Letters to the Editor | July 28, 2023

A letter writer’s primary argument against mandating the HPV vaccine is that he believes it is a noncommunicable disease. This is untrue. HPV is a communicable disease that most Americans get exposed to at some point in their life. HPV infection is usually symptomless for years or decades, which allows an infected person to continue to spread it to others. Tens of thousands of Americans develop cancer each year due to HPV infection. Getting vaccinated before exposure is the best way to prevent these cancers. The HPV vaccine, like all other childhood vaccines, is very safe, effective, and (to borrow from the letter writer), is designed, “to protect someone from contracting a disease from others who are infected.”

Paul S. Matz, Mullica Hill

In June, the eyes of the world were transfixed on the tragic implosion of a submersible in the depths of the North Atlantic Ocean. If only as much attention were paid to another somber occurrence beneath the aquatic surface. The extreme heat that is roiling the planet this summer has had a devastating effect on the coral reefs surrounding Florida. Normally bursting with colors of the most radiant rainbows, many of the reefs are bleached and dying. The harmful effects to marine life are obvious, but as we can’t see them, some may question why it even matters. Besides the aesthetic, breathtaking beauty of these hidden wonders, the United Nations reports that around one billion people globally depend on coral reefs for their food and livelihoods. Without the reefs, hundreds of millions of people around the world would lose their main source of food and income. We watched in horror at the demise of the submersible Titan. Our focus must now turn to the rescue of coral reefs before they are drained of life.

Vin Morabito, Scranton

Gettysburg has a lot to commemorate this year. The small Pennsylvania town whose rural landscape and rocky hillside were the site of the battle that turned the tide of the Civil War marked the 160th anniversary of the decisive engagement this July. This year also marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Gettysburg, the movie based on the historical novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. While the film is worth seeing, no movie or book can match the feeling of emerging from the tree line on Seminary Ridge as the 13,000 men of the army of Northern Virginia did on the afternoon of July 3, 1863. Their goal? A copse of trees about a mile away across the fields. Within an hour, half of them would be casualties. On the opposite side, standing in front of that copse of trees, were the federal regiments that stood as that wall of men came toward them. As other federal regiments broke and ran, the 69th Pennsylvania under the Stars and Stripes and their Irish regimental flag held the line in desperate hand-to-hand fighting. After seeing Gettysburg or visiting the battlefield, William G. Williams’ Days of Darkness: The Gettysburg Civilians is required reading. It tells how the 2,400 townspeople cared for the 22,000 Union and Confederate wounded left behind and the aftermath of burying some 6,000 fallen soldiers. Learning more about the decisive battle and remembering its anniversary will hopefully bolster attempts to stop proposed development on the private lands adjacent to the national park and help preserve our history.

Michael Thomas Leibrandt, Abington

In the Associated Press article “Barbenheimer brings moviegoers back to theaters in record numbers,” it’s mentioned that Barbie and Oppenheimer jointly exceeded $200 million in ticket sales over the weekend. That’s impressive. However, the article omitted the surprising results for Sound of Freedom, which has made more than $130 million at the box office. The film is about child smuggling and child slavery, a topic of interest that cuts across political lines and personal biases.

Stew Bolno, Philadelphia

As columnist Trudy Rubin continues to point out, America seems to be having a tough time deciding whether to give Ukraine longer-range weapons to protect itself. I suggest we let Vladimir Putin help make that decision. His claims that Russia is in Ukraine for some type of peacekeeping mission is total farce, as evidenced by over a year’s worth of indiscriminate attacks on nonmilitary targets. Russia and Ukraine are truly at war. If Russia strikes at targets within Ukraine, Ukraine should be free to both defend itself and hit back by striking strategic targets within Russia or Belarus. The U.S. and NATO could track Russian attacks and provide Ukraine with weapons with a range capable of reaching the launch points of those strikes. If Russia limits its attacks to eastern Ukraine and only uses short-range weapons, the U.S. would only provide Ukraine with shorter-range weapons. However, if Russia attacks targets further inside Ukraine, such as Lviv or Odesa, then the U.S. should provide Ukraine with longer-range weapons capable of hitting targets well within Russia. I suspect Putin will only consider exiting this war if the bloodshed starts to spill onto Russian soil.

Kent Kingan, Malvern

Many have criticized the Florida Department of Education’s standards for teaching about slavery. I would like to propose a concrete action in response to these standards. Since Florida students will clearly receive an inadequate American history education, colleges and universities across the nation should refuse to enroll graduates of these high schools unless they complete a remedial course in American history. Perhaps this will encourage Florida to rethink how its students are taught.

Al Ferrari, West Berlin

A letter writer says the Israeli parliament is elected by the people and asks, “What am I missing?” in his defense of the Knesset passing widely unpopular laws restricting judicial review of legislative actions. I believe what he is missing is the way Israel works. In a parliamentary system, the vote for the prime minister comes from the parliament, not the voters directly. Benjamin Netanyahu’s party got 25% of the seats in the Knesset. He managed to cobble together enough of the fringe parties, mostly far-right religious conservatives, to get the top job. This is the same sort of political conniving and contortions that U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy performed to get his leadership position. That coalition is running about as well as Israel.

Jim Lynch, Norristown

Leave it to a man of compassion, empathy, tolerance, and decency like Joe Biden to spearhead the establishment of memorial statues to commemorate the savage murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy whose “capital crime” was to have allegedly whistled at a white woman. Young Emmett was kidnapped from his home at gunpoint, tortured, his eye gouged out, and murdered. His body was thrown in a river by the racists who considered “uppity” Blacks to be unworthy of living. Calling Till to mind would not be popular in some parts of the country where America’s racist underpinnings are deemed too uncomfortable to acknowledge and something that needs to be erased from history. It is gratifying that a president for whom civil rights have always been important has made it more likely that the memory of an atrocity — one for which the perpetrators tragically were not called to account — will endure. The president’s actions bring comfort to surviving members of Till’s family and to all those whose lives have been impacted by racial animus.

Oren Spiegler, Peters Township

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