We need to correctly identify who really suffers from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
The term shouldn’t apply to those who vehemently oppose Donald Trump. Rather, it is an appropriate description for his ride or dies.
If you support a 34-count convicted felon and twice impeached president, you have TDS.
If you think Trump cares about the middle class and our struggles with the higher prices of goods and service since he took office, you have TDS.
If you think as commander-in-chief, he knows what the hell he’s doing in the Middle East besides enriching himself, you have TDS.
If you think Trump is charitable by “waiving” his presidential salary all the while making billions of dollars from merchandise, cryptocurrency and other scams, you have TDS.
Trump said Mexico was going to pay for the wall. He said the new ballroom was going to cost taxpayers nothing.
The man is stealing from the American people right in front of our faces. If you deny that he’s ripping us off, you have TDS.
Wake up.
Trump and his sycophants are destroying our country and our standing in the world. We need to put a stop to this overt corruption. For those of us who don’t suffer from TDS and those in recovery: Vote in November, and take back Congress from the Republicans. Impeach, convict and remove this corrupt, criminal president!
William Coyne, Schererville, Indiana
Driverless car concerns
Two delivery robots shattered CTA bus shelters’ glass in March. Scientists’ explanation of these incidents — “edge cases” — was reported recently in the Sun-Times.
Technology has bugs — that’s normal. The problem is deploying technologies into public space before deciding what an acceptable bug looks like. The higher the stakes, the less we can afford to wait.
For a delivery robot, an edge case is a broken bus shelter. For a 3-ton driverless Waymo navigating a Chicago winter, an edge case is worse. Robotaxis have not been meaningfully tested in our snow, slush and black ice. There is no public plan for what happens when they encounter a January morning on Lake Shore Drive. Springfield is nonetheless considering pending legislation that would greenlight deployment without adequate plans in place.
The unanswered questions extend beyond weather. The rideshare industry employs thousands of Chicago-area residents whose wages support families and neighborhoods.
No plan exists for how those workers transition as a $100-billion-plus industry, built on public roads, data and subsidy, eliminates their jobs by design. No plan exists for how an industry that profits from removing labor will contribute to keeping Chicago the most affordable big city in the country. No plan exists, full stop.
These tech giants have given Chicago-area residents reasons to doubt their intentions. Waymo’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., is also the parent company of Google, which is among the top donors to Donald Trump’s ballroom project.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk was Trump’s top campaign donor.
These are not the actors we should trust to write the rules for our infrastructure, jobs and public space. Our public officials need to put community safety and economic security first, rather than rolling over for these behemoths. We have leverage, and it’s on our officials to set robust terms so this technology works for people — not just for corporations enabling authoritarianism.
Whether you call yourself a technologist, a capitalist, a socialist or something else, the premise is the same: Technology is not neutral. It carries the values of the people who build it and the rules of the places that let it operate. A delivery robot shattering a bus shelter is a warning. A robotaxi misreading a snowstorm — with no plan for the driver it just replaced — is a choice we can preempt.
Before opening the doors to autonomous vehicles, let’s put safeguards in place for human lives, displaced workers and our public infrastructure.
Ishan Daya, Institute for the Public Good
Will Tanzman, The People’s Lobby
Lack of commitment to education reprehensible
Last year, 881 Lane Tech students took the Advanced Placement Government exam, achieving a staggering 93% pass rate. Because passing an AP exam earns college credit, those 820 passing students saved Chicago families roughly $1.23 million in tuition at universities like the University of Illinois.
Across the entire school, Lane administered over 7,200 exams — more than any other school in the nation — saving Chicago Public Schools families millions more.
When you factor in every AP and International Baccalaureate course, athletic program and mental health resource across all CPS, it is clear: No institution does more for the common good of our city than CPS.
Yet, the Chicago Board of Education claims it can’t find $700 million to close its budget gap and prevent mass layoffs. Meanwhile, sports stars sign multi-million dollar contracts, billionaire team owners get fast-tracked tax breaks, and our federal government burns through billions on foreign conflicts.
We have endless funds for gladiators, coliseums and wars. But when it comes to educating children and lifting up working families, our political leaders cry “poor mouth.”
The path our nation is on now reminds me of a quote from Abraham Lincoln: “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.”
By starving our public schools, our leaders are authorizing that exact destruction. Lane Tech AP Government students understand Lincoln’s warning. Do our politicians?
Steve Parsons, teacher, Lane Tech High School