Local heroes

Thank you to friends and neighbors here in the Monterey Bay area who are in the military, or staff at DLI and NPS, and thank you to all local federal, state and county civil servants, as well as classroom teachers and educators at all levels. All of you work to keep our country safe and our local communities healthy and strong.

I know we often barely notice what you do, since you are so reliably there for us. Thank you for your unseen work. Thank you for continuing in the face of all the confusion and uncertainty in recent days and weeks.

We are watching basic services being cancelled: a training for new teachers (yet we have a shortage); a meeting to discuss scams targeting seniors (canceled despite millions lost to fraud). Cuts in airline safety; medical research (while bird flu spreads); and cuts in basic aid programs, including food, and medical aid locally and throughout the world.

This letter is to express my appreciation to you, our local heroes. Thanks for your work and apologies for the terrible stress and uncertainty that you are enduring. I hope this will end soon.

— Susan C. Morse, Carmel

David Ignatius

David Ignatius, the Washington Post columnist carried often by the Herald, is war’s most passionate cheerleader. He is scandalized, just scandalized, that President Trump is talking to Putin about peace in Ukraine. The Economist estimates the Ukrainian death toll at nearly 100,000. Most observers believe that Ukraine has lost the war on the ground. But Ignatius is still outraged.

Ignatius’s view has been that the Ukraine and the West must escalate to bring a humbled Putin to the table to negotiate on favorable terms. He’s gotten his way as escalation has been ongoing. Ukraine continues to launch missiles into Russia. And Russia has issued ever sterner warnings about potential retaliation. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, partly in response to these events, has lowered its doomsday clock countdown to 89 seconds, the closest ever to Armageddon in its 78-year history. The problem with the “forever war” concept favored by Ignatius is that war can explode into something far wider in an instant.

I recently signed up for a Herald subscription after a time away. Imagine my chagrin as I still see angry David Ignatius and his mantra (apologies to John Lennon): All I am saying, is give Peace no chance. Change the record please.

— Thomas Lee, Monterey

DOGE

The conservatives in this nation have been crowing about how “government is the problem” for decades. They are now hell bent on making that lie come true. Trump and Musk are rampaging willy nilly with illegal firings and contract cancellations, with innumerable knucklehead judgements and decisions. Standing out among a plethora of misjudgments, there are no folks aged 150 years collecting Social Security, but Elon is so wedded to his extremist ideology that he failed to recognize how ridiculous that assertion was. Their illegal and unconstitutional actions are nothing short of an attempted soft coup, and if not stopped, our democracy will be ended. Sadly, any savings created by DOGE will be illusory and used mainly as a justification to lower taxes, again, on the rich and powerful. And you thought you voted for lower egg prices.

— John Zimmerman, Pacific Grove

That caught my interest when non-elected officials fired nuclear safety staffers and then had to backtrack and rehire them. It seems these folks know the nuclear codes and firing them would endanger national security. Actually there are “nuclear codes” in many federal departments. Removing USAid personnel endangers our place in the world, and means an increase in immigration as more people are forced to leave their home countries. Demolishing the Department of Education threatens the future of every student and thus the next generation of leaders. Blanket firings at Social Security, Medicare and the IRS remove checks and balances that prevent mismanagement and infiltration. NOAA science laid the foundation for your local weather report and NIH conducts and finances groundbreaking clinical research. Firing those social workers, teachers, scientists and, yes, “pencil pushers” endangers each of us — maybe not today, but certainly somewhere down the road. Federal institutions are built to tackle long-term, large-scale problems to the benefit of everyone. The “nuclear codes” that spell disaster are kept secure by all sorts of people, working for all of us.

— Helen Shamble, East Garrison