Letters to the Editor | Feb. 13, 2024

So, having to come into an air-conditioned office three days a week may make the employees of Independence Blue Cross “unwell,” huh? The tumbleweeds blowing down West Market Street outside its building are not healthy for anyone, either, especially the thousands of mostly minority city residents who depend on commuters for service industry positions, and the city that needs their taxes to fund social programs. Yes, society needs to do more to help pay for child and elder care, but blue-collar workers have this burden, too, with far fewer resources to deal with it.

They are still expected to show up to work five days a week, as are doctors, nurses, teachers, and others. Even children must go to school the same number of days, no matter how little say they had on the whole arrangement. There is a national election approaching in which one of the candidates will be courting resentment of the preferred party of “arrogant” white-collar professionals. Black and Latino people are increasingly turning away from a party preferred by people who have decided to abandon them and our cities for all the comforts of home.

David Sigmund, Philadelphia

On Friday, I witnessed a remarkable Philadelphia Orchestra concert featuring Dimitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 4. The composer created this piece in 1936. However, Joseph Stalin did not like one of Shostakovich’s previous operas and issued a threatening review in Pravda. Since artists who created too much “bad” art ended up in gulags, Shostakovich suppressed his symphony until 1961, long after Stalin died. Russian maestro Tugan Sokhiev was the guest conductor.

Sokhiev resigned as conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse in France in 2022 rather than state his position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In a Facebook post, he said he has “never supported and will always be against any conflicts in any shape or form,” but that artists were falling victim to cancel culture. “I will be soon asked to choose between Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy,” he wrote. It is ironically delicious to see a Russian conductor who remains silent on a current autocrat while splendidly conducting a symphony that a previous autocrat encouraged a composer to suppress. Bravo to music and artistic director Yannick Nezét-Séguin for inviting Sokhiev. Thank you for putting music above politics.

Rosamond Kay, Philadelphia

It was a real spirit-lifter to read in The Inquirer that the European Union is calling for dramatic emissions cuts by 2040. The EU’s climate commissioner is quoted as saying, “The case for climate action is beyond doubt and requires planning in the here and the now.” What a contrast to the jubilant picture of our Pennsylvania senators, John Fetterman and Bob Casey, grasping hands in agreement that they are supporting the proposal to build a new facility to produce liquefied natural gas — which will dramatically increase pollution and turn around green efforts made over the last 50 years. Where is the wisdom of our senators that they choose to continue the path of warming our planet and filling the pockets of the fossil fuel industry?

Eloise Chevrier, Philadelphia, eechevrier@hotmail.com

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