SATURDAY, MAY 28 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
Free For AllCRAIG HUDSON FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Cynthia Staats and her daughter Sabrina march in the Bans Off Our Bodies abortion rights rally in D.C. on May 14.The May 14 Free for All letter on the
spelling of Ukrainian place names, “From
Kiev to Kyiv,” made a valid point in asking
why “Kiev,” a spelling of Ukraine’s capital with
centuries of usage in the English language,
should be changed to the Ukrainian spelling
of “Kyiv.”
In 2006, the U.S. Board on Geographic
Names, on which I served at the time, rejected
a proposal to remove the conventional spell-
ing “Kiev” for that reason, while signaling
“Kyiv” as a preferred form.
In 2019, however, the board, which stan-
dardizes place names for federal government
use, voted to drop “Kiev” as a conventional
name on an appeal from the Ukrainian
government and the State Department’s
Ukraine desk. To my own surprise, many
major English-language media sources, in-
cluding The Post, quickly switched from
“Kiev” to “Kyiv” after that decision.
The main reason for this change is that the
Russian (also Soviet-era) spelling, “Kiev,” is
largely seen as pejorative to Ukrainians, who
are eager to assert their independence by
ridding themselves of these foreign-language
names. To my knowledge, none of the English-
language conventional names of the Euro-
pean capitals listed in the May 14 letter —
Prague, Warsaw, Copenhagen, Rome, etc. —
are objected to by the governments or people
of those countries, just as I’ve never heard
Americans complain of the use of “Nueva
York” by Spanish speakers or “La Nouvelle
Orléans” by French speakers.
In contrast, place names that were as-
signed by former regimes, such as “Press-
burg,” the former German name for Slovakia’s
capital, Bratislava, or “Keijo,” the former
Japanese name for South Korea’s capital,
Seoul, are wisely set aside as historical arti-
facts.
Leo Dillon , ArlingtonWhy ‘Kiev’became ‘Kyiv’Regarding the May 17 editorial “Tragedy in Buffalo”:
Would The Post please, please, please stop using the
utterly inadequate term “tragedy” to refer to a mass
murder?
A “tragedy” might result from a hurricane, a flood, a
tornado, a naturally occurring wildfire, a disease (even a
pandemic) or a traffic accident (that actually was
accidental). A tragedy is apolitical, suggests an “act of
God” (some “God”) and, as such, is “no one’s fault.”
Nothing can be done to prevent similar tragedies in the
future, so everyone should pipe down and leave the gun
industry to continue reaping its profits.
Calling a mass murder a “tragedy” plays right into the
hands of the “gun crowd,” who positively lick their
chops at the prospect of publicly lecturing that “it is too
early to politicize this tragedy.” See? They’re the ones
who really care about the bereaved, not those whowould “politicize” a “tragic loss.”
A better word, which some writers and various
reporters in broadcast media have already adopted, is
“atrocity.” An “atrocity” is political by its nature. It is
someone’s fault, and it is possible to take steps to
prevent similar atrocities in the future. Let the “gun
crowd” say that “it’s too early to politicize this atrocity”
and see how far it gets.
What is necessary to prevent similar atrocities in the
future? Get the guns out of society. Until we do, we will
continue to have atrocities.
According to the Mass Shooting Tracker website, as of
May 26, there had been 19 additional mass shootings in
this country since the one in Buffalo that was the subject
of the editorial.
When will enough be enough?
Timothy Kendall , HerndonThe atrocities keep mountingLINDSAY DEDARIO/REUTERS
People visit a memorial in Buffalo on May 20 for the victims of the mass shooting at Tops supermarket there.The May 21 “Mike Du Jour” comic strip about
people wearing masks was not oxymoronic, as its
label suggested.
Many of us do “read lips,” at least partially, tosupport our impaired hearing.
Mask-wearing has made understanding speech
more difficult for us.
William N. Butler , FrederickIt’s no jokeMIKE LESTER
The May 21 “Mike Du Jour.”In the May 15 visual Opinion essay “One million of
us,” Sergio Peçanha and Yan Wu stated that “1 mil-
lion deaths is the benchmark of an unprecedented
American tragedy.” It is not. The authors made the
innumeracy mistake of not taking into account
population size at the time of the events.
The Civil War deaths of about 800,000 came from
a U.S. population of 30 million and represent-
ed 2.5 percent of the population. The 1 million covid
deaths come from a population of 330 million and
represent 0.3 percent of the population. Per capita,
the Civil War was some 8.5 times more of a tragedy
than covid.
The Civil War was even more of a tragedy in
demographic years lost, because the dead were
disproportionately young men, but covid-19 has
disproportionately affected the elderly and those
with existing serious health conditions.
Raymond J. Peterson , GreenbeltYet, 1 million too manyWhose protest was this? I eagerly opened The
Post on May 15 to read about the success of the Bans
Off Our Bodies protest, rally and march to the
Supreme Court [“A groundswell for Roe,” Metro,
May 15]. I was pleased to see a large photograph of
protesters on the Metro section front — until I read
the protest signs in the picture. The photo focused
attention on the group of maybe 10 counterprotest-
ers when thousands of abortion rights supporters of
all ages, genders, races and religions had gathered
to make their views heard.
It seems The Post decided in a Trumpian fashion
that there were protesters on both sides and
featured a picture of counterprotesters with their
antiabortion signs. This photograph was a full-out
misrepresentation of the rally and a disservice toreaders. The real snapshot of the rally would have
shown the thousands of abortion rights advocates
carrying their inspirational, interesting and/or
clever signs to inform the Supreme Court of the
many fundamental reasons Roe v. Wade should
stand.
Please don’t leave readers in the dark.
Marla McIntosh , Ellicott CityI was appalled by the front-of-section photo from
the Bans Off Our Bodies march [“A groundswell for
Roe,” Metro, May 15]. It featured parity between
protesters — three carrying antiabortion signs and
three with signs supporting a woman’s right to an
abortion. I was among the thousands of abortion
rights marchers and witnessed maybe 100 antiabor-tion protesters on the sidelines. But then I began to
think about how power in this country is rigged to
favor the minority — how the most populous state,
California, with nearly 40 million people, has the
same representation in the Senate as Wyoming,
with a population under 600,000. I also thought
about how this undemocratic Senate selects the
members of the Supreme Court that now has a
majority of justices who will likely overturn Roe
v. Wade. I can only imagine the special effort the
photographer must have made to get a picture to
represent a warped idea of balanced coverage. And
in a tragic way, he did capture the state of
democracy in America, where the majority of
citizens feel uncounted and unrepresented.
Lori Farnsworth , AlexandriaA truer pictureThe Post’s coverage of monkeypox has been
confusing.
The May 21 news article “CDC tells doctors to be
on the lookout for monkeypox” noted that no one
really knows yet, but maybe monkeypox is spread by
men who have sex with other men, and yet it also is
spread by contact with rodents and sharing bed
linens. If you can catch it sharing bed linens, then it’s
transmissible through heterosexual contact as well.
Let’s stop stigmatizing queer communities and
blaming gay sex. Full stop. Shifting blame to already
marginalized populations is not the way to go. The
media has done that plenty of times historically, and
it leads to hate crimes and unwarranted targeting of
innocent people.
Allison Bailey , Baltimore
Don’t blame gay men for monkeypox
The May 8 front-page article on the plot to
overturn Roe v. Wade , “Strategy to reverse Roe was
decades in making,” described right-wing operative
Leonard Leo as “a devout Catholic who regularly
visits the Vatican.” That unnecessary and unjustified
assessment did not belong in a newspaper.
If Leo’s professed religion and travel are germane
(they are), it would be sufficient and more truthful if
reporters, who present no evidence of the quality of
his religious activity, had simply observed that he is
“a Catholic.” If this characterization renders the
reference to his religion and tourism unnecessary,
perhaps it should have been deleted entirely. If the
reference is worth saving, the article might have told
us more about the specifically Catholic influence on
Leo and on the movement to pack the courts with
right-wing judges.
“Devout” is a loaded term that reporters should
handle gingerly. If a reporter has not observed Leo’s
private and public religious practices closely, he or
she has no business vouching for them. It’s probably
a better idea to avoid vouching for “devoutness”
altogether.
David Elwell , Silver Spring
Leave out ‘devout’
Chris Kelly’s otherwise fine May 6 Style review of
Olivia Rodrigo’s exuberant and polished concert at
the Anthem, “Life is brutal. Olivia Rodrigo provides
a little catharsis.,” struck a sour note when he opined
that the “crowd... seemed content to carry the tunes
when her voice couldn’t.” Really? I’m impressed
Kelly could assess the nuances of her voice over the
supercharged singing of the audience. And all those
times I was in a crowd at a Bruce Springsteen show
singing along to every tune, I thought we were
participating in a communal bond with a performer
whose songs we so closely identified with, not
helping the Boss make it through another set.
Clifton Johnson , Washington
Rodrigo’s crowdsourcing skills
In his May 19 op-ed, “The next big issue: Race’s
role in college admissions,” George F. Will referred to
“Cassandras claiming democracy hangs by a frayed
thread.” The aggressively erudite Will obviously
believes this is of little or no concern, but perhaps he
has forgotten (or never learned?) that Cassandra was
cursed always to tell the truth and yet never be
believed.
Robert B. McNeil , Alexandria
Understanding Cassandra’s curse
With Andrew Beyer, The Post had one of the most
knowledgeable and widely respected experts on
horse racing and the creator of the Beyer Speed
Figure. Oh, for the good old days.
The May 22 Sports article “Early Voting scorches
in Preakness” contained an error so blatant that it is
clear the reporter is not well acquainted with the
sport. The article stated that Early Voting, the
winner of the Preakness, had qualified for the
Kentucky Derby by winning the Wood Memorial. In
fact, Early Voting came in second in the Wood
Memorial, behind Mo Donegal. Any racing fan
would have called the Fact Checker on that one.
Hank Werronen , Washington
When Early Voting ran a little late
The Real Estate section is one of my family’s
favorite Saturday-morning reads. The May 21 sec-
tion front showed a very interesting-looking house,
but the story connected to it was of a completely
different property [“Renovating a home perfect for
retirement”]. We’d still be interested in learning
about the house that appeared on the cover. Please
don’t disappoint. Curveballs are best left to the
Sports section.
Frank Coleman , McLean
The wrong section for curveballs
DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/THE WASHINGTON POSTOlivia Rodrigo at the White House in July 2021.
CHARLIE RIEDEL/ASSOCIATED PRESSMo Donegal and rider at Churchill Downs in
Louisville on May 3.
In his May 21 op-ed, “The primaries foretell a
spike in GOP turnout,” Henry Olsen quoted all kinds
of data without telling anyone where he got it, other
than from political consultant John Couvillon. Yet
he didn’t say which party Couvillon consults for. He
challenged “talking heads” (his words) without
naming them. Whom was he talking about?
Peter D. Rosenstein , WashingtonConsider the sourceI always said that everything about The Post was
national or international except the Sports section,
which I never read because it was provincial to a
D.C. fault. But on May 22, I saw the best Post Sports
section ever, reaching twice into Maryland on the
section front, then to a great international tennisphoto, an important national health story and the
104th PGA Championship in Tulsa. I read the whole
section.
I had to write as a way to apologize for my prior
attitude and in hopes that you keep it up.
Pam Foster , Ellicott CityWorld-class Sports