December 20, 2018 600 AM
Dear editor:
The Words of Donald J Trump
“My job is not to work within the system. My job is to get things done and make this country strong.” Hail the chief, whose personality is “driving, domineering, irascible, abrasive, sometimes hypersensitive, extremely confident.” To Diane Sawyer, he said, “I think the people I deal with are dumb, including you.” Sawyer replied, “To be called dumb by you is to be in very good company.” But wait, this is not President Trump speaking. If the verbs in the first sentence are changed from is to was, and hail the chief is eliminated, they were the words of and about Admiral Hyman Rickover, the father of the nuclear navy and much of the nuclear power industry. President Jimmy Carter called him the greatest engineer in the nation’s history. It was Rickover-trained engineers who installed a post-3-Mile-Island-neardisaster protocol that raised the 100 or so nuclear reactors in the USA from 55 percent efficiency to 90 percent, maintaining a nation-wide nuclear-generated electrical power ratio of 20 percent through 2010; compared to all other forms of electrical power generation, even as the other forms increased. Does the reader notice a slight difference between Diane Sawyer’s response to Rickover compared to what it would be to Trump? Politics play a hand in how the president is perceived, versus his value to the country. Naval politics kept Rickover from being promoted. His admiralty was awarded to him by Congress, who overlooked his personality and looked closely at his accomplishments. As I pointed out before, in The Smear, investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson discussed the 10 million dollars spent by Univision to discredit candidate Trump along the border. Nothing has changed since the election.
Rex Redden South Brewster County
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Dear editor:
Milk of human compassion?
The bucket containing the milk of human compassion was kicked hard spilling its contents in advance of killing an innocent 7-year-old girl taken into custody by Border Patrol with her father. She later experienced symptoms of dehydration well before taken to an El Paso hospital. The Director of Homeland Security sent her ignoble “land of the free and home of the brave?” message denying responsibility. Although some of the facts are disputed, her father may have crossed illegally. Is that the punishment, a dead daughter? Didn’t her father know “Zero Tolerance was specifically designed to inflict “abject cruelty” communicating “Brown skin, Hispanic, Desperate and Poor not wanted here!”? Maybe the news hadn’t reached him. We’re outraged when someone dies in North Korean custody. America’s barbarism is “Zero Tolerance” conceived by the Administration’s resident White Supremacist, Stephen Miller, approved by the President, and implemented by ex-AG Sessions, Homeland Security, ICE head, agents and contract employees. Each committed crimes against humanity prosecutable in The Hague no less than Serbians responsible for “Ethnic Cleansing.” American law places a high standard of care on custodian of minors notwithstanding the Director’s thoughts. Reckless or negligent is each party’s legal liability as a reasonable foreseeable consequence for failing to meet her immediate needs! Administration officials and apologists can victim shame all they want, but an emptied compassion bucket and closed hearts killed a very sick child. Justice requires sending an explicit “we’re better than that” message to the world’s Millers!
Rev. Barry Abraham Zavah Alpine
