To the Editor:
Re “Particular Counsel Defends Claims on Biden Lapses” (entrance web page, March 13):
After watching hours of testimony by Robert Hur, the particular counsel within the investigation of President Biden’s dealing with of labeled paperwork, I’m impressed by his professionalism and impartiality. Why the Republican members of the Home Judiciary Committee thought a televised listening to would undermine Mr. Biden and assist Donald Trump eludes me.
Mr. Hur’s determination to not prosecute Mr. Biden concerned an evaluation of the totality of the circumstances and was the proper final result. Prosecutors have the obligation to convey prices solely in conditions during which they really imagine that they will show a case past an affordable doubt to a jury. Mr. Hur decided he couldn’t meet that top normal.
The repeated comparisons with Donald Trump’s dealing with of labeled paperwork had been damning for the previous president.
Robert S. Carroll
Staten Island
To the Editor:
Robert Hur testified at a congressional committee listening to that though President Biden’s retention of labeled paperwork since his Senate days many years in the past violated the legislation, he declined to convey prices as a result of, as he wrote in his report, Mr. Biden “would seemingly current himself to a jury, as he did throughout our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, aged man with a poor reminiscence.” But he testified {that a} cheap juror might discover the president responsible.
Even when the president had been to testify at his trial that he now doesn’t bear in mind preserving labeled paperwork, Mr. Biden’s recorded interviews along with his ghostwriter after he left workplace in 2017 admitting he did have labeled paperwork and different incriminating proof would contradict that protection.
If a defendant’s reminiscence lapse about his previous crimes is a get-out-of-jail-free card, can we count on to see this novel precedent raised by extra aged suspects?
Paul Kamenar
Chevy Chase, Md.
The author is counsel to the Nationwide Authorized and Coverage Heart.
To the Editor:
President Biden needed to be reminded of the yr his son Beau died. I’m a retired professor, however I nonetheless must be prodded to recollect the yr my pricey husband died. The reminiscence is simply too painful.
I write books about what separates people from robots, and certainly one in all our nice human qualities is that we will really really feel ache. As we speak’s A.I.-enhanced robots are able to immediately retrieving information and appear to have astute, excellent recollections, however we people have the capability for loving, caring and feeling real disappointment. If our recollections are generally imperfect, that’s what makes us human.
To the Editor:
Re “Marking 4 Years Since Covid Shutdowns Started,” by David Leonhardt (The Morning, March 12):
One purpose for skepticism in regards to the Covid vaccine is likely to be the “nocebo impact,” which refers to having damaging signs as a result of expectation of turning into sick.
In scientific trials, greater than half the antagonistic occasions skilled by individuals who obtained the Covid shot had been additionally skilled by these receiving the placebo vaccine. In different phrases, the lively elements within the Covid vaccine should not normally the rationale folks get sick after their jab.
Sadly, media shops might have performed a job on this. One story after one other described vaccine unwanted side effects. This will have enhanced our expectation of turning into sick, leading to extra folks feeling ailing than would have been the case with out a lot media consideration.
Some folks will reply to listening to about undesirable unwanted side effects from family and friends by deciding, rightly or wrongly, to not get vaccinated. The polarization of our information certainly doesn’t assist, as right-leaning shops appeared extra inclined to cowl this story (although there was no scarcity elsewhere).
This framework is essential in understanding why many Individuals, particularly these dwelling in Republican communities, are vaccine hesitant.
Michael H. Bernstein
Warwick, R.I.
The author is an assistant professor of diagnostic imaging on the Warren Alpert Medical Faculty of Brown College and a co-editor of the forthcoming “The Nocebo Impact: When Phrases Make You Sick.”
Transfer Up New York’s Major
To the Editor:
On April 2, New York voters can be eligible to forged their ballots for the Republican and Democratic candidates for president. By the point we get to vote, the contests are already over and New Yorkers can have had no say within the presidential choice course of.
4 years from now — the subsequent time there’s a presidential election — I hope that the State Legislature will schedule the New York major date earlier within the marketing campaign season so New Yorkers can have extra affect in choosing the presidential nominees.
I additionally hope that the Legislature will schedule just one major date for president, Congress, State Legislature and native workplaces. This yr there are two separate major dates: one for president and the opposite for Congress and the State Legislature, on June 25. If the primaries had been on the identical day for all positions, there could be larger voter participation. Taxpayers would additionally save a ton of cash!
Paul Feiner
Greenburgh, N.Y.
The author is the Greenburgh city supervisor.
Is It Appropriation, or Cultural Synthesis?
To the Editor:
Kudos to John McWhorter (“Black English Isn’t Only for Black Folks,” Opinion, March 5) for calling consideration to an essential reality seemingly misplaced within the emotionally charged environment of controversy and polarization in our public debate: Using Black English kinds and expressions by white folks — certainly, the adoption by anybody of options of a unique tradition — will not be essentially a type of “appropriation” or “negation.” Relatively, it’s extra usually their direct reverse: acceptance, as a part of the American mosaic.
Has jazz misplaced its treasured place on the earth of Black tradition as a result of it’s now seen as a elementary factor of American musical artwork? The truth that kosher, chutzpah, salsa, pasta, sushi and karaoke have grow to be a part of the American language has not erased them from their authentic sources.
After all there are those that will mockingly misuse Black English as linguistic blackface, or ridicule the look and sound of others in hateful and stereotypical methods. However I believe Mr. McWhorter is saying that respectable, clever folks can inform the distinction, and when imitation is genuinely a type of flattery, maybe we needn’t make such a giant megillah out of it.
Alan M. Schwartz
Teaneck, N.J.
The Artwork of Journaling
To the Editor:
Re “A Library of the Lives I’ve Lived,” by Josephine Sittenfeld (Opinion visitor essay, March 3):
This essay delighted me, a journal author for 70 years, from age 12 to right this moment at 82. Over 300 journals grace my bookshelves. Life recollections keep contemporary in my journals; every day tips and artistic tasks come up there following my behavior of writing morning pages.
I imagine there’s a distinction between handwriting journals and typing them into a pc. With a fountain pen on paper, we see the pages fill with ink, the handwriting altering with temper and age. We get a visible and kinesthetic pleasure lacking from the web journaling expertise.
Thanks for publishing Ms. Sittenfeld’s piece. It attracts into the general public dialogue maybe a whole bunch of hundreds of individuals, particularly girls, for whom the personal written journey is a blessing and at instances a lifesaver.
Jenny Tallman
Tacoma, Wash.
