Letters to the Editor —Huffines, vaccinations, misinformation, climate snub
Back to the 1950s
Subject: “Huffines Criticizes Employee Training – Gubernatorial Candidate Says State Children’s Aid Agency Teaches ‘Marxist Ideology’,” Friday Metro & Business Story.
Don Huffines, in his attempt to win the GOP governor nomination, reveals how far this party has come on its way back to the 1950s.
The attacks on training programs for state employees to improve their understanding of race and ethnic diversity remind me of the political tactics of white politicians in Texas and across the South against the civil rights movement. Although they were called Democrats then, today they are 100% Republicans.
Allegations of Marxism and the indoctrination of socialism in our schools are used to shake up white voters in the suburbs from Virginia to Texas. Having lived in Texas my entire life and having been a professor of American history for 51 years, I am aware of the fear tactics that can be used to influence voters.
The assault on critical racial theory, which is not and has not been taught in our schools, is actually the siren song that addresses white Americans’ innate fear of colored people.
Teaching staff to be race and ethnicity sensitive when dealing with citizens is not to be feared but to be cheered unless you are a white racist then sound the alarm to wake your base .
Cecil Larry Pool, Midlothian
Vaccines then and now
Shooting Covid-19 is pretty personal to me.
It’s personal because of my grandmother, the mother my father never knew. Blanche Dillard Fields was born in Missouri, grew up on a farm near Hamilton, and fell ill with tuberculosis for which there was no vaccine and no cure. She did what many did and moved to a warmer climate. In Los Angeles she married John William Keohane. They had a son who would later become my father, but Blanches TB reappeared. She wrote letters home to her parents, and her father came to LA by train and took his two-month-old grandson to raise with relatives on the farm. Blanche died when the boy was 6 months old and she was 31 years old.
When I was a teenager, my parents, brother, and I lived in a small town between Minneapolis and Chicago. Passenger trains still ran, and the Twin Cities Zephyr stopped in the small town ten miles from ours. I had a friend, a farm boy, Mac. Sometimes I stayed on their farm. Mac has polio. There was no approved vaccine.
By a stroke of luck, my uncle was an eminent professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota, and he got a vaccine while still in the lab, wrapped it in dry ice, and put it on the Burlington Zephyr for me. I got the injection and I didn’t get polio. After months in the hospital, Mac recovered, except that he had to cut his food smaller than everyone else. Polio did this to him.
Now we no longer face any challenge from polio or TB. But we have COVID-19 and we have vaccines. Isn’t it time to use it? Isn’t it time to think about Blanche or Mac?
John Keohane, Austin
Tell us what the Russians told us
We read in the US media that Russians are actively using social media to spread misinformation here at home. I was wondering what specific information the Russians were disseminating through our social media.
If your investigative reporters could put into words exactly what the Russians are saying, I think it would negate or mitigate the effects of their campaign. For example, if they promoted the idea of electoral fraud in Philadelphia and legitimate news media showed the reading public that this specific misinformation was promoted by the Russians, it would tend to delegitimize the idea of electoral fraud.
Or maybe the Russians have been promoting conspiracy theories, like the idea that the Democratic Party has a secret cabal of pedophiles directing the party’s activities. If we could clarify what specific misinformation the Russians were spreading, it would be easier to argue that the information is wrong and should not be given legitimacy.
Dana A. Fuller, Dallas / Preston Hollow
China-Russia summit
Re: “Executives Choose Doomsday Conversations – Rhetoric an Attempt to Revive stalled global negotiations,” Tuesday News.
The COP26 summit did not bring any significant changes for the future. The leaders of two of the world’s most damaging nations, China and Russia, didn’t even attend. These countries had already stated that they would not follow the US and European guidelines for reducing CO2 emissions.
While former President Donald Trump was criticized by the global community for withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, he was right. Why should Americans continue to pay the lion’s share of the cost when China, the world’s largest polluter (responsible for 30% of the world’s pollution), has different standards than the United States?
If you add Russia and India, which contribute another 12% of the world’s pollution, you basically have 40% of the largest emitters of carbon that will not follow the same rules that other nations have to follow.
All of this means for Americans that energy workers will lose their jobs and we will all pay more for fuel at home. All of this is fine with President Joe Biden, who continues to put American interests last.
Kay Wrobel, Plano
Big words
Re: “Just not funny” by Martha Tim Latta, October 30th letters.
That letter said that Prince Valiant is not funny. It might not be fun, but it’s definitely educational and informative.
I have been reading Prince Valiant for 68 years and have many fond memories of sitting at my grandmother’s Sunday breakfast table and reading Prince Valiant since I was 6 years old. The strip often had big words that I couldn’t understand, and Grandma refused to tell me what the words meant. Instead, she led me to the dictionary.
I think this is old school, but it has been effective and has brought me many benefits throughout my life. Keep Prince Valiant as it is, and I promise to keep using the dictionary.
Thomas Kelly, Highland Village
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