discussion
4 SMITHSONIAN | March 2020
TWITTER: @SmithsonianMag
INSTAGRAM: @smithsonianmagazine
FACEBOOK: smithsonianmagazineEarly Arrivals
“The Fertile Shore” (January/February 2020), about
the fi rst Americans , was intriguing. The demise of the
glaciers at the end of the last ice age was treated sim-
ply as a matter of fact. Though the article did touch
on the disappearance of ice up to two miles thick, the
bouncing back of landmasses and sea level changes,
what were the contributing factors? With the current
focus on managing climate change, it would seem
instructive to explain the retreat of the last ice age.
Understanding factors such as volcanic activity, pos-
sible shifts in the earth’s rotational axis and solar ac-
tivity could help keep current events in perspective
and inform the debate about the path forward.
— Raymond Germonprez | Omaha, NebraskaFighting Superbugs
I wonder how many other readers saw the irony in
your marvelous article about antibiotics (“Nature’s
Pharmacy,” January/February 2020). We give the
Pentagon over $1 trillion per year for things like nu-
clear weapons that can never be used and planes
that don’t work well. Yet we can’t fi nd $2 billion to
ensure we have life-saving antibiotics to fi ght super-
bugs that are killing many people now, numbers that
will increase with each passing year. We need to get
our priorities straight.
— Craig Etchison | Fort Ashby, West VirginiaElegy for a Poet
Immortality is living on in the hearts and minds of
those left behind (“Courageous,” January/February
2020). Maya Angelou’s gift was her willingness to
open her heart to reveal her suff ering. Her courage
and that beautiful, great big, loving smile give me
hope and determination to sing my own song.
— Deborah Collins | Facebook“Maya Angelou’s gift
was her willingness to
open her heart.”
Amazon Adventure
The fi rst thought that came to me while reading
“The Road to Ruin?” (January/February 2020) was
the arrogance of the modern urban resident. How
many individuals living in fi rst-world cities will read
about logging in the Amazon and scream that this
destruction must stop immediately? They refuse to
acknowledge that at one time, all metropolitan areas
were untouched by humans and contained trees as
old as those in the Amazon.
— WC Kirby | Granite Falls, North Carolina
Eyes to the Skies
“The Navigator” (January/February 2020) is a beau-
tifully written, evocative report that brought tears to
my eyes and reminded me that war is senseless, that
those least responsible for its horrors suff er just as
much, if not more, than the perpetrators. Thank you
for this glimpse into the bravery of fi ghting men and
their love for those they leave behind.
— Martha Pound Miller | Portland, Oregon
MAGAZINECorrections: The captions for Cleto Congo’s letter and
the 1767 slave inventory (January/February 2020) were
mistakenly swapped in the print edition.
In “Forgotten Desert” (January/February 2020), photog-
rapher Philippe Dudouit’s portfolio of images from the
Sahel-Sahara, we neglected to credit his representative,
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