A sports correction

In the July 29, 2020 edition, Skip Erwin’s “Inside Sports” column said that the biggest upset in college basketball was in 1983 when the Houston Cougars were upset by the North Carolina Wolfpack.  This should have read the “North Carolina State Wolfpack.” North Carolina’s teams are called the Tar Heels.

F.J. Jesgar, Gulf Breeze, Fla. 

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Student’s perspective 

Regarding the July 29 commentary “In-person or virtual learning? A teacher’s message to the community”: Like other teenagers, I have been fighting my parents to go back to in-person learning, but to no avail. Instead, I have accepted the truth that I will be spending at least a part of the 2020-2021 school year online. I’ll miss the experience of learning on campus, seeing my friends, and finding the motivation to change out of my pajamas every once in a while. But as the debate on online school rages, I’m worried about something bigger than my fallen fantasies of my junior year: How will school closures will affect students from impoverished school districts? 

A report predicts 30 million students might go without meals due to school closures. This will cause students to ruin their long term health, sacrifice the immunity of our population, and hinder their capabilities to learn in the online environment. 

Schools reopen in two weeks, but the discussion on how we will feed millions of hungry children has not been prioritized. I know that this is a difficult time for policy makers as they are worried about aspects of online school like providing students with laptops and WiFi. But it doesn’t matter how good your laptop or wifi is. Because when you are hungry, there is not much else you can think about. 

I urge policy makers to include a 15% increase in SNAP benefits to provide food purchasing assistance for low income families in the new Coronavirus relief bill. This will boost the economy and ensure the health of our students. If we neglect doing this, we will let the pandemic leave behind the dangerous legacy of a health crisis. 

And there is no vaccine for that.

Arushi Katyal, Chesterfield

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Response to letter

This is in reference to the letter by Melody Boime in the July 29, 2020 issue. Her letter asks us to look at President Donald Trump and his administration’s history while in office. I’m not quite sure I know to what exactly I should be looking. 

Should it be the work of the Trump administration to protect and increase manufacturing jobs for workers in the United States such as negotiating a new treaty with Mexico and Canada commonly referred to as USMCA? Or, could it be that under the Trump administration Black and Hispanic Americans achieved the lowest unemployment rate ever as reported in August 2019 by a variety of media outlets, including CNBC and CNN Business (obviously bastions of Trump support)?

Or could it be that under the Trump administration Israel once again has a supportive and loyal partner in the United States? The letter stated that Trump has been doing such only to “solidify his base.” Let’s take a look at that base. According to a Jan. 19 Jewish Virtual Library article entitled “US Presidential Elections: Jewish Voting Records (1916 – Present),” self-identified Jewish voters average about 3.5% of those who vote. Of those Jewish voters, 75.8% voted Democrat. In 2016 approximately 139 million votes were cast. Therefore, if the letter’s statement is correct, the Trump administration’s support of Israel is solely to secure 1.2 million votes out of an expected 139 million cast. Does the author of the letter really believe that the Trump administration’s actions toward Israel is really just to shore up those 1.2 million votes? On the surface the letter’s statement defies logic.

Everyone has the right to express their opinion, but I suggest they avoid spewing meaningless hatred of Trump and his administration. Otherwise their opinion is nothing more than irrelevant “blah-blah-blah.”

Barry Greenberg, Chesterfield

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