Letters to the Editor | Aug. 12, 2024

Thanks to Sports columnist Marcus Hayes for the awesome tribute to Nick Foles. Perfect. It reminded me of a funny story: I had never purchased an Eagles jersey and after they won the Super Bowl with Foles, I wanted to buy one. I was thinking about getting a Foles jersey, but my then high-school-aged son laughed and said that would be a big mistake. Foles was a backup. Likely not going to last long. Wentz was our franchise quarterback, was going to lead us to multiple Super Bowls, and was clearly the wiser choice. I listened to him and went with the Wentz jersey. We all know how that ended up! I often remind him of that story, but recently he set the record straight. He gave me a Foles jersey on my birthday. I’ll be able to wear it with pride for the rest of my life.

Josh Barash, Philadelphia

The Inquirer’s coverage of the partial collapse of the decaying railroad pier on the Delaware, aka Graffiti Pier, included a passage about how it serves as a place where “street artists… use the abandoned industrial space to perfect their style before taking on more visible — and more permanent — canvases.” Translation: It’s a proving ground for graffiti vandals who then fan out across the city to deface other people’s property. This is wrong. Graffiti is vandalism.

According to a recent Axios report, PennDot spent $129,000 removing graffiti in the five-county Philadelphia area in 2023. City departments and other public agencies such as SEPTA are undoubtedly similarly burdened, along with private property owners. In fact, the same report said the city removed graffiti from 185,000 buildings and street poles last year. For historic buildings, graffiti can cause lasting damage. For property owners, it’s an expensive maintenance headache. And for anyone who is already skittish about the city, it adds to a sense of urban disorder.

Celebrating graffiti sends a message that society condones this scourge, and even encourages it. Given the cost it imposes on property owners, government, and our city’s beauty and image, graffiti should be actively discouraged and denounced, not lionized as some sort of benign art form.

Paul Steinke, Philadelphia, paul@paulsteinke.com

As investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has written in an essay entitled “Netanyahu’s assassination spree,” the core issue has been President Joe Biden’s “inability to understand the recklessness and depravity of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose hatred of Palestinians has now brought the Middle East and America to the brink of a war that is neither desired nor necessary.”

“Vice President Kamala Harris,” Hersh continues, “who now has a clear path to be nominated by acclaim at the Democratic convention later this month, has yet to indicate any disagreement with the peril the Biden policies have created, although if ever there was a time for her speaking out this is it.” Biden’s sending of aircraft carriers and more combat ships to the Middle East because of Israel’s attacks in Lebanon and Iran, as Hersh puts it, “cannot be defined as an effort to de-escalate tension. Harris must separate herself as quickly as politically feasible from the jingoism of a president who has lost his way.”

Andrew Mills, Lower Gwynedd

Gwen Snyder’s op-ed, “In her rejection of Shapiro, it appears Harris was listening to women,” identified weaknesses, including the sexual harassment allegations against Gov. Josh Shapiro’s one-time legislative director, that might have hobbled a Harris-Shapiro campaign. Now, Snyder observes, progressives’ “attention must turn to electing Harris.” I hope that includes Snyder — who identifies as a longtime organizer and progressive activist — lobbying hard with Gaza-focused progressives to modulate their protests at the Democratic convention in Chicago. Anything but peaceful protest will enable Donald Trump to harvest a bumper crop of votes from every image of confrontation, while further blurring the lingering images of the mayhem his supporters unleashed on Jan. 6, 2021. Such a gift, which will keep on giving throughout this election cycle, is the last thing the Harris campaign needs.

Patrick O’Hara, Elverson

The recent Inquirer editorial “Policies, not platitudes,” is spot on in stressing the importance of climate policy in the upcoming election. With the prevalence of stronger and wetter storms and 2024 on track to be yet another in a string of record or near-record warm years, climate change is an issue that should get more attention. While Build Back Better didn’t pass, President Joe Biden did sign into law the Inflation Reduction Act, which strongly invests in renewable energy and encourages its use though the implementation of tax credits.

The editorial mentions the provision in Project 2025 that calls for the U.S. again to withdraw from the Paris climate accords, as Donald Trump did when he was in office. That would be damaging by itself. However, Project 2025 also calls for dismantling the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which includes the National Weather Service, the National Hurricane Center, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. In a time of stronger hurricanes and more chaotic weather, the implementation of Project 2025 would lead to less reliable weather forecasts and the undermining of climate research. For those concerned about the climate, and that should be everybody, the choice in this election is clear.

Bill Fanshel, Bryn Mawr

A very sobering story in the Business section gave many examples of how climate is affecting our pocketbooks right now: prices of olive oil, chocolate, groceries across the board (now and in the immediate future), cost of insurance, and cost of our supply chain. Because of drought, shipping through the Panama Canal is reduced, raising many prices of goods. Insurance companies are beginning to stop insuring homes in flood-prone and fire-prone areas. Bottom line is that climate change is not only a future event — it is happening right now and will continue to become more and more a part of our lives over time.

All of this information can seem overwhelming and lead us to the feeling of, “What can I do? I am just one person.” Climate change is huge, it is worldwide, and action to make a complete difference needs the cooperation of the whole world. But we must start somewhere, and as they say, “action is the antidote to despair.”

So right now, in this country, we have an election in a few short months. Something we can all do is to vote our concerns. And if it is climate, vote for candidates who support climate action. Ask your elected representatives where they stand. And ask them to stand up for the climate, whether in the state legislature, Congress, or the White House. The more we demand of them, the more strongly they will act.

Peter Handler, Citizens’ Climate Lobby Philadelphia, Group Leader, Philadelphia, handlerstudio@gmail.com

Donald Trump is now trying to distance himself from Project 2025 after it has been revealed as a plan to dismantle the federal government and rebuild it as a bastion to MAGA politics. But Trump is on video praising The Heritage Foundation and the forthcoming plans that were revealed as Project 2025, saying the group and its president, Kevin Roberts, were “going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.” No matter how he tries to spin it, Trump gave Roberts his official endorsement of the plans that day. Roberts himself has stated that Trump is “making a political tactical decision” in trying to distance himself and “there are no hard feelings from us at Project 2025.”

Bill Maginnis, North Wales

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