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Readers write: Unjust justice, daily TikTok, and tips from Italy

Letters to the editor published in the Feb. 20, 2023, weekly magazine. Readers dig into the quick response following Tyre Nichols’ death, and more. 

  • By Monitor readers

My perception

In regards to the coverage responding to the death of Tyre Nichols: It is encouraging that Memphis responded so quickly to Mr. Nichols’ killing by firing and charging the accused perpetrators. On the other hand, my perception is that police departments are quick to do the right thing when police perpetrators are people of color or women. It seems to me they routinely delay, obfuscate, and resist when the police perpetrator is a white male. 

Lou Hoover
Topeka, Kansas

TikTok – and a book

I read with interest the Jan. 30 Home Forum article, “As English evolves, I’m increasingly stumped.” As a community college librarian, some of the feelings the author described resonated with me. But his examples of the English language evolving were more indicators of how technology is becoming deeply embedded in our lives – and even more so with younger generations. I wouldn’t say that these apps are new words but rather new tools with catchy names. I enjoy learning about new apps that have made my life easier and have rejected some that, for me, do not enhance my experience. At the end of the day, while I will peruse TikTok for a bit, I will spend time sitting quietly with a good book. 

Cynthia Ainsworth
Salinas, California 

Better angels

Good point from Josephine Thompson of San Diego in the Readers Write section of the Dec. 19 issue. I agree with her that many have been traumatized by the events that took place on Jan. 6, 2021. Perhaps more info on our numerous volunteers at the polls for state and local, not just national, elections would be constructive, as she emphasized.

When I watched a little of the C-SPAN coverage with Capitol Police injuries revealed, it simply made me think how close we came to losing our free and open election for president. Those officers have been permanently injured and others killed themselves as a result of their efforts to preserve the passing of presidential power, which used to be peaceful. That is what the governments around the world have admired about our miraculous Constitution – with all our human failings. May the better angels everyday keep struggling for what is best.

Martha F. Barkley
Charleston, South Carolina 

The Italian model   

The Nov. 22 Daily article “Utah is growing fast. Will there be enough water for everyone?” was chock-full of information and ideas. One of those that I hope you will pursue further is the idea of usage pricing. Here in Italy, electricity has long been an expensive commodity because Italy has almost zero native gas and petroleum resources. To discourage wasteful consumption, the electric company has two measures. Meters can be installed with limits, and those who choose the smallest maximum monthly usage pay the least for electricity. And there are three pricing periods designed to discourage consumption during the workday, when the network is most strained. Thus many Italians do laundry late at night when electricity is cheaper and hang clothes out to dry the next morning. I’d be curious to know of any American municipalities or utilities that have considered or implemented similar measures for water or electricity. 

By the way, it has always struck me as absurd that someone driving a huge SUV pays the same for gasoline as the environmentally conscious person who drives a more energy-efficient vehicle. If the price were $4 a gallon for a huge SUV and $2 for a hybrid, the informed American might think twice about buying a wasteful behemoth.

Rusty Wyrick
Ghivizzano, Italy

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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