” In 1998, the top-seeded Stanford University women lost on their home court to the 16th-seeded Harvard University squad. Consistency would dictate you treat that loss as relevant to both men and women if you treat other records in that manner. Put differently, the old legal maxim is highly appropriate in this instance: What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Richard B. Rogers, Kingstowne
They eat (and grow) their Wheaties
Our family greatly enjoyed Sally Jenkins’s April 5 Sports column, “Bueckers, Clark make us feel like stargazers.” It was a savory appetizer.
For the next course, please write about their provenance. Raised four hours from each other, Paige Bueckers in the Minneapolis area and Caitlin Clark in the Des Moines area, they are but the latest superstar basketball talents to emerge from the Northern Midwest. Please assign the Sports team to this question: Why is it that Bueckers, Clark, Chet Holmgren, Jalen Suggs, Tyus and Tre Jones, and others have come out of the central northland in the past few years?
Tom Vellenga, Rockville
Unsanctioned games
The March 29 news article “Jordan struggles to contain unrest as Gaza protests grow” used the word “sanctioned” in a way that risked confusing rather than clarifying a complex geopolitical situation.
The article reported that “Jordanian authorities — who typically show little tolerance for public demonstrations — have sanctioned weekly protests after Friday prayers.” After reading the article several times, I believe the reporter intended “sanctioned” to mean the Jordanian government has allowed the demonstrations to continue, while trying to manage public opinion and emotions about the Israel-Gaza conflict and deter or prevent violence during such demonstrations.
The political situation in Jordan concerning the Israel-Gaza conflict is complex, and the government’s approach to the demonstrations is nuanced. The word “sanction” and its derivatives have opposing definitions; the word can denote either approval or disapproval. Dictionaries commonly define “sanction” (whether as a noun or as a verb) to mean basically: (1) an official approval, permission or ratification; or (2) a legal enforcement action or an economic or military coercive measure designed to enforce a law or standard (for example, a threat or fine designed to penalize a nation that has violated an international law, as in “economic sanctions”).
In this case, it might have been better to avoid the word “sanctioned” and use instead a word such as “allowed” or a phrase such as “cautiously allowed” to describe the government’s decision to allow the protest(s) to occur amid a complex political situation.
Please stop using the inherently ambiguous term “sanction” (and its derivatives) unless the context is very clear. Clearer words, such as “approved” or “allowed” or “tolerated,” or “banned” or “discouraged,” would serve readers better.
Brooks J. Bowen, Potomac
Our journalism is beyond compare
If there was ever the need for an illustration or an explanatory graphic, it was with the April 3 news article “German soccer rethinks jersey font after some compare it to Nazi symbol.” How many readers have both a clear and accurate idea what the symbol for the Schutzstaffel, or SS, looked like? The only way to fully understand the story is to see that symbol alongside the design for the jersey. This is clearly a case where readers would have been better served with a visual exploration of the resemblance than a mere description or a single immaterial photo online. Readers should not have to visit Google to understand articles in The Post.
Carol Burnett, Arlington
Doubly singularly wrong
I read with interest the March 30 Free for All letter “A disconcerting effort,” about the rising misuse of the term “concerted effort” to describe exertions by one person. For my part, I object to a term in another letter on that page: “complete stranger.” Versus an incomplete or partial stranger?
Madeline Wetzlar, Ellicott City
Multitudinously wrong
I was in complete agreement with Michael Miller’s April 9 letter on immigration until the following sentence: “With the exception of Native Americans ... we are all ... descendants of immigrants coming to this country for a better life.” The sentiment is lovely, but it ignores the tens of millions of Americans descended from enslaved Africans.
Ted Hochstadt, Pimmit Hills
The sun is setting on scientific literacy
In a country where too many people believe in the bankrupt concept of scientific orthodoxy, I have to call The Post out for the April 10 headline “A quest to prove Einstein right, beyond a shadow of doubt” [news]. Experimental physicists don’t set out to prove a theory correct. Of course, many experiments verify predictions of theories, but that’s not where the thrill is. No, we get the buzz, and the Nobel Prizes, when we find a theory’s flaws and prove them wrong.
In response to the online headline, “Why this eclipse could really show Einstein was correct,” the general theory of relativity is supported by a preponderance of evidence gathered in experiments performed by thousands of physicists and has culminated in the observation of gravitational radiation and an entirely new form of astronomy through gravitational observatories such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, perhaps the coolest experiment in the past 40 years.
Experimentalists are not in the business of pandering to the egos of theorists. We have more fun than that.
Ransom Stephens, Ashland, Ore.
Readers need to know
Recent news reports in The Post have left me wanting a summary article about security clearances and classified documents to have as an ongoing resource. It might answer the following questions for readers:
- Are presidents or presidential candidates subject to security investigations before being given access to classified documents?
- Under what circumstances are such documents made available to them?
As a previous holder of Top Secret clearance, I suggest that appropriate investigations be initiated when individuals become candidates for any office that might require such access; and investigations should be completed before an individual is granted access to any classified document.
Further, there should be a “need to know” provision. Even the president does not need to know every detail of every classified matter.
William N. Butler, Frederick
We’re going down
I am a public school librarian in Howard County. I love newspapers and encourage my students to read them for unbiased, reliable content. I advocate print journalism because the printed paper sends signals about the value of stories depending on their placement in the paper. Editorials and op-ed pieces are grouped together and clearly labeled, making it very clear when you are reading opinion vs. a news article. I lament the loss of the quality local reporting we had in Howard County as the Baltimore Sun staff has been dramatically reduced.
And I am worried about the downsizing at The Post. I am worried that the paper’s quality and credibility are in jeopardy when typos, such as the four I noticed in a single week, start appearing. They speak to a problem in the process. If your editing practices were recently revised, or affected by the buyouts that took place late last year, it might not be for the best.
I hope The Post can stay alive and continue to contribute the crucial oversight provided by journalists. I am not a letter-to-the-editor kind of person; as a teacher, I know mistakes happen. But this string of mistakes was surprising and a bit alarming.
Lynn Rashid, Ellicott City
Dope floats
The April 8 front-page article “Trump floats plan to end war” struck me as strange. I read the article looking for a plan. True, the first paragraph used the word “plan,” and the second paragraph talked of a “proposal.”
But the article included no plan or proposal. Rather, it recapitulated what Donald Trump allegedly has been telling his advisers in private; he wants Ukraine to give up substantial amounts of territory to pave the way for peace. That’s it. That’s the plan.
It’s hardly a secret that Trump opposes any additional aid to Ukraine; he’s been making that clear to one and all in Congress, a message House lawmakers have taken to heart in blocking President Biden’s aid package, putting Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) job at risk. It’s well known that Trump would let Russian President Vladimir Putin work his will in Ukraine. Has Trump changed his mind? The article didn’t say.
Then we have that word “float.” But there was no evidence in the story that Trump has floated anything, in the sense of sounding out what foreign policy experts or lawmakers think of a substantial proposal. The whole report rested on what Trump’s advisers say he now thinks. Until Trump says it out loud and puts some meat on the bones, it’s not a plan; it’s gossip.
Seems to me The Post placed a nonstory in the slot usually reserved for that day’s most important news.
Elliot Carlson, Silver Spring
We coulda been a contender
Regarding Ty Burr’s April 3 Style Perspective, “Can anyone fill Brando’s boots?”
Can any article about Marlon Brando — whether about his acting career or the “boots” he left behind and that remain unfilled — be taken seriously if it doesn’t mention his performance in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now”? Quite an oversight, I respectfully submit.
Kevin A. Sweeney, Manassas
