SATURDAy, MARCH 21 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A21
Free For All
YAHYA ARHAB/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK
A child stands near a swamp covered with waste, a high-risk environment for cholera, in Sanaa, Yemen, on March 11.Highlighting the departure of Sen. Elizabeth
Warren (D-Mass.) from the Democratic race for
president on the front page was correct [“As Warren
exits, gender issue arises anew,” March 6]. The
secondary headline of this article, “Supporters won-
der if qualifications can beat ‘elephant in the room,’ ”
was also enlightening after all the effort Warren
made to diminish this aspect of the race.
A nd after reading that article, I turned to the Style
section. Two of the four articles on that section’s
front page were about women and high-level posi-
tions, and the two others concerned older white
males’ adventures. Guess who made first billing on
this page: the two older white males, covering thetop half of the page. One had a huge photograph of
the male subject [“Another star turn for Mick Jagger
— this time in the movies”] while the other had no
picture but top billing [“Garth Brooks has fans in
high places”].
At the bottom of the page were the articles about
the women, one with a small picture [“ ‘Hillary’
turns defeat into tale of modern feminism”] and the
other a column with no picture [“Women saw one of
their own in Warren”]. So I guess The Post h as shown
us its priorities with its placement of these articles.
No wonder women have such a problem with male
contenders and colleagues.
Elaine Rand, WashingtonWomen relegated to low places
MATT MCCLAIN/THE WASHINGTON POST
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in Detroit on March 3.I am often bemused by readers who take the time to
write a letter to the editor complaining about this or
that comic strip. But the March 7 “WUMO” strip
crossed a line that is beyond bemusement.
I don’t w atch “Shark Ta nk.” I don’t g et t he joke about
denim pajamas. But I do get that there is an intended
joke about one person shooting another. Perhaps t his istwo Danish c artoonists making fun o f the p ropensity of
Americans to shoot one another. P erhaps this i s the way
we are seen in the rest of the world. T he strip is, after all,
published in a variety o f languages and countries.
I t was not funny. Or perhaps it was not intended to
be funny.
James L. McGee, BethesdaDanish humor, American carnage
MIKAEL WULF AND ANDERS MORGENTHALER/ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
The March 7 “WUMO”In her March 6 Metro column, “Behind the anti-
S emitic signs, a horrifying crime,” Petula Dvorak pro-
filed a mentally ill Vienna resident who posts anti-
S emitic, anti-Israel signs in her yard. The woman
proselytizes “to anyone who will listen to her” —
including a Post columnist — the irrational thinking
behind h er actions: She is posting s igns in her yard now
because 14 y ears ago, her brother (himself d iagnosed as
a paranoid schizophrenic) murdered their father sup-
posedly because he was circumcised in infancy.
What was Dvorak’s purpose in writing this col-
umn? Was it to de-stigmatize mental illness? To
contribute to reducing hate speech? To open a rea-
soned discussion regarding circumcision? Her piece
did none of these. She missed the opportunity to
present the readership some basic facts, for example
that not only Jews circumcise m ales. Or t hat, b ased on
the m edical evidence, the World Health Organization,
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and
the N ational Institutes of H ealth recommend c ircum-
cision because it reduces HIV transmission by about
60 percent. Unfortunately, Dvorak chose to publicize
the i rrational t hinking of a n unwell p erson.
Adele Natter, WashingtonDisseminating anti-Semitism
In February, 19 children were among at least 31 civilians
killed in Saudi- and Emirati-led coalition airstrikes in Yemen.
Ye t across the United States, that attack received little to no
news coverage. It was not reported in The Post. That’s
shameful. There is a virtual media blackout on Yemen at the
same time that the United States is giving a blank check of
military support to the Saudi- and Emirati-led coalition’s
brutal war.
Yemen is one of the largest humanitarian crises in the
world. Twenty-two million people are in need of humanitari-
an assistance because of the war. There are 1.2 million cases of
cholera — the largest outbreak in modern history — and
8 million children lack regular access to safe water.
Despite this, the United States provides military informa-tion, weapons and strategy to the Saudi- and Emirati-led
coalition responsible for the bulk of the suffering. This is
unacceptable.
U.S. policies in Yemen have only prolonged the conflict. The
United States should use its diplomatic tools to build peace,
not incite war. I call on our government to take action: Stop
enabling the Saudi- and Emirati-led coalition, support negoti-
ations for peace and use U.S. resources to help the Yemeni
people.
We m ust do everything we can to educate ourselves, to hold
our members of Congress accountable and to push for peace
in Yemen. But to do so, first we have to know what’s
happening.
Lieve and Luc Dewulf, ArlingtonThe media blackout on Yemen
I read with interest the March 5 obituary for
Rafael Cancel Miranda, “Last of Puerto Rican na-
tionalists who fired on Congress.” Cancel Miranda
was the last of the assailants who shot up the
U.S. Capitol’s House Chamber in 1954 in the name of
Puerto Rican independence. The obituary had a
significant omission, however. While the obituary
named Cancel Miranda’s accomplices and men-
tioned the fact that five members of Congress were
struck by the shooters’ bullets, those congressmen
weren’t named. They were Alvin Bentley (R-Mich.),
Ben F. Jensen (R-Iowa), George Hyde Fallon
(D-Md.), Kenneth A. Roberts (D-Ala.) and one of my
predecessors in representing Memphis, Clifford
Davis (D-Tenn.). In writing about Cancel Miranda’s
role in this historic event, not mentioning his
victims seems a significant oversight.
Steve Cohen, Washington
The writer, a Democrat, represents
T ennessee’s 9th Congressional District.
Name the victims
I felt angry reading “The lost luster of ‘Diamond
Joe’ Biden” [Style, March 10]. “A ngry” is putting it
mildly. The article said, “The just-barely creepy yet
fun Diamond Joe is now just a creep.” A nd the writer
called former vice president Joe Biden, a candidate
for the Democratic nomination for president, “a
confused old man” a nd “pathetic.” T hough the Onion
and “Saturday Night Live” were referenced as the
source of such “satire,” The Post lowered its stan-
dards by publishing such cheap shots.
Harmon Biddle, Chevy Chase
The former veep’s no creep
Again, editors have forgotten that it doesn’t
make much sense to reference colors in a black-
and-white photograph. One of the photographs
that accompanied the March 2 Metro article “Near
troubled waters, a suburban cul-de-sac now sits
emptied of homes” s howed a cul-de-sac surrounded
by bare ground. Try as I might, I cannot see the
“yellow patches” cited in the caption.
Ted Houghton, Charlton, Mass.
Black and white and yellow nowhere
I could not believe the front page of the Sports
section on March 9. The men’s Terps won the Big Te n
conference and got two-thirds of the page with bold
headlines. The women’s Terps did the same thing
and got the bottom one-third of the page with a
much smaller headline. I hope this will be used to
show the discrimination women face.
Jan Beese, Gainesville
No little women in the Big Ten
Regarding Devoney Looser’s March 8 Outlook
essay, “Five Myths: Jane Austen”:
Readers may be interested in the great Chief
Justice John Marshall’s good-natured poke at his
colleague Justice Joseph Story for omitting Jane
Austen from a lecture he gave on distinguished
British women novelists. The chief justice declared
of Austen: “Her flights are not lofty, she does not soar
on eagles’ wings, but she is pleasing, interesting,
equable, and yet amusing. I count on your making
some apology for this omission.”
Ye t, the chief justice, too, underrated Austen, who
surely belongs to the literary tribe of the eagles.
Whatever the two justices’ modest deficiencies in
literary criticism, our contemporary public life
would be edified by not only their jurisprudence but
also their graces.
Ken Masugi, Rockville
Before Louisa May Alcott
What is the four-syllable German word former
Indiana governor Mitch Daniels referred to in the
last paragraph of his March 10 Tuesday Opinion
column, “The Midwest is seeing a resurgence”?
Robert Coyle, Fairfax
Schadenfreude
Thanks to Jim To omey for the introduction to
yet another fascinating creature in his weekly
comic strip, “Sherman’s Lagoon” [March 10].
Looking at photographs and videos of pigletsquids online has offered welcome respite from
the news angst encountered in the rest of The
Post.
Linda Sapin, Takoma ParkIn the ocean, pearls and swine
JIM TOOMEY/KING FEATURES SYNDICATE
The March 10 “Sherman’s Lagoon”A big thanks to Carolyn Van Houten for the two
extremely beautiful photographs of horse ranches
near the U.S.-Mexico border with the March 7
front-page article “Where Trump’s wall rises, ranch-
ers see a scar on the range.”
Sheila Cohen, Chevy ChaseMeanwhile, back at the ranch
It was startling that the in-
flammatory and over-the-top
March 7 Free for All letter from
Nora Burgan, “Why Palestinian
food is important,” was printed.
The Food section had already
given a forum to Reem Kassis to
expound on her contentious view
that Israeli cuisine is cultural
appropriation [“Why Palestin-
ians object to the term ‘Israeli
food,’ ” Feb. 19]. Not content,
however, Burgan charged thatusing the term “Israeli food” “is
to be complicit in a crime against
humanity” and, as cultural ap-
propriation, is linked to ethnic
cleansing. Given the experience
of the Jewish people who suffered
actual crimes against humanity,
hurling such charges over Israeli
cuisine is simply unspeakable.
Not only do such unreasoned
views exceed the bounds of re-
sponsible debate, but they also
sadly reflect an intransigent re-
fusal on the part of Israel’s oppo-
nents to accept a sovereign Jew-
ish state as an integral part of the
Middle East.
Stuart Endick, BurkeNot nearly ‘a
crime against
humanity’
Hurling such charges
over Israeli cuisine is
simply unspeakable.
Kathleen Parker’s March 8 op-ed, “A 2020 soap
opera: T he Old and t he R estless,” w as an intellectually
dishonest hit job on Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a
candidate for the Democratic nomination for presi-
dent. She labeled Sanders a “socialist” who “honey-
mooned in the Soviet Union.” By parroting GOP
speech tactics, she has handed President Trump and
his followers cover for their inevitable dishonest
mantra t hat Sanders is disloyal to the United S tates.
Sanders is not a “socialist.” He is a “democratic
socialist” in the model of those Scandinavian coun-
tries that rank high in various measures of human
well-being. Sanders’s whole p ublic career h as b een far
more “democratic” than “socialist.” To illustrate the
dishonesty o f Parker’s u se of t he e motive t erm “ social-
ist” is staggeringly simple. The Nazi party was the
“National Socialist” party. Hitler was a sworn enemy
of “socialists.”
We all know that if Sanders were to win the
Democratic nomination, we would hear Republicans
calling him a “socialist” every day
for the duration of the campaign.
There is a very old story about a cop
who was wading through a com-
munist riot beating everyone with-
in reach with his billy club. One
person in the crowd s aid, “Don’t h it
me; I’m an anti-communist.” The
cop whacked h im and said, “ I don’t
care what kind of communist you
are.”
The intellectual dishonesty of Parker’s Cold War
innuendo h as b een debunked m any times.
The lesson is s imple: Speak honestly.
Thomson von Stein, A spen H illA hit job on Bernie Sanders
SandersI thought Michael Hewitt’s March 8 Local Opin-
ions essay on Ulysses S. Grant, “A perfect memorial
for an imperfect hero,” was quite moving. Grant so
impressed Mark Twain with his modesty in light of
his accomplishments that Twain devoted full effort
not only to publishing his memoirs but also to
ensuring Grant’s widow received the full benefits of
the results. Grant truly embodied the U.S. Military
Academy motto, “Duty, Honor, Country.”
Mark L. Reese Jr., Springfield
U.S. Grant’s sivilized friend
The caption on the photograph t hat accompanied
the March 9 Capital Business article “Palantir bests
Raytheon and seals major deal with Navy” said, “A
U.S. Navy cover sits on a chair... ”
Kudos to the caption writer’s correct description
of the officer’s headgear as a “cover” rather than a
“cap” or, heaven forbid, a “hat.”
I’ll wager the caption writer (an unrecognized but
vital component of the paper’s staff) is a Navy
veteran; a “feather merchant” would not have
known of the distinction.
Peter Griffin, Charlottesville
We’ve got you covered
CAROLYN VAN HOUTEN/THE WASHINGTON POST
The Mallet Ranch near Rodeo, N.M., on Jan. 9.KATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POSTMaryland won the Big Ten Tournament in
Indianapolis on March 8.