Blog—TWO
REMARKABLE OP-EDS: ONE GREAT, THE OTHER
TERRIFYING
I almost didn’t read them myself.
A quick scan of the titles made one
seem nicey-nice and the other . . . well, obvious. Today, Tuesday the 9th,
I told myself, You can’t spend half the
day reading the L.A.
Times.
Well, I did it anyway. “TACKLING A
RACIAL DIVIDE” was about two students, one white, the other black, who met in a
remarkable program at Los Angeles’ Hamilton
high school. Designed to encourage mixed-race understanding, even friendships,
the school held regular “convocations” (described in detail within the
article), which resulted in a life-long friendship between two mixed-race young
men. Eventually the two, “more or less
as a unit,” ran for student leadership positions: one was elected senior class
president, the other student body president.
Life after high school thrust them back
into a world of racism. “We both give lectures in our respective specialties,
usually addressing conferences of our fellow doctors. One of us . . . can have
difficulty getting into the conference venues to get his credentials; the other
walks in without any credentials at all.”
The jointly-written article notes that one of them is often mistaken “as
a member of the serving staff.”
In several paragraphs, the two provide
an eloquent summary: “If we really want
to bring people together, then we must do exactly that—bring them together.” At
the end you discover that one man is a dermatologist and the other a dentist.
To my delight, I never learned which doctor belonged to which race.
******************
The chilling op-ed was titled: DON’T
GIVE TRUMP NUCLEAR CODES.
More than half of America
would immediately agree. For the other half, this should be the argument that
finishes Trump as a presidential candidate.
The author, “Former minuteman III launch officer,” brings up points
not universally known . . . Trumpish statements that haven’t been taken
seriously. In effect, at different times, Trump has said about nuclear weapons,
If we have them, why can’t we use them?
Trump’s words last year should have raised the hair on the backs of
our necks. “Somebody hits us within (Islamic State),
you wouldn’t fight back with a nuke?”
A Trump spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, asked on Fox News: What good does it do to have a nuclear triad
if you’re afraid to use it?
John Noonan explains precisely why
we’ve had decades of peace between the major powers . . . because no world
leader has yet been fool enough to fall back on nuclear weapons. Only a
sociopath like Donald Trump would ever be tempted. In doing so, he could start
a nuclear war that would destroy our planet.
These few paragraphs contain only part
of Noonan’s reasoning. The rest should be enough to strike terror in all of us.
P.S.
Trump just said on national television about Hillary Clinton, “If she gets to pick her judges,
nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people—maybe there is,
I dunno . . . ”
Trump continues making Noonan’s case.
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