Readers write: War in Ukraine and hope for the high seas

Letters to the editor published in the April 17 magazine. Readers ponder the war in Ukraine, the UN High Seas Treaty, and the joys of curling.

Readers Respond

From Charleston to Kyiv

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, I have found myself looking out for blue and gold embroidery to create the colors of the Ukraine flag – and, of course, the ever sunny sunflower, their national bloom, so strong like the people of Ukraine. I sent my sister some of my “chicken scratch” embroidery on blue and white gingham square fabric with golden threads. Each physical stitch helped me think about those people under attack.

Learning Ukraine’s geography was new for me. Maps in the Monitor have helped me follow city by city, places I have never heard of, beloved cities of culture and wonder being destroyed – and some still preserved.

My brother died on Feb. 24, 2023, when the news that day was that a whole year had passed since this destructive invasion. Charleston, South Carolina, has a Ukrainian-run restaurant which has the giant sunflower blooms painted on an exterior wall. I had cut out a front page photo of it featured in the local newspaper earlier that day before I heard of John’s passing.

Sunflowers and my younger brother, who followed the news in The Washington Post daily, will always be in my life, as will the Marjorie Theodore watercolor in the Upfront column in the March 27 Weekly issue (“An American’s daily art prayers for Ukraine”).

Martha F. Barkley
Charleston, South Carolina

Hope for the high seas

Thank you for your optimistic editorial “Why the high fives for a high seas treaty” in the March 27 Weekly issue. It’s a beginning, and as Maya Angelou famously said, “Every journey begins with a single step.”

There’s an agreement in principle, and whatever progress is made will benefit the world. The positive and negative economic issues are irrelevant, because the necessity of healthy oceans for our survival cannot be expressed in dollars.

Unfortunately, however, the treaty’s agreements are insufficient and perhaps years from implementation, and one recalcitrant nation can in the end ruin any deal. A frightening and imminent danger is that some world governments are scheming to fast-track deep-sea mining, perhaps starting as soon as this July. We haven’t begun to understand the destructive potential of this, but it could release vast quantities of methane sequestered beneath the ocean floor and will certainly wreak havoc on vital ecosystems still virtually unknown and unexplored. If this happens, it could be the final nail in the coffin of efforts to stop making climate change worse and chances for sustaining a livable climate.

So I hopefully applaud the High Seas Treaty – and pray that its promise of peace and sustainability will be fulfilled.

Carol Steinhart
Madison, Wisconsin

Curling coincidences

My husband and I enjoyed the In Pictures article about curling (“Icy fingers, warm hearts: Curlers love the rink life”) published in the March 6 Weekly issue. The coincidences around this article were also interesting.

At a spring training baseball game, my husband and the strangers seated next to him struck up a conversation. It turns out they were visiting from the Boston area for a curling tournament. These new friends invited us to their match the next day, and we went. 

The day after that, my husband opened the magazine and saw this article. When I read it, I was stopped by the first sentence – because our new friends were from the Broomstones Curling Club featured in the story! The dispatch described the attitude perfectly; it’s all about fun.

Suzanne Soulé
Surprise, Arizona