Before the disaster at Reagan Washington National Airport on Jan. 29, the last major plane crash in the U.S. occurred on Feb 12, 2009. Sixteen years without a major crash, the longest string of success in several decades. Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden were in office during 12 of those years, and Donald Trump was president for four. Of course, Trump blames Obama and Biden for the accident a few days ago. That’s what he does.
Trump railed, “We have to have our smartest people,” called former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg a “disaster,” and blamed Obama and Biden saying, “They lowered requirements for air traffic controllers in service of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion).”
If Obama and Biden and the air traffic controllers were so terrible, why did we have no major plane crashes for 16 years?
Isn’t it heartwarming to know that we have a president who has no interest in being consoler-in-chief? And isn’t it also heart-warming to know that Trump has found another thing for his base to eat up so that he will never have to take responsibility for anything?
I’m surprised he didn’t also blame the crash on “the legacy media.”
Kevin Coughlin, Evanston
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Using tragedy to make demeaning attacks
None of Trump’s 44 predecessors used tragedy to advance venal, authoritarian goals as president. They responded to tragedy as president of all Americans to alleviate pain and suffering in times of great national distress.
No so, Donald J. Trump. In his first week, he visited fire-ravaged Los Angeles, bringing his own firestorm of fear and loathing to beleaguered Angelenos. He conditioned federal help to California to implementing MAGA’s proposed voter ID law. That was sick.
But his response to the airliner collision with a military helicopter that killed 67 was sicker still. He railed at a news conference, while bodies were still being pulled from the Potomac, implying it was caused by the Biden administration’s diversity, equity and inclusion policy.
This is not new territory for the mentally disintegrating president. He has demeaned real or imagined opponents for decades with McCarthy-like attacks he learned firsthand from red-baiting Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s attack dog turned Trump lawyer and fixer Roy Cohn.
Trump never governed as a decent, caring, supportive president for one day of his first term. There are more sorrowful, tragic days to endure.
Walt Zlotow, Glen Ellyn
Trump’s blame game
A great headline: After 67 die in mid-air crash, investigators seek answers as Trump plays blame game.
Beth Najberg, Gold Coast
Books, movies, museums about Holocaust help educate
I share the concern of op-ed contributor Luke Berryman about the poor status of Holocaust education and his worries about the increase in antisemitism, but some of his criticisms about cultural depictions of the genocide lack nuance.
His censure could have unintended consequences, as good cultural expression would be discarded as well as those that are non-essential or undesirable, thereby undermining education about the tragedy.
Berryman laments the effects of “Holocaust entertainment,” but fails to address the importance of real art. The former offers the weak beer of diversion or amusement, while the latter serves up the meaty purpose of thought, emotion and perspective.
He argues that the Holocaust is impossible to represent accurately in entertainment because it gives rise to false myths about Jewish weakness, Nazi bloodlust (rather than racism) and cheap happy endings.
Some movie-goers can distinguish between trash and good cinema, such as the searing depictions in “Conspiracy,” “The Pianist” and “Son of Saul.” And even if they can’t, it isn’t a stretch to suggest that most viewers grasp the essential horror of the Holocaust.
Berryman attacks recent novels because he sees some of them as formulaic.
Like movie-goers, readers sharpen their taste as they read more. The first Holocaust novel I read was Louise Murphy’s “The True Story of Hansel and Gretel,” yet I went on to substantive works like Imre Kertesz’s Nobel-prize-winning “Fatelessness” and Bernhard Schlink’s “The Reader.”
Incredibly, Berryman criticizes “Holocaust tourism,” yet nothing teaches history better than a visit to where it happened.
In two visits to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland, I noticed that every visitor was hushed, listening to guides and taking in the dreadful history. Visitors to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site in Germany lingered over the placards and artifacts. Sightseers at Oskar Schindler’s Enamel Factory in Krakow, Poland, photographed the plaque attached to the wall with the famed inscription featured in Steven Spielberg’s movie “Schindler’s List”:
“Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.”
Craig Barner, Lincoln Square
American eugenicists influenced Nazis
Along with Luke Berryman’s prescient observations about how the Holocaust is often trivialized and misrepresented in contemporary culture, we also need to remember the role played by American scientists and social scientists in formulating and propagating the ideas that Hitler and his geneticists carried out.
The pseudo-science of eugenics — the framework for Hitler’s policies of racial extermination — was largely developed in the U.S. in the early years of the 20th century. Elaborating on the earlier biological deterministic theories of Francis Galton, the American eugenicist movement of the early 1900s emphasized the genetic superiority of the Nordic, German and Anglo-Saxon “races.”
Hitler was known to have studied carefully the writings of American eugenicists. The blood of those who perished in the death camps is on American, as well as German, hands.
David G. Whiteis, Humboldt Park
Board of Ed president asks for car service?
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” — Maya Angelou.
Despite Sean Harden’s declaration that he took the volunteer position as president of the Chicago Board of Education because, “I love this city,” perhaps he loves himself more.
Mr. Harden’s insistence on $150,000 per year for a driver and car not only discloses his self-importance. but more importantly clearly shows that he has zero sensitivity to a school district facing a $500 million budget deficit.
Should CPS also provide him with a personal chef so that he can be more available?
Chicago is full of accomplished people who give freely of their time and lead by example.
Sadly, Mr. Harden is neither.
Mike Cello, Lincoln Park
Car service is compensation
Sean Harden defends the request for a $150,000 car service that would be paid for by CPS by noting that board president is a volunteer job and is time-consuming.
A volunteer is someone who performs a service without receiving compensation.
George P. Martin, Humboldt Park
Nervy request
I question whether Sean Harden can make a difference as Board of Education president. If he really loved this city, he wouldn’t dare add to the CPS financial burden by requesting a CPS driver and car. It’s basic math.
As a volunteer, Harden can claim the cost of transportation specifically related to those volunteer duties on his income tax return. Harden states that he pursued this opportunity but doesn’t really seem invested in donating his time to fulfill said opportunity now that he has it. Trying to justify this unnecessary expense by referring to a not even recent past seems a little disingenuous at best.
Chicago’s public school system badly needs leadership that has an abundance of common sense (not a course offered by any college as far as I know). Firing Martinez for daring to have that leads me to believe things will continue to get worse for our kids.
Jackie Brennan, Avondale
Federal workers can’t trust Trump on buyouts
To any federal workers confronted with Trump’s alleged “buyout” offer, in addition to the dangers spelled out in the Sun-Times editorial Jan. 30, I would pose this question: Why would you believe anything he told you about future buyout payments? How did that work out for the many contractors he’s stiffed over the years? Or the workers at the casinos he bankrupted?
Jim Bruton, Avondale
Yes to more housing on Broadway
As a homeowner raising a family in Edgewater — and former policy director for the Department of Housing — I’m excited about the plans being advanced by Alds. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth, Angela Clay, and Matt Martin, along with city planners, to accommodate more housing along Broadway in my neighborhood.
Rezoning to allow for mid-rise buildings along the north-south artery that parallels the Red Line will bring more activity and a sense of community and safety to what is now a sometimes intimidating road. It also will mean more neighbors to support local businesses and schools; more modern, accessible homes for people at all stages of life; and more housing, period, at a time when increased pressure in the real estate market has made it difficult for renters and homebuyers to afford to live on the North Side.
What’s more, rezonings that trigger the Affordable Requirements Ordinance will mean more legally restricted affordable housing as well —all just around the corner from rapid transit service.
These plans have come after months of study and engagement, and reflect a growing recognition — following similar moves on Western Avenue in North Center and Lincoln Square, and 35th Street in McKinley Park— that planning is best done when a community proactively imagines the kind of street or neighborhood it wants, rather than reacting one by one to developer proposals.
I want a more vibrant, inclusive and affordable neighborhood, and I support the Broadway plans as one important piece of the puzzle to get there.
Daniel Kay Hertz, Edgewater
Reagan wasn’t so great
Regarding S.E. Cupp’s column that the Democratic Party needs a Ronald Reagan, I say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
However, I clearly understand Ms. Cupp’s point and her reasoning. Reagan was very popular and won two terms with massive support. However, being popular did not make him a good president. And that charisma of his was superficial, learned from the school of Hollywood charm.
Allow me to list just a few of the reasons why his record was abysmal:
- Allowed family farms to go bankrupt or out of business
- Caused the savings and loan industry to collapse
- Robbed the Social Security trust fund to pay for his budget shortfalls
- Ignored the AIDS epidemic while tens of thousands died
I could certainly go on and list a dozen more reasons, union-busting among them, and provide more details, but being an ex-teacher, I’m assigning you, the reader, that as homework.
Jake Paskiewicz, Algonquin
No respect for bullies
The president of Colombia asked that deportees to his country be treated with respect, rather than be shackled hand and foot. How did President Donald Trump respond? By bullying the little country into submission. And then he bragged that “Today’s events make clear to the world that America is respected again.”
No, you got it wrong, Mr. President. The hero of the story was David, not Goliath. Nobody “respects” a bully.
Ed Avis, Lincoln Park