Letters & Opinions

The aforementioned article "Facing Afghan Chaos, Biden Defends Exit" and the letters to the editor shown below were first published in The New York Times on August 17th.

Excluding the origin story of COVID, I believe the biggest lie in the handling of COVID is the lie around asymptomatic spread — i.e., you could have the virus and not know it and kill people. This has been the great distraction of COVID, and it is being used even today to distract from major issues.

It is astonishing how few Californians know about the existence of the Salton Sea. It is the state's largest lake and arguably, the state's worst environmental disaster.

My husband and I just celebrated our 48th wedding anniversary this past week. When first married, we had a weekly grocery budget of twenty-five dollars. For that monumental amount we filled our cart. No more! Those days, unfortunately, are long gone! And not only are we all spending more today, but a sneaky little tactic called shrinkflation is cleverly being used by companies to shrink the package size instead of popping up costs. So we are getting fewer paper towels, smaller candy bars, less chips and cereal, fewer trash bags - and sadly, even my beloved ice cream has been noticeably melted down.

All my life, I’ve heard the phrase: “America the Beautiful.” America has wonderful landscapes, beautiful and majestic mountains, and amazing and diverse metropolitan areas. As the famous poem goes, “From sea to shining sea,” America embodies the true definition of beauty. It has been the number one answer on the Family Feud game show, when they asked 100 people which country is the most beautiful. The answer was a resounding yes to the USA. By the way, the number one answer for the most beautiful people was California. Go figure!