Early in my career as an engineer I held two jobs with defense contractors in which I had to be obtain a security clearance for access to classified information. This included documents marked Confidential and Secret, although my actual exposure to and need to use that information was absolutely minimal. As would be expected, I was required to learn the extensive procedures for keeping the documents under lock and key and to undergo annual training about how to guard that information while avoiding spies(!). It was clear that any violation of the rules for handling that material, or any questionable behavior on my part, would land me in jail so fast it would make my head spin.
I find it infuriating that Donald Trump (ex-president or not) can violate these well-established procedures for handling classified materials with impunity. In typical Trump fashion, with his immense (or exaggerated?) wealth and army of lawyers, it appears that he will be able to question the reason for classification for each document, putting the burden of proof on the classifiers rather than on the violator, rather than suffering the consequences of his actions. While the reasons for document classification can and should be questioned on a regular basis, doing it for the benefit of and at the behest of a likely offender is not that time. This has become yet another example of the law not being applied equally to all citizens.
Stephen Bayes
Lebanon
I was very saddened to read the “Commentary” by Matthew Yglesias in the Vallley News on Aug. 29 (“College tuition is too high, but it isn’t rising”). I speak as a retired professor of literature who grew up in the Chicago area in the 1940s and ‘50s and benefited from the best of western education, both in high school (when Latin and a modern foreign language were mandatory) and at college in the 1960s (when what was called ‘the Great Books’ or ‘the Canon’ was taught, even as the reading lists were opening up to texts by women and people of color, etc.).
I am more than troubled by Yglesias’s suggestion that college “churns out graduates with useless liberal arts degrees that qualify them only for barista jobs.” The loss of familiarity with James Joyce, if not Shakespeare, and with the political thinking of Aristotle and Plato, through to John Stuart Mill, Frederick Douglass and beyond, will be irreparable and the danger to the civic conscience of America incalculable. And that is not to even touch the threats to the mind and political conscience caused by the disappearance of such classics as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Beloved, The Fire Next Time, Catcher in the Rye, and even Maus. The agents of these “disappearances” may be different, but the loss is clear. Once they’re “gone,” reinstating them will be as challenging as reconstituting the melted glaciers in Antarctica.
Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi
Wilmot, NH and Jerusalem, Israel
‘Valley News’ buried the lead
Come on Valley News, you need to do a much better job with the placement of the news! Today an article entitled “US: Review of Trump papers already over.” was buried in the B Section on Page 6 just before the funnies in the Classified Section! This information is worthy of being placed on Page 1. At the very least it should be in the A Section! This isn’t the first time newsworthy information has been buried.
Linda Miller
Hartford
Haste on the road can be deadly
Patience.
An art? A virtue?
How about a lifesaver?
Just 30 seconds. A minute tops.
That’s how long it takes to travel behind two cyclists as they pedal up an arduous hill until it’s clear on the other side and safe to pass.
Impatient was the driver of the white truck pulling a trailer with a large mower.
The cyclists were riding single file, not two abreast or oblivious to cars. My daughter and I were driving in the opposite direction.
As we rounded the curve at 25 mph, we were in disbelief as the truck crossed the yellow line and kept coming towards us. I gave him the horn and he responded, pulled back over with his trailer barely missing the cyclists who only then came into our view as they rounded the curve.
He could have taken us out or the two of them or all of us.
So, patience? All the above.
Lyn Ujlaky
Thetford Hill
Ignore the haters, keep quips
The clever caption writers at the Valley News cannot let themselves get discouraged by recent criticism.
Of the many witty captions over the months, a handful of them might have been of questionable taste. But with the widespread grim news of the day, I’ll gladly take anything that makes me chuckle if it’s not mean spirited.
The Valley News needs community support, not petty criticism, as it struggles amid desperate times for newspapers. I think not just the Upper Valley but the country overall would be much better off if we’d just lighten up.
Steve Lehman
Thetford