Just to add a little clarity to Felicity Swayze’s letter of August 20 (‘The Taliban and the Buddhas of Bamiyan’).
The Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan in March 2001 simply because these monuments were offensive to them. Taliban ideology is culturally intolerant.
Historically, destruction of monuments is nothing new. Pharaoh Akhenaten IV’s (1353-1336 BCE) monuments all were defaced by Horemheb (1319-1292 BCE) in order to eradicate all offensive cultural and religious references to the former pharaoh. As a result, Egyptian art changed in style; future pharaohs like Ramses II used sunken relief to make it more difficult for future rulers to deface.
Even Rome razed the city of Carthage and all its monuments to destroy that culture.
There are numerous more contemporary examples which not only include the destruction of monuments but also of brutality and violent changes to a society. The Bolshevik revolution in 1917 and China’s Cultural Revolution resulted in many of the same kinds of events we are seeing in Afghanistan today. In addition to being intolerant, Taliban ideology also believes its adherents are oppressed and persecuted by the nonbelievers of sectarian governments.
Western culture has evolved to create laws based on human rights and, in the case of the U.S., defined in the Constitution. The Taliban rejects these concepts, as they regard such laws to be designed as prejudicial to their beliefs. They also have a higher authority for their laws in the Quran — the word of God.
In Afghanistan the Taliban is imposing their will on the population in many different ways to maintain control. It is natural for the Taliban to destroy monuments and to change the culture through social engineering, re-education, terror or, in extreme cases, executions.
It is a sad state of affairs and offends our Western sensibilities. But the Taliban is offering a different reality and none of this should be a surprise.
David W. Szelowski
Lebanon
Grateful the troops
are coming home
My nephew was recently honorably discharged from the U.S. Army, where he was a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division.
I am enormously grateful to President Joe Biden for having the wisdom and political courage that his three predecessors lacked, and for ordering home our young servicemen and women from an utterly unwinnable situation in Afghanistan.
And I’m guessing that there are thousands of military families who feel the same way.
Charlie Buttrey
Thetford
Thanking donors to
Meriden Library project
The word “benefactor” comes from a 15th-century Latin phrase meaning to perform good work.
The Meriden Library Foundation and the Plainfield Library Board of Trustees are overwhelmed by the generous response of our benefactors who recently sent in their promised pledges totaling $908,000. This will enable us to demonstrate to the Plainfield Planning Board, the Selectboard and fellow taxpayers that we have in hand the necessary funds to build the new, long-awaited Meriden Library building.
In our ongoing commitment to full disclosure, we will continue to provide information concerning the progress of the project on our library website and the town website.
We must acknowledge how fortunate we are to live in a community that is so dedicated to serving the common good that this new library represents.
Thank you from all of us.
Rosemary Mills
Meriden
Linda Buzzell
Plainfield
Mills is writing on behalf of fellow members of the Plainfield Library Board of Trustees, Buzzell on behalf of the Meriden Library Foundation.
Reverse course
on Meriden Library
Are you aware?
There have been almost 634,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States. The delta variant is highly contagious and becoming more widespread across the country. Unemployment, job loss, businesses closing, businesses can’t find workers.
We’ve got an Afghanistan crisis, a border crisis and escalating crime.
There’s climate change, West Coast fires, East Coast Tropical Storm Henri. Plus rising gas prices and food prices, an opioid epidemic, and a housing shortage, as home prices skyrocket.
Rather than being demolished, the old Meriden Library building may be sold to a Selectboard member and her husband for $1.
Do people not see what is going on around them? Do I have to point out the obvious? So much uncertainty.
And you really think we need to build a second million-dollar library 6.7 miles from the Philip Read Memorial Library on Route 12A in the small town of Plainfield, population 2,459 residents? I still find it reprehensible as heck.
It’s never too late to change your mind and do the right thing.
The ship can always return to the dock. I find it shameful for those who continue to support this wasteful project. There is so much more needed in this world or to be shared in this small town. We look greedy and frivolous with our “wants” and not “needs.” Truly despicable! I encourage anyone to continue to speak out.
Vernon Braswell
Plainfield
The calm before
the climate storm
In the previous letter I wrote (‘The negative feedback loops are accelerating,’ Aug. 3), I spoke of a country where all citizens were fully vaccinated and profited from a 100% green economy. Audacious, out-of-this world. But here we are, back to reality. (Warning — the squeamish should hide their heads in the sand (as usual): the following ain’t pretty).
By all indications, we’re witnessing the relative calm before the storm in terms of the climate emergency.
We simply can’t afford to hit the tipping point, since runaway greenhouse effects aren’t known to be beneficial to living things. We’ll soon find out to what extent that will be if we dawdle in shutting down polluters of the land, sea and sky.
It’s obvious we’re dancing on the edge of an event horizon: one false step and it’s game over, save for the crying.
So you see, this zero-sum game the Republicans and Democrats continually play must be resolved: either make peace with nature or stay the course. Full bore, no compromising. Myself, I’d prefer we live out the remainder of the 22 billion or so years of this Goldilocks Universe’s existence, than follow in the footprints of Mad Max or our sister-planets Venus and Mars.
To the:
■Anti-vaxxers: good work, keep reaffirming Darwinism, and keep your distance;
■Repressionist politicians: take note, most survivors aren’t your constituents;
■Obstructionists: (as President Joe Biden said,) “if you aren’t going to help, at least get out of the way.”
If help’s on the way from the GOP, maybe we have hope to beat Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s rap.
KEVIN McEVOY LEVERET
White River Junction
Visions of a screenplay
Imagine this scene in Sam Goldwyn’s office, sometime in the 1950s.
Goldwyn, a highly successful movie producer and a power in the movie industry, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Hecht and MacArthur are the two highest-paid screenwriters in Hollywood.
The three are meeting because Hecht and MacArthur requested it. They have a great premise for a screenplay: The president of the United States is a victim of senile dementia.
Goldwyn reacts with outrage. “Are you crazy? An idea’s got to have some shred of reality! Get out of here!”
The three leave together to have lunch at whatever is the most “in” restaurant of the moment. Hecht and MacArthur continue to push their idea, but Goldwyn will have none of it.
Bottom line: Truth is stranger than fiction?
Barbara West
Fairlee